Back into the mini-inferno he went! He would have to try to hold his breath, for there was no air left in the smoke-filled trailer, and he certainly could not see anything. But he knew where the popcorn was stacked, and before you could say “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt”, all five cases, one after the other, were quickly heaved out. And right behind the last one came Hank, coughing uncontrollably, carrying the microwave oven under his left arm and his treasure box under his right. After taking three wobbly steps away from the trailer, he collapsed. And then everything went dark...
…and he found himself back in junior high school. Seventh grade, to be exact. That was a pretty good year, if he remembered it correctly. He was 12 years old and almost a teen-ager. He had finally reached 100 pounds on the bathroom scale. He had a new, metallic-green Schwinn Sting-Ray with a banana seat as his cool new ride, purchased with the $62.50 he had earned and saved doing odd jobs around the neighborhood for an entire summer. And it was the year he got married to Evangeline.
…and he found himself back in junior high school. Seventh grade, to be exact. That was a pretty good year, if he remembered it correctly. He was 12 years old and almost a teen-ager. He had finally reached 100 pounds on the bathroom scale. He had a new, metallic-green Schwinn Sting-Ray with a banana seat as his cool new ride, purchased with the $62.50 he had earned and saved doing odd jobs around the neighborhood for an entire summer. And it was the year he got married to Evangeline.
He could never forget the first time he laid eyes on her. It was the middle of April, and he was sitting in 1st period English class, fourth row, fifth chair back, feeling himself drifting in and out, as the teacher droned on and on and on about the finer points of the (ultimately futile) parsing of sentences. And then there was a sharp knock at the classroom door, rousing Hank from his dazed and confused state. As he and the rest of the class turned their heads to look, in walked the frumpy school counselor followed by what many might say was a rather thin, almost skinny, girl with a mouth full of braces, who seemed, at first, to be extremely shy. But to Hank, who instinctively sat up straight in his desk, she was, to put it simply, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen: a girl with long, silky brunette hair, gorgeous brown eyes, and a devastatingly lovely face. She was looking down at the floor, her crossed arms holding her notebook to her chest, as the counselor introduced her to the teacher, who seemed a bit peeved to have to add another student to the roll so late in the school year. The counselor soon left, and the teacher, still obviously irked by the unforeseen interruption of her cherished grammar lesson, rather hastily introduced the girl to the class as Evangeline Martinez and directed her to take the empty seat directly behind Hank.
To the rest of the class, it was definitely no big deal. The other boys seemed disinterested at best, and the other girls were not going to be in any big hurry to make friends with the pretty new girl, especially this late in the school year. But Hank could feel his heart rate rising as Evangeline made her way down the aisle, and to his totally unexpected delight, she smiled so very sweetly at him as she walked by on her way to her seat, and he almost fainted because of it! Beads of sweat formed on his clammy forehead as he stared straight ahead, and he neither saw nor heard anything else for a few minutes until his heart rate started slowing down. And when it finally did, he realized that no other girl he had ever known had made him feel the way she did. And all it took was a smile!
More than three school days passed before Hank finally worked up the courage to introduce himself properly to Evangeline, and they hit it off right away after that. He was thrilled that she let him show her around the school and escort her to her classes (even though she was perfectly capable of finding her way around on her own). They enjoyed lunch together every day, and they marveled at how similar their tastes were in agreeing that the Sloppy Joes were, in regards to school lunches, the absolute best. Hank once even refused to eat his meager helping of Apple Crisp, which was the highlight of Thursday lunches; instead offering it to Evangeline so that she could have twice the enjoyment of the sweet apple-y delight. And he gave her the deluxe tour of the school’s small library, guiding her through the fascinating reference section, with its huge atlases and gigantic globe, the non-fiction area with its fact books of nearly every country in the world, and, finally, his favorite, the young adult fiction area. He had pretty much read everything in this part of the library, many of the books at least twice, so she asked him to pick out a good one for her to check-out. After giving it some thought, he selected Misty of Chincoteague, reasoning that most girls liked ponies, and this wild pony story was extremely well-written, especially in its vivid descriptions of things such as the white spot on Misty’s side that was shaped like the United States
Evangeline had actually read this book before, in third grade, but she didn’t tell Hank this for fear that it would hurt his feelings. She had noticed that Hank was often teased and made fun of by the other students in class. She would cringe when, at least once a day, she heard other kids loudly call out, “Where’s Hank Wendt?” right in front of him, and to which he would reply, “I ain’t went nowhere! I’m right here!”, never getting why they would always laugh at his earnest answer. She could tell he was not from a well-to-do family, and she didn’t care. He was the only person at her new school who had made an effort to make her feel welcome, and he treated her, day in and day out, like she was the most important person in the world. When he looked at her, it was always with a smile, and she couldn’t help but be touched by that.
They soon began to regard each other as best friends, which seemed a bit strange to both of them since neither one had even had a single friend of the opposite gender before. They were basically inseparable during the school day, but they parted ways every afternoon when Evangeline took the school bus home. Hank had no idea where she lived, and even if he did, he would not have been allowed to visit her, for his mother forbade him from leaving their neighborhood on his own. So for the last two months of the academic year, Hank’s interest in going to school was magically revived; so much, in fact, that his mother was overheard more than once saying, “What the hell’s up with him?” as he peeled rubber down the driveway after inexplicably forsaking his bowl of lumpy oatmeal to get an early start on his school day. And as for Evangeline, there was no way her parents would have permitted her to have a “boyfriend” at her age, nor would any boy have been allowed to visit her at their home for any reason whatsoever. So everything Hank and Evangeline had together, they had at school, so they simply made the best of it.
Time just flew by, and the second-to-last day of school, the day that was universally regarded by all of the seventh graders as the very best day of the school year, verily the day of the long-awaited and eagerly anticipated social event of all social events, soon arrived. It was the day in which they celebrated the end of the academic year with a day-long field trip to the fabulous Roll-A-Rama roller skating rink. Talk about the makings of a perfect day! Roller skating, popcorn, Cherry Cokes, and more roller skating! The school bus was absolutely atwitter with excitement as it rolled away from the ancient, brown brick junior high, full of chattering and near-hysterical 12 year olds, and even the adult chaperones were in a rare good mood. Boys and girls were not allowed to sit together on the bus, so Hank sat with the other boys and Evangeline sat with the other girls, but they both snuck surreptitious glances at each other when they thought no one else was looking. Upon arrival at the rink, everybody piled off, and after the initial chaos of paying admission fees and obtaining their skates, the skate-a-palooza began! And it was wonderful! Loud rock music, strobe lights, nachos, extreme wipeouts… there were not enough superlatives in the English language, at that time, to adequately describe the joyous thrills experienced by the tickled teenyboppers.
But even this day had a special highlight all its own, and that was the romantic skate/song for couples, the one that gave the girls the opportunity to ask the boys to skate with them for the duration of a hit song, and it was considered a high honor for a boy to be even asked. The deejay gave the girls less than one minute to find a partner, so it was a crazy bit of pandemonium while most everyone paired up. In the middle of this exciting chaos, Hank’s eyes searched anxiously for Evangeline. And finally he saw her. Their eyes locked as she rolled straight up to him with her right hand outstretched. She came to a squeaky, but expertly executed, stop right in front of him, took his hand in hers, and sweetly asked him if he would skate with her. Though his heart was beating like a tom-tom, he somehow managed to remember his manners, and he whispered in her ear that he would be honored. So off they went, hand-in-hand, gliding around the floor to the tune of Chicago’s “Colour My World”, and Hank marveled at how dead-on the lyrics described the way he was feeling:
As time goes on I realize just what you mean to me. And now, now that you’re near, promise the love that I’ve waited to share, and dreams of our moment together. Colour my world with hope of loving you. Listen to "Colour My World".
Holding her hand as they went round and round, neither of them minding the sweat building up between their clasped palms, was the closest thing to heaven Hank had ever experienced, and for exactly two minutes and fifty-nine seconds he knew true happiness.
As time goes on I realize just what you mean to me. And now, now that you’re near, promise the love that I’ve waited to share, and dreams of our moment together. Colour my world with hope of loving you. Listen to "Colour My World".
Holding her hand as they went round and round, neither of them minding the sweat building up between their clasped palms, was the closest thing to heaven Hank had ever experienced, and for exactly two minutes and fifty-nine seconds he knew true happiness.
And then that special moment they had together was gone, and the deejay began playing a loud and scratchy version of “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe. Listen to "Dizzy". The skating floor immediately filled up again, and the sudden influx of annoying knuckleheads going way too fast made it unsafe for the two of them to continue skating together. So they veered off the floor and made their unsteady way to an open bench where they could sit together and catch their breath. Hank was so caught up in the moment, so overcome with a feeling of love towards Evangeline, that he turned to her and asked, rather impulsively, if they could be married. And she immediately said they could. And so, in both of their minds, they were. And that was that.
After about its hundredth key change, “Dizzy” faded away, and the deejay announced that that had been the final song, and he thanked everyone for coming, and now everyone would have to leave. The lights came up, the skates came off, and the satisfied seventh-graders filed out of the building and back onto the school bus. Now that the best day of his life was over, Hank felt a strange sadness all the way back to school, though by all rights he knew he should have been very happy. After seeing Evangeline safely off on the late bus, he rode his Sting-Ray home. He didn’t mention to his mom or his siblings that he had gotten married, fearing they would laugh at him, so he quietly ate his supper of potato pie and went to bed.
The next day was the last day of school. Hank didn’t even bother pretending to eat his breakfast, and instead he ran out the back door and pedaled to school as fast as he could, hoping to be there when Evangeline’s bus pulled-up. Knowing this would be their last day together before summer vacation, and not knowing exactly how they were going to get to see each other during the next three months, he had spent all night planning in his mind how he was going to make the day extra special for her. The first thing on the agenda would be escorting her from the bus to their first period class. Luckily, he got there just as her bus was arriving, so he didn’t even bother to lock his bike in the rack. Instead, he ran to the bus loading area, took his place next to the open bus door, and waited expectantly for her to get off. As a motley assortment of bleary-eyed middle- schoolers straggled off, Hank was mildly shocked to discover that Evangeline was not among them. He then thought that maybe he had the wrong bus, so he stuck his head in the doorway and asked the bus driver if this was the bus that Evangeline Martinez rode. The bus driver, a grizzled and grumpy-looking old man, said that yes, this was her bus. He asked Hank what his name was, and when Hank told him, the old man handed him a curiously folded piece of college-ruled notebook paper that had Hank’s name written on it in Evangeline’s beautiful cursive handwriting. The old man told Hank that he was asked to deliver the note to him, and that now that he had, Hank could get the hell off the bus.
Hank was mystified as the bus rumbled away. Why hadn’t Evangeline come to school? What was this note? He hurriedly undid the intricately-folded document with shaking hands and read the following message:
Dear Hank,
Dear Hank,
Oh, Hank. I’m so sorry! My father told us last night that we are moving away today. He said we are going to California
Evangeline
Hank stood there on the sidewalk with his mouth agape, unable to move, and unable to comprehend what had just happened to him. The tardy bell rang, and Hank didn’t hear it. It was close to an hour before he could move again, and when he could, he silently walked to the bike rack, slowly mounted his Sting-Ray, and pedaled himself home. When he got there, he went straight to his bed and cried himself to sleep.
And when he woke up, he was lying face down in the mud in “Hoolia’s” backyard and he was weeping. Not for the loss of his pop-up tent trailer home, nor for the loss of almost everything he owned. He was weeping for the loss of his beloved Evangeline. He missed her so.
(Next week: The Grackle Catcher continues as Hank rebuilds his home and defiantly resumes his public service despite Merle's threat of violence against him.)
And when he woke up, he was lying face down in the mud in “Hoolia’s” backyard and he was weeping. Not for the loss of his pop-up tent trailer home, nor for the loss of almost everything he owned. He was weeping for the loss of his beloved Evangeline. He missed her so.
(Next week: The Grackle Catcher continues as Hank rebuilds his home and defiantly resumes his public service despite Merle's threat of violence against him.)
