Cursed Luck

Adam was thrown violently out of fitful sleep by the ungodly noise. It was several minutes before the sound congealed into a song blaring from a radio. It was several more before he, groping on the floor, found the clock radio under the corner of the bed where, flailing with consciousness, he had knocked it. It would be a bad day.

He always awoke in advance of the alarm. Fifteen minutes of NPR and off on his morning run. Four miles in thirty-two minutes. Thirty-four if the aching in his left knee came back. Then a shower. Leave at precisely seven, crossing East Avenue at 7:10 home by 7:32. His feet knew the route, its rhythm. He didn’t have to think, the lights knew his pattern, and he, theirs.

He dressed and stepped out onto his small porch, the one that threatened to flee the house. Lacing up his running shoes, he stepped down, feeling a twinge in his left ankle as his foot hit the concrete walkway, heaved up by the ever-expanding roots of the old willow. It was clearly going to be a bad day. He took the next step and felt and heard the snap at the same moment. Without looking at his foot, he knew his ankle was broken. He condemned the gods, and particularly those who were carpenters.

His ankle throbbed. It had been three hours since he arrived in the ER. He looked anything to read other than “Prostate Health and Self-Examination.” The TV in the corner came alive: “Four dead in freak accident in the city. In a freak accident this morning, four city residents were killed when a bus driver suffered a fatal heart attack. Three of the dead were standing on the corner when struck by the bus. One of the deceased, Jim Flack regularly ran along that street and could run that route “in his sleep,” a friend said to the reporter.

Jim was an acquaintance, who occasionally asked Adam to run with him when the met on the street, but Jim’s usually started later than Adam. He saw Jim yesterday as Jim was finishing and Adam setting out and suggested Jim join him for his earlier run, “things are quieter and safer.” This day was beyond disaster. He missed his run, he broke his ankle. An almost friend was dead. If he had been on time . . . If he convinced Jim to join him. A large man, the name “Vinnie, Transportation Services” embroidered over his shirt pocket, tapped Adam on the shoulder and helped him into the wheelchair. He wheeled Adam into a little room with a single chair and examining table, smiled and left. In the waiting room, the newscaster said, “in traffic news, the accident at 7:10 this morning that shut down East Avenue has been cleared, the Avenue reopened by the police.

In the treatment room, Adam cursed his parents, carpenters, doctors, his ankle and the maker of his alarm clock.