A work of flash fiction that beautifully exposes the fact age is just a number when it comes to your ride-or-dies…
by: Arvilla Fee
I sit on the front porch with old Ernie Banks. I’m 13, he’s 88 — guess that’s why most folks think it strange that I spend so much of my free time with Ernie, especially me being a girl and us being two different colors. But I don’t care what folks think. Passover, Alabama is a small town with even smaller minds, and most girls my age are silly, doe-eyed creatures who fuss and fawn over makeup, fashion, and boys. Mostly boys. I don’t care about those things. I ain’t painting my face like a clown or dressing up in half shirts and booty shorts. My old jeans, Beatles t-shirts, and red Keds are just fine.
Ernie calls me an “old soul,” and I like the sound of that. With him, I can just be. We talk about music (my favorite), Ernie’s time in Vietnam, Ernie’s deceased wife, and his only living son. We also debate about who was the best president ever, the greatest ice cream flavors, and stuff like that. We never run out of things to say, although we do sit quietly sometimes, listening to birds chirp, sipping on iced tea. I like those times too. The thing I like best about Ernie is that he can tell the weather. He says he don’t need no smartphone or television to let him know when it’s going to rain. First time he told me that, I was a little doubtful. But then he told me he has a special knee that lets him know.
“See,” Ernie had said, “I was in the war, you know. Nam. Had a bullet go through my knee one day. We were deep in the jungle, and it took awhile for my buddies to get me out of there. Once I got into surgery, they had to put all kinds of hardware in there to get my knee back together. There for a bit they thought they might just have to cut off my leg.” My eyes had grown wide at this. I’d never seen anyone with a cut off leg before. I shivered a little. Ernie continued, “As you can see, still got my leg. But it aches when the weather changes. I know when I feel pains shooting through all that metal it’s gonna rain.”
The day after that first chat about Ernie’s knee, I didn’t watch the weatherman on TV. I didn’t ask Mom or Dad to pull up the forecast on their phones. I just asked Ernie. One Monday, he predicted it would be raining by 4 p.m. And it did. Couple days later, Ernie told me it’d rain again on Thursday. And it did. From there on, I just depended on Ernie’s knee, so I’d know when to carry an umbrella.
Today Ernie and I are playing checkers on a board he’d made himself about thirty years ago. That’s another thing I love about Ernie. He doesn’t need new-fangled stuff (his words); he just uses stuff he’s had most his life. “Why throw away a good thing when it still works,” he always says. Ernie jumps my last two checkers. I’m out. I don’t get mad, though. Ernie doesn’t let me win just because I’m a kid or because I’m a girl. He’s taught me how to play fair and square, and I only win when I outplay him. He pours a couple of iced teas and leans back in his wicker rocker. I lean back in mine. This right here — this is the life.
My eyes are closed because Ernie says that way I can pick out the different bird sounds better. I’m pretty proud of myself because I now know the difference between a blue jay, dove, cardinal, mockingbird, and cedar waxwing within a couple of tweets. “There,” I say. “That was a mockingbird.”
Ernie laughs. “Sure was,” he says.
Then, with my eyes still closed, I hear something else.
“Hey, there, Cora!” a high, sing-song voice calls out.
I open my eyes and stare at the sidewalk. There stands Angelina, Charity, and Rosa. All three girls have on eyeshadow, blush, and mascara. Kind of silly, I think, when it’ll be in the high 80s today, humidity even higher. Their faces will probably melt off. All three are wearing stylish cut-off jean shorts and brightly colored tank tops no bigger than a hankie, as my momma would say. They waggle their fingers at Ernie and me.
“Afternoon, girls,” Ernie says in his deep, gentle drawl. I don’t say anything.
“What’cha doing?” asks Angelina, leader of that posse.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Well, wanna come to the movies with us?” asks Angelina.
Charity and Rose chime in. “Yeah, come on.”
Ernie glances at me. “Go on if you want to,” he says.
“No thanks,” I say. “It’s going to rain. I’m staying here.”
The girls glance at the blue sky then giggle. “Right,” says Angelina. “I don’t see any rain.”
“Well, it’s coming,” I say.
“Oh, you the weather girl now?” mocks Angelina. “Maybe you should stick to checkers!” She curls her lips and motions towards Ernie’s old board. Then she flips her hair over her shoulders and saunters away, the other two girls trailing behind her.
Ernie leans forward and rubs his knee. “Mmm hmm,” he says.
Little more than two hours later, Ernie and I are on our sixth game of checkers when the wind kicks up, the oak leaves flip upside down, and gray clouds start tumbling across the sky.
We see Angelina, Charity and Rose coming from the direction of the theater at a dead run, their tennis shoes slapping the pavement. Then the sky opens at its seams and dumps rain in torrents.
The girls run by us without looking up, trying (unsuccessfully) to cover their now streaming wet hair with their hands.
Ernie and I look at each other then clink our glasses together in a toast.
“Here’s to your knee,” I say, laughing.
Ernie grins. “Here’s to my knee.”
Arvilla Fee, from Dayton, Ohio, has been published in numerous presses, and her poetry books, The Human Side, This is Life, and Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces are available on Amazon. Her new book, The Stars Above Us, will be released in May. Arvilla’s life advice: Never travel without snacks. To learn more, visit her website and magazine: https://soulpoetry7.com/
