One Stoplight Town

ONE STOPLIGHT TOWN

Windsor, Montana was a town that was never spoken of, never heard of, and never appeared noticed on a map unless you were looking for it. It was the kind of town that you could miss if you blinked while driving through it. There was one stoplight that sat at the intersection of Milford Street and Brambleton Avenue that everyone admitted could have been a four way stop and saved the town a little money. Maybe the town wanted the “one stoplight town” title. Either way, no one ever heard of it. The diner was the only place to eat in a forty-mile radius of Windsor. The locals knew better than to try and start another restaurant for competition. Not only were there not enough people for it to make a difference but everyone would still go to the diner. It was what they knew and for a little town like this, everyone stuck with what they were familiar with. There were two churches that were one block apart and across the street from one another. If you stood on the front steps of Grace Bible Church and looked down Milford street, you could see the people making their way up the steps of One Way Baptist Church. The residents were lucky enough to get a choice so they didn’t complain about not getting any other denominations. You were either Baptist, you weren’t, or you didn’t go to church at all. There was one bar where everyone went to blow off steam after work. There were three pool tables-one was brand new, shipped all the way from Twin Falls, Idaho, one was broken, having a giant crack in the concrete that no one quite knew how it had gotten there, and the third pool table was the relic and had been working great since 1947. The diner closed when the sun set so the bar was the only place left to go after dark. There was a little grocery story that had everything you needed, an arts and crafts store, a hardware store that also supplied all the farming needs, and a little book store that also served as the town library. The school was right up the street and set on the edge of a field with no more than four rooms. All ages attended the same school and everyone made due. The police department and courthouse shared a building but the courthouse portion was hardly ever used. There was a police chief and a patrolman that worked Monday through Friday. Then there was a weekend patrolman who worked Saturday and Sunday but his hours were odd. No one quite knew when he would be around and no one really cared. There wasn’t really any crime or need for Winsor to actually have its own government but it was the way it had always been. The county could have absorbed the town into their judicial system and the Sheriff’s Office probably would’ve been quicker to respond than the weekend guy. Nonetheless, it was the way it had always been and no one wanted to change it. Everyone just about did as they were supposed to and they worked out the problems they occasionally had on their own.

The problem circulating Winsor wasn’t going to be solved by any policeman on this Tuesday night. The bar had a couple of people, the same people who came by at the same times every day, but other than that it was reasonably empty. This Tuesday night crowd included a twenty-two-year-old town’s member, Jason Whitlock, who rarely came out for drinks. The bartender, Oliver Stinson, had only seen Jason in the bar two other times before. The first time Jason had set foot in the bar was when he had turned twenty-one and had come in with some of his friends to buy his first beer. The second time was more than a year later after his mother got sick. She was the talk of the town until she passed away just after Jason’s twenty-second birthday. His father had left just before he was born and Jason had never met him. It was the night of his mother’s death that Oliver found Jason sitting at the counter, for the second time, with a beer in front of him and a shot glass in his hand. The empty shot glasses lay around as Jason slowly tried to drown out the pain. Oliver was just glad that he had gotten home that night.

Now it was October and the leaves had all changed to the usual bright colors with some falling slowly toward the ground. The famous corn maze that was done every year by Mr. Wallace for all the local kids was in full swing. The night air was cold some nights and Oliver had even started up the fireplace earlier than usual. Maybe Jason was here because of the weather, Oliver thought to himself. However, he knew better than to try and figure out the patrons motives and tried to sweep the whole thing under the rug. As the night progressed, however, Oliver began to let curiosity get the best of him. Jason only came into the bar if he had a reason and it was time to find out that reason.

“Evening Jason,” Oliver said casually as he slid a beer across the counter.

The beer stopped perfectly in front of Jason and if anyone had been watching, they could instantly tell that he had been bartending for years. Jason looked up from his first shot glass of the evening and made eye contact with Oliver. His all black baseball cap covering the medium-short brown hair on his head.

“That ones on the house.”

Jason smiled thankfully and raised the glass to Oliver as he took a large drink of the dark beverage. Oliver wiped off his hands on the towel and leaned against the worn counter top, inspecting the young boy that he had watched grow up.

“What are you doing here Jason?” he finally asked.

Jason looked toward the nearly empty bar and tugged on his brown coat that hung open in the front. His long sleeve shirt underneath was one of his favorites and his jeans were the same ones that he had worn every day for the last year. The brown leather dress boots on his feet were also well worn with as much of the mud cleaned off as possible.

“She left for college today,” Jason replied and looked at Oliver as he took another drink.

“You mean Felicity?”

Jason nodded and pulled his black cap down. He hadn’t been here long so Oliver knew he was still sober enough to have this conversation.

“Okay…but you knew she was leaving. The two of you have been friends since she came to town six years ago.”

Jason took another drink and Oliver pressed further.

“Why are you here?”

“I couldn’t ask her to stay, Ollie,” Jason said. “I stood there in her doorway, watching her pack up the last of the items, and I tried so hard but I couldn’t ask her to stay.”

“Why would she stay?” Ollie asked. “There’s nothing here for her.”

Jason chuckled and pulled his second shot to himself from the edge of the counter, downed it, and then looked back up at Oliver.

“There’s me.”

Suddenly Oliver understood what was going on. For someone who read people and situations all night he felt so stupid for not seeing it before.

“You loved her too much to ask her to stay.”

Jason looked up at Oliver like he had cracked the code. Oliver looked back at him and studied him carefully.

“Why didn’t you tell her you loved her?”

Jason shrugged.

“I guess I didn’t want to ruin the best friendship I had ever had in this town.”

“You two were peas in a pod,” Oliver agreed. “So she has no idea how you feel?”

Jason shook his head emphatically and finished the beer Oliver had given him. He closed his eyes as the alcohol slid down.

“Ollie, I lost the last person in my life that I would consider family and now I can’t even call her without her thinking I’m insane. She tied that blonde hair on top of her head, climbed in that old 1989 Ford F150, set her bags on the bench seat where I used to ride, and just left.”

“And you didn’t go after her,” Oliver concluded, staring off in the direction that Jason was, although neither of them quite fully at the bar anymore.

Jason finally snapped back to reality and signed. He rolled his neck to work out the stiffness and Oliver saw how tired he was.

“Okay, so why don’t you go after her?”

Jason looked like Oliver had just suggested he take up selling illegal narcotics.

“What? Leave Windsor?’

“Why not? Felicity did. Go after her. This town has kept that girl a secret from the world but now they are going to know. I’ve never seen a girl as pretty as her and she was here, hidden in the most hidden town in America.”

“Every guy is going to want her,” Jason agreed. “They are going to swarm her.”

“So go protect her. Claim the beauty that was raised here in our own little town. You can hold off the herd.”

“What if she doesn’t want me?”

“Then she doesn’t want you!” Oliver said with a smile, “but you aren’t going to know until you try.”

Jason thought about that for a good while as he stared into his drink. He thought about Felicity and about how many times he had called her in the first hour she had left. She must have thought he was out of his mind. Of course, he had passed it off as a caring friend who was checking in with a friend, but in reality, he missed her terribly. Jason knew he would be going back to his little apartment above the grocery store alone and the thought was almost unbearable. Felicity was going to be discovered and someone else would end up with the girl he loved so dearly.

“Let me get this straight,” Jason began as he processed Oliver’s advice. “You expect me to call Felicity, tell her how I feel, ask her to let me come with her, and then just up and leave this little town?”

Oliver smiled.

“What is holding you here?”

Jason took another drink of his beer and reached into his pocket. He pulled out his cell phone and looked at the picture of him and Felicity on the screen.

“I think I need to step outside.”

“Let me know how it goes.”

Jason stepped outside into the chilly air as his jacket blocked the breeze that blew down the street. He held the phone for a couple minutes and finally made the call. The phone rang a few times before a tired girl answered the phone.

“Hey Jay,” she said with a hint of happiness in her voice.

“Felicity…I need to tell you something.”

“What’s that in the background?” she asked.

“Oh just…just the bar.”

“You went to the bar?” Felicity asked. “You’ve only ever been to the bar when you are celebrating or you lose someone you love.”

“I lost someone I love.”

“Who?” Felicity asked with genuine concern.

“Felicity…I am calling you because I need to tell you how I feel. About you. I don’t like to beat around the bush and quite frankly this is my last chance to get what I really want. I love you and I don’t mean as a brother, as a friend, or as anything else other than romantic and straight forward. I’m done watching you date other boys without you knowing that I want that to be me. I think you are beautiful and your smile makes my day worth it. Your laugh gives me butterflies and I can’t imagine life without you. I am drinking at the bar because I love you and I lost you. I watched you drive away and I loved you too much to ask you to stay. Maybe you don’t feel the same but you are the only thing that I know how to love and the only one I want to love. I’ll leave this town and come with you if you want me to.”

The phone was silent for a second as Felicity processed everything that had been said.

“I didn’t get too far out of town,” she finally replied. “It wouldn’t take you long to get to me.”

Jason felt his heart racing.

“If you left in the morning,” she continued. “You get here by lunch.”

“This is what you want?”

“Let’s find out.”

The phone suddenly clicked off and Jason stared at the screen. He was so excited and confused he wanted to call her back but maybe she needed her space to think about everything. He turned and Oliver made eye contact through the window. The tears in Jason’s eyes told him that things had gone just as he had hoped they would. Jason looked down the little street of Windsor and let out a yell that echoed off every building down the street.