Weeds in Bloom by Robert Newton Peck Read Free Book Online

that you were
one of the guys
.
    This coveted equipment, so recently in fashion, could be quietly purchased at the drugstore, but only by adults. Or big boys. Kids like us, even with money in hand, would be rejected and dejected customers. Not only that. Twerps who tried would probably be laughed at. Or worse, reported to their parents.
    There was, according to rumor, a new secret coin machine. Only one of its kind in town. This mechanical marvel was located on the wall of the men’s room down the road at the Diesel Fuel. Here the prize was available to all. Its price was a quarter. No pennies, nickels, or dimes (items that dominated our savings) were accepted. Quarters only. The dispenser didn’t sell penny gumballs.
    This machine was big-time!
    Soup and I casually sneaked into the Diesel Fuel’s only restroom, bolted the door, looked around, and there it was. A foreign rectangular object hung on the wall, up high, flashing the brand name of its forbidden fruit:
    TROJAN
    Earlier, we’d cashed in our long-collected small change, a total of twenty-five cents, and now werefinancially prepared. Inside my clenched fist I felt our quarter, burning hot, panting for adventure.
    Reverently, we read the instructions:
    Quarters only.
Insert quarter in slot.
Select type desired.
Pull lever completely down.
Package will appear in tray.
    Clearly printed, easy-to-follow directions. But a problem had suddenly confronted us. Select type desired? The selection was made, we then learned upon closer examination of the machine’s technical demands, by pushing one of its three flaming-red buttons:
    American Hero
French Tickler
Arabian Stallion
    The American Hero style, we concluded, lacked a certain man-of-the-world appeal. Yet choosing between the two remaining choices was no snap-judgment decision. It required that Soup and I exchange our vast reservoirs of romantic sophistication and social experience, weighing all opinions of French or Arab behavior.
    “Maybe,” said Soup, “we ought to flip a coin.”
    “Okay,” I agreed. “Heads it’s French, and tails it’s Arabian.”
    “You flip,” Soup told me, “and I’ll catch it.”
    An errant toss, plus a fumbled catch, and our precious quarter went jingling to the concrete floor, then rolled across the dampness to underneath the toilet tank. Down on our knees, in unpleasant moistures and aromas, we groped for our twenty-five cents. “I can see it,” Soup said, “but I can’t quite seem to reach it.”
    Whack. Whack
.
    Somebody was outside the door!
    “Hey, anybody in there?” asked a trucky male voice. “Open up. Or else.”
    “What’ll we do?” I whispered too loudly.
    “Be right out,” Soup croaked in a wavering soprano.
    The trucker said a colorful word. A real zinger. “You kids got no right to be in there. Hurry up and come on out. And pronto.”
    With a desperate ram of my hand into an area about which I knew (or wanted to know) nothing, I managed to reclaim the quarter, dirt and all. Rising, I inserted the gritty coin in the machine’s slot as Soup hurriedly mashed a button. At this point, any selection would do. I yanked down the lever. After a click, and an eternity of a full second, downinto the tray thumped our prize, an American Hero Trojan.
    Patriotism had triumphed over exotica.
    WHACK!
    “Open that door,” threatened an irate voice, “or I’ll bust it down and throttle you kids. And I mean now!”
    We opened the door. There stood a beefy trucker, holding a quarter. Behind him, seated in the cab of his truck, a lady was shouting a suggestion.
    “Hurry it up, Harry. I only got half an hour.”
    “In a minute, Gladice. Okay?”
    Soup and I decided not to wait around to offer Harry any advice on what, of the three selections, he should purchase. We ran like flushed rabbits. I felt my face blushing with guilt, fearing that Soup and I would be caught and jailed for life. A bold headline on the front page of our local Weekly would trumpet the tawdry news