Smithville: a crummy town by the Pacific

Message in a Bottle



I live in Smithville. A crummy old town by the Pacific, as my mom would say. After coming home from school, I had decided to go down to the beach and throw shells into the water. I lived near the “industrialized” part of town so the beach was always full of litter and stinking trash. There I sat, throwing cracked shells into the glossy stretch of the ocean. While reaching down to pick up another shell, my hand grazed an old bottle. I picked it up, closely examining the piece of waste. In it I noticed a thin, nut long, sheet of paper. Reaching in and pulling it out provided my reward, an old map. The date on the top was nineteen-fifty seven. Big bold letters spelled out, “Welcome to Smithville”. This map showed a time, it seemed, when Smithville was bursting to the seams with happy people. Looking at the bottle I saw the bottling company, Roxwell Bottling Co. I remembered that Roxwell was a bottling company that was in Smithville till the late eighties. After that, times fell hard and financial problems arose. I wondered why someone had put the map in the bottle.

Riding my tattered bike home that night I decided to frame the map, what a cool object that would be. In my room that night I took a quick glance at it again. I noticed a thin pencil line going across old roads in my town with boxes around some of the buildings.

When summer vacation started two weeks later I was dying of boredom. Suddenly, I realized that following the path on the map would be a cool idea. “Mom I’ll be outside”. Soon I was gathering a pen knife, a snack, and a water bottle before racing to the door. Looking at the map I realized that the first box was around Jack’s Barber Shop. Soon I stood close to the building, catching my breath. Resting my bike on the bike rack I looked at the map again. The crudely drawn line stretched to the back of the building on the map. Going through the alley I was at the back. Trees and overgrown shrubs were in my way as I tried to make it to where the line showed. Pushing them back I was amazed at what I saw. Past the greenery was a big bay window on the back with fainted, but still legible, letters above the window spelling out, Smith’s Candy Shop.



How could I not have known that the old barbershop used to be a candy store? Even when I did get a haircut here I had never realized anything. Peering in the now dusty and glossy window I could see only visions of a candy shop. Now all there was, was a couple bar stools, crates, and a big bar counter. Glancing at the map again, in faint crude letters I could make out, under the bushes. What?, what could that mean? I decided to look under the bushes closest to the brick wall just out of curiosity. Crouching under I could see two faint letters staring at me. Scratched into the wall was the letters, t and i.

I couldn’t be sure that these letters were even put here for this map but, for some reason I really felt like they were. On my bike, and coming out of the alley, I decided to ask Jack about the candy store. “The candy store eh, little man”. “Was a wonderful place, filled with millions of flavors and varieties”. “Cool, why did it stop running”, I asked filling with curiosity. “Mr. Greenfield owned the place”. “Once he died he stated in the will that he wanted nobody to touch the place”. “You see, the barbershop shared the space with the candy shop”. “Only a thin wall separated us”. “Just like how humans sometimes have a wall between us and what really matters”. After exchanging some quick side notes we said goodbye and parted ways.

Lunchtime was spent at the Jane Addams restaurant. I ordered my burger, slowly and carefully thinking about the map. Studying it I realized that after three boxes with lines connecting them, the “clues” stopped. Seeing how the next box was around the railroad station , I started heading there after finishing my burger.

Bringing my bike at a stop near the railroad station, I became a bit disappointed. A sign stood in front of an iron gate. “Due to 50 years of service, Smithville Station is being restored to its original condition”. Smithville station was in the “nicer” part of town. Big houses with trimmed hedges and swimming pools surrounded by wrought iron gates were the norm there. Taking a three-sixty view around to look for people watching he took out his pen knife. Using the lock picking skills his grandpa had taught him, he easily picked the small rusted lock. I knew somewhere there would be a clue to what I was looking for on the map. So, looking at the box again there was another clue, weight and then a dash, bathroom. Glancing around I looked for workers. None, the station was dead silent. After sneaking around to the bathroom I caught my breath.  A construction worker, a woman, was coming out of the bathroom. When she pushed open the door I saw it, a weight machine. Hiding behind a painted pillar, I waited until she was out of the area. Then peeking around I rushed into the ladies bathroom. I looked around the weight machine and then under. Nothing, only a sheet of paper and some candy wrappers. Wait, a piece of paper. Picking it up I saw three letters, m, o, and t. Suddenly an unbelievably wide woman came into the bathroom and shrieked. “Get out of here child, why would you do such a thing as coming in here”, she yelled. I sprinted out of there, never stopping until I was out of the station. After stopping to catch my breath, I pulled my bike out of the bushes in which I had hid it in. I looked at the map again. The line continued to two more buildings. The nearest building was the only junkyard in Smithville.

While riding my bike I was so excited that I was actually finding letters and clues. Sure, maybe the letters put together wouldn’t spell anything of use, but the experience was almost a treasure itself. So excited I was, that I didn’t see the pothole in the ground. Two skinned knees and a couple big Band-Aids later, I was back on the tattered seat of my bike. Soon I was at the junkyard. I saw a big sign that stated in big bold letters, “Welcome to Big Joe’s Junkyard”. I stared at the map again. Written in crayon this time it said, “Coca-Cola machine”, a dash and then, “Scratched”. What could that mean I thought to myself? Soon, I was dragging myself into the main building of the junkyard. The first thing I saw when I walked into the building was a clue to the whereabouts of the machine. On one of the walls was a faded stripping along the top, close to the ceiling, that stated, “Ice Cold, Refreshing, Coca-Cola”. Actually, the first thing I saw was Big Joe himself. “Hi there, do you know where the Coca-Cola machine is”? “Of course I knowze where the machine eez, justs gotz it pulled out of heres two weeks agoez”. “Where, is it now”, I asked eagerly. “Outs in the backz of courze, youze see it from these herez window”. “Darn thinge never worked anywayz”. “Thanks, I just want to look at it”. Walking as calmly as I could, I made it to the machine. After clearing the door from a few rusted parts of metal, I yanked it open. Peering around with the flashlight I had brought, I made my way to the back wall of the shelves in it. There, where a metal piece was, was two letters h, and y. Writing them down on the map, I saw where the last box was, around my school. After taking effortless strokes to get there, I was at a pair of gleaming doors. I didn’t really want to try to break into my school so I sat there thinking about how I was going to get in. I was in such thought that I almost didn’t see the janitor cleaning the walls. After pounding on the doors a couple times he looked up from his vacuum and took slow steps to get to the door. I asked him if I could get in to get something I had forgotten to bring back home. “Sure, as long as you don’t get a buger on the wall or something. On the map again, on the side of the box, was the makeup of words that spelled, big c, and yellow table. I knew exactly what I it meant by that.

In my cafeteria, all the tables are white except for one yellow one. After calmly walking into the “big c”, I had found it, the yellow table. After looking over the top of it, I moved to the bottom of the table. There the wait, what? There where numbers instead of letters. After leaving my school, I put the letters and numbers together. In the order I had found them in they spelled, Timothy, 2209. In other orders they were just a jumbled group of letters. That night I laid in bed unable to sleep. I kept thinking about what the letters and numbers could mean when they were together in that order and spelled Timothy, 2209. Of course, an address!

The next morning I looked up Timothy in the address book. Sure enough, there was the address, Timothy St, 2209. I rode my bike to the two blocks away Timothy St. The house stationed at the address was well maintained. The whole front yard looked neat and tidy. Practically dragging myself to the doorbell I pressed it once, carefully. Did it ring? I didn’t want to be rude by ringing it again but, at the same time, maybe it hadn’t even wrung. But then, the door opened. An old woman who looked around seventy years old came out. “Hi, young man, what can I do for you today”. Slowly, as if presenting a flag, I showed her the map. “Come in, come in”, it looked as if she would die from excitement. After coming in, she sat me down on a worn leather couch. “When I was a young girl, around the age of twelve, I decided to make a treasure map with my friend”. “He and I made two copies of the map and hid them in bottles by the ocean”.  “He and I did the map focusing around places that were special to me”. “So the train station”, I asked. “My dad and I would go on adventures starting at the train station”. “Also, my mom was a school teacher, and my dad was the manager for the junkyard”. “The candy shop pretty much speaks for itself though”. “That’s an interesting story”. “Yes, it’s amazing that you were able to go on that hunt with no problems”. “Well I had some”, I replied glancing at my knees. Suddenly, a loud pop could be heard in the kitchen. “Oh, that would be my tea; just a second”. Soon after she had left she came back with a cup of tea, sipping it slowly. “It seems so silly to make you go on my friend and I’s treasure hunt, but yet not have anything to give you”. “Oh it’s fine, the experience was a gift by itself”, I replied feeling a bit uncomfortable just sitting there. “Oh wait, up in the attic I have something that I am sure would interest you”. So we stood up, slowly making our way to the shaky ladder up in the attic. While we were at the ladder she started to talk again; “my dad was a collector”. “An expert on fossils and old coins, he soon started gathering some as well”. “I know where you are going with this but honestly, I really think you should keep them”. “They obviously mean more to you than to me”, I said, my words sounding very humdrum. “Do you honestly think I would need to keep them up here to gather dust”, she said smiling while holding a dark blue bag for me to hold in my hands. After going downstairs, she sat me down again on the couch. “Now tell me the whole story, and that chocolate cake in my freezer may find a home”. I biked home that morning with a bag full of dinosaur bones and coins, while my stomach was full of chocolate cake. Two weeks passed and I was walking home from church with my mom. Suddenly, a girl on her bike wiped out in front of us. A backpack fell to the ground while a piece of paper flew out of her hands. I could barely believe my eyes, I was seeing a map with boxes and a line connecting them!