Bags of Popcorn

I recently ate a bag of popcorn when a friend came over. And this is what happened.

            I’m a Joe.

            Nineteen years ago it was my parents, the faux-religious type that wax lyrical about other couples’ kids, that periodically buy bottles of merlot for filling up the wine cellar and not for drinking, that call themselves politically aware citizens while never bothering to vote, that “go on a whim” to the gym after the Bowflex guy happens to come on television, who moved into the corner house on Maraschino Lane complete with picket fence and automatic sprinkler system.

Why Mom and Dad decided to move into the only house on the only cul-de-sac behind the only park in town has eluded my knowledge since I could reflect on it, except for the possible explanation that Mom had a liking for cherries and bugged Dad until he dropped his desire for the big two-story we always seem to drive by even though it’s not en route. That would also explain why no one in the family has ever eaten a single cherry and why the only kid in the family is named Joe.

            There was one good thing about Maraschino Lane, I suppose, and that was Olive Chevalier. She was the French girl that lived next door. French. I often made excuses to knock on the Chevaliers’ door, which by the time high school came around resulted in several dimes, a purple button, and a borrowed salt shaker. Olive was a real pretty girl with brown hair. I never really got to look at her eye color, but I felt they were probably green. Strange thing is, my current lab partner at the university is also named Olive—I haven’t talked to her enough to know her last name, but I do know she has hazel eyes and she’s also very pretty. Maybe I have a thing for olives just like Mom has a thing for cherries.

            Right now, it’s summer dying into fall. I’m sitting alone on the front porch drinking a cup of milk. I feel seven again and there’s a lacking feeling, no doubt by the absence of chocolate chip cookie. Dad promised we would go golfing this afternoon, because he and Mom are leaving for their “retirement celebration” cruise next Monday after sending me off back to school. I’m nineteen and I still can’t drive. Sophomore year’s starting and I still can’t drive. It really is embarrassing when your Lucy Ricardo-esque mother drops you off at the dorm with her little anachronistic sedan, while starkly urging you to plant a big wet kiss good-bye on her L’Oreal dusted cheek.

             “Joe?”

            I swallow the last drip of milk. Boy that was gone fast. “Yeah?”

            Dad comes out, patting down his hair with a slightly apologetic look on his face. I know what he’s going to say. “I don’t think we can go golfing this afternoon,” he pauses momentarily, watching my reaction, then continues. “There’s too much to pack and your mother can’t do all the work herself…and we have a lot of last-minute errands to run.”

            I shrug, I don’t care. “We’ll go some other time then.”

            Dad smiles at me, his face exploding into wrinkles. “Now come in and help with the dishes.”

            Finally, I’m home. I’ve been back on Maraschino Lane for a month and I wasn’t really home until now. I had already gone to the park, visited old friends, even checked out books from the library that someone will have to return for me—and it isn’t right then when Dad tells me to do the dishes that I feel home at last. Finally, I’m sick of this place, and no one is going to look up anymore when I enter the door. Or maybe I just don’t want to do the dishes. That’s probably it. In the kitchen, I languidly throw everything in the dish washer without scraping and look for something to eat.

            I see crackers, the rip-off kind that doesn’t taste like anything unless you waste more of your money on dips, a leftover sandwich—probably mine so I don’t want to eat it anymore, and popcorn. I haven’t had any since two summers ago when my best buddy and I both forgot to bring money to the local theater and got caught movie hopping, so we decided to watch a movie at home with our microwaveable friend Orville Redenbacher's. I walk across stained linoleum, past the familiarly cluttered counter that I used to try to sit on as a kid but somehow never managed to—the microwave door seems left ajar for me. I put a bag of popcorn in, this side down, hit the popcorn setting and wait. For some reason it feels like a special moment, preparing and eating popcorn all by myself. I can hear Mom and Dad talking in the living room only a few bits of wood and plaster away, but it feels quiet and dim here in the messy kitchen, like a streetlight whose power is fading as daylight crawls in.

            The microwave beeps obediently like a dog waiting for its owner to take a twig out of its mouth. The popcorn, like the milk, goes out fast. Sooner than expected, I find myself staring at the clutter of unborn kernels at the bottom of a buttery paper bag. But then the kernels turn into wood, into a picket fence, into a house, into Maraschino Lane. I find myself thinking of Dad, always driving by that two-story he gave up on over a decade ago. I think of Mom, snapping off the television with a flick of the remote and leaving spontaneously for the treadmills. I think, it’s kind of nice that I had never gotten to see what Olive Chevalier’s face looked like, that I had never returned the salt shaker or button or dimes I asked for. It’s kind of nice that fall semester classes at the university are starting again, the second time in my nineteen years of life, and I still don’t know how to drive a car.

And it’s also kind of nice when I look into this eaten bag of Orville Redenbacher's and I see that not all the kernels have popped, that not all of them have bloomed into something more valuable. Those last kernels are still there, not abandoned but simply just not ready. Because at the end of it all when I look into the bag, I don’t find a hollow, crumpled paper shell in my hands. I don’t find that it’s empty.

 

Author's Note

What do you think?

Reviews

[[untitled]]

though i am no expert on short fiction i believe you have something here. i am amazed that you fit everything in a short space. no overkill, no dragging it out. great all around!

[Christopher J. Bottge]

Nicely done!

[Noel]

I enjoyed that. Great read. You did a great job.

[hey]

This is really really great! The first paragraph is my favorite, I love the crazy run on descriptions. You're really good.