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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Love stories / Romance
- Subject: Friends / Friendship
- Published: 05/30/2022
"For Sale."
Born 1951, M, from Wilmington NC, United StatesI slowed down when I saw it in the driveway. Cherry Red with black highlights and a velour roof. The chrome was gleaming in the harsh sunlight. I had to stop and look. I knew all about that car. I had held the transmission up when Carl put in the Hertz Four Speed. I had helped wax it to a high gloss shine, like a ruby on wheels. I had sat in it with Carl as we burned rubber out of Beth’s driveway the night she broke up with him. I knew that car. I knew Carl. I knew he would never sell his baby.
I sat in my car as memories sprinted from the closed parts of my mind. I couldn’t think of Carl without thinking of her. And them.
*****
We had just been buddies forever. In first grade he had gone home and told his Mother:
“I made a friend today. He is bigger than me. And he is quiet. I like him.”
I was bigger than him. I still am. But only in stature.
He met Beth in Eighth grade. I liked her…at first. But then he spent more and more time with her…and less with me. Only Sports and Cars kept him and I together. In Ninth Grade…I met Gina. After that, the four of us were inseparable. We always took Carl’s car. Always. We double dated. We danced together. We swam at old Wildwood Lake together. And one time, after a few drinks…we managed to skinny dip together. Luckily cold water kept our emotions from showing. We laughed hilariously at the fact that all of us couldn’t wait to get back in our clothes.
Then Two things happened. Beth dropped Carl and gave him back the ring. Carl was all of twenty two years old, and Beth was his first, and only woman. He called me to come over to Beth’s. He was still sitting in the car holding the ring. I saw Beth standing in the Bay Window of her house when I ran up to Carl’s car. Once she saw I was getting in the car, she showed me the “peace sign” and blew me a kiss. Then she pulled the curtains on her past, and Carl’s future.
He showed me the ring. I asked him how I could help. He looked over at me when he gunned the engine. And smiled a weird smile at me:
“You just keep me from doing something stupid. Like driving into a bridge, or launching us into oncoming traffic.”
And that is what I did.
The other thing was not as dramatic. I got my draft notice. Four months later I was holding Gina at the airport. Carl stood close by. I was off to Vietnam. Gina was wearing the Engagement ring I had given her at Christmas our Senior year of High School. Four years we have been engaged. We would have been married if it wasn’t for the Draft Notice. In fact, that Notice led to our biggest fight ever.
Gina wanted to marry right away. I didn’t want her to maybe be a widow. I don’t know, losing a boyfriend or fiancé sounded easier somehow than losing your husband. So I told her we would get married when I got home from Vietnam, but not before. She finally made me promise that we would be married within a month of me coming home. I promised.
At the airport I pulled Gina from my arms and nestled her into Carl’s arms. I told him to watch out for her and take care of her until I got back. She hurried her head in Carl’s chest and cried as I managed to hold back my tears.
“You take good care of her Carl.”
“I will.”
Of course, it never dawned on me that he wouldn’t give her back.
*****
Vietnam wasn’t like the movies for me. I just drove a truck. I only saw action once. It was enough. I got sent to the Hospital Tokyo. Almost six months later I was healed enough to be sent to Tripler Army Hospital in Hawaii. Finally, almost exactly two years after I left Gina in the capable arms of Carl, I was Medically Discharged.
I didn’t tell anyone I was coming home. I wanted it to be a surprise.
It was.
*****
Carl and Gina were in the bedroom. I wondered why, since it was after midnight when I slipped into the house I had built with my own two hands. Carl was a Wizard Mechanic, but I was good with wood. Really good. I was a Finish Carpenter, licensed, bonded, and insured before I even finished High School. I built a small five room house on an acre my Uncle Ted gave me. I finished it and moved in on my Eighteenth Birthday. Gina moved in the day after Graduation from High School. Her Parents were not happy…at first. They became accustomed to the new Moral Code after a while.
She lived there, rent free, the whole time I was in the Army. I thought Carl lived above his Mom and Dad’s garage. I thought he loved it there. He could get up at night and go down into the garage and work on his beloved 1968 Chevelle SS with a 396 and Hurst Click Shifter. Maybe if it had been daylight when I snuck into my own house; using the rusted key that was still under the loose brick by the side door, I would have noticed a couple lived there now. But it was dark. It often is at midnight... in the Winter... in Ohio.
I heard soft talking coming from the bedroom. I recognized Carl’s voice right away. Then Gina’s. But there was something strange about the pitch and timbre of their voices. It wasn’t a conversational tone. It was deeper, softer, cozier. Pillow talk.
The door was open. Only one small light was on with a twenty watt bulb. It gave the room the soft glow that fireplaces that are down to embers usually provide. It was enough light to see that Gina was perched onto of Carl’s thighs. Her soft rhythm matching the rocking motion of Carl’s hips. I could plainly see Gina’s Ring, my ring. It was on the little nightstand next to her side of the bed. Just sitting there in mute testimony that she knew what she was doing…and it was wrong.
I don’t know how long I stood there. It was long enough that they finished. I must have been holding perfectly still…and not breathing…because they never noticed me until Gina reached down in the bed to bring the sheets back up. And that was the last time I saw her. Naked, clenching a sheet, with eyes wide with to many emotions to count…or figure out.
Carl didn’t move. He just started to cry. So did she. The only dry eyes in the whole house…were mine. My tears coagulated in emotion. Anger. Betrayal. Fear. And a broken heart with shattered dreams. I held my cane in front of me like a Great Wizard about to cast a spell. I did cast a spell. I cast them both out of my life forever. The only words I spoke, I spoke as I turned to go:
“You can have the house. Keep the ring. Don’t call me. Ever.”
And I left.
*****
Years passed. Then a decade. I never found another Gina. I never tried. I had heard that they got married. I skipped our Ten Year High School Reunion. I knew they would both be there. Maybe wanting to run into me…maybe no. I never gave them a chance to talk to me. Maybe they wanted forgiveness, maybe they didn’t. I didn’t care. It was over and I moved on. I thought they deserved each other. I hoped they were happy. Sort of.
My next door neighbor died. Mr. Wilson. I had cut his grass since I was seven years old. He taught me to play golf. After giving my house to Gina…he let me live in his cabin up at the Lake until I could figure out what to do now. Now he was Dead. I went to the funeral. On the way home from the Cemetery (I didn’t go to the Wake) I cruised by my old haunts. One of them being the house I built with my own two hands.
The site of my greatest accomplishment, and my worst betrayal. A love died there. Along with two friendships. I was drifting back to feelings I thought I had buried deep enough to not grow back to the surface. Again…I was wrong. Believe me, tears were barely beating the feelings causing them to spill from my eyes.
That is when I saw it.
The “For Sale” sign.
On Carl’s car.
In my front yard…my old front yard.
I pulled over. For a long time, I just stared. Just like I told you at the beginning of this story. Then I started to think.
Something. Something dreadful had to have happened for Carl to put that car up for sale. I had to know what it was. I owed him that much. And her.
I steeled myself. I puffed out a chuckle at that phrase. Only massively broken hearts venturing back into the splintered ground of a shattered relationship know what it means. It takes all kinds of courage and control to stay neutral. I steeled myself some more. I waked up the old familiar stones to the front door.
I knocked.
I heard a soft:
“Who’s there?”
It was her voice.
I didn’t risk my own voice. I couldn’t trust it.
So…I knocked again.
Louder this time, I heard a tired voice trying to not snap.
“Who is it, if it is about the car the details are on the For Sale sign.”
I knocked again.
This time I heard a snort.
“Oh for crying out loud. Okay, already!”
The door flung open.
For a moment…time stopped. One look was all it took. I reacted out of pure compassion for someone I loved.
I put my arms out.
Gina threw herself into my arms. Wrapping arms, legs, heart and soul around my very being.
I held her tight. I felt her tears drenching the front of my shirt, and mine making little rivulets down to her hair.
We didn’t talk. We didn’t speak. We didn’t dare.
Walls were crumbling, hurt and pain were pouring out, love was pouring in. Forgiveness and hope warred with each other to fill in the gaps.
After a while, we sagged into each other.
“I still love you.”
That was my voice. I was surprised to hear it. I knew it was true.
“I still love you too.”
That was her voice. I was surprised to hear it. I knew it was true.
Still sagging against each other, as years and years of what should have, could have, or might have been said, peeled off into the unnecessary, we started to talk.
“Why is Carl selling his car?”
“Things have been tough. Carl…Carl got hurt. Bad. The Medical Expenses …they took everything he had.”
“Why didn’t you just sell the house?”
She stared up at me. I could see the old fire in her eyes.
“I would rather die. It is all I kept of you. All I had of you.”
I blinked back the pustule of remembered hate that threatened to come out. Choosing instead to pop that boil with the needle of forgiveness. It worked.
“I don’t understand, weren’t you two married? Shouldn’t the house be in your names?”
She tamped down whatever age old guilt she had rising to a boil with the same needle of forgiveness I was using.
“We were never married. That night you caught us, was the only time either of us had fooled around. He hadn’t had a woman since Beth left. I hadn’t had a man since you left. Wine and loneliness caught up with us both. You left without either of us being able to reach you.”
I staggered a little. She held me up, as she had so many other times in my life. I saw a future that might have happened if I had just given them both a chance. Just a few moments of attention and I might have reacted differently. I was angry with my selfishness. She waited until I washed that stink from my mind.
“I…am…so…sorry.”
We kissed. An old promise made new again. It wasn’t the kind of kiss that turns to passion, it was the kind that forgives. That lets life, and love, start over.
“So where is Carl?”
She turned to point into the house.
"He stays in the back bedroom. I can’t get him to come out much. He…he…he doesn’t look like he used to.”
“Will he recover?”
“The Doctors say he should be recovering now. I think he just wants to punish himself because of what he did to you…to us. I was like him for a while. I just hoped you would come back someday.”
She squeezed my hand…hard. I squeezed back. As the old Lucy Show used to say: “We both had some “explaining to do”.
I let go of her hand for a moment. She looked at me in surprise.
“Wait here!”
I sprung out to the car, ripped the for sale sign off and brought it in with me.
Her eyes teared up as she put two and two together. I could see the thanks pouring out of her eyes.
She opened the door to Carl’s room. Carl sat in a rocker. He was a good fifty pounds lighter than he should be. His muscle tone was almost non existent, and he hadn’t shaved in quite a while. It wasn’t a beard he was growing, it was a mask to hide behind. He saw me holding Gina’s hand. A genuine smile crept through the beard.
I held up the For Sale Sign.
He looked at me confused.
I Looked back at him with certainty.
“This…my friend…is never going to happen.”
For the second time in less than fifteen minutes, my arms were filled with someone I loved. A moment later, a softer gentler pair of arms encircled us both.
*****
Gina and I sat in the back seat. Carl was in the front with his Physical Therapist. She saw him at his worst, and loved what she saw.
“Where to?”
Said Carl.
I snickered when I said:
“ There are some parking spots down in the Valley. We could watch the submarine races.”
Betty, Carl’s main reason for living and loving life again, chirped up with curiosity:
“What’s a submarine race?”
Carl grinned from ear to ear…just like me and Gina in the backseat.
“You’ll see?”
Carl gunned the engine, clicked it into first, and we shot down the hill to the valley below.
Just like we used to double date in the old days. Except we were all older, wiser, and deeper in love. Best friends.
"For Sale."(Kevin Hughes)
I slowed down when I saw it in the driveway. Cherry Red with black highlights and a velour roof. The chrome was gleaming in the harsh sunlight. I had to stop and look. I knew all about that car. I had held the transmission up when Carl put in the Hertz Four Speed. I had helped wax it to a high gloss shine, like a ruby on wheels. I had sat in it with Carl as we burned rubber out of Beth’s driveway the night she broke up with him. I knew that car. I knew Carl. I knew he would never sell his baby.
I sat in my car as memories sprinted from the closed parts of my mind. I couldn’t think of Carl without thinking of her. And them.
*****
We had just been buddies forever. In first grade he had gone home and told his Mother:
“I made a friend today. He is bigger than me. And he is quiet. I like him.”
I was bigger than him. I still am. But only in stature.
He met Beth in Eighth grade. I liked her…at first. But then he spent more and more time with her…and less with me. Only Sports and Cars kept him and I together. In Ninth Grade…I met Gina. After that, the four of us were inseparable. We always took Carl’s car. Always. We double dated. We danced together. We swam at old Wildwood Lake together. And one time, after a few drinks…we managed to skinny dip together. Luckily cold water kept our emotions from showing. We laughed hilariously at the fact that all of us couldn’t wait to get back in our clothes.
Then Two things happened. Beth dropped Carl and gave him back the ring. Carl was all of twenty two years old, and Beth was his first, and only woman. He called me to come over to Beth’s. He was still sitting in the car holding the ring. I saw Beth standing in the Bay Window of her house when I ran up to Carl’s car. Once she saw I was getting in the car, she showed me the “peace sign” and blew me a kiss. Then she pulled the curtains on her past, and Carl’s future.
He showed me the ring. I asked him how I could help. He looked over at me when he gunned the engine. And smiled a weird smile at me:
“You just keep me from doing something stupid. Like driving into a bridge, or launching us into oncoming traffic.”
And that is what I did.
The other thing was not as dramatic. I got my draft notice. Four months later I was holding Gina at the airport. Carl stood close by. I was off to Vietnam. Gina was wearing the Engagement ring I had given her at Christmas our Senior year of High School. Four years we have been engaged. We would have been married if it wasn’t for the Draft Notice. In fact, that Notice led to our biggest fight ever.
Gina wanted to marry right away. I didn’t want her to maybe be a widow. I don’t know, losing a boyfriend or fiancé sounded easier somehow than losing your husband. So I told her we would get married when I got home from Vietnam, but not before. She finally made me promise that we would be married within a month of me coming home. I promised.
At the airport I pulled Gina from my arms and nestled her into Carl’s arms. I told him to watch out for her and take care of her until I got back. She hurried her head in Carl’s chest and cried as I managed to hold back my tears.
“You take good care of her Carl.”
“I will.”
Of course, it never dawned on me that he wouldn’t give her back.
*****
Vietnam wasn’t like the movies for me. I just drove a truck. I only saw action once. It was enough. I got sent to the Hospital Tokyo. Almost six months later I was healed enough to be sent to Tripler Army Hospital in Hawaii. Finally, almost exactly two years after I left Gina in the capable arms of Carl, I was Medically Discharged.
I didn’t tell anyone I was coming home. I wanted it to be a surprise.
It was.
*****
Carl and Gina were in the bedroom. I wondered why, since it was after midnight when I slipped into the house I had built with my own two hands. Carl was a Wizard Mechanic, but I was good with wood. Really good. I was a Finish Carpenter, licensed, bonded, and insured before I even finished High School. I built a small five room house on an acre my Uncle Ted gave me. I finished it and moved in on my Eighteenth Birthday. Gina moved in the day after Graduation from High School. Her Parents were not happy…at first. They became accustomed to the new Moral Code after a while.
She lived there, rent free, the whole time I was in the Army. I thought Carl lived above his Mom and Dad’s garage. I thought he loved it there. He could get up at night and go down into the garage and work on his beloved 1968 Chevelle SS with a 396 and Hurst Click Shifter. Maybe if it had been daylight when I snuck into my own house; using the rusted key that was still under the loose brick by the side door, I would have noticed a couple lived there now. But it was dark. It often is at midnight... in the Winter... in Ohio.
I heard soft talking coming from the bedroom. I recognized Carl’s voice right away. Then Gina’s. But there was something strange about the pitch and timbre of their voices. It wasn’t a conversational tone. It was deeper, softer, cozier. Pillow talk.
The door was open. Only one small light was on with a twenty watt bulb. It gave the room the soft glow that fireplaces that are down to embers usually provide. It was enough light to see that Gina was perched onto of Carl’s thighs. Her soft rhythm matching the rocking motion of Carl’s hips. I could plainly see Gina’s Ring, my ring. It was on the little nightstand next to her side of the bed. Just sitting there in mute testimony that she knew what she was doing…and it was wrong.
I don’t know how long I stood there. It was long enough that they finished. I must have been holding perfectly still…and not breathing…because they never noticed me until Gina reached down in the bed to bring the sheets back up. And that was the last time I saw her. Naked, clenching a sheet, with eyes wide with to many emotions to count…or figure out.
Carl didn’t move. He just started to cry. So did she. The only dry eyes in the whole house…were mine. My tears coagulated in emotion. Anger. Betrayal. Fear. And a broken heart with shattered dreams. I held my cane in front of me like a Great Wizard about to cast a spell. I did cast a spell. I cast them both out of my life forever. The only words I spoke, I spoke as I turned to go:
“You can have the house. Keep the ring. Don’t call me. Ever.”
And I left.
*****
Years passed. Then a decade. I never found another Gina. I never tried. I had heard that they got married. I skipped our Ten Year High School Reunion. I knew they would both be there. Maybe wanting to run into me…maybe no. I never gave them a chance to talk to me. Maybe they wanted forgiveness, maybe they didn’t. I didn’t care. It was over and I moved on. I thought they deserved each other. I hoped they were happy. Sort of.
My next door neighbor died. Mr. Wilson. I had cut his grass since I was seven years old. He taught me to play golf. After giving my house to Gina…he let me live in his cabin up at the Lake until I could figure out what to do now. Now he was Dead. I went to the funeral. On the way home from the Cemetery (I didn’t go to the Wake) I cruised by my old haunts. One of them being the house I built with my own two hands.
The site of my greatest accomplishment, and my worst betrayal. A love died there. Along with two friendships. I was drifting back to feelings I thought I had buried deep enough to not grow back to the surface. Again…I was wrong. Believe me, tears were barely beating the feelings causing them to spill from my eyes.
That is when I saw it.
The “For Sale” sign.
On Carl’s car.
In my front yard…my old front yard.
I pulled over. For a long time, I just stared. Just like I told you at the beginning of this story. Then I started to think.
Something. Something dreadful had to have happened for Carl to put that car up for sale. I had to know what it was. I owed him that much. And her.
I steeled myself. I puffed out a chuckle at that phrase. Only massively broken hearts venturing back into the splintered ground of a shattered relationship know what it means. It takes all kinds of courage and control to stay neutral. I steeled myself some more. I waked up the old familiar stones to the front door.
I knocked.
I heard a soft:
“Who’s there?”
It was her voice.
I didn’t risk my own voice. I couldn’t trust it.
So…I knocked again.
Louder this time, I heard a tired voice trying to not snap.
“Who is it, if it is about the car the details are on the For Sale sign.”
I knocked again.
This time I heard a snort.
“Oh for crying out loud. Okay, already!”
The door flung open.
For a moment…time stopped. One look was all it took. I reacted out of pure compassion for someone I loved.
I put my arms out.
Gina threw herself into my arms. Wrapping arms, legs, heart and soul around my very being.
I held her tight. I felt her tears drenching the front of my shirt, and mine making little rivulets down to her hair.
We didn’t talk. We didn’t speak. We didn’t dare.
Walls were crumbling, hurt and pain were pouring out, love was pouring in. Forgiveness and hope warred with each other to fill in the gaps.
After a while, we sagged into each other.
“I still love you.”
That was my voice. I was surprised to hear it. I knew it was true.
“I still love you too.”
That was her voice. I was surprised to hear it. I knew it was true.
Still sagging against each other, as years and years of what should have, could have, or might have been said, peeled off into the unnecessary, we started to talk.
“Why is Carl selling his car?”
“Things have been tough. Carl…Carl got hurt. Bad. The Medical Expenses …they took everything he had.”
“Why didn’t you just sell the house?”
She stared up at me. I could see the old fire in her eyes.
“I would rather die. It is all I kept of you. All I had of you.”
I blinked back the pustule of remembered hate that threatened to come out. Choosing instead to pop that boil with the needle of forgiveness. It worked.
“I don’t understand, weren’t you two married? Shouldn’t the house be in your names?”
She tamped down whatever age old guilt she had rising to a boil with the same needle of forgiveness I was using.
“We were never married. That night you caught us, was the only time either of us had fooled around. He hadn’t had a woman since Beth left. I hadn’t had a man since you left. Wine and loneliness caught up with us both. You left without either of us being able to reach you.”
I staggered a little. She held me up, as she had so many other times in my life. I saw a future that might have happened if I had just given them both a chance. Just a few moments of attention and I might have reacted differently. I was angry with my selfishness. She waited until I washed that stink from my mind.
“I…am…so…sorry.”
We kissed. An old promise made new again. It wasn’t the kind of kiss that turns to passion, it was the kind that forgives. That lets life, and love, start over.
“So where is Carl?”
She turned to point into the house.
"He stays in the back bedroom. I can’t get him to come out much. He…he…he doesn’t look like he used to.”
“Will he recover?”
“The Doctors say he should be recovering now. I think he just wants to punish himself because of what he did to you…to us. I was like him for a while. I just hoped you would come back someday.”
She squeezed my hand…hard. I squeezed back. As the old Lucy Show used to say: “We both had some “explaining to do”.
I let go of her hand for a moment. She looked at me in surprise.
“Wait here!”
I sprung out to the car, ripped the for sale sign off and brought it in with me.
Her eyes teared up as she put two and two together. I could see the thanks pouring out of her eyes.
She opened the door to Carl’s room. Carl sat in a rocker. He was a good fifty pounds lighter than he should be. His muscle tone was almost non existent, and he hadn’t shaved in quite a while. It wasn’t a beard he was growing, it was a mask to hide behind. He saw me holding Gina’s hand. A genuine smile crept through the beard.
I held up the For Sale Sign.
He looked at me confused.
I Looked back at him with certainty.
“This…my friend…is never going to happen.”
For the second time in less than fifteen minutes, my arms were filled with someone I loved. A moment later, a softer gentler pair of arms encircled us both.
*****
Gina and I sat in the back seat. Carl was in the front with his Physical Therapist. She saw him at his worst, and loved what she saw.
“Where to?”
Said Carl.
I snickered when I said:
“ There are some parking spots down in the Valley. We could watch the submarine races.”
Betty, Carl’s main reason for living and loving life again, chirped up with curiosity:
“What’s a submarine race?”
Carl grinned from ear to ear…just like me and Gina in the backseat.
“You’ll see?”
Carl gunned the engine, clicked it into first, and we shot down the hill to the valley below.
Just like we used to double date in the old days. Except we were all older, wiser, and deeper in love. Best friends.
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Joshua Swinney
05/31/2022This is a good and completly true story I love how you describe the scenes like that Kevin
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Kevin Hughes
05/31/2022Thank you Joshua!
It isn't a "True Story", but the cars and characters were drawn from people I knew.
Smiles, Kevin
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