Creative Nonfiction: In Search of In Search of Lost Time

By Jerry Flynn

 

In April of 1997 I was grieving an awful event. It doesn't matter what this event was, and it would spoil both the story and the reader’s mood to give details, so just imagine something unspeakable. I absolutely did not find my grandfather dead in a closet with his penis in hand and a belt around his neck, but this event I won't detail was in that general arena of horrendousness. Use that as a placeholder, even though that did not happen. Let me make this perfectly clear: neither of my grandfathers died of autoerotic asphyxiation. I just said that so you can empathize with my frame of mind around this time.

One evening that April I impulsively stopped at a Jackpot convenience store on Des Moines Memorial Drive in Boulevard Park, Washington. It was around 8 PM. I was neither thirsty nor hungry, but in need of a transactional distraction. As I was entering the establishment a woman of late middle age was exiting, fizzing and bubbly, finishing a conversation with the shopkeeper. She saw me and said, "HI THERE!" and I said, "right back atcha," smiling politely. The interaction lasted less than five seconds. I browsed a bit and then made my purchase, settling on the animal crackers as I wasn't in the mood for anything, but thought a whiff of nostalgia reminding me of simpler times might buoy my spirits. I exited the establishment with a full box of animal crackers dangling from my finger minus the one in my mouth, disappointed at both the taste and texture of my chosen snack. Those animal crackers did not do for me what those crumbs of tea-soaked madeleine cake did for Marcel in Remembrance of Things Past, though who knows? If I had one now, maybe I’d be brought back to that night. Maybe that’s how it works.

I was thinking about how disappointing animal crackers are when this late-middle-aged woman called to me from a diarrhea brown station wagon filled with junk, covered in dents. There was a Chow dog in the back seat. “Hey! Hey, you.”

She was trepidatious, dare I say quivering. "I don't do this type of thing, but I just have to ask. Would you like to come over to my house? I have some candles we could light, and some wine to drink." She told me she had massage oil, adding that there was something about me that had compelled her to act this way.

I asked one question. "Does your dog want an animal cracker?"

He did. 

I gave one to him; he didn't bite my fingers or anything. "Nice dog." I turned to her, peered into those pleading, manic eyes. I wondered how this woman could tell I was damaged enough to possibly take such tattered, malodorous bait. Was it visibly obvious that I was wounded and emotionally distraught? Is that how this worked? I thought about the woman’s offer. I really did. I thought, "I could give this lady something she hasn't had since the 1970's, assuming, of course, she isn't a serial killer." I considered it further. “I could probably do one better. I could, quite likely, be the greatest lover she has ever been with. I could caress her body in whatever hovel she is inviting me back to, shamelessly and selflessly bring her to orgasm multiple times, leave her sated and sweating, awake for the first time in a long time. I could make her deliriously happy.”

I said, "No thank you. My friend's waiting for me." I thought I said this very pleasantly.

"You know, just because some people are young and blonde and wear glasses, just...that doesn't mean they shouldn't be...you know, be like that to people." Her sentence didn’t make grammatical sense. 

"I'm just telling you I'm not 21, so it isn't legal for you to offer alcohol to me. Have a nice night." 

I told Mike about this encounter ten minutes later, after offering up an animal cracker. I described her wild hair, and the car, how it looked like it had been attacked by a tee-ball team. 

He asked why I'd bought animal crackers. 

I shrugged.

He knew. For him the aforementioned atrocious event was infinitely more devastating. It led to his untimely death thirteen years later. He ate the cookie and nodded. "You should have fucked her," he said. “Old ladies need love too.” The aforementioned atrocious event had not negated his sense of humor. 

I shrugged. 

We went to the basement and played pool, listening to ABBA. We were both miserable pool players, and this was a wreck of a table in his parent's cluttered, musty basement. He had a funny way of saying “rack ‘em” that made me laugh every single time. We probably played until one or two in the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

Jerry Flynn lives in the woods in Alaska. His work has appeared in several periodicals including Bull, Neon Origami, and JAKE. He is a noncompetitive crossword aficionado and amateur welder.