Strange things happen to nice people.
There I’ve said it, but it don’t make it any less
true, friends. I ain’t gonna argue here, and now about how you measure niceness
and all, you’re just gonna have to take my hand-on-my-heart word on that point.
You see, me and my pals, sure are the nicest people to walk this part of Bucks
County – may be even further, but heck, if it just don’t stop things happening.
I guess the first kookiest thing to happen was when
my grandmother lost that precious ring, the one that my grand pappy had given
to her on the day she said yes to marrying him. Charlie (that’s my bestest
friend) just turned to her and said, you’ll find it under that old leather
chair your cat uses as a bed. And you know what? That was where it was. Well,
I’ll be, I kept saying to myself that day, well if that ain’t the darndest
thing.
My first thought was that Charlie had put it there himself,
on account, he was always up to something or other. But then, as Charlie said
himself, he’d never been up to that part of my grandmother’s house that held
the cat’s chair. I don’t think he was lying, friends, I surely don’t. I guess
Charlie had always been the weird one – well, weirder than the rest of us –
which is a long way away from what folks call normal in these parts.
Charlie used to go by the name of Kenzo, The
Magician when he was knee-high to a real magician. Used to put on shows for us
kids, even convinced us that he could make birds appear out of the air. Then
one day, Danny, Charlie’s young cousin from his pop’s family, bust a finger
when a brick fell on it. That finger couldn’t make up its mind which way it was
pointing. Then Charlie took his cousin’s hand and placed it between his own
hands. Danny said he felt real warm and when Charlie took his hands away, the
finger was pointing the way it was meant. I kid you not, friends. It was
pointing as straight as the day is long.
Somewhere, at the back of my mind, I’m thinking the
two of them had conjured this up between them (‘scuse my words), but that
night, Charlie swore on my life that he didn’t do nothing sneaky. The look in
my pal’s eyes made me know he wasn’t lying.
One day, not long after my birthday, I was playing
in the yard with the hamster that my folks had given me. I can’t really
remember what happened, but my mom called me for something, and I turned to ask
her what she wanted when Geronimo (the hamster) kind of made an escape right
into the middle of the street. It was just as Mister Feeling’s horseless
carriage was put-put-putting along (with Mister Feeling singing a really loud
song from Don Giovanni) that he ran over my hamster.
I think it was my screaming that brought Charlie
running – I must have been loud to hear it over Mister Feeling.
“What’s happened little brother,” that’s what
Charlie always called me, on account that I was shorter than him.
“He’s killed Geronimo,’ I screamed.
Charlie went over to the flattened hamster and
picked him up.
“No he ain’t, lookie here little brother.”
Sure enough, Geronimo was running up and down
Charlie’s arm and nibbling his ear like he was at the peak of his life.
“I musta been mistaken,” I said to my pal.
“No, you weren’t,” said Charlie, and he wandered
off whistling to himself.
These strange things kept happening - but far
enough apart that no one ever really joined the dots. I guess when folks would
talk about Charlie behind his back, I would get real annoyed and punch anyone
who said my bestest pal was weird. He ain’t weird I told them. My mom told me
that folks like Charlie only come along once in a blue moon.
When we’d finished schooling for good, I went off
to learn how to be an artist and Charlie joined the army as a doctor or
something. Apart from a postcard here and there, we kind of lost touch.
Then one day, not long after my dad started talking
strange like, talking about things and people who weren’t there, Charlie turned
up at the door.
“I’ve come to fix things,” he said and walked
straight in the house without a hello or anything.
“Where’s Henry?” That was my dad’s name.
“He’s sick,” I said.
“I know he’s sick, I’ve come to help him.”
I told Charlie that my dad was in the back bedroom
and that Charlie wasn’t to be alarmed. You see, my dad kind of liked to be by
himself and be with the folks he said were in the room. I couldn’t see any of
them.
“Just ‘cause he sees them, don’t mean they’re
there. And just ‘cause you can’t, don’t mean they ain't,” then Charlie started
his whistling again as if he knew something I didn’t. That wouldn’t have been
difficult.
“We are such things as memories, that is all we
are,” exclaimed Charlie. I asked him if it was Shakespeare who had said that,
and he said it was him then continued whistling.
I remember my grandpappy had said that Charlie was
an ‘enigma’, which I thought was a monster like a vampire or something. But
when I looked it up in the book of words; it said that
Charlie was the kind of friend that no one could work out. Those were the kind
of friends that I liked.
When Charlie came back down from my dad’s room, he
just said that everything was fixed, that he’d meet me tomorrow on Main Street
at three.”Don’t be late.”
As Charlie closed the front door behind him, my
father was standing
at the kitchen door, scratching himself.
“I could eat a horse,” that was what he said, and
he whistled the same tune that Charlie whistled, then my dad went in and cooked
the biggest steak in the world. My dad never talked of people I couldn’t see,
again.
Charlie never got real famous for anything, but
folks eventually talked about him in friendly terms. Whenever someone had an
illness, or a doctor gave them little time to live, people would call on
Charlie and sometimes things would get better and sometimes they wouldn’t.
“I guess the universe ain’t taking ‘no’ for an
answer this time,” he’d say.
On the day that Charlie died, the whole town showed
up. I was picked to say a few things about my pal, the enigma, but first I got
the whole congregation to whistle Charlie’s tune (he would have liked that),
even the reverend had to smile. On his gravestone, I had them carve the words:
CHARLIE TURNER – ONCE, IN A BLUE MOON.
I reckon he would have liked that, too.
bobby stevenson 2019
