The Loop

I’m on my front step, chalk line pulled taut, when the bass hits. It’s not a sound, it’s a physical panic—a frost-heave crack in a freshly poured apron. The red Sunfire comes around the corner bass-first, cherry-bomb muffler rattling fillings I forgot I had.

Jamie. Son of the lady down on Banning. Empty Red Bull cans in the hatch, a car-seat frame wedged in the passenger side like a hostage. He’s making laps—Cumberland to Frederica, Frederica to Memorial—just burning half a tank to kill a Tuesday afternoon.

I’m forty feet away but I can feel the vibration in my Stanley tape measure. I yell before I think: “Cut it out! You’re shakin’ my foundation!”

He doesn’t hear me. Or he does, and just doesn’t care. Probably both. He loops the block again, and I’m standing there with a chalk line in one hand and a grudge I can’t quite explain.

Then it hits me. 1964. I’m eighteen, behind the wheel of my old man’s six-cylinder work truck, muffler hanging by a prayer. I’m doing donuts in the gravel by the Chimo yard, thinking I’m the king of the East End. I can still hear my own father’s voice cutting through the dust: “Cut it out.”

I was just a kid killing the quiet, same as Jamie. Only now I’m the echo. The loop don’t break until you pour your own slab.