The Invisible Picnic

I once lived in a suburbia ghetto. Surrounded by expensive homes I lived in an Island of low rent apartments. My wife and I had part time jobs and not enough money to buy food, much less pay the rent.

While I was taking out trash to the dumpster I found two young boys inside looking through the garbage for something to eat. To my horror the taller boy was licking the juice off a broken pickle jar.

"Don't do that, I'll get you something to eat."

I helped the two boys out of the dumpster. As I set the feet of the second shorter boy on the ground I noticed a girl standing beside the dumpster.

"My name is Toni, will you feed me too?"

Toni told me her brothers names. Her youngest brother was Joey, he had dark curly hair and was very shy. The middle brother was Jimmy, not as shy as his little brother, he would speak but only in a whisper. Jimmy had short blond hair and was the thinnest of the three.

Toni was seven, Jimmy was six and Joey was five. Toni said her brothers would go through the dumpsters and when they found something good they would throw it down to her.
She didn't want to get her dress dirty and wouldn't go in the dumpster.

When Toni told me this I could sense proud in her. The cheap purple cotton dress was little more than a long T-shirt but Toni couldn't have been more proud of it as if it were made of silk.

I promised the three children I would give them any extra food I had if they promised me to stay out of the dumpster. The two boys shake their heads yes and Toni said; "I promise."
I told them to wait in the yard in front of their apartment and I would come back with something to eat. I ran across the street to my apartment building. Racing up the steps I did two steps at a time. I was worried the kids would run off if I took too long.

When I got in my apartment and looked in my refrigerator I found it near empty. I checked in the freezer and found four Eskimo Pies. Chocolate wrapped in ice cream on a stick would be the best I could do. I left one frozen treat for my wife and took the other three back to the children. I handed the Eskimo Pies one at a time to each of the kids going from youngest to oldest.

When Toni had the final ice cream bar in her hands all three children ran off. I think Toni said "thank you" but I'm not sure. I thought the children would gobble the food down in front of me. I was a stranger, what did I think would happen? Should I tell the apartment manager what happened? Should I find out who the children's mother is and talk to her? What would people think of me, giving food to kids I don't know?

I decided to talk to my wife when she got home from work before I talked to anyone else. When my wife came home from her morning part time job I told her what happened. We decided it would be best if she talked to the apartment manager as we didn't want to have a confrontation with the children's mother. That night I went to my part time job as a dish washer at a Pizza and Pub. As I washed the metal plates in the near scalding water I thought about those three hungry children.

How could I help them when I'm barely making it myself? Two years before I was in collage with a bright future and now I was a lowly dishwasher with no future. My wife and I had part time jobs and expecting our first child. I think she was two months pregnant at the time. I had a good paying job at a coffee warehouse a few weeks before but had to leave that job when I found out drug dealers were using the bags of coffee beans to smuggle illegal drugs into the country. My life was a mess, how could I help those three children? I had to help those three starving kids in any way I could. To do anything less would be wrong.

My wife picked me up after my shift ended and I told her I had to keep my promise to the children. My wife Jackie had talked to the manager that evening and told me there had been other complains about the children getting in the dumpsters but no one had saw them eating out of the garbage bins before. I told Jackie I would ask again to get a cook's position at the Pizza and Pub. A full time job would solve a lot of our problems.

The next day while Jackie was at work I had a seizure. Everyday since my car wreck in Dec. 1975 I had seizures. Most days they were twitches in the left side of my face or the flinging of my left arm but sometimes they were my whole body flexing. After a big one I would see a vision of my car wreck.

The vision was always in shades of blue like the color of my 1969 Mustang that I had the wreak in. My face would smash into the steering wheel as I flipped end over end down a small embankment. Then I would be outside my body standing on the side of the road watching my car go upside down and backwards through a barbwire fence. As the car flips upright it pulls two fence posts out of the ground. The barbwire snaps and the momentum of the fence posts wraps the wire around the car.

The car slides backwards to a stop. I stand by the road looking down at my body. I have no emotions as I look at my bloody self. The 69 Mustang had the seat belt and the shoulder harness separate. I only had the seat belt on and the first impact slammed my face into the steering wheel with enough force to bend the upper part of the wheel to the steering column. When the car hit the fence going backward my unconscious body hit the back of the bucket seat so hard that it bend down against the back seat. My body lays in the car.

My face bloody and swollen. My shirt covered in blood. I ask myself, "Am I dead?"
Someone is behind me on the edge of the road. I turn to look and see a shadow of an entity made out of impossible colors. The vision ends.

"The car wreak ruined my life. I could have been someone if not for the wreak."

I new better than that but I said it to myself anyway. The tiny apartment was closing in on me, I needed some fresh air. As I walked out the front door of my apartment the three children were waiting for me. Toni didn't waste any time.

"Do you have some food for my brothers and me?"

I went back in my apartment and looked in the frig and found a package of hot dogs. Bread was on the counter. God bless Jackie she bought some food while I was at work last night. I microwaved the hot dogs and wrapped them in bread. This time when I gave the three children the food I clearly heard Toni say "Thank you." Jimmy said "Thanks" in a whisper and Joey just waved his hot dog at me as he turned and ran home. Jimmy and Toni ran after him back to their basement apartment.

That was a Tuesday and by Friday Jackie and I had ran out of food.
What little food we gave the three kids was still more than we could afford to give.
Friday morning we went to a supermarket and shamelessly ate all the free samples we could.
The little cubes of ham, cheese and sausage was fine but the free sample of shark meat didn't taste like chicken, it tasted terrible. I couldn't drink enough tap water to get the taste out of my mouth.

That afternoon Jackie went to work and said she would get a co-worker to buy her lunch and she would pay her back the following week. She was eating for two so I was glad she had a friend to help her out. When she got off at five we would go to my parents house for a meal and to ask them for money to hold us over to the next pay check. I watched my wife drive off to work and turned around to go back inside the apartment. The three children were standing in the middle of the sidewalk in front of me.

"What do you have for us today?"

Toni said it but all three kids had the same sweet smile. My heart sank in my chest. I had nothing for the three beautiful children or did I. I lost my academic skills in the car wreck.
I was never good at making money or keeping it but I had one great gift. My imagination had always served me well.

"Have you ever been to an Invisible Picnic?"

Toni said "no" as the two brother shook their heads no.

"Well first we need to lay out the invisible blanket to have our picnic on."

I mimed the unfolding of a blanket and threw it out into the air as it gently fell to the ground.
My hands were clenched as if I was holding on to the edge of the blanket. My hands touched the ground as I let go of the invisible cloth.

"Joey and Jimmy would you straighten out that side of the blanket. Toni would you help me put food out on the picnic blanket?"

Maybe this is more cruel than kind, I thought to myself as all three children began to giggle at the silly Invisible Picnic. The children loved the play acting. Joey the youngest took the play acting the most serious as he carefully ate an imaginary drumstick. Jimmy took great joy in eating invisible pies, turkey breasts and bowels of mash potatoes in single growling bites. Toni always the little lady ate her imaginary food with an invisible fork. When I asked her what she was eating she just smiled.

I began to tell the children the power of their imaginations. How you could go anywhere and do anything with your imagination. That your imagination could be a shield against the harshness of life.
I suddenly felt someone behind me. Someone was looking at me acting like a child, preaching the virtues of the imaginary world. My empty stomach churned as I turned to see who I made myself a fool in front of.

It was Sally my upstairs neighbor. Sally was in her early seventies and a widow. We became friends because I love hearing stories from older generations. Sally who told me stories about her life with her husband in the 1940s, 50s and 60s was the last person I wanted to see me acting so silly.

"I was trying to teach the kids about... I... I was...."

"I know what you were doing Robert."

I was so embarrassed I didn't notice at first that Sally was holding both hands behind her back.
She showed the children and I what she was holding in her hands. In each hand was two paper plates with a piece of chocolate cake on each plate. A white plastic fork was stuck in each piece of cake.

"I thought you might like some desert for your picnic. "

The children's eyes got big as they each took a piece of cake and began eating.

"Sally there's no cake for you."

"I baked this cake for my friends. You are a friend and this is your picnic isn't it? I have friends coming over later and I'll eat a piece of cake with them."

"Thanks Sally."

I took the piece of cake and began eating. I was hungry but the best thing about the cake was it washed the taste of the shark meat sample out of my mouth.

"Toni, Jimmy, Joey! I need you back home now!"

I looked in the direction of the voice and saw the top half of a woman's face in the stairwell of one the basement apartments. Two of the eight apartment buildings has stairwells outside on the side of the structures. These were the older cheaper run-down buildings.

"You're almost finished with your cake. Take a few more bites and then go to your Mother."

I was surprised Sally told the children to ignore their Mother. The three children quickly ate the rest of the cake and handed the empty plates to Sally.

"Toni! I want you and your brothers over here now!"

Toni was the first to go, licking her fingers of icing as she ran. Jimmy ran after her trying to lick icing of his right forearm as he went. Joey seemed unconcerned he had a circle of chocolate icing around his mouth. He was just trying to keep up with his brother and sister with his shorter legs.

"Should I talk to their Mother, Sally?"

"No, let her have what little pride she has left."

My wife came home late in the afternoon two hours before I would go to work. The new neighbors began to fight in the top apartment across from Sally's. Their two month old baby began to cry. The Father began to yell louder and then the Mother screamed!

"Never touch our baby like that! You never shake a baby! I'll show you what happens when you shake my baby!"

I heard the door slam and the footsteps of the young mother running down the stairwell.
The baby was crying as loud has she could. Jackie and I looked out our second floor window and saw the Mother holding the baby with one hand and smashing the front window of her husband's car with a hammer in the other. Finally she vented her remaining anger by breaking off the side view mirrors with the hammer. She set the hammer on the hood of the car and carefully climbed on the hood herself with the baby. She told her baby that her daddy would never hurt her again and she would always be there to protect her.

"Maybe I should go down there and see if she needs help."

"Robert, you can't save everyone. Call the police and let them handle it."

"What if the police arrest her for wreaking the car. What would happen to the baby then?"

"We'll tell them what we heard. Please stay out of this. You could get yourself killed."

A black pickup pulled in front of the apartment and seconds later we could hear the husband running down the stairs. As he came out the front door of our apartment building the Mother grabbed the hammer and held it up to defend the baby. The husband talked to the Mother.

"I shook the crib not the baby you...."

"Come back when you're a man."

The husband got in the pickup truck of his friend and drove off.

"I've got to go talk to her."

"Please Robert let me call the police."

"No, let me handle this. I can't let that baby get hurt."

"The best thing you could do for both of them, would be to let me call the police."

I should have listened to my wife Jackie but I didn't. The young Mother sat the hammer down on the hood beside her. She had a shocked look on her face. I walked out to her and said;

"I saw and heard what happened. If you ever need any help I'm in apartment 2B."

"I can take care of myself and my baby."

I turned and began to walk back towards the apartment.

"Hey."

I turned and looked back at her getting off the hood of the car with the baby.

"Thanks anyway."

Jackie drove me to work a few minutes later. That night at the Pizza and Pub I got my first chance to be a cook. The first two pizzas I made were mistakes. I got the toppings wrong.
I was put back to dish washing. To save gas I walked home that night. I put my Pizza and Pub hat in my hip pocket so I could feel the summer breeze through my hair. I must have had a sour look on my face because all I could think about was I blew a chance at a dollar more a hour and full time work. I was looking down at my shoes only a block and a half away from my apartment complex when I heard footsteps coming towards me. I looked up and saw two preteen girls running toward me. When they saw me they screamed and ran back towards the apartment complex.

"That was weird."

I said out loud as I went back to looking down at my shoes as I walked. Then I heard a voice.

"Hey you, what are you doing in this neighborhood?"

I looked up and saw an angry mob of thirty people looking my way. Ten of the men in the mob looked like body builders. One guy in the mob had brass knuckles. In the center of what reminded me of every lynch mob from every western movie I ever saw, was the woman that asked the question. Two huge German Shepherds were on a leashes she held. She had short blond hair, a big purple sweatshirt, baggy yellow shorts, long skinny legs and running shoes.

"I'm walking home from work."

I said as I reached for my hat in my back pocket to show them the Pizza and Pub logo but it was gone.

"Two twelve year old girls said you chased them down the street."

I keep walking towards the angry mob.

"Never happened."

"Are you calling my girls liars?"

"No, I'm saying they let their imaginations get the best of them."

"Stop right there or I'll put my dogs on you."

I stop walking. The big guy with the brass knuckles speaks up.

"This pervert lives in our apartment complex. I see him giving three little kids food all the time."

This made me angry and I forgot I was scared.

"I found those starving kids eating garbage out of a dumpster. Did you see that too."

I start walking.

"I work at the Pizza and Pub on Langford and I live in apartment 2B in Building C. I did nothing wrong. My name is Robert Andrew Vollrath and if you still think I'm a pervert tomorrow Mr. Brass Knuckles come see me. "

The mob splits in half and I walk between two groups of slack jawed people. I never looked back
and walked as slow as I could. I told my wife what happened and we decided she would give Toni and her brothers the extra food from then on. Jackie looked at me with a puzzled face.

"Anything else you want to tell me?"

"I lost my hat so my next paycheck will be five dollars short."

The next morning we were getting ready to go see my parents when the yelling started upstairs.

"The husband is back?"

"He came back two hours after you went to work. I knew if I told you last night you wouldn't get any sleep at all."

Just then he started screaming at the crying baby. Then silents. No yelling from the Mother or husband. No crying baby.

"What happened?"

"Robert don't let your imagination get the best of you. You don't know what happened."

"Maybe he killed the baby."

"We both need a good meal. Your unborn baby needs a good meal. We have to go to your parents house now."

We drove to my parents house in my old Ford Station Wagon and I tried not to think about the baby. I tried to think only about my unborn baby. We got a good meal and so much needed money from my parents.

Three days later I called the police and they checked in on the family and found the baby alive and well. Because of my call Child Welfare put the baby into Foster Care. A Judge returned the baby only after the couple divorced and the father gave up all visitation rights.

Both my wife and I got full time positions and we feed the three kids more food and bought them ice cream every time the ice cream truck came through the apartment complex.

Jackie gave Toni, Jimmy and Joey their ice cream bar on a stick covered in chocolate. The three children ran back to their basement apartment as they always did, but this time was different.
Their Mother left the basement apartment curtains open and I saw her for the first time through her living room window. She was over 300 pounds and the three little angels were handing their ice cream bars to her. The Mother ate each ice cream bar and handed Toni, Jimmy and Joey back the sticks. Each child licked the sticks clean. I began to cry.

"Robert you don't have to call Child Welfare, I will."

Long divorced now I'll always remember this as our shining moment as husband and wife.

Another two weeks passed before Child Welfare came to take the three children away. In those two weeks Jackie and I never let the children take the food back to their Mother no matter how many times she yelled at them to come home.

I was in the apartment doing artwork when Child Welfare came to get the children to put them in Foster Care. Jackie told me the children were coming to say goodbye and I went outside to see
them. Jimmy and Joey were getting hugs from Sally when I walked up to the boys.

"Well I guess we had some fun didn't we. Why don't you give me a hug before you..."

Both boys with goofy smiles backed away from me.

"Silly me, hugging not a very manly thing. I'll aways be your friend, take care of your sister."

The boys walked off with a Child Welfare worker to a waiting car. Toni was getting hugs from Jackie and Sally. Then like her brothers I was the last person Toni said goodbye to. Like her brothers she didn't say anything. Toni looked up at the Child Welfare Woman to my right.

"Robert, Toni has something very special to give you but you'll have to guess what it is. I'm sworn to keep the secret."

The Child Welfare Woman handed Toni a strange marker drawing. Toni held it up for me to see with both hands. I've never seen a bigger smile on any face before or since than was on Toni's face at that moment.

"Toni you drew my imagination didn't you."

Toni shook her head yes and handed me the drawing. As Toni walked away with the woman holding her hand I saw that her cheap purple dress was really made of the finest silk.

Next Post; The Endless Road