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Ed Lasher

Just Another Funny Story
About Infanticide

I was ten in November of'96. It was going from cool to cold out. The
naked trees' dead leaves were pleasantly brittle, sitting gingerly on the
ground by the tips of their stiff corners, light as popcorn spilled on the
floor. The leaves were like leaves always were in November, raked from
yards into airy cords along the curb to be vacuumed up by trucks once
every other Tuesday (a benefit of living within the Newark city limits).
My mom told me not to play in those leaves, or I'd get run over. When
you're a kid, there are countless ways you might get killed.

The air was the same crisp cold one can expect of a mid-atlan-
tic November. Sometimes I'd walk in it to Malin's Market to buy gum.
It wasn't far, just a little ways down the street outside my development
to South College Avenue, the main drag. Malin's was right around the
corner, next to a Dunkin' Donuts and a car wash. Not far at all. Not a
long enough walk to get cold.

That stretch of South College Avenue was right off Interstate
95, so it was mostly motels and gas stations. There was a Friendly's res-
taurant by the Howard Johnson's and a diner by the Comfort Inn across
the street. The Friendly's was always popular with college kids and little
league teams, but the diner had a new name and new owners just about
every year. Nobody could keep the damn place in business.

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