The right wheel is spinning and echoes of the crash are still reverberating among the darkened tenements as Scrub appears from around a building. He shuffles staggeringly to where the car skidded on its side scattering bits of broken glass and metal, lies upturned. He peeks around from the rear of the car trying to focus his eyes. His tongue is thick and coated, his stomach tossing like a dingy in a hurricane from the cheap wine. Scrub clutches the car and leans out around the roof blinking his eyes. In the dim streetlight, he sees part of a
man lying underneath a sign mounted to the top of the SUV, “Harry Harrison-His Trumpet and Band” written on the sign. Scrub slides to his hands and knees, then crawls slowly forward.

Harry feels the pain, the blackness, and then the numbness. He tries to move, but realizes he is pinned under the side of the car. Reaching down he can feel life leaving his body in thick oozing liquid. He moves his head and sees the dim shape of a man crawling toward him. Harry wonders why the man isn’t yelling for help. “Where are all the people?” he wonders. They should be running to see if they can help. But there is no sound, only the soft padding of Scrub’s hand slapping the pavement as he creeps to Harry’s side. A car turns the corner a block away and drives off in the opposite direction. Both men raise their heads and watch as the red taillights become smaller and smaller then disappear as it turns another corner.

Harry sees his trumpet near and reaches for it knowing with the horn in his hand, he is king and nothing can put him down. He runs his tongue over his lips in eager anticipation of blowing sweet and loud and long. The sound is so clear that he can see the notes coming out from the bell in puffy pink which dissipates into garlands of golden trumpets. His horn is leading, the others lower and behind like flags fluttering at half mast. He blows a note, the most beautiful note, so perfect you can see it and know it is perfection. The note drifts toward two feathery white wings, which open like gates and the dream fades into the reality of blackness on a street at night.

Scrub watches Harry’s hand reach for what looks to him like a lamp. His focus is still funny. Images float back and forth in his consciousness contracting and splitting like amoeba in creation of perplexity. The hand stops short of the object which glitters now with a shine of gold. Scrub’s befogged brain makes a transition from gold to money. A golden candlestick! He pushes himself back against the roof of the automobile, crosses his legs and contemplates his newfound wealth, first through one eye and then the other. Money, lots of money. Three or four or five jugs a day, every day. No more grubbing in trash or begging on corners or fighting over a quart, because no one can raise more than a couple bucks. Maybe even something a little better, maybe even a room and a bed once in awhile. Scrub leans over, his eyes fill with tears and overflow running down his cheeks and dripping off making miniature puddles shining iridescent on the black asphalt.

Harry can almost reach it. It’s just beyond the end of his fingers. He strains and stretches feeling pain again as the metal tears deeper. His vision is clouded red now and gives the impression of looking out a window with a half drawn shade. A finger touches the horn and gently moves it farther away. Harry begins to panic, he needs to hold the trumpet, his whole being depends on having it in his hand. He turns to Scrub trying to speak and strangling as blood comes up in his throat and runs out the corner of his mouth. He coughs, chokes and grabbing Scrub’s sleeve points wildly toward his horn. In one final effort two words seem to rattle from this specter of death. “My trumpet,” and the fantasy that is life fades away.

Scrub watches the life leave the extended limbs, the mouth become slack and the eyes assume their glassy stare. He slides his hand across the pavement and sees his fingers close around the golden object. As he draws it in, he visualizes money, wine, another coat for winter coming. He first uses the horn as a crutch to struggle to his feet and then clutching it tight to his rags, he gazes down on the lifeless corpse and says, “My trumpet,” then staggers off to his packing crate behind the building.