Not Now, Maybe Never

Not Now, Maybe Never

“Dad, have you seen my history book?” Charlie asks his father, who he presumes is in the other room.

“Why would I have your history book?” His father, Arnold, yells back.

“I’m just asking if you’ve seen it.” Charlie hears the thud of a bottle hitting a table and footsteps approaching.

“I don’t steal shit. Got that?”

“I wasn’t--”

“Oh yeah? Then what were you accusing me of?” Arnold takes a step closer toward Charlie.

“Nothing! It was just a questi--”

Arnold interrupts, “I’m missing the game because of you, you know that?”

“It’s Monday, Arnold.”

“I’m watching the highlights!”

Charlie pushes past his father and slams the front door behind him, no history book in hand. Even through the steel walls of his father’s trailer he can hear him say, “And don’t call me Arnold!”

***

Charlie fumbles through the melting pot of a high school hallway. Filled with cheerleaders, jocks, misfits, and the wannabe misfits, he somehow finds his locker. He throws the books he actually found at his house into the locker. A photo taped inside catches his eye once again, a faded picture of a woman in a blue dress, pale skin, and red hair. Some say it’s blurry, but he thought of it as just capturing her movement. A moment. A memory. However, his admiration is interrupted by a slam that shook him to his core. Memory gone.

“You got my money or what?” Charlie looks up to see Eric, one of the wannabes. No wonder he was able to slam his locker so fast, his hands were practically the width of it.

“Or what.” Charlie immediately regrets this.

Eric takes a step toward Charlie. This seems to be a common theme for him. “I got you the cigs now give me the money.”

“It was half a carton. You ripped me off!”

“If you think about it, I was doing you a favor. Girls dig guys who smoke and it looks like you smoked almost a whole pack by yourself.” Eric lets out a smirk that reeks of arrogance and self-proclaimed wit.

“They’re not to impress a girl!”

“Wow. Deny, deny, deny. I like how you stick to your story. Shows guts. $10 and a complimentary cigarette?” Eric pulls a cigarette out of his pocket.

“Fine.” says Charlie, inspired by desperation.

***

“Psst. Charlie.” A voice whispers as a balled up piece of paper hits his head.

Charlie turns around and sees Phoebe give a slight wave. He has every intention of waving back, but her new pink highlights catch his attention. Her brown eyes, blonde hair, and the streaks of pink keep him from noticing what she actually wants. He snaps back to reality to see Phoebe pointing at the crumpled paper on the ground. Keeping eye contact, he picks up the paper and unfolds it under the desk so as to not draw suspicion.

Your place. After school. I got an idea.

“You couldn’t have just told me that after class?” Charlie whispers to Phoebe.

Amber lets out a smile and raises her hand. “Miss Elle, Charlie’s passing notes.” Amber is the sort to remind the teacher of homework they haven’t collected and spends her lunch reading in the library. She says it’s so she can get into Harvard, but everyone knows it’s because no one wants to eat with her.

Miss Elle whips around. “Oh are you now? Well, Charlie, why don’t you come up and read it to the class if it’s so important.”

“You know, it’s really not that--”

“Up. Now.”

Charlie makes his way to the front of the class. All eyes on him.

He clears his throat and says, “Your place. After school. I got an idea.” He then looks directly at Miss Elle, which is quite difficult for a 5’3 late-bloomer facing a woman in 5-inch heels.

“What’s this idea, Charlie? What are you doing after school?”

Charlie doesn’t even know what the idea is so he blurts out, “You, Miss Elle.” The class erupts in laughter. He even saw Amber hide a smile.

“That’s enough. Take your seat.”

***

Charlie reaches his father’s trailer that he calls home, throws his bag on the kitchen floor, and takes out the ingredients to make himself the perfect (and his favorite) meal: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He places the peanut butter on the first slice of bread with care, next the jelly. He puts the two covered slices of bread together and is about to take his first bite when Phoebe snatches it out of his hands and bites into it like a lion who hasn’t eaten in days.

“This is a pretty good sandwich. Just what I needed after you avoided me all day today.”

“Where’d you come from?” Charlie takes a deep breath, “And it better be a damn good sandwich. I’m the PBJ King.”

Phoebe takes another bite and another bite and another bite. They don’t speak until she licks away the remnants on her lips. “That was a great peace offering.”

“Peace offering? You completely embarrassed me in front of everyone! If anything, you should give me a peace offering.”

“Yeah, whatever. Wanna hear my idea?” She asks.

Charlie, once again, takes a deep breath. “What’s your idea?”

He knows that whatever scheme she has concocted will breed consequences. He wonders why they couldn’t just play a board game or people watch. After all, Charlie lives in a trailer park which leaves no shortage of drawing conclusions about individuals.

Phoebe begins pacing back and forth. Her ideas might be outrageous, but Charlie appreciates the passion. “I saw this on TV and I wanna try it. Your dad has a gun right?”

Charlie, unsure of where this is going, “Yeah…I don’t know where it is though.”

“We’ll figure that out later. Anyways, he also has a ton of beer bottles, like a ton--”

“Can you just get to the point?”

“There’s a spot in the woods we could go shoot beer bottles! It’d be totally badass!”

“You know what? Sure. Let’s do it. You get the beer bottles and I’ll look for the gun. It’s around here somewhere.”

As Charlie hears the clinking of bottles, he moves toward his father’s room. Even in their small trailer, this section was forbidden. The bed is unmade, nothing unusual. A couple of shelves lined with dusts and decorated with pictures face down, no doubt of Charlie’s mother. His father told him stories of her, but they changed each time. Either she died in a fire, left to travel the world as a famous journalist, or became a zoologist and lives in Africa now. Of course, Charlie doesn’t (completely) believe in these tales of his mother. He lifts up one picture to see a worn picture of her and father on their wedding day. The newlyweds sit hand and hand, staring at one another like there’s nobody else in the room. He can see where he got his red hair from.

“Any luck?” Phoebe yells.

“Uhhhh...not yet.” Charlie forgot the task at hand.

“Well, hurry up it’s almost 5, your dad is gonna be home soon.”

“It’s poker night, we’re fine.” Charlie says as he continues searching. He reaches his hand under the bed and finds what feels like the gun. But then he feels something else right next to it. Curiosity gets the best of Charlie and he pulls out a half-full perfume bottle that would be considered quite vintage. The crystal edges were still smooth and it retained it’s pink tint. At first, Charlie thought it was from a woman his father brought home...but none of those women brushed their hair let alone wear perfume.

“You good, buddy?” Phoebe asks. Charlie doesn’t realize she is standing next to him.

Still admiring the mystery held inside the bottle, Charlie says, “Found the gun...and this.”

Phoebe grabs the perfume out of his hand and sprays it on her wrists and neck, “I mean the smell’s okay. Why does he have this under his bed though? I’m not saying he doesn’t date classy women but I’m pretty sure the last girl he brought here had a permanent camel toe.”

Charlie sprays the perfume in the air and closes his eyes to form his own interpretation. A rush of memories come back to him. His mother and him playing hide and seek, her reading him a story before he’d fall asleep in his arms, and the final hug she gave him before he would never see her again. All those forgotten memories flood his thoughts once again. Shooting his father’s empty beer bottles seems pointless now.

“This was my mom’s perfume.” He says, still staring at the diamond-shaped bottle.

Phoebe sits down and puts her hand on his shoulder, “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Trust me.” Charlie’s tries to hide his tears. He always believed that he loved and missed his mother. Did he? Or did he just miss the figment of his imagination? As Phoebe lets fresh air into the room, Charlie puts the perfume in his pocket.

“So are we gonna shoot these bottles or what?” Charlie throws Phoebe the gun.

She reaches out to catch it and hides it in her coat. “Dude, what the hell? And yeah let's go.”

Charlie picks up the trash bag full of bottles. The two make their way through the trailer park. The gravel roads, surrounding trees, and what some would call “trailer trash” didn’t have the same security as it once did. The park was somewhat predictable. Mr. Han blasts Santana and smokes cigarettes outside and if you approach him, he’ll tell you how great the ‘70s were. A group of 12 year olds standing in a circle while they take turns playing with one of their parent’s lighter that they found in a cupboard. Anne Johnson guarding her trailer as if she was hiding something. Some say her dead husband is in there while others claim she’s a hoarder. Either way, nobody is brave enough to ask.

“Okay, it’s just up here.” says Phoebe. The two make their way up a hill until they finally reach the top. In a forest of trees, Phoebe had found a clearing. The birds sing and he feels the dirt beneath his feet. Charlie sees a fallen tree to place the bottles on. As he sets up he asks, “How’d you find this place anway?”

“Tyler brought me here last week.”

Charlie stops in his tracks. “Tyler Linwald?”

“Yeah.” She answers. Charlie feels his stomach drop.

“So are you and Tyler like...a thing now? Are you gonna ditch me for some band kid?”

“He’s a drummer and...I don’t know yet.” She answers.

The duo spends the rest of the afternoon breaking bottles and complaining about the little things in life. Phoebe tells Charlie more about Tyler and the time they spent in the clearing. Charlie knows he wants the best for Phoebe. He wants her to be happy. But he can’t get rid of the feeling of betrayal.

Phoebe interrupts their fun, “Dammit. There’s one bullet left and we ran out of bottles.”

“I’ll take the last bullet.”

“There’s nothing to shoot, Charlie.” Phoebe says. Charlie approaches the fallen tree now covered in shards of glass and wet from the last sips of beer. He grabs the perfume bottle out of his pocket. The sun shining through the trees hit it just right. Charlie sets it on the nature-made table and walks back toward Phoebe.

“What are you doing?” Phoebe asks.

“What does it look like?” He pulls the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lights one up. A cigarette rests on Charlie’s lips while the gun rests on his fingers and he pulls the trigger.