Thirst: A Collection of Short Fiction

  ~ J a c k ~

  It began with a simple drive-by into the old neighborhood. An afterthought mostly. Jack had three hours to burn before the meeting at the airport and decided to swing over to the north end and check out the old house, school and whatever vestiges remained after forty-odd years. He thought it would be interesting but fleeting. Nothing that would affect him in any significant way. A previously seen movie, a rerun, floating by with occasional bits of recollection. Entertainment. He wasn’t a man to live in the past.

  He couldn’t say he had grown up in Buffalo or any other place for that matter. His father was always on the run from jobs, bill collectors and the occasional female. But of all the places they’d stayed, Buffalo was the longest. Almost three years, sometime between the fifth and eighth grades in a neighborhood better than most, or so he recalled.

  The way there wasn’t certain. He had to get to Main Street, Route 5, the primary thoroughfare that cut the city in half. That much he knew. And since he was a salesman who traveled, who had seen most of the country, who had a natural ability to find just about any street in any city, he jumped on the expressway and headed west.

  In record time, he came upon Main Street, along with the University, but one milestone seemed missing – the viaduct. What had been a deep dip beneath a railroad line was now an open road, flat as a pancake. He and his friends, Lou and Dan, had spent hours up high, near the tracks smoking cigarettes and drinking beer or wine or whatever else they could steal from their parents’ homes. Yes, now he remembered. He drank so much crème de menthe one time that his shit’d turned green. How had he forgotten that? To this day, he couldn’t eat anything mint, no mouthwash or candy or ice cream. It turned his stomach.

  Not too far away would be the house. He made a right on Woodbridge, another on Parker, then slowed down. He had lived in a double, upstairs. The owner lived downstairs, an old spinster who often complained to his father about the noise he and his friends made after school, listening to music or having the TV too loud. But later in the week, she’d bring up cookies, freshly baked, and he’d try to be quiet, at least for a couple of days. And he now wondered how old that woman actually was. It wasn’t uncommon for his father to go downstairs to change a lightbulb or unclog a drain and not come back until the eleven o’clock news.

  He pulled over. The old gray house was painted hunter green. It was an ordinary clapboard house, close to the street with no distinguishing features. For a moment, he tried to make some connection between the past and the present, between the boy he was and the man he’d become. Perhaps something he could use in his job, an anecdote that would link his formative years with the selling of insurance.

  He inched the car forward and looked down the walkway that ran into the backyard. The concrete slabs heaved, and now that he was older, he understood why. In the winter, icicles had hung from gutters and dripped frigid drops onto the crown of his head. “Watch out for those suckers,” his father’d said. “They’ll spike right through you.” Clearly, the years of snow and ice and water had taken their toll. He considered taking that walk again, along the side of the house. But it was only a measly couple of yards. What would be the point?

  A few minutes later, he went by the school. It was smaller than he remembered, and remarkably transformed into condominiums, ghosts of classrooms now used as kitchens and bathrooms and bedrooms. What the hell did they do with the cavernous halls, the lockers, the principal’s office where he often sat looking at his reflection in the bookcase glass? Gutted, of course. Reconfigured. Time moved on.

  He coasted down a few more streets. First, by Lou’s house, which he couldn’t quite discern, then by Dan’s, queerly painted in pinks and purples. Where were they now? Had they made it out of the sixties alive? Whatever. They probably wouldn’t have anything in common at this point in the game.

  The block emptied out onto Hertel. He was about to head back when he noticed the Swimming Pool sign. He checked his watch and instead of turning right, headed up the dead end street where, he thought, it curved into the pool and park. His memory served him well. He pulled into a parking spot and got out of the car.

  The pool hadn’t yet been open for the season. The diving boards weren’t up. He walked down an incline into the park. Like everything else, the area was small and inconsequential – a baseball field, handball court, some swings and slides. Over at the playground, mothers with empty strollers watched kids who were running around in circles. With plenty of time, he picked a bench by the baseball diamond, sat, and closed his eyes in the late morning sun. A mother yelled, a child cried. How clear their voices carried.

  The last time he’d been in this park was in the evening. He and Dan and Lou were drinking, cutting up by the horses on springs. They even had a joint, when a girl walked by, taking a short cut through the park. A girl, Dan knew from the neighborhood. She joined them and drank a little beer, and before long she showed them things in the moonlight for another sip or drag. Kid’s stuff. Until things got weird. Dares were made and the girl was half-naked. They were just kids back then, Jack thought, with bodies they didn’t understand. Dan held her down. First, for Lou then for Jack. When it was Dan’s turn, it took two of them to keep her from screaming.

  On the way back to the car, Jack pulls out his cell phone and dials home. His thirteen-year-old daughter answers. He wants to make sure she’s home, she’s okay. She’s chewing gum and irritated by him and by his probing questions. After they hang up, he sighs, relieved. So far she’s safe. Or so he thinks.

  Author’s Note:

  “Jack” is the second of two dark stories in this collection. I usually write grim stories from an understated, unemotional perspective. The quietness, I think, makes them feel real, and ironically, more powerful. I thought a lot about Jack and who he might be. My general sense is that he’s a regular guy who may be living next door or sitting close by. There’s a saying that revenge is best served cold. In “Jack” retribution is served with a twist of irony.