Trace Your Footprints
By Missy

TITLE: Trace Your Footprints
PARTS: One of One
RATING: PG-13 For adult content
DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Â Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"
Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!

CATEGORY: Drama, Songfic
PAIRINGS: S/C; L/L
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: The gang deals with the Kennedy assassination

NOTES: Inspired by the Paul Brady song "The Island". Lyrical excerpts from the song C 1986 Paul Brady and Rondor Music (London)
****

Somewhere, the leaves were falling: it was November, the coldest month of the year.

Laverne had escaped from Bardwells for the afternoon, leaving Shirley to do the heavy work, and was digging into a roast beef sandwich at her father's restaurant when Squiggy burst into the room, saying something about President Kennedy....shot? He must have heard wrong, must have been crazy.

The grim look upon her father's face as he exited the kitchen, ashen beneath his ruddy complexion, told her more than she needed to know.

They gathered in the kitchen, around a tiny black-and-white set that Sara, one of the waitresses, had brought in. She was a native of Texas, and had been hoping to catch some glimpse of her family on the news, on the streets of Dallas.

Instead, they were shown the unblinking reaction of a thousand horrified Texans; kneeling and crying in the street, praying for the life of the young president, as though they had been stricken by death itself.

They say the skies of Lebanon are burning
Those mighty cedars bleeding in the heat
They're showing pictures on the television
Women and children dying in the street

Shirley Feeney had been eating a neglected and unwanted box of candy in the wrapping department; it was a slow time; mid-afternoon, just before the Christmas rush. There was an unsettled feeling within her stomach, attributable to this lull, which was certain to be followed by the bustle and rush of the holiday shopping season.

Bored, she decided to take off and see if anything major was happening in electronics.

"Shirl?" She heard Carmine's voice, calling for her. His eyes were hollow and his touch almost desperate as he reached her in the middle of apparel.

"Carmine! What are you doing here?!"

"Shirl, ya gotta sit down somewhere...I'll take ya to furniture."

"What in heaven is wrong? Is it Laverne? My mother?"

"No..." He steered her into electronics, to the TV department. Her eyes focused on sixty different television sets, all of them showing the same image, the same situation.

And we're still at it in our own place
Still trying to reach the future through the past
Still trying to carve tomorrow from a tombstone...

Lenny Kosnoski stared out of the window of his ice cream truck, boredom clouding his emotions, watching the world peter by at a snail's pace. He tapped his horn as he sung down a cul de sac, and the merry, jangling tune of "The Candy Man" began playing. He smiled; that song never failed to cheer him up. It still felt a little stupid, trying to sell ice cream while kids were in school, but he did tend to make a bit of money off of housewives who wanted to be waiting for their children with an ice-cream cone when they came home from school.

He pulled to a stop at the approach of an immaculately coifed woman, who had been sitting on the steps of her home. The closer he came to her, the more clearly he could see her tears.

"I need...four cones of chocolate..." She sniffled, pressing money into his hand. He refused it gently.

"I ain't gonna take money from ya, not when yer in such a bad way.." He climbed into the back of his truck to retrieve the cones.

"You're going to have to, sir. The whole world's going to be in a bad way for a very long time."

He paused, nearly dropping a plucked scoop of chocolate which he had carefully pressed to the cone. "What's goin' on?"

The young woman gingerly accepted each cone with him as he proffered them to her. She could barely speak through the wrenching strength of her sobs.

"President Kennedy has been shot."

They're raising banners over by the markets
Whitewashing slogans on the shipyard walls
Witchdoctors praying for a mighty showdown
No way our holy flag is gonna fall

"We've got to bomb something!" Proclaimed the tall, muscular brunet, pounding his fist into his palm for emphasis. Rhonda Lee rolled her eyes, nibbling at a salad. The walls of her trailer were thinner than cardboard; she had heard the fatal words spoken; 'Kennedy' and 'shot' and 'may be dead'." Silly scriptwriters; there was no way they could possibly clear that with the White House.

"It's just a movie, silly," She laughed, "There's no way in the whole wide world we can afford to 'bomb' anything!"

He seemed surprised, "You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"Kennedy was assassinated."

Every hair stood up upon the back of her neck, "What?"

"He was shot in the head, and Walter Kronkite just said..."

She left the trailer

Now I know us plain folks don't see all the story
And I know this peace and love's just copping out

When they pronounced President Kennedy dead, Frank DeFazio had shouted, pounding his fists into an empty sink in frustration. His wife, Edna, began talking him down, trying to eliminate his anger. He said that she didn't understand; Kennedy was the only kid he'd ever voted Democratic for; he'd believed in some politician for the first time in his life, and his little girl wasn't the only one who had...

Laverne sat, staring at the screen, disbelief the only emotion she could register. Then, guilt washed over her; she had voted for Kennedy because of his sex appeal, his pretty hair and teeth. Never had she thought of him as wholly human; a man with children and a grieving wife, whose dress was now coated in his brain matter. Suddenly, the power of her own revulsion sent her to her feet.

"Pop, I need some air.."

And he said he understood, and Squiggy, shrunken down in his seat as the hours had wended by, announced that she didn't have to worry, he would look after 'Jay and Mrs. Babbish'. And Frank proclaimed that he needed to get back to work; the world was still spinning, and there were hungry people who needed to be fed in the dining room.

Laverne knew this; and, mechanically, the chefs and waitresses of Cowboy Bills had robotically continued to do their duty. The stunned, tear-stained faces of the diners sitting around, eating their Bronco Burgers as though they had no sense of taste.

As she exited the restaurant, she bumped face-first into Rhonda. The blond was spattered with tears, and her speech was frantic, "Rhonda heard something about President Kennedy....tell me it's not true, Laverne..."

"I can't, Rhonda." The tall blond woman slumped in the doorway. Then, boldly, she spoke, "What're you doin' here? Ain't ya got some big part in a movie?" Laverne knew she was being brusque; she didn't care, for the only thing she really yearned for was solitude.

"Rhonda," She quickly, and unbelievably, corrected herself, "I wanted to be with my friends."

Laverne let her friend into the restaurant, but didn't return to the kitchen.

As though by magic, an ice cream truck was parked at the curb.

And how this twisted wreckage down on main street
Will bring us all together in the end

Carmine and Shirley sat, nestled tightly together on a couch in the Bardwells furniture department, just holding onto one another as tightly as they could. Around them, Bardwells was shutting down; surely, no one was in the mood for shopping on a day like this. No one really had the heart to tell the young couple that the store was closing. The manager, who recognized little Shirley Feeney from wrapping, left the door unlocked. Surely, on a day like this, even criminals wouldn't be out.

And still, the young couple held on.

And we'll go marching down the road to freedom...

Laverne and Lenny ended up on a beach, a few miles away from the Laurel Vista house. The wind whipped harshly around them; at their feet, the tide was rolling in. She was talking; babbling, actually, frantically, as though she could stave off the reality of what had happened, and he followed, tracing her movements through the shallow, smooth, coastline.

"...An' now I don't know what the point is." She said, "I thought Kennedy was gonna be around forever."

"But nothin's forever, Laverne," He glumly announced.

"That's not true!" She harshly proclaimed, "Friends are forever."

"Oh yeah?" He snapped, "Show me!"

It was childish; much of their relationship was, or had been at some point; one was always throwing down a gauntlet for the other to catch. And Laverne, being emotionally aggravated, seeking the comfort of knowing that she was, indeed, alive, kissed Lenny full on the mouth.

He didn't push her away...reacted only with his full passion. With one gesture, every pain was breached; every fear. The world was settling down to a chaos-filled night, and as Vice President Johnson was sworn into office, Laverne DeFazio sank to the sand beneath the weight of her best guy friend, proving to herself that she had permanence in her hand, even if she wasn't willing to admit it.

And, as the surf pounded away, as they heedlessly proved their love, the world throbbed on, regardless of their passion, regardless of their pain.

But Hey! Don't listen to me!
This wasn't meant to be no sad song
We've heard too much of that before
Right now I only want to be here with you
Till the morning dew comes falling
I want to take you to the island
And trace your footprints in the sand
And in the evening when the sun goes down
We'll make love to the sound of the ocean



The End!













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