The Final Plan

The hand-painted sign sits on the edge of town. Big black letters: “Town of Charro.” Underneath that: “Population One.” The sign doesn’t look professional by any means, but it does look fairly new and clean. There were no bullet holes in it. It was painted by you twelve years ago and you’re pretty damn proud of it, aren’t you?

So, there you stood on the side of the two-lane with a can of black paint at your feet and a paintbrush in your back pocket, and, what, exactly, (we would love to know) were you planning on doing with the .38 in your belt?

You didn’t try to walk along the highway because at your age you could hardly walk, not even to the edge of town. You were too old and too tired and too everything. You didn’t sit down because there was no place to sit, and you weren’t about to sit on the ground—you were afraid you couldn’t get back up again if a ride came, was that it? Nobody picks up a guy sitting on the ground, was that your thinking? It sounds like your way of thinking. You stood there for what, three days, with your thumb out like a dummy? You, with your final plan…

You saw what, all of three cars pass you on Monday? One car slowed but none stopped. Tuesday it rained like a som’bitch and you got soaked to the skin. No cars even slowed that day, did they? Just whooshed on past you. Hardly any cars on that fateful Wednesday morning either, but there you stood, still on the highway, still hoping, and still with your damn thumb out. You knew it was a lost cause. Most people would have laid down and died, and that was exactly what you wanted to do—even planned on doing, but first… the black paint.

You’re an idiot, is what you are! And you, a school teacher, too dumb to leave when your wife and your daughter and the rest of the town did! The town’s gone fourteen years now, yet you stayed!

When the bank blew away the banker left town. When the church blew away, the preacher left. The school blew away too, but the school teacher stays. Yep. School's out for ever, but the school teacher stays. Why? Because the school teacher’s house doesn’t blow away. The one house left standing in Charro. It’s gotta be a sign, right? Obviously, God wants the school teacher to stay in this pitiful place that used to be a town. It used to be so pretty! Tourists would come on a bus to see the leaves changing color. Well, the trees are gone, and the leaves are gone. And the bus and the tourists are gone. But not the school teacher. And not his unscathed house the tornado must have done figure eights around.

After they left, surely you wanted to write your family a letter, but without a post office, that would have been difficult. Call them? No phone. Email them? You wouldn’t be able to figure out how to email anybody even if you had a computer and somebody stuck a gun to your head.

You were an idiot then, and you’re an idiot now, and you got lucky, do you know that yet?

The Plan must have started to look a little foolish after three days, didn’t it? No, not for you. You had obligations. You were not only a school teacher, but after fourteen years you were also the mayor, the police chief, the fire captain, the town caretaker, and last but not least, the town census-taker. Couldn’t leave that sign with the population wrong, could you? No census-taker worth his salt would have allowed that.

Were you going to cross out the “One” on the sign and paint in “Zero” or would it have been a “0”? Maybe “None?” Someone else, someone with a sense of humor, might have painted “Gone fishing,” or, “Sorry I missed you,” but not you; not the stern lipped, God-fearing, no nonsense school teacher. No, first you needed to change the sign and then you’d put your father’s old gun in your mouth. That was the idea, right? That was the final plan?

So, your letter of resignations as teacher, mayor, police chief, fire captain, caretaker, and census-taker was dated that Monday, and there you were Wednesday morning, still standing in the same spot. Did you see the car coming? Did you think, this one’s going to stop? Or, were you already face down in the weeds on the side of the road?

Molly says you collapsed when she said, “Daddy?” Is that what happened? Wake up, you old coot! I think I have the right to know! I think we all do!

--831 Words--