Sherry's Soda Fountain - Afterward - Secrets

Oh yes, the secrets. I thought I had gotten out from under that one. Well, I suppose, a promise is a promise and I'm a man of my word. Although, I've promised myself time and time again to put these coffin nails down. As you can see I haven't lived up to that one yet. Easy as pie to start, damn near impossible to stop.

Margret and I were nearly inseparable that spring and summer. We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas together and brought in the New Year holding hands. The trials and tribulations of an awkward young person in High School faded and were over run with the sweetness of her hearted exclamations in notes passed during class. The anticipation of walking home together made the day bearable.

We were in love. Strong and determined, the adults would dismiss our flowery professions as 'puppy love'. The more roughened the grown up the more contemptuous the dismissal. Some would even say we didn't know the first thing about love. But I tell you we did. The word and emotion evolves and changes with age, nonetheless we did love each other. We loved each other with all the passion and innocence of youth. Maybe, our love was of the purest sorts.

I never hounded her for more than she was willing to give. The sweet, close-mouthed, pecks on the lips or the cheek, holding hands and walking down the street were fine, they were just right and just enough. Though, we did get older, memories are static, frozen like a picture but the present keeps moving and so did we.

When we brought in our third New Year together our bodies were in full swing and the chemicals in our brains were working an exhausting amount of overtime. I will never forget the way our eyes met, that was the best part, some may scoff at that - don't listen to them. The act itself was bitter sweet - I won't say it wasn't beautiful - it was terrifying and nerve wracking at the same time. The best part was the way she looked at me. Our love for each other was a tangible thing that night. It had substance, it passed between us, not under the sheets young man, between her eyes and mine. The same as it did that long ago day outside Sherry's Soda Fountain.

For those few minutes the world was ours. Happiness without end, forever and ever. Happiness does end, maybe at the same place that secrets start. I don't talk about this, it's painful, see. I've never told anyone about this, I suppose the time has come that I did.

Not long after that New Years, Margret's parents sent her away. The secret shared between Margret and I became apparent to her mother and father. They called down to my mother and father. Then they came over - without Margret. I was told to sit away from the table with my chair against the wall. Watch and don't make a sound, my father said. And I did, they talked and said horrible things about me, I kept silent. Then the talk turned to the things nightmares are made of.

Margret's father said she would be leaving the state to stay with her Uncle, forever. The word echoed in my head and my heart stopped cold. My paralysis broke, I stood up and shouted, YOU CAN'T DO TH-

And then my father knocked me out. We have a fight, no, he stood and turned and I was on the floor. I suppose I deserved it. The worst, perhaps most cruel, punishment was that I never saw Margret again. I was scarred and the scar hurt badly for years. I kept it together for the most part, though. There are times in life when you have to reserve the pain, hold it back, until late at night when you're alone in bed, the rest of the day in the sunlight you just have to bite it back and go about your business. And I did.

I received one letter from Margret, and only one. I've not seen her or heard from her since and that's okay. The memory of that split second peck on the lips is enough for me. I still have the letter, forgive me but I can't read it or tell you what it says. It pains me deeply to even mention it. I will let you read, though, if you wish. See, I'm old now and the world is burning out there and I have raised no children. Maybe I will live on in your memories, maybe not.

Here, here's the letter. There are no copies so be careful with it. When you are done leave it there, by the bookcase. I must go lay down now, I'm tired and old and I've told all I can.

Dearest,

I'm sorry I haven't written you or called. Not a day has gone by that you are not in my thoughts. I love you more than I can express in a letter. Uncle Tim says often that he would like to put you down like a lame animal, I tell him not to upset me, for the baby's sake. He goes out to the barn and busies himself with work until after my light is out. Some nights I hear him slamming the door when he comes in. Don't worry, Uncle Tim won't do any such thing. Aunt Bev says he's just upset about it and doesn't know how to deal with it.

Speaking of Aunt Bev, she's told me that once the baby comes it'll - she! it's a baby girl! - go for adoption. I don't know how I feel about that. I always dreamed about us having a family, yet, it doesn't look like that will happen. Not this time, not ever. Please, don't hate me, you will always be at the very center of my heart. Know that I will always, always love you. But I won't ever be able to come back to Sowell Pike. I think, I think it's best if we keep each other alive in our hearts with our memories. I will always love you, I only ask that you don't hate me for this. Please, don't try to come here. A clean break heals the best.

I won't get to name the baby but after the Dr. said it would be a girl I can't help but think of names.

I like Evelyn, or maybe just Eve.

With love, forever and ever,

Margret



Jacob set the water spotted (or was it tear spotted) letter down and sniffed back a lump in his throat. The house was silent. He got up and walked to the back of the old man's place meaning to tell him Thank you. Jacob wasn't sure what exactly he was thanking the old man for but he felt it appropriate. When he got back to the bedroom door, he stopped and decided not to knock. The quiet turned him around, he didn't think he even heard the old man breathing. Surely he was just sleeping and hadn't started sawing logs yet, surely.

Jacob went out the front door and eased it closed behind him. He didn't want to wake the old man up - he was just sleeping, right? He headed West, toward the thunderheads. Without a thought in his head as to why he was going that way.

Sherry's Soda Fountain pt. 4

No, no, no! Sit, please, I'm almost finished. I need to tell this, see, I'm old now and I don't expect many visitors. What, with the diseased cancerous sky overhead and the storms out West. Can't even watch the plastic people on TV anymore. The mail doesn't run and if it did, I don't know anyone to send a letter. All my friends, family, they're all dead. But that's not the point, the point is the magic. I'm just getting to that, the magic and the secrets. Everyone has secrets, anyone who says different is pulling your leg. So please, sit and hear me out, it won't take long...

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Of course, when I left school and made my way home I was floating. In like a lion, out like a lamb. The day started terribly, as terrible as any day of my life and then, in last period, I waited and waited for the bell to ring and class to be let out. I didn't think it would. When it did my heart leaped into my throat and now I'm terrified. Terrified that this was all just another joke, or another part of the same joke. My hands were sweaty - the ink on the note was surely running by now - and my steps were awkward. I didn't worry about the note, I had it memorized:

Meet me at Sherry's after school

ok!

Margret

I felt like an out of control see-saw, nervous and euphoric by turns.

Now, I walked down that sidewalk, my feet picking up and setting down one-in-front-of-the-other by their own power. I was floating down the sidewalk. There it is, Sherry's Soda Fountain. I'd never been in there, my parents wouldn't take me because of the 'bad crowd' and I couldn't bring myself to step foot in the place because of her. Margret owned the place and she owned my heart and I could never go in there, ever.

I stood across the street looking in through the windows. Or, I tried to, rather. The sun was doing something funny, it turned the big window into a big mirror. I caught a glimpse of myself and wave upon wave of doubt rolled over me. I loosened my hand that held the note, I had to be sure. The ink had run with my sweat but the note was still fairly legible. I hadn't remember wrong or invented anything. The exclamation point was still dotted with a bubbled heart, that was all I needed.

My chest filled with air and when my lungs started burning, I let out the breath I'd held and crossed the street.

What if she's not there? What if Rob's in there?

Oh, the horror. In the few moments it took me to cross the street, my mind ran through a thousand possibilities. None of them good.

I opened the door, the little bell that hung there jingled and I damn near jumped out of my skin. It could have been a gunshot, I would have reacted the same.

There she sat. Margret, who I cherished and loved in the way only the young can. The girl of my dreams sat at the counter on a little stool. The kind that swiveled and sat high up off the floor. Her legs - the most beautiful legs god ever created - swung back and forth above the floor. After I'd gained my composure and the jingling bell came to rest she turned. The stool swiveled around so now her back was to the counter and she looked right at me. A part of me turned on heel and fled, instantly. I ran and ran until my heart exploded and I fell dead on the ground some hundreds of miles away. But only a part of me, the rest stayed right where it was: inside Sherry's Soda Fountain, ignored by most of those around me. Most save one, Margret.

She looked at me and I looked back. The few seconds stretched on and on, then she smiled. Not just with her mouth, Margret smiled with her whole face, eyes mostly. She waved me over to the empty stool next to her and I went. Despite all the nerves telling me to catch up with that part that was halfway around the world by now, I sat next to her. I'm sure we talked, we must have, but I can't remember a single word she said that day. Only the way the sun played with her hair, the silver bracelet around her wrist, the sound of her laugh. Mostly - and this is the magic of it - the thing that has travelled through time with me, the way we parted that day. It only took half a second, if that.

We stood outside the door of Sherry's Soda Fountain looking at each other. Both of us wearing big silly smiles. I remember a cloud dimming the sun from my eyes and then the most wonderful thing happened. The most magical moment of any young man's life.

She tilted her head and went on tiptoes and she kissed me. Not one of those full-on, make-out kisses, no. She kissed me so sweetly, just a peck on the lips. Yet, that peck on the lips has maintained itself for - what? - four, five, six decades. It's hard to tell anymore, calendars don't make much sense when you look at them these days.

What I'm telling you is that if you ever like a girl and she grants you that brief moment of complete bliss, don't you forget it. Don't you hound her for more or screw it up. Just let it be what it is, forever and ever. A first kiss, a slice of beauty and magic that no one can take from you. As the hardships of life come down on your back you hold onto that memory like a life raft in the middle of the ocean.

Sherry's Soda Fountain pt. 3

I see I haven't bored you to death. You're still here, that's great. I apologize for the wait. I had to move some things around. See, I know my cat and when Scruffy left off harassing you I knew she'd be unhappy with the boxes piled on her bed. Now that's taken care of, where was I?

Oh, yes. In the lunch room on the worst day of my life. That's right...

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Of course the first torment, the public humiliation, just scratched the surface of what came next. I've seen the movies and read the books and I knew that Rob wouldn't win the day. I knew that. My affection for Margret would blossom a cape on my back and my muscles would pop like Popeye's. I would show Rob and the rest of them just how serious I was and how capable these arm cannons were. But I was seriously mistaken.

I had the crumpled dollar bills in my hand and in the blink of an eye they were gone. Almost like magic, my finger nails suddenly dug into my palm instead of clutching the money I had saved.

Poof!

Rob had the money now. Oh, the injustice of it. And it seemed to me that the whole lunch room erupted in laughter. Directed at me, these verbal assaults left no visible wounds, yet, they hurt. They hurt deeper than bruises and lasted longer than scars.

I could feel myself getting bigger. Each passing second granted me another inch in height and soon I would smote them down. I lunged at Rob. I could see the moves flowing through me, I could best Bruce Lee in that moment. I took the money back and held the bully down until the proper authorities arrived to put this menace where he belonged. At the bottom of a well wouldn't be lonely enough, not for Rob. Nothing went that way at all.

I lunged, sure, straight for him. But he was quick, like the money in my hand, Rob was there and...

Poof!

... he was gone. So were the cape and muscles and height I'd gained. I felt like a cartoon character deflating. I was puny again and he - everyone - was larger than life, cooler than cool.

He was at me, now, with the new ammo I'd so willingly provided him. "Soooo, he's got money and brains! Hahahaha," I believe he would have doubled over and joined me on the floor. If he hadn't been busy punching my sides. My vision blanked, my ears rang with the laughter from all around me. I knew, absolutely knew, that Margret was in that number. She liked to laugh and she was doubled over on the floor by the windows, book forgotten, pumping her fists and feet against the cold tiles. I knew that was happening and I felt like I was dieing a slow death.

After what seemed like the whole school day had gone by with Rob on my chest and his fists in my sides and the entire student body cheering him on, the beating stopped. Rough hands, big hands, were under my arm pits hoisting me up. The laughter and catcalls melted into the regular din of a lunch room full of kids. I could still hear Margret over by the windows slapping the smooth tiles of the floor with her palms, laughing and laughing. She was laughing at me.

"Come on, boy," the rough deep voice must belong to the big rough hands, "you're going to the office!"

My nose felt packed with gauze and I snuffed back against it. I felt wet on my face, I had been crying. My eyes blinked open and the shadowy shape-filled world around me came into focus. As my eyes cleared, my ears turned the volume knob down a notch or two.

The man carrying me - Mr. Phelps, math, gross - shocked me back with his emphasis on 'office', as if I had been the guilty party. Now the office, the lunch room, everything got the volume turned down to 0.

Margret!

Where was Margret? I wanted desperately to see her laughing on the floor, laughing at me. I wanted that so I didn't have to dream about the stupid soda fountain and how stupidly out of place it was. I needed to see her in her disgusting hateful place with the rest of the hateful disgusting kids.

At first I didn't see her, probably in the bathroom dabbing her eyes. But then, the bright sun coming through the windows dimmed as my eyes adjusted. A lone silhouette stood out against the bright, there she was, right where she had been, what seemed like, hours ago when I was going to buy her breakfast.

I couldn't read her face. My eyes adjusted some more, the smirk I expected to see wasn't there. I couldn't tell exactly what was there but, she wasn't laughing and she wasn't happy. I knew that. She was what? Concerned? Maybe, but now I was out of the lunch room and through the double doors and into the hall. The bell for first period rang and I wondered if I would get in trouble for being late. Of course, I wasn't going to first period. I was going to the 'office'.

"Quit sniffling like a baby," Mr. Phelps said. "Rob told me everything that happened. You'll be lucky to get off with detention."

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Oh, the injustice. I put my head down and fell into my sorrow and shame. You see, don't you? Rob told them I started it, trying to take his money. It was only the superior wrestling skills our own Mr. Fox taught Rob that kept him from getting beaten up and his money stolen. Yeah, right. I was the puniest kid to grace those halls, ever. Yet, my head stayed down until later that day when I opened my desk in last period. Not only did my head pull itself out of the tar of shame, a smile touched my face.