Alcohol was not a factor

            Once upon a time, there was a hole in the road. Work had been done on a street on the edge of a saddish downtown. A water main needed fixing, and the work was finished except for filling the hole in and paving it over. The hole was quite properly marked, there in the middle of the road, with tall safety orange pylons at the corners and safety orange snow fence lashed to them around the outside. The sides of the hole were plumb, despite the gravel in the clay. It was a well-made hole. It may have been on the periphery of a saddish downtown, but this was no sad hole. It was a proud, purposeful hole.

            To My Imaginary Detractors:

            Actually, I think that I’m anthropomorphizing less in this piece, but your comment about my general penchant for anthropomorphization is warranted, I guess. It was just the tone you used! And the term- “Anthropomorphization up the wazoo”…

           Beans wasn’t impaired. And, the subject-verb agreement works in this case, because Beans is the one who drove his car into that hole. You see, in the time I’m writing about, the era of the hole, and its existence, there were three people in an old Ford Escort. Beans, who owned the car, and Clarissa, and Beans’ cousin, Ted. Beans drove, with Clarissa in front along with him, and that was alright with cousin Ted, ‘cause who knows when those two might get ‘mushy’. He was just trying to get somewhere close to the exurb where he lived, and he could arrange another ride if his cousin couldn’t take him far. The couple, Beans and Clarissa, were a nice midwestern couple, and they were young when they first met, by definition.

           The Ballad of Beans-

            “…The first bite is with the eye.”

            It was the hottest day of the summer, more than two years before, when Clarissa and Michael met, and neither had a car. They were on a mission for two liters of Ginger Ale, which they and everyone back at the house knew would hit the spot on a day like that.

            It was 2pm, and all they could hear as they walked was air conditioners. It was so hot that day that the crickets were on strike due to an impossibly high work-load. The Dollar Store, which has the best price and supply of Ginger Ale, had been seven blocks away. Now it was three blocks behind them, and Clarissa carried the Ginger Ale, because she was afraid that this Michael might shake it up. She could tell that he was at least a little wild. Clarissa had no idea. But, Michael was actually quite well adjusted for someone who was hatched from a rock in a barn and subsequently raised by wolves.

            There was a kind of ‘thrown together on a ginger ale mission’ awkwardness as they walked together, and they only implied lightly through their conversation that the weather was tropical, since mentioning the weather outright would be so lame. But, it was Michael who saw the can first.

            To My Imaginary Detractors:

            Yes! There’s a reason why I frequently name female characters ‘Clarissa’, and it isn’t because I know, or have met anyone named ‘Clarissa’. In fact, I use the name ‘Clarissa’ a lot because I have never met anyone named ‘Clarissa’. Thus, there are no ‘Clarissas’ around to piss off! Besides, ‘Clarissa’ is a nice name. I wish I knew some ‘Clarissas’, but then I’d have to think of new names for characters.

            There it was, sitting on the sidewalk before them. An unopened microwaveable cup of pork and beans. How it wound up there, I don’t know. The plastic cap had been knocked off, and there it sat with its easy-open top reflecting the relentless sky.

            Just as they both noticed the can of pork and beans, the easy-open seam split, and juice spurted. Michael and Clarissa stopped and stared. The whole walk had been a hot awkward moment, and it was as if the poor can couldn’t take it anymore. What a memory-maker it was for the pair when, as they watched, the can then fully exploded.

            The top folded up, and the can went- “Pmmmth!” Juice and a couple of beans scattered with the explosion.

            Then Michael shouted,

            “They’re ready!”

            He darted over, scooped up the can, and downed the contents that remained.

            “I can’t believe you did that!” of course Clarissa cried.

            Michael wiped his mouth off on his sleeve and grinned as they walked. At block twelve of the fourteen in the journey, Clarissa repeated herself. She gave Michael a quick overview of the symptoms of acute food poisoning, which I won’t list, because they aren’t funny.

            Michael just said that they didn’t smell bad or nothing. And, that it was free. The ultimate “Sidewalk Sale”. He tossed the can into a trash bin as they passed, putting litter in its place. Something the wolves taught him. Clarissa laughed in exasperation and just recapped her disbelief.

            But she watched Michael for any symptoms as they approached the ‘house’, which was actually a large, lower level apartment with less furniture, and thus more people, as happens when you’re all twenty four. And when they went in, she told the tale. Michael knew that would be the case, having done what he did. And it turns out that Clarissa had shaken up the ginger ale, but not too badly. They sat and smoked considerately on milk boxes and the edges of futons, with Michael in a beanbag chair, with all chuckling at the story still in their mind, with Clarissa now just muttering, at times,

            “Beans…”

            Jake made a point, spreading his palms open toward Michael with a ‘seems alright’ gesture, and saying-

            “Beans.”

            Clarissa shook her head.

            “Beans!”

            Mary held the two liter bottle up.

            “Beans?”

            “Ginger Ale”, all said, getting their cups topped off.

            “Beannns!” Sheila sang. Then Claissa turned to Michael, and, calling his attention to the pipe she was passing to him, said,

            “Beans?”

            Michael turned his head and accepted the pipe with a-

            “Present.”

            To tell the truth, they laughed too much. But, Beans now had a name. Sometimes he would forget how he earned it. Clarissa didn’t.

           So, it was Beans, nearly three years later, who was driving to his appointment with a hole in the road. The hole measured yay wide (2.8m), and yay long (3m), and it was knee deep. It had been created for access to a rotting bit of main, which was now fixed and lying horizontal beneath a foot of gravel, in preparation for concrete being poured on top of it.

           From My Imaginary Adoring Fans:

            Q: Please tell us more about the hole in the road! It’s so fascinating!

            A: Alright!…

           The hole was on a block zoned for both business and residential. The businesses were of a type that weren’t exactly shady, but even with their signs, to a layman, it wasn’t clear exactly what the businesses did. And, hey! a few squarish brick buildings down was an old bakery that I used in my long story “Distinguishing Features”. (Sept. ’16.) That was the block with the hole.

            And, that’s all I know about the hole. I’m curious, and I wish I knew more about it, but that would require research that I don’t have the energy to do. In fact, if I went a few blocks to that hole, and told the city workers there that I’m a writer, and that I was wondering what the nature of their work was, they would defer to a person designated within their crew who fielded questions like that from those like myself, and this is the answer I would most certainly get:

            “We’re digging this hole to fix a water main which has become clogged by groundhog shit. Groundhogs can get into the mains, and boy, do they crap a lot! There’s one now! Sorry. False alarm. Groundhogs also like to steal toys. Usually off people’s lawns. You wouldn’t believe the amount of footballs and skateboards that we find jammed in the mains, all due to those darn groundhogs.”

            So, with all of the traps one finds in writing, from detractors, fans and city workers, and since I already know the answer I would get, I won’t walk down there, as it were, and go through all that research. On the other hand, any experience for a writer is useful, and at least I would have met a real Clarissa.

            This hole and all of its warning structures sat right in the middle of the road, straddling two yellow lines. You might swerve a bit when passing on either side, but, really, you would have to be really trying to drive right into it to drive into it. But, somehow Beans did.

            You see, it had been very cold, and a quiet warm front passed while the trio was at the convenience store. Beans takes alternative routes at times, and Clarissa knew that, and Ted didn’t care, as long as the two didn’t get ‘mushy’. So, in departing, Beans drove down an old asphalt alley, which had a rough surface, before turning onto the afore described street, and he was going a little too fast. Sweat had descended onto the bitter cold pavement, leaving a coat of ice. He swung onto that melancholy road too fast, and the car lost grip, and they found themselves going right down the middle. Beans wouldn’t simply hit the brakes. That would’ve been surrender. He just wanted to stay cool and not compound things by overcompensating, so he, in the two seconds left, tried to gently get the car back to the right. But, like a moth neatly guided to a flame, the car slid itself right down the middle of the road, over those two yellow lines like they were rails, and they were all upon the hole in less than a trice.

            Other than the shock of that bright orange snow fence slapping the grill and slipping beneath the car, for a split second, the hole seemed to be a joke. That was because, although the car was now only going at a jogging pace, it was still going fast enough to ride all that wadded snow fence and get its front end all the way over to the street on the other side. Then there was a big ‘whump!’ as the back of the car found its way into the hole, coming to rest upon snow fence, pylons, and gravel. The three in the car finished their extended, loud, half-groan-half-cheer that had started when they first turned onto the road. They found themselves two feet below sea level, and looking up at a fifteen degree angle. The perfect attitude with which to observe Saturn that evening, as it turns out, but they weren’t in the mood for that. Then some of the snow fence below the car gave out. More cheers that were a bit more groany, and the angle increased by five degrees. Bye-bye Saturn, Hello Mars! They all caught their breath and made respective comments which were rife with expletives.

            Oh! And, I lied.

            I kind of lied. There was alcohol involved, because Ted, in the back, had a half-pint of Fireball squirreled away in his jacket pocket. He’d been taking slugs of it now and again; when they’d passed by Glen’s and the other two had run in to see if he was awake, and a second time, parked in front of the Seven Eleven. He told himself that he had been hiding it so’s not to share, but he was hiding it because if his cousin knew he was carrying an open bottle in his car, he’da told him to get rid of it. Now, Ted rolled down his window and tossed the bottle up and onto the street, laughing, because he had to toss it upward. Because one didn’t need to be carrying anything with the car in a hole, pointing up at a twenty degree angle, attracting attention. The plastic bottle skittered to the gutter and drained into it, making the gutter smell like Cinnamon Imperials. So, alcohol was a little involved, but I didn’t know that when I was coming up with the title.

            My apologies…

            Beans, still fully in charge despite the ‘hole thing’, tried to get out of the car. He had to push hard to get the door to swing upward, but still, it only opened a foot before it knocked against the edge of the hole. So, he wedged himself up through the space made, standing out on gravel and snow fence, and peered about at the wide world out there from three foot periscope. A man had been walking down the sidewalk nearby, but had paused to blink at all the commotion.

            Beans waved, and said to him, “Hey.”

            The man said- “Hey.”

            Then Beans asked-

            “Who put this hole here?”