1. Rosie


    Date: 10/13/2015, Categories: Interracial, Author: billybroadband

    ... whine about my life. He didn’t say much. Every now and then he’d pass me a beer, never addressing my underage status. He did say one day that he thought I was trying to grow up too fast and that girls were always going to be a mystery and they’re always going to go out with the wrong boys. Rosie’s beauty and personality gained her more acceptance and she became a cheerleader our junior year. She got a boyfriend, a charismatic senior named Charles. He and I were both baritones in the school chorus and we stood next to each other at concerts because we were the same height. I would see Rosie looking at him from the audience and I always wished she was looking at me. She had a look on her face that broke my heart it was so sweet. My grandfather had been putting me to work at harvest time on his small farm. My musculature started developing and the hard farm work was reflected in my shoulders, chest, and arms. My grandfather bought himself a new Ford truck and he shocked me shortly after I got my driver’s license. He threw me the keys to his old Studebaker pick-up truck and said “This is your payment for all the work you’ve done the last few years. You earned this.” It took me a while to get used to the angry scream of the transmission when I missed a gear, but after a while driving a stick became second nature. The body was rusting and the windshield had a crack that ran nearly the whole length of it, but the radio worked fine and the tires were brand new. It was heaven on ...
    ... wheels. Rosie and I finally landed in a couple classes together our junior year, French and World History. I inhabited the last seat in the corner of the classroom so I could disappear from people’s attention. Rosie was always surrounded by her chattering friends, and she never looked at me. I had succeeded in becoming invisible to her, a fact which tormented me. That childhood crush had not died over time, not at all. It had only gotten worse. In January of 1970 a blizzard of snow and cold came rushing down from Canada. What had been mild weather turned overnight into something else; whipping, bone-chilling gusts and blinding blankets of snow. The P.A. announcement came at noon announcing that due to the weather the school was closing early. Raucous cheers rang out from every classroom. I took my time getting to the parking lot, as there was just going to be a jam of cars and school buses trying to be the first to get out. The snow was already so deep that I thought I would let everyone else create a path through the mess for me. I started my truck and let its heater slowly defrost the windows while I smoked a cigarette, waiting for the idiots to clear out of the lot. The wind and the snow had already made driving a white-knuckled adventure, with visibility near zero. Sensing that the lot was nearly empty, I put the Studebaker into first gear and eased out of the parking space, steering toward the exit more out of memory than by sight. I was on her just as soon as I saw her ...
«1234...10»