You Were Kind to Me ~ A Short Story
You Were Kind to Me
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~
The once-every-two years carnival was in town. Anybody who was anybody would go at least one night. Vicki-Vicki LaGrasse went on Saturday night, accompanied by two friends from high school, Pansy Dowd and Mary Lee Kaiser. When they arrived at the fairgrounds, it wasn’t quite dark yet and the crowds were thin.
“I want to go on the Ferris wheel first thing,” Pansy said.
“Before it’s even dark?” Mary Lee said.
Mary Lee was afraid of heights and, so she sat in the middle and kept her eyes closed the whole time.
“What good does it do you to ride the Ferris wheel if you don’t look down?” Pansy said.
“With my eyes closed it feels like I’m flying. I don’t have to have my eyes open to appreciate it.”
“When we get all the way to the top, I’ll push you out, and then you can really get the sensation of flying!”
After the Ferris wheel, they went to the House of Mirrors and howled with laughter at their ridiculous, distorted images. The three of them together looked three times sillier than one.
“We look like freaks!” Pansy laughed.
“Well, isn’t that what we are?” Mary Lee said.
“Say, I’m starting to get hungry. Let’s go get something to eat.”
They went to the food pavilion and ordered hot dogs and Cokes. While they were waiting for their food, they saw a tall boy across the way who seemed to be looking at them.
“Hey! Do you know him?” Pansy said. “He’s kind of cute.”
“I don’t know him,” Vicki-Vicki said without looking up.
“He’s been following us since the mirrors,” Mary Lee said.
“He’s not looking at me,” Pansy said.
“He’s not looking at me, either,” Mary Lee said. “I think he’s looking at Vicki-Vicki.”
“He’s not looking at me,” Vicki-Vicki said.
“He’s an older boy,” Pansy said. “He’s got whiskers.”
“Are you sure you don’t know him, Vicki-Vicki?”
“No, I said I don’t know him.”
“I never saw him before in my life,” Pansy said.
“He is definitely looking at Vicki-Vicki,” Mary Lee said.
“Well, I don’t want to be looked at,” Vicki-Vicki said. “So why don’t we just forget about it and go ride the Tilt-a-Whirl?”
They rode twice until Mary Lee began vomiting and the attendant had to stop the thing and let her off.
“I always get sick when I ride the Tilt-a-Whirl,” Mary Lee said.
“Then why do you ride it?” Vicki-Vicki asked.
“I’ll be all right once my head stops spinning.”
They found a place to sit quietly for a while until Mary Lee felt better. While they were sitting doing nothing, the tall boy walked past, eating from a box or popcorn.
“There he is again,” Pansy said. “It’s no coincidence that he keeps popping up.”
“Just ignore him,” Vicki-Vicki said. “He obviously just wants attention.
“He is so cute!”
“I don’t see anything about him that’s appealing.”
“Maybe you’re not looking at him in the right way.”
“I don’t want to look at him at all.”
“I’m feeling better now,” Mary Lee said. “Let’s do the Haunted House.”
“Are you sure?” Vicki-Vicki said. “I don’t want you vomiting on me again.”
“I only vomited on your shoes,” Mary Lee said. “I said I was sorry.”
They stood in a long line at the Haunted House. When they finally got in, they were surrounded by screaming younger kids.
“I didn’t know this was such a kiddie attraction,” Pansy said. “They need to be at home in bed.”
The Haunted House was screaming ghouls, severed heads, clanking chains, puffs of air, moaning corpses, flashing lights, and lots of screaming. Mary Lee admitted that she wet her pants when a monster jumped out at her but that it would dry on its own as soon as she got out into the air.
After the Haunted House, they were on their way to get some cotton candy when they stopped to watch the “Dunk the Clown” booth. A clown with an enormous nose and a painted-on mouth sat on a swing over a pool of water. For twenty-five cents, anybody could try to hit the target with a baseball that would dump the clown into the water. While the clown was in the water, he gestured to the crowd and made faces, eliciting screams and jeers. After a while he climbed out of the water and got back on the swing again for somebody else to try.
“Can you imagine being the clown?” Pansy said. “So degrading!”
“It’s his job,” Vicki-Vicki said. “Like any other job.”
“Wait a minute,” Mary Lee said. “There’s that guy again.”
“What guy?”
They all turned their heads toward the person trying to knock the clown into the water. There were lots of people standing in the way, so they had to wait for somebody to move before they could get a good look.
“Yes, it’s him,” Pansy said. “He’s there and then he’s here. He’s everywhere.”
He hit the target effortlessly with the baseball and the crowd roared. A carnival worker man handed him his prize of a stuffed animal, and the next person in line took his place.
“Now we’ve seen everything,” Pansy said.
“Let’s get some cotton candy,” Mary Lee said.
“No, he’s coming this way,” Pansy said. “He’s looking right at us.”
“Just ignore him,” Vicki-Vicki said. “He might be looking for somebody to knife.”
“I don’t think so,” Pansy said. “He looks very sweet.”
Ignoring Pansy and Mary Lee, he walked up to Vicki-Vicki and smiled at her. He towered over her.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” he said.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” she said with a tight smile.
“I remember you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Here. I want to give you this stuffed toy.”
“Thanks, but I don’t accept stuffed animals from strangers.”
“You really don’t remember me, do you?”
“I’m with a couple of my friends from school. We were just leaving.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “Don’t let me intrude.”
She looked at the stuffed animal in her hand and gave it back to him.
When she turned to go, he said, “It was in sixth grade.”
“What was in sixth grade?”
“When we knew each other.”
“That was years ago.”
“I know,” he said, “but I always remembered you.”
“I think you have me mixed up with somebody else.”
“It was Miss Spengler’s class. She had white hair and she looked just like the picture of George Washington hanging on the wall.”
“It wasn’t me. It was somebody else.”
“No, it was you, all right.”
Pansy and Mary Lee were standing behind Vicki-Vicki, taking in every word. Mary Lee giggled and Pansy pinched her on the arm.
“Maybe if you told me your name, I might remember.”
“It’s Harry.”
“Harry what?”
“Just Harry.”
“You don’t have a last name?”
“I was living in a foster home. I moved around a lot. I left school after a few months to go someplace else.”
“You sat in the back of the room?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You were taller than anybody else in the class.”
“I think you remember me now.”
“You were the only one in the class who could spell the hardest words.”
“That was me.”
“You had fried chicken for lunch. Everybody else had junk food.”
“What a memory you have!” he said.
She blushed, in spite of herself, and turned to Mary Lee and Pansy for support.
“Since you remember me now, I wonder if you’d let me give you a ride home.”
“What? Oh, no! As I said, I’m with some friends.”
“I can give them a ride, too.”
“I don’t think so. My friend’s mother is going to pick us up.”
“How about if you go with me, and your two friends can go with your friend’s mother.”
“I don’t think I should go off and leave them.”
“Surely they wouldn’t mind. Just this once. It’s a beautiful evening. There’s a full moon. We can go for a ride in the country. Tell me that doesn’t sound good.
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t think I should leave my friends.”
“Ask them.”
She turned away and consulted with Mary Lee and Pansy. They shook their heads and shrugged, showing how indifferent they were to Vicki-Vicki’s comings and goings.
In a minute she returned to him. “It’s all right,” she said. “My friends think I should go with you.”
She knew that if she didn’t accept his offer, there might never be another one. Never as in not ever. She’d die a dried-up old spinster, playing bingo in the church basement on Friday nights while smoking Marlboro cigarettes. She would be forced to remember that she had once been asked but had foolishly declined.
He drove far out into the country, twenty miles or more. She didn’t ask where they were going. She didn’t tell him she had to be home by a certain time. She didn’t care about any of that.
Finally he stopped on a bluff overlooking a river.
“I didn’t even know this was here,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
“People don’t know about it,” he said. “It’s private. That’s why I like it.”
“It’s kind of scary in the dark. You don’t know what’s lurking in those trees over there.”
“Maybe an owl or two.”
After a while she asked him about his life since sixth grade. He lived in foster homes until he was sixteen and then he struck out on his own. After he got his high school diploma, he said, he no longer needed to live with strangers.
“You’re self-sufficient. Most boys your age are still such adolescents.”
He reached her for and began kissing her. He smelled of soap and peppermint. She resisted a little bit, but not much.
“I like you,” he said. “I’ve liked you since sixth grade.”
“It’s funny how people meet again after years. When somebody appears unexpectedly in your life, I always think there’s a reason.”
“I know you didn’t think about me after the sixth grade, but I thought about you a lot. You made a very favorable impression on me.”
“Why me out of all the others?”
“You were kind to me. Nobody else bothered.”
“I’ve never done this before with a boy.”
“It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.”
Soon she was on her back and he was on top of her.
When he drove her back to town, it was almost three in the morning. She was relieved to see that her house was all dark, meaning that her mother had gone to bed. She opened the door of the truck. Before she got out, he said, “I want to marry you.”
It was the last time she ever saw him.
In a few weeks she knew that something was happening with her body. She missed one cycle and then another. She was pretty sure what was wrong, but she hoped it was something else. When she told the school nurse the symptoms she was having, the nurse gave her a test to do on herself when she got home. When she saw the results of the test, she felt a stab of panic. She was going to have to tell her parents about the carnival, the boy from sixth grade, and all the rest of it. She couldn’t keep it a secret forever.
Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp
London Paris Rome ~ A Short Story
London Paris Rome
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~
I had one sister, four years older than me. Her name was Ruth, but everybody called her Ruthie. She and I had always occupied different worlds. She stayed in her world (in her upstairs room) and I stayed in mine. I can’t say I really disliked her, but the truth was I didn’t feel much of anything when it came to her. If she went far away, I’d like to know that she was all right, but if I didn’t see her again for a long time—or ever—it wouldn’t bother me much.
When Ruthie graduated from high school, she got married right away to her long-time boyfriend. His name was Lonnie Turkle. He wasn’t good-looking or smart. He wouldn’t, as the saying goes, go far in life, but, as Ruthie would have been the first to point out, nobody cared what I thought.
Within a year of her marriage, Ruthie became a mother to a daughter she named Eulalie. She found out, soon enough, that being a parent was lot of work and almost a constant bother, not nearly as much fun as she thought it would be. She didn’t have nearly as much time, anymore, for going to movies, experimenting with different hair styles and reading romance novels.
Right away she regretted marrying Lonnie. She found him dull and uninspiring. He never read a book. He didn’t have an enquiring mind. As soon as he came home from his job as a sewer worker with the city street department, he installed himself in front of the television and watched one idiotic program after another. The shows he liked best were the reality shows with trashy people in them who were just like him.
By the time I was a senior in high school, Ruthie and Lonnie Turkle were “separated,” meaning that Ruthie was living back home with us. She hadn’t officially filed for divorce, mostly because she didn’t have the money for such an undertaking. She installed herself in her upstairs bedroom and things were just as they were before she got married, except that now she had an extra person in the room with her, her daughter Eulalie, not quite three years old. I liked Eulalie well enough, but she screamed all the time and caused my ears to ache. She was just another squawking female, with which my life abounded.
In March right before my birthday, my English teacher gave me a brochure about a student trip to Europe in the summer. I read the brochure from front to back, indulging in the fantasy that I just might be able to go on the trip if I could get my mother to sign off on the idea. She was the boss. Her word was law.
I gave my mother the brochure when I came home from school and told her I’d really like to see Europe. I figured she’d laugh at me and give me the old razzmatazz about not being the son of a millionaire, but she was surprisingly receptive to the idea. She began figuring how we might manage the “outrageous” (I thought it was reasonable) expense of the trip. She talked it over with grandma and grandma said she would kick in whatever amount I was lacking. After a couple of phone calls and a fifty-dollar deposit, I was “on my way” on what would be a once-in-a-lifetime trip that I would remember to my dying day. It was all so much easier than I thought it would be.
I began telling everybody that I would be going to Europe in the summer. People were mostly happy for me, or, if they weren’t happy, they pretended to be. The one exception was my sister, Ruthie.
At the dinner table, mother wanted to talk about the trip. There were dozens of little details that needed to be considered. The tour people sent a list of things I should have. I would need a new suit for graduation, which came first. The graduation suit would also have to do for the trip. I would also need a new raincoat.
“He gets a new suit and a raincoat and everything?” Ruthie said. When I looked at her, I thought she looked sick. She wasn’t sick, though. Just jealous.
“What’s the matter with you?” mother asked. “Are you having your period?”
“No, it’s not that! I’m just wondering why Mr. Prissypants is getting all this attention, is all!”
“What are you talking about?” mother asked.
“He gets a new suit! He gets a new coat! He gets to go to Europe! Why doesn’t it ever occur to any of you that I might like to go to Europe, too?”
“It’s a student trip,” I said. “You’re not a student.”
“Oh, you make me sick!”
“I thought you would be happy for me.”
“Why should I be happy for you?”
“Aren’t you happy that your brother has a chance to go to Europe?” mother said. “Things like that don’t happen every day of the week.”
“If it had been me instead of him, I’m just wondering if you would have made all this fuss! I already know the answer. You would have said we can’t afford it and that would have been the end of it!”
“We would have done the same for you.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“Jealousy is a very ugly thing coming from you,” mother said. “I never would have expected it from one of my children. You’re better than that!”
“No, I’m not!”
“I can arrange for you to talk to Father Davis, if you think that would help.”
“No, I don’t want to talk to Father Davis! I hate Father Davis!”
“You’re just overwrought now and you’ll say anything to inflict pain. I’d like to believe that I raised my daughter to be bigger than that.”
“Oh, mother, you don’t even know what you’re talking about! You just talk so you don’t have to hear the echo chamber inside your own head!”
“Well, you don’t have to be so insulting!” mother said.
“I’m sorry you’re feeling jealous, Ruthie,” I said.
“No, you’re not! Every time I look at you, you’re gloating because you get to go to Europe and I don’t.”
“I don’t gloat,” I said, trying to keep from laughing. “I don’t even know what it means.”
“I don’t know how much the trip is costing, but I’m sure it’s plenty. When you arrive at a final figure, I think you should sit down and make out a check to me for the same amount.”
“Oh, Ruthie!” mother said. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s only fair! If he deserves to go to Europe, then I deserve an equal amount in cash.”
“You’re being so unreasonable!”
“I think she needs to go for some therapy,” I said.
“You shut up! Nobody asked you!”
“Ruthie, there’s no reason for you to be so rude!” mother said.
“If I had that much money, I could get my divorce and get away from this hell hole, out on my own, and my life would start to make some sense!”
“Well, I never thought you’d think of your home as a hell hole,” mother said. “We graciously let you move back home without asking how long you might be staying. You’re no longer a child, you know. A person as old as you are should be out on your own! You have a husband and a family and a home of your own.”
I could tell Ruthie was about to explode. She got up and left the room as if the house was on fire and she needed to escape.
“Are you going to give her the money?” I asked.
“No,” mother said.
“Are you going to tell her she’s washed up here?”
“Maybe.”
“Good. I’ll help her pack.”
“I don’t know when both of my children turned into such smart-asses!” she said.
Ruthie left that night without saying anything to mother or me. She took Eulalie with her, of course. Mother was afraid for Eulalie’s safety. She was afraid she might never see her again.
After a few days, mother called Ruthie at what had previously been her home. Lonnie answered. He sounded drunk.
“She ain’t here!” he said. “I haven’t seen her and I don’t know where she is.”
“If you see her…”
“I won’t! Every day I expect to be served with the divorce papers. I’m through with marriage, I tell you! I’ve had enough and I want out!”
My graduation came and went and we saw nothing of Ruthie. She was supposed to be there on the front row, cheering me on. Mother thought I would be disappointed that my one sister in the world didn’t see me graduate from high school, but it was all right with me that she wasn’t there. There were lots of other people there.
In June I left to go to Europe. My suitcase was so heavy I could hardly carry it, even though I had been careful not to include any unnecessary items. If I bought any souvenirs of the countries I visited, I didn’t know where I was going to put them.
Ruthie didn’t call to tell me goodbye. It was as if I no longer existed for her. She probably hoped the plane I was in would crash into the sea and no bodies found. I knew her and I knew the way she thought.
The trip was everything I hoped it would be and more. I had never been out of the country and had never even flown on a plane before. We spent three nights in New York at a hotel across the street from Central Park before flying on to London. I discovered right away what a sheltered life I had led.
I climbed partway up the steps of the Eiffel Tower until I couldn’t go any higher. I saw the Louvre Museum, the Tower of London, the Sistine Chapel, Westminster Abbey, Shakespeare’s home (and grave) at Stratford-on-Avon, Mozart’s home, the fairy-tale castle of the Mad King of Bavaria, Westminster Abbey, the Palace of Versailles, the ruins at Pompeii, the Roman Forum and Coliseum, the Spanish Steps, the Vatican, the Tyrolean Alps, and so much more. On the way back to the U.S., we stopped for refueling in Iceland late at night.
I sent postcards home and mother wrote me brief letters, mostly to tell me that everything was fine and that my cat missed me. There was no mention in any of her letters of Ruthie.
In August, after I had been home from the trip for about two weeks, mother heard from one of her church friends that Ruthie and Lonnie got back together and were moving to Alaska. Mother immediately thought of Eulalie. What kind of upbringing was that child going to have with a couple of loonies like Ruthie and Lonnie? She got on the phone right away to her lawyer and began looking into ways she might gain custody of her only grandchild. That’s a different story, though.
Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp
Literary Fictions 