A Pear for Pamela

Billy stepped out the back door and onto the stone patio that looked out over the fields behind the house. September had arrived and Fall was on the way.

The evening found him taking a walk across the field through the tall golden grass waving in the breeze. He paused when he reached the old tree. How long had it been since he’d walked out here? Years, he guessed. The old tree didn’t produce much fruit anymore but he saw that there were a few pears on the ground. His eyes noticed something else, a few weathered 2x4’s now almost buried in the tall grass and weeds. Billy bent to take a better look and the memories came flooding back.

Billy and Jake crouched down in the tall golden grass and watched the soggy black fruit soar through the evening sky. Their calculations were rewarded with a solid splat on the back wall of the house. Keeping his head down, Jake pulled the arms of the wooden catapult back and latched them into launch position for another shot. Sweeping away the buzzing sweat bees feeding on the pile of blackened pears they had gathered, Billy grabbed another handful and dropped them into the bucket.

They quickly repositioned the catapult, lining it up to hit the faded green pickup truck parked in the backyard. Jake released the latch, and the bucket flew forward again. Although they couldn’t see the fruit this time in the dark sky, a metallic splat told them they’d made a successful shot. Billy and Jake were scrambling again to prepare the next shot when they saw the flood lights come on in the backyard. A screen door slammed, and someone yelled, What the hell is going on out here! Old Mr. Schaber was outside and headed right toward them! Staying as low as they could, the boys sprinted across the field for the woods as flashing red lights appeared on the road.

Escape was just a few hundred yards away, past the treeline and across the serpentine path the boys had made in the dense woods. They ran behind the house on the property where the pear tree stood and onto the property where Billy lived. The lights were on at the house but that was not their destination. The boys came to a halt at a huge elm tree and began climbing the wooden steps nailed into the tree that would take them into the treehouse.

Breathing hard and a little sweaty, the boys looked out the window toward Mr. Schaber’s and watched the old man and the county policeman walk around the rear of the house. Mr. Schaber pointed at the pear splatters on the rear of the house and then led the policeman over to the pickup truck to show him the rotten black pears that landed in the bed and exploded everywhere. Then both men turned toward the field as Mr. Schaber pointed toward where the boys had been.

Billy turned to Jake, “I told you we shouldn’t have shot those pears at Schaber’s house. All I wanted to do was get Pamela to go to the Halloween dance with me. Why did you have to go and screw it up?”

“What are you talking about, we got your notes to Pamela. She even came out and picked both of them up. She saw your notes! What more do you want? You didn’t say we couldn’t have any fun.”

“It’s not going to be fun if Schaber figures out it was us and sends that cop over to my house. My mom will ground me for a month and I won’t get to go to the dance or anything else.”

“Stop worrying about stuff that hasn’t even happened. You do it all the time. Relax, man, everything will work out fine.”

“Moron.”

“Jerk.”

Billy turned and gave Jake his most serious stare but it didn’t work. Jake just looked at him and smiled, and Billy couldn’t help it, he smiled back. It was always this way with Jake and him. Whatever they did together, Jake would take it to the next level. Often as not, they were lucky. Jake was lucky no matter what he did.

Jake hung out for a while until the policeman took off. The policeman never showed up at Billy’s house. Billy stayed in the treehouse after Jake climbed down and found himself staring toward Pamela’s house. Today’s plan had been his idea but Billy wasn’t sure he would have done it if Jake hadn’t been there. He guessed Jake wasn’t a total moron.

What Billy remembered now was the sunlight. How it streamed through the school windows that scattered it like a prism and the way it glinted off the sun streaks in Pamela’s brown hair. Pamela was the new girl in Billy’s fourth grade class, having just moved to the neighborhood at the end of summer. Pamela’s house was around the corner from Billy’s but he had never seen her during the few summer days left before school started.

He went back to school and there she was. Billy saw the sun streaked hair, the tan and the turned up nose and those brown eyes and his heart flipped. Unlike Jake, Billy was shy with girls. He really had no idea of what to do, and before seeing Pamela, he didn’t care. Girls weren’t on his radar, just his friends, baseball and running around the neighborhood over the summer. There was one on it now.

Billy had managed to say hello a couple times but little else. His voice seemed to leave him whenever Pamela was around. Still, they seemed to be friends, kind of, at least that’s what Billy imagined. He had managed to work up enough courage to sit at the same lunch table with her. Well, not ‘with’ her, she was with her friends and he was with Jake. Jake sat with him because he begged him to while Jake thought they should be with the guys. Billy appreciated Jake at this time as much as he ever had. Jake really was his best friend.

Even Jake couldn’t get him to ask Pamela what he wanted to ask. There was a Halloween dance this year and Billy wanted to ask Pamela to go with him. Except he couldn’t. So, Billy cooked up the catapult idea. Pamela liked pears. She brought one in her lunch a couple times a week. If he couldn’t ask her, all he had to do was put a note asking her in a pear and launch it into her backyard. Then, when she got it, it would be easier. Jake thought he was nuts, and a chicken. Billy saw it differently and that’s how they ended up under the pear tree with the catapult they built from leftover deck lumber at Billy’s house.

Crouched down in the grass all these years later, Billy could almost see the red flashing lights and hear Mr. Schaber hollering. His crazy plan had worked, amazingly enough. He and Pamela went to the dance and had even danced together. Neither really knew how but that just made it better. They both laughed at their clumsiness and a wonderful friendship was born. Boyfriend and girlfriend lasted all the way through fourth grade. Billy and Pamela had both had their first love that school year.

And that was it. Pamela’s family moved again early that next summer and they had lost touch. It had broken his heart at the time and Jake had to listen to hours of sad stories of her leaving. In time, life had moved on and so had Billy, just like Jake said he would. Pamela had changed Billy’s life. He grew out of his shyness and blossomed at school and in life. It all began with those pears he and Jake launched that evening right here on this spot.

Billy was raised by his mom, his father having not returned from VietNam. Mom had done well after she overcame the sadness. She finished college and excelled in the financial department of the company where she worked. Eventually, they had sold the house they lived in and bought the property he stood on now. She had the old house torn down and built a large new home here. When she married later in life and moved in with Billy’s stepfather, Billy had bought the house.

Eventually, Billy had married and raised his family here. There were many happy years here and they had all enjoyed their time in this home. Billy’s wife Ann had loved this place and they had planned to stay here to the end. It was not to be for Ann who was stricken with pancreatic cancer. Despite the best care and a hard fight, she succumbed to the disease almost three years ago now. Billy had been crushed and leaned heavily on his two daughters to make it through the ordeal.

Now, with the rays of the evening sun beginning to fade, the buzz of the bees and the scent of soft rotting pears rising from the grass, Billy thought of Pamela. He hadn’t been able to think of much but losing Ann for a long time but he surprised himself with a slight smile. Lifting his eyes, he looked across the field toward the old house where Pamela had lived that year of fourth grade.

Some fleeting remnant of that time touched his heart and he found himself wondering what had ever happened to her. With a tiny ache in his heart, Billy looked up and pulled down the only pear low enough to reach. The pear lay in his hand soft green and perfectly ripe. He tapped the weathered boards with his foot and launched the pear out of his hand and watched it soar toward the old house and bounce in the yard. Something moved inside of him, some decision made, and he turned to head back to the house.

He paused after only a few steps and turned back. Searching the ground he found what he was looking for and very carefully picked it up and smiled. Reaching back, he threw it toward the house where Mr. Schaber used to live. “That’s for you Jake.”

Billy wiped his hand on his pants and turned again toward the house. It was time to get on Facebook and see if he could connect with an old friend.