An Unfinished Journey…..
While Arnie and Rhonda were gaping into the cooler full of roses, Corey was careering through the countryside riding as a passenger in the front seat of a 1977 Thunderbird. Behind the wheel, with a grin as big as a rhubarb pie, was none other than Ed ‘Ocarina’ Barkley. Of course it was Ocarina who piled the top tray of that cooler with all those roses. He had been hiding around the corner of the restroom of the truck stop, waiting for Corey all morning. It had been a very unseasonably cool morning, not as warm as weatherman Larry Storm had predicted. Now, by the look on his face, you knew that the frigid wait had been worth it all.
Corey and Ocarina had been childhood sweethearts. In high school it seemed that they were destined to wed and spend the rest of their lives in a madcap romance, just like their friend Janie had predicted from her Ouija board. Before graduation, fate unhappily interrupted their idyllic bliss. Corey’s grades finally caught up to her like a desperate bounty hunter. She did not graduate and had to take the senior year over. Ocarina was determined to go to college and eventually become a CPA. Of course, Corey promised to wait, and Ocarina vowed to be true to her while pursuing his dream of accountancy excellence. By January, Corey had dropped out of school and drifted her way north and away from home. The years began to pile into each other like a bunch of derailed boxcars. Before long, Ocarina was himself derailed from his dream of becoming a Certified Public Accountant.
Always being short of cash, so to support himself through school, Ocarina had to take jobs on the side to earn money. Most summers, he toured little towns in the Dakotas as part of a wrestling show. To keep his identify secret from any who might hear of what he was doing, he wrestled under the name of ‘Tortilla Fats’. Every summer he prayed that one night he might somehow find Corey at ringside, cheering him on to win his match. This was a silly, unrealistic dream. Ocarina was cast as a villain on the circuit and although he would dominate the early parts of the bout, it was pre-determined that he would always be vanquished by the hero of the night, ‘American Bob’, ‘Next-door Larry’ or ‘Yankee Doodle Donnie’. It was a lonely life with few rewards. Only his dream, that of one day adding the letters ‘CPA’ to the end of his name, kept Ocarina plodding to the cherished summit.
One fine spring day he finally realized his vaunted goal. His life’s dream fulfilled, Ocarina began a surprising ride of one success after another. Everything he touched turned into money, opportunity and fame. The world was at his feet. Greedy companions, uneducated women, and over priced food were the bane of his existence. He heard Mick singing to him in the middle of the night: “I can’t get NO satisfaction!”. He always felt like he was missing something. As hard as he tried to forget her, visions of Corey filled his every sleep deprived night.. He finally decided to hire a private eye to try to find out where Corey was and what she was doing.
After a few days of listless and wasted days of searching for the right detective, he finally settled on a likely candidate. His office was on a deserted side street, upstairs of a washed out store front that contained the Beaute’ For U hair salon. The front was gaily festooned with flags advertising the names of what seemed to be beauty products that would be applied to the customer inside. The salon had a few victims arrayed along the wall in various stages of beauty enhancements. He found the door to the upstairs. On the door was an arrow sign pointing up, under it was a cardboard sign —Tim McGurk, Investigator. Ocarina decided that he would take the advice of his grandfather: “go big, or stay at home….” He opened the door and made his slow way up the linoleum clad steps. It had been a number of years since those steps had any Johnson’s Glo Coat applied to the grimy stairs. The closer he got to the top, the more that he thought it might be a blind alley or at least an empty office. As he reached the hallway, he heard some music playing on a radio, it sounded like piano music of some sort. He knocked on the door of the office. “It’s open,” someone said from inside, and he entered the office of Tim McGurk.
to be continued……
Bill Melnik copyright@2020