July 20, 2008

One Page #42

Bob scoured the parking lot. It was long abandoned and weeds had grown through the cracks. The lot was surrounded by a chain link fence that had been cut and stretched and climbed over hundreds of times. Bob remembered when the space was the parking lot for the neighborhood grocery, which was also abandoned now. Nothing had replaced the grocery and the windows were broken and the walls were covered in graffiti. The floors were beaten down, littered with butts and bottles and even a small pile of syringes in the corner. Bob had only looked in the window, but not gone inside. He had been away too long, and fear that he hadn’t know before had crept into his chest, warning him to stay away. But the parking lot held personal interest, and so he climbed through a hole in the fence and wandered around, toeing the broken pavement to see what was underneath and admiring the purple chicory that grew heedless of its rundown surroundings. It brought a colorful cheer to the lot that was otherwise grayed and left behind even by the neighborhood gangs. Bob heard a shot far off, and he shuddered. He fingered his pocket, but found nothing but lint and an few coins. His right hand still felt trigger-happy and he remembered. He remembered too much. An image of Carol shot through his mind and he blinked away the sadness and nostalgia. He walked with renewed purpose to the other side of the lot where an oak tree hung over, bedraggled and ignored. Around the far side of the tree, the side right next to the fence where even a few links dug into its bark as the tree grew, he pushed aside leaves and dead branches until he found what he was looking for. He fingered the heart carved into the tree bark, still visible like an old scar. Inside the heart’s outline he could still barely make out the B+C that he had carved so carefully, so long ago. Carol had stood by watching, smiling, bemused. They had always made fun of couples who had carved their initials to be remembered forever, like sweethearts who would never grow apart. They were already growing apart, and the carving was a symbol of this separation. Carol was going to live with her aunt upstate. No reason was given to Bob. He didn’t ask. But he would remember. And he hoped that she would also, even though he was beginning to doubt that. He would find his way out of this city too, somehow. He wasn’t sure how just yet. Another gunshot rang out, closer this time, and it woke Bob up from the past. He traced his finger once more around the heart, smiled faintly, and walked back toward the hole he had entered through. He would not come back here again. He had grown soft in his small town life. He no longer needed the past.

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