What's in the box?

The funeral was nice, if just a tad bit sadder now that I knew Sid was Marie’s father.

He’s pushed me to date her. And now I know why. He was scared to leave her alone. And I guess our little time spent together every day for so damn long now told him that maybe I was a pretty decent guy.

Hell, I’d scrubbed out his fryers one day out of the kindness of my heart – not the $7.25 an hour, plus discount that he was paying me to be there.

But he never told me the damn secret to his taco sauce. And now he was dead.

“What are you ever going to do with the taco stand,” Marie’s sister Fiona asked her mother. Barbara had no answer. She hated tacos. She always believed that was why Sidney opened a taco stand in 1972. Just to get away from her. Even though all he did was love her. But he loved tacos too. Not as much as her, but darn close, he’d always say.

“I don’t know anything,” Barbara weeped. “It’s just too soon. Too soon.”

Marie hugged her mother. It was an awkward hug. She’d told me that her and her mom didn’t get along very well. Ever since she went to work in the taco stand as a teenager. It seemed all this family’s problems revolved around that bright yellow stucco taco hut. Maybe Sid’s passing would put to rest the family’s burden, I started to wonder.

Then I thought about those tasty tacos. And how much I was going to miss them. And miss my hours long conversations with Sid. About girls – little did I know his motive. About traveling – he’d been in the Navy, saw a lot more of the world then I ever would. About movies – his favorite was “The Shining” – “Fucking Jack Nicholson!” he’d always say. About cars – he got my obsession with my old 1991 Celica, saying “The first car you fall in love with is a lot like the first girl. You never forget her, and you always compare every one after to her.”

Damn I missed Sid.

I talked to Barbara about him for a moment. She was still crying and tried to listen to my stories. But they all revolved around the taco stand. And she seemed less than interested. Finally, I told her the story of Sid telling me I should ask Marie out. I’d not told Barbara that story. Nor had I told Marie.

“Oh, he talked about you all the time,” Barbara perked up. “On and on and on and on. In fact, he stopped talking so much about tacos when he talked about you. It’s why I tried to keep him talking about your blonde head so much!”

She hugged me and I hugged back. That was the first time I ever felt comfortable about Barbara. It felt good. There had always been a distance between us in the short time we knew each other. Little did I know she already knew so much about me.

“Well,” I said after a few more hours of standing around, eating mini hot dogs and cold cuts, “We need to get on going.”

Marie looked at me and shook her head. I knew she wasn’t ready to go, but I needed to get back in time to write. It had become an obsession of mine, writing on deadline for no reason except to make that deadline.

“Keeping my chops,” I’d tell her at 11:33 p.m. at night with a deadline of midnight to get it done. “One day, someone might actually hire me to write again.”

Marie knew this about me. She hated it. Maybe writing was my taco stand? I now had something to write about when I got back to the house. It was one she’d not want to read. But, I would show it to her anyway.

“I’m going to stay home with Momma,” Marie said. I’d never heard her call Barbara “momma” before. It was always “Mom” or “Mother”, but never “Momma.” Terms of endearment do indeed come out when they are needed the most.

I kissed her on the cheek and grabbed her hand softly.

“Call me if you need anything, babe,” I whispered into her ear.

“I will,” she said, pecking me on the cheek as well.

I started walking to the door when Rich came up to me. Rich was Fiona’s fiancé. He was a former tackle for the University of Auburn. He was a sure-fire first-round draft pick until he blew his knee out his senior year. The Tigers went on to win the national championship – and Rich had a ring to prove it – but he never got that feeling back on the field. He lasted until the fourth round, taken by the Buffalo Bills. He reported to training camp ready to go, but blew his other knee out on the first day of rookie camp.

Another year of rehab brought him into Game No. 11 of the Bills season. He’d been paid for one year to do nothing but workout, then for 10 games to sit on the bench. Finally he played. On his first snap, the defensive end pushed him to the ground and sacked the quarterback. He laughed all the way back to the huddle.

“Good job, no knees!” the defensive end – Will Bartonsmith – said to him. He went to LSU and never had a sack in the four games they’d gone head-to-head in college. Now, he was 1-for-1 in the pros.

Rich made it through that first season, and was nicknamed the “Revolving Door” by the media for his ability to allow rushers easy access with a push, as Jim Rome said.

One season in the CFL was enough to sour Rich on football. That’s when he came back to New Orleans. Met Fiona. Got married three months later. Now they have six kids and a mortgage. He drives a Saab of all things to the car dealership where he works security and signs an occasional autograph for a former Auburn businessman in town.

“Hey,” Rich says. “You need to see this.”

My attention was purely Rich’s when he took me into the back room. On a shelf was an old Monte Cristo cigar box. It was marked in Sharpie – “For Randy.”

“Sid left this for you,” Rich said. “He showed it to me a couple weeks ago. Told me to make sure Barbara ‘Didn’t steal this from the kid.’”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Rich answered. “Just don’t let anyone see you take it.”

I put the box under my coat and walked out of the room. Marie, Fiona and Barbara were all waiting in the living room, looking at me.

“What were you two up to?” Fiona asked with a little too much snark.

I looked at my feet, trying to do everything I could to not drop the cigar box.

“We were looking at some old photos on the wall,” Rich said.

“Yeah, especially the one from opening day last month,” I said. “I can’t believe Sid got it on the wall so quick.”

“He was like that,” Barbara said derisively. She walked back into the kitchen. Fiona and Marie followed.

“Take care, man,” Rich said.

“I will.”

“And take care of what’s in that box.”

I looked back, but Rich had already closed the door.

I wondered just what could be so important in this box. But, I wasn’t going to open it until I was safely at home. Will power was one thing I was good at. Unless it came to redheads.

Population 800

We got into the car after checking out of the hotel. It was cool today, so driving with the windows down was not going to be a problem.

“You hungry?” I asked the girl I still didn’t know a name.

“Not really. Let’s just get out of here.”

“You hiding from someone?” I asked, kind of worried.

“Just the past, guy. Just the past.”

“Fair enough,” I said, starting the car. She purred like a kitten. So glad I paid for the restoration of this car, my dream car – a 1991 Toyota Celica. With a moon roof, of course.

Before pulling out of the parking lot, I touched her hand to get her attention. She looked over at me with wearisome eyes.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I just have a question.”

“Shoot, guy.”

“What’s your name? I need to know at least that if we’re going to be hanging out. Getting kind of tired of this guy, girl thing.”

“Well, I don’t know yours either,” she responded.

I tried to think back into the night. Did I really never tell her my name? Was she just fucking with me? Am I really putting this much thought into it?

“Randy,” I finally decided to tell her.

“And you do know my name,” she said. “Or at least it was said once in front of you. I thought you were a reporter? Aren’t you supposed to be good at that kind of thing? Picking up on facts and names and such?”

“Let me think on it,” I replied, adding “or you could just tell me.”

“Think hard, Mr. Randy. Think hard.”

With that, I turned on the radio. Foghat was on the radio. We both started bobbing our heads. It seemed to be a nice distraction for both of us. Me – from thoughts of a girl gone wrong. Her – no idea.

“Which way should we go?” I asked at the edge of the parking lot.

“West! She yelled. It’s always best.”

“I knew I liked you for some reason.”

“It wasn’t the tits?” she smirked.

I looked her up and down in a false gross way. “Tits help,” I finally said. I didn’t know if she got the joke or not. But we kept bobbing along to “Slow Ride” so I guess all was well in the world.

Funny thing, we didn’t talk again for three hours.

“I’ve got to pee,” I finally broke the silence.

“Me too.”

Soon, we were at a rest area. It looked like all the others.

“Hey, we’re back to where we began,” she said.

“Huh?” I responded in my dumb way.

“You and I met at a rest stop,” she said, putting quotes around “met”.

“Oh yeah. Let’s celebrate with a photo.”

I pulled out my trusty point and shoot that my sister gave me years ago. Not many people still used them. Most had fancy phones with awesome cameras on them. Me, personally? I’d rather have an old disposable camera with film in it. But, it was such a hassle to get it developed nowadays that I don’t even bother any more. Just another example of fossilization.

We used the bathrooms and got back on the road.

“I’m hungry now,” she said.

“Let’s find some hole in the wall joint. There’s got to be something around here.”

“Works for me Mr. Randy.”

“Why you saying it like that? Mr. Randy?”

“Because it annoys you.”

“Just like not knowing your name.”

“Back to that one, huh? Well, OK. Here it is … Tara.”

“Really? Tara? That’s probably my all-time favorite name for a woman.” I almost said girl, but caught myself.

“Why? Don’t tell me ‘Gone With the Wind.”

“Nah, much simpler and much more telling about me,” I said. “I had a huge crush on this girl in college. First girl I ever tried to ask out on a date. We actually had one. Watched “9 ½ Weeks” on a borrowed VCR. That was a couple weeks after I met her at a party in my dorm suite and we battled over following “a dream” vs. following the “corporate dollar.” At that point, she was a bit of a hippie chick. I was a long-haired guy who for some reason wanted to major in accounting. I almost kissed her that first night, and that first date – which ended up being the last date – I never had the guts even though Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger were making a porn in front of us.

“What ever happened to her?”

“She ended up fucking my roommate, who was the absolute biggest piece of trash on the earth. Just a manwhore.”

“Bitter much?”

“And now she’s a corporate shill. Funny how things work out.”

“Yep, bitter.”

“What can I say? If it weren’t for the freaking internet, I’d not know about the funny ending.”

“Instead, you’d just make something up. Like we all used to.”

“Yeah, the memory and the mystery – to me – were always better than finding out the truth. Because it’s usually so dull, so drab and so sad.”

“Amen to that,” she said.

We passed over the Kentucky state line at that precise moment.

“I’ve never been to Kentucky,” she said. “Maybe this is the start of something beautiful?”

“At the least, it’ll be an adventure,” I replied. “Let’s see what this town has to offer.”

In the distance, a sign read “Welcome to Ryland Heights, Kentucky. Population 799.”

Little did I know that soon I’d be No. 800.