Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

“Ring Dings and Kool-Aid.” She smiled back.

My heart and stomach sank at the prospect of eating the syrupy sweet snack. “What flavor Kool-Aid?”

“Cherry.”

“Of course,” I responded dourly. I’d had an aversion to cherry flavored anything since around the age of six when I realized that every nasty tasting medicinal concoction back in my youth was cherry flavored. Cherry flavored cough drops, cough syrup, and nasal decongestant, maybe even the suppositories were cherry flavored. I don’t know. Even passing by fresh cherries in the produce section of a supermarket was cause for my gag reflex to start the process of producing excessive jets of saliva while my stomach began to perform its Olympic gymnastics routine.

I grabbed the Ring Ding from her hand but left the Kool-Aid alone. I went to sit at the small kitchen table. Luke and John had passed out on the couch. They were sleeping nearly sitting up, their heads were touching keeping them propped there.

“Cute,” I said pointing to them, melted chocolate now on the tips of my fingers.

“They stayed up all night.” Mirabelle said as she cleaned up after ‘preparing’ breakfast.

“John,” I said. No response, although I really wasn’t expecting any. This time I got up and put my hand on his shoulder. I gave him a gentle shake as I spoke his name.

“I smell Ring Dings!” Luke said excitedly. “Mirabelle when’d you pull off that small miracle?” he asked as he got up quickly from the couch. John fell all the way over. “Man my head hurts,” Luke said, rubbing the connecting spot where he had spent the night as a temporary Siamese twin.

“I saved them for a special occasion,” Mirabelle smiled.

“And Kool-Aid? Is it our anniversary?” Luke asked earnestly.

“No it’s for our guests.”

He seemed relieved that he had not forgotten something he shouldn’t have and extremely excited that he was the beneficiary of the bounty.

“Ring Dings are his favorite,” Mirabelle said over Luke’s plastic crinkling noise to get to the snack.

“I got that,” I told her. “John.” I shook his shoulder with a little more vigor. I wanted to put as many miles as possible under our belt today and maybe find some antacids. The Ring Ding was already wreaking havoc on a system that hadn’t seen much in the way of ‘real’ food in a bit.

“Steph, I left the toaster in the pool,” John said as I shook him again.

“I hope it wasn’t plugged in,” Luke snorted.

Knowing John the way I did, I was pretty certain it had been.

“Oh, man, my head hurts,” John said as he sat up rubbing his head in the opposite same spot as Luke.

“Weird, man, mine too!” Luke said as he looked around Mirabelle trying to locate the Ring Ding box, that was now nowhere in sight. “Hey, baby, I’m still a little hungry,” he said trying to maneuver around her.

“Not a chance.”

“You know how angry I get when I’m hungry.” He placed his hands over his head. He was shaking them around crazily, hopping from one foot to the other. Mirabelle was laughing.

She kissed him quickly. “No.”

I felt guilty that I had eaten one of this man’s favorite treats and especially now that they were a finite commodity. I slowly pushed the wrapper into my exposed pockets, hoping that he would not hear the tell tale snack noise.

“Dude, those are some ugly shorts,” John said, his face was just about thigh level.

I stepped back. “Yeah well, the Gap was closed.”

“I think you look fine,” Mirabelle said, coming to my aid.

“Looks normal enough to me,” Luke echoed.

The second stop after the antacids would be for new clothes. The probability that I could die at any moment was high and I sure as shit wasn’t going to go out looking like this.

“You about ready to rock and roll?” I asked John seeing if he was ready to go.

“No music yet, man,” John said, putting his hands on his ears.

“I was actually talking about getting ready to leave, buddy.”

“Are you sure?” Mirabelle and Luke asked at about the same time.

“Who the hell is Buddy?” John asked me.

“Okay, let’s start from the beginning. John the Tripper, sometimes known as John or Trip, we need to leave soon so that we can find your wife.”

“Right, right,” he agreed as he grasped at the elusive clarity. “And where is she again?” he asked, looking up at me, once again letting the slippery thoughts slide through his fingers.

“Maybe this will help you remember, honey,” Mirabelle said as she walked over and placed a Ring Ding in his hands.

“He gets one but I don’t?” Luke asked as he stared longingly at the one sitting untouched in John’s hands. Mirabelle put her hand on his chest when she realized that he was going to make a move for it.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned.

“I don’t like apples,” John said as he turned the package over in his hands. He then opened it up and popped the entire offering into his mouth. His teeth were coated in a chocolate substance as he over-exaggerated his chews.

Mirabelle grabbed him a drink of Kool-Aid when she realized he was having difficulty with his breakfast.

“Breakfast of champions, Bruce Jenner would be rolling over in his grave (or maybe not, he could still be alive or a zombie),” I mumbled as he washed it down with the vile liquid.

“My wife’s in Philly, and she works at a hotel in downtown.”

We had at least something to go on. It sure beat driving around until John recognized something. It was like the sugar acted as a direct infusion to his cognitive thought processes. That was something I would keep in mind. When we stopped for antacids I would add Snickers onto the list of things I needed to get. “Is that downtown?”

“Yes, and why are you wearing Daisy Dukes?” he asked.

“Do they make my ass look fat?” I asked back, trying to deflect the question.

“I’d rather not know,” was his diplomatic answer.

“Are you ready to go?”

“You’re going out like that?”

“I don’t have much choice.”

“Yeah…then I’m ready whenever you are,” he told me.

I made sure that Luke and Mirabelle realized how open the invitation to Maine was. They seemed somewhat interested, but I couldn’t imagine them actually leaving their homestead any time soon. Unless, of course, Luke’s wife could no longer wrangle up Ding Dongs or whatever the chocolate-like treats he liked were called.

Luke and John embraced and cried like they were brothers or friends who had known each other for decades. “I’m going to miss you, man,” John said as he wiped his face.

“Besides Mirabelle here, you’re the best person I’ve ever met,” Luke said, trying unsuccessfully to mask his own water works.

They hugged again. Both men’s shoulders were bobbing. I didn’t know if I should feel jealous or not. I think if I walked out the door and never saw John again he would merely forget he had ever met me. After another ten minutes of them making excuses not to part, we were seated in the Gremlin. John had his hand pressed up against the glass as we passed by Luke’s and Mirabelle’s. I waved. Their kindness had been like a small hiker’s cabin amidst a raging blizzard. I would not soon forget the reprieve, and I did not think John ever would.

“You alright, bud...Trip?”

“He was a kindred spirit,” John said, finally looking through the front windshield as opposed to the rear.

“Maybe after you get your wife, you can go back. It’s not that far.” He seemed to perk up after that.

“Do you think Stephanie would want to?” he asked earnestly.

My first thought was to say ‘how the fuck would I know?’ “If she sees how important it is to you, then I’m sure she’ll want to.” Although, in all honesty, I thought the odds were much slimmer than that. Odds that I figured her to be alive were about ten percent; odds that we’d find her in addition to her being well at about one percent. Odds that we found her alive and well AND she would want to hunt down her husband’s long lost friend from yesterday? I figured that to be an unimaginably small number, the type that scientists used when they were trying to figure out the weight of atoms.