One dreary day in March, 2003…

From where he sat on the stone bench

At the bus stop in Allentown, Harry could see the

Southwest side of Dorney Park, the snaking frame

Of the roller coaster twisting in the pewter sky

He had been here once, in happier times

With a young girl who had chestnut hair,

Whose ghostly echo now inhabited

Only the darker, warmer parts of his

Unforgetting heart.

And in her present form, he knew

She lived inside the brownstone

Three buildings to the left

The one with the flowerboxes

In the high-square windows

Up there on the second floor.

He kind of felt like Forrest Gump

Down to the silly flowers

Harry clutched inside his fist

The ones he held against his chest

Lest his thrumming heart rip through

The bony cage which trapped it so

Inadequately

The only thing is, Harry wasn’t that dull

Or delightfully naïve, and now his

Brain, long opposed

To this reunion

Began another quarrel with his heart.

“It’s been twenty years, man,” brain said,

Spitting disdain like an obscenity.

“She doesn’t even remember you.”

And heart said, “You know that’s not true.”

Reminding them both of the phone call

Those five long years ago.

He hadn’t bothered to pick it up,

Thinking it another drum song of the telemarketer

And so, from the seat he had in the living room

He had been chilled to hear a voice

On his answering machine

Tearing back the years.

“Harry Gosden,” it said. “I hope I reached the right guy.

I’m April Stevens. Well, Neiderlander now.

I didn’t mean to bother you.

Hell, I don’t even know what your circumstances are.

But if you’d like to talk again –“

And then the machine had stopped, just stopped

And Harry was left to replay the message

For years afterward, wondering what else she had to say

And the panic was sickening,

Knowing she had probably given him a number, an address,

Then wondered why he hadn’t called

He saw it all, how she must have shrugged

After a time and decided, well he didn’t

Want to talk to me, and gone on living

Life as April Neiderlander

And was she married, and did she have children

And where did she live, were things

That made Harry

Quite a fan of Google in the ensuing time

Until he finally pieced it all together.

He had trembled, his fingers

Shaking as he touched each button on the dial

And when the young girl answered

Harry felt the ice that pierced his heart.

“Is this the Neiderlander residence?” he asked,

His voice full of smoke and fear

And the young girl, whose words were

Ringing like a crystal, said, “It is.”

“And is April there?” he heard someone named Harry say

But when the young girl called out, “Mom, it’s for you,”

Harry quick hung up the phone.

He had stewed in cool irresolution after that

So long it made him just a ghost inside

The body that he owned.

Now, he rested on the cold, stone bench in Allentown

A raft of lifetimes floating by

A love once bold now gone to straw

Scorned by ex-wife and children both

A marriage ruined by his single-minded

Odyssey. Still and all,

Harry stared up at the second floor

And dreamed once more of the eighties

And a girl with chestnut hair.

“Okay,” he told his heart. “Okay.

Bold times call for bold men.”

And with that he rose, the long-stems

On the flowers

Squeezed to lifelessness

And walked resolutely forward

To the door.

At the first step, his heart froze

And his Brain laughed out loud

As the front door yawed open

And the silver haired handsome man emerged

With the teenage girl not far behind

And she smiled at him,

As she wiped back the comma

Of her fallen chestnut hair

So much alike, so much an echo

Of her mother’s former beauty

That his eyes gasped in surprise

And while hers just narrowed in pleasant curiosity

His flickered madly, lost inside the past

 “Oh God,” Harry Gosden said.

Thinking quickly, laughing nervously

 “I’m on the wrong block.”

Then mumbling his apology

He stumbled back offstage

And after tossing the flowers in

A garbage can, somewhere near

The Interstate

He went away,

Lost forever in the clouds of

Untaken Chances

03/03/2003

Posted on 03/03/2003
Copyright © 2024 Ken Harnisch