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wayoutwalt
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since 1999-06-22
Posts 4870
TEXAS (it's all big)

0 posted 2001-11-08 08:32 PM


A kind old friend of mine wrote the following story. He left behind many loving grandchildren the day he passed away.  Some would say that he disappeared or that maybe his imagination devoured him whole. He will be dearly missed wherever his travels take him on this earth or beyond.

The Imaginings

I.


The door slammed shut!  The sight of the wind chimes sparring together produced a clang of war that trailed off into Bobby’s summer imagination. The early morning air enveloped Bobby and gave him a jolt that sent his hands padding for the small wad of ones rolled up in a ball in his front jean  pocket. The sun was just on the rise and the slight bitterness of the dark night was beginning to release its grip on the ends of Bobby's fingers and toes. The nip of the morning air really got to him sometimes.


His rusty bike, two sizes to small, squeaked and cranked as he peddled it up the hill. Letting his legs lift off the peddles, he soared down the hill at a mounting pace that threatened to unseat the little boy, who dared defy the speed of sound. With his cry of delight almost over, Bobby let his wild flight turn into pure skill. He pumped the brakes two times and his command was promptly obeyed, the tires ceased their spinning.  He turned to look over his shoulder and admired the three-foot streak of rubber that he left on the asphalt below.

Bobby was at the corner of Windhaven and Brook Meadow examining his first expected kill. In his mind the prizes he would find were already in the bag and ready to take back to his mentor waiting for him at the shop. Winston always sat high on his pedestal back at the “Junkyard Dawg,” which he owned and operated.  Bobby had been frequenting the little shop throughout the last year. He always brought Winston back worthwhile treasure every weekend, which was when all the sales began. In exchange, Winston let Bobby keep a percent of the profits and more importantly, an education on every item that he returned.


As Bobby studied the telephone pole riddled with staples and signs that read, “Yard Sale, (last weekend) No Early Birds, from blah to blah Only!,” He frowned, nothing made Bobby madder than out-of-date garage sale signs. People too lazy to take down their signs after their sale was done really peeved Bobby. As his mind wandered and his vision wavered, Bobby noticed there was something glowing on the pole exactly opposite on the other side of the street. He walked his bike over and winced as the bruise on his leg hit the side of the frame. Bobby loved to ride his bike fast and he was always banging his legs against the handlebars.


Later, Bobby would remember there were other signs on that pole but, upon reflection, they all read “Blah Blah” in his mind. The only thing he could make out as English were the letters on the glowing, colorless poster that sat proudly, squarely and sharply in the line of vision of his eyes.

                      
Garage Sale
Everything Must Go!
Toys!
Old Star Wars figures are they worth anything?
Baseball Cards? Who’s Babe Ruth? Is his card worth anything?
Antiques and Junk actually worth something!
Bobby, anything you want is here! Anything you desire..
Winston will love you! Come see what we have in store for you!



Bobby had an imagination.  It just seemed he could never imagine himself a way out of trouble. His mother loved him, he knew it and that made life bearable. His stepfather’s name was Pete. Only much later when Pete lay dying in a hospital room, would Bobby ever call him dad. He loved his stepfather, it was just that he couldn’t imagine him being his real father, a dad.


Bobby was proud of his toy imagination even though it had its flaws. Of the few toys sitting around Bobby’s room, they all had their flaws, but that didn’t mean you just threw them in the trash. His imagination did cause him a lot of trouble and the effect was pure attention. The attention that a twelve-year-old craved, he might not be able to define, but he could sit down at the breakfast table and feed off of it all day long.


Bobby’s only blood grandparents died in a car crash late one night when Bobby was having his diaper changed. When he was ten he was given a box that had a note written on it. “For Bobby, with love, Granny and Granddad.” He had opened the box with hesitation expecting anything and everything, but nothing he would necessarily want. In it, he found some pictures of himself as a toddler.  Some were with him and his grandparents, which he recognized from photo albums he had flipped through while sitting on the floor of the hall closet.  In that closet he spent his younger years fishing for loose change so he could buy a pack of baseball cards.


Under the pictures, his wildest dreams came true. First, he pulled out a mint-on-the-card 1977 action figure of Luke Skywalker in his original desert outfit he wore in the first movie (or the fourth depending on if you were a fan or not). He placed it on his bed with care and then with more excitement pulled out the next item in the box. His mouth was open this time, his mother had laughed joyfully when Bobby’s eyes met the yellowing plastic holder that had been snapped into place over the perfectly positioned, tattered and taped, 1952 (ohmygoodness) Topps (no it can’t be) Mickey Mantle (you bet your boots it is) Rookie Card! Bobby turned it over and over in his hands, it was real and it was his!


His mother handed him the box and said “One more thing Bobby, it’s not a Mantle Rookie but give it a look.”


Bobby’s mother had a friend who was a cousin to the Mick and he just loved her for it. He put his hand into the box, moved it along the bottom and finally grasped the remaining item. He pulled it out triumphantly but then seeing it in the light only looked at it with questioning eyes that turned up to his mother.


“It’s an inkwell Bobby. Your great grandfather used to dip his pen in it and write stories that children like you still have read to them at night.” Bobby was in love. He wouldn’t come to use the inkwell for another two years, when he was twelve-years-old. That was when he would find the garage sale sign that would change his life forever.


Bobby stared at the writing on the sign, letting all of the words written in a beautiful script his mother would call calligraphy, wash all over him. Babe Ruth wasn’t Mickey Mantle. Mickey Mantle was the price guide’s most expensive baseball card. There was another card that sold at an auction he recalled for around a million cool ones, but it was way too old to be in his price guide. Bobby had had in his hands a Mickey Mantle Rookie only to lose it in a house fire the following year. Dejected and holding the burnt remains of his Luke Skywalker, now with special kung fu charred action, Bobby’s mom promised him a new Luke once they got to the toy store sometime in the vague future. Bobby didn’t want a new Luke, they didn’t make them like they did in his mother’s day. His mother probably didn’t know Luke from a Barbie anyway. Bobby’s mom was cool but not that cool. The garage sale sign didn’t extend in length it just simply added the following lines:


Sorry:
No mint-on-the-card Luke Skywalkers
No torn and taped Mickey Mantle cards
that were the most expensive in the price guide
except for that one that was way too old
to be in the guide in the first place.
We just sold the last two.
Closing in ten minutes.
Hurry Bobby!
Peddle Peddle!



Ten blocks of huffing and puffing on his Schwinn, nicknamed the “Lightning Exchange” and Bobby was at the garage sale. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary at this sale. A little old lady sat in her car with the windows cracked while her husband haggled the resident of the house to “Take two fitty or I’m walkin.” Little kids were rummaging through the broken toys screaming “cap cap-ratta TAT TAT” as their mother looked on.  Horror placed:  “Put that plastic gun down RIGHT NOW Timmy and let’s go!” immediately on her lips.


Bobby set the kickstand of his bike and sprinted up the drive way and into the garage. He was careful not to step on any blades of grass observing proper garage sale etiquette. Now if it had been a yard sale, etiquette would have decided that he could tramp on the grass but no, not ever would he think of looking in the garage because those items were typically “NOT FOR SALE!” Slightly amused at the pile of card shop rejects, Bobby set the stack of gum cards back on the makeshift table. Actually, it was a sheet of plywood slung over two barrels. He looked at the action figures. They were horrible; all of them were happy meal throw-aways or faded green army men. Bobby was starting to walk away when the middle-aged woman that was running the sale asked him, “Son you look excited; was there anything in particular you were looking for?  I have a son myself about your age inside; maybe he could go look in his room for it. Why I bet he has just the thing.”


“N-No thank you ma’am, I’ll just be on my way. It’s still early and there’s a neighborhood full of sales today, I just gotta find ‘em.”


The woman smiled and turned to help a lady that actually wanted to by a broken car seat for her infant son. Don’t buy that lady can’t you tell it’s broken, thought Bobby. Sure she can’t tell it’s broken, even I can’t say for sure that it is. Boy my imagination…Geesh!


Bobby got on his bike that had been waiting for him at the bottom of the drive and began to wheel away. A man was just stepping up into his mini van when something he had purchased slipped out of his back pocket. Unwittingly, the man swung inside and drove off before Bobby could say a word. He felt a bit guilty walking over to the object, had he wanted it that bad before even knowing what it was that he just let the man get into that car? It seemed to happen so fast that he convinced himself it was his low attention span. If it wasn’t his imagination then it was his attention span. Bobby told himself that he would at least return it to the garage sale lady because it wasn’t his to keep. First though, he had to know what it was that he was just giving away. He bent over the object and immediately recognized it as an old-style pen, the kind that required an inkwell.


Winston had educated Bobby on his inkwell he had rescued from the fire and Bobby suddenly coveted the pen dearly. With his head hung low Bobby started up the driveway, again leaving his bike at the curb. His head came up as he heard the garage sale ladies voice come from the yard. She was watering her flowers. “Excuse me son, can I help you?” Bobby looked around. The garage sale was gone.


He remembered the sign had said closing in ten minutes, but how had she packed it all away so fast? “Ma’am, I wanted to return something to your garage sale that I found in the road.”


The woman looked at him with questioning eyes, “Garage sale? I think you’re in the wrong driveway son, why don’t you just get along, no garage sale here.”


Bobby furrowed his brow but didn’t argue. He heard her mutter, “That poor baby lost his life.  Why did I sell his mother that broken car seat?” She began to cry loudly and raked pitifully at the grass. The pen was poking Bobby in the back as he made slow strides backward towards his bike.


“Okay lady,” he said as he got on his bike. No garage sale here? Okay lady, he thought, thanks for the free pen! As quick as he peddled to the garage sale, Bobby sprinted his bike back to the corner of Windhaven and Brook Meadow where this strange event began and where he could get his bearings to begin looking for his next g-sale, as he called them. He stopped to look at that funny sign that he was sure he imagined and as he expected, now it was just another, plain-o sign reading: “Toys and Baseball Cards ten blocks down” The arrow on the sign pointed in the direction he had just been. But the sign was out of date; in fact, two weeks had passed. There had been a garage sale this very morning where he had just been, yet the lady had insisted he was imagining things or had she said something about him being in the wrong place?  The pen seemed to glow in his pocket… Bobby spotted a worthwhile sign and peddled away whistling a tune he didn’t know.

[This message has been edited by wayoutwalt (edited 11-08-2001).]

© Copyright 2001 Walt Burns - All Rights Reserved
serenity blaze
Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738

1 posted 2001-11-08 09:11 PM


This is wonderfully magical and intriguing Waltie. I loved the slow unfolding of description here, and you introduced us to "Bobby" in a way that makes the reader care. An intriguing read and I look forward to the rest!  
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