The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories by Rod Serling Page A

sleeping in his big comfortable chair in his office up there. Old Man Wilson—may his soul rest in peace”
    He reached in his pocket, took out a dollar bill and put it on the counter. The soda jerk stared at it, surprised. “That’s a buck!”
    Martin smiled at him, tapped the glass with a finger. “That—” he looked around the room—“and all of this, they’re worth it.”
    He went back out into the hot summer. The soda jerk leaned on the counter, wondering about Martin, then lifted up the top of the chocolate syrup container and peered inside. He replaced it, came around from behind the counter, climbed the stairs, and tapped gently on a door. A muffled, sleepy voice responded.
    “Yes?”
    The soda jerk opened the door a few inches. “Mr. Wilson,” he said to the white-haired old man, sitting in the heavy leather chair, one eye open, “We need more chocolate syrup.”
    The old man winked, nodded and closed his eyes again. “I’ll order some this afternoon.”
    In a moment he was fast asleep again. The soda jerk went back to the counter. He took Martin Sloan’s glass and started to wash it. Funny guy, he thought. Lose your shirt if you sell three scoops for a dime. He chuckled as he was drying the glass. Nobody sold three scoops for a dime any more. Then he shrugged and put the glass away. You met all kinds. You sure met all kinds. But this guy, this one was odd. This one had a look on his face. How would you describe the look? He was so...so happy. Just being in the dingy old drugstore, he looked happy. A woman came in with a prescription and the soda jerk didn’t think of Martin Sloan any more that day.
    Martin walked down Oak Street—the street he’d grown up on. It stretched out ahead of him flanked by big, full-leafed maple trees that cast sharp black shadows against the brilliant whiteness of the sunshine. Big, two-story Victorian houses set back behind long, green lawns were old friends to him. He rattled off names of their owners as he walked slowly down the sidewalk. Vanburen. Wilcox. Abernathy. He looked across the street. Over there, Dr. Bradbury, Mulrooney, Grey. He stopped and leaned against a tree. The street was exactly as he remembered it. He felt the bittersweet pang of nostalgia. He remembered the games he’d played with the kids on this street. The newspapers he’d delivered. The small-boy accidents on roller skates and bicycles. And the people. The faces and names that fused in his mind now. His house was on the corner and for some reason he wanted to save this for last. He could see it ahead of him. Big, white, with a semi-circular porch running around it. Cupolas. An iron jockey in front. God, the things you remembered. The things you tucked away in an old mental trunk and forgot. Then you opened the trunk and there they were.
    “Hi,” a little boy’s voice said.
    Martin Sloan looked down to see a four-year-old with syrup on his face, shooting marbles. “Hi,” Martin answered and sat down on the curb beside him. “You pretty good?” He pointed toward the boy’s marbles.
    “At aggies?” the little boy said. “I’m not so bad.”
    Martin picked up one of the marbles and looked through it. “I used to shoot marbles, too. We gave them special names. The steel kind, the ball bearings we took off old streetcars, we called them steelies. And the ones we could see through—we called them clearies. Still call them names like that?”
    “Sure,” said the little boy.
    Martin pointed across the street toward a telephone pole marked up by a thousand jackknives. “That’s where we used to play hide-and-seek,” he said to the boy He grinned. “Draw a circle around the old man’s back and who’s to punch it.” He laughed aloud as the thought warmed and delighted him. “Right on this street, every night in the summer we used to play that. And I used to live in that corner house down there,” he pointed. “The big, white one.”
    “The Sloan house?” the little boy