Across the Street (1960s short story)

Across the Street
(The Jacket and the Battle Axe, 1960)


When I leaned against the old space heater, at Roger’s house, his father, of German stock, with that old Germanic accent, I saw Lindsey, she was humming one of the popular tunes of the day, a song called “I’m Just a Lonely Boy” (by Paul Anka), Roger was wearing an old WWII jacket that had that imprinted on the back of it. She was swinging her wide brimmed hips; her face was flushed likened to her rosy cheeks, the color of newly blossomed red roses, with dark—near black hair. I lived across the street, in my grandpa’s house with my brother Mike and mother, and we had moved in, perhaps 30-months earlier, it was the fall of 1960, and it was a chilly and wet fall at that. Lindsey’s hair fell in waves, over her shoulders. She could have been a farmer’s daughter—she seemed coy like one might be, she like me, but I was kind of just getting into the dating scene, and was more on the black leather jacket, and hood side of life than the farmer side. I liked Roger’s jacket too, Roger was kind of the cool guy in the neighborhood, Larry the tough guy, Doug the brute, and me, the poet, guitar player, and—oh well, I really didn’t know who I was yet.
The moment I first saw Lindsey, she and I took a liking for one another, I was kind of afraid of her, and of my fly away feelings, and I kind of turned away from her playing the hard guy. Roger was walking back and forth with that jacket on in this four-plex house, of which his father rented out one apartments; Ronnie, his younger brother, my age was there, and his little sister, along with a few of the boys, and Roger’s father of course all talking and just hanging out.
I was walking slowly, looking at the fire in the space heater, Roger’s father had a can on it, and it was to keep the house from becoming too dry—he said.
Lindsey kept looking back at me, every few minutes, and every few steps she made, I was standing close to the fire. The air was thick, it had been raining, the fall change over into winter, it was early afternoon, not much color to the sky, more drab gray than anything.
“I’ll trade this jacket for that battle axe you got, you’ve been wanting it for a while, right?” said Roger to me, and I nodded my head ‘Yes!” affirmed.
“What in tar-nation do you with a battle ax for?” asked his father. Roger giggled, “Well, Chick, do you want to trade or not?” I had bought of all things, a year prior this battle axe, at a hockshop, I was going to buy a trumpet, and the battleaxe got to me; I remember the proprietor saying after he wrapped it up in several newspapers, “Don’t tell anyone you bought it here,” I was just thirteen years old in October, I think this was November.
I had saved up $22-dollars, and I bought the battleaxe, and my mother said nearly exactly what Roger’s father said, “What the heck you goin’ to do now, with that thing, whatever it is!” And I repeated “Battleaxe, it’s a battleaxe, ma.”
I didn’t know what Lindsey was going to do, I didn’t care for her to take off I wasn’t giving her much attention though, but I had to make this deal with Roger, so I avoided talking with her, actually I guess I pushed her away, unknowing and unthinking at the time I did it, I had wished I didn’t but I guess I did. She didn’t hate me for it, but no matter what, thereafter, she wasn’t happy.
Just as Roger reached the corner of the road on Cayuga Street, I reached for his arm, “Okay,” I said, “I’ll trade, let me wear it, and I’ll go get the battleaxe!”
I looked at Lindsey across the street, she was on her way walking home—up Cayuga Street, westbound, and she was still frightened to speak to me—so she looked, kind of tightly holding her purse in her hands, nearly trembling. I could see her breath; she looked like a newly hurt rabbit.
“Well, get going Chick if you want to keep that jacket, get my battleaxe,” said Roger.
She continued to walk away, looking back only once, I tried to think of something to tell her, but I wanted that jacket so bad.


No: 699 (10-29-2010)