Underground_Network
August 27th, 2009, 12:41 PM
The date was November 21, 1953. To Garrett Glumfield, it was just another lousy day of his teenage life. Garret sat on a park bench in the middle of Sequoia Park, twiddling his thumbs.
He wore a cap on his head that read “Glumfield Plumbing.” The hat was red and the lettering was black. He had received from his father as a gift, once the Glumfield Plumbing business “hit it big”, as his father put it. He had the hat tilted down, more or less fully covering his “terrible” crew cut that his dad “forced” him to get. He had curly brown hair, and he liked it long, but his dad wanted it short, and his dad was always right. Garrett was tired of being pushed around by his dad, and by everyone else in his life, but he moved on. He would rebel in small ways, such as by wearing a short sleeve shirt, red with blue stripes on the arms and around the base and neck of the shirt, when the weather was cold out and he knew his dad would want him to wear a jacket. Along with that short sleeve shirt was another article of rebellion, a pair of navy blue shorts that just barely covered his knees. He knew even if the rest of his day sucked, he would get some joy out of being able to wear clothes his dad wouldn’t want him wearing, at least not when it’s “cold outside.”
Garrett grinned on that park bench. He took his two year old shoes, handmade by one of his dad’s friends, that had holes all over them and smelled like rotten fruit, and he tapped them together, while still twiddling his thumbs and looking at the ground. He grinned, and as people walked by, they picked up their pace when they saw him. They figured he was a “creeper.” But he didn’t care; he was used to being the odd one out.
In fact, Garrett was glad it was a Saturday. He loved the weekend, and even more so, the summer. Garrett hated school. Not because of having to take tests or having to do homework or having to carry around excessively heavy books. Garrett loved taking tests and doing homework, in fact, Garrett absolutely adored knowledge itself. But Garrett still hated school, and it was because of them. “Them” was pretty much every tough guy, jock, and even geek around. Everyone picked on him. The guys who were stronger than him, which were most of the guys in his school, picked on him physically: Stuffing him into lockers, stuffing him into trash cans, punching him, knocking him down and kicking him, etc. They seemed to simply love physically abusing him. And the geeks would bully him in class, diverting his attention or intentionally messing him up on an assignment or an exam. Garret would’ve been a straight A student if not for his classmates. Because of them he was a straight C student. And even worse, he was a straight C student that no one liked.
At one point Garrett heard about how all of the popular teens were smoking or drinking or having sex, but he didn’t care. That wasn’t him, and if he had to be unpopular simply because he didn’t want to do stupid things, that was fine with him.
And so Garrett sat on that park bench, just twiddling his thumbs, clacking his shoes together, and looking at the ground and grinning at his shadow. He didn’t take note that for around ten minutes or so, a girl was watching him from afar. He wasn’t used to attention, and he wasn’t used to good things happening to him. Whenever it looked like something good was about to happen to Garrett, it never turned out how he wanted it to, and quite often in the end the outcome was negative, rather than positive.
But Garrett heard a sweet, angelic whisper from not too far away. He couldn’t help but tilt his head up, and as he did, his face drew a blank. He stared directly in front of him, and he saw love and life and all of the beauty in the world, all at once. He wanted to faint, and he almost fell back, but he held himself. He opened his mouth to say something, but words wouldn’t come out.
The girl wasn’t from his school, not that he would know though, as girls usually avoided him at school. She sat down next to him, crossed her legs, interlocked her fingers, placing her clasped hands on her lap, stared into Garrett’s glowing green eyes, that were trying ever so hard to look back down at the ground, as opposed to back into hers’, and she said, “Hi there,” and smiled.
Garrett turned his head toward her again, looking directly into her beneficent blue eyes, but he had no idea what to say. This girl was an angel, and in his eyes, he was a fragment of a human being. She was at the top of the chain of being, him, at the bottom. He didn’t deserve to be anywhere near a girl like that. But he squeaked out a “Hello” and tried so hard to smile that his cheeks swelled up and his teeth seemed to lock in place.
The girl laughed, but in a cheerful, happy kind of way. It wasn’t the type of laugh that Garrett was used to. Her cheeks turned red and she unclasped her hands and put a finger to her lips. She then rolled her eyes up a little, as if thinking of what to say next. Then she put her hand on Garrett’s lap, which almost caused him to fall over again, and she said, “Well, I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Ashley, and I just moved here from Lake Forest. I don’t know anyone here yet, and you look like an interesting boy. I’d love to get to know you.”
For the third time, Garrett nearly fell over, but he supported himself by placing his left hand down behind him on the park bench. He kept smiling, but toned it down a little, enough so that his jaw stopped aching and his cheeks didn’t look so swelled. He said, “I’m umm, Garrett. And it’s ummm, nice to meet you. But people around here, they don’t usually talk to me. Especially pretty girls,” and as he said the word pretty, he turned away from her for a second, afraid she would slap him or walk away.
But she didn’t slap him, and she certainly didn’t walk away. She actually gave him a kiss on the cheek. Then she said, “You think I’m pretty? That’s so sweet of you. I love your eyes, and if you would take that silly cap off of your head, I’d be able to see your handsome face a bit better.” She reached for his cap, but he put his hand up to block her.
“Wait, I just got a haircut and umm, my dad kind of forced it on me. I don’t like the way my hair looks, and this hat is kind of my trademark. It has my dad’s business on it and my dad says that me wearing it is like a mobile advertisement. But then he usually takes that back and says I’m more of a stationary advertisement because on the weekend all I ever do is come here and sit on this bench.”
“Oh, well it won’t hurt for you to take it off for a moment. I’m sure your hair looks a lot better than you think. And as for your hat being an advertisement for your dad’s business, I’m not so sure about. The first thing I noticed was your glimmering green eyes, I hadn’t even noticed you wearing a hat at first, let alone that it said something on it.”
And with that, Garrett smiled and actually took the hat off himself, albeit a bit hesitantly. As he did, Ashley smiled at him and her cheeks turned red again.
“Wow, you have such gorgeous hair. You may not like it, but I do. It’s a perfect shade of brown! And well, it’s hair, it grows and it gets cut, and you’re not going to love every haircut! Regardless of what style your hair is, it’s such a beautiful color. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with hair so… So magnificent!”
Garrett began to tilt his head down again, but he managed to keep it up and he smiled and said, “Thank you. But my hair is nothing compared to your golden locks. They, they, they shine brighter than the sun. I know that sounds cheesy, but my God, when I first saw you—Ashley—I could’ve sworn you were an angel. Your beauty is above and beyond what I ever perceived beauty to be. I swear the second I looked up, you nearly knocked me off my feet, though luckily for me, I was sitting down and had support behind me in the form of this bench,” he winked and then smiled. He was happier than he’d ever been before.
“Wow. An angel, huh? I don’t think I’m quite that beautiful, but if you say so, I guess I’ll have to believe you. I mean, you’re such a sweet guy, you’re beyond nice. And you’re really handsome, you can’t deny it, I swear!”
And the conversation went on and on, with compliments and interesting stories from each other’s past. Garrett discovered Ashley had somewhat of a messed up life back in her old town. She was picked on by other girls and had pranks pulled on her all the time. One time another girl pulled so hard on her hair that she ripped enough of it out to make Ashley so upset that she skipped school for two straight weeks until it grew back. And Ashley learned how Garrett had so often been tormented and how terrible his life had been. Neither could believe how terrible the other had it. Both thought the other deserved the world. To close their conversation, Ashley kissed Garrett on the lips. And then, she said her last words to him, “Garrett, you’re so wonderful. I think… I think I’m in love with you.” She went on to kiss him again and wave goodbye to him.
Garrett only said goodbye, he didn’t manage to say “I love you too,” though he was honestly dying to say it. He watched Ashley walk off, he followed her magical glow that truly was brighter than the sun, with his eyes and saw her reach the end of the park. She looked both ways and prepared to cross the street. Right then, Garrett realized he had forgotten to ask Ashley where she lived. He wanted to get up, but that park bench, that park bench had been his haven for some five years now, and he just couldn’t force himself to move.
Ashley crossed the street, cheerily walking at a medium pace, not noticing the large brown truck headed straight for her, speeding uncannily and swerving all over the place. The driver was either drunk or simply couldn’t control his large vehicle. She turned to face it, just as it hit her. She was crushed. What remained of her after the truck hit her was unrecognizable.
And Garrett saw it all unfold. Right then and there, without hesitation, he shot up from the park bench and rushed to Ashley’s side. He looked at what was left of her, and he wept, and wept. Her perfect blue eyes were rolled up in the back of her head. Her perfect hair was dirtied, torn and crushed. Her perfect pink lips were dirtied and shredded. The rest of her, beneath the neck, was unrecognizable as ever having been human. Garrett kept weeping even as the police and an ambulance that was far too late arrived.
And he kept weeping for the next few weeks, all the while staying in bed, missing school and missing his favorite park bench. Garrett questioned fate time and time again. Garrett blamed God, then himself. And even his father, his enemies, Ashley’s enemies, etc. He blamed anyone and everyone. He needed to find a reason for her death. He couldn’t believe the one good thing in his life was taken away, just like that. It was far too unfair. Someone had to be to blame, and what is truly ironic, is that he never thought to blame the truck driver. But still, after a time he gave up trying to place the blame on anyone else. He went back to school, ashamed of himself for having let go of the one thing he truly loved. He realized if he had just kept talking, or offered to walk her home, maybe things would have turned out differently. He was disturbed, and he had already been a disturbed individual because of how others had treated him before he met Ashley.
After Ashley’s death, even though very few at his school even knew that Garrett and Ashley were close, or even who Ashley was, as she never got the chance to attend what would have been her new school, they knew that something traumatic had happened to Garrett, and they all left him alone. Garrett wallowed in his own sadness for the next couple of years. Despite his depressed state, he managed A’s and B’s in his junior and senior year.
He went on to go to Dartmouth, and then from there he became a well-to-do businessman. He never got married. And he had never even got into a relationship, since Ashley had died. And every Sunday, the only day of the week that he really had off, he would go to his park bench, and he would swear he could still smell Ashley’s perfume and hear her sweet, sweet laugh. He could even see a glow around that bench, a glow just like the angelic glow he had seen around sweet Ashley. He could never accept that she was gone. Every year, on the day that she died, since he was still in high school, he would bring flowers to her grave. Every year, on the day that she died, he would sit by her grave and talk about how wonderful she was, all the while crying and struggling to find the right words to say.
And now Garrett is retired. He is 73 years old. His parents are dead. His business is in the hands of one of his ‘enemies’ from high school’s sons. He has no children. He has no siblings. The closest relative that he’s aware of is a distance cousin who lives several states away. He has nothing to look forward to, but he has plenty to look back on. Every weekend, Garrett goes to that park bench in Sequoia Park, and he sits there, taking in the smell of Ashley’s elegant perfume, feeling the brush of her sweet lips against his rough, wrinkled cheeks, feeling her ruffle what's left of his gray hair, tasting her sweet, pink lips, dirtied and torn apart by that damn truck; that damn truck that just had to run her over. And he also hears her sweet laugh and her even sweeter voice. Whenever he sits on that park bench, he smiles and looks toward the sky. This is where he found his angel. And this is where she’ll forever remain.
He wore a cap on his head that read “Glumfield Plumbing.” The hat was red and the lettering was black. He had received from his father as a gift, once the Glumfield Plumbing business “hit it big”, as his father put it. He had the hat tilted down, more or less fully covering his “terrible” crew cut that his dad “forced” him to get. He had curly brown hair, and he liked it long, but his dad wanted it short, and his dad was always right. Garrett was tired of being pushed around by his dad, and by everyone else in his life, but he moved on. He would rebel in small ways, such as by wearing a short sleeve shirt, red with blue stripes on the arms and around the base and neck of the shirt, when the weather was cold out and he knew his dad would want him to wear a jacket. Along with that short sleeve shirt was another article of rebellion, a pair of navy blue shorts that just barely covered his knees. He knew even if the rest of his day sucked, he would get some joy out of being able to wear clothes his dad wouldn’t want him wearing, at least not when it’s “cold outside.”
Garrett grinned on that park bench. He took his two year old shoes, handmade by one of his dad’s friends, that had holes all over them and smelled like rotten fruit, and he tapped them together, while still twiddling his thumbs and looking at the ground. He grinned, and as people walked by, they picked up their pace when they saw him. They figured he was a “creeper.” But he didn’t care; he was used to being the odd one out.
In fact, Garrett was glad it was a Saturday. He loved the weekend, and even more so, the summer. Garrett hated school. Not because of having to take tests or having to do homework or having to carry around excessively heavy books. Garrett loved taking tests and doing homework, in fact, Garrett absolutely adored knowledge itself. But Garrett still hated school, and it was because of them. “Them” was pretty much every tough guy, jock, and even geek around. Everyone picked on him. The guys who were stronger than him, which were most of the guys in his school, picked on him physically: Stuffing him into lockers, stuffing him into trash cans, punching him, knocking him down and kicking him, etc. They seemed to simply love physically abusing him. And the geeks would bully him in class, diverting his attention or intentionally messing him up on an assignment or an exam. Garret would’ve been a straight A student if not for his classmates. Because of them he was a straight C student. And even worse, he was a straight C student that no one liked.
At one point Garrett heard about how all of the popular teens were smoking or drinking or having sex, but he didn’t care. That wasn’t him, and if he had to be unpopular simply because he didn’t want to do stupid things, that was fine with him.
And so Garrett sat on that park bench, just twiddling his thumbs, clacking his shoes together, and looking at the ground and grinning at his shadow. He didn’t take note that for around ten minutes or so, a girl was watching him from afar. He wasn’t used to attention, and he wasn’t used to good things happening to him. Whenever it looked like something good was about to happen to Garrett, it never turned out how he wanted it to, and quite often in the end the outcome was negative, rather than positive.
But Garrett heard a sweet, angelic whisper from not too far away. He couldn’t help but tilt his head up, and as he did, his face drew a blank. He stared directly in front of him, and he saw love and life and all of the beauty in the world, all at once. He wanted to faint, and he almost fell back, but he held himself. He opened his mouth to say something, but words wouldn’t come out.
The girl wasn’t from his school, not that he would know though, as girls usually avoided him at school. She sat down next to him, crossed her legs, interlocked her fingers, placing her clasped hands on her lap, stared into Garrett’s glowing green eyes, that were trying ever so hard to look back down at the ground, as opposed to back into hers’, and she said, “Hi there,” and smiled.
Garrett turned his head toward her again, looking directly into her beneficent blue eyes, but he had no idea what to say. This girl was an angel, and in his eyes, he was a fragment of a human being. She was at the top of the chain of being, him, at the bottom. He didn’t deserve to be anywhere near a girl like that. But he squeaked out a “Hello” and tried so hard to smile that his cheeks swelled up and his teeth seemed to lock in place.
The girl laughed, but in a cheerful, happy kind of way. It wasn’t the type of laugh that Garrett was used to. Her cheeks turned red and she unclasped her hands and put a finger to her lips. She then rolled her eyes up a little, as if thinking of what to say next. Then she put her hand on Garrett’s lap, which almost caused him to fall over again, and she said, “Well, I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Ashley, and I just moved here from Lake Forest. I don’t know anyone here yet, and you look like an interesting boy. I’d love to get to know you.”
For the third time, Garrett nearly fell over, but he supported himself by placing his left hand down behind him on the park bench. He kept smiling, but toned it down a little, enough so that his jaw stopped aching and his cheeks didn’t look so swelled. He said, “I’m umm, Garrett. And it’s ummm, nice to meet you. But people around here, they don’t usually talk to me. Especially pretty girls,” and as he said the word pretty, he turned away from her for a second, afraid she would slap him or walk away.
But she didn’t slap him, and she certainly didn’t walk away. She actually gave him a kiss on the cheek. Then she said, “You think I’m pretty? That’s so sweet of you. I love your eyes, and if you would take that silly cap off of your head, I’d be able to see your handsome face a bit better.” She reached for his cap, but he put his hand up to block her.
“Wait, I just got a haircut and umm, my dad kind of forced it on me. I don’t like the way my hair looks, and this hat is kind of my trademark. It has my dad’s business on it and my dad says that me wearing it is like a mobile advertisement. But then he usually takes that back and says I’m more of a stationary advertisement because on the weekend all I ever do is come here and sit on this bench.”
“Oh, well it won’t hurt for you to take it off for a moment. I’m sure your hair looks a lot better than you think. And as for your hat being an advertisement for your dad’s business, I’m not so sure about. The first thing I noticed was your glimmering green eyes, I hadn’t even noticed you wearing a hat at first, let alone that it said something on it.”
And with that, Garrett smiled and actually took the hat off himself, albeit a bit hesitantly. As he did, Ashley smiled at him and her cheeks turned red again.
“Wow, you have such gorgeous hair. You may not like it, but I do. It’s a perfect shade of brown! And well, it’s hair, it grows and it gets cut, and you’re not going to love every haircut! Regardless of what style your hair is, it’s such a beautiful color. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with hair so… So magnificent!”
Garrett began to tilt his head down again, but he managed to keep it up and he smiled and said, “Thank you. But my hair is nothing compared to your golden locks. They, they, they shine brighter than the sun. I know that sounds cheesy, but my God, when I first saw you—Ashley—I could’ve sworn you were an angel. Your beauty is above and beyond what I ever perceived beauty to be. I swear the second I looked up, you nearly knocked me off my feet, though luckily for me, I was sitting down and had support behind me in the form of this bench,” he winked and then smiled. He was happier than he’d ever been before.
“Wow. An angel, huh? I don’t think I’m quite that beautiful, but if you say so, I guess I’ll have to believe you. I mean, you’re such a sweet guy, you’re beyond nice. And you’re really handsome, you can’t deny it, I swear!”
And the conversation went on and on, with compliments and interesting stories from each other’s past. Garrett discovered Ashley had somewhat of a messed up life back in her old town. She was picked on by other girls and had pranks pulled on her all the time. One time another girl pulled so hard on her hair that she ripped enough of it out to make Ashley so upset that she skipped school for two straight weeks until it grew back. And Ashley learned how Garrett had so often been tormented and how terrible his life had been. Neither could believe how terrible the other had it. Both thought the other deserved the world. To close their conversation, Ashley kissed Garrett on the lips. And then, she said her last words to him, “Garrett, you’re so wonderful. I think… I think I’m in love with you.” She went on to kiss him again and wave goodbye to him.
Garrett only said goodbye, he didn’t manage to say “I love you too,” though he was honestly dying to say it. He watched Ashley walk off, he followed her magical glow that truly was brighter than the sun, with his eyes and saw her reach the end of the park. She looked both ways and prepared to cross the street. Right then, Garrett realized he had forgotten to ask Ashley where she lived. He wanted to get up, but that park bench, that park bench had been his haven for some five years now, and he just couldn’t force himself to move.
Ashley crossed the street, cheerily walking at a medium pace, not noticing the large brown truck headed straight for her, speeding uncannily and swerving all over the place. The driver was either drunk or simply couldn’t control his large vehicle. She turned to face it, just as it hit her. She was crushed. What remained of her after the truck hit her was unrecognizable.
And Garrett saw it all unfold. Right then and there, without hesitation, he shot up from the park bench and rushed to Ashley’s side. He looked at what was left of her, and he wept, and wept. Her perfect blue eyes were rolled up in the back of her head. Her perfect hair was dirtied, torn and crushed. Her perfect pink lips were dirtied and shredded. The rest of her, beneath the neck, was unrecognizable as ever having been human. Garrett kept weeping even as the police and an ambulance that was far too late arrived.
And he kept weeping for the next few weeks, all the while staying in bed, missing school and missing his favorite park bench. Garrett questioned fate time and time again. Garrett blamed God, then himself. And even his father, his enemies, Ashley’s enemies, etc. He blamed anyone and everyone. He needed to find a reason for her death. He couldn’t believe the one good thing in his life was taken away, just like that. It was far too unfair. Someone had to be to blame, and what is truly ironic, is that he never thought to blame the truck driver. But still, after a time he gave up trying to place the blame on anyone else. He went back to school, ashamed of himself for having let go of the one thing he truly loved. He realized if he had just kept talking, or offered to walk her home, maybe things would have turned out differently. He was disturbed, and he had already been a disturbed individual because of how others had treated him before he met Ashley.
After Ashley’s death, even though very few at his school even knew that Garrett and Ashley were close, or even who Ashley was, as she never got the chance to attend what would have been her new school, they knew that something traumatic had happened to Garrett, and they all left him alone. Garrett wallowed in his own sadness for the next couple of years. Despite his depressed state, he managed A’s and B’s in his junior and senior year.
He went on to go to Dartmouth, and then from there he became a well-to-do businessman. He never got married. And he had never even got into a relationship, since Ashley had died. And every Sunday, the only day of the week that he really had off, he would go to his park bench, and he would swear he could still smell Ashley’s perfume and hear her sweet, sweet laugh. He could even see a glow around that bench, a glow just like the angelic glow he had seen around sweet Ashley. He could never accept that she was gone. Every year, on the day that she died, since he was still in high school, he would bring flowers to her grave. Every year, on the day that she died, he would sit by her grave and talk about how wonderful she was, all the while crying and struggling to find the right words to say.
And now Garrett is retired. He is 73 years old. His parents are dead. His business is in the hands of one of his ‘enemies’ from high school’s sons. He has no children. He has no siblings. The closest relative that he’s aware of is a distance cousin who lives several states away. He has nothing to look forward to, but he has plenty to look back on. Every weekend, Garrett goes to that park bench in Sequoia Park, and he sits there, taking in the smell of Ashley’s elegant perfume, feeling the brush of her sweet lips against his rough, wrinkled cheeks, feeling her ruffle what's left of his gray hair, tasting her sweet, pink lips, dirtied and torn apart by that damn truck; that damn truck that just had to run her over. And he also hears her sweet laugh and her even sweeter voice. Whenever he sits on that park bench, he smiles and looks toward the sky. This is where he found his angel. And this is where she’ll forever remain.