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.

Harmon X - Reunion pt. 2

Harmon held his position on the edge of the rise, silhouetted by the gross ball settling behind the trees. The yellow hadn't gone completely out of the sky and he could still see half of the ugly sun but the cold winds tore away any shred of warmth it might have provided. And when they took they gave, the sound of howling in the distance danced on the air currents around him. The chill sunk deeper into his bones. Coyotes he guessed, like the one he saw carrying that odd chunk of meat. When he turned his head from the setting sun he scanned the woods around him and huddled  a little deeper into the sweat shirt he had tied around his waist.

He reached into the marsupial pouch sewn onto the front of the sweat shirt. Old Sowell High East, those were the good days, days when he and Amy could blow off school and she could look so beautiful and young in this very sweat shirt. Only, back then - and up until after his shower this morning - the pouch pocket on the front might've held a joint or a silly wisp of poetry as Harmon tried and tried to win her. Now his hand clenched around the ski mask tucked away there. His knuckles cracked.

In his right hip pocket, a roll of quarters weighted down that side of his waist band. An adjustable wrench, the kind with a heavy, fat, head, and a #2 screwdriver rested in each back pocket. Harmon was nervous. He had spent a lot of time on his truck and even more, it seemed, in the long, small hours of midnight, going over the things in his shop. He never got into tools for violence, but sometimes mechanic's tools were one in the same. He hoped it wouldn't go down like that, although a part of him, closely resembling the midnight hours of the night before, smiled a little bit at the thought of using the tools. Off the clock and slicked up with Hollywood revenge, they'd be. Not like that, please god.

The sun had finally made its last effort of the day and Harmon saw headlights coming towards the building. He couldn't see who it was or what kind of car, with the building between him and the main access road back here. Just two cars, he counted at first and then the music started. Harmon heard only the heavy bass that seemed to shake the ground under his feet. As the last of the phlegm color faded out after the sun, he started seeing more headlights, it wasn't long before he lost count, somewhere around ten.

More and more headlights, my god, he thought, this is just too much. I had no idea. Along with the endless stream of headlights, Harmon saw the party strobes flashing out from the cracks in the old building's rear wall. He didn't get down on his knees and fold his hands or look up at the sky above him, he prayed nonetheless:

god,

grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Just for today, just for right now

just for Amy.

Then he was coming around the side of the building, he didn't need to pretend to hike his pants as if he'd just been relieving himself. His pockets were heavy to the point of inconvenience. Harmon shuffled his way into the semi-single file line that led into the vibrating, flashing, shadowed belly of Darrel's design.

Menacing techno-hardcore bounced the occupants around, the strobe lights put everything in slow motion while the music moved along at blistering speed. I am seriously underdressed, Harmon thought as he made his way into the shadows. Everything around him looked hardly human: peircings he'd never dreamed of dangled from faces, makeup that would have made both David Bowie and Marilyn Manson proud caked the faces, masking them, the hair styles and colors blew his mind. He was expecting a nose ring or two, a mohawk here or there, maybe died blue or green or jet black. A swirl of dreadlocks flew past his face, his eyes caught it when the strobe was off and it seemed to glow. Some things change, some things didn't. He doubted Darrel would be out here on the floor. Darrel was an entrepreneur, he had a business to run.

If Harmon guessed right, the door near the back wall led to a back room of some kind. He made his way through the sea of people. Another girl spun past him and stopped, looked him straight in the eye, grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss. When his head came away a bitter taste filled his mouth, she was gone into the sea. He spat out the bitter taste. But it had been a long time since he'd had anything stronger than coffee. He hoped none of... whatever it was, got into his blood.

He made his way to the back of the 'club' without further incident. Moving through all those people was a feat by itself, add the strobe effect and blacklights and that heavy bass and ear splitting treble, Harmon felt like he was swimming upstream. He stumbled through the door, knocking would have been useless, polite, but useless. When the door shut the music stopped almost totally, he could still feel the bass in the floor but otherwise this room seemed like a different place, a backroom of a quiet little place.

"HARMON!!!" Darrel spoke as if the music roared in here as it did out there. "SO GLAD, SO GLAD YOU COULD MAKE IT!"

Harmon could hear Darrel's teeth chatter and grind between his outbursts. No strobe lights in here, no light at all really. A weird glow, like a muted shine from a full moon on a cloudless night, filled the middle of the room. Sneakers and stout black leather boots and knee high high-heels touched the edges of the pale light but Harmon could see no more than that. He felt like he and Darrel had the room to themselves.

"Okay, enough with the YELLING! HEEE, HEEE, HEEE!" he screeched and then the awful sound of grinding chattering teeth again. "No, seriously, everyone... sayhellotoHarmoneveryone, seriously." From what Harmon guessed were couches that wrapped around the edges of the dark room a series of limp hello's and more of that grinding, chattering. It felt now like it was coming from inside his own head, but he could see the feet where the light stopped and they were moving slightly. No, that terrible sound wasn't in his head - was it? - these drugged out kids were making that noise.

"Darrel listen, I need to ask you about Amy," Harmon tried to keep his voice level and calm as everything around him wasn't.

"Amy! Right, right, right. Have you seen her? She said, said, said, she'd be coming over. I know it's dark out there," Darrel's voice changed from the tweaked babble Harmon heard on the phone to something close to threatening, "but that's where I'd look, were I... you. HEEEE, HEEE, HEEE"

More screeching laughter, worse than the treble out there, and the teeth again. The feet around the room shuffled more.

Harmon came at the desk in the middle of the room, the one that Darrel sat behind. Big and made of expensive wood. An inlaid mirror placed where a desk top calendar would be, Harmon thought about just grabbing Darrel the way that girl had grabbed him. Instead of a kiss with a gift, Harmon saw himself putting Darrel's face into that mirror, destroying him. Everything else had been destroyed. "DON'T YOU THREATEN ME YOU SONOFABITCH, YOU START TALKING!" Harmon's fists came down on the wood top of the desk. His muscles tensed and his heart beat filled his ears.

Darrel made a tsssk tssssk sound by clicking his teeth together somehow and like a 'wave' at a ball game, the sound made its way around the room. He only knew these people by their feet, but his eyes were becoming more and more adjusted to the odd light in here.

He was grabbed  on either side and before he had time to react he was seated in a chair. The next moment, thick straps wound round his arms and shins, they cinched tight. Harmon looked to his left straight into the face of the man who manhandled him so easily into this helpless position.

The determination that had held him for so long - no more than forty-eight hours, really - broke. Everything inside him broke. If he had a bottle he wouldn't just gulp from it, he'd mainline the wonderful stuff. His past, his present, and his future shattered in that moment.

Staring back at him wasn't a man. A woman that seemed to be winking, but the eye that was closed didn't look like it'd be opening again anytime soon. The stitches there were tattered but they held, the other eye - or lack thereof - gaped at him. The lower eye lid lay against the high cheek bone, the upper lid flapped like a loose tooth. Horrible, these things were, but what got him wasn't the grotesque eyes. What got Harmon was the smile, the ripped lips, the chipped teeth, the smile he saw in his nightmare. Amy's smile stared him down, he gave in and tears came.

When tiny pieces of teeth bounced off his cheek as Amy chattered away - tsssk, tssssk - Harmon let go the rest of what was left of him. A scream of rage and sadness and regret rose out of him to such levels it rivaled the music on the other side of the door.

Eventually, his scream died in his throat. "Now, now, now that we're done with that sorry business," Darrel started up in the closest impression of a normal voice Darrel could attain. He sighed big and on the exhale he did that chattering thing again. "I've got someone I'd like you to meet. I had two, you know, but now you've gone and ruined that. Are you happy now, your precious Amy is right there by your side, whispering sweet nothings in your ear."

She was chattering her teeth apart in his ear, is what she was doing. Harmon stared as much hate as he could gather at Darrel. Darrel had done this, all this. Darrel was a monster. That's what Harmon thought.

"Yes, yes, yes. It's a lot to take in, but the roll of father is a difficult thing sometimes. Sometimes, I just have to throw these little shindigs and just get out of it. You know. I know you do, going to meetings, running from your demons, I know, I know." Darrel now sounded fatherly, between the chattering.

"Lindsey, could you bring him out?" Harmon saw Lindsey now, the light was getting brighter, or wider, or maybe it was pulsing. He could see some of the faces around him. These weren't drugged out kids, no, these kids wore the same outfit Amy did. Eyeless, they might have on different footwear but they all had the stitches, covering the emptiness behind. And now they all chattered away.

Harmon heard a door open and close back in the darkest part of the room. When he looked back from where the noise was coming, Amy walked away from his chair and he saw. He saw what Amy was missing on the back of her leg. He heard the coyotes' howls, somehow, and the chattering teeth and the bass from the speakers on the other side of the wall. And then he heard something else.

First, he heard the rising, excited chattering. Then, he heard the door close, back where it was too dark to see. Those few moments of before Lindsey came back in the room were a blessing for Harmon, those few moments when she was still in the darkness. And then she stepped into the light. He heard the clinking of chains and saw she held them in her right hand. His eyes glanced over at the left hand, when he saw what she held there, the rudimentary tools he'd brought - a fist pack of quarters, a wrench and a screwdriver - seemed silly. He felt an insane laughter start to bubble in his chest.

More shuffling chains. "Meet Adam, Harmon,"

Instead of laughter, Harmon vomited all over his front. He was now looking at something darker than the lightless corner of the room. The skin looked old and shriveled but the body it clothed looked young, grade school age. The rusty shackles sunk into Adam's wrist and ankle the way a tree looks after growing around a fence post. Pointy little, needle-like teeth peeked out of rotten gums and as they came together, small, black, ashy pieces of skin fluttered to the floor around Adam's feet. What Harmon took for total darkness in the back corner of the back room seemed now as bright as the sun, he looked into Adam's empty, forever deep eye sockets. He vomited again.

When the heaving subsided,  Harmon saw Lindsey, or the blade she held in her other hand, rather, coming at him. He whipped his head to the side and caught a brief glimpse of Amy. Not Amy, with stitches for eyes and open un-bleeding wounds, no, Amy as she was.

Her hair was tied back in a loose pony tail. Harmon knew a lot of girls didn't think that was a very 'done up' look, but he loved it. He could see her now with her hair pulled back off the that beautiful spot where the neck meets the shoulder, the little hollow place he liked to kiss whenever he could. He could see her wearing his Sowell High East sweat shirt, only it was new and the letters weren't faded. He could see her and she was beautiful.

He couldn't see Darrel, Adam, the eyeless around the room, or Lindsey. He couldn't see the hateful blade coming for his left eye. He couldn't hear the chattering teeth - constant now - or Darrel's screeching laughter. He could hear Amy, on a warm summer day back in '01.

"I love you," she said. Harmon's world went black. Blackness, darkness, evil filled those spaces now. Harmon was gone, gone with Amy.

"I love you, too," Harmon replied. "Forever, baby."

The darkness seeped into his empty eye sockets now as crude stitches sewed their way across his lids.

Harmon IX - Reunion pt. 1

Friday afternoon, the skyline hadn't gotten any better in the last day. A sick grey/yellow coated the landscape around Harmon's little trailer. He sat there at the kitchen table, his left arm propped up and his legs crossed. He stared off into that slightly diseased looking sky, he didn't seem to blink. The smell of hot coffee filled the little kitchen nook. Harmon took down the coffee cup that said 'His' on the side in black stenciled letters, and poured himself a cup. He grabbed an ice cube - just one - out of the freezer first, Harmon didn't have the patience to outwait a steaming cup of coffee. He wanted to drink it now.

Another cup hung next to the one Harmon was using. It said 'Hers' in pink stenciled letters. A certain piercing pain cut through Harmon's determination when his cup clinked against 'Hers'. Despite the problems with the drugs and their rocky past, he loved her. Sometimes when their arguments got really heated he'd said things that he never meant, not even for one second. I'm outta here, he'd said one time, but he wasn't. He was never 'outta here'. He cherished Amy with the same passion high school sweethearts feel. They didn't wear rings, but that was a choice they'd made a long time ago. They didn't want to change things, or things to change them. Despite the arguments and the bad habits and all of it, it was all perfect.

Harmon sipped his coffee and stared around at the mess - and the open front door, he never got around to shutting that. He'd found that place, in his mind, that place of quiet, of certitude. He was in the eye of the storm and all he had to do was wait.

After leaving Scotty's - god he hoped he and Cindy would make it back to the world alive - Harmon stopped by the auto parts store. The shocks were going out again and he got an off road kit: beefed up bushings and tie rod ends and other replacements for the old standard suspension parts, along with the heavy-duty shocks. He'd spent the rest of Thursday, late into the night, even, replacing parts and checking over his truck. Friday morning's ugly sun greeted him along with the aches and pains. Muscles he didn't know he had were sending loud and clear signals. After a long hot shower - he failed to notice the few cracked tiles from Amy's mock shower the pervious morning - he felt a little better. While he was shaving he noticed the broken hair brush, but it escaped much notice, everything seemed to be broken now. Everything was a mess, even the god damn sunlight was screwed up.

Back to work now. The truck still needed a few things and final inspection. The few little things he'd left for this morning turned into a carnival for old Mr. Murphy. What could go wrong, did. But in the end he got everything straightened up and looking tiptop. He didn't want to snap a sway bar or something, going where he was going.

The Old Jensen Place had gained a weird underground popularity since Darrel set up shop. The little, single file, dirt path that Darrel and his buddies used all those years ago had turned into a double rutted driveway. Almost like Harmon's, minus the potholes. There's another thing that's screwed up, Darrel's little dark rave drug den thing had a better driveway than Harmon.

Harmon knew another way in. Back in the day Harmon liked to take his old truck out 4-wheeling. There was a trail that could take him up right behind the old building. He wouldn't even have to be on the road but for a minute. Harmon didn't want to be noticed really. Not until he knew how all this was going to go down. Part of him wanted to take Darrel and pull some Guantanamo interrogation on him, but he didn't want to do that, not really. He wanted to find Amy and get some answers. And he didn't want to hurt anyone. But he did, oh yes , he did want to hurt anyone, he wanted to hurt everyone. The pain inside him tried and tried to crack his determination but wouldn't let it. He had to stay focused.

Sipping his coffee looking out the front door, Harmon was blank. He didn't look at the clock on the stove, his wrist watch. His cell phone lay lifeless on the table in the living room. And then he was up and moving. Time to go, now. The truck roared to life with a hunger it hadn't shown in quite some time. Harmon was calm, though, he didn't spit gravel when he pulled down the driveway. He came to a complete stop before he turned left. Left, west, into the sinking nasty sun.

Counting his blessings, no one was coming when he made the turn off the road and into the brush. Harmon braced and said another thank you for shift on the fly four wheel drive. He hadn't been down here in a long time, it didn't look like anyone else had either.

The initial departure from the road jarred the truck and Harmon creased his brow. This was his only vehicle and with no idea what lay in the days to come he didn't want to blow anything. He needed this truck, but he forged ahead anyway, determined. He only had to pull the 4-wheel drive lever once. Apparently, if it rained a week ago, the bottom of this particular valley will still be a mud pit. While he was stopped, out of his passenger window something caught his eye. A coyote striding proudly through the growth that was even thicker on the sides of the trail Harmon took. A piece of meat hung from its jaws. His eyes were either playing tricks on him, or there were some hairless animals running around in these woods.

The four wheel drive caught and the truck continued on its path, climbing the other side of the valley. As soon as he reached the top of the rise, it dropped off again. His good old truck was essentially sledding down the wet hill side. He did his best to avoid the trees that grew here and there. His truck easily cut through the new trees, fortunately the big old trees didn't block this section on the hill.

Bouncing on its springs the truck came to rest at the bottom of the hill. He was now on the 'beach' of the river that ran past the back of the Old Jensen Place. Perfect, he checked all his gauges and everything looked fine. He looked over at the river and that was perfect too, it was running low this time of year. On the other side, Harmon spied a good brushy spot to park his truck.

He crossed over the river easily. Just past the halfway point a large rock stuck out of the water and Harmon prayed it wouldn't punch through his sidewall. He had a tire plug kit in the glove box, but sidewall injuries were death sentences. When he parked it behind the big growth of brush all four tires still held air, the engine wasn't overheating, and he had good oil pressure. Darkness was coming, Harmon looked up the steep hill that stopped at the top like it used to come to a point and some ancient god just cut it off. Once he got to the top of the steep climb he'd be on wide flat piece of ground, the place where stood the Old Jensen Place. The place where he'd start getting some answers. Please god, he prayed, please god, I need some answers, some sense. Nothing makes sense.

He started his climb in his good boots. The ones with the good tread, he'd need them, this hill was a killer.

*******************************************

Amy topped the steep rise as the sun was making its exit. The small slice of bone that peeked out of her heel, now looked no more serious than a hickey. Flies had started making homes in her open calve, her knees were completely barren of flesh. A half moon of naked, dried muscle and tendon showed on each of her palms. One eye hung open, the bottom lid - included: stitch style streamers! - lay loose against her cheek bone. The upper lid had the body language of a loose tooth just before it comes out, just wagging around in the empty socket behind.

The sides of her forearms were taking their punishment now as she did a version of the 'army crawl'. It wasn't far to the back to door she was aimed at, yet by the time she thumped her torn right forearm against it, the sick sun was setting. The light was failing.