grill weather

It was an overly pleasant sunday evening in Northwestern DC. The day had started to cool, and the birds filled oranging sky with a muted, cheerful song. It was a fine night for a barbecue. Going to start the grill, he noticed the propane tank was empty. No matter, he thought, I’ll just pop down to the Shell station for a new one. Not wanting to drive, and fully conscious of the irony of burning up the diesel to get the propane, he grabbed his skateboard, and cheerfully swinging the empty propane tank he headed off down the road. He pushed up the short hill on 41st street. Carving downhill along the fall line towards Wisconsin Ave traffic was light, and drivers, caught up in the bucolic nature of the day, waved him on as he mellowed through several stop signed intersections. At the station, the man motioned through the window to leave the tank next to the rack, and he put it down with a soft clank before heading in to the store. 

After giving the attendant twenty nine dollars, they both went outside to the locked cage. Sorting through the 'cleaned and inspected' tanks, the man picked one out for him, considerably heavier than the empty. Oooff, he thought, well maybe this wasn’t the best idea. No matter, too late now. He pushed off, slightly wobbly with the new load, scooting out across the Avenue, beating a pack of cars off the green light, and swooped back into the residential neighborhood. It was a bit onerous going up hill, so he got off and walked a few blocks north to Harrison, where it was flat enough to start pushing again. He made the turn back onto 41st and started to speed up a bit down the hill. Just then, a woman in a black BMW SUV rolled through the stop sign at the end of Huntington and started to turn left immediately in front of him. Fuck! He carved hard to the right, just barely making it around the rear bumper of the SUV. He looked backward to see if she had even noticed, and just then hit something, a rock, he will never know what. Immediately airborne, he had just enough time to look back and catch the startled expression on the blond woman’s face in the side view mirror as he sailed, the propane tank carrying his arm up over his head. Catching his fall on his left forearm on the sidewalk, he started to roll as he had down so many times before, and then the tank connected with the grooved concrete of 41st street.