Harper's Ferry

By Joshua Herdt

Charles Taylor has spent his post-college years waiting for that one special opportunity, the one that will change his direction, identity, and life. When he’s reunited with Harper, a missed opportunity and the girl who got away, he can’t help but take advantage of it, setting in motion a series of events that guarantees the change he has so badly wanted.

Harper’s Ferry, an 81,000 word story that had been inspired by authors such as John Green and Jay Asher that is set in Richmond, Virginia, follows Taylor and his friends from their socialite beginnings to their eventual epiphanies. It is a story about transition, growing up, and the hard truths we all learn on the road outside of adolescence. Like any story worth telling, it begins and ends with a girl. It’s a love story, and well, something a little more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joshua Herdt
• Release date: Sep 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310938573

Book preview

There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

Prologue

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Harper had everything. She was smart, athletic, and unbelievably pretty. It was annoying. I hated it, and I hated her for coming around. Okay, maybe hate is a strong word. It just bothered me, the way they all gawked at her. Especially when HE did it. Charlie, I mean. When he looked at Harper, no one else in the world mattered, not even me.

She was not a bad person, although at times she could be vain and self-absorbed. There was a part of Harper that could be sincere. It made her easy to like. I’ll admit it. She was charming as hell. She could charm the gown off nun. She won the guys over immediately. It was the way she talked. When Harper spoke to you she put you on a pedestal. You were center of her universe. On the other hand, if she wasn’t talking to you, you didn’t seem to matter. At all. Her attention was always on the move too. It didn’t stay anywhere for long, which meant any attention you received was short lived at best. There was never any promise it would return.

She was deeply troubled. Despite her many blessings, she never seemed to appreciate them. Or, maybe she just couldn’t see them. They were lost on her. To me, she was an empty glass desperately looking to be filled. She was forever in a state of need. Her appetite was never quenched. I think that made her sad. On some level she must have known. She was haunted by that one singular truth. It shaped and frustrated her to no end. She was hungry for a love and acceptance she couldn’t find in herself.

Though she was immature, and VERY insecure, you couldn’t help but root for her. There was always that glimmer of hope that she might turn it around. You wanted to see her conquer her demons because she was always right there on the cusp of victory. Should she have succeeded the world would have been at her mercy. But, she never quite got there. In that way she was desperate, perhaps the most desperate girl I ever knew. Harper was one giant jig-saw puzzle. She was missing only one piece. The realization of which made her sad and full of torment.

I had a hard time picturing them together. Charlie and Harper seemed as different as any two people could be. I often wondered what they saw in each other. Were they in love? Or, was it some kind of adolescent fascination? Still, you couldn’t help but root for them. I wanted him to be happy. When you saw them together, when you saw Charlie, you wanted it to work out.

I knew what I saw in him. Charlie wasn’t like other men. And, he was fascinating. He was thoughtful, and at times overburdened by responsibilities. There were so many things he thought he had to do. He was careworn. I have no doubt that he had his entire future mapped out, or at least his desired outcomes. The problem was that he had no idea how to get there and life doesn’t go according to plan.

Charlie wasn’t the type of boy girls would normally fixate upon. Sure, he was handsome in his own way. But his shy contemplative demeanor usually cast him into the background. When others stepped forward, he remained elusive and unnoticed. I guess I found him sort of mysterious.

I had never met anyone that talked quite like he did. We had actual conversations with a fair amount of depth and complexity. That’s what we did best, talk I mean. We would waste entire summers exploring each other’s philosophies. We would exhaust ourselves on every topic imaginable… and then find new ones. Charlie won me over with words. Words were all we had. We coveted them and shared them in secret. They were valuable and precious to us. Through their magic we became friends and possibly something more.

Charlie had tawny skin and copper hair that grew lighter in the summer. His eyes were always cool and caught somewhere between green and blue. They could never make up their mind and swam, instead, between the two. They were like the first weeks of March, still clinging to the coldness of winter. When we first met, he was too skinny and wore glasses that resembled coke bottles. Because of this people often mistook him for being brainy. He was, but not in the way people assumed. As you can see, Charlie wasn’t glamorous. You had to look a bit harder to find his distinction. It was there, of course. It always had been. You could find it just beneath the surface, a treasure overlooked by many and rewarded to few.

We spent our childhood together and were for the most part inseparable. I loved him then. It was an anxious, desperate, kind of thing. I was all butterflies and stutters as we grew up beside one another. It was a secret I tried to share with him, but he could never see. I dropped hints and planted seeds, but none ever took root. We kissed once, an innocent experiment that I wished would continue. It didn’t. Instead, it slipped away.

While I tried to claw my way out of the shadows, he dated all kinds of girls. There were tall ones, short ones, skinny ones, and pudgy ones. I tried to counsel him. I tried to show him that they would never take care of him like I would, but my words fell on deaf ears. Or, maybe I wasn’t clear. I could never tell him exactly how I felt. He might not have known what I wanted. It was… frustrating, and still is.

I had fallen into a state of acceptance when she walked into our lives. I guess we all had. It was just us back then. The five of us for a time. We had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Together we weathered an eternal summer. Time was on our side. Charlie thought we were lost, but I disagree. You can only be lost if you are alone.

We spent our days swimming in rivers of beer and cheap booze. One day was no different than the other. We saw our futures as paramount. We imagined them as castles dotting some distant hillside. With no place to hold court, we did so in The Stonewall, our bastion in the landscapes of our youth.

I can still see us, all of us. Blake would stand there off to the side. He was always quiet. He always wore a smirk as he watched us. He was so still compared to the others, almost statuesque, but probably just as lost.

Blake might as well have been Calvin Klein. He was always so put together. I remember him in his slim cut dress shirts and sharp ties. He seemed a model cut from the pages of GQ. He had wanted to go to school for acting, but his parents would not have it. He would have made a great actor, though. He had a way of dominating a room, or falling into the background on cue. Between the loss of that adolescent dream and reality, he had somehow lost his way. In that way he was like the rest of us.

Beside Blake would have stood Derrick. He would be front and center. Behind him sat a platter of empty shot glasses. The bar lights would float like moths. Their light was suspended in the blurry haze of those drunken days. He was at home in the spotlight, his voice booming like a drum, as he regaled us with some story.

I liked Derrick, despite our aggravations and complaints about one another. I liked him for who he had the potential to be. Not necessarily, for who he was. When he wasn’t talking he could be a fairly decent guy. Unfortunately, he never shut up. Charlie seemed to idolize him, but I found him a bit shallow.

Yes, he was ruggedly handsome. He had big arms, a square jaw, and abs that could pop open women’s bras. Women loved him, and he loved them in return. He was a regular womanizer. He also had the tendency of being a royal dick.

Derrick had a lot of earthly blessings, but a majority of them were lost on him. For such an imposing figure he was absolutely crippled by insecurity. This insecurity bred narcissism, which caused him to stray from whatever grand destiny he envisioned for himself. In that respect, I pitied him. Derrick was hard to love. He never made it easy. But we loved him all the same.

Henry would have been sitting at the bar beside Charlie and me. He was easy going. By nature, he was relaxed and unperturbed. While the rest of us endured personal dramas, Henry was our rock. He was a reminder that time kept moving and that everything would be alright eventually. I guess he was content. Yes, that’s how he’s best described. He was unconcerned by his unremarkable existence. Nothing upset him because he was never looking for more.

That same lackadaisical charm showed in his appearance. Henry was always in need of a shave. He had that bristly face and hair that might never have seen a comb. He had a way of letting himself go. Despite being in filthy work clothes, and looking like a lumberjack, he still managed to pull girls. They loved his devil-may-care attitude. Hell, so did I.

About the only thing that did bother Henry was his job. He hated HVAC, and reviled his boss. Despite that truth, he wouldn’t quit. Instead he persisted in some kind of self-imposed exile. Maybe he didn’t think he could do anything else. Maybe he lacked motivation. Regardless, his job haunted him. He escaped it by sailing away on a bourbon bottle. It might eventually cost him his liver, but for a time it made him happy.

Until Harper arrived, I was the only girl. I liked it that way. I had no love for gossip and girls were just too much work. The boys, on the other hand, were easy to understand and relatively straight forward. It never bothered me when they brought other women around. Not really. I knew they could never replace me. They were just ships passing in the night. Harper was different though. She came to us twice. In both instances she brought change. She made a lasting impression, especially on Charlie. There was something between those two. Something I had wanted. I could see it in the way he looked at her. That’s how I wanted to be looked upon. That’s the kind of look I would have returned. Despite whatever else she might have done, she taught Charlie something invaluable. You’re probably asking yourself, What was it? Well, I’ll let you figure that out.

Our story is about transition. It’s about them, about me, and about all of us. It’s about what she did, what she didn’t’ do, and what happened as a result. Like any story worth telling, it begins and ends with a girl. It’s a love story, and well, something a little more.

1

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It was sunny the day she walked back into my life. I remember because it was the first sunny day in a week saturated by rain. May is a water logged month in Richmond. We get a year’s worth of rain in just a few weeks. It’s like a monsoon or something. It squats over the city and floods the banks of the James River. The water becomes a flat murky sheet of green that froths and foams during its march down stream. The rapids disappear and whatever moisture doesn’t make it into the soil lingers in the air.

It felt good to be outside, to be out, and liberated from the anxieties that troubled me back then. I darted across a car filled street and stood in front of The Stonewall. It loomed overhead, casting a long shadow that blanketed me and the street corner. This was our headquarters and had been since my friends returned. Stella, Derrick, and Blake had all run off to Blacksburg after high school. They were Hokies through and through. They had left me alone to wander the home front. I had been less enthusiastic about my education. While they attended Virginia Tech I maintained a quiet vigil at VCU, the Very Casual University. I don’t know why I chose that place, especially when it was so far away from my friends. Like I said, I was probably lacking a certain amount of enthusiasm and inspiration. I guess the same thing could have been said about my life.

They’d been home a year now. Nearly every day since had been spent at The Stonewall. It was like we had taken part time jobs as stool pigeons. The building itself was antiquated, retaining some of the architectural grandness of decades past. It had to be a hundred years old. The tavern took up only the first floor, which left the second and third stories in question. I assumed the owner lived up there. The inside still had the original crown molding and tiled ceiling. The bar area was a throwback to the saloons of days past. When you walked inside it was like a field trip into a different age. There were names carved into the counter that belonged in history books.

I’m not sure where the name came from. Supposedly Stonewall Jackson had visited there during the Civil War. That would certainly fit Richmond’s Confederate image, but I was unsure. Something told me there was a metaphorical element to the name.

I had just gotten off work and gotten home when Henry called. Get your ass down here, he told me. So, I came. The bells on the front door jingled as I pushed it aside and stepped in. Light spilled in behind me and was immediately swallowed up by darkness. The smell of fried hamburger patties, stale cigarette smoke, and liquor hit me. A song was playing on the radio. I think it was How It’s Gonna Be, by Third Eye Blind. I stood there a moment squinting. My eyes clawed through a momentary blindness before I found Henry. He was on the far side of the room caressing his glass of Maker’s Mark with a lover’s affection. No one else was present.

I saw a lot of myself in my brother. We had the same sort of bronze hair and body type. I had inherited more slimness than he had, and he was more muscular. He also had a square jaw line and rugged profile. He wore it with a charming air of disdain. Women loved it. He was also a smooth talker, when he wasn’t half blasted by booze. On that day he had several days of stubble and the look of a man worked hard. He more or less had the building to himself.

Hey, man.

Hey, slap nuts, he replied through slurred words and a sloppy grin.

Where ya been? I asked.

This wasn’t his first bourbon.

Work.

They keeping you busy?

I guess, he replied rather non-committedly. Well, sit your ass down.

I sat down.

Where is everybody else? I asked.

Hell if I know. They’ll be here.

What time is it?

Hell if I know.

What do you know? I asked pointedly.

That you’re an ass.

Well played, I replied.

Thanks.

The owner, David, shuffled down the bar and asked me what I wanted. I ordered a Guinness in a twenty-two ounce glass which he poured and delivered to me. In between, he asked about my parents. I told him they were doing fine.

Since he moved out they have been occupied with keeping me on the straight and narrow, slurred Henry.

David wiped his hands on his black jeans and looked at me with surprise. He was well versed in our affairs.

Did you finally get that apartment? he asked.

I did, I answered. Moved into Hunter’s Chase with my buddy Blake.

I had saved a considerable amount of money between high school and college, but I couldn’t get an apartment without a roommate. Rent was just too damn high. Blake was in no way interested in moving back home and capitalized on the opportunity. We had started talking about the idea a few months before he returned from Tech. It was difficult shopping around. Our instinct was to pick the first place we came across, but we did it right. In the end, we settled on a complex in Chesterfield County called Hunter’s Chase.

I was already familiar with the place. We had stayed their briefly when the family first moved to Richmond from Jeffersonville, Indiana. I remembered it being rather nice. It was, although the surrounding area had grown up considerably since then. There was a massive outdoor shopping center on either side of the complex. We were within walking distance of everything. The convenience is what sold us, I think.

It was a gorgeous place and rather clean considering two men lived there. I think we did an admirable job trying to decorate it, although it ended up being a kind of mish-mash of natural tones and modernism. We thought of it as a virtual house of sin, but funnily enough, neither of us had so much as brought home a girl.

Little guy always dressed in a shirt and tie? David asked.

That’s the one, I assured him.

I think it was a charitable act on Blake’s part, Henry interrupted.

Shut up, Henry.

Minutes ticked away and a silence fell between us. It was David who finally broke it. The bell on the front door rang and a few people straggled in. He smiled at me, though it never touched his eyes.

Congratulations, Taylor. Enjoy the new place.

Thanks, I replied softly. I watched him retreat down the length of the bar. He greeted the newcomers with the same lifeless smile.

Do you think we should call one of them? I asked.

Who? Henry asked with a clueless air.

Derrick, Blake, or Stella.

They’ll be here, he assured me.

Henry was like that. The world was at his leisure. It was damned annoying at times, but I envied him for it. Nothing seemed to bother him. He wasn’t weighed down by my indecision or sense of responsibility. He did what he wanted and never looked back.

Mom says you’re thinking about going back to school.

Yeah, I’m considering it, I said drawing out the words. I wasn’t completely sold on the idea.

Hell with that.

What? I asked.

Your tone! It’ll be great. Women everywhere!

Well yeah…

I hadn’t had a girlfriend in so long my parents were beginning to wonder if I was gay. Sure I had a few flings, but nothing overly noteworthy. Relationships had never been my thing. It wasn’t from a lack of trying. I had plenty of one night stands. But, I could never seem to get my hands on something tangible. I always felt like I was on the outside looking in.

Where are you thinking of going?

VCU, I stated, still not sold.

You’ve been there once already. Are you thinking of get something in Business?

Hell if I know, I mumbled.

Henry laughed and slapped his palm down on the counter. Somehow he thought it made whatever he said more funny.

You’ll never change.

What’s that supposed to mean? I asked testily.

I had a hard time keeping the heat out of my voice. Henry had a way of suggesting things that more or less pissed me off. I would have continued if not for Stella’s arrival. The bells hanging from the door closer chimed. She had her purse over one shoulder and crinkled her eyes as she tried to stare through the darkness.

Hey gang, she beamed.

Hey yourself, Henry muttered.

Hey there, Hopscotch, I greeted coyly.

I had called her Hopscotch for as long as I could remember. So long, in fact, that I could barely recall where it had originally come from. I could only tell you that it was derived from Stella’s personality, and her tendency to be a goody-two-shoes.

Hey there handsome, she said with a wink and wry grin.

Henry watched the two of us with one eyebrow raised.

Watch my things, I have to visit the ladies, She said as she threw her jacket and her purse over the bar counter. When she was gone Henry nudged me. He had that drunk sneer that always worried me.

Mom still hassling you about a girlfriend?

Yeah, I stated rather flatly.

Why not Stella?

What? I asked appalled.

You and your whats. Stella! Why don’t you date Stella?

You’re joking right, I said with some trepidation.

She’s got one hell of a body and she’s totally into you.

No she isn’t, I scoffed.

Dude, she has liked you since the second grade!

You’re drunk.

I had known Stella a long time. She was one of the first friends I had made when the family moved here from Jeffersonville. She was a true character and never short on personality. Despite being pretty she was oblivious to it. She dressed more modestly than other women her age, but then she might have had to. She worked for a living. She was also tall, at least five foot ten, which I think is tall for a girl. We were matched in height, nearly nose to nose when we stood beside one another. She had a narrow pixie’s face and caramel hair she often kept in a ponytail. Her eyes were the deep impenetrable green of early spring, and they dominated her face.

Stella had run the Monument 10k every year for as long as I could remember. She loved to run. She ran everywhere. She even traveled to run. Rome, Hawaii, it didn’t matter. She talked about running whenever she wasn’t doing it. I found it annoying at times, but we all indulged her. With her drinking habits she would have blown up like a hot air balloon if not for all the damn running. She was one of the few women I knew who looked better than she did in high school.

Henry and I grew silent as Stella approached. Stella and I had been spending a lot of time together since she’d gotten home from school. I had never gotten the impression that she wanted anything more than friendship. When I began to struggle finding work, Stella had pushed me toward writing. She had it in her mind that I could be the next best selling author. I was less than convinced. I couldn’t even get through a short story without her strong arming me the entire way. If I was meant to be an author, I was going to make a damn lousy one. Still, she never gave up on me.

David finally replaced the hand dryers, She commented dryly.

It’s about damn time, Henry celebrated.

What are you two having?

Maker’s, replied Henry.

Guinness.

I should have guessed.

Henry cleared his throat and leaned back away from the bar. He balanced precariously on his stool. Stella had her back to the bar and was admiring the photographs that hung on the opposite wall. Most were of Richmond’s reconstruction. They were no doubt copies from the Library of Congress. Mixed in were a variety of pinup knock offs. They were painted on aluminum signs and looked authentic enough. Stella admired them. She loved pinups.

How was work, Henry asked.

I need a drink, Stella groaned.

You’re in a good mood I see, Henry prodded.

What can I say, teaching kindergarten suits me, Stella replied in the same tone.

AND you don’t have to change intelligence levels when you go from there to meeting us, Henry commented with a grin.

Despite herself, Stella smiled, though she tried to hide it. She shook her head and her pony tail shook with it. Stella had become a kindergarten teacher after college, taking a job at Evergreen Elementary. I hear she was well respected there. She was like that, able to win over anybody. She enjoyed the work and it was right up her alley. Stella enjoyed helping people. It surprised me that she had never done humanitarian work, like join the Peace Corp. It seemed like something she would be into. Maybe she just didn’t have time. She certainly