What happened to Elmer?


In our dreary costal town, Elmer, the boy with a wooden leg;
was the beacon in a townscape uniformly grey. Irreverent he
was singing and joking his way through the town he seemed
to be everywhere at once. We loved Elmer:” Did you hear
what Elmer did and what he said to the chief of the police?”
Then one day he wasn’t there: “Where’s Elmer?” his urchin
face was greatly missed especially by us kids. But time was
moving forward, or is it us that walk forward till we find, on
the desert of time, our individual exit sign? My uncle had
bought a car and even mother looked up from the book she
was reading and came to the window

Years, later when station in a garrison town, I saw Elmer in
the street, he had a proper artificial leg now, so good that he
only had a slight limp, but his gamin face was almost the same.
“Hi Elmer, do you remember me? He did, we shook hands.
He told me he had a good job here and he had also found Jesus
who had saved him from the wicked life he had lived.
I looked into his eyes; they were filled with blandness, Elmer,
the boy had left ok, in front of me stood a thin little man in hat.
I never spoke to him again but saw him often sauntering along
evening empty streets always at a distant walking away from
me, disappearing back to my childhood.