Winds of Fate Read online

  With a serious look and genuine concern in his voice he said, “This is just the beginning of winter, from here on out it is just going to get colder. I like you, and finding someone to like in this town is not an easy thing to do. A coat is such a simple gift. So please take it?”

  She smiled and said “Thank you. If you ever need it back, just ask.”

  He reached in one more time and adjusted the coat, then kissed her on the forehead saying. “Good night girl. You have brought sunshine to an otherwise, miserable night.

  “To be honest, I hate foot ball games but I would not have missed this one for anything.” She reached out, hugged him around the neck, and said, “Thank you.”

  Once more, he got the brief scent of sunshine and spring rain before she let go, and then ran through the snow to her door.

  He waited until she had opened the door before he started his car and backed out of the driveway. If he had looked back, he would have seen her waving.

  Later, when Joey thought of her, he would remember the poorly clad waif who sat shivering next to him on a miserable cold evening while watching a high school foot ball game. He would remember the quiet, beautiful brown eyes, and warm proximity of her small delicate body to his own. Joey had fallen in love, the kind that is deep and lasting. Yet, he was unaware of that love, but he knew that something important and vital had come into his life, he could not identify what it was, save that a change had stolen upon him silently and without his knowledge.

  It would be several months before he saw her again, shifting across the school grounds, merely a shadow among the crowd of chattering faces that went to and from one class to another. Pointing her out, he asked the boy standing next to him. “What’s that girl’s name? I think I know her but I never got her name.” When Joey saw the smirk form on the boy’s face, he knew the words that would spew forth from his mouth would be something rotten, maggot filled and hateful.

  He willed him not to speak but the boy brayed like a jackass, “That’s Eeeeeeeeeeeeeasy Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeazy. She is a tramp, one of the trailer trash girls from the Sayhey division. If you drop a quarter behind her ear, her teeth fold back. All you have to do is breath on that little bitch and she will drop her panties for you.”

  Joey didn’t know why it made him angry but it did, especially when he recalled her sleeping next to him while they sat in the cold with the wind blowing through the bleachers. She looked so small inside his too big coat as he had carried her across the stadium parking lot like a child that had stayed up late. He could still see her running though the snow to the door of her trailer, the sleeves of the jacket flapping at the ends of her arms.

  Now an acidic and hateful world spilled out of the boy’s mouth in an unthinking torrent, “Slut, Whore, and Trailer trash.” The half-witted grin stretched across his mean, pocked marked face. All Joey wanted to do was smash that face in and wipe that stupid smirk off forever. The boy had painted an ugly unflattering picture of her, one that he rejected with every ounce of his being. Openly, Joey controlled his voice and in even tones, he said, “Really? I didn’t know that.” Then he said, “I have to go, talk to you later.” Joey parted with his undesired company, his heart stinging from the deepest parts of his soul, his anger railing against the harsh words.

  Off and on throughout the rest of the school year, Joey would see the girl, a shadow in the crowd, shoulders narrowed, head down, isolated and apart from everyone and everything. When Joey called out to her or waved, she would look up momentarily brightened, wave back then go on her way. Sara looked for him in hallways and the school parking lot. If she saw him driving down the street or at the mall in Roswell, she always remembered his acts of kindness and the way he had made her feel safe and warm.

  For Sara, memories like that were few and precious, a memory that she could hold on to, and a place to go when the meanness of those around her closed in upon her. She knew it was just a daydream; the boy had simply been nice to her and given her a ride home on a cold and snowy night. But, she couldn’t tell her heart to stop dreaming, nor stop its longing for the boy no matter how many times she told her self it was just a silly dream of a silly girl that lived on the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks.

  Here, upon the mantel of adulthood, my innocence has shed away like leaves from a dying tree. Could I serve this order afresh, I would seek to affect that which existed within myself, allowing nature to discover the covenants of the beast. Neither would I chase nor flee, but merely deed its befalling to its own just course.

  As the rumors grew larger, her parents began to hear the gossip about their daughter. Despite the number of times that she had gone to them with her troubles and the hurtful things being said, they had only heard her anguish, but not the content of that anguish. Now, the numerous sources and factions of the small-minded town in which they lived were drowning out her single protests.

  The next day her father had taken her to the free clinic. He was a proud man disgraced by his daughters’ shameful actions, red faced and angry, he shoved her through the door with out a word of kindness or understanding. The doctor examined her and then gave her a birth control shot, which would prevent pregnancy for several months at a time.

  Once again, she had tried to tell her father that the talk was not true, but all he could see or hear, were the voices and the faces of those who had told him otherwise. He recognized the shame, and the disgrace, but never once his own daughter’s integrity and honesty.

  Sara submitted to the humiliating exam and the cold fingers of the doctor as he probed and prodded her where she would rather he didn’t. She accepted the shot without protest and when they left the clinic, she was in tears. Her father could have cut her heart out and caused her less pain. To her, her father was the man that had held her hand at the Spring River zoo and put her up on his shoulders so she could see the bears. He had tucked her in at night, gave her kisses, and told her that he loved her. The one person who she trusted and saw as her defender was now cold and inaccessible to her at a time when she needed him the most. So deep was his anger and shame, that he would not talk to the doctor that had examined her. Had he done this much, he would have known of his daughter’s integrity.

  And her mother, who had braided her hair and let her take the cookies from the oven, who taught her to be kind to people and to never judge others, was now silent and fearful. Perhaps, if what people were saying had any truth to it, she would have happily taken the shot but it wasn’t true. To the citizens of Raybern and Sara’s own parents, she was the town slut, Easy Sleazy, stick a quarter behind her ear and watch her teeth fold back.

  Winter fell behind and the warm winds of spring thawed the snows upon the ground; the torment of school and school life was finally at an end for Sara. She hoped the meanness that spawns upon the school grounds would be at an end as well. As her mother said, “It was time to put away childish thoughts and childish things.” Now the necessity of finding a job and getting on with her life stretched out before her. It was then that she would understand the extent of her disillusionment in the eyes of the community.

  As she went from one place to another applying for a job, she soon discovered that her unearned and unwanted reputation was cast before her like a plague. One storeowner ripped up her application in front of her, spit at her feet and then dragged her through the store by one arm, amongst the aghast and sometimes tittering laughter of the customers, as he tossed her out on the street. “Don’t ever bring your whoring ass in my establishment again.”

  She didn’t cry in front of him, managing to hold back until she was a good block away before the dam broke and her eyes flooded with hot stinging tears.

  By late afternoon, she was tired, hot, disappointed, and totally humiliated. Stopping at the Tasty Cream, she fished around in her pockets and came up with just enough change to buy a small coke. As an after thought, she asked for a job application, took the coke and the application, sat down at the outside bench and began to fill it out. It was
probably a waste of time, but at least she could honestly say that she tried to find work. Looking at the traffic that traveled in front of the establishment, she thought of Joey. He was the one person within the town that had treated her like something other than a two-bit whore. Sara wondered if he too had heard and believed the stories.

  Was Joey lost to her as well? Then really, was he ever a part of her life? If she was to be honest with herself, Joey was nothing more than a nice boy that gave her a ride home.

  Yes, Sara it is time to put away childish dreams. She let her thoughts and impossible daydreams fall away, and then went back to her application.

  *

  Ah, the past and those slumbering dragons that haunt our contented dreams. The spectral ghost from a time gone by. They spiral around our heads like cadaverous albatrosses while we walk through our days. Whispering words of false caution, snagging at our worn garments and shouting their silent warnings “Beware the day! Beware the day!”

  They slip in and out of our lives plucking up the paving stones that lay at our future. Those long dead dragons, real to us as any living thing, yet unreachable, indefinable, and inescapable. Those dragons that perch upon the edge of our dreams, and deny our sleep, pestering us with our past deeds and bade us to do them battle once more. Regardless the outcome they remain the past, unchangeable, undaunted, and persistent, undiluted by our heroic actions at the edge of reality when dreams and sleep evade us and only regret and false deeds of what could have been lay in tattered ruins upon our feet. The door to the past is closed to us and can not be reopened, and the dragon we seek to slay has long found rest within its grave.

  Every spring, Joey’s parents went on vacation, and usually he went with them. However, his need for extra cash and his summer job as a drafter at the Roswell Construction Company, he had elected to stay behind and keep an eye on his parent’s home while they were away.

  He had chosen to stay in the small two-room cottage at the opposite end of the property, not wanting to deal with the daily care of the larger home, while his parents were gone. He would simply move into the cottage and periodically check on the main house. Plus, he liked the feel of the place. It was an old adobe structure with thick, white washed walls, recessed windows, polished wood floors, heavy furniture, and ceilings with polished Vegas. There was a small kitchen with a dining nook, a single bathroom and a combination bedroom living room.

  The cottage was hidden among a grove of giant cottonwood trees and was quiet, cool and relaxing. Joey held other motives for wanting to stay in the cottage, his parent’s recent talk about tearing the old building down, had chafed against his sensibilities.

  His mother had originally fought the notion, but his father was rapidly making up his mind that the aged structure was beyond repair and it was time to bring it down. His father was not one to go into anything hastily or blindly, being an old fighter pilot, he was careful to choose his target, but once he made his decision he acted and did so without hesitation.

  As soon as his parents backed out of the drive and the taillights disappeared down the road, Joey began working on the cottage. He started with the cracks in the walls and the adobe and stucco fence. He had already patched all the cracks and filled in the missing stucco and would be painting in a couple of days. The back yard was a mess, and he wasn’t sure how to approach it other than clearing out the dead branches and weeds, he would worry about the rest when the time came.

  For now, he needed to get the big problems fixed if he ever wanted to convince his father that the old house deserved to remain standing.

  Joey usually stopped somewhere on his way home and picked up something to eat rather than mess up the kitchen with his cooking. Today he pulled into the Tasty Cream and went to the window to make his order. Looking around while he waited for his order, he saw Sara sitting on a bench working on an employment application. Walking over to where she sat he peeked over her shoulder and noticed that she had very pretty handwriting and complimented her on it.

  She looked up and said, “Oh! Hi, it’s you. Funny I was just thinking about you.”

  “Hope it wasn’t anything bad?”

  “No, nothing bad.”

  “Mind if I sit with you? That is if I’m not bothering you ?”

  “No, no bother I am almost done with this anyway.”

  He took the seat across from her and instantly relaxed. Something about sitting there felt right, he was comfortable and at ease with himself and the girl that sat across from him. When Sara saw Joey’s face she asked, “Why the smile?”

  “It is nice to be able to sit with someone and just relax.”

  They sat there and talked for a long time, as a boy and girl will do when they are attracted to each other. They conversed about their dreams, wishes and hopes. They spoke of like and dislikes. Joey joked and laughed but Sara’s manner was solemn and quiet.

  When Joey’s order was ready, he picked it up at the window then walked back to the table. When he saw that she didn’t have anything he offered to share with her. She smiled and politely turned him down. Later he gave her his fries, saying he didn’t want them, which was the truth, he hated fries.

  With the application completed, Sara picked it up and took it to the window handing it to the boy with the silly costume standing on the other side. As she went back to the table and began to pick up her things, the boy gave Joey a knowing wink, setting the application to the side, he said. “Planning on getting lucky tonight?” Joey looked at the boy with confusion for a moment then said with more than a bit of aggravation. “Why don’t you just stick to flipping hamburgers and give your mouth a break.” The boy raised his hands and backed away from the window.

  When Joey returned to the table Sara asked, “What was that about?” Joey shrugged, “Just instructing someone on how to get his head out of his ass.” Her laugh was bitter when she said, “In this town that could be a full time job.”

  After talking a while longer, Joey said, “I’ve really enjoyed talking with you, Sara. I hate to leave but I have to be getting home.” He paused before asking, “Have you seen the big house at the end of Maple Street? It’s sort of a landmark.” She nodded and he continued. “There’s a small, white adobe house with a wide porch that sits among a grove of cottonwood trees at the far end of the lane.

  “Yes I know where it is. I have always loved that old place!”

  “I am staying there this summer while my parents are off doing their three month summer thing. Anyway, you would make me very happy if you came by for a visit some time. I’ve been a bit reluctant to invite people over because I’m afraid it will turn into a summer long beer bust, and the last thing I want is to have the place trashed. It is kind of on its last leg as it is and I really don’t want a bunch of bumbled feet making it worse. But you would be more than a welcome to come by. If you need a ride, I could come get you. We can burn things on the stove, or if you don’t trust my cooking we could order pizza or something, maybe watch some movies, talk and get to know each other better . . . .”

  “And?”

  “And, I don’t know. But I would really like to get to know you.”

  Sara studied him intently, then she asked. “And then what, what is it that you expect from me?”

  Sara felt the meanness, in her words and shook her head,

  “I’m sorry, I am not being fair. You have been nothing but nice and I am acting like a spoiled brat. So yes, I would be pleased to visit with you, and I would like to get to know you better as well.

  If I seem testy it’s just—well, I’ve been putting in applications all over town. So far, the most encouraging thing that has happened is one old man sat his ashtray on it before squinting at me through a fog of smoke and nodding toward the door before going back to his crossword puzzle.” Joey reached and took her hand.

  “I’m sorry Sara. Summer Jobs never seem to grow on trees in this town. I didn’t think I was going to get back with the Roswell Construction Company, but somehow they made a p
lace for me.” He squeezed her hand, noticing how delicate and perfectly shaped it was. He turned her hand over in his and said. “You have beautiful hands.” She took her hand back, then studied his face. “You do know who I am don’t you?”

  “Sure, your name is Sara. Sara Martin.” When she started to say something else, he said. “Look, I really have to go. But I will be seeing you again. Right?”

  “Yes, I said I would come by your place. I always keep my word.”

  Joey smiled, then said, “Great.” Walking back to his car he suddenly looked back and asked, “You do like pizza don’t you?”

  “Not really!”

  “Rats! Chinese?”

  “Who takes a three month vacation?”

  “You can take mom out of the senate but you can’t take the senator out of mom. It is a working vacation. Do you like Italian food?”

  “Go home Joey Spanner!”

  After Joey drove off, she stood up and stretched. She had been sitting so long her legs had grown stiff. Still, the visit with Joey had lifted a lot of the day’s burden from her tired spirits. As Sara turned to head for home, she noticed the manager of the Tasty Creme bent over the counter studying her application. The woman looked out the window and saw Sara watching her. She picked the application up with the tips of two fingers, carried it over to the trashcan and dropped it in, then went to the sink and washed her hands. When she turned back to Sara, she smiled sweetly and waved. Sara gave up the day for lost and went home.