Direction

Bobby Goelz

Once it all ended, there wasn’t too much left to do. It was as if I had finished my test and handed it in to a teacher. But somehow, there was still another hour left in the class and all I could do was sit back at my desk.

Then, this childhood memory drove me to grab a phone book (well, whitepages.com to be more exact) and find her. I did.

I ended up taking few steps backwards and found myself in my hometown: Rudolph, Vermont. It seemed too small when I’d left it, but now that I was back, its cool pine tree forests by the main roads seemed to stretch out forever. My hands were shaking when I called her number.

“Charlotte? Charlotte Piers?”

“Yes, this is she.” Her voice was lower, more mature, but barely different from our high school days.

“It’s me! Darrel Backon!”

“Oh…my…God, Darrel! Is that really you? What have you been up to?”

“Well, I’m actually back here in Rudolph and…”

“What?!? Why?” I wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that question. She had quite the knack for asking the right thing.

“This and that,” I replied vaguely. I quickly changed the subject. “Do you want to meet me soon? I hope I’m not interrupting anything—”

“Oh, no, it’s fine! Where do you want to meet?”

“How about Molten Java?”

“What?”

“…Molten Java, Charlotte. For someone who lives here, you really—”

“Ehrm…”

“What’s wrong?”

“No, that’s fine. I’ll see you there in fifteen, kay?”

“Sure,” I replied and hung up. I was a bit confused about the reluctance in her voice, but pushed it aside. Molten Java was that little coffee place on the corner which had existed for as long as I could remember. Most days after school, we’d all hop into someone’s car and head over there for an overpriced latte and a squishy armchair. Nothing like being in high school, I thought to myself, sighing, actually excited for something. Excited to go back and see this old memory.

—

It was a Starbucks now. My disappointment was short-lived, for I soon saw her pull up in a rusty, beat-up convertible. As if the car wasn’t enough of a clue, she got out and I saw her wearing those huge bright red Moon Boots, which went out of a style about ten years before we went to high school. They matched well, though, with her bright red frames and equally bright red curly hair. Her eyes had that same dreamy, disconnected look for a moment until she saw recognized me and came running over.

 “Darrel…Backon. Oh…my…God!”  She exaggerated her lip movements between each syllable. She looked cute doing it, too. “Is that you?”

“In the flesh,” I replied, smiling. I gestured to the logo in the window with a bit of disgust. “No more molten java, eh?”

“…Yeah…I didn’t want to ruin our little moment we had on the phone.” I gave her an odd look, not understanding the sarcasm until it was a bit too late. “Ah well, you get used to it,” she continued. “So what have you been up to, anyway?”

“I don’t know.  A little bit of this and a little bit of that. What about you?”

“Well, you know me.  I never left.  Came straight back from the university to work for the town paper.  It’s a small, simple, respectable job for a small, simple, respectable lady like me.” Again, I missed the sarcasm. We walked in together and I ordered the only drink in the only size I could really pronounce: tall coffee. Charlotte’s order was about fifteen words, most of which I’d never heard before. The cashier seemed snickered and she gave him a teasing look.

“You know him?” I asked quietly, hoping to avoid embarrassment.

“Of course,” she said smugly. “He’s my boyfriend.” My heart dropped for a moment and I felt like kicking myself before I noticed her smile. “Just testing you.”

“You really have to slow up on that sarcasm, Charlotte.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

We picked up our drinks and sat down, her in a leather armchair and me in a wooden one. “So what’s been going on with our local celebrity?” she asked.

“You heard?”

“Written a few articles on you too.  We all love a hero.”  She smiled faintly, with that same look in her eye as when we were back in school. I didn’t realize how much I’d truly missed her until that moment.

“Whatever.”  I said.  “It doesn’t mean that much to me anymore.”

“I’m not surprised,” she replied quietly.  I looked up at her, bewildered.  It wasn’t the response I had expected.

“What’s up with you?”  I asked to change the subject.

“My blog sort of exploded, and somehow, I ended up on the road that took me right back home.”

I paused, basking in the stained glass sunlight.  Charlotte gazed at me, and she looked wiser than I’d remembered, the only real change I’d noticed thus far.  One of those silences happened that was somewhere on the fine line between awkward and meaningful. “I guess that’s sort of what happened to me too.”  I said.

“You had a hit blog as well?” 

I smiled back.  “Close enough.”

“I came here looking for…some future.  Hey, I was kind of thinking of just heading around, looking at the old sites.  Maybe I’ll find some treasure under a perfectly cut lawn. I don’t know.”

“This article can wait.”  Charlotte replied.  “Accompanying local celebrities to old, familiar places has always been one of my favorite pastimes.”

—

We went back and visited the old elementary school; nothing had changed except that the rooms seemed miniature.  They looked more intimate…or more cluttered.  I guess it’s one of those half-full half-empty things.

“Jesus, can you believe that we once fit in these chairs?” Charlotte said as she tried to sit down on one and fell over in attempt.  I laughed out loud, and my voice sounded unrestrained.  I helped her to her feet.

“Yeah,” I replied, taking everything in.  The bright bulletin boards and laminated stick-figure drawings sparkled. “Guess you don’t really know how you’ve grown until you look back and see everything behind you.”

“Ooh, profound.”

“Aw, shut up, Charlotte.” I laughed again.  For a moment, I felt free. It was strange.

—

Our next stop was the place where I grew up.  The grass and bushes were neatly trimmed, unlike their disheveled edges from back when I inhabited the Levittown-inspired jangle of wood we called home.  It looks more like a house now.

“Different,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” replied Charlotte. “Things have … kind of changed.”

“Kind of?”  I asked myself if this was progress. 

We walked together across the neon-green ground around the house.  Everything appeared to be clean and soft around the edges.  The kitchen was expanded into the backyard and the new section didn’t blend in with the old at all. Beneath the imitation paint job, they were still two completely different buildings.

“We should go,” said Charlotte, “After all, whoever lives here could come home at any minute, and I’m not really in the mood to get arrested for trespassing.”

“Well, any ideas on where to go now?”

“Isn’t this your journey?”

I paused. “I need your help.”

“Then let’s go back to my place. It is getting dark.”

When we reached her house, it was night.  The usual lackluster constellation in the sky somehow became more permanent.

—

She had a single-story ranch house on the edge of town. When I entered, my eyes met a colorful wall where dozens of plates were hanging up. However, they weren’t just normal plates. They had these silly childhood illustrations: Barney, Thomas the Tank Engine, Anastasia, Sesame Street. The wall on the left side of the foyer looked like some modern art painting, with bright colors splashed everywhere. The wall to the left was white, and there was a small end table which had a cage filled with…scorpions? I smiled at all of it, but she simply walked by, not noticing or explaining.

“Want some coffee?”

“Didn’t we just have some?”

“That was Starbucks. I’m offering coffee.”

I didn’t exactly understand, but figured that it would be impolite to refuse. I joined her in the kitchen and she handed me a mug. On the first sip, I noticed the difference.

“So how are we going to do this?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Do ‘it’. Sex. Fucking.” The bluntness hit me like a snowball, but I wasn’t exactly sure what else to expect from her. I immediately slipped into a different mood.

“I’d prefer to call it love-making,” I said, trying to be seductive. She moved in closer and I could smell her perfume. Had she been wearing it all day? Or did I just not notice it until we began to discuss sex?

“Love-making,” she repeated, amused. “Well do you love me, Darrel Backon?”

That seemed like the right time to move in and kiss her.

I’d had sex before, of course, and she probably had too. Who hasn’t? But something about this time felt different, as if we were both virgins, nervous wrecks. In the whirl following the kiss, the action moved to the bedroom, where everything real seemed to be flesh, red hair, green eyes, small breasts, pale legs, and everything else just darkness. It was how sex was originally supposed to be, I guess. My memory picked up a few minutes or hours afterward when I heard her voice.

“Darrel?  You still awake?”

“What?  I’m just thinking.  It’s a bad habit.”

“No, it’s just a question I have for you.”  She yawned and moaned a bit.  “It you’re searching for a future or whatever, why did you come here to your past?”

Damn good question.  This girl doesn’t miss a beat. She’s probably a very good journalist. I figured this was the right time. “I…I looked up your number and drove up here. Something made me want to see you.” I paused, waiting for a response, but none came. I felt her eyes on me in the dark, pushing me to continue. “I wanted to get out of that city, to come back to something that seemed…real. You.” I paused again. Nothing. “Maybe I can stick around, I’ll get a job and—”

She suddenly grabbed her glasses off the end table and furiously sat up.  I was so surprised by her action that I sat up and covered my face with my hands, worried that she was going to hit me. However, her voice was calm as ever “Looks like I should make more coffee. You stay right here and keep musing over your profound thoughts.”

Her sarcastic interruption came as kind of a blow to me. I was open-mouthed for a moment as the sheets rustled and she hurried off to the kitchen. I tried to think of some response for her, something right to say, but couldn’t. She came back and handed me a mug, refraining from flicking on the lamp.

“Anything else to say?” I was silent for a moment, this time waiting for her to continue. “Okay. What you’ve said is bullshit.” Her eyes were gleaming with moonlit purpose.  “What the fuck are you doing here trying to find a future? This small town isn’t for you, Darrel. I should know, I’m the one living here.”

“But Charlotte—”

“Go back to the city, or anywhere else. Just not here. You won’t be happy.”

“I am happy. I’m happy with you. I haven’t been happy like this for—” I couldn’t think of any good examples.

“There you go again, Darrel, trying to find the meaning of life in those clichés! An overused saying won’t give you any insight. You have to go, get out of here, look around before you make any real decisions.”

“But what about you, Charlotte?”

“What about me? I know that what I want and what I need is here. The paper. This house. This has nothing to do with me.”

“Charlotte, this has everything to do with you! What about love? Is there a person you might love someday here?  Is he sitting next to you in bed?  Are you trying to send him off to some unknown fate?”

She paused.  For the first time since I saw her in Starbucks, she was at a loss for words. Was she feeling as vulnerable as I? I kept pushing.

“I don’t want you waiting around in this dingy town waiting for your knight in shining armor to return.  You deserve better than that.”

“One old flame and one good fuck and suddenly you think this is forever.”

Her voice was quiet, but her phrase just as strong. I realized that we were in the same place. A stalemate. It seems as if we met a stalemate.  I sighed and gave in.

—

In the rearview mirror, Charlotte was waving, leaning on her peeled garage door.  I still felt uneasy about leaving her there to continue her life, but she loves that paper.  I knew she was right about me, and I did not want to take her away from who she was.  Her figure became smaller and smaller in the mirror until I pulled out of her driveway and all that was in front of me was asphalt and two yellow lines and all that was behind me was asphalt and two yellow lines.  

I didn’t read any of the road signs on the highway.  My instinct was my only direction.  I figured that I’d get off at some exit right when the clock struck midnight and look for something there.  I’ll look for a small town newspaper, look for an old home, look for a small chair at an elementary school, and look for a few unfamiliar things too. And I guess that I’d also be looking for Charlotte.