Candy Man
by Mark Phinney
illustration by Greg Moutafis
I knew that I should’ve just joined the seminary, which was my plan when I was eight and unscathed by a world that wanted to see me on the proverbial toilet of life, squeezing out that morning frustration. I was not always the mass of overdramatic, self-pity that whines here before you. I had my shit together in 6th grade. As a matter of inflated fact, I was the kingpin of the playground candy circuit which ran from my 6th grade year to the summer of junior high. Nobody could touch me. I had it all – Sweet Tarts and Now or Laters – those were the best and they always sold well. I could be found on the jungle gym before second lunch every day (I never took days off then. When a business is just getting off the ground, you always stay late at the office).
Most of the kids were just hungry, naive gullibles with a sweet tooth that not even a Beverly Hills dentist could cure. Then there were the junkies. Most of the time, they showed up on the playground strung out from a night of licking their parents coffee cups for hints of sugar… anything they could get their tongues on. These were the kids who waited all year for Halloween, which was my biggest season, of course. I’d try to get these kids off the stuff, too. I wasn’t ruthless, but I had to earn my lot. It’s not an easy racket either. I was always being watched.
The guidance counselors had it in for me, but the way I see it, every dealer has his own personal guidance counselor on his ass. See, I had most of the janitors covered. They were in my pocket. I’d set them up with a hefty Easter basket every April. The type of work I did took inner willpower and strength that most kids my age never have.
There were times when I just stared at all the candy laid out on my bed and wondered how good it would taste. But no! This was business. There’s always risk involved, like the time my parents cleaned out my closet and found my stash. It was my Halloween stuff, the junk I put aside for my annual “giving back to the community” thing. I’d get all the kids in the neighborhood together and give out hard-earned candy, just so they were always into me for a favor here and there. The kids never forgot when Mark Phinney did them a good turn. As I entered the 7th grade, I was living high on the Milky Way. Lunch money was coming in amounts that I couldn’t keep under my mattress. Then it all happened in one fell swoop. I went down. I went down hard.
MAY 23. 12:41 PM. RECESS.
I was in the middle of a deal with Tommy “Jawbreaker” Jones, as we used to call him. He was always hopped up on the things but I never sold them to him. Like I said, I wasn’t out to kill anyone. He was picking up a Fun Dip when I heard a twig snap. I turned around to see the principal. I knew it wasn’t another candy dealer. If it had been, I wouldn’t have heard a thing. I’d be dead.
All I remember about that day are the looks those kids gave me. It was as if I was walking in slow motion. I heard the music of my times rising to a head in the background, making me immortal to those junkies, those kids that only wanted a piece of what I had to offer. I saw my parents looking at me. My mother turned away in tears at what her boy had become, and my father, who taught me how to play ball in the backyard, could only bow his head in shame as they led me on down the line of school reporters and the flashes of photographers. Amidst all the havoc of this moment in history, I heard one voice among a million utter a weak “Thank you.” I turned with a tainted smile, fighting back the tears and said “You’re welcome, kid.”
It’s been a while now since I’ve even looked down the candy aisle at 7-11. It’s hard but I take it day by day. Sometimes I take a drive by the playground, but those days are long gone. There are only kids playing soccer. Nobody wants the business anymore. What the faculty could never understand was that the candy dealer was only supplying a service to the kids that couldn’t get to the store after school. Now I’m a normal guy writing for a magazine based in Boston, and selling fried dough, but sometimes, in bed at night, I close my eyes and dream about the glory days when I was on top. Then I drift off to sleep.
