Lauren Dee Boskie

“Flip your lid, kid.” Dad coined the phrase after hearing it come out of some ragamuffin inside Sheetz market the other day. I leapt out the front door and shut the screen with a bang. There was no need to be in such a rush, however, nothing could have slowed me down from meeting with Darla. I felt utterly giddy.

Darla and I had become fast friends in primary school over the years and since she moved to Little Rock last summer after our junior year I missed the opportunity to see her daily. With her striking features she usually attracted the attention of unwelcome gentlemen, one of whom took her ‘no’ as a challenge and proposed during class. Her family moved before she could deign him a response.

My bike wheels rusted with overnight rain and the first few moments of riding felt like torture, each gear clunked and clanked underneath the peddles. A yellow and black spotted butterfly flew overhead the freshly planted verbena flowers along the sidewalk. Darla would already be waiting for me at our agreed location; somewhere we knew would be secluded.  

It had been almost a year since the gasworks closed down and the city council did nothing as the char and oil spillage built up over landmark. There became no need to burn coal for lighting, heating, and cooking when alternative safer ways had been discovered, albeit recently. To have a gorgeous view of the water and nowhere to lallygag around it should have been a sin. I briefly remember my mother, who heard it from the gossip at her teller job, saying something about the council listening to the natives who wanted to build a park at the location years ago. Those plans were scratched when some wealthy son of an even wealthier son decided to make the corner plot by the lake a sore site and subject. The lighting turned gas company provided three things for the folks of Wallingford and its less well-off neighbors in Northlake: electricity, pollution, and no place to sit. Ain’t that a bite?

One block left and I could see the towers from where I rode protruding over the shiny Shell station sign. My stomach grumbled at the display in the window screaming at me about the deliciousness of sweets I would never be able to afford on my own. Chuckles, Dots, and those caramel babies that refuse to part from molars. I stuck with the Certs my dad stole from work and kept moving. With uneven handlebars and sweaty palms, I skipped the curb and narrowly avoided a bus stopped to pick customers up outside the local markets. My nostrils betrayed my brain by sniffing the fresh scents of the shops instead of the commonplace reek.

It took the entire ride before my bike pedals adjusted. I pulled up to the grayish-brown buildings that made up what was left of Seattle Gas Company. There wasn’t much to the rundown facility, yet its potential felt untold to two girls whose lives used to feel as bleak as the place looked. At least her life improved. I parked my bike without its lock because no one would come here after the closure and if they did we could always use Darla’s dad as an excuse.

She may have been my best friend for years, but her dad’s connection to Eisenhower’s re-election campaign helped her stay settled above my league. I figured we would grow apart sooner than later with her attending a new school out of state and me still scrambling for basic algebra books lacking lead pencil drawings on the cover. I didn’t think she would change so much that she would decide not to show.

Fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour.

I waited for my old friend.

Maybe she’s lost? No. Of course not. She knew the place as well as I did and the time of meeting even better. I closed my eyes, released a breath—two—and opened them again to find I wasn’t alone. A man stirred atop the retort house; a large hangar made for superheating exported coal. He moved his resting head from his knees and watched me with a curious expression.

I should have probably run from him. My sweater didn’t look particularly well-off by any means, but he appeared worse for wear, and I wasn’t certain of staying to find out why. I knew better than to believe I could walk away without a word, so I set myself right and shuffled over to where he perched. After all, if he followed me home and told my dad the place I hung out I would have bigger concerns than death by a mystery man.

His short and agile body plopped off the slanted roof and onto a rising staircase where he made his way to me. From the swoop of his hair and the way his glasses notched on his nose, he couldn’t have been much older than thirty. A flutter bum with good posture. Up close he appeared dressed quite properly and smelled better than the talcum powder and dove soap concoction I used.

I looked behind him as I asked, “Are you a vagabond?” Tight-lipped I held in my real question. Curiosity won out. “Have you seen another girl around?”

He rubbed his eyes and rolled his shoulders. “No, dear. Sometimes life leads you somewhere unexpected and this time I have decided to take the journey. What do you think?” He gestured to the largest tank and its four miniatures.

“Sir?”

“How would you feel about a place for you and your friend to sit?”

As if the world answered, Darla’s Chevy pulled up to the front lot.

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