Rip Van Winkle

A Story by la-variety

A modern version of Rip Van Winkle that I decided to do for my 9th grade literature class

This Story takes place in the year 1986…

“Hey Ross!”

“How’s it going Ross?”

Ross V. Wilheimer grinned and waved to John Martin and Joe Brown as he walked down the road.

“Where are you headed?” John asked, shielding his eyes from the sun to get a better look at Ross. He shrugged.

“Anywhere the road takes me John,” he said, “anywhere the road takes me.”

This was something they expected to hear; for it was practically Ross’ slogan. But they grinned and gave him the thumbs up as if he had said words of acute knowledge.

Tommy and Timmy Hopkins, a pair of eight-year-old twins ran towards him, huge smiles on their faces.

“Hi Ross!” they both said excitedly.

“Hey you guys,” Ross replied and looked at Tommy. He was wheeling a bicycle that looked like it was broken.

“What happened to your bike?” he asked. Tommy frowned.

“The chain snapped while I was riding down Fluorescent Lane,” he mumbled, “now I don’t know how to fix it.”

Ross ruffled his hair.

“It’s okay buddy,” he said, “I can fix it just fine. How about I get you two a couple of root beer floats from Dave’s and we’ll look at it?”

The twins both grinned and nodded. Five minutes later, Ross was walking into Dave’s diner, the ‘hangout spot’ for everyone in the little town of Fareville. He walked up to the counter and grimaced as the new Madonna song played in the background. Martha loved that song.

Dave came up to the counter and smiled.

“Hiya Ross,” he said while wiping his hands on his apron. “You want the usual?”

“Nah, I just need a couple of floats for me and the little twins,” Ross replied, “d’you have some tools in the back that I can use?”

“Sure. That bike of Timmy’s broken again?” asked Dave.

“Yep.”

“That’s the third time this month!” said Dave. “Wait right here, I’ll get your stuff.”

Ten minutes later Ross walked out of the restaurant with the desert (on the house) and the tools. The twins were waiting for him at the nearest gas station. They spent the whole afternoon working on the bike. Ross, giving them a tutorial while fixing the snapped chain, and the twins listening intently while sipping their root beer floats.

At seven o’ clock Ross went to Mrs. Heralds’ house to see if she needed help with anything. The sixty-five year old widow had rheumatoid arthritis and she always needed help feeding her cats. Her only daughter had a nightly college course and was never able to help her mother at that time, so Ross was always more than happy to help.

That was the way it was everyday. Ross was always around town helping anyone that needed it. That was the reason he had such a good reputation. Everyone in Fareville knew him for his helpfulness and humility. They all had something good to say about him, even the kids. Especially the young boys like Tommy and Timmy. He was happy in Fareville, but only when he wasn’t at home.

At home he had to endure Martha Wilheimer, his wife of only five years. Living with her never made him happy, but he didn’t want to leave her. The only thing she did with him was fight. She yelled at him for running errands for everyone else and whined that he never took care of their two kids. She was the reason he was always gone all day and slept every time he was at home.

It was ten o’ clock when Ross could avoid it no longer. He had been given a few tips for running errands and decided to stop by the liquor store for a few pick-me-ups, mainly to make his wife’s mouth more bearable.

When he walked through the door all was quiet. Assuming Martha and the kids were asleep, he walked into the living room, ready to kick back on the couch with his beer and watch TV. But before he could sit down, Martha appeared at the doorway, her hands on her hips and her lips pursed. Ross sighed, knowing she was extra upset tonight.

“Where have you been?” she hissed. Ross rolled his eyes.

“I’ve been out,” he said mechanically while opening his first beer.

“Out! You’re always out! And doing what? Definitely not finding ways to educate and feed your own children!” Martha scolded. Her voice was getting louder with each word. Ross slumped against the couch and turned on the TV, knowing her whole speech by heart. His wife continued to rant and shriek while he flipped through the few channels. She finally realized that he wasn’t listening and began screaming.

“I wish I never married you! You’re nothing but a selfish man who enjoys putting his own family through misery! You’re arrogant, you’re obnoxious, you’re immature,

you’re-”

“Shut up Martha!” Ross yelled finally, while standing.

He didn’t expect her to, but Martha obeyed him. She stared up at him in surprise, her mouth partly open. She said nothing for almost a minute, but when she finally spoke again her voice was back to a whisper.

“What did you say?”

Ross took a deep breath.

“Just shut up.” he muttered and looked away from her, making up his mind. He picked up his beer bottle and turned back to Martha. Her arms had fallen limply at her sides and her mouth was finally closed. The bags under her eyes showed more now than ever and tears were forming there rapidly.

“I’m leaving,” Ross murmured and stepped around her. Martha didn’t move until she heard their daughter Katie crying in her nursery. Ross only stopped to wake his dog Ralph so he could accompany him, and they left the apartment building to the sound of Katie’s howls.

Half an hour later, they were at the outskirts of Fareville, under a small bridge. Ross didn’t know how long he planned on staying there, but he knew that when he returned Martha would be ready to skin him alive.

He sullenly reached out and patted Ralph, who licked his hand. As much as he liked everyone in Fareville, he considered his dog his best friend. He was the only one who knew about his troubles. Ralph never nagged about food, school or whatever else it was that Martha always shrieked about.

Yeah. He was his only friend.

Ross drank the rest of his beer and decided to settle for a nap. That was the only way he would calm down and forget about what just happened. He settled against Ralph’s soft body and closed his eyes. Just half an hour, that was all he needed.

It was midnight when Ross woke up and decided to head back home. As he sat up, he saw a dark figure silhouetted against the dark walking towards them. When the figure was only a few feet away, the light of the moon gave away his looks. Ross furrowed his eyebrows at his unusual appearance. The man had dark hair that was styled into a tall Mohawk with purple tips. His ears and face had multiple piercings that shone abnormally in the dark, and his apparel consisted of a black leather jacket that was ornamented with chains; faded blue jeans and black and white high tops. There were spikes poking out from under his jacket sleeves that could have passed as knives.

He stopped in front of Ross and gave him an eerie smile.

“Yo,” he said softly, “you tired man?”

Ross was taken aback.

“Excuse me?” he said and stepped away from him. He stopped when he felt his leg bump into Ralph, who was growling.

“I said are you tired?” the man repeated calmly.

“Tired of what?”

“Of everything. You can’t take any of it anymore. You know what I mean don’t you?”

Ross reached into his back pocket and touched his wallet.

“Look man, I don’t have any money on me right now so-”

The man laughed, a laugh that was almost like a bark.

“I don’t want your money man. I just want to show you.”

“Show me what?”

The man turned around, but not before beckoning for Ross to follow him. He only stood there and watched him walk away. The farther he went, the more curious Ross became. What would it hurt to look at whatever this guy wanted to show him? He was tough; he could get away if he was attacked. Probably.

Ross found himself following his unusual companion, but making sure to keep a distance of three feet away from him. Judging by Ralph’s growls, this guy wasn’t one to get comfortable with.

“What’s your name?” Ross inquired, getting tired of the uneasy silence after fifteen minutes of walking.

“Just call me Spike,” his acquaintance murmured as he lit a cigarette. “We’re nearly there.”

In five minutes’ time, Ross found out that ‘there’ was a small building that looked like a storage garage. Graffiti was the main décor of the small building. Purple, orange, blue, pink, there was barely any white left.

“Where are we?” Ross asked immediately as Spike bent over to grab the handle of the door.

“Where the tired people go man,” he replied and lifted the door. He immediately disappeared inside, leaving Ross dumbfounded.

The first thing he saw was purple. Purple lights blinking on and off, producing a dizzying effect. The whole place was crowded with people dancing, talking, jumping, and even fighting. When the two men stepped inside, Ross realized that Spike’s appearance seemed to be a commonplace. Everyone had a different kind of bizarre haircut and their bodies were ornamented with earrings and spikes.

The air was thick with the smell of sweat, alcohol and heroine as everyone moved to the music of Iron Maiden, a band Ross knew the local high school kids listened to. He looked around nervously as he pushed through the crowd, looking for Spike. He found him at the bar, where the lights were changing colors. In his hand he held a bottle that was full of what seemed to be alcohol, but it had no label. He held it up to Ross with a mischievous grin.

“Before you do anything,” he said loudly so that Ross could hear him over the music, “you should drink some of this. It’ll help you loosen up.”

Ross looked at the bottle furtively. He didn’t just expect him to drink some unknown liquid did he?

“What is that stuff?” asked Ross.

“The cure man,” replied Spike before taking a hearty swig of it, “it’s the cure.”

Ross frowned, tired of receiving riddles for answers. He glanced at the bottle again, but this time when he looked the liquid seemed more appealing. It had a gold tint to it, making it look almost refreshing. He shook his head.

“No thanks,” he muttered and sat at a barstool. Spike shrugged.

“Whatever,” he said, “See you around.”

Ross said nothing and looked at the counter as it changed colors with the lights. Purple. Green. Red. Orange. Blue. Purple. On and off, on and off. He suddenly remembered that he had brought Ralph, but when he looked around, he didn’t see him. He shrugged and figured that the dog was intimidated by the lights and went home.

Home. That was almost a better place than this…whatever it was. Nightclub didn’t even seem like an appropriate word to describe the sights. Ross turned to go and found himself staring at the glass bottle again. The gold liquid twinkled menacingly, almost mocking him. He marveled at how it didn’t change colors with the lights, like everything else did. As he picked up the bottle to have a closer look, he suddenly realized that there couldn’t have been any harm in drinking any of it. Spike drank some and he seemed all right.

Ross lifted the bottle to his lips and let the substance trickle down his throat. He tasted nothing for a few seconds, but then it hit him. It was a rush of flavors, but flavors he couldn’t describe. No, there couldn’t be anything wrong with this stuff.

He sat there quietly; deciding that going home wasn’t such a good idea. Besides, the lights were starting to look…what was that word the high school kids used? Radical. He grinned and took another sip of the drink.

The more he swallowed, the more optimistic he became. He looked over at Spike, who was smoking with a girl with a pink Mohawk. Ross grinned and held the bottle up in a friendly salute. Spike jerked his chin in his direction and turned back to the girl.

Within fifteen minutes, the bottle was nearly drained. Everything in Ross’ eyes was blurred. The colors were all one with the partygoers. He blinked to clear his sight, but only made it worse. He stumbled off his stool and looked for spike.

“Ehm…Spike?” he called while he staggered onto the dance floor. He crashed into three different people before collapsing on the floor.

“Iwangohomenow,” he slurred as he let the bottle slip from his hand. He smiled when he saw Spike and his girlfriend over him.

“God Spike, he drunk half the friggin’ bottle,” she muttered disgustedly.

“Jesus. Let’s take him to the back, he won’t be waking up anytime soon,” replied Spike. He grabbed Ross’ legs and began dragging him across the floor.

“You gonna help me or what?” he called to his girlfriend as he struggled with Ross’ limp body.

“Yeah whatever.”

They managed to drag him into a dark empty closet in the back of the building. Ross was still smiling, but it was clear that he couldn’t see anything.

“That was…awesome…sleep now…” he murmured before falling into a corner of the closet and finally drifting off to sleep.

Spike closed the closet door and turned to his girlfriend who almost looked nervous.

“So much for that,” he muttered with a frown, “I’m sure no one’s gonna miss him anyway.”

“You sure about that?” his girlfriend asked before taking out a pack of cigarettes.

Spike shrugged.

“Yeah,” he replied and grabbed a cigarette for himself.

“I’m positive.”

::::o::::

When Ross woke up, he was choking on dust. He coughed and spluttered as he sat up and struggled for air. After a minute, he was able to breathe and look around. He was trapped in a dust-infested closet. There were cobwebs everywhere, in the corners, hanging from the ceilings and covering his clothes. Ross hastily brushed a spider off his blazer and stood up.

He suddenly remembered why he was there. He could still taste the liquid that he drank on his tongue. That damned drink.

When Ross touched the doorknob to the closet, he was afraid it wouldn’t open. But in a few seconds he was in the main room of the building. Except it didn’t look like the building he was in the night before. It was empty, completely empty. The bar was gone, the disco ball, the decorations. If Ross hadn’t been there already, he would never have guessed the building was used for partying.

He walked over to the door and pulled it up. It didn’t budge. He attempted to open it a few more times until he felt a sharp pain in his lower back. He groaned and looked around desperately. Sunlight was creeping in invitingly through a dusty window. Sighing as if condemned to the worst, Ross walked over to it.

After taking a deep breath, he drove his fist through the glass of the window with a grunt. Ignoring the blood on his hand, he unlocked it and pulled it open.

When Ross climbed through the window, that’s when he noticed the first unusual thing. While stumbling on the ground, he saw a thick amount of white hair trailing from his face and almost touching the grass. He touched his cheeks and let out a sound of panic when he felt hair covering it.

He didn’t understand. How could such an amount of hair grow overnight? Again, the same golden drink appeared in his head, but he still couldn’t make any sense of it. Now more desperate than ever, Ross hurried toward town as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast, thanks to the muscle he had pulled in his back minutes earlier.

In thirty minutes’ time, Ross found the bridge he had walked to the night before. There were cars rumbling over it, nonstop. He furrowed his eyebrows when he looked closely at the cars. They were different than the ones he saw everyday. They were smaller and faster. He shook his head and walked on.

When he reached town, Ross was beginning to feel like he was going the wrong way. There were tall buildings he had never seen before. The only reason he didn’t turn around was because of the sign that read Fareville Police Department on a building. A few men in blue uniforms were standing in front of it, smoking.

He suddenly jumped when he heard a dog growling behind him. He turned and staggered backwards when he saw a black Labrador baring its teeth. Ross looked up when he heard a snicker. It was a young boy standing a few feet away from the dog.

“Get ‘im Jaws,” he mumbled excitedly.

“No,” Ross said, “stop that.”

He looked around helplessly as more kids crowded around him, snickering and encouraging the dog to attack him. He suddenly realized how different they were dressing. A boy, who looked to be about twelve was wearing a black T-shirt with the words Green Day on it. He wore denim shorts that reached his knees with pockets covering them. Instead of having a mullet, his hair was long all around and curly, mostly falling into his eyes.

Finally, when things were getting too noisy, one of the policemen walked over to them with an amused smirk on his face.

“All right break it up,” he said, as if he was sorry to stop the commotion.

“Excuse me,” Ross said quietly, “is this Fareville?”

A few of the policeman’s partners chuckled. He pointed to the sign on the police department.

“Last time I checked,” he said with a grin.

“Can you tell me where twelve thirty-five, Elm Street is?” Ross asked.

“Why do you wanna go there?” the cop inquired. “That place has been empty for years.”

Ross furrowed his eyebrows.

“What do you mean? That’s my home!” he exclaimed.

He looked around frantically as everyone laughed. More people were gathering around now, looking at Ross in sheer amusement. He looked at one blonde woman with a shirt that was tight around her cleavage but fell loosely around her middle. She wore jeans that were stretched around her thighs and stopped at her knees. At her ear was a silver cellular phone - a very, very small phone – that she was giggling into.

“Sir, that hasn’t been anyone’s home since it burned down in ’91,” the cop said.

Ross’ eyes widened.

“Excuse me?” he replied. “W-what’s the year?”

“The year is 2006 sir. What year do you think it is?”

Ross couldn’t believe his ears. He pinched himself, in case he was dreaming, but the only good it did was give him a sharp pain in the arm.

“Just yesterday it was 1986,” he mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else. There was more laughing and one man called out, “that explains the clothes!”

Ross looked down at his white blazer, slacks and loafers. And he looked at his long white beard. He put a hand to his head and thought hard, hoping for some sign that he wasn’t going crazy. He thought of Joe Brown, one of his old friends.

“Does Joe Brown live here?” Ross asked tentatively. The twelve-year-old boy spoke up.

“That’s my dad,” he said suspiciously, “He died, he was a soldier in Iraq. What do you want him for?”

Ross only blinked.

“What!” he murmured and tried to think of someone much younger. “What about Tommy and Timmy Hopkins?”

“The Hopkins boys?” The policeman said, “One went to Harvard and the other one is in jail, busted for dealing weed.”

Ross whimpered and looked around. No one was laughing anymore; everyone had serious looks on their faces, as if they pitied him.

“Martha Wilheimer!” Ross cried out desperately, “where is she?”

The blonde girl suddenly took her phone from her ear. With a frown, she stepped forward and peered at him.

“That was my mother,” she said softly.

“W-where is she?”

“She’s dead,” the girl replied, “she died from a heart attack. Why?”

Ross’ heart filled with relief. He reached forward and flung his arms around the young lady.

“Katie!” he cried out. “I’m your father! Ross Wilheimer!”

The girl pulled away from him.

“What?” she spluttered and looked hard at him. “Ross Wilheimer’s my brother!”

“But didn’t your mother tell you?” Ross said, taking a hold of her shoulders, “he was named after me! Your father!”

“She never talked about you.”

A murmur swept through the crowd. Everyone looked at Ross in disbelief and confusion. One elderly stout man that was leaning against a cane stepped forward.

“He is telling the truth,” the man said, “I remember him. He used to come to my diner everyday.”

Ross looked at him.

“Dave?” he said, shocked.

The old man nodded with a small smile. “Where have you been?” he asked quietly.

Ross told his story of how he was asleep for twenty years. No one seemed to believe him; they raised their eyebrows or bowed their heads, as if they were trying to hide their laughter.

After he finished his story, the cop spoke. He assured everyone that what he said was true. He told them that in 1995 the police broke up a cult when they started a small riot just outside of town. When they cleaned out their small hangout spot, they found a small amount of bottles of an unknown drink hidden away. They immediately confiscated it, and banned the cult from town. They hadn’t been heard of since.

After this, people began to lose interest and walked away. Ross looked on helplessly, wringing his now wrinkling hands. Katie glanced at him with a look of pity and spoke up.

“I don’t know why you left me when I was a baby,” she said softly, “but I would never leave a family member. You can stay with my family and me if you want.”

And it was settled. Ross moved into his daughter’s house. It turned out she was married to a wealthy man and lived comfortably in a mansion.

To his surprise, his son, Ross Jr. was also living with her. He was unemployed and attended a community college. At times he would do odd jobs around town, like his father used to, but mostly he was seen fiddling with something he told his father was a Funstaion 2, or something along those lines.

Overtime Ross became used to everyday life in the new Fareville. He was usually seen at the new Diner, run by Dave’s son. He was always telling anyone who’d listen the story of how he slept for twenty years. There was barely anything else he could talk about, as he was behind with almost everything else: sports, politics (“I didn’t know Bush had a son!”), and the economy. He avoided the things he wasn’t used to seeing, such as the new cell phones and computers (“Why do you keep talking about this Internet thing?”), and new music devices. Everyone thought of him as fascinating or crazy, but no one actually disliked him. He was treated with kindness in town, whether he was being patronized or not.

Oftentimes Ross would go to the nearby park and play chess with the hoboes. On one particular sunny day, he had just won a game with a quiet old man. Ross felt an irrational amount of pity for the man, so much pity that he couldn’t leave without doing him a favor. After shaking his hand he said, “You seem very hungry mister. I could treat you to lunch if you like.”

The old man shook his head.

“I’m not hungry,” he said quietly, “just tired.”

“Well I can give you a place to stay for one night,” Ross offered, but again his companion shook his head. Ross was relentless. He pulled a checkbook out of his pocket.

“Then let me give you a little money. What’s your name?” he said.

For a little while the man said nothing. Then he looked up with a small smile. At that moment Ross knew why he felt he needed to help this man. He had tried to help him once. Returning the favor was only fair. Finally, the old man spoke up.

“You can just call me Spike.”