Unlike most small dumbfounded pedestrians of his kind, he had no recollection of that terrible incident. Sure the loss of life was a significant moment in his mindless years, but had it mattered or was forgetfulness a comfort. He liked to think of it as trying to erase away a tragedy, no, he had only forgotten. It had slipped his mind because he really didn't care. Just as he never cared that the world was rotting, that he couldn't afford child support, that his only brother was in a large block of concrete surrounded by barbed wire and guards with tranquilizers. His entire relations consisted of only three people. His mother whose brain was deteriorating, his brother whose brain was malfunctioning, and his illegitimate daughter, 14 years of age and hardly aware of his existence.

So he did forget. He hadn't remembered that cold Monday morning on the corner of Van Buren and Belle Street. He could hardly recall the picture of hysteria. People, just people, strangers, a matter of left and right, he could snap his finger ordering their assassination and not give a second thought. That morning a bright, sleepy CATA bus was just another grimy bus. Another bus being operated by a cracked-up 23-year-old junkie. Another bus with only one passenger, a drunken homeless woman named Cherale. He didn't know Cherale or the junkie; they never were of any importance in his life.

And neither were the 17 giddy children crossing Belle Street that day as that CATA sped down Van Buren. Those 17 young useless lives, 17 excited smiles, 34 crystal eyes watching their heroes from afar, 34 skipping toes, and 1 yawning guardian, 1 bored care-taker. None of these meant more then a slice of pie to the man, to the man or the bus, That's why the bus didn't slow down when it neared the 17 children and their teacher, it just keep going faster, leaving the rest of the world behind. There is no reason why the 23-year-old coke-fiend never touched the brake pedal. Lives meant nothing at that moment, but somehow meant his own life 24-hours later when he sobered up and took a gun to his head.

One large CATA and one crazed driver were able to murder 18 people that day, 17 children, and one adult. But as a passer-by, the genocide was only the cause of a cringing face and a quicker pace. The man saw the children become nothing more than minced meat in a matter of seconds. A ruthless slaughter, Though the man only gasped, vomited, watched with curiosity, then collected his thoughts, and rushed off to work. Using the deaths as an excuse for his tardiness and to gain a slab of attention that night at the bar. In a matter of days the intersection of Van Buren and Belle was cleaned and the man's thoughts were washed of remembrance.

'I saw youd theris. See youd and med, youd got med from that bust, and I was savid.'�

'I'm sorry, I really don't recall meeting you.'�

'No wesd meet. Tat big accident, rememberid, the really big oned? I wasd in its an youd pullid me from that bust.'�

'Sorry'�

'Its Cherale, med, you knowed med, Cherale?'�

'I've never met a Cherale.'�

'Yes youd did.'�

'I'm terribly sorry Cherale. I have to be going.'�

'Youd gotted rememberd. Eightin kids man, really, eightin!'�

'I'm sorry.'� That man nodded weakly as he walked briskly down Van Buren Street on the way to work. He dropped twenty cents into the cracked plastic cup the poor old woman held and hurried along, leaving the woman's pale words and ugly odor behind. And like everyone else, Cherale was just another stranger with a name he'd soon forget.

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