There was this guy who drove an ice truck. I don't know his name. I imagine him sometimes. I think about one particular morning he woke up to go to work. His wife probably made him breakfast. Those were the times, after all. He dressed and headed out to make his rounds.
This day I'm thinking about, I don't know his specific route or really many specifics at all. What color was the truck? How many stops did he make? Was he early? Late? I do know one stop he made. It was in front of a little house in Lewiston, Maine, in one of the poorer parts of town. A family lived there. A mother, a father, four children. Norton, Gloria, Dicky, Fred. It was Fred's first birthday.
Dicky, almost four years old, was a daredevil. He scrambled up onto the ice truck – to snatch chips of ice, I guess. The driver didn't see him. So when he backed up, he didn't know that Dicky lurched and fell, and he backed over him, killing him.
The family was devastated. It still is, really. It was more than 50 years ago, and the family still feels the effects. The mother and the father went to a doctor (a general practitioner? I don't know even that specific), and the doctor told them to go home and make another baby.
So they did. That baby later grew up and had babies of her own. I'm one of her children.
I think about the guy who drove the truck. My entire history hinges on the path he took that day. If he'd been earlier or later, if he'd been more careful, if he'd had the flu … so many other choices or circumstances, and the chain of events that led to me wouldn't have happened. And before him, before my grandparents, after them, all the way to yesterday, to today, causality weaves this thick pulsing mass of threads that lead to me and away from me. I would be paralyzed by the simplest of choices if I let myself think of the ramifications of every decision I make, and yet every decision does impact me and others, sometimes in surprisingly profound ways. Maybe the effect won't be known until later. Maybe I will never know the effect. But it is there, and I must consider it.
This day I'm thinking about, I don't know his specific route or really many specifics at all. What color was the truck? How many stops did he make? Was he early? Late? I do know one stop he made. It was in front of a little house in Lewiston, Maine, in one of the poorer parts of town. A family lived there. A mother, a father, four children. Norton, Gloria, Dicky, Fred. It was Fred's first birthday.
Dicky, almost four years old, was a daredevil. He scrambled up onto the ice truck – to snatch chips of ice, I guess. The driver didn't see him. So when he backed up, he didn't know that Dicky lurched and fell, and he backed over him, killing him.
The family was devastated. It still is, really. It was more than 50 years ago, and the family still feels the effects. The mother and the father went to a doctor (a general practitioner? I don't know even that specific), and the doctor told them to go home and make another baby.
So they did. That baby later grew up and had babies of her own. I'm one of her children.
I think about the guy who drove the truck. My entire history hinges on the path he took that day. If he'd been earlier or later, if he'd been more careful, if he'd had the flu … so many other choices or circumstances, and the chain of events that led to me wouldn't have happened. And before him, before my grandparents, after them, all the way to yesterday, to today, causality weaves this thick pulsing mass of threads that lead to me and away from me. I would be paralyzed by the simplest of choices if I let myself think of the ramifications of every decision I make, and yet every decision does impact me and others, sometimes in surprisingly profound ways. Maybe the effect won't be known until later. Maybe I will never know the effect. But it is there, and I must consider it.
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