Mason Cole couldn’t sleep.

There was a dream, the same one he always had — the earth erupts as he falls into a bottomless pit with nothing but frightened screams to comfort him. For more than an hour after he lay staring at the fading shadows on his ceiling, reading by the light of the single lamp he kept on at night. It did no good and he left his bed to wander.

It was a small house on Mill Creek Road, the only one on top of the hill overlooking the town. Decorated with doilies and Royal Doulton figurines gracing the shelves of the living room along with an old Stack-O-Matic record player, a vintage sewing machine, and a few other antiques. If one were to look closer however, they’d see that the figurines had been broken and glued back together many times. Instead of the big band music of Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman one might expect a little old lady to have, the records were those of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Bob Marley. By the sewing machine sat a wicker bowl of what looked like finger puppets but were really a collection of tiny yarn penises all with different faces.

The house was full of cats, only one of which, a white Persian named Bossy, was actually alive. All the rest stuffed and mounted in various poses on the window sills, bookshelves, a cute little Calico guarding the toilet brush in the one and only bathroom.

From the patterned wallpaper to the Formica countertops, everything about the kitchen looked like a time capsule of the 1960s. The mismatched chairs placed around the kitchen table however did not fit with the room, nor each other. The only television set, a Montgomery Ward monolith of wood and glass, sat next to the record player. Seldom used, but its picture came through nice and clear with eleven channels of static and one for re-runs of M*A*S*H and The Golden Girls on the oldies station.

Unusual by most standards, but to Mason it was home.

A modest looking boy of eighteen, his shaggy brown hair hung at the sides of his face. Narrow chin. Blue eyes. Slight of build, except for just a touch of extra stuffing around the midsection from a steady diet of slurpees and burritos. A fish belly Rose called it, though he didn’t understand why. Most people acquire a tan in the summer months, but he remained fair, almost pasty. He looked at everything with an undercurrent of curiosity, something to say just poised on the tip of his tongue…and then it was gone. And so was he, lost to wistful thoughts.

The sun had not yet broken into the sky, but its pink glow peeked through the leaves of a nearby maple tree in the backyard like a puzzle missing pieces. He loved the way the sky looked at first light. Cresting the canopy of darkened trees, a lone ember appearing in the bed of soft ashes that were the clouds, giving birth to a new day. From the hills at the east corner of town it was particularly amazing to see life breathed back into the world again. Heavenly rays of golden orange shot across the sky and for one moment, everything was pure. Every beam of warm sun, every breath of freshly cut grass a godsend in these last few days of summer.

Mason stood on the back porch, looking to the East, thinking about how different this year was. True that each one came and went with a certain finality to it, but while his peers would be going off to college or university or starting work somewhere, he would not. Like the certificate he had received in freshman year for making the Honor Roll, still stuck to the fridge door, he wasn’t going anywhere.

Everyone else had a plan but him. Dale had a plan, even if it was a simple one. Julie had a plan, and at the thought of this a knot tied itself in his stomach. He didn’t want to think about that though, not now in these last few precious moments.

He went to the liquor cabinet above the kitchen stove to sneak a swig of gin. It heated him up from lungs to loins.

He took another swig.

And then another.

And another.

The first of September was this coming Tuesday, which meant just one more weekend and a day until the new school year began. The last one. Already autumn was daring to show its face. Evening shadows appeared earlier and earlier. Soon it would all be a memory, another summer gone before a long winter. Sprinklers taken off the lawns, chalk drawings on the sidewalks wiped away and covered by snow.

The time on the clock above the kitchen doorway said it was nearly 5:30, meaning Rose would be up soon. He had work in a few hours and while looking like a zombie probably wouldn’t matter much at his job, he figured it best to at least try and get back to sleep.

What a funny saying, he thought to himself, tip-toeing as quietly as possible down the basement darkened stairs to his room. “Back to sleep.” As if it were the starting point. Because, in many ways, it is. The house was old and often whined like a rusty fence, but he knew every creak and groan in the place. Every loose step, every squeaky floorboard.

Flopping into bed, he took a swig of mouthwash from a bottle he kept beneath just in case. He slid the bookmark from between the pages and was instantly wandering the torchlit corridors of Elsinore Castle. But not for long. Only a few minutes passed before his eyelids grew heavy. His book fell open onto his chest and when his head yielded to the pillow, he was welcomed instantly by a thankfully dreamless sleep.

When Mason awoke next it was to the smell of breakfast and the sound of Rose singing to her flowers. The single window in his bedroom was open just enough to hear her humming some nameless tune to the bed of daffodils next to it. She must have been blocking the sun because with a single movement a blinding blade of light cut through his room, falling upon his lonely guitar that leaned in one corner, gathering dust.

Mason groaned and pulled the covers over his face. But it wasn’t enough to block the savory scent of bacon wafting down from the kitchen.

He rolled out of bed wearing only a pair of flannel pajama pants, threw on whichever t-shirt he happened to gather up from the floor, grabbed his book from beneath the still lit lamp and turned it off before leaving his room.

As he climbed the stairs, the sharp guitar notes and soft choral backing of The Beatles’ “Across the Universe” reached him, coming from the record player in the den.

Upon entering the kitchen, Mason found a small feast prepared on the table. Scrambled eggs, bacon, grits, brown toast, a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee still steaming as if it had been poured moments ago. Milk and sugar in the center. Quite the spread considering he did nothing to deserve it. At least, he didn’t think so. Clearly Rose disagreed.

Around the table were four chairs that didn’t match. A lawn chair close to the counter, a large bean bag chair by the window, a tattered barcalounger clockwise from the window, and a rocking chair where Mason’s meal had been set.

He was just sitting down at the table, placing his book in front of him, when the back door opened and shut with a loud clatter. With his first sip of juice, Rose appeared in the kitchen.

Despite her seventy years, wrinkles were remiss to show themselves on a face as cheery as hers. Mouth, cheeks, and bright green eyes, she smiled with all of it. Her silver hair hung in loose curls down her shoulders, draped over a flowery wool shawl to fend off the morning chill. She brought with her the fresh scent of morning dew. In one hand, a tin watering can; in the other, a wicker basket of various herbs and leaves, a pair of pinking shears resting gently on top.

“Good morning, starshine.” Her soft crooning of lyrics from Hair synched up surprisingly well with John Lennon’s voice considering he sung different words.

“Morning, Rose,” answered Mason with a yawn and started to eat.

As she entered the kitchen, Mason saw that her feet were caked in a thick layer of rich, damp soil as they usually were when tending to her garden. Every step left black footprints behind her on her way to the sink.

“Look! I made your favorite,” said Rose pointing at the table as if he had missed it somehow.

“I see that,” said Mason appreciatively. “Thanks.”

She winked and carefully poured what little water was left in her watering can into the pot of her prized African violet on the window sill.

“Oh and look, I found a daffodil that looks like Abraham Lincoln.”

Mason’s fork dangled in front of his mouth as she stuck the yellow flower in front of his face between her thumb and forefinger.

“Oh...yeah,” he said without a clue in world what she was talking about. “Totally Lincoln.”

Rose’s expression changed to one of quiet skepticism. “What’s wrong, Sugar?” A slight Southern bend in her words.

“Nothing.” Mason said as he stuffed half a sausage in his mouth.

She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him.

“What?”

Rose placed the watering can and wicker basket on the table and sat down in the lawn chair next to Mason and with her.

Rose thrust out her left hand, the earthy smell of freshly cut sage and St. John’s wort along with it. “Gimme.”

“Aw c’mon,” he said with his mouth full, “I’m eating.”

“Choose it, or lose it, boy,” she said, making a chopping motion with her hand.

Mason sighed, let go of his fork as it hit the plate with a clang and held his hand out palm up. Rose caressed it gently with her fingertips, then gazed deep into the intricate contours and crevasses of his inner hand as if she were looking through a kaleidoscope. “Hmm...I see a trip...a guest and a—”

The phone rang.

“Saved by the bell,” said Rose as she got up from the table, and disappeared down the hall.

As he continued to eat his breakfast, Mason suddenly became aware of the fact that he was being watched. Two wide blue eyes hovered just above the table top. Bossy arched and put one paw up on the table, then the other.

“Nope,” he scolded, pointing at her. “Don’t even think about it. If she finds you on the table...”

Mrrrow? She inched closer, twitching her pink little nose toward his plate.

Mason took a quick peek down the hall and broke off the smallest corner off a strip of bacon. Bossy licked it up the moment it was placed in front of her before she could be discovered.

Too late.

“Aha, busted!” said Rose, returning to the kitchen. Bossy immediately sprang down to the floor.

“Damnit!”

“For that you have to mow the lawn when you get home.”

“I’m going out with Julie and Dale later.”

“When?”

“Five.”

“That’s plenty of time.”

“Fine,” said Mason nonchalantly. “Who was it?”

“Oh just Missus Papanikolas confirming her appointment for this afternoon. She’s such a worry wart.”

He finished and took his plate to the sink. Bossy was licking the last remaining taste off her whiskers. “Hope you enjoyed that.”

After a quick shower and a proper change of clothes, Mason left for work.

It was a beautiful day. The sun shone bright and brilliant. As soon as he stepped outside, the air was fresh with the smell of wildflowers from the garden and leaves from the tall maple in the back yard. Birds chirped a melodious tune to each other from tree to tree. A light gloss of dew remained on the grass and pavement, telling him that there must have been a drizzle while he slept. Now there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Tossing his book into the passenger’s seat, Mason got in his truck, a cankerous rust bucket the color of phlegm, twisted the key in the ignition, and awoke it with a loud snore. The muffler coughed black smoke as it pulled out of the driveway and gunned down the hill toward town.

On a day like today, Mason expected the town to be bustling with people. As bustling as it got in Stonehill, Ohio anyway. At first glance it was like any other small town. And it would have remained so after a second, third and fourth glance as well. Some might even have called it quaint, without feeling remote or cut off from the rest of the world. Small farms surrounded the town; corn mostly with a few cattle farms to the east. There were church bake sales in the spring, water balloon fights in the summer, food drives in the fall for Thanksgiving, and carolers at Christmas. It was the type of place where people sat on their front porches in the late evening sun sipping iced tea, saying hello to familiar faces as they passed by.

He passed the high school and turned on to Main Street. Cars and mini-vans drove up and down the town’s main artery. Parents were walking along the sidewalk carrying plastic bags of last minute school supplies, their children in tow behind them as they lapped up the melting sides of their ice cream cones.

The light turned red at the intersection in the center of town. Most people seemed to be congregating at the Town Square between the Sheriff’s Office and St. John Lutheran Church. A few people had their noses stuck in either books or cell phones (more the latter than the former). On the grass near the creek, couples were walking their dogs, throwing balls or sticks for them to blissfully chase after. Others were simply sitting on the benches around the stone fountain, sunglasses covering their eyes as they enjoyed the day.

The light turned green and Mason moved his foot from the break pedal to the gas.

Only it didn’t move. Its sputtering ceased as the boisterous engine fell silent.

“Oh come on.” said Mason. “Not again!”

He turned the key.

“Come on, don’t do this now.”

The car behind him honked.

“Great,” said Mason, knowing it wouldn’t be long before every other asshole started.

He turned the key again, squeezing a shrill wheeze from the ignition.

Sure enough, the car behind him was joined by every other, each one sounding their horns in a cacophony all around him. Heads turned his way from people passing by on the sidewalks and from the shop windows.

Mason reached his left hand out the window, wanting so badly to throw a middle finger up into the air for all to see, but instead waving them forward to go around before the light turned red again.

“Get that thing out of the road, Jew Boy!” shouted the driver of a much newer truck as he passed. Mason knew exactly who it was, even before he saw the plate which read E-ROCK speeding away. His grip tightened on the wheel until his knuckles turned white.

With little choice, he let go of the key and sat back in his seat. What he wouldn’t have given right then to be anywhere else. Anywhere at all, as long as it wasn’t here.

“Come on, you piece of junk,” said Mason, turning the key gingerly this time. It coughed back to life with a burst of thick smoke behind him. “Finally!”

When the light turned green again, Mason steered the truck up Main Street and down the main drag of downtown Stonehill. It consisted of about twenty storefronts on either side, topped with the single tall white spire of the church. Mason thought it looked like a dunce cap over a strip mall.

Gus’s Gas and Garage was at the southern end of town near Route 422. Mason saw the red and white lettering on the sign out front as he pulled up and parked near the gas pumps. He heard the sound of a radio coming from the garage, and saw that there were legs stuck under the front of a an old Dodge.

“Hey Gus,” said Mason.

A man slid out from under the bottom of the car. Grease stains all over his face and coveralls with a faded red cap plastered to his balding head. A pair of eyes distorted by glasses as thick as ashtrays peeked out at him. “Oh hi, Mason.”

“How’s it going?”

“Can’t complain.”

“Is Dale here yet?”

“Nope, Dale’s off today,” said Gus, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a rag. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“Oh...yeah...he did actually. Sorry, I must’ve forgot.” Damn! he thought, I wanted to talk to him about tonight. “Well, I’ll be inside if you need me.”

“Sounds good. Say, how’s the truck running?”

“Oh just great. Thanks again for fixing her.”

“I still say you should have waited to buy my old truck. She’s got a good two-hundred-thou left in her.”

“Next time.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” said Gus and slid back under the car. Mason was walking away when he heard the board roll back out. “Oh, would you mind giving the back room a sweep when you have a minute?”

“Sure thing.”

“You know where the broom is, right?”

“Sure do.”

“Thanks,” and disappeared under the car again.

He entered the store and made his way down the aisles of pop and snacks, past the magazines and sat himself behind the counter. The old familiar sound of Country 104.5 played on the radio. One time he tried switching the dial to ROCK-FM, but that didn’t fly with Gus. Momentarily, he replaced it with the lyrics of a Metallica song.

Welcome to where time stands still.

No one leaves and no one will…

Within minutes Mason’s gaze became glued to the road outside, a road which led far away from here for everyone but him, broken only by the occasional fleeting glimpse of a passing car.

There were no customers this early in the day and the back room could wait. His gaze wandered to the rack of magazines, drifting higher until they landed on the brightly-colored plastic packaging of the top shelf. The hot pink lettering of the triple Xs across the likes of Hustler, Escort, and Juggs caught his eye. He could just see the tops of dolled-up faces, sultry eyes beckoning him closer.

Hey big boy, come on over and pick me up…if you can…

“Tempting, but better not. Knowing my luck, that’s just when a customer will walk in.”

If you say so. I got all day and nowhere to be.

“Yeah, that makes two of us.”

At this point, anything that shook things up a little would be a welcome break from the norm, but he didn’t need any trouble. Not today.

Mason took out his phone, clicked on Julie’s number and tapped away at the letters beneath his thumbs.

Hey. Are we still on for tonight?

He knew the answer perfectly well but asked anyway. Come on, baby. Show me those dancing dots. Just once, just this once let her respond right away instead of an hour later.

Ten minutes passed. Ten became thirty, and thirty became forty-five with no response.

Fifty-nine minutes later, his phone pinged. Mason drew it from his pocket with the speed and dexterity of a veteran gunslinger.

Yup!

Not quite the lengthy response he had hoped for — never was — but enough in that single word to breathe relief into him.

He typed back without a second thought.

Cool.

Is that all? Should I say something else? I should say something else...shouldn’t I?

But before he could think of what that might be, those three little dots began to dance again.

What R U up to?

Yes! Okay, what do I write back? How about the truth, that you’re at work? His thumbs hit the W, O, and R keys…and then stopped. Nah, too boring. Something clever and a little funny. Not side-splitting, just enough to make her smile.

Drooling on myself.

Okay...Okay, it’s the truth but with a spin.

WUT??

Oh god, she didn’t get it. Of course she didn’t get it.

And do you really want to put that image in their head? Just keep it simple.

Working.

Yeah, that’s better. I hope.

Oh gotcha! LOL :D

There we go. And with a smiley too. Nice. Okay, that’s the high note, just sign off and leave it.

Anyway. Better get back to it. See you tonight @ 5.

He hit the Send key with satisfaction.

K bye.

Hmm…a bit chilly. Was it because I reminded her of the time? Will she think that I think she’s always late? I mean, she is always late, but I didn’t mean it that way. Or does that mean she wanted to talk more? When I read what I wrote, it does kind of sound like I’m blowing her off. But that’s not what I meant! She’s got to know that, right? Oh god…or could it just mean K bye? It’s possible that you could be reading too much into things.

The bell above the door chimed as the door opened.

A woman approached from down the aisle. Marcy Burgess, the pastor’s wife. One of the many faithful in town who were not big fans of Rose or her “heathen fortune-telling.” Nor of Mason for that matter, just for being who he was. Blessedly thin, she moved like a gazelle on a mission, her hairdo bobbing just above the shoulders as she neared. Too many teeth filled her mouth, so much that even her pursed lips could not hide them. Her eyes, however, were hidden by a pair of dark sunglasses. Despite the heat, she wore a wool cardigan and a string of pearls beneath the collar of her starched shirt. One arm crooked out in front of her letting her handbag dangle. She slung it forward, placed it down on the counter.

“Pack of Virginia Slims.”

Odd. She didn’t smoke. At least, he didn’t think so. Mason found her brand below the counter while she rummaged through her bag.

“That’ll be nine-fifty.”

Marcy took a ten dollar bill from her wallet and held it out, head down, gingerly adjusting her sunglasses. She normally didn’t pay him much mind, but she did so with an air of righteous superiority behind the wheel of her Lexus, talking loudly on her phone about some country club function or Senator Whoever-The-Hell visiting the church while he pumped her gas. Today she was quiet, almost diminished.

Mason took the money from her, and she took the cigarettes from the counter. And without even waiting for her change, she left. Leaving Mason to wonder just what he might see behind the lenses of those sunglasses.

Still here, stud, said the a blonde covergirl after thirty minutes of watching the road. I’ve got four and half minutes to spare, if you do.

His mind wandered, and when his mind wandered, instead of being blissfully lost in a tranquil sea of nothingness, it stumbled upon buried thoughts that had drifted to the surface.

Tonight was kind of a big deal. A last kick at the can before the school year started, and then eventually Julie went away to college and he went...well...nowhere. Dale wasn’t leaving either but at least he was moving up.

Mason thought about what he had to do and lead butterflies began ceaselessly fluttering around his chest.

He started working at Gus’s Gas and Garage at the beginning of the summer. Dale had got him the job after he started working with his old man in the garage. It was okay. He wasn’t crazy about waiting on people, but Gus pretty much left him alone unless he needed the floor swept or the garbage taken out. Plus it gave him time to read, so how bad could it be?

Could be worse.

Mason got As in pretty much everything except gym, which he hated thanks largely to the jocks and their insistence on making him feel as awkward as possible. Here were a group of guys who greeted each other with a slap on the ass and waved their peckers at each other in the showers, but still called him a fag and said he looked like a girl because of his long hair.

Sure. Whatever.

His truck had to have been twenty years old, probably more. When kept in good shape a vehicle’s age shouldn’t matter. This was not the case with Patches, so named by Dale due to the body so badly rusted it looked like lesions on a plague victim. The gearshift stuck, the transmission was ancient and every time he started it up it coughed a hideous black cloud that would rob a chain-smoker of breath. Though none of that bothered him as much as why he bought it in the first place, shaking his head in disbelief at the very thought of it.

He had been saving since he started working in his sophomore year, the idea being to put enough aside for college. Then Julie got accepted to the University of Ohio. And that’s when it struck him — sooner or later, she would be gone. Actually gone. Of course they would still see each other. At first. Then it would just become at holidays, she would make new friends at school, and sooner or later there would be a boyfriend in the picture, and he would become some guy she knew back home, “too busy” to return his calls.

“So I panicked,” said Mason to the empty store.

Rose had homeschooled him before finally enrolling him in regular classes after it became clear that she couldn’t both teach him and the kids she tutored if they wanted to make ends meet. As a result, Mason was a full year older than Julie and she often bugged him about not having a car.

Easy to do when your parents buy you one.

Just a little harmless ribbing between friends. But to him it meant so much more.

A momentary lapse in judgement that led to a bad choice. A stupid choice! A choice that left me $1,500 in the hole, got Rose pissed at me, and delayed going to college by at least another year. And how did Julie respond? She laughed. She actually laughed.

And I thought it would impress her.

“Idiot,” he said.

I mean, it’s not like nothing has ever happened between us. There must have been some reason for it. So what if we were drunk? So what if we haven’t talked about it since? So what if there were rumors about her giving head to Eric Riley in the boy’s locker room that make me sick just to think about? Ridiculous...right?

All he knew for sure was that one way or another, it was time to tell her how he felt. Now or never. Until then he was confined to his role at Gus’s Gas and Garage among the rest of the corn-fed, cow-tipping population of this town-sized rest stop for people just passing through on their way to somewhere else.

But again, it could have been worse.

Way worse.

Next Chapter: Chapter Three