Mr. Watermelon

A fictional story about an old man and a youth summer camp (plus a bonus story from Jim Latham)

Photo by Floh Maier on Unsplash

Every Friday at the Blue Skies youth summer camp program, an old man in a pickup truck pulled into the parking lot. Nobody really knew who he was. He wasn’t anyone’s grandpa or teacher. He didn’t own any of the businesses in town. He was just some old guy with a big smile and a truck bed filled with watermelons.

“Mr. Watermelon!” the kids would all shout from a distance. Some were in the middle of a dusty game of kickball on the field, while others waved from the pavilion, making tie-dye tee shirts and twisting pipe cleaners into animals.

He waved back to them before beginning his routine. He pulled out two large folding tables, set them up, then took out big wooden serving bowls and cutting boards from the passenger’s seat. At long last, he grabbed his knife and the melons, then started slicing and dicing the delectable fruits.

Some of the kids waiting in line for their turn to kick stood against the fence watching him. Their fingers interlocked with the chain link and their faces pressed against it. Old Mr. Watermelon was a wonder to watch with that knife. There was something mesmerizing in the way he went about his business. His hands – the knife – never stopped moving. In mere minutes, half a dozen watermelons had been cut up in a variety of ways: cubes, triangles, half-circles. The last thing he’d do was dig out tiny balls with an ice cream scooper and plop them into the final bowl.

Some of the camp counselors set out plastic forks, plates, and napkins, some extra serving spoons, and then Ms. Jamison, the camp coordinator, blew her whistle for the first group. The kids on the field let out a loud whoop and sprinted over to get in line.

It didn’t take long for the entire camp, counselors included, to wind their way through the line. Many of them came back for seconds. It was around this time that the old man left his post. He meandered over to a young boy who sat alone, head down, doodling on the back of a paper plate.

“Don’t like watermelon?” the old man asked.

“Not really,” the boy replied.

“That’s a neat drawing there. Looks like a sunset over the ocean?”

“Something like that.” The boy’s voice was flat, emotionless. Sad.

The two sat in silence for a minute before Mr. Watermelon asked, “You all right, son? You seem upset.”

Like a dam breaking, the boy let out a wave of tears. He and the old man were off in the corner of the pavilion, so none of the other kids could see, but he still turned away to hide.

The boy tilted his head ever so slightly. “Just go away, please.”

 Mr. Watermelon nodded and offered a gentle smile. “Okay.” Then, in a quiet tone, he said, “Before I go, I just wanted to let you know that when I was seven years old my parents got divorced, too. It was awful. I felt all alone in this new, wicked world. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. But little by little, things started to get better. Don’t forget that, son.”

He patted the boy gently on the back and then headed toward his truck. Ms. Jamison mouthed “Thank you” and shot him a sympathetic look, then glanced over in the boy’s direction. He watched Mr. Watermelon leave.

From that week on, every Friday, the boy and the old man talked. It started with a conversation over a slice of watermelon, but it evolved into discussions about family, relationships, and life itself.

And on that final Friday, when the old man pulled into the parking lot to set up his tables one last time, he noticed something. Caleb, the boy, stood behind home plate. He wasn’t alone under the pavilion. It was his turn to kick. And when he did, he sent that red ball soaring into the outfield, absolutely screaming. Caleb rounded all the bases and came sliding into home, avoiding the ball as it flew in his direction.

Through the cloud of dust, Mr. Watermelon could see that the boy was laughing. It was enough to bring tears to his eyes.  

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Thanks so much for reading “Mr. Watermelon” — I hope you enjoyed it.

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And now, as promised, here is a bonus story from one of my favorite fiction writers on Substack: Jim Latham. If you don’t subscribe to his newsletter, Jim’s Shorts, be sure to check it out by clicking on the button at the end of the story.

“Small Town Rain” is included below, and here is a link to “Ellie’s Orange Roses” — another favorite of mine. Enjoy! Have a great weekend.

Small Town Rain by Jim Latham

I was standing on the street corner outside the Crossroads Bar looking at the road signs when a man walked up to me and introduced himself as Dundee Ragland. When we got done shaking hands, I looked back to the road signs. One said CR 19 and the other CR 54, and I could believe that, but I wasn’t sure if the name he’d given me was real or not. 

He was wearing broken-in Carhartts and a long-sleeve flannel shirt, work boots, and a wool hat. I decided I didn’t care about the name.

Right around then he asked me for a cigarette. I didn’t have one to give him, on account of how I don’t smoke, and I told him so. Instead of moving on down the road or stepping into the bar, he crossed his arms over his chest and directed his gaze at the street signs I’d been eyeing. Then he asked me what I was doing standing in the rain. 

It wasn't much rain. I was looking through it toward a bend in the road—County Road 54—that led into town. The town was in Colorado, near the Wyoming line, with one end snugged up against the foothills, the other facing the plains, and the middle sprawled carelessly along either side of an old highway that didn’t see much use anymore.

Past the bend in the road, I could see the soft glow of the few streetlights on the underside of the clouds. Closer in, a line of cottonwoods planted as a windbreak stood out against the dark sky. The leaves were turning and some were falling along with the rain into the tall grass growing out of the shallow ditches running along the sides of the road. 

I was looking at all that and thinking about winter when I answered. “Would you believe I’m not really sure?”

“Yeah, I’d believe that.” 

I looked to see if he was messing with me, but he wasn’t. We stood a while looking at the road signs and the trees and the rain falling onto the rusted farm implements parked in the corners of the fields. The air felt good, cold and clean. It was good to look through, good to breathe.

After a time the wind picked up and the rain started coming down harder.

“Well, I don’t know about you,” Dundee said, “but I’m thirsty. You want a drink?” Since he’d already opened the door, I walked through it.

Dundee bought a couple rounds and we kept talking. We were both wanderers, had more stories than possessions, worked seasonal jobs and moved around a lot. Most of our stuff stayed in basements belonging to friends and family. We’d been to some of the same places, at different times, and that was fun to talk about, for a minute.

Then the past ran out and we were faced with the present. 

Maybe the road was losing some of its allure now that we’d been enough places that some of them started seeming the same, or maybe it was the conversations with friends and brothers and sisters who were more and more often married or becoming parents had started getting less comfortable. Or maybe it was just that we were getting older and sleeping on floors and couches wasn’t as easy and comfortable as it once was. 

It wasn’t necessarily that we wanted off the road right then, that night, but I heard in his stories what I heard in mine: a creeping suspicion, almost a fear, that a time would come when we’d want to stop traveling, stop wandering, and find that it was all we knew, that having learned how to move and keep moving we’d lost the skills necessary to stay in one place.

Neither one of us said any of this aloud, of course, since we were just getting used to hearing it inside our own heads, but the thought hovered in the air over the bar, dampening our spirits. 

So Dundee didn’t look surprised when instead of accepting a third beer I shook his hand and walked out of the bar into the small town rain falling through a night that was warmer than the place I’d just been and cooler than where I was going next.

It was nice there between the mountains and the plains, and I had friends and family in the area, but it didn’t feel like home. Walking toward the car I’d borrowed from a friend, I wondered if I’d recognize home when I saw it, and I wondered if I’d been wrong all along — that home wasn’t something you found, but something you made.