Wandering through the squares and broken pillars of my mind, I always stumble upon a cache of lyrics or speech that has stuck with me to litter the undergrowth of memory. One that caught me today, as I washed the dishes and tried to ignore the foul odour emitting from the dishcloth, was The Time Lotte from down the Road Got Run Over. I remember this day well. I was nine. It was also my first expirience with the utter indecency and animalism of Lawyers.

As I said, I was in fourth grade, and had grown steadily attached to a girl down the road (Ren). I had not warmed up to her immediately, and this was mostly due to her mother. Lotte, as I saw it (and as my father would later admit, he saw it) was Dangerous. She had an endearing, outrageous personality and a permant glass of Chardannay attached to a hand. She was marginally beautiful and had an interesting narrative-style when it came to her views on life. My mother found kin in her, and together they undertook some pretty outlandish escapades, as both their husbands, my father (an accountant) and Dennis (a doctor) looked on with mortification. They got drunk on regular occasion, and I did not like it.

Ren, however, was nice enough, and she went to the same school as me, so my mother and Lotte would take turns driving us there. Ren also had a little brother named Matt, who was a year older than my brother Jonny. Those two got on like a dog and a leg, but I did not approve of their union either. Matt was a liar, and had a nasty, unpredictable little temper. Together, he and Jon trashed Jon’s room, beat dogs and terrorized the neighbours. I recall an incident when they both got naked in our Suburban, Upper-Middleclass Street and flipped the bird at passing motorists. I was at a loss of what to do. I was nine years old, but had the morals of a prudish eighty year old.

I cannot remember on what day it was, but I was in Lotte’s car, having walked over earlier that morning to be driven to school. Lotte had a limegreen convertible that made her stand out throughout my city. If you saw a green little car driving by, you knew it was her. I was sitting in the front with Ren and Matt in the back. I think my mother must’ve come over at some point or another.

We pulled out of the driveway slowly, and as we did so, papers were hurled into the car and onto my lap. I blinked, and looked up to the source: an ugly, old man with a paunch and a pink shirt on. He had a sneer to his face that I have come to associate with lowlifes in pubs. Lotte, livid, recognized the man and snatched the papers from my lap, and threw them onto the street. She then proceeded to back out further, the man screeching after her, “Oh, great, now all ya neighbours will know what a thief y’are!” Lotte pressed her lips together and got out of the car. Her children and I watched on, bewildered.

I cannot remember the mechanics of the conversation, because I was trying to pretend I wasn’t interested. Her kids, Matt and Ren, were acting as if it was a natural occurance. I took their lead. My mother came over and stood by the car, which is unlike her. She loves confrontation, absoloutely thrives on it.

It turned out the sneering man was a lawyer for former tenants at one of Lotte’s propeties. I was never told what the entire dispute was about, only that it involved curtains. Finally, after a heated argument that went on until 9 AM (I kept quiet as I watched time go on, thrilled I was missing out on school), the man got into his white car and slammed the door behind him.

But Lotte was not done, and stood in front of the car and continued to yell at him.

And then the bastard drove forward, running Lotte over. He crushed her arm. I watched it go under, and then she was under the car with a red and white arm and a face pale as paper. She managed to get up, somehow. I have always been calm under pressure, and comforted the howling kids as my mum ran to the lawyer, who was wide-eyed and blustering and shreeking, "She didn't move! She was s'osed to move! Oh, CHRIST!"

It gets a little hazy after that, memory repression has been a powerful thing. I think after a while, when the ambulance arrived, I went into Lotte's house and watched TV, the blaring talk shows, with wide eyes and pale skins with her children.

She was fine, after a cast.