Alisa Is Coming Home. 1.3k. (standard:romance, 1322 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jun 16 2020	Views/Reads: 1237/894	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
I first noticed her in the second grade, when she wanted to borrow my red crayon. Well, borrow wouldn't be the right word. She came over and grabbed it. When I tried to get the crayon back, she kicked me in the crotch.

I first noticed her in the second grade, when she wanted to borrow my
red crayon. Well, borrow wouldn't be the right word. She came over and 
grabbed it. When I tried to get the crayon back, she kicked me in the 
crotch. 

So, I guess you could say meeting her was a painful experience -- as it
turned out, just one of many. I didn't know what love was at the time. 
Maybe that was nature's way of explaining? One thing that stuck with me 
was the way she stared at me with dead eyes, as though I were less than 
a bug. It was the way she always treated men. Some say it was the way 
her mother treated her father, with disdain. 

Her father owned a clothing store. As the years passed I saw the man
seem to shrink as he aged beyond his years. 

The reason I know so much about her father, Ralph, was that I made a
point of working in his store as my first real job. That was while I 
was in the eighth grade. Since Alisa was so popular and me a bookworm, 
it was the only way I could see and talk to her outside of one English 
class. 

My parents were poor and I knew college was out of the question.  On the
other hand, Alisa took college prep classes.  During all of high school 
we did have two classes together -- although I tried for more. 

“Sorry Joey, that's a college prep course,” Mr. Edwards, the Guidance
Councilor, told me. “It's full up for this year, and not in your 
curriculum in any case.” Although I pleaded, it was out of the 
question. 

I had no recourse but to watch for Alisa in the school hallways. Seeing
her was an obsession, me standing in an alcove near her hall locker for 
hours at a time. One time, in the ninth grade, when I was running an 
errand for Ms. Jones, I took a shortcut through the gym and found Alisa 
taking her class. She was in short shorts and the memory still stays 
with me. 

“Hey, you.  Get the hell out of here,” Ms. Johnson, the girls' gym
teacher, yelled at me. “Boys aren't allowed in here.  Move it.” 

While I was trying to leave and keep an eye on Alisa at the same time, I
ran into a set of bleachers stacked by the door. They fell on me and 
the girls ran over, laughing, to dig me out of the fallen seats. It was 
embarrassing, but one of the few occasions Alisa actually smiled at me. 
At my misery, that is. 

I lived for the days she would come into Ralph's store. I can see, as I
look back at it, that it was always to get money or to abuse him 
verbally, usually both. 

“I don't care. If you really loved me you would buy it for me,” Alisa
would tell her father. “All the other girls have one. I even know where 
I can get one in almost new condition.” 

She was after him to buy her a Mercury convertible. He had offered to
buy a four-year-old Ford sedan for her. But that, of course, wouldn't 
do. His arguments about money couldn't sway her. 

“I hate you, you old bastard,” she told him. 

Alisa stormed past me, shoving me aside as she left the store.  She has
never acknowledged my existence as a person, not to this day. I was 
only part of the scenery. A part that could be pushed aside. 

We graduated from high school and she went off to college somewhere in
Maine while I worked in a local factory.  I was a hard worker. Not 
interested in any girls but her, I spent all my time and energy at my 
job -- eventually advancing to foreman status. 

That was in the sixties. I saved my money and attended a computer trade
school in town. When the factory I worked at acquired its first large 
computer, I was the only person in the place that had even seen one 
before. I transferred to head the new Electronic Data Processing 
Department. 



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