The unexpected cool of the breeze stirred him from his thoughts. Dragging deeply on a cigarette he shouldn’t be smoking on the roof of the two-story Colonial where he was raised he looked out at the city. The chrome of his Zippo lighter gleamed in the sun even as the sky darkened.
He brought his family by for a visit after a day spent at the zoo so that his parents could see the kids. Sam excused himself to make a call and get out of sight for a quick smoke. It was something his family thought he no longer did.
Another cool gust came rushing down the hill toward him and the thick, earthy smell of rain followed. Thunder rolled heavily from over the horizon. On the breeze the sound of the first few raindrops of a deluge made their way. A storm was rolling in, it was one of his favorite forces of nature although this time he found it easy to ignore. It was almost identical to another afternoon, more than twenty years before.
Back Then
Sam dragged a match along the rough asphalt roof shingles and produced the familiar phwoosh of a match at ignition. He brought the flame to the tip of the cigarette and dragged deep on the unfiltered Camel. He was fifteen years old that summer and celebrated the milestone by sneaking smokes on the roof. His perch not only provided solace and a secure area to break the no smoking laid down by his parents but it also afforded a truly spectacular view of downtown.
The familiar skyline stood out against a backdrop of the summer sky rapidly becoming angry from the South. Watching storms roll across the sky from up here was one of the spoils of summer and this was shaping up to be a good one. He took another puff and realized he left his bike at the pool.
The neighborhood was an older one. Back in the forties a group of neighbors decided to construct a pool and open membership to residents. Well constructed as things were back then and monstrous, it had weathered the test of time admirably and looked much as it did on opening day all those years ago. There were not many children in the neighborhood and his family was the only one with kids under fifty. It was a good setup. Most of the old folks that made up the bulk of the pool’s membership were gone by nightfall and during the hot part of the day they were mostly nonexistent. It made for a great place to laze around and waste the short lived gift that is youth.
Earlier he and his brother were swimming when they heard the sound of gravel gnashing beneath the weight of a vehicle. Someone was pulling up the driveway. Sam looked at his brother and then at the two cans of stolen Lone Star beer sweating in the August breeze. The two froze with fear. The cinderblock building that housed the restrooms and showers also held an ice machine, a freezer and an ancient bullet shaped fridge stocked to the gills with beer. They had been pretty slick in the past and were never caught sneaking those beers, but there was a note on that fridge that proved they had been found out, the threat of retribution: TERMINATION OF POOL MEMBERSHIP. Punishment to be levied on the guilty party. The guilty party being Sam and his brother.
The shuffling of footsteps stopped at the locked gate. They both knew they had finally been caught. In a short time one of the ranks of angry old pool members would storm in with a comical “AHA!” and they would be finished, but instead of hearing the click of an opening padlock they heard the rattling of the chain link fence that secured the property.
“SAMUEL!” A voice sounding strained and comically low flowed from the gate.
“SAMUEL! We know you have stolen our beer, and our assorted ointments and pills!”
It was an immediately recognizable voice. It was his best friend, it was Tony.
“Let me in, Sam.”
“Open the gate Stevie” said Samuel to his brother who had resumed swimming laps as the danger of being found sneaking beer had passed.
“No.” He replied backstroking calmly.
“Hop the fence.” Yelled Samuel, he paddled over to the corner of the shallow end so he could see his friend at the gate.
“You hop the fence.” Tony said flatly.
“Hang on.”
Sam hauled himself up and out of the pool, he made his way to the table to grab his towel and take a slug of that frosty can of Lone Star that could have resulted in TERMINATION OF POOL MEMBERSHIP.
He opened the gate and his friend moved through in a flurry of hand slaps and insults. Sam sat down and Tony went to the fridge and reappeared with more beer.
“You know,” said Sam. “I really need to get these old bastards to start drinking better beer.”
“First the beer is free, Second, Lone Star is great beer and third shut your yap.”
Tony smiled and nodded at Sam knowing it would get a rise out of him. It did, but Tony couldn’t take it anymore and burst out laughing. Sam joined grudgingly.
It was one of those summer days when their youth and their freedom was at a peak. The kind of day Sam knew, even way back then, that he would reminisce about in his older and inevitably, fatter future. Sam’s little brother got out of the pool and toweled off. He walked over and slapped hands.
“I am going to head home, and no I will not come back and get your bike.” He said anticipating What Sam would ask him to do. Sam let it slide.
“Tell mom I’ll be home later and I’m hanging out with Tony.” said Samuel.
“Nope.” Replied his brother.
“You’re an ass but I still love you.”
“Not taking your bike, Sam.”
“We found you in an alley and you owe me for not letting the dog catcher drown you.”
His younger brother’s final reply was a trailing middle finger as he made his way out.
Tony and Sam were a strange mix. They met when seated next to each other in a fourth period math class at Longfellow Middle School, the same school adjacent to the pool. High school sent them on different paths, but later they met again when Tony unexpectedly appeared in Sam’s biology class.
Tony was the ring leader. He had his driver’s license and a way with the girls; he was smooth as glass and he had only to flash a sly smile to get his way. Lately he had been different. Sam attributed the changes in behavior to the strain of losing his father. Confusion and anger had begun to peek out from behind the façade of bravado and candor he displayed to the world. Tony’s dad was a good man, and commanded respect. Menacing and friendly at once he valued his family above all else. He was also an extremely hard worker, he would take double shifts for city public service then come home and stay up late help to help Tony with his homework.
He had a sixty’s cool that he wore without trying. From the greased hair he fashioned into a ducktail obsessively with a small black comb, to being outside every Sunday afternoon in the driveway with Tony, wrenching on a very special 1968 Camaro SS.
Chevy Orange with Black stripes.
When Sam met Tony again in high school he was still the same old Tony but a piece of him was gone. During the time they weren’t in touch Tony’s dad was killed on the job in an accident involving laying hands on a hot cable full of lightning during a thunderstorm. The utility settled out of court and he and his mother, Margo, came into some money. She bought a truck for Tony when he was fifteen and parked it in the driveway until he was legal to drive it.
The truck was flawless. The paint, a bottomless pool of obsidian, it draped the frame in midnight. The roll bar, awash in a blaze of glimmering chrome it hurt to look at. The Chevy Z-71 step side sat commandingly astride classic Cragar mag wheels wrapped in oversized rubber. Power tore through the dual exhaust erupting in a blistering roar of the deepest tenor.
All this and yet for Tony it was no comfort. Some days he could hardly look at it.
It wasn’t his vehicle, that is, it wasn’t the vehicle he was supposed to have. The fact was that he just couldn’t ignore the pain caused by the senselessness of it all and decide he would let it go.
His heart ached for the past. For him the car was his father, made manifest in a simple mode of transport, truly greater than the sum of its well maintained parts and that made it special.
That made it very special.
The sorrow of his loss went deep down into the place where memories of Sunday afternoon with his father, and with the car, dwelled. It was in this place his heart ached. He would never wake to see that very special 1968 Camaro SS, Chevy Orange with black stripes at home in the driveway of the house his parents bought the month he was born.
The reason he would never see that car only made it worse.
Money talks, but speaks entirely in farewells, an unfortunate truism in Tony’s case.
Soon after his father’s death his mother developed a debilitating heroin addiction and burned through the settlement money. It was a panicked and failed attempt to kill her own pain, losing her husband and the father of her only child. The absence of her harmony, he was her opposite but equal. It was too much for her. Along her spiral through the numbing depths of nothingness she met Marcos. One of his first contributions to the