That's some excellent writing in a time crunch. Thank you for the broader details of this tragic story. I wonder what my children experienced, as I did the same thing your mother did, except with an adult.
Thanks! It has gone through my revision process, so what you’ve read is more polished than that 8 hour crunch. I was happy with where it started but am certainly more pleased with where it ended up. S/F, Aaron
Thanks for the engagement, Jason. The short answer is no. The longer answer is sort of.
When I began writing the original piece, I did start to search the internet. Not to identify the boy himself so much but maybe help fill in some descriptions that weren't clear in my mind. I opened the first four or five links that popped up, but none of them where for this incident. It'd been a long time.
I'm sure records exist somewhere if I decided to research the incident in more detail. Where the boy was killed could have been investigated by Vidor PD, the Rose City Constable (my memory is telling me we had a constable then and not a sheriff, but I could be wrong), or troopers with the Texas DPS since it happened on a ramp to I-10 (I'm not technically sure where Hwy 90 and I-10 ends/begins). In all likelihood, it was a combination of the three. But this was written as part of a workshop, and I had 500 words due in about 8 hours. At some point, very early on (you could say almost immediately), I decided not to keep looking for the boy's identity. That, for this story, it wasn't necessary because it's really about what the boy in the car saw and experienced more than it is about the white-line boy. I got the sense that if I knew the person, the dynamic would somehow change.
Ironically, my mother sent me a text about an hour before the workshop that surprised me. We'd already texted back and forth about a few wavetop details, and the first draft was complete and ready for me to read in workshop. Her text said that the white-line boy was, in fact, the uncle of my youngest brother's wife. So, as it turns out, the white-line boy and I are related by marriage. In truth, that was another reason why leaning into this as an auto-fiction felt so right. I still don't know the boy's name, though I expect I will at some point now that this story is out in the world. Which will be okay.
Did you every find out the boy's name or how old he may have been? A pretty traumatic experience for a child of six.
That's some excellent writing in a time crunch. Thank you for the broader details of this tragic story. I wonder what my children experienced, as I did the same thing your mother did, except with an adult.
Thanks! It has gone through my revision process, so what you’ve read is more polished than that 8 hour crunch. I was happy with where it started but am certainly more pleased with where it ended up. S/F, Aaron
Thanks for the engagement, Jason. The short answer is no. The longer answer is sort of.
When I began writing the original piece, I did start to search the internet. Not to identify the boy himself so much but maybe help fill in some descriptions that weren't clear in my mind. I opened the first four or five links that popped up, but none of them where for this incident. It'd been a long time.
I'm sure records exist somewhere if I decided to research the incident in more detail. Where the boy was killed could have been investigated by Vidor PD, the Rose City Constable (my memory is telling me we had a constable then and not a sheriff, but I could be wrong), or troopers with the Texas DPS since it happened on a ramp to I-10 (I'm not technically sure where Hwy 90 and I-10 ends/begins). In all likelihood, it was a combination of the three. But this was written as part of a workshop, and I had 500 words due in about 8 hours. At some point, very early on (you could say almost immediately), I decided not to keep looking for the boy's identity. That, for this story, it wasn't necessary because it's really about what the boy in the car saw and experienced more than it is about the white-line boy. I got the sense that if I knew the person, the dynamic would somehow change.
Ironically, my mother sent me a text about an hour before the workshop that surprised me. We'd already texted back and forth about a few wavetop details, and the first draft was complete and ready for me to read in workshop. Her text said that the white-line boy was, in fact, the uncle of my youngest brother's wife. So, as it turns out, the white-line boy and I are related by marriage. In truth, that was another reason why leaning into this as an auto-fiction felt so right. I still don't know the boy's name, though I expect I will at some point now that this story is out in the world. Which will be okay.
Semper Fidelis,
Aaron