He looked like my grandfather.

         The sun was setting with the deepest red I have ever seen on the horizon when the old man shambled past me across the street.  I was sitting in my yard, just a toddler then, playing with my latest excavating toys, a big dumptruck and some of moms gardening tools she had left out earlier.
         My mother had yet to teach me the lesson everyone learns as a kid, "Don't talk to strangers."  If she knew about the encounter I'm sure she would have taught me shortly thereafter.  Anyway, I called out to the man because he looked lost, he also looked like my grandfather.  Well, in all honesty the only things the two men had in common was grey hair and age.  After pausing for a few seconds the old man looked at me through squinted eyes, trying, it seemed, to figure out if he knew me. 
         After shaking his head the man looked up the street, staring at nothing it seemed.  Staring at nothing that could be seen by me at least.  As I watched the man stumbled two steps and dropped to a knee for a slight second before regaining his balance and standing back up.  He shook his head once more before looking back at me. 
         I remember waving at him as he stood there with a blank look of confusion on his face, I think I may have even giggled at him.  I yelled out "Come here!" 
         It likely sounded more like gum ear, but it got the mans attention nonetheless.  After rubbing his eyes and shaking his head one more time he began to walk towards me from the opposite sidewalk.  I could hear him groan something that wasn't clear enough for me to understand.  I probably wouldn't have known what he was saying anyway since i had such a small vocabulary at the time. 
         He made it to the far curb beforre he repeated the accidentaly knee bow from earlier.  This time he stayed on his knee for a few more seconds, no more than half a minute probably.  Before he stood up he tilted his head to look at me and for a brief moment he looked as though he would cry.  Even today, thirty-some years later, I can clearly see the sadness in his eyes.  I didn't know what it was then, but after a few years of school I figured out the look that haunted me from that day on.
         The old man stood once more, steadying himself briefly on the car to his right.  He then step/stumbled out from the curb.  That's when I heard the horn.  Louder than the largest bomb in my tiny ittle ears.  The old man didn't look, he just stared at me and kept moving forward.  I didn't know what the sound was coming from at the time, didn't even know the word horn yet I don't think, I just knew that the sound was getting closer.
         Then I watched as the mans leg bent to the left, reformed by a shiny silver bumber.  I watched as his body slammed onto the hood, and his head into the windshield.  I couldn't take my eyes of him, they were stuck wide open in shock as his head smashed through the windshield and then rose as the body was propelled into the air.  I watched as the glass and metal border of the windshield separated the old mans head from his body.  I watched as the head that looked like my grandfather rolled to a stop on top of the cars hood, it's eyes still open and once again looking in my direction.
         
         My mom scooped me up then, hiding me in her bosom telling me it was ok and not to look.  She ran me inside to put me in my room and told me to play with my things while mommy went to take care of some business.
         As I look down at her casket I am forced to recall these images of the only other time I have had to view death.  Thankfully this time it is peaceful.  When that lost old man wandered down our street I was to young to understand the horror of what I had witnessed, yet she was fully aware of what seeing something like that could do to a child.  She became quite overprotective after that, never letting me watch scary movies, always turning the news off when I came into the room.  She tried to keep me from dealing with the craziness that was in the world.
         I still wonder what she would have said if I had told her that I asked the man to cross the street.  Would she have been more freaked out to learn that her son had beckoned the old man to his death? 
         Maybe. 
         Chances are good she'd be more freaked out if she learned that I was exhilarated by it.