As ink blots are interpreted differently by each viewer, so are the text blots from The RawShock Tales
(#5) Stanton and Main
by
John P. Cater
Copyright 2006
Today we played this old corner again—as we have for the past seventy-seven years, always on the fourth of July . . . Independence Day. Today is not my Independence Day. Same old J.P. Higgins Drug Store, same old corner: Stanton and Main. Signs in Higgins’ window hawk 25-cent sodas and 50-cent sundaes, right alongside the photograph. Old man Higgins is inside scooping ice cream into frothy sodas and selling his outdated merchandise, trying to grow into a General Store but he just can’t seem to make a go of it. He’ll be closing in a little while.
The only things that change on this corner are the people—and the cars, fast cars. There are so many now. Yet each and every year we play this street, children still sparkle and adults return to their childhood. I can see it in their eyes. The children whisper to their parents and the parents whisper back, always with smiling curiosity. Then they drop a dollar or two into my withered wooden box and step back. I smile back in feigned appreciation and nod, “Thank you.” Cappy tips his hat, causing giggles all around. The moment he lives in has become forever for him. I’m glad he doesn’t know. He never will.
I scanned the passing crowd today for his face but I’m not sure I would recognize him. He would be seventy today. I know he’s alive because we’re still here. My body is weary and my mind is fading, so I eagerly await his death. I even think if I ever found him I would kill him right on the spot . . . I just might. Then Cappy and I could finally rest. Death! Oh, sweet death.
It seems like eons have passed since it began. Back then, standing on the corner of Main and Stanton, we drew crowds, huge crowds, with joy mixed with curiosity in their faces. We were in America, the land of opportunity. Money flowed in like pennies from heaven and Cappy got every one of them before the second bounce. Those were our glory days. Europe was quickly fading from our memories.
You see, James Phineas and I made a deal: I would draw the people over and he would photograph them with his new Kodak. Minutes later he would appear from his store’s darkroom with a finished photograph. People couldn’t resist buying them. We got a nickle from each one he sold. He took and sold so many pictures I lost count.
There’s still one, though, that haunts me to this day. It’s the one in his window. On that day. July 4th of 1929, a young lad, celebrating his seventh birthday, approached us and gave us a dollar he’d just received from his smiling father. We’d never been given a dollar before. When Higgins returned with our picture he also had a small oat muffin with a lit candle on top. As the little boy closed his eyes and made a wish, Higgins snapped another photo. Before he could return to develop it, the little boy motioned for Higgins to bend down. What was whispered changed our lives. The kid smiled and skipped off with his family happily trailing behind him.
Higgins scratched his chin and smiled, “Crazy kid. Said to put this photograph in my window so he could see it every year he came back until he died. That was his birthday wish—that we would be here for every birthday! He loves you, your music and your little monkey. Kinda neat, huh, Guido?”
Suddenly my thought was interrupted by Higgins’ tapping on the window. He motioned inward. I gathered up Cappy in his little red jacket and cap, and my hurdy-gurdy machine and went back inside into the photograph. Maybe next year we won’t have to come back. It will finally be our Independence Day.