I Still Dream About You

Gus’s Famous Hot Dogs

MAGGIE HAD TO FILL IN AT THE OFFICE WHILE BRENDA WAS AT home recuperating. She couldn’t leave Ethel all alone. It was another delay, but at least she could depart knowing Brenda was going to be all right. Brenda had even promised to go back to Overeaters Anonymous, so the heart attack scare must have done some good.

A week later Brenda was back in the office bright and early and seemed to be happy and doing well. She was happy mostly because in the past week, she had lost seven pounds, and her Overeaters Anonymous sponsor had stopped by her house and given her a gold star. By Friday, with Brenda back to normal, Maggie was satisfied that the time was finally right. On Saturday, she drove back to the river with all her things, and this time around, she didn’t even bother to hide them. No point. She was coming back early the next morning. She thought that since she was all ready to go, this afternoon she would go on her own private little Farewell to Birmingham tour. As she drove, a light misty rain began to fall.

This wasn’t her first farewell ride. When she was five, just before midnight on the night of April 18, 1953, her father had bundled her up and they had ridden on the very last run of the Ensley Streetcar No. 27. It had been packed to the rafters with people and decorated from stem to stern with balloons and banners. There had been lots of cheering as it pulled into the streetcar barn and shut down for the last time. The wonderful old streetcar was headed to the scrap yard the next day. She supposed today, she was just like Streetcar No. 27, and was making her last run.

She had seen the end of so many things. The wonderful years with Hazel, the end of her one-year reign as Miss Alabama, and her last walk around the runway. There had been lots of tears and loud cheering that night, but today, as she rode through town, there were no tears or cheering; just the sound of her windshield wipers swishing back and forth.

She then drove out to East Lake, to where the old Dreamland Theatre used to be. When she got there, she saw that the entire side of the block was now a used-car lot, but as she passed by she could still remember the theater as it once was, and she wondered what ever happened to that nice man across the street at the Western Union office who used to wave to her?

As she drove up over the mountain and past the Mountain Brook Country Club and past English Village, the image of a young girl popped into her mind, a girl she must have seen in a movie once. But which one? Was it one of the girls in The Sound of Music? As the image kept fading in and fading out, she realized who the girl was-she wasn’t from a movie; it was her. She was the one who used to feel this way, that same old melancholy feeling; a strange loneliness had haunted her, a deep yearning for something, but she never quite knew what it was she was yearning for.

Maggie felt a sudden pang of pity for that poor dumb dreamy girl with so many disappointments ahead, so many illusions to be shattered. Remembering her now was like remembering someone she had known in another lifetime.

Going back home, she drove through downtown, and just as a spur-of-the-moment thing, she did something she hadn’t done in years. After a few times around the block, she found a parking space on the corner and went into a little hole-in-the-wall place called Gus’s Famous Hot Dogs. She went in, sat at the counter, and ordered two chili dogs with mustard, onions, and sauerkraut and an orange drink. Gus’s Famous Hot Dogs was one of the few places left where she and her parents used to go when she was little and then later, as a teenager, she and her girlfriends had always eaten there. The place had not changed a bit, and the chili dogs were as delicious as she remembered. Then she ordered two big pieces of lemon icebox pie. Why not? On her last day on earth, why not have a little fun? She knew she would probably have terrible indigestion tonight, but it was worth it. She remembered the days when she had been able to eat anything she wanted, French-fried onions and cheeseburgers, and not have to pay for it later. The last time she had eaten there was with four or five of her high school girlfriends, when they had been running from one place to the next, going to the movies or hanging out at the record store. She wished those days could have lasted longer. It was hard to believe that most of those giggling girls were grandmothers now.

Maggie looked down at her watch. It was still pretty early, and she wondered what she would do for the rest of the day. She started toying with the idea of maybe going on to the river this afternoon and not waiting until the morning. When she paid her bill, she was pleasantly surprised to see that you could still get a good meal and a cold drink for less than five dollars. She was in a good mood until she walked outside, just in time to see the traffic cop on a scooter driving away from her car. She had just gotten a parking ticket!

Oh, no! She had never gotten a ticket in her life. What had she done wrong? She had put money in the meter. Her time was not expired. She opened the ticket and read what the woman had written: “Improper parking, too far away from curb.” She stepped back and looked. Well, maybe her car was a little too far out in the street, so she guessed she was guilty as charged, but as she read further, she was greatly relieved to see that she could pay the fine by mail; it said DO NOT SEND CASH-PAY ONLY BY CHECK OR MONEY ORDER. She was in luck. As fate would have it, her next stop was the bank, to close out her account again. Had this happened later in the day, she would have been in a bind. After she had written the check to the Department of Motor Vehicles and closed her account, she mailed the ticket outside the bank.

After roaming all over town and driving down all her favorite streets and places, she went back down the mountain and parked her car across the street from Caldwell Park and watched the last afternoon light fade. She sat there until dusk, until the street lanterns in the park blinked on and reflected their yellow lights in the trees and on the shining sidewalks.

It was a fitting ending for her last day-just like life itself: incredibly beautiful, incredibly sad, bittersweet. She started the car, took one long last look, and then turned and headed back to Avon Terrace.

But before she went home, she slowly drove by Crestview one more time, and it made her happy to think about David and Mitzi living there. She had found Crestview good owners; not much in the scheme of things, but at least she had accomplished something. She could now leave without feeling like a complete failure. Maggie sat down and went over her “Things to Do” checklist again, and by the time she finished, it was almost six o’clock. She decided it was too late to go to the river today. She guessed she would just wait and go in the morning.