Chapter 3 #2
They were interrupted by a paunchy white man in his late forties.
He had a swoosh of blondish hair that came from the back of his head and was combed in a circular style to cover the top and sides of his balding head.
He wore slacks and a sports jacket, with a white shirt and a blue bow tie.
He seemed very unhappy that the maintenance man was sitting.
“Is this boy bothering you, ma’am?” he asked Goldie.
She was immediately taken aback that the man had referred to her caregiver as “boy,” but then remembered it was 1942.
“No,” she said, as Gerome closed the first aid kit and silently rose, “I-I cut myself on some glass, and this man was sweet enough to tend my wound.”
The man in the bow tie looked down and saw the glass on the floor.
“Oh… I’m terribly sorry, ma’am. You shouldn’t have to deal with sharp objects like that in my terminal. I’m Bradley Hammersville, the manager here.” Then he turned and spoke curtly to the black man.
“Gerome, get that glass cleaned up right now. Then get into the men’s room. A soldier got sick in there.”
“Yes, Mr. Hammersville,” the other man said contritely. He started to walk away. As he did, Goldie called out to him.
“Hey, Gerome. Thank you. For the first aid and the kind words.”
Gerome half-smiled, then turned and went on his way.
“Once again, ma’am, I’m deeply sorry,” the manager said.
“Fuhgeddaboudit,” she replied with her Bronx accent. “But tell me, when’s the next bus for Sparkledove?”
“Oh, that won’t be until later this afternoon. Doesn’t depart until 3:30 p.m.”
She looked at a clock over the front door. It was a few minutes before 10:00 a.m. She had five and a half hours to kill.
“Okay. Point me in the direction of the library,” she requested.
It was a seventy-cent cab ride to the Denver Library, but the journey was worth the effort.
Goldie decided to take Gerome’s advice and adapt to her surroundings.
She read several articles about Sparkledove, Colorado, and she also looked at back issues of Adventure Escape Magazine, which, oddly enough, had numerous articles written by her.
The magazine came out every other month, six times a year, and was dedicated to finding unexpected and delightful places in the country.
She assumed since it was on the verge of Christmas, the town of 1,002 residents must be a special place for the holidays.
She read that the Old-West-style main street was actually called River Street, and there were over ninety Victorian-style homes situated on side streets.
Most of these had been carefully preserved under the auspices of the Sparkledove Historical Society and its President, Charles Banyan, who also happened to be the mayor as well as owner of the city’s only real estate company.
Back in the 1860s, just after the Civil War, silver was discovered in the mountains that lay to the east and west of where the town now stood.
Since there was a natural flat piece of land with a river in between these mountains, Sparkledove became a booming mining town.
Within ten years, it had a population of over four thousand people and mines that ranged from a major operator to several one and two-man claims. The city got its unique name from a combination of the silver that came out of the mines and the cooing Eurasian Collared Doves that favored the tall, scraggly pines so prominent on the surrounding mountains.
By the early 1880s, however, a series of events began that all but destroyed the town.
In 1881, a mining explosion killed thirty-one men.
In 1882, large deposits of both silver and gold were discovered in more accessible areas closer to Denver, and people lost interest in Sparkledove’s remote location.
In 1884, a dam collapsed upstate, sending a wall of surging water to dramatically flood the river running through town, and over the course of one terrible night, nearly half the city’s houses were either seriously damaged or destroyed, and eight souls lost their lives.
By 1900, Sparkledove’s population had diminished to less than four hundred residents.
Goldie continued her studies of both the city and Adventure Escape Magazine until 2:30 p.m. Then she went to a department store across the street, used the bathroom, got some chewing gum and a candy bar, and made a haberdashery purchase.
She caught a cab back to the bus station, where she arrived at 3:12.
The crowds from earlier that morning had diminished, and only a dozen or so people were sitting on the benches or standing and smoking.
When she entered the station, Gerome, the maintenance man, was mopping the linoleum floor around the scaffolding where the painters were working to get any drippings that might’ve fallen. He smiled at her when she entered.
“Ay, Gerome,” she greeted. “How’s it goin’?”
“Be a little careful,” he advised. “The floor’s wet over here.”
“I will.”
“Back again, eh?”
“Yeah. The bus I want doesn’t leave until 3:30.”
“How’s the hand?”
“Throbs a little. But I’ll survive.” She stepped over to him and handed him a small blue paper bag from the department store.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“A set of three new white handkerchiefs.”
“Oh, now—you shouldn’t have done that.”
“There’s lots of things I shouldn’t have done,” she quipped. “Joey Totino, in the ninth grade, for instance. This, I shoulda done.”
“Well, it’s awful kind of you, ma’am. Thank you.”
“Call me Goldie,” she smiled.
She walked down to the ticket counter at the far wall and purchased a ticket back to Sparkledove. She still had no idea how she’d turned into a time traveler, but figured there must be a reason why she woke up in that particular town and was trying her best to learn and adapt.
After she’d gotten her ticket and heard a PA announcement that her bus was now loading at Departing Door Two, she heard a second loud voice echoing throughout the station.
She turned and saw Bradley Hammersville, the terminal manager, yelling at Gerome.
He was chewing him out for only using water on the floor instead of wax, and Gerome was saying it would be better to wait until the scaffolding was down so he could be sure he got up all of the paint drippings first. “Pour wax over any spilled paint, Mr. Hammersville, and it’ll be really hard to get out,” he explained.
But the paunchy man with the blue bow tie didn’t want to hear it.
He accused Gerome of being lazy and told him he’d better get his “no good black ass movin’ with the wax” or he’d be fired.
Goldie didn’t like that Hammersville was embarrassing her new friend within the earshot of others.
She didn’t like how he called Gerome “boy” earlier in the day.
And she really didn’t like the comb-over of his blondish hair that sat atop his head like a deflated cinnamon roll.
She found herself determinedly walking toward the men while two painters were coming down from the scaffolding carrying nearly empty five-gallon paint cans.
Hammersfield had by now changed subjects and was complaining about smears on one of the glass front doors.
Gerome replied that they were just put there by a little boy who had come into the building with his mother no more than five minutes earlier, and he was going to attend to that next.
“Boy, don’t you give me none of your sass!” Hammersfield warned with a pointing finger.
As Goldie came up behind him, she saw that one of the painters had set down his can that held about a quart of leftover light-orange paint. Without hesitation, she picked it up and placed it upside-down over Hammersfield’s head.
“He’s a veteran, you son of a bitch!” Goldie yelled. “He may work for you, but you sure as shit better give him the respect he deserves! Both as a vet and as a man!”
She gave Gerome a quick wink, then turned and started to head for Departing Door Two. Removing the bucket and wiping the paint away from his eyes, a shocked Hammersfield seethed while the two painters laughed hysterically, and Gerome tried his best to keep a straight face.
“He’s as orange as a carrot,” one painter laughed.
“Or a tangerine,” scoffed the other.
“Or Gina Deangelo’s tanning spray,” Goldie called over her shoulder.
Hammersfield started to go after her, but the painters, both of whom happened to be veterans like Gerome, stood in his way and advised him to drop the matter.