Soon, the stories were coming fast and furious, along with a continual supply of the “weed” filling their glasses.
“Hey, did you ever hear much about how I got lost the first day of school at Banfield?" Jack asked Gabe.
Gabe had heard the story many times of course, but dutifully listened as Jack recounted the tale of a lost child on his first day of kindergarten.
"I had boarded the bus at 7:15 in front of our house with the Klippers. I hadn’t known any of the other kids who lived a half-mile north of our house; so it had been a quiet, intimidating ride. I was one of the younger kids on the bus-being only four years of age."
Back then a child could enter kindergarten if he turned five before December 1. Jack’s birthday was a late one-September 23.
"The bus stopped here and there picking up other kids who I didn’t really know either. I felt out of place as the other kids all seemed to know each other and involved themselves in talking and it was all noise to me as the bus rumbled toward Banfield.”
“When we finally got to school, everybody piled out of the bus like they were going to the fair. I took my time gathering up my stuff and was the last one off. I seemed to be the only one on the sidewalk leading up to the door of the school and I never saw the teacher. I turned around and watched the bus haul off and then walked up to the closed door. I tried to open it but I could’t budge it. Not really knowing what to do, I started walking home, only a five mile walk.”
Gabe pretended to yawn.
“Am I keeping you awake, Gabe?”
Feigning waking up, Gabe shook his head and sputtered, “No, no keep going.”
“I guess you know the rest. Our neighbor convinced me to get in her car by the Mapleview Cemetery and took me home. When we got to our place Mom was so happy to see me she hugged me like she was never going to let me go. And then she got mad and wanted to know what happened. All I could do was show her the handcuffs I’d found in someone’s yard as I was walking home. Little did she know that her little kindergartner was beginning his school life as a thief.”
“Yeah, well, that was hardly the worst of it,” Gabe said.
“That was the worst thing I’d ever done,” Jack said indignantly.
“I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about me and how I disappointed them every step of the way.”
“You didn’t disappoint them every step of the way. You just… challenged them to love you.”
Gabe scrunched up his lips and merely said, “Well …I certainly did that.”
A silence engulfed the two as they sat, lifting their shots of weed to their lips, Gabe totally enjoying his while Jack still gagged his down, although it was getting easier the more he drank.
After heaving a huge sigh, Gabe said,” You know I have many regrets about my life. The biggest one was not being here when Dad died.” He hung his head low, breathing heavily while hiding sobs Jack knew were there.
“I have the same feeling,” Jack said.
Gabe looked up quickly. “But you were here! You got to see him and talk to him. I would have said so many things to him, not the least of which was I loved him and was sorry for all the heartache I had caused him and Ma.”
Jack explained. “I saw him a few days before he died. We had met for breakfast at the Sterling Cafe with some of Mom and Dad’s breakfast friends. I had said something, I can’t even remember what it was and then Dad commented on it…and I knew he was wrong, so I told him, with some irritation in my voice, that he was wrong. Those turned out to be the last words I had said to him.” He turned his eyes to Gabe who was looking straight at him. “Gabe…the last words I had said to him were belittling with a little anger showing on my part. And then when we got the call from Mom who was sobbing that he was having a heart attack and that we should get there right away, all I could think of was don’t die, please don’t die cause I don't want those words to be the last ones that you ever heard from me.” Jack’s voice was halting and his eyes had welled up a little with tears on the brim of overflowing his lids.
“You can’t hold that against yourself, Jack. You know that he knew you loved him.”
Jack’s head bobbed up and down in agreement as he said, “I know I know, but still, I think of that and I say to myself, would it have hurt me so much just to have agreed with Dad, rather than letting him know he was wrong? I don’t know. I guess we all have regrets. I’m not making the same mistake with Mom or any of my kids or my wife. Life is too short to say cruel things in the heat of a moment and not be able to take them back when that person is not around anymore.”
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