Chapter 7

When I was but a wee child running the streets of Heavener, the town seemed huge. Sandy and I walked wherever our adventures took us. Sometimes, it was the old Ben Franklin store downtown where they had old ladies working that followed our every step, wanting to make sure no shoplifting occurred on their shift.

Or it might be to the old pharmacy where they served the best ice cream and vanilla Cokes I ever had the pleasure of consuming. It might even be across town to the high school to play on the swings and other playground goodies. That was before the school built the new gym and elementary school and wiped out the playground.

We felt safe back then strolling the streets since we knew most of the people and didn’t worry about unsavory people doing bad things to us. I guess there were bad ones then, just like there are now. But they seemed to have multiplied over the years.

If I had children, which luckily is not the case, I would be a paranoid father. There is no way they would roam the streets like we did.

There just seems to be bad in a lot of places, and not hard to find. I don’t know if it’s the drugs or a meltdown of civilization since Johnny Carson retired from The Tonight Show, but it’s a jungle out there, like the old sarge on Hill Street Blues used to say before sending his guys and gals out to fight the onslaught of crime.

Heavener has changed so much over the years, along with the quality of the people living here. Most of what I considered quality people have either died or moved out to what would be the suburbs, if Heavener was big enough to have suburbs.

Some of it is the fear of actually having a Mexican move in next door. I have never actually lived next door to a Hispanic since my apartment charges enough to keep out the foreigners and the riff-raff, but I doubt it could be worse than some of the people I have had for neighbors.

I’ve always figured there are good Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, Indians and whatever other race and creeds there are out there. Just like there are some good whities. I doubt there is any percentage of good and bad of any race out there, some sociologist has probably studied it and has the answer. I don’t.

But as we drove around town, it seemed many of the Mexicans kept their houses and yards a lot nicer than the whites who haven't fled to the countryside.

Most of the houses have declined, along with the quality of people living in them. The highway running through town has undergone a transformation with most of the new businesses locating there. A lot of old trashy houses have been replaced with new branch banks, office buildings and fast-food restaurants.

As Sandy drove me through town, many memories of events that seemed to have happened in a different lifetime came rushing back. Things we did and talked about doing when we got older, but never got around to doing.

We always expected to be the best of friends and run around together. That was before life got in the way. I look at her and I’m amazed again at how good she looks, nothing like the shell of a person I am.

I want to tell her this but decide it wouldn’t be appropriate. I’m afraid she would think I am hitting on her and don’t want to scare her away.

She is quiet for the most part as we cruise through town, avoiding the massive potholes that mark the town's streets. We cross the railroad tracks and go into our dying downtown. Several of the old brick buildings have been painted bright colors that don’t look right. Not that the bright neon lights of Harvey’s Liquor Store with the huge sign proudly saying “Liquor” fits in either. But Harvey was white and didn’t get that many complaints, even though his sign would look a lot better in Vegas than in Langford.

The people who painted the buildings purple, gold, red and blue were Hispanic so naturally there was an uproar. There were angry letters to the editor in the Heavener Review from both sides, not that Dad minded. It was controvery and sold more newspapers. He was neutral about the situation, feeling like if the whites didn’t like the buildings, they should buy them and sandblast them back to their original condition.

The story even made the Fort Smith television stations. That’s when you knew something was big in Heavener, if the television stations saw fit to cover an event and put it on the news.

We passed by the old theater where we used to go on the weekends. Movies were only shown on Friday and Saturday nights, but it was a big deal. Sometimes we went both nights, even though the same movie was showing both nights and were usually bad. The movies were always rated “PG” and above, what would be considered quality family entertainment today, if such a thing existed.

All the kids used to always hang out downtown on the weekends, going to the movie, the pool hall, parking and talking to friends, or driving the two blocks, making a u-turn and repeating the same action at the other end of downtown.

The theater burned during my sophomore year of high school, the start of the demise of our downtown as a place for entertainment. The old family businesses were already hurting thanks to a Wal-Mart that opened in Poteau and sucked in the customers and closed businesses that had been open half a century.

The kids don’t come downtown anymore and it is sad, one of the few things about Heavener that I miss.

Sandy parked in front of Verna’s Café, an old building that used to have a different owner or manager almost every year. Some lady named Verna, who I don’t know, owns it now. Dad has griped about her not placing ads in the paper so she isn’t real popular with him. Verna also doesn’t go to his church so there are two big strikes against her.

We got out of Sandy’s car and walk toward the door. A sign on it says “NO SMOKING” in big, block letters. But after I open the door, the smell of smoke and old grease is bad enough to almost make me gag.

The front section of the restaurant is fairly clean. Most of the tables are occupied by people who have nothing better to do than sit around, drink coffee and talk to others in the same situation. Several stare at me as I walk past, trying to figure out who I am and what I am doing here.

She leads me to a table on the far side and we sit down. One of the waitresses is sitting at a table with the other hired hands. She doesn't appear to be all that happy about having to actually do the work Verna hired her to do. She is a large lady with a green shirt advertising “Verna’s Café”. I notice the apron she is wearing. It was probably white at one time but is now more colors than I could count, or would want to try.

The waitress wears a pair of white shorts that are several sizes too small, and I regret looking at her. She tops off the ensemble with a pair of what appears to be brown dress socks and a cheap pair of Keds.

The woman slowly walks toward us, carrying a couple of menus that should have been replaced months ago, sneering like she had to clean a toilet that had not been flushed in weeks.

“What’ll y’all want?” the large lady asked in a booming tone that makes my ears hurt as she throws the menus down on the table.

“Water,” I say.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Sandy says. “Most people don’t drink the water since all the chicken farms started polluting everything. I don’t think the water’s safe anymore. It always smells funny. Right Myrtle?”

Myrtle shrugs her shoulders. The water quality of Heavener does not seem to be a concern to her.

“How about a Coke?” I ask, looking for Sandy’s approval. She nods and I feel better.

“Make mine a diet,” she requests.

Myrtle stands there for a second. I look up and notice she has a pretty good mustache growing and some serious eye boogers stranded in her eye lashes.

“Y’all gonna eat?” she asks.

I look to Sandy for direction.

“Maybe later,” she says. I’m about to starve, but nod in agreement.

Myrtle lumbers off in search of our drinks, her hopes of getting a decent tip fading away. I repeat my earlier mistake of looking at her. She’s sporting a wedgie that seems to stretch a good foot. Because the wedgie sucked up some of her pants into the great divide and won't release the fabric, too much of the back of her legs shows.

I see that Myrtle also has some serious cottage cheese going on and whatever appetite I once had fades into oblivion. Sandy notices what I have been staring at and probably the look of disgust on my face.

I shiver despite the warmth.

Sandy is staring at me and I want to melt away, kind of like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz, a movie we watched together every year when we were kids. Her mom would make us popcorn and we would lie on the floor in front of their old black and white television, eating the popcorn and drinking cherry Kool-Aid. All was right in the world then.

“It’s been a long time,” she finally says.

I show my excellent communication skills by nodding in agreement.

There is a loud buzzing sound, the voices of all the people trying to talk louder than everybody else so their opinion on whatever can be heard since it is more important than what anybody else has to say. Myrtle drops off our drinks and I refuse to watch her walk away.

“How've you been?” she asks.

“Pretty good,” I reply. “Work most of the time.”

“You don’t come home very often.”

It was a statement, not a question.

“Not any more than I have to,” I answered.

She nodded and took a drink.

“I used to drive by all the time to see if you were there,” Sandy stated. “I gave up after a while. Now my mom always tells me what your mom tells her.”

I wonder how much was true and figured the percentage was highly fabricated.

She has a scar over her eye I don’t remember. There is a sadness in her eyes, not the look of joy and wonderment that was always there when we were young and naive.

Sandy starts to say something, but stops. I wait a little longer, hoping she gets the courage to say whatever it was that brought us here together.

“How've you been?” I asked. A question I should have known without asking.

“Okay,” she answered, then takes a deep breath.

Sandy looked me into the eyes and proceeds to tell me what it was that brought us together. Something I never expected to hear from her.


Chapter 8