Chasing Dragons

The sun was well up, blaring over the trees when I parked in front of Rick’s apartment building. He stepped out of his door wearing his straw fedora and linen jacket, worn chinos, and canvas loafers, the picture of a dandy gone to seed.

Watching him wrangle his legs down the steep stairs, Ricky suddenly seemed frail to me, and I felt a pang in my chest. I’d known hm for less than five years, but in those years, I’d come to love him like a brother; he’d filled my losses, propped me up, and pushed me back into a life I could lead on my own. He claimed to be sixty-eight, but he said once he remembered seeing Elvis on Ed Sullivan, which added years to that claim.

He clambered into my old truck, and we headed to Linda’s market north of downtown. The market sits far back from traffic under a long tin roof, a colorful oasis in a dull, hot desert of asphalt surrounded by cars parked without regard to space or bearing. As we drew closer, we could hear the shuffling rattle of a homemade pea sheller.

Under the roof, our eyes adjusted to the shade and found melons mottled and striped, green-upon-green, blazing red cayennes, motley purple peas, and speckled beans. We paused over the corn, looking for fresh ears with tight shucks, green stem ends, and sweet-smelling tassels. We chose cucumbers that were slightly under-ripe, firm, and shading to jade.

The tin roof popped as the sun bore down. Ricky walked over to the peaches, rows of baskets filled with Chilton County Elbertas, saffron blushing to carmine, some with stems and leaves. Over these he lingered, walking back and forth, occasionally reaching down to brush one with his fingers, picking another up, holding it to his nose, and putting it down.

I brought him a paper sack and shook it open with a pop. “What do you look for?” I asked.

Ricky snapped out of his reverie, looked at me and smiled. “A dragon,” he said.

“When you’re a child, the world is full of magic things, wonderful things. A few of them amaze you so much you can’t get rid of them,” he said. “Those are the dragons, the ones you keep looking for long after you’ve been stomped on a time or two, and you can’t find the man in the moon anymore.”

“I remember this peach from a basket in Tupelo. When I bit into it, suddenly I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear. That peach just sucked everything out of me, and all I could do was eat that magical peach, and I’ve spent the rest of my life buying lousy peaches chasing that dragon.”

We loaded our sacks in the truck. As we were pulling onto the highway, Ricky reached into the back, rummaged around and pulled out a peach. He wiped it with the handkerchief he kept in his back pocket, turned it around in his hand, then took a bite. I looked at him expectantly. He smiled and shook his head, rolled down the window, and threw it out.

“I’ll find it one day,” he said, and my heart broke.