Time to Move On
by Charles C. Cole
I was pushing my grocery cart to the car, essentially minding my own business, not thinking of anything but the task at hand, maybe a little hungry given the time of day, late afternoon, when I saw a vaguely familiar man in his mid-60s, my age, returning an empty cart in the corral nearby. We made eye contact.
He pointed at me with his left hand and squinted like struggling with some obscure sports trivia. We knew each other, that was sure. It was like someone slapped me: my face felt suddenly hot, my jaw tightened. This non-stranger was someone I had attended high school with, not a friend, something else entirely.
I saw the events of the distant past as if in a vivid dream from the night before: I was me but I also had the perspective of a camera mounted on the ceiling. The quiet, back of the building corridor was almost empty. School had ended, but I had stayed late for a meeting with the poetry club. Or was it with the school paper editor?
I could see the “boy” approaching with a red-haired friend, shoulder to shoulder, whispering, snickering. I had set my stack of textbooks on the hallway floor so I could fumble with my locker combination when this punk, who had chosen disdain for the new kid, me, kicked my books all the way to the end of the hall. Then they laughed. His friend cheered, “Score!”
I couldn’t recall his name — Did I really want to? — but I could recall being targeted: shoved hard while standing in line for an assembly, an assault of mashed potato flying across my hot lunch, fresh curses written on my assigned desk just before Geometry class, ketchup smeared on my locker.
Back then I snapped. I grabbed him by the collar and swung him into the metal lockers across the hall. His eyes went wide, shocked. I had never punched anyone: my father, a Quaker, had lectured me that it could lead to permanent damage. A little old lady substitute teacher in Mr. Orphe’s classroom stepped out: “If you two want to fight, take it outside.”
Honestly, I didn’t want to fight. I let the boy go. “I have to catch my bus,” I said. True, but was it a good enough reason to postpone my violent entry into manhood? “You’re lucky,” I added, so it came across as a reluctant choice.
The boy never bothered me again. But was “it” over? I hadn’t thought of him in decades. I still had never punched anyone. I came close, in boot camp, during heightened tensions.
Back in the present, my adversary made a slight nod as he recalled our history. He backed a few steps to his driver’s door, like he didn’t want to turn his back on me. I glanced at a can of beans on the top of my groceries. To throw it? He backed his car up. I’m pretty sure I was glaring. Somebody honked at him. He yelled something defensive and drove off.
I emptied the cart and was closing my rear driver’s side door when “he” pulled up behind me. He could have gotten away. His window was down. “I can’t recall your name,” he began, “but I know we hated each other.”
“That’s what you remember?”
“You were the smarty-pants new kid.”
“That’s what you remember?” I repeated.
“Listen to me,” he said.
“Keep driving,” I said.
“My daughter and her husband died in a car accident last summer. I wanted you to know.” His wife was sitting beside him. She had the permanent shadow of intimate loss under her eyes. “My daughter was an angel. She was going to be a teacher. She was the best human I ever met.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
“When something like that happens, you wonder if it’s karma, like a debt being paid, but I couldn’t think of anything she’d ever done wrong or bad. I didn’t think of me and my debt. I think we’re even now.”
I had three children, now healthy adults, two married, one with kids. They were good people, really contributing to their communities. I knew a loss of any of them would be devastating to my wife, even me. At that exact moment, I knew I needed to let go of old anger; I couldn’t risk them.
“It was high school,” I said, trying a gentler approach. “We were just getting muscles, just learning about emotions. And girls. We were animals. I’m sure I had it coming.” Somebody behind him honked.
“Ass hat,” he cursed.
“Thanks for stopping,” I said. “We’re good. Take care of each other.”
He glared at me a moment, probably thinking I was being sarcastic, but his wife squeezed his arm, and his eyes softened immediately. “Whatever,” he said noncommittally and drove off.
I put the empty cart away and pulled out my cell phone to call my wife.
“What’s up? You forget the list again?” she asked.
“I just needed to hear your voice,” I said.
“You’re such a dork,” she said.
But am I a good dork? I wondered. I drove home, wondering if I’d ever see my adversary again. It was possible, but years had flown by without our ever crossing paths, so maybe this was a one-time event. I couldn’t, for the life of me, recall the color or make of his car. Probably a good thing. Yep, it was time to move on.
Copyright © 2025 by Charles C. Cole
