feisty cherry and samson and delilah by Alexandra Naughton

             Michelle Lynne Goodfellow CC


​
The day the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia first opened to the public was the day I first tried cherry coke. There were tables inside set up by companies to give away keychains and free samples of things and one table was giving out little cups of cherry coke. I would take a sample and drink the cup and then go back to the table to get another one and I did this several times until my mom said that I had enough. I want to say this was around the time that “chicka-cherry cola” song by Savage Garden song was popular.

The other day I stopped at a gas station on my way to the laundromat to break a 20. I opened the refrigerator case and picked out a can of diet cherry coke that I had never seen before. It was called diet feisty cherry and it was in a skinny can. The cashier at the gas station thought it was an energy drink and almost charged me like five dollars for it until I was like, wait. He apologized and I said, “It’s okay, I think it’s new.”

I walked over to the laundromat with my soda and loaded my laundry in the washer and put the quarters in the machine and then walked over to the Ohlone Greenway to sit under the train tracks and read. I opened the can and took a sip and couldn’t figure out what it tasted like. It didn’t taste like cherries. I don’t know what feisty tastes like, but I felt black pepper or some irritant in the back of my throat. I opened my phone and did a search for diet feisty cherry and started reading a review of the new soda in a gentleman’s magazine, GQ or Esquire I forget which. It confirmed my opinion of the strange black pepper aftertaste.

As I was reading, a man pushing a bmx bike walked by and stopped a few feet away from where I was sitting. I felt him looking at me so I looked up. He asked me if I had a light, and I said that I did, so I took a lighter out of my pocket and walked it over to him. He ripped the filter off his cigarette and threw it on the ground. He lit his cigarette.

“I’m having a rough day, man,” he said. “You ever have one of those days that everything just goes to shit.” I nodded and said, “Yeah.” He shuffled his feet, bouncing his weight from one leg to the other, exaggerating the movement like a jerky new dance. “It all started off with my old lady cutting my hair when I was sleeping. I had to shave my head,” he said, and handed me my lighter back.

“She took your powers from you,” I said, and backed away toward where I had been sitting.

“Yeah, it was like Samson and Delilah,” he said. He took off his hat and then put it back on.

“Well, I hope your day gets better for you,” I said. I realized I started a conversation that I didn’t want to continue. My ex loved to bring up Samson and Delilah anytime I didn’t drop what I was doing to assist him with what he was doing, or anytime I wanted to do something for myself that didn’t directly benefit him. I didn’t want to think about that. I don’t know what my ex is doing anymore but the bmx man reminded me of him. Placating and humoring is for friends and family only. And my feisty cherry was losing its refrigerated chillness. So I waved goodbye and he walked away with his bmx bike, cigarette hanging from his sun-puckered lip, and I opened my phone to read the rest of the reviews of the new diet coke flavors.

When I told this story to my friend, I referred to the bmx guy as a “wild man.”

​

​
Bio:  Alexandra Naughton is a writer based in Richmond, California. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Be About It Press, established in 2010. She is the author of six poetry collections including You Could Never Objectify Me More Than I've Already Objectified Myself (Punk Hostage Press, 2015), I Will Always Be In Love (Paper Press, 2015), and I Wish You Never Emailed Me (Ghost City Press, 2016). Her first novel, American Mary, was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016. Her writing has been widely published on the web and in print, and she performs regularly in the Bay Area and elsewhere.