Ben pt. 2 - Anita

"...The recent troop surge back into Iraq is coupled with the bloodiest week since the beginning of the war in 2003. The military is stretched thin and is asking that all news programs encourage their listeners and viewers to volunteer. Also, in Washington, talks of a draft and broadening the rules for hiring private security firms have taken the front seat of political debate. With the election year coming fast and approval ratings at an all time low, politicians across the board are scrambling for a ray of sunshine in these dark times..."

-

Anita Clackson heard Joannie Turmonghastanti reporting from somewhere. She wondered why news casters always seemed to have such unbearable last names as she towel dried her hair and then looked in the mirror. The puffy around her eyes wouldn't do. Anita hung her towel up - on a shower rod, her shower had a curtain. Her fingers tapped the tops of an assortment of medicine cabinet standards: aspirin, Midol, razors, toe-nail clippers, and there, right where she'd put it back, face cream. Anita did not want to go into work, at 100 Avalon Square, with the puffy around her eyes. Her boss expected more of her, of everyone.

She popped the top with her close cropped finger nails. Unpainted, plain, if she had her way her nails would be just a little longer and she'd have a different color for each day of the week. But she didn't mind being plain, she had a good job and good pay. So what, if she was approaching thirty with no husband? So what, if her old baby stuff, a crib, a blankie, an old rattle toy, sat collecting dust in a storage shed out by the freeway? She could bear it and continue saving her money and building a not-so-plain portfolio. Only, the portfolio wasn't doing so hot lately. Export from China had slowed to a trickle, the stock market fell to a new record breaking low and with each deployment of military forces to some corner of the globe, the deficit went up. Anita's finances were hanging in there, she had put a large portion of her money directly into Avalon Inc. Soon to be the only stock that saw gains of any kind. So what, if she didnt' have anyone to share this with? So what? 

She overrode the loud farting sound the face cream bottle made when she squeezed it, AHHH! Her shout bouncing back at her from the slightly discolored shower tiles sounded like someone else. Anita never yelled or threw things. She threw the empty bottle now. What's wrong with me? she thought, Just what the heck is wrong with me? It must be the lack of sleep from the night before.

All night her Black Berry rattled against the top of her night stand. She set it on vibrate, a naturally light sleeper, Anita knew she would hear the rattle if someone tried to call the direct office line at the top floor of Avalon Tower. Few calls came through that line during business hours, an ensemble of automated, 'speak your selection' menus and a slew of secretaries stood in the middle ground between the phone on Anita's desk and the phone some impatient person pressed firmly against their ear on the other end. But there was a number, one number that dialed straight into her phone. Her boss didn't give this number out, he had no family to speak of, no wife or serious girlfriend - kind of like me, Anita thought sometimes. Anita synced her Black Berry with her desk phone so that after business hours, when the computer voice stopped asking questions and gave a simple directive - TRY YOUR CALL AGAIN DURING BUSINESS HOURS - whoever might dial directly to her desk could reach her through her cell. The only time it rang after hours was when her boss called to tell her about some big to-do the next day. Some meeting they'd be flying across the globe to. And he never called to ask her how she felt about it, never asked if she wanted to go, only to tell her what color suit she should wear, or how she should fix her hair. He was so cold, almost robotic, but Anita adored his ability to soak up everything around him, his unfailing optimism. Not optimism in a future for Anita - she'd stay as long as she was useful - but optimism in the big picture. Anita tried to follow suit, although, this morning Anita didn't feel optimistic at all. Those damn phone calls.

Each time she got to the phone and looked at the number, the vibrating ceased. She didn't recognize the number and they, whoever, didn't leave a message. Wrong number, was her first thought, but after the third intrusion on her feather weight sleep she wasn't so sure. Maybe it's him, but that was just her, that was just Anita being overly optimistic. No, no, it wasn't him. 'He' never called her, not just her boss, any 'he'. Anita had no knight on a white horse ringing her bell spouting poetry. She knew it wasn't her boss, but a quick Google search of the area code confirmed the notion. The number was from some speck-in-the-road town in the south: Sowell Pike.

The name tickled in the back of her head. She pushed it away along with the big comforter and got out of bed. The sun hadn't come up yet, but she could see that storm that threatened to move in out of the west. She could see the infected mucus colored sky just starting to lighten. None of the news stations (what else were there, nowadays every station was news) reported anything about the weather. Sure the meteorologists would spit out highs and lows, any mention of rain gripped a portion of the viewing area, where as it infuriated the other portion. Anita pushed all that aside with her sleep clothes and took a shower.

Now, with the empty bottle of face cream in her hand and the puffy all over her face, her angry outburst dieing in the little bathroom, Anita began to cry.

Ben pt. 1 - Don't Worry

Soaked in cold sweat, Ben tossed and turned in his enormous bed. He rolled this way and that until the moist silk sheets tangled around him in a coccoon like embrace. His salt and pepper hair matted at the back of his head. When he became sufficiently wrapped, like a restless child on the operating table, he stilled. Only his eyes under his closed lids moved, back and forth, back and forth, almost as if they wanted to continue the chaotic bed sheet dance a little longer. Ben's muscular body, curled in a fetal position, suddenly went erect. Or tried to. The sheets snapped taut and his well manicured toe nails made deffinate lines where his feet tried to point at the foot of the bed. Had they been inexpensive discount cotton sheets, Ben would have ripped through them like the Incredible Hulk growing out of his normal sized clothes. But these sheets were top shelf, these sheets were imported, and these sheets held against his straining body.

His blue eyes snapped open the same moment his body tensed. He tasted blood in his mouth, probably got the inside of his cheek when his teeth came together with a click. Ben was greatful, though, the nightmare had ended.

Before the water rinsed the night sweat from his body the nightmare was long gone. In fact, he never remembered dreams, pleasant or not. Ben wasn't one to go about having his palm read or gazing into crystal balls. Ben had made his money through good old math. He excelled in Statistics and Economics in college and put what he learned to lucrative use, even before his third year. By the time he had his degree he had amassed enough money to dabble in the rocky soil of venture capitalism. A lot of people lost their ass shelling out large sums of money or credit to help a fledgling idea become half as succesful as Yahoo! Not Ben, Ben didn't gamble, Ben studied and calculated and never put down a dime without the garuntee of ten million in return. And it worked. It worked so well he didn't need his stunning good looks to fill the empty side of his bed, he didn't need credit cards to buy those imported silk sheets or to stand in a shower that had mood lighting and needed no door, no curtain - it was really that big.

He dried himself and put on his robe. The coffee pot would be done and he needed some of the special exotic brew - stuff that would make Starbucks patrons weep at the price. He'd never been afflicted with chronic hangovers, he didn't have a perscription for Ambien and he only needed, at most, six hours of sleep to feel refreshed and reenergized. All that changed when the nightmares started. He didn't remember them but when he woke with the feeling that he'd been hit by a Mac truck, well, he knew something was going on.

Sitting at his marble counter, Ben sipped his coffee and stared out the window above the sink. Two birds sat on a power line. They flipped and flapped against the wind. Ben was sure they were chirpping at each other although he couldn't hear them through his top-of-the-line energy saving multi-pane windows. He thought idly about how birds always made happy sounds. Birds only made sweet music, no death dirge, no funeral hyme, no achy-breaky heart. He was positive they were singing in the morning with love ballads, shakespearian sonnet songs.

Under the yellow sky - it was yellow all the time now, except when the sun was low, either rising or setting, then it was a yellow that burned - the birds sang but didn't fly. They hadn't risen from their pirch in three days. Somehow, they made sugar coated songs in their misery.

He got up from his seat and set the coffee cup in the sink. One of the birds, Don't Worry as Ben had named the one on the left (the bird on the right, of course, named Be Happy), fell from its pirch.

Despite the nightmare and the declining stocks, his dwindling portfolio, and now the bird - Don't Worry - lying dead under the worsening sky, Ben wasn't worried. Not one bit.

Perhaps he should have been.

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...

-----------------------------------

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...

--------------------------------------------

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."

-----------------------------------------------

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.

Sherry's Soda Fountain - pt. 2

The next day, in the predawn hours, I fed and watered the animals. Though it was springtime, I was glad to find the water buckets hadn't frozen in the night. The long winters seem to stick with you, even after every sign of winter's departure has been observed. We hadn't even had a frost in a month, yet still it made me happy when the handle on the old water spickett came up easily, without a banshee scream. So, one smile led to another and so on, and then I was smiling ear to ear thinking of... you guessed it, Margret.

On my walk back up the path from the barns to the house I wondered what color sweater she'd be wearing today. I put on my usual jeans and a plain t-shirt. Margret could wear anything she wanted, it didn't matter, I'd love her just the same. But, thinking about what she'd be wearing I suddenly had the fear. The fear that creeps into young boys hearts when, shall we say, smitten. The fear that she wouldn't like this old faded t-shirt. My newer shirts all had band names and pictures: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, even a Neil Young print. I had no idea what Margret liked, music, art, science... I hadn't the slightest clue.

My paralysis broke when the stair risers creaked. My mother was coming up to check on me. I looked at the clock, ten minutes, got to hurry. Then, I looked down at myself. Somehow I had stripped off all my clothes and stood in front of my open bedroom door, naked as the day I was born. And my mother was almost at the top of the stairs.

In a rush, I pulled my underwear and pants back on. A different kind of fear crept into me in those seconds. There's nothing more embarrassing in this whole world than for a young boy - such as I once was - to have his mother walk in and find said young man naked. Oh, the horror. I was pulling my t-shirt back on when my mother leaned against the door jam. I knew she was there. When you inhabit a room (or a cell, depending) for more than ten years, you become attuned to certain things. The sound of my mother leaning against the door frame was one of those things.

"You're running late," she said with a touch - just a slight touch - of disappointment.

My head and one arm popped out of their respective holes in my shirt at the same time. "I know mom, I'm sorry. I'll get there in time." And with that I dashed past her and down the stairs. I grabbed my back pack and practically walked right into my Converse low-tops.

I was running now. I could hear the squeal of the brakes on the bus - go screech, screech, screech - at the stop before mine.

-

I made it, you know. Might not be able to sit on my bottom to this very day, if I hadn't. Oh, Scruffy, leave off would you! I apologize. Some cats, most I think, are very independent, Scruffy on the other hand, has the heart of a lap dog. The kind of dogs that are happy to see you even after you've just gone to use the bathroom. But never mind her, I can put her outside if she gets to bothering you too much. And please, let me know if my smoking is a problem. Terrible habit, that, easy as pie to pick up, almost impossible to put down. Anyway, where was I...

-

Margret didn't ride my bus that year. The powers that be changed the bussing routes to try and save money or something. I was fine with that. As much as I longed to be in Margret's presence, when she was around the fear dug in deep. I was all crimson and a total dork in those bitter sweet times. The extra fifteen minute bus ride, in the morning, helped me collect myself.

And here we are at the school. A line of yellow busses, like bees awaiting their daily assignments, off loaded dozens of children. I hustled off and fell in line with the other students. We headed in to the cafeteria were we'd wait for the bell to ring.

When I pushed open the heavy metal door and walked into the bus-room everything seemed normal. It was loud, sure, the big cider block room echoed everything. The volume wasn't bad though, most spoke in hushed, half-asleep voices. Of course there were the jocks that got loud now and then, and the kids - a lot of the regulars at Sherry's - making silence seem loud.

Everything was normal, and see, there she was, in the corner reading a text book today. Margret sat in the corner by the windows. She sat alone in the mornings, very much reserved and preparing for the task of learning. The same beautiful girl would be hanging out and laughing with the gang at Sherry's, amazing.

No! She's going to be sitting with you later. Don't be a chicken, I thought to myself. I took a deep breath and did something different on this normal morning. Instead of sitting at the end of a table with kids that wouldn't say anything mean this early, I walked - still holding that deep breath, my chest all puffed out - up to the breakfast counter. I never did that, I never had the money. I got up that morning before my mom came to wake me, you see, and I got into the little stash of money I had. Twenty dollars went into my pocket before I went to school. Twenty dollars was plenty to get some breakfast and get Margret a float from Sherry's later. Plenty, of money.

If, if,  it worked out like that. But, naturally, it didn't. I should have guessed and bailed on the breakfast when I saw who was sitting at the tables where the line started. Rob wasn't my best friend in the whole world, not at all. He was one of them that got loud from time to time in the mornings, and he got loud this morning. Funny, now, looking back, Rob got loud just as I was getting close to him and his buddies. I should have bailed, but I didn't. Margret consumed all of my thought.

Rob stood up right in front of me. I had to look up and I did - most days, I studied my shoes - a menacing grin looked right back at me.

"Well, well, well, look at Mr. Money Bags here," he started laughing.

Worse than the fear of my mother seeing me naked, worse than the fear of Margret not liking my outfit, worse than anything the shame that filled me. I was scared, scared right down to the shoes I'd so often studied. I was ashamed of that fear, it was painful. But the laughter and the shame were only the beginning.

Sherry's Soda Fountain - pt. 1

Have a seat. Right over there, next to the bookcase. Don't mind the cat, she'll move. Yeah, see, there she goes. Smoke? No, no, of course not. I never figured you for a smoker. You don't have that look about you. You're looking good, by the way. Thank you for stopping by, I'm sure you're very busy. Heck, who isn't? Life can do that, get all tangled up in our plans. Playing tricks on us, yes, and not some lousy parlor tricks, no, real live tricks we don't even notice until later. Until we sit for a moment and... reflect, yes. Do you mind if I smoke? Yes, of course, it is my house but I like to be a gracious host. Well. If it doesn't bother you, I think I might have one. I'd also like to tell you a story, that is of course if you've got the time.

And my smoke doesn't get to you.

-

Walking down the street in town, passing the shops. The flags waved just enough in the subtle breeze to hold their own beauty; their own peace. To my left the sun made prisms on the plate glass windows of the store I happened to be passing: Sherry's Soda Fountain. I looked in, and there she sat. Margret, the prettiest girl in the whole school, the whole town. The whole world, I tell you, she was the prettiest thing in the whole world on the prettiest day. I believe that was real, to the young man walking down the sidewalk, Margret was exactly,  one hundred percent, the prettiest, most glorious thing in the whole world.

A smile lifted my face, and my cheeks grew hot. It was silly, she couldn't see me, she didn't know I was there. I looked up in the sun, I'd heard somewhere that would make you forget whatever it was you were thinking about. I looked back at the sidewalk in front of me and started walking through color changing spots floating around in my vision. Yet, I still saw Margret at the counter of the retro soda fountain.

She wore a pink sweater around her shoulders. At school, she fit in - better than most - and only her beauty set her apart from anyone else. At Sherry's Soda Fountain she stood out. She was different. Most of the patronage at Sherry's were the goth and punker kids. Mohawks, black eyeliner, leather jackets with studs, that was the norm at Sherry's. They didn't cause trouble there though. At school these kids stood out and spent a lot of time in the principal's office. Here, they were accepted - I guess - and they paid for what they got and they were polite, loud no doubt, but they were nice. They were just kids. And they accepted Margret.

Through the sun spots dancing around my eyes, I walked on by. I didn't have the nerve, I couldn't ruin such a beautiful day - you understand. I walked home in that perfect afternoon, with a perfect memory of a perfect girl, laughing and slapping her hand down on the counter. Long after the dancing colors faded from my sight, the butterflies continued their rounds in my stomach.

As I lay in bed after dinner, I promised myself tomorrow I'd go into Sherry's and talk to her. I promised, and I drifted to sleep with a smile on my face. A twelve year old boy in lovely bliss, because you see, tomorrow she'd talk to me. Tomorrow. I promised myself and went a step further, I promised on my Fender guitar. Tomorrow, she'd talk to me because I'd talk to her and the sun would shine and the flags would wave and the day would be warm. Today had been perfect, but tomorrow I'd improve perfection.