Once They Are Gone |
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Out the bay window, Tiffany Charleston sees the minister’s son walking through her garden dragging what looks like a dead cat. As she continues to watch, she sees his mother, Carol Glen, vaccuming away as usual.
“I should call her and make sure she knows Sam is over here,” Tiffany thinks as she puts down the laundry basket she was taking upstairs then reaches for the phone.
“Carol here,” is the answer after a few rings.
“Carol, this is Tiffany Charleston. I just thought you might want to know that your son has been dragging Lazarus around my vegetable garden for the last twenty minutes.”
Carol tries to deny it at first, but eventually she says, “I’ll just go check on Sammy’s crib and be right back, dear.” And then she leaves Tiffany waiting on the phone without so much as a goodbye.
“My children would never have done something so outlandish as to play with a dirty, dead cat. My kids always knew better,” she says as she walks up stairs. As she reaches the top she looks out a window and sees Stanley sitting on the curb.
“That child is so weird. He is just sitting there, doing nothing.” Tiffany says out loud to herself. “That strange child only sits there or walks around as if in a daze.”
While folding socks together, she happens to glance up and see the time. “Oh shoot, Joe will be home soon and I have not started lunch yet.”
After finishing she rushes down stairs to the kitchen and pulls out the sandwich bread, meat and cheese to get Joe’s lunch ready. As soon as Tiffany puts the mustard back in the fridge, Joe walks in through the front door.
“Hey, Tiff, what’s for lunch?” Joe bellows while he walks to the kitchen.
“The basics today; sandwich, pickle, and cottage cheese.” Tiffany says as she lays the plate on the table where Joe always sits.
Grunting silently in disapproval, Joe sits and begins to eat. Yet Tiffany chooses to ignore it and decides this is a good time to talk to Joe about their youngest child, Roslyn.
“Joe, I want to talk to you about Roslyn,” she starts off but does not give him time to reply. “She is leaving at the end of this summer for college and I thought it might be fun if you and I went on a trip.”
After chewing and swallowing, Joe replys without even looking away from his food, “You know I can’t take time off from work. The bar and the gas station are doing well, and I don’t want to leave and have something go wrong.”
“What about just a weekend? That Thompson boy, Clint, he can handle the station for a weekend and David can take the bar. You know he’s always liked working with you at the bar. He can handle it for a weekend,” Tiffany stressed.
“Hmpf, we’ll see. Tiff.” Joe says as he rises from the table and walks back to the front door, “I’m off then. Thanks for lunch.” And with that he iss out the front door.
Tiffany sits at the kitchen table for a while thinking, “I don’t know what we are going to do when Roslyn leaves. With all of my children gone it’s only going to be me and Joe till Christmas time when they come back.” Leaning back in the chair her thoughts continue with the fears of Joe no longer loving her, if they have anything in common anymore, will she be alone most of the time since Joe has become more and more of a workaholic.
Tiffany welcomes the sounds in the house, Roslyn’s stereo playing her favorite band and the sound of David’s computer as he works on a summer class project. Yet she knows he will go back to school too. Tiffany puts the plate in the dishwasher and goes back up stairs to finish the laundry. She happens to glance through the upstairs window and see that Stanley is still sitting in the same spot as before.
“I guess it can’t be as bad as Stanley has it. That boy is always alone,” she says out loud before thinking, “You know, I guess I can manage. That weird boy has no friends and is always alone. I am very popular in this town. I will simply not stay at the house all day. As for me and Joe, well, I think I still love him.”
Tiffany goes around the house the rest of the day finishing up projects and cleaning up a bit. When it gets to be about the time that Joe should be off she goes back to the kitchen to begin making the pork chops for dinner.
Joe soon walks in and comes back to the kitchen. Tiffany has her back to him while she is mixing the salad but asks, “How was work? Did you ever find that missing bottle of rum?”
“Yeah, I found it, looks like it got put in with the vodka. It’s hard to find good help these days. I am going to change quick. I’ll be right back,” Joe says as he turns to leave.
Tiffany stands there for a few seconds just looking at the food and thinking, “Well, if I get really lonely I could invite Stanley in for a while, or maybe I will see if Sammy can find that cat of his again.”
*****
Shifting Perspective |
Mrs. Carol Glenn could see Main Street from her kitchen sink. She liked to keep an eye on her neighbors while she washed dishes, and she considered herself to be part of a kind of informal neighborhood watch. It was her duty, as a concerned citizen and the wife of the town’s only minister, to help observe the people around her and make sure the moral integrity of her small town slumped no further. She achieved this through the use of her keen eye and smart ability to spread information. Carol knew that though they did not always verbalize their appreciation, the good and upright citizens of Charleston appreciated her dedicated service.
Out of all the residents of their town, Stanley Stuart was perhaps the most peculiar. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old and he always appeared dirty and unkempt. He was constantly roaming the streets, forever on his way to somewhere new. Rarely talking, he came and went as he pleased. No one knew much about Stanley’s parents. This bothered Carol. Such a young child should not be allowed so much freedom. She often looked to her own dear Sammy, only a few years younger than Stanley, and thought how much this odd child could have benefitted from a little structure and some good Christian family values.
Along with patrolling the lives of her neighbors, Mrs. Glenn was also active in the choir at her husband’s church, she knitted with a group of ladies who met once a week to discuss current town affairs, she helped plan the church’s summer vacation bible school program, and she was a volunteer at the local elementary school. The fact that she now had another bun in the oven did not hinder her activities and obligations in the least.
Carol’s belly gently touched the side of the countertop as she leaned carefully over her sink in order to peer further out the window when she noticed Stanley walking by. “Maybe I should invite that poor dear in. A stable family environment could do wonders,” she thought to herself. She immediately put down her dishrag and hurried outside, yelling, “Stanley, dear, would you like some cookies?” Stanley ignored her approach and continued on as if on a secret mission of some kind. Soon Mrs. Glenn was left standing alone outside her house. Returning to her dishes, she could not help but wonder where Stanley’s parents were and why they let their young son wander so freely about the town. Didn’t they worry? Didn’t they care? Who were these reckless people? She would have to invite them to church.
Carol finally sat down to take a break hours later, after the dishes were done, the laundry was folded and dried, the carpets had received their daily vacuuming, and all of Sammy’s toys had been put away. Resting in a chair in the living room, she surveyed her home. The pinnacle of perfection, everything was in its place, warm and welcoming. Cleanliness was next to Godliness, and Carol knew she would be welcomed into those pearly gates someday.
Mrs. Glenn’s rest came abruptly to an end with the ring of the telephone. “Carol, this is Tiffany Charleston,” said the woman on the other end.
“Well hello, Tiffany. How are you doing, my dear?” Carol responded in her usual sugary tone.
“Fine, fine, thank you. I just thought you might want to know that your son has been dragging Lazarus around my vegetable garden for the last twenty minutes,” said Tiffany, sounding irritated.
Carol immediately refuted her accusation, “Lazarus died last week, Tiffany. Gary buried him in the back yard. And Sammy is asleep in his bed. You must be mistaken.”
“Well it certainly looks like Lazy, Carol. He has one brown ear. There isn’t another cat in town like it. And Sammy is wearing his red overalls,” Tiffany explained, annoyed her neighbor would doubt her.
“I’ll just go check on Sammy’s crib and be right back, dear,” said Mrs. Glenn doubtfully.
She had put Sammy down for a nap only one short hour ago, and he often slept much longer. Upon entering his room, Carol leaned over his crib and discovered that he was nowhere to be found. Instead a little balled-up blanket lay under his top covers, making it appear as if he had been sleeping there all along.
Mrs. Glenn felt a chill run through her spine as she raced out of her son’s room, out of her well-kept house, and down the street to the Charleston’s. “Are you there, Carol?” inquired Tiffany, still waiting on the phone. This was far from Carol’s mind as she sprinted down the street. “Why didn’t I explain to Sam about Lazy? I wanted to protect him from the harshness of death. He wasn’t ready. He was too young. How could he understand? I did the right thing,” she argued to herself as she ran.
Just as Tiffany had described, Mrs. Glenn soon discovered her son crouching over the Charleston’s vegetable garden with a shovel in one hand and their dead cat, Lazy, held firmly in the other. Without a word of greeting she picked him up out of the dirt and, holding him out several feet in front of her, she began to shake him and demand he drop the cat. “But why, Mommy? Lazy is sleeping,” Sammy responded as he began to cry. With a look of pure mortification, she tried to quiet him. She knew Mrs. Charleston would be watching from her window, ready to alert the neighbors of this embarrassing incident and she didn’t need to draw any extra attention. At that moment she noticed Stanley sitting calmly in a swing at the swing set. Their eyes met and it dawned on her, as she stood shaking the dead cat out of the stubborn grasp of her small son, how much her seemingly perfect world had in common with Stanley’s.
*****
Cheating Routine
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Janet woke to, what to her, sounded like a very loud blaring of her alarm clock. Glancing over at her husband, she found Sam drool-snoring on his pillow, as usual, after yet another late night at the office. Sighing, she rolled out of bed, wrapped her housecoat tightly around her and padded softly to the kitchen to put on the coffee.
6 a.m. The early hustlers and bustlers of Charleston were just beginning their hustling and bustling. Janet stood at her kitchen window watching a couple mini-vans and SUVs drive down her street. She somewhat unconsciously compared them all to the Dodge Caravan in her own two-stall garage.
The timer on her Bunn coffee maker went off, snapping Janet out of her early morning musings. She sipped her coffee absent-mindedly, preparing herself for another routine day. Sam would wake in another forty-five minutes at 7 a.m. and be off to work by 7:30 arriving at the Real Estate office by 7:55. He might pause long enough to give Janet a good-bye-have-a-nice-day peck on the cheek before rushing out the door. Just after the door closed behind Sam and the sound of his Escalade disappeared, Janet would wake her boys. That was the routine at the Micheals’ family home. Janet came to thrive on routine.
“Mornin’” Sam smiled at her with the same smile he plastered on at work for his clients. Janet smiled back briefly. Shaking herself inwardly a bit, she brought herself to ask genuinely and cheerfully, “Another late night at the office? I hope everything’s going alright?”
“Ah, yeah. Lots of busy work. Trying to work out clientele…ah, it’s alright, baby,” he said, brushing her off, selling his words like he sold houses.
Janet couldn’t help feeling disheartened and disappointed. Relying on her routine, she pushed everything out of her mind except what she had to do for the day. She walked back to the kitchen where she made the boys French toast. Out the window she again counted the passing vehicles inadvertently comparing them to her Dodge Caravan. She sighed and rolled her eyes in anticipated annoyance as Stanley pulled his wagon behind him right up to her front walk where he preceded to rummage through her rock garden taking the ones he liked and leaving the rest.
In frustration, Janet wondered if Stanley’s parents simply didn’t understand the idea of routine, discipline, and the importance of both. The people of Charleston would never see any of her sons traipsing about stealing rocks from other people’s rock gardens! Perhaps Janet was the only one who even noticed the poor boy had no boundaries or guidelines in his life. Without routine and organized activities, it was no wonder kids like Stanley took to stealing and wandering.
Janet chose to ignore Stanley, as was her custom, and drove her boys to their Tigers soccer practice at 9 a.m. When she got back home, Stanley was still digging through her rock garden. Quite out of the ordinary, Janet stopped and watched Stanley choose two rocks before asking,
“What on earth are you doing? Don’t you have some other place you should be? What makes you think it’s O.K. to steal my rocks?”
“They can’t be nobody’s rocks, Mrs. Micheals. They come from the ground. You just got ‘em all piled up here in your yard. Makes it easy to pick ‘em out and keep the ones I like.”
“Well haven’t you got any other place to be, Stanley? Didn’t anyone ever teach you the importance of staying busy and active?”
“Yes, Mrs. Micheals. My NanNan said I should get outside and play whenever I could. An’ I like collecting rocks. You’ve got some of the prettiest ones, too.”
“Thank you, Stanley, but I really think you ought to learn the importance of a routine, too, not just collecting rocks and running about whenever you feel like it.”
“NanNan says people fall into routines so they don’t have to do anything else. She says routines make you forget to just be happy an’ smell the roses or something like that. Sometimes I take my wagon and fill it up with weird sticks just to remember how much I like rocks. I’ve got some pretty cool sticks, too, but mostly rocks.”
She excused herself and walked inside to call Sam to confirm their lunch date at 11:45 a.m. Sam put on a great show of disappointed regret as he told Janet he wouldn’t be able to make it but that she should have a great lunch. As she hung up the phone, she glanced again through her kitchen window at Stanley.
Letting what the boy said sink in, Janet finally let herself realize what she’d known all along. Smiling, heart pounding, breathing shallowly, she grabbed her keys and headed to Fred’s where she picked up lunch for two. Breaking out of her routine, her denial, for the first time in 12 years, she drove to Sam’s office building, stormd past the unmanned secretary’s desk and right into Sam’s office where a pantless Sam and a shirtless secretary sat in Sam’s desk chair. Janet chucked the Styrofoam encased food on Sam’s desk. In the most maliciously, sarcastically sweet tone Janet unleashed.
“Here, darling. Since you couldn’t make it out to lunch I thought I’d be a good little wife and bring it to you. Don’t worry, sweetie, I know you’re busy. I won’t stay. Oh, and you should probably look for a place to stay tonight. According to our pre-nupt, I now own the house and two-thirds of everything you own. Enjoy your lunch.”
Janet slammed the door behind her feeling elated, relieved, free, and scared shitless. She laugh-cried her way back home where she found Stanley still perusing her rock garden. After settling down, at least for the moment, Janet sat down with Stanley and picked out pretty rocks.
*****
Wringers |
Katie Wringer got herself ready for the day before the sun rose, curling her hair in a mass of tweaks and hairspray. Her yellow daisy dress was the choice for today. She put on white shoes with a little lace across the middle and a big straw hat that covered her hair. Then she went outside her front door, where she was greeted by Don’s Used Car and Tire Lot.
She looked at the car lot and noticed weeds growing along the fence surrounding shabby cars and heaps of tires. The place could look so much nicer, like when Donald first started his business. A few years into the job he had started drinking. With the drinking came the careless way he handled himself and his beloved lot. He once wore a tie every day, with his hair slicked back and his whiskers trimmed and groomed to perfection. His tie was now covered in dust in some closet. His hair was still slicked back, but he didn’t need hair gel to make it stay. It seemed everything was falling to pieces: His car lot, his life, their marriage.
Her face scrunched up and a look of determination flashed in her eyes. She went out behind the house and came back with an old gas weed eater. She primed the machine a few times and pulled the string, the eater kicking to life. She walked over and began on a small patch of weeds. They fell like dominos and made a clean, flat cut. It was simple and easy. Within a half an hour she had cut every weed outside the building. Another few minutes and the inside looked the same. The sun beat down on her face, but she just blinked the sweat away and went to work on the weeds surrounding the tire pile.
Darrel had made up his mind to close the car lot while he was recovering again. Katie had agreed, but secretly had kept up the business on her own. She wasn’t a pro by any means, but she understood what people wanted. Once her chores were done for the day, Katie would look up information about the cars in her lot— gas mileage, years and makes, accident reports, special tweaks the last buyer may have put in. She read through the Blue book daily, memorizing prices and adding slight markups to be competitive with other sellers.
She had just finished weed eating when Stanley walked by, his head apparently in the clouds. She didn’t mind the boy; in fact, she thought he was a good kid; he just had no guidance in his life. His parents were never to be seen, and he seemed to pass the time by exploring the town rather than reading or working on a farm.
“Hey, Stanley! Come on over here!”
He lowered his head and looked at her, a queer smile crossing his face. He ran over and stood a couple feet away. She waited for him to approach a bit closer, but he stood and smiled.
“Hey, Stanley, how would you like to make money?” Stanley’s eyes glittered with excitement, but didn’t say anything. “I’ve got a problem. Ya see, my car lot isn’t paved, it’s dirt. And every rain we have, some more big rocks come up from the earth! So, I’ll make ya a deal, right here. For every big rock you pick up and put over there,” she points behind the fence, near her house, “I’ll give you a nickel. If you find twenty rocks bigger than your hand, I’ll give you a whole dollar!”
Stanley smiled wider, cocked his head a bit and ran inside the lot, scrounging on the ground, prying up rocks with his fingers and trying to pull up anything that looked like a rock. She smiled and watched him for a while, then went inside her kitchen, placing her straw hat on the table, then walking upstairs. She expected her husband to be still lying in bed moaning, but she was startled to see that he was sitting up, staring out the window. He was staring at Stanley.
“Hey, why’s that boy cleaning up my property? It don’t matter what it looks like, it’s closed.” The medication that the doctor gave him makes him woozy and sometimes angry, but he still spoke clearly.
“Well, Donald, he looked bored so I fetched him and told him to pick up those annoying rocks that always seem to pop up after a storm. It’s just one dollar I’m givin him. It’s not gonna break anybody.”
“Damnit, Kate, nobody’s working there! We can’t be giving money to people for jobs we don’t need done! I mean, you can do that kind of shit with your day. You’ve got enough free time! Don’t be payin’ some snot-nosed kid do the shit you can do!” He rose to his feet, wobbly and unsure, and took a few tentative steps toward her, but blinked a few times and fell back into bed. He tossed his head into the pillow, mumbled “Damnit, damnit, damnit…” and began to cry quietly.
She walked back outside to Stanley, who was still looking around for rocks. He’d made a large pile, probably over 20 rocks. She found him digging under a ’82 Studebaker and handed him a dollar. She watched the small child grin and stared at what her hard work had accomplished. She only wished her hard work could also fix her husband. Stanley gripped the dollar hard, then skipped away down the street. She watched him leave, wondering how life would have been different if she could have had a child. Maybe she would have some extra help cleaning around the lot, someone like Stanley to help her out. Maybe Donald wouldn’t have gone on drinking binges. She pushed the thought out of her head; it didn’t matter. She held her head high and sat outside on an old rocking chair, waiting for customers who wouldn’t be coming, for change that wouldn’t either.
*****
Realization |
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Clint Thompson was woken up by the sound of his alarm clock. It was a Saturday and he had been given the morning shift at the gas station. Mr. Charleston was a very impatient man and expected his employees to be prompt. Clint turned his head to notice that it was 8:45. He began to panic.
“Oh my God! I can’t believe I overslept by an hour! Charleston isn’t going to be a happy man at all!” Clint scrambled from his bed and began throwing his work uniform on in a hurry.
He rushed out the door and ran down to the gas station. As he was running by, he noticed something a little boy dragging a red wagon behind him. The little boy looked rather lonely, but at the same time, didn’t seem to mind that he was all alone. As Clint continued to watch the boy, he failed to notice that his boss was right in front of him and nearly crashed into him. Joe Charleston was not a happy man when he saw how late Clint was.
“Thompson!! I will not tolerate your lack your tardiness anymore! Maybe they are less strict at that fancy college of yours, but here at my gas station, I will not stand for it. Thisis the last chance I’m giving you. Do not screw this up!! What ever happened to the old you...the responsible one? Oh well, I guess shit happens.”
Joe stormed away and Clint hurried to attend the waiting customers. As the day rolled by, there weren’t too many people coming by the gas station. But then in a town of 300, what was one to expect? However, a few interesting events occurred while Clint was at work: at one point, he saw a different little boy dragging around a dead cat and his mother eventually coming and telling the little boy it wasn’t appropriate to be dragging dead critters across town.
He also saw the same little boy as before, dragging his red wagon behind him. Clint started wondering what that kid was up to. He watched him stop at the used car lot, where he started picking up rocks and saw a lady give him a dollar after a while. Then he watched him wander close to the Michaels’ house and pick through the rocks and saw him getting yelled at by Mrs. Michaels. This kid was starting to amuse Clint.
“Okay, Thompson, time to close shop. Go on, get out of here,” Joe finally told him at around 6.
Clint was relieved to be getting off work somewhat early, so he headed to the bar next door. He remained there for the next six hours, chatting it up with the few people that were in the bar. It was around midnight when he had decided he had enough and stumbled out of the bar. Clint seemed to remind himself that he had work the next day.
As he came out of the bar, he didn’t make it very far and sat down in front of the apartment complex which neighbored the bar. He didn’t seem to notice the little boy sitting there as well, playing with some rock. He did notice him when the boy threw a rock into the street.
“Hey, kid, what are you doing up so late? Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Clint asked the boy. The kid shrugged his shoulders and continued to throw rocks in the street.
“What’s your name, kid?” Once again, Clint tried to start a conversation with the boy.
“....” The boy continued to be silent and threw rocks in the street. But Clint had noticed there was a name tag on the wagon which read ‘Stanley.’
“So, Stanley, what are you doing up so late? Little kids like you shouldn’t be wandering these streets around bar time. It’s a dangerous situation,” Clint slurred.
“....”
Clint began to remember his past. “I can remember this one time...when I said I was going to a friend’s place and they told me to come back at like ten that evening. But I didn’t listen to them...I stayed there until like...one in the morning. And, boy, did I get a whooping because I didn’t listen...oh wow....that seemed so long ago...I remember that I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere for a while after that, because what I did was irresponsible..”
“And then there was that time I was going for assistant manager here at the gas station and I was getting special treatment. I started abusing that and started coming into work whenever I felt like. Talk about irresponsible...and I eventually lost my opportunity for good on even getting far in that job. I was angry at first, because I thought the treatment was unfair, but now looking at it, I didn’t have the right to be mad. Oh yeah, and then there is college...I decided that partying was a lot more important than studying. Now I don’t know if I am going to be headed back next fall...wow...”
Clint started pondering all these moments in his head. Now he wished he had been more responsible. Maybe he would have gotten somewhere in life. And this little kid, Stanley, unknowingly, helped him realize all these things. Oh, how Clint wished he could turn back the hands of time. He wished he could fix his mistakes, be given another chance. But he knew that it was too late for that. He needed to start fresh.
“Hey, Stanley. Thanks for making me realize how much I need to change my life. Whether you know it or not, you’re a lifesaver.” Clint then patted the boy on the back and walked back to his house to get some sleep.