a short story that will appear in the forthcoming book; first published in Golden Visions Magazine, Oct-Nov-Dec 2008.

To quote Billy Joel, “Hold on 'til that old second wind comes along.” Even in your darkest moments, you're never truly alone.

Seventeen-year-old Jack Simple sat alone on a half-rotten bench in the middle of Waunona Park. Hunched forward, he rested his bony elbows on his thin legs and planted his sharp chin on the tops of this balled fists. The park was a forgotten parcel of earth squeezed in between low-income brick apartment complexes and rundown residential homes. Overgrown with crab grass and weeds, its rusty monkey bars and empty sand boxes gave the park a desolate, somewhat morbid ambience. The thrum of traffic from the nearby interstate mixed with the overwhelming smell of engine exhaust guaranteed the park’s dismal future. Jack glanced around the rundown park, feeling as depressed as the atmosphere around him. A cool October wind chilled him as it cut through his light cotton shirt. He could feel the dampness of the rotting bench seep through his faded blue jeans. His tennis shoes and socks were soaked from this morning’s dew, making his feet slimy as well as slightly numb.

“It doesn’t matter.” His thoughts reflected his mood. Slowly, he moved one fist from under his chin. Not moving his head or shifting his vision from the park, he gently opened his free hand and rested his palm on the gun next to him. He looked up at the overcast sky and sighed heavily.

“Maybe I should leave a note?” He mulled over it and then discarded the idea. “There’s no one who’d understand, anyway.”

As the cold of the gun penetrated his palm, Jack felt an almost overwhelming urge to cry. He swallowed hard and managed to keep the tears at bay. “Men don’t cry,” he whispered to the park.

Sluggishly, he closed his eyes and gripped the gun. As the cold October wind blew around him he wondered if this is what people meant about a cold day in hell. He smiled a bitter smile at his joke and repositioned his hand on the gun grip.

“Come on, Jack!” his stepfather sneered in his imagination. “Stand up straight! Take it like a man!” He felt the sting of his stepfather’s hand as it rocketed off the back of his head.

“You’re worthless, just like your father was!” his mother shouted in his mind as his stepfather slapped him again. Jack tasted the gunmetal in his mouth as his tongue moved around its barrel.

“What’s the matter, Simple?” The voices of his classmates from high school filled his ears. “Well you know, Simple is as Simple does.” Their laughter echoed in his head. His thumb searched for the trigger as a third blast of cold air ran over him. He found the trigger.

“What you doing?” A feminine voice cut through all the crap in this mind. Jack paused a moment, his eyes still closed, his thumb resting on the trigger of the gun in his mouth.

“Hello?” The girl’s voice sounded in his ears again. “Are you asleep?”

Despite himself, Jack hesitated. He could still feel his heart hammering in his throat as he tried to regain control of the moment.

“Can’t she see what I’m doing?” he growled to himself. His teeth clicked on the gun barrel as he took it out of his mouth. “Go away,” he mumbled as he opened his eyes. They focused on a fragile-looking eleven- or twelve-year-old girl. Her sandy blonde hair was tied in two long braids that dropped down to the center of her back. She stood looking down at him. Her small hands rested on the rusted armrest of his bench.

“Hello,” she said again with a bright, happy smile as she ignored his comment. “What’s your name?”

“Jack.” He found he couldn’t help but answer her. He looked closer at the girl. She wore a blue dress with a lacey white fringe sewn around the collar and sleeves. The hem of her skirt reached down to her ankles and was surrounded with the same white lace. On her feet were light pink socks covered by shiny black shoes. Jack wondered how the girl had managed to keep her socks and shoes so clean and dry when his own were practically drowned in sweat and wetness.

“Hi, Jack!” The girl’s reply brought his attention back to her face. Her complexion was slightly pale and liberally covered with freckles. Her bright blue eyes showed an abundance of energy and life as they stared at him. Her wide smile became a huge grin. Letting go of the armrest she took two steps back and lightly curtsied.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jack. My name’s Mary.” She straightened up and clasped her hands in front of her. “Mary Doyal.”

“Mary Doyal?” he repeated. The name sounded familiar. He felt he should know her, yet his mind just couldn’t make the connections.

Mary returned to leaning on the bench. She seemed to be waiting for something. Silence passed between them as another gust of wind stirred the park’s long grass.

“Funny,” Jack wondered. “The wind doesn’t seem so cold now.”

“So, Jack.” Mary’s voice took on an oddly coy sound as it broke the silence. “What you doing?” Her eyes shifted from his wind-blown black hair to the gun in his lap.

Jack followed her gaze and soon realized what she was staring at. Quickly he hid the gun under his left butt cheek.

“None of your business,” he barked at her. “Why don’t you just go away?” Jack cast his eyes down at his feet and sulked. She is ruining everything! he thought as the gun he was sitting on caused his ass to throb.

“Aw, you’re mean!” Mary pouted and stomped her foot. “I want to see!” She leaned in closer, making the armrest of the bench squeak loudly.

“Hey, watch out!” Jack shouted too late as the bench, Jack, and Mary all collapsed to the ground with a resounding thud. Jack lay in the tall grass and waited for his neck and back to stop tingling from the shock. He looked up at the overcast sky and sighed heavily. At that moment, one fact became blindingly clear. The pain in his ass was gone. Jack bolted to a sitting position—he reached under himself but the gun was gone. Frantically, he searched for the weapon, moving his fingers through the tall grass.

A happy giggle brought his attention to the monkey bars. There was Mary, her dress fluttering in the afternoon breeze, sitting on one of its rusted bars. She turned something slowly in her delicate hands. Jack focused on the object. He froze at the sight of the gun. She turned the gun this way and that, then pointed the muzzle at her face and looked curiously down its barrel.

“Hey!” Jack screamed, then flinched as she jumped at the sound of his voice.

“Look what I found!” She smiled devilishly as she showed her prize to him. “Now we can both play!” She shouted happily at him as she glanced from the gun to Jack and back again.

Jack’s depression was lost in a heartbeat, his self-pity blown away on the October wind. His death wish replaced by the fear running through his veins. Fear not for himself, but for this girl some five feet away from him, holding death in her hands. Slowly, he rose to his feet. Jack felt his knees shake as he stood. Mary still spun the gun in her hands as she watched him. Her smile widened as he took his first step toward her.

“Give me the gun.” He soothed his voice to hide the panic that made his heart hammer in his chest.

“But I want to play, too!” Mary cooed as she squinted her eyes. “It looked like such a fun game when you were playing it. I want to try!”

“It’s not a game.” Jack was four feet from her. His hands shook.

“No?” Mary tossed the gun up and down. “Then what is it?”

Jack was three feet from her. Her question froze him in his tracks. “Stupid.” He heard himself utter as he realized the truth of his words.

Mary’s face took on a serious look. Her eyes filled with knowledge well beyond her eleven- or twelve-year-old appearance. She watched Jack as he stood rooted to his spot.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” she muttered, holding the gun still in her hands. “Hey, Jack, we’re friends, right?”

Again, a sense of familiarity passed threw him. I should know this girl, he thought. “Yeah,” he answered out loud as he stepped toward her again. “We’re friends.”

“And friends look out for one another, right?” Mary’s face still held that solemn look, but her eyes filled with a gentle light as she spoke.

“Yeah.” He felt like an idiot but it was all he could think of to say. He reached toward her. With a loving smile, she plopped the gun back into his palm. Her smile widened as he opened the chamber and dropped the bullets into his free hand. He shoved the gun into his back pocket and crammed the bullets into his front.

Mary hopped off the bar and stood up straight in front of him.

“It was a stupid game,” she said, nodding and looking in his eyes. For the first time in a week, Jack Simple found he had to smile.

The overcast sky broke, and light began to cover the park in a blanket of late afternoon sun. Mary looked up at the sun, then at Jack. Her eyes returned to the bright sparkle they’d had when Jack opened his eyes on the bench. It seemed to him to have been a hundred years ago. Jack took a step back and looked at Mary Doyal. She somehow seemed older than when he had first looked at her. Still, the nagging familiarity played with his mind.

“Who are you really?” He scratched his head, still trying to remember.

Mary’s smile became a grin. “Just call me your big sister.” She chirped at him and giggled.

“Big sister?” Jack was even more confused. “I don’t have a sister. I’m an only child.”

Mary’s giggle became a full-throated laugh. She hugged Jack and he suddenly found himself hugging her, laughing as well. Although, if you’d asked him why at the time he couldn’t have told you. Maybe it was because Mary was so full of life. Or it could have been that he was full of life—something he’d given up on earlier in the day. Or maybe it was because he felt in some odd way that she really was his sister. He didn’t know. At that moment he didn’t much care. He let go of Mary and looked up at the late afternoon sky.

“It’s getting late,” he muttered as he looked down at her. “You want me to walk you home?”

Mary smiled happily. “Naw.” She put her hands on her hips. “I’m not far from here. Just a couple of blocks.” She pointed away from the apartment and past the old houses. “But you can come visit me anytime.”

“I still don’t see how you can be my sister.” He shook his head, setting off another flurry of giggles from Mary.

“Think about it.” She motioned him to lean down. As he did, she whispered in his ear. “I’ll always look out for you, silly. That’s what big sisters do.”

Warmth flooded him and with it an outpouring of forgotten memories. Mary Doyal had become his next-door neighbor just after his parent’s divorce. He had been five when the energetic twelve-year-old girl had first skipped into his living room. She had leaned down and given him a big smile.

“I’m leaving now.” His mother’s voice echoed from the hall. “Keep the door locked.”

“Sure thing, Ms. Simple!” Mary shouted back.

Jack began to cry when he realized his mother was leaving him. But Mary gave him a long, loving hug. “Don’t cry, Jack.” She cooed as she rocked him. “I tell you what.” She gave him another dazzling smile. “You can be my little brother and I’ll be your big sister.”

“Big sister?” Jack had asked, still sniffling.

“Yup!” She hugged him again. “You don’t have one, do you?”

Jack shook his head no.

“Neither do I,” she chirped. “So we can be each other’s brother and sister if you like.”

Mary’s smile warmed away Jack’s sadness. Before the night was through, she was his big sister in everything but blood. Over the next year he saw Mary more than his own mom. When he fell, Mary picked him up. When he cried, she hugged him. If he made a mess, she’d shake her head and clean it up. He’d asked her once why she hugged him so much. She’d smiled wide, knelt down and whispered in his ear, “Silly. That’s what big sisters do.”

It wasn’t long after his sixth birthday that Mary had stopped coming over. He remembered a knock on the door one night as he waited for her. His mother had spoken to the person on the other side for a few moments, then closed the door. She came to him and picked him up in her arms.

“Mary won’t be coming over anymore, Jack,” she told him flatly. When he had asked her why his mother told him that Mary just couldn’t. That was the end of it.

Days later, his mother was dressed in black, dragging him to some solemn place. There was mention of a traffic accident or some such thing. People wept and spoke in quiet tones. At the end, he walked with his mom to a shiny black box. There was his Mary. She looked pale and smelled funny. He reached out and pushed her a little. She felt stiff and cold. His mother had slapped his hand hard. He started to cry and call out to Mary to wake up. His mother had to drag him out of the place. His mother was furious by the time they got to the car. He wailed, asking his mother why Mary wouldn’t wake up.

“She’s dead! All right?” His mother had screamed at him, shaking him violently. “She’s dead and she’ll never wake up again!”

That had silenced him. It was the first time the true meaning of death had hit home to Jack. He must have blotted out most of his memories of that night as well as Mary Doyal. It wasn’t long after that his mother had met and started dating the man who would become his stepfather. Things had gone from bad to worse.

Yet whenever Jack found himself locked in his room or feeling the pain from another attempt by his stepfather to make him a man, always there came a strange warmth, like a comforting hug. Jack knew who had given those hugs as well as the will to face another day. It had been Mary. Somehow she’d always been there looking out for him. He may have forgotten her, but she had never forgotten him.

Jack opened his eyes as the memories blazed in his mind. He knelt alone in the park now. As tears streamed down his face, he stood and looked in the direction Mary had pointed. She’d been buried at Rose Lawn Cemetery, just two or three blocks from here. The park no longer looked so desolate to Jack. The setting sun set the tall grass ablaze with light. The sound of cars faded and the wind carried away the gas fumes. Birds chirped. He began to notice wild flowers poking up everywhere. It was as if in a single heartbeat the ugly park had been transformed into a place of beauty.

Jack wiped the tears from his eyes. He slowly walked through the park until he reached its end. He took a long, hard look at the window of his mother’s apartment. Then he turned away from it and started north toward Rose Lawn Cemetery. He leaned down to the first sewer grate he found and dumped the gun and bullets. He felt Mary smile at him but didn’t see her. He didn’t need to.

“Thanks,” he whispered to the empty air. Again he felt a warm, loving hug embrace him. A soft voice floated to him on the wind.

“Silly,” it whispered in his ear. “That’s just what sisters do.”

Straightening up, Jack continued on his way.

The End