It's Not Nostalgia

"You ever stop and think back to our childhood, Rob?" asks Colton Richards, sitting shotgun in the 2012 Toyota Tacoma cruising down the highway from Ohio to Indiana. His white hair blows thickly back to the seat headrest like a cirrus cloud beating through the sky. A beard is beginning to grow on his cheeks, and his eyes are experiencing wrinkles in the corners. With his strong right hand clutching the stabilizer bar above the door, he turns his head to look at Robbie Hillis. "You hear me?" Colton's voice is turning frail now in his early eighties.

"No," sternly answers Robbie. "Do you?"

Colton scrunches his face and looks out the window to his right. The cornfields roll swiftly by like a sea of gold. Cornfields like the one he watches now make Colton fondly remember his childhood with Robbie Hillis. They used to play backyard football at parties in the fifth grade. For whatever reason, they shot out Robbie's neighbor's car window with a BB gun on his fourteenth birthday. On that same day, they met the local sheriff's deputies for the first time.

The memories make him smile.

The smile fades. They are old men now. Time is not their friend, and every breath could be their last. That thought often keeps Colton Richards up at night, forcing him to stare blankly at the ceiling in the bed he once shared with his wife, Diana—God rest her soul. Good or bad, Colton welcomes nostalgia. Without it, there is no remembering the good times and learning from the bad.

"I do," Colton answers, sticking his arm out the window like he once did as a young man hauling hay between farms. "Why don't you?" asks the old farmer, staring intensely at the golden waves crashing against the cement bridge. "I mean, surely you feel the good times. You can't possibly forget when we won the state championship our senior year of high school."

He watches Robbie from the passenger seat. The old black man slams the turn signal down and veers into the left lane. He cuts beneath a bridge and takes the exit, pouring them into some small town with only a few traffic lights.

The truck bounds through these lights, which seem only ever to be green, until they end up at one of those gas stations partnered with fast food joints. This one has the globally known golden arches and the sign of Subway.

"Hungry?" Robbie asks, pulling his prosthetic leg from the seat behind them, screwing it onto his left leg. "I gotta fill up the tank."

Colton's eyes linger on the metal rod attached to his friend's stump. The accident happened so long ago, and he's had the metal fake for nearly forty years. Even so, despite knowing Robbie before the accident, Colton only ever recalls him with the gimp.

"Do you like it?" Robbie spits, leaning from his truck. “I have a spare you can have."

Colton releases a gentle push of air from his lips. Watching his friend exit the cab, the aged farmer closes his eyes in unison with the door slamming shut. The collision of metal-on-metal rattles his ears, and he clenches his jaw with a heavy heave in his chest. Squeezing the lever on the door, Colton kicks the door open and stumbles his tired knees onto the pavement. A cool breeze touches his face, and he runs a set of fingers through his thickening beard.

A black car pulls into the gas pump behind theirs. A woman with a curtain of black hair hiding her face steps into the open. She is clad in a short skirt with a thin shirt that exposes her navel. And, with further examination, Colton notices two little bars protruding through a set of nipples, smiling through her shirt.

The woman waves. Colton returns the favor and turns his back to her, walking to the gas station, wondering just how different modern times are from his. “Nipples, rings, and belly buttons,” he thinks to himself with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

On his way in, he passes Robbie, limping out of the gas station's doors. A receipt is clutched between his hands, and he offers a sarcastic smile to Colton as they pass one another.

"Haven’t seen you in a few years,” jokes Colton.

Robbie snarls a lip and rolls his eyes, holding up the receipt. “The man in there asked if I wanted the receipt emailed. Who emails receipts?”

Colton grins from lobe to lobe, revealing his tobacco-stained teeth. “You just spoke with nostalgia.”

Robbie stops in his tracks, meeting Colton’s eyes. “It was not.”

“You got nostalgic over receipts!” quirkily howls Colton. “Over pieces of paper!” he shouts with glee.

“Nostalgia is a fool's thought,” answers Robbie with angled eyes.

“You ever wonder why fools seem to be the happiest in life?” wonders Colton, removing a can of snuff from his pocket. Packing it in his hand, the farmer shrugs and removes the lid. “I know two things for sure in this life, friend. One: fools are everywhere. Two: I am a fool.” Packing a chunk of leaves in his cheek, Colton tilts his head and chuckles. “I guess I know three things. I am a fool, and I am happy.”

The former All-Ohio running back stares down at the metal rod where his leg should be. “Nostalgia is a downfall.” A gust of wind slides past Robbie’s bald head. “Sharks only swim forward. They die if they go back.” He shrugs, “Same goes for humans. The longer we hold onto the past, the faster we kill ourselves.”

“You believe that?” breathes Colton, spitting onto the pavement at his feet. “With all your heart.”

“I believe that anytime I think back to my past, I remember the day I lost my leg. Recalling high school brings pain because I could run. Remembering four seconds ago angers me because I will never have a leg.” He shakes his head. “Nostalgia. Pft.”

“So, you do think of the past? Nostalgia.”

“No,” Robbie corrects, walking to his truck and pocketing the receipt.

Chasing after him, Colton follows him to the pump and stands beside him while he pours gas into the tank. The gas glugs and chugs through the rubber hose, filling the old truck. In silence, the two stand together until the numbers on the screen hit five gallons.

“Robbie,” trembles Colton. “You couldn’t have saved her and yourself. Nobody blames you. Nostalgia keeps her alive. It isn’t bad to remember that day; it means she was once alive. Even if it was her dying moments.”

“I let you down,” says Robbie, jerking the nozzle from the truck and back into the pump. “This,” he says, pointing to the steel rod, “Is because I failed. It’s my consequence.”

“No,” shakes Colton. “It is a reminder to live. I don’t blame you for my wife’s death. We all got drunk that night. You were on duty and did what you could to save my mistakes.”

Robbie sighs and gets in his truck, leaving Colton at the pump. “I don’t feel nostalgia, Colton. I only feel pain.

“I’m always in pain.”