What is the one thing you should always have?

You should always have courage. It’s something I struggle with. The blank page. The mind that refuses to spin during the spinning time. The metaphorical brick wall that rises up inside that says, “I can’t do this.” when it just doesn’t feel right. 

The ability to start in spite of your gut’s dire warnings of doom, and continue on as you pass through the muck of confusion. And when you finally create something and find yourself on the other side, you will realize the strength that carried you through gritted teeth was there all along. 

I hate the term, “Fake it, till you make it.” because it provides ready made surrender in the form of not feeling like you know what you’re doing. An easy way out, an excuse to not try, and a rationalization for why you didn’t do well.

There was a noise, they rushed to the window and saw

the Ice Cream man on fire. Not the man the truck. The spinning cone on top was sprouting flames and emitting black smoke through the side creating a spiral streamer floating downwind. 

The ice cream man had exited his vehicle and was in the right of way, rolling around on the grass as if to put out flames but he wasn’t on fire. In front of the truck was a crumpled and seemingly melded police car also on fire, the patrol man passed out with a nasty dent in his forehead and a handcuffed man in back banging his head on the window desperate to get out.

Lucy looked at Charles with disbelieving eyes and Charles looked back in horror, as the neighbor showed up carrying a blanket to put out the ice cream man’s non-existent flames. 

After five or six times bashing his head against the inside of the police car to no avail the handcuffed man spun about and finally punctured the window using his feet, but then was having a rough time crawling through the hole in the broken glass. 

A noise emitted from the depths of Lucy’s diaphragm in a volume she didn’t know she could  attain. What started as a growl, turned to howl and then the words escaped unbidden from inside, “Don’t just sit there, Charles get out there and help these folk out!”

Charles snapped out of his trance, forgetting the door right next to them leapt through the window, and immediately helped the shackled suspect out of the police car back seat. By this time, the fire had burned a hole through the cone and a jet of flame spun it wildly until it launched like a rocket in an arch and across the street bouncing off the far curb, ricocheting directly back at Lucy.

Just then the cop woke up and in a single deft motion opened the car door, flew over the hood and tackled the errant confectionery both colliding into the bush at the end of the walkway. 

Charles stood up, a self-satisfied smile crossing his soot streaked face which then turned to confusion as he was trying to make sense of Lucy’s frenzied gesturing. Too late. A broken flower pot crowned Charle’s head and he collapsed revealing the handcuffed man making his getaway.

A fire truck showed up and put out the fires, tended the wounded, revived the thoroughly perplexed Charles and took a witness report from Lucy.

As the burnt out husks of the vehicles were towed away, Charles made his way back inside; he lamented his previous excitement when he heard the chimes of the Ice Cream truck. 

All he wanted was a Bomb Pop.