trolley

He sat there in pondering wonderment, or was it wondering ponderment, as he thought slightly about his peculiar peccadilloes there upon the gleaming trolley. Approaching Union, he saw her and rang the bell in his mind, "ding, ding, ding," to the melancholy tune of "here comes the bride." She boarded, as per usual, he glanced, as per usual, she ignored.

Her classic lines blended well with the skyline he subtly noted to himself as she sat there in quiet silence. The movements of the trolley slowly swayed her back and forth and he noticed how she would uncomfortably brush the hair out of her blue eyes as if she knew he was watching her.

"If she knew, then why didn't she look my way?" Ben would ask his bartender friend, Bill Harper, who coincidently owned his favorite pub, O'Shannon's, down by the wharf.

Bill, a geyser of information, would usually have an answer. He replied, "I think I have an answer."

"Yes?" Ben waited in soft anticipation. "I think that she does not realize that she is so beautiful," Bill replied and continued, "Maybe you should remind her of that."

Ben acknowledged Bill's advice, grabbed his crutches and struggled to get up off the stool, as was usually the scene after two or three pints. Bill always wanted to ask if he could help, but he didn't think a war hero would want help from a bartender.

You see, Ben stormed Normandy, and like most boys who stormed Normandy, he was a hero before he left. He had been an All State baseball captain, a Football star, and an all around charmer of most women. Two minutes after landing on Omaha Beach, his friend John Cleaver, the funny one, had stepped on a mine and the after effects of it were that Ben would lose his foot and some shrapnel would embed itself onto his face, disfiguring him slightly.

It was now 1946, and Ben was home from the war a long time now working as a law clerk in downtown San Francisco. He had not loved, since he had been home from the war. In fact, he had never been in love because when he was younger, before the war, all the women he dated were merely girls and they were merely flirtations.

Therefore, everyday, he sat there on the quiet trolley, hoping and wondering that his favorite trolley girl would get on for a ride with him. Although, it would not exactly be with him, they would merely be on the same trolley, a disfigured trolley.

One day, she boarded, and he did his usual "ding, ding, ding," two step in his head. Except

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