Generations in Agony...Texas: Chapter Twenty-three

23) The heart is a lonely hunter…

For the last four days, Charlie was on top of the world. Sam was always on his mind. Thoughts that he had no idea he possessed ran through his head. Scenes from movies, the ones he normally turned his head away from—kissing and stuff like that—now forced his heart to thump.

He got up each morning, went to work till one in the afternoon. Sam came by every day, stopping in and just watching Charlie work, not that he had all that much to do; most of his job he had handled by nine. At one, they rode off together for the ball field; Sam sitting in the front basket giggling while Charlie struggled to steer and keep them upright as they rolled down the street.

By four, they were back at the AirStream, sitting in the little pool, pretending to read, at least Charlie was. He was simply too distracted with the girl to really concentrate much. She kept rubbing her toes up and down his shins, and after the second day, their walks home included some hand holding; it was a sweaty affair that to Charlie felt like magic.

This day had started well. Charlie had the station open for business by seven, then set about ordering the parts Caleb would need. He planned to go down to Mulligan’s and pick up the parts so he would be all caught up when Sam dropped by.

By eleven, she still had not shown. By noon, he was getting a little worried that something might be wrong. He watched the clock as the minutes ticked by; his foot tapped incessantly as he waited out the last few seconds before one o’clock. “Caleb, it’s one, I’m going now.”

“Okay, Charlie. See ya tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be here…” He pushed the bike and jumped on, then peddled like a man possessed as he headed for the trailer park.

As soon as he turned on the little dirt road, he could already see that the AirStream was not there. He pulled into the lot and stood astraddle the bike. Then, he dropped the bike and walked around looking, his mind numb, his heart refusing to believe what his eyes saw.

There was still mud around the spot where the pool had been. A stake was in the ground and he noticed that a note had been attached to it. Dashing to it, he ripped it from the stake and opened it up.

Dear Charlie,

My daddy took another job up in Midland. It was very sudden, I only found out last night. I hate that it had to be like this. Now I know what Shakespeare meant when he said ‘parting is such sweet sorrow.’
Maybe we’ll meet up again one day. I’ll miss you.

Sam.

P.S. I never told anybody this, but my real name is Gertrude. Daddy still calls me Gerdy, but I hate it.


Hot tears simply burst from his eyes. As Charlie stood there staring at the note, his head spun with disbelief. They had only just met, now it was all over because her father was Oil Patch, and that meant she was too. The idea that something else had hurt him deeply, something else that he had no say about, made him burn with anger. He wadded up the note and tossed it into the hot wind. As dust collected in his tear tracks, he finally turned and picked up his bike and rode off down the street.

He did not want to go to the field. Playing baseball just had no appeal to Charlie in the state he found himself. The thoughts Sam had introduced were hard ones to pin down and understand. Now, they were further complicated by the fact that it had been so abruptly ended. As he rode, he tried hard to find a place to put his feelings. He hated crying, and had not cried since his father’s death. That had cause so many tears that he ended up vowing to himself to never cry again.

The note had caught him unaware, but his tears made him angry. He turned down Gusher and rode to his house. It was still early, so mom was still at the office. There was some leftover spaghetti in the refrigerator. He sat down at the table and stuffed it in his face cold, not caring. Morose thoughts kept flashing around his mind. He wished he could somehow catch up with her father’s truck and talk her into coming back with him. For an absurd few minutes, he imagined himself riding Sam back to Agony, a big smile on her face and her purple toenails pointed out ahead of them.

When the tears tried to surface again, he cut them off and walked out the back door to the outhouse, where he stepped in and sat down. It was hot in the box, as usual. A few flies buzzed around, but he did not care. With his chin in his hands, he stared at his shoes and tried to push Sam from his thoughts. But, it would not work. Her bright smile, her dark eyes, kept popping up on the big movie screen in his head.

*

They had closed the office early. The last appointment had been a one-thirty. Carla shut the file cabinet when Thurmond came around the corner. “Want to go over to your place for a bit?” He looked pretty hopeful.

Carla smiled, “I’d like that, Thurmond.”

“I hoped you would…”

Both of them had been holding back from taking this to another level. But, want and need by both was turning the tide of their own inner battles. Like trying to hold back a dam, neither was going to be able to resist much longer anyhow.

Carla drove her Nomad down Gusher; Thurmond followed. As she turned into the driveway, she had a moment of wondering: has everyone in town already seen us? Do they know what is going on between us?

When she stood on her driveway, and as Thurmond got his Chevy parked, Carla glanced up and down the street. It was just as windswept, dusty and hot as ever. No one was around. Thurmond walked up to her. He did not look for watchers. He simply took her in his arms and kissed her as if they were Rett and Scarlet in a steamy scene from Gone With the Wind.

Carla felt herself letting go. All the pain, the suffering that she and Charlie had gone through when Carl was killed, the move and the strangeness of this new town, fell behind her as she pulled out onto the freeway of a new relationship. How she would explain it all to her son, she did not care about, for the moment.

They turned and walked, arm in arm, to the house.

*

Charlie was watching them through the front window. His heart drummed in his chest as the two of them kissed. His vision blurred and he saw red flames around the image of his mother and the Doc. As they moved for the house, he backed away from the window, then into the kitchen, and finally out the back door, just before they came inside the front.

He rolled his bike around the house quietly, then jumped on and fled back up the street. Whatever they were doing in that house, he could only think of it as wrong. His father was hardly cold in his grave, and mom was already taking up with another man. It did not matter that he had already come to like the Doc, as a person. He now represented his father’s replacement, as far as Charlie was concerned. And, he was not going to let those thoughts take root in his heart.

The tears came again; he could not stop them. So, he pushed down on his pedals as hard as he could and rode without thought for where he was going. Away… Was all he could put thought to. As far away from that house as possible.

*