Vintage Genie

Pop bottles rattled in the Red Flyer wagon that was more a brown with rust than red, as Adam Preston diligently drug it along behind him. He had been out all morning, after he gobbled down his breakfast of cereal and a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, searching for pop bottles. Now the sun was coming to its zenith, marking the noon hour, and he was hot and sweaty, but he was content with his haul for the day.

Pop bottle hunting was a great summer pastime for kids of the fifties. Not only did it keep them occupied and out of trouble, but the reward of cashing them in was worth it. Then a kid had the choice of spending it immediately or saving it up for the weekend and the movies. Adam couldn’t think of a better place to spend a summer day than in the coolness of a movie theatre, watching the cartoon fest and a Disney double feature. Even better was getting to sit beside Wanda Kinghill.

He would share his popcorn with her and buy her a cola. They would sit side by side, occasionally hold hands, or Wanda would hide her eyes on his shoulder when the wicked step-mother changed into a witch in Snow White. Those days were the best for Adam.

Adam liked Wanda from the first time he laid eyes on her in their first grade classroom. Mrs. Brown had put the class in alphabetical order and Wanda ended up sitting across from him on his right. She was so pretty with her shiny, brown hair, wearing a blue pinafore over a crisp, white blouse accented with a blue ribbon to keep her hair off her face. Her deep brown eyes always reminded him of Bambi, one of his favorite Disney cartoon characters.

Now the one thing that Adam had to do before he could cash in his bottles was to wash them off. Mr. Patterson at the Piggly-Wiggly store was a stickler and refused to take any dirty pop bottles from the kids. The ten-year-old boy dutifully drug his wagon into the ESSO gas station, making sure to pull it over the black pneumatic hose that would ding inside the station. His dad popped his head out from under the hood of the car he was working on and waved to Adam. Adam waved back and headed around to the side of the station where the air and water hoses were. He sat on the curb, used the stunted, green water hose to clean each bottle, and made a mental tally of how much he would get for them. About the tenth bottle was when things got interesting.

Adam had almost missed it while combing the edge of the road for bottles that got tossed out of passing cars. Indeed, the roadside was a Mecca for pop bottles if you could get there before anyone else. It was the glint of green glass in the early morning sun that had caught his attention. He figured by the color it was either a 7-Up or Canada Dry bottle while he pulled away over-grown weeds and bits of paper-mache-like newspaper clinging to the glass. He was thrilled when the size proved to be one of those quart bottles that were worth a nickel. When he finally freed it, there was only the one spot along the neck of the bottle that was free of dried mud. He placed it in the wagon with the others.

Adam now turned the bottle in his small hands and noticed that it was rather heavy for an empty bottle. He gave it a little shake, heard a small thudding within, but another noise distracted him. He could have sworn it was a voice. He looked around and saw no one. Thinking it was his dad playing a joke on him he said, “Okay, Dad, that’s a good joke! C‘mon out!”

When his dad didn’t pop around the corner laughing, Adam looked closely at the bottle. Using the hose, he rinsed off the caked on mud, slowly revealing the true bottle. There were no 7-Up or Canada Dry logos on the glass. In fact, the only thing on it was a small crescent moon and a star in faded gold gilt. On closer inspection of the mouth of the bottle, what he had thought was mud packed in it was actually a cork tamped in pretty deep.

Adam set the bottle down on the curb and looked for something to pry out the cork. He lucked out when he found a small piece of a wire coat hanger. As carefully as he could, with the large bottle braced between his legs, he twisted the wire into the center of the cork like he had seen his dad do on New Years to open a bottle of champagne. He wiggled the wire back and forth while he slowly pulled. The cork gradually loosened. Before he had it fully pulled out, it popped out of its own accord, followed by an all-consuming amount of black smoke. The small boy coughed and waved his arms in an attempt to clear away the smoke.

A deep, resonating voice spoke from somewhere just in front of him, “Ahhh! Free at last!”

Adam blinked his burning eyes, and managed to focus on a pair of black and white shoes with long pointy toes. His eyes moved up to a pair of rather baggy, green, pinstriped pants. Just above a pair of knees, was an open, matching long coat that lead up to a bright yellow shirt sporting a pair of green suspenders. A thin, green tie was tied around a thick neck that led up to a burly goateed face. A strange wide-brimmed,floppy-looking hat covered the man’s apparently bald head. A yellow feather stuck jauntily from a green hatband. The guy looked frightening and ridiculous all at the same time.

Adam had seen a similar suit in his mom’s photo album. It was a black and white picture of Uncle Percy. He believed Mom called it a zoo suit or something like that. Why anyone would want to wear an outfit like that to the zoo was beyond him.

“Who are you?” Adam asked in a timid voice.

Pulling himself up to full height and crossing his arms in front of his chest, the man replied, “Why, I am the genie of the bottle! You have freed me, little master. To reward you, I will grant you one wish.”

Adam screwed his face up, stood on the curb to give himself a little more height and said, “You don’t look like a genie. And don’t you mean three wishes?”

“You’ve been reading too many Ali Baba stories, kid. We wear whatever is the style when we come out of our prisons. And we only grant one wish these days. Keeps problems to a minimum for the wisher,” the genie replied matter-of-factly. “So, what will it be? All the money in the world? Riches beyond imagining? World peace? The cure for polio?” The genie, wearing a churlish smile on his broad face, stared down at the small boy.

Adam flashed his own know-it-all smile. “You kind of missed the current style by thirty years or so,” he quipped.

The genie scowled, “Never mind, make your wish! I have a lovely lady waiting for me in Constantinople!”

The boy didn’t have a clue where Khan-stands-in-opal was -- Nebraska, maybe -- but he really did want to get out from under the glare of the genie. He thought for a bit as the genie impatiently tapped his two-toned wing-tip.

“Okay,“ Adam finally says, “I want Wanda Kinghill to fall in love with me when we are old enough.”

The genie tipped his head to scrutinize the boy, “You sure that is what you want?”

Adam nodded his head. “Yup! That’s all I want!”

“Okay, kid.” The large man waved his hand with a flourish. “You have your wish! With another wave of his hand, a flying carpet popped out of nowhere. The genie stepped on and was immediately swept into the sky, leaving Adam standing gape-mouthed.

Once the carpet was above the clouds and out of sight, the genie wondered, "Why would a boy want a transvestite to fall in love with him when he was twenty-six?"