The Wishmonger: Chapter Two

CHAPTER 2

A NEW FRIEND

Roger looked around curiously, “Waiting for me? But, I’m new in town.”

“I know, my Dad and your Dad will be working at the same bank,” the boy explained, “So, my Mom told me you would be here today. Just thought I’d say hi. My best friend Jack used to live here. They moved last Spring.”

So, Roger thought, that explains the glum look. “Okay. So, what’s your name?”

“Joey Bishop,” Joey pushed himself into the wheelchair with surprising ease and rolled down the walk to shake Roger’s hand.

James Pine did not believe in wasting time. He was already carrying a box up the walk, “You must be the Bishop boy. Your dad and I went to school together.”

“Why don’t you boys go play? We have plenty of help coming,” Jeanie Pine smiled at Joey.

Roger’s mother was carrying a suitcase that Roger knew contained her ‘moving clothes’, she had refused to travel in them.

“I don’t want my neighbor’s very first impression to be me in a holey sweatshirt,” she said, when his father teased her about it.

“Come on.” Joey said, “I’ll show you around. I know this house almost as good as my own. I hope you took the attic room. Jack always wanted it, but his Dad had his telescope up there.”

Roger followed Joey around to the garage. It was a modern structure built up to the level of the kitchen and Joey rolled right in. For the next twenty minutes Roger followed Joey around, amazed at how he zipped up the stairs on his hands, backwards, and never seemed to let anything slow him down. Joey explained that he was a wheelchair Olympian and, looking at the bulging muscles in his arm, Roger believed it.

The attic room at the top of the stairs was everything Roger had hoped it would be. It was huge! The double window looked out over the whole downtown and the branches of an ancient elm brushed up against one corner of it.

The rest of the house already felt familiar. Roger had studied the pictures for months. On the second floor were three other bedrooms and a bath. This bath would be Roger’s and it was situated right at the foot of his stairs.

The master suite stood on the opposite side of the house. The two other rooms lay one on each side of a short hallway. The downstairs had a recently updated kitchen, dining room, two living areas, a large entrance hall, a bath, and a huge closed in back porch that held the laundry room.

Joey would also be in his class at school and the boys became instant friends. About half an hour later five men pulled up in a black SUV wearing Tshirts and jeans. They all worked in various capacities at Wishful Savings bank where Roger’s father had accepted the position of chief loan officer.

As the men carried in boxes and furniture, Roger’s mother shooed Joey and Roger out the door and the boys set off for a tour of the town.

Joey explained things as they went. Roger asked Joey to show him his favorite places and was pleased when Joey put the library at the top of his list. It was just as dusty and mysterious as Roger had hoped.

Their next stop was the baseball diamond. Joey played for the Wishful tornadoes. Their season had ended the week before but he promised to play with Roger any time he liked.

The two boys stopped at the Top of the Morning café for sandwiches and Joey introduced Roger to the owner. George Popodopolis was a large round man with a broad smile. He welcomed the boys and would not accept Roger’s money. He insisted that anyone new to Wishful should be his guest. All afternoon the boys made their way through the small town. Joey was an excellent tour guide.

Roger finally got up the courage to ask his new friend about the fountain. Joey looked nervously around and steered him to an isolated bench behind the library.

“You know you have to be careful who you ask about that, right?” Joey said, nervously.

Roger laughed, “Yeah, my Dad kind of freaked when I asked him about it. So, what’s the big deal anyway?”

Joey looked around to make certain they were alone, “Okay, you know about the legend, right?”

Roger shrugged, “Sort of, my Dad didn’t really go into details, and I read a short version of it in the history book I showed you.”

“Well, in 1868 a man named Jeremish Wish came here. He was traveling west, but for some reason he decided to stay. They say he found a natural spring that allowed him to have fresh water. After he’d been here for a while he ran out of food, and winter was coming, he got really desperate,” Joey was warming to his story.

“He hadn’t seen anybody for a long time. One day he took his last gold coin and made a wish. He dropped it in the spring, ate the very last of his food, rolled up in his bedroll and went to sleep. When he woke up in the morning the town of Wishful had magically appeared pretty much like it looks today.” Joey had told the story with a seriousness that didn’t fit.

Roger laughed again, “ Come on, you expect me to believe that?”

Joey looked confused, “Believe it? It’s a historical fact. The last people that saw Jeremish were the ones that left him here. When they came back, here was Jeremish sitting alone in this town, so, they stayed.”

“You’re serious,” now it was Roger’s turn to look confused, “I thought it was just a legend.”

“All I know is what I’ve heard my whole life. One day nothing but grass, the next day, Wishful.” Joey answered.

Roger decided to accept it for now, “Okay, but what about the fountain? Where does that come in?”

Joey looked around again, “After the settlers came back, Wishful became a kind of tourist attraction. People from all over started hearing about the wish.

After a while the water from the spring became almost undrinkable, because of all the visitors trampling mud in it trying to make their wishes. No one wanted the visitors to leave because they provided a lot of business for the town, but something had to change.

Jeremish had been elected mayor,so he approached the town council with a plan. They could build a fountain above the spring, and channel the spring water through pipes to supply the city. That way the town had clean water and the tourist business could continue, so they built the fountain.”

“If it was such a good thing why did they destroy it?” Roger asked.

Joey leaned in close, “I heard they didn’t.”

Roger listened intently as Joey explained, “Two years ago I spent the night at Wishful General Hospital for some tests. There was this old man, everyone called him Old Man Winters, he said he knew where the fountain was. See, everyone thought it was destroyed…” Joey finished his tale as the two headed for home.

Roger had promised to be back in time for dinner and as he and Joey walked in the door two ladies were in the process of emptying the last box of kitchen wares. Jeanie sat in a chair at the kitchen table with a tall glass of lemonade. It was beginning to feel like home.

The pizza was still steaming as Roger opened the box to help himself to a slice. It was thick and cheesy with just the right amount of sauce. Any place that had pizza like this would be all right, Roger decided. The two boys took their pizza and lemonade out to the front porch and talked well into the evening when Joey’s mother telephoned to say it was time for him to come home.

“I just live two blocks away, so I can come over any time. I’ve got to go to out of town tomorrow, we’re getting my new chair fitted. But I’ll be back the next day.”

Roger smiled, “Cool, we have three days of Summer left. That ought to give you enough time to teach me all I need to know about Wishful.” The two boys shook hands and Joey headed for home. Roger bathed and fell straight into bed.

The town of Wishful was beautiful in moonlight. Everyone said so. It gleamed off the bronze dome of the town hall. It pooled on the lawn behind the library filling the bandstand gazebo with soft, pale light. It glinted off the steely bayonets of the rifles held by the steadfast soldiers of the war memorial.

In short, it pointed out all of the things Wishful should have been, a sleepy Victorian village, peaceful and serene. But there are things that moonlight will never reveal, places it cannot go, for instance; the dark, dank, basement below the library where blackout curtains forbid its entrance or the back room at the Wishful Thinking Billiard Parlor. And let’s not forget the darkened heart of one man who stood on a hill overlooking the town.

He was dressed all in black and even in the darkness a tight-fitting pair of dark glasses hid his eyes. His shadow seemed to dim the moon as it stretched out over the sleeping town below, he smiled icily.

What moonlight escaped the shadow filtered through the branches of the giant elm at the corner of Wish and Coin streets. It was just enough to light the room where Roger Pine lay wrapped in sweat-soaked silence. His breathing was ragged. His limbs flailed aimlessly. He was dreaming. He dreamed of a fountain. Not just any fountain, the fountain.

He stood as he had so many times before at its edge. In his sweaty palm a golden coin glistened. As he waited a new face appeared. On the other side of the fountain an old man with a beard stood watching Roger.

He waited for the sound he knew he would hear. First came the screaming of the frightened towns people as the giant monster took to the air. Then the whoosh of the scaly wings beating the air as it circled. He waited for just the right moment, closed his eyes, wished for the terror to stop and hurled the coin into the foaming fountain.

Or, he meant to at least, but he hesitated, the fear had gripped him hard, his hand frozen in mid throw. He looked to the old man for an answer, “You can, and you must destroy the dragon, you are our only hope.” The man smiled, winked, then turned and walked away into the night.

The great dark shadow of the monstrous winged lizard grew larger as he fell in a daring dive straight toward the helpless town, his nostrils trailing tendrils of smoke. He bellowed, sucked in a great breath of air and, with a whoosh, breathed it out as fire.

Roger held his breath as the creature came straight at him. Just as it seemed the column of flame would kindle the entire city of Wishful, he tossed the coin into the fountain, great white jets of water blew out of the fountain extinguishing the flame with a hiss.

The dragon’s charge continued on until it plowed full force into the hillside with a thud that shook the town to its very foundation. It’s great horned snout lay at Roger’s feet. It breathed heavily, its milky white eyes turned to Roger. He moved, there was no reaction. He reached out as if to touch the giant white orb, no blink, nothing, the dragon was blind!

Roger didn’t wait for the creature to recover. He ran in the direction the old man had gone. Branches whipped at his face as he entered a grove of trees. On the other side he came out in a clearing, calliope music rang through the night from a carousel.

The people of the town were no longer afraid. Children walked by with cotton candy and ice cream. It was a carnival, and there on the other side of the clearing, sitting on a stool, in front of an audience, was the man, he appeared to be telling a story!

When Roger opened his eyes everything had gone dark. He sat up slowly and looked around. As his eyes adjusted to the moonlight he realized he was sitting in his own room, in his own bed. Wow!

He unwrapped himself from the bed sheet and padded quietly down the stairs to the bathroom. Roger closed the door and turned on the light.

He studied himself in the mirror. Was there something slightly wiser in his eyes? He wasn’t sure. His hand was shaking as he moved it from the light switch and reached over to turn on the cold water. He could see his pulse throbbing in his neck.

He took the washcloth from its holder and bathed his face in the cool water. There was something calming in the fresh feel of it on his skin and the rush of the water in the tap. His pulse gradually slowed to normal and his breathing became regular. He took one last look at himself in the mirror, “I wonder”, he thought.

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So, what do you think so far?

Okay, the town of Wishful is a combination of Eureka Springs Arkansas (one of my favorite places) and a conglomeration of every small town I grew up in. The first place I always wanted to visit was the library. When I was in first grade our TV went poof! and we never bought another one, so I read a lot.

The character of Joey was inspired by my good friend, Amanda. When I was in high school, she was in the youth group where I went to Church, and hung out with me and my wife. (girlfriend then) Even though a problem with her legs kept her in a chair, it did not confine or define her. She rode horseback, played sports, lifted weights and was quite possibly the most inspiring person I have known. She still is. In her Facebook posts you are likely to see her skiing, or rapelling, but nearly never just sitting at home letting life pass her by.

Roger's house is where I wish I could have lived, heck, wish I did live, in a modernized Victorian. As for the legend, I don't really know where all it came from. Fun though, huh? Let me know what you think of my "sleepy little town", what do you think will happen next? Like anything specific, or are you confused by any element? Leave a comment here and let me know. Thanks for reading!