“Yes sir.”
“There’s this little store, red and white striped canopy out front. It’s an old-time soda fountain. Your grandmother and I used to stop there sometimes. We’d get some hamburgers and a couple of root beers to go, and we’d bring them with us up to that hill.”
“You think it’s still open?” I said.
“We drove right past it not thirty minutes ago. Big red Open sign hanging in the window.”
“What is it you want from there?”
“You go in and ask them for that old-fashioned root beer they sell. I can’t think of the name of it now, but they’ll know. See if you can get us a couple bottles.”
“It will take me most of an hour probably.”
“I’ve driven it plenty of times, son. I know how long it will take.”
I looked toward the hill. “That hill’s a good quarter mile away from here, Pops. I don’t even see a path anywhere.”
“You go through the corn. That’s the only way to get there. But from up on top of that hill, you can see miles and miles all around. You can see a river, half a dozen little towns, mile after mile of trees and woods. Think how it must look on a day like this. I want to see it all again. Just me and your grandmother.”
I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t want to disobey him either. I could see how important it was to him.
“Promise me that if you get tired . . .”
He looked back through the truck at me. “I’m not stupid, Rusty. Give me that much credit anyway.”
“I’ve never once thought you were stupid, Pops.”
He gave me a wink and a smile. Then he turned away and went into the field of stubble.
It took me twenty-five minutes to get back to Jamestown. I spent another fifteen driving up and down Main Street, looking for that red and white striped canopy. Finally I climbed out and asked a fellow not much younger than Pops where I could find the soda fountain. He pointed across the street to a Tru-Value Hardware store. I asked him how long the soda fountain had been closed down, and he said the early eighties. Eighty-three. Maybe eighty-four.
I sat there in the truck a couple minutes, trying to figure things out. Why had Pops lied to me? Or did he really believe the fountain was still there?
It didn’t take me long to come to an understanding. I drove like a bat out of hell after that, even though I knew it wouldn’t do me any good.
It wasn’t until the next day, when I called Pops’ doctor, that I found out about his heart. “Last time I saw him was three weeks ago,” the doctor told me. “We found evidence of at least two previous infarctions, both fairly recent.”
Knowing Pops, if the climb itself didn’t do him in, he had plenty of time to go back down and up again, or to jog in circles around the top of that hill, whatever it took until he got what he went there to get. All I know for sure is that he was looking up into the sky when I found him. And he was grinning that grin of his, showing his beautiful white teeth, looking like he knew he’d put something over on me again.
I’m going to have to delete all this soon, Spence. I can’t be keeping all this on my computer for somebody to find. I’ve known it a long time now but I really hate to do it. If you were here I bet you’d have an explanation for that feeling. I don’t remember anything you couldn’t eventually puzzle out.
The thing is, deleting this is going to feel like I’m the only one left anymore. I’m not saying that exactly right, I guess. What I mean is that all the people I counted on for advice from time to time will be gone forever now. First Mom. Then Gee. Then Pops. And now you.
And now I can almost hear you laughing at me. “Pull on your big boy pants and get to work,” you’re saying. “You keep sitting there with your creamy white ass hanging out, that big hairy elephant’s going to sniff you out for sure.”
So okay, I guess this is it. I just wanted you to know I’ve decided to keep paying rent on Pops’ storage unit. Keep things the way they are for a while. I like to go there sometimes, just to sit in the darkness with the door closed, surrounded by those few things Pops and Gee and Mom cared about enough to keep, all those little pieces of the lives they lived and the ones I was lucky enough to share. That’s where I am right now, in fact. Sitting here with my laptop on my knees. Trying to say another goodbye.
I just need to be by myself sometimes. Knowing now what I am, what I’m capable of, it’s the best thing for me. So I’m lucky I have this place. This we’ll defend, right? This we’ll defend.
I especially like it here on cool fall days like this one, when the rain is beating down on the metal roof, and even a box of concrete and steel starts to smell like something fresh again, like maybe it really is halfway possible to box up the past and still enjoy it, still remember the good things and the good people, all the laughs and the love we shared together, without letting yourself be crushed flat by all the bad stuff behind it and all the bad stuff up ahead.
Despite everything that’s happened, I still enjoy the rain. But I don’t look at it anymore the way Gee did. She said it’s God’s way of washing everything clean and starting again. Me, I’m not so sure. I guess I believe we don’t get anything like forgiveness in this lifetime, no matter how hard we pray for it. No matter where we hide the bad things we’ve done. Once done, they’re always done. We can try to make something good out of it, which is what I intend to do with that drug money, though nothing for me. Not a penny of it for me. But even so, forgiveness is pretty much out of the question in the here and now. In this vale of tears, as Gee used to call it, all we get is the rain.
So I guess that’s it. That’s about all I’ve got to say. I won’t be writing to you again, stirring up all the ashes of the past. It’s time for me to put my shoulder to the wheel and concentrate on my little ones.
So long, my brother.
Spin and die . . .
And maybe, just maybe, who knows? Live again, butterfly.