Angel in the Tollbooth

That was Angel in the tollbooth ahead. Good Lord, I hadn’t seen her since grade school. I’d heard stories. It was inevitable in a small town that you heard stories. Sometimes there was truth in them, but so often it was a distorted truth. The story about Angel was she had gotten her G.E.D. in tenth grade then hitchhiked to Florida to live with an exotic bird breeder. As my car crept closer, I could see Angel’s hand extending, receiving, then withdrawing again from each car that passed her. As if she was anointing each vehicle with some invisible goodness, they could carry with them down the highway. Three cars back and I could see her face clearly now. What had happened in Florida, with the birds, to bring her back here? Working a tollbooth on a lonely stretch of turnpike in Massachusetts. Why did I always assume people’s choices were born out of failings instead of opportunities? Well, it’s a little hard to buy that someone would choose tollbooth work over exotic birds, but what the hell do I know? Come to think of it I was bitten by a parrot at my friend Nathan’s aunt’s house in seventh grade. Got me in the knuckle clear down to the bone. So maybe I’d be one to choose this line of work instead of life in an aviary. And here I was, suddenly, at Angel’s window.