Truck

I was looking at the collection of Hess trucks in the corner of the dining room. I never really knew him as much of a play-with-trucks kind of kid, but every year without fail his grandparents bought him the new one. It's a great tradition. The older ones are faded to a slight ivory now, the color of old scrimshaw. The newer ones still shine in fresh-plastic white. In some the batteries are long dead, not from an excess of play but from a surfeit of time. In others the lights still come on, the noisy bits still shout out engine revs and siren wails. He still loves them. He picked up the race car from just a year or two ago. "Do you know where the one it carries is?" he asked--then proudly popped open the top of the chassis to reveal the hidden, smaller car inside. He showed me the light that comes on in the inside of the hood.

I couldn't stop myself.

"Buddy," I said, "do you have many memories of us playing with your Hess trucks?"

I had a few of my own, dim at best, but I already knew they were too few and far too far between.

Big blue eyes. A twitch at the corner of his mouth.

"Not really," he said.

I hugged him and apologized.