While I watched Marty wolf down
his second package of Twinkies one morning, I began to think about
change. Twinkies were exactly the same as when we were in the seventh
grade. While everyone I knew and the rest of creation never stopped changing,
Twinkies had remained the same. The only other part of my life that
never changed were my memories. They were fixed, although by now fading.
We were sitting in his rowboat on
a small lake and I was thinking of our conversation the night before about all
the fun we had since seventh grade, from calling up girls together to camping
out up in the South Woods.
When I spoke later, I think I woke
him up.
"So, is this as much fun as
when we were sixteen?"
"No," he said, "at
sixteen I was out here on the lake with my old girlfriend."
"Come to think of it," I
said, "so was I."
Marty smiled and pulled his cell
phone from his pants pocket. "Do you think we should call up our old girl
friends?" he said.
"They may still live in the
area, somewhere around town," I said.
"I think yours does," he
said. "Mine may not be far away."
Marty put his phone away and for a
time we were silent again as we cast fly and lure, lost in our own
thoughts. I had lied, just a little. Sally and I had sat on the
dock. We were fifteen and sixteen. She would have never gotten in a
rowboat and gone out on the lake with me alone. Her parents were too
concerned for her well being to put her in the hands of a boy whose sanity they
surely wondered about. Had we rowed out fifty feet and her mother heard of it
there would have been hell to pay. Then too, leaving us alone with each
other happened only within the prescribed format of a date or a dance.
Only as we got older was I allowed to whisk her off alone in my father’s
car.
At the time neither of us
appreciated such restrictions, implemented for both our physical safety as well
as our moral virtue. I have to assume when Sally and I each became a
parent our minds changed. Mine did. Our parents’ watchfulness
helped us to enter our adulthood with options that otherwise might have been
lost to the demands of our hormones. One false step and a young woman
could find herself pregnant. She might have to work to support a child
and thereby lose the opportunity for college or give up the personal freedom
needed to invest in the start of a career. The chances of meeting a mature and
responsible mate might considerably diminish. Marty and I were
lucky. We had parents who cared and we married the daughters of parents
who did likewise.
But it would be nice to renew old
acquaintances. Some might feel we should leave old flames in the ashes of
our past, but as my old friend and I sat out on the lake I got to thinking that
we had recently turned seventy and that made things somewhat different than if
we had all been in our thirties.
“I don’t think our wives would
mind if we called up our old girlfriends just to say ‘Hi,’” I said.
“You don’t?” said Marty.
“Which universe are you living in?”
“But this is just as old friends,
not lovers,” I said.
“I assume that’s your story and
you’re sticking to it?”
“OK, we could call their husbands
first," I said, "and explain we're just sitting out here fishing and
thinking about their wives."
"Oh. OK," he said.
"They would probably
understand."
"You think?” he said,
shaking his head, “I doubt it.“
"I mean, after all, the women
should see us now. Don't you agree?"
"No, I don’t."
"But we're mature now,
accomplished, successful," I said.
"We're also fifty pounds
heavier, sagging and balding."
"Well, maybe they are
too." I said.
"Precisely," he said as
he glanced at me.
It hadn’t occurred to me we would
look that different.
"Right,” I said. “None
of us are Twinkies.”.
“Pardon?”
“Twinkies,” I said, “they
never change.”
“People do,” said Marty.
We continued to fish while I
walked around in my head, thinking about old times. Ten minutes later I reached
in my pocket and felt for my cell phone. Pulling it out and flipping it
open, I saw the nearest cell tower nudging up the reception bar and I called
Information.
Sally had married a young man I
remembered from Boy Scouts long ago. He and I lived in different parts of
the city and were not in the same troop, but I saw him once each year at the
town-wide Scout celebration night. He often received another award while
I sat on the sidelines wondering how the heck anyone found enough time to
pursue all that glory. He had worked hard on his Scout craft and wore a
sash with more Merit Badges sewn on than I had ever seen before or since.
I might have remembered more about his Scouting exploits than about his bride,
my old girl friend. I would never forget his name. I had their telephone
number in sixty seconds.
“I found her,” I said to
Marty.
“And what are you going to do with
her?” he said.
“Just call up and say ‘Hi’.” I
answered.
“I have an idea,” he said.
“Why don’t we rehearse this?”
“What do you mean?”
“You play yourself,” he said, “and
I’ll play Sally.”
Marty raised his fist to his ear
and used a falsetto voice as high as he could muster.
“Hello-o-o. This is
Sa-a-lly.”
I laughed and played along.
“Hi Sally, this is Dave.”
“Dave! Where have you
been? You were supposed to mow the lawn this morning and you didn’t show
up. I’m going to fire your ass, Dave, if you miss me once more—“
“Hold on. Sally didn’t talk
like that.”
“But it’s fifty years later,” said
Marty.
“Start again,” I said. “Hi
Sally, this is Dave.”
“Dave who?”
“Dave from your teenage
years. We used to date. I gave you my class ring. We were—“
“I don’t have your class ring,
Dave. I threw it out.”
“Wait minute, Marty—“
“Wendell found it in my jewelry
box and became incensed.”
“Who is Wendell?” I said.
“Whatever her husband’s name is,”
said Marty.
“This isn’t helping,” I said.
Marty continued in a high
pitched sing-song voice, now with a southern accent. “And then Wendell
said if ah ever had any sorta contact with you, Dave … any at all, even if ma
car broke down in the swamp out yonder and you happened by … he would absolutely
never give me my allowance again. Ever!”
“What allowance?”
“A guy with a name like Wendell
would certainly give her a thousand or two a week.”
“Really,” I said, witheringly.
“At least.”
“OK.”
“How much would you have given
her?” said Marty.
“I’ve never thought about it.”
“Uh huh,” he said.
“How should I know how
much?” I said.
“Face it, you cheap bastard,” said
Marty. “You would have been good for no more than a hundred bucks a week
… tops.”
“That would have been a lot of
money back then,” I said.
“Maybe,” he said. “OK, fifty
bucks. More likely thirty.”
“What the hell does it matter,
anyway, Marty?”
“Because it’s the first question
Sally will ask you, right after she realizes you’re not the guy who mows her
lawn. ‘Dave,’ she’ll say, ‘how much of an allowance would y’all have
given me?’”
“She wasn’t like that, Marty.”
“It’s fifty years later,” he said.
I put my phone back in my pocket.
“You’re not gonna call her?” he
said.
“I’m sure she’s still a nice
girl,” I said. “She doesn’t need us bothering her.”
“Then maybe I’m wrong,” he said.
“Maybe she’s a twinkie.,” he said.
“We’d be the twinkies, Marty.
Still calling up girls we went to school with.”
copyright 2015, David Griffin
The Windswept Press
Murrells
Inlet, South Carolina
windsweptpress.com
