Hank’s Girl

August 1958

It was a sweltering summer day and I was bored. Inviting a reprimand I whined, “There’s no one to play with around here. I don’t want to move into this new house you’re building.” My father stopped sawing the huge beam of wood he would soon anchor to the kitchen ceiling of our new home. He shook the sawdust from his black curly hair and patted dry the sweat from his forehead with the clean white handkerchief he kept in the back pocket of his overalls. He took me by the hand and off we strolled down a cool tree lined street where about midway I saw a barefooted girl hanging upside down from the low limb of a dying maple tree. She was humming to herself as she strained to make the ends of her sun-streaked hair sweep the earth beneath her head.

Upon reaching the upside down girl my father introduced her, “This here’s Hank’s girl.” He gave me a quarter he pulled from his pocket and promised to come back for me before the street lamps went on. Hank’s girl lowered herself from the tree limb and told me how lucky I was to have a whole twenty-five cents ‘for keeps’. I agreed, after all, those were the days of penny candies and five-cent fountain sodas. Then and there I promised to share my good fortune with her. We interlocked our pinkie fingers, the way children did back then to validate a promise and without fanfare our lifelong friendship was born.

That first day Hank’s girl insisted that I remove my red canvas sneakers. I did, and she wedged them beneath the thorny hedges that grew in the front garden of her house. She showed me the soles of her callused feet and was sure I could have the same if only I went barefoot. My sneakers remained beneath those hedges next to my friend’s scuffed ox blood red sandals whose buckles rusted shut by the close of that glorious summer and yes indeed, nary a shard of glass nor burr from any bush could penetrate the soles of my feet by the time school rolled around.

Our first day together was one of discovery. She was left-handed and I was a righty. I was the oldest in my family, she was the youngest in hers. She could touch the tip of her nose with her tongue and I couldn’t even though I had the larger nose. We stood back to back, shoulders pressing and agreed that she was at least two inches taller than I was. We measured our our feet and could see that hers were much bigger than mine; still are.

Our mathematical skills were limited yet, we were able to calculate that I was ten months and three days older. Both of our faces were splattered with freckles we knew would fade with the coming winter. Without using my fingers I could whistle longer and louder than anybody I knew. My friend could flip her upper eyelids inside out and make the most wonderful scary monster faces while simultaneously burping on command. We were both able to swim, assemble and fly kite, jump rope, spin a top, roller skate and play a respectable game of hop scotch. We each owned a colored chalk collection much to the dismay of the neighbors whose sidewalks we decorated when the artistic whim overpowered us that August. Owning a two-wheeler bicycle was a shared fantasy we talked about at least once an hour.
My friend gave me a tour of the neighborhood pointing to the small, neat wood framed homes of her classmates. That summer we didn’t know a single soul who was an only child. Her classmates, she told me had six siblings each, just like us. When we reached the street corner my friend showed me how with an effortless stretch of her arm she could touch the mailbox handle. She bragged how her mother often trusted her to post the family’s important letters. I, on my tippy toes came nowhere close to touching the handle that allowed mail to slip into the darkness of that heavy metal box.
“Next summer,” I thought to myself.

By the time I’d shaken the cramps from my toes my friend had discovered a bubble filled tar puddle. Ladies in high-heeled shoes avoided them on purpose, but children back then considered them a fine source of amusement. We found sturdy twigs and twirled that tar as diligently as the man who spun the cotton candy at the spring carnival. When the tar balls cooled we autographed the oak tree that grew along side the mailbox post. I printed C.R. on that old tree and my friend followed suit with A.L.. We pitched our writing implements into the storm sewer and proceeded to glue our toes together with the messy almost boiling black tar. Our toes thoroughly webbed, Hank’s girl led me to the beach as every loose pebble, fallen leaf, and unfortunate insect in our path stuck to the bottom of our feet.

It was high tide and we wasted no time plunging into the cool water. Bathing suits weren’t mandatory back then and every youngster we knew swam wearing an old pair of shorts and a worn undershirt. Together we went underwater, opened our eyes and waved to one another. We entertained each other with aquatic somersaults, handstands, and the dead man’s float. My friend and I had a swimming race to the blue and white wooden raft anchored fifty feet offshore; she won. The water was pristine that day, not a jellyfish, horseshoe crab, nor clump of seaweed to be found.

We rested at the shore edge and used bits of broken clam shells to scrape the tar from between our toes. By the time we returned to my friend’s house our clothing was completely dried and our stomachs were rumbling. My friend’s mother prepared us a grand lunch: thick slices of beefsteak tomato on soft white bread slathered with mayonnaise. We drank ice cold lemonade from tall brightly colored tin tumblers. Her mother didn’t want us tracking tar on her kitchen linoleum, so we dined al fresco in the shade of a crabapple tree while resting our backs against the door of the storm cellar.

Lunch done, we amused ourselves by throwing small stones at the next door neighbor’s pigeon coop. Warned sternly to “stop that or I’m telling your mother,” we decided to spend the quarter before my father came for me. Hand in hand we looked both ways before crossing the street, then we hop skipped to McGarry’s Candy Store.

Mrs. McGarry was a plump woman with a merry, if lackadaisical disposition. She inquired how much money we had to spend, then told us that her feet hurt her and only when we were absolutely sure of what penny candies we wanted would she leave her comfortable perch on the red swivel fountain stool. We agreed and started to root around. I thumbed through the newest comic books; I loved to read. Hank’s girl told me she never read a book in her life and had no immediate plans to do so, even if it was a requirement for school.

My friend and I almost purchased two vanilla ‘Mello Rolls’ for ten cents each, fortunately my eagle eyed companion noticed that the ice cream cylinders were suffering from an advanced case of freezer burn, so we passed on the cones. We twice checked the coin return tray in the public phone booth; no luck. We attempted, unsuccessfully, to count the dead flies stuck to the curly pest strips that hung from the light cords throughout the store. We collected a few bottle caps from the floor in front of the overflowing soda chest knowing they made great dance taps should we decide to put our shoes back on any time soon.

Eventually, we settled for penny candies; red licorice whips, Mary Jane’s, orange yellow marshmallow bananas, peppermints and a real bargain, three for a nickel salty pretzel rods. I wanted to eat my candy at the fountain and wash it down with five-cent soda.
My friend nudged me and whispered, “Mrs. McGarry isn’t very generous with the syrup, her sodas are never sweet enough. we’ll be better off splitting a bottle of ‘Coke’ .”
We surrendered our last dime for the bottle of soda.

We hurried to the corner and sat on the sidewalk in the shade of the green and white striped awning shielding the butcher’s shop. Noticing how ash-like our skins were from the salt water my friend moistened the tip of her index finger and drew a heart with an arrow through it on my upper arm. A spit tattoo. We ate our candy and passed the soda bottle back and forth without either of us wiping the top before we took our respective sips, back then a true sign of friendship.

October 2009

I went to the mailbox and found the usual assortment of brightly colored envelopes containing birthday greetings from my friends and family. I opened the one from my best friend first. It contained a photograph and a short note.
Happy Birthday,

I was in the old neighborhood last month and quite a bit of development is going on. They’re bulldozing everything around the beach and putting up expensive condominiums. You wouldn’t recognize the place. I took the enclosed photo and thought you might like to have it. I hope it makes you smile.
Love from your old friend, A.L.It was a photograph of the old tree trunk we autographed with our tar sticks more than fifty years ago. Our initials were still visible. I smiled.
Coreen Falco 

© 2016 Coreen Falco

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— August 16, 2015