The next stop on Fender’s Magical Mystery Tour was three blocks from Pike’s Fish Market. I did not catch a fish, but I did watch a guy catch one. The slime on the scales shimmered in the morning light. Raw sea stench. The smiling faces of people happy to be alive. 

            Johnny’s Used Goods was a pawn shop that no longer pawned goods. According to the framed newspaper clipping inside the front door, Johnny’s Used Goods was founded in 1911 as John’s Pawn Shop before doubling as a bootlegger’s haven from 1920 to 1925. It was raided and shut down in 1926, eventually reopening in 1935 as Johnny’s Used Goods.

            There were two more columns of text, but the door kept opening and closing, the bell above it jingle bell rocking. The front was sectioned into three areas, left to right: tables with boxes of record albums; glass cases with movie, television, and advertisement memorabilia; and tables with sports trading cards in binders and lunch boxes with no price tag. Everything for a price. Boxes beneath the tables stored old magazines like National Geographic, TV Guide, and Playboy. The left wall had old metal signs for Pennzoil and Mountain Dew and Old Route 66. Glass beer mirrors for Budweiser and Schlitz and Old Milwaukee reflected my shaggy hair. Vintage clocks hung from the walls set to random times: 3:12, 12:24, 11:11. 

            Make a wish.

            “You make a wish.” 

            I’d stopped wondering what people thought when I whispered to James. 

            Already did. 

            “For what?”

            If I tell you, it won’t come true. Plus, you already know.

            I didn’t, but I didn’t have time for that.  Further back, behind the cash register and up a step, was the library. It was double the size of the front, with shelves lining the walls and five rows, labeled: Literature, Non-Fiction, Self-Help, Military, Children’s. I didn’t know where to start. 

            Ask for Peach.

The joint was busy. People tend to move like turtles in thrift stores. The line at the register was four deep with the door more a turnstile than gateway. The kid working the register chewed bubblegum and looked like he’d recently signed his classmates’ yearbooks with “Have a great summer!” and “Good luck at Tech!” I flipped through the Y-Z album box while I waited. Yanni. Yoko Ono. Zac Brown Band. Ziggy Marley. ZZ Top. 

“Good morning! How can I help you?” 

I underestimated the kid and how many exclamation points he added to his yearbook messages. I also knew the answer to my question before I asked it. 

“This may sound random, but is there a Peach around? I was told to ask for her.” I sensed grumbles in the growing line behind me. “Maybe she’s not working today?”

The kid waved the next person to the register, effectively pushing me to the side. “Sorry, there’s no Peach. It’s just me, my sister, our mom, and our grandparents. Maybe a different store?”

            “Maybe. Thanks.”

            I stepped into the library. Ask for Peach. I didn’t see any signs for Georgia Peaches hanging from the walls. There was no Peach Schnapps mirror. I searched the health and nutrition shelf for books on fruit. One, titled 100 Ways to Eat Fruit, had a note inside the cover: “To Jerry– This book saved my life. I hope it saves yours.” That it was on a shelf at Johnny’s Used Goods left the question painfully unanswered. 

            I shimmied around a couple in matching pink rompers to check the Travel section. There was no Georgia guide, but there was a book on all things Atlanta with a picture of Jimmy Carter holding a baseball. It was published in 1997 and would make an interesting comparison to a string of current Yelp reviews on places around Atlanta. 

            The cooking section yielded zilch. Likewise for business and sports. I gave up on the library and scanned the store from a different vantage point. The line had shrunk to a father with his son holding a Knight Rider lunch box full of Topps Baseball cards, a guy in a Mariners hat clutching a stack of Playboys, and a short guy with a red beard reading the back of Prince’s Purple Rain album. 

            I cut in front of the man with the Playboys who had placed a smaller TV Guide on top of the stack to hide whoever it was attached to the long legs and stilettos. The G box of albums had to have it. Garbage. Garth Brooks. Gene Autry. I flipped back. No Georgia Satellites. No change in my pocket going jing-a-ling-a-ling.

            My head swelled from the hangover. Sweat dripped from my armpits. A fan blew hot air from the corner by the trading cards. And video games. 

            “Duh.” I hurried around the glass cases to the table with a Sega Dreamcast, a power glove, a binder of Nintendo GameCube discs, a folded power pad, and a three-tiered tower of Nintendo cartridges, including a slot above each cartridge for the instruction booklet. A note taped to the tower read “Purchased”. 

            “Can I help you, sir?” the kid asked while entering the cost of a baseball card. “George Brett, huh? Two first names.” 

            “I’m all set.” I ran my finger down the stack of games. “I found Peach.” I pulled out Super Mario Bros. 2 and the instruction booklet. The cartridge had Mario on the front, holding a vegetable in his hand. There was no note on the back. The instruction booklet was in mint condition. Past the golden Nintendo seal of quality, past the table of contents, past the story of Super Mario Bros. 2, I reached page five, instructing how to select which character you wanted to play. Mario. Luigi. Toad. Or Princess Toadstool. She was called Princess Peach in Japan, but English-language versions of Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2 called her Toadstool. The first usage of Peach came in Yoshi’s Safari, released in 1993, a game I rented but never owned. She later used Toadstool and Peach in a letter to Mario in Super Mario 64 but signed it “Peach”. Don’t ask me how I remember this stuff. The older I get, the more I forget. I knew this stuff because Dad knew it. We were interested in the same things until we weren’t. 

            Page six of the instruction booklet had a yellow post-it note stuck to it. “Check Two Towers.” I carefully returned the booklet and game into their slots and beelined it for the T section under literature. The kid at the register ogled over a Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck card. There were three copies of The Two Towers. I took the one in the middle under the purchased sign and flipped to Chapter 9: Shelob’s Lair. Another yellow post-it was stuck over a passage circled in black ink: 

“It seemed light in that dark land to his eyes that had passed through the den of night. The great smokes had risen and grown thinner, and the last hours of a sombre day were passing; the red glare of Mordor had died away in sullen gloom. Yet it seemed to Frodo that he looked upon a morning of sudden hope. Almost he had reached the summit of the wall. Only a little higher now. The Cleft, Cirith Ungol, was before him, a dim notch in the black ridge, and the horns of rock darkling in the sky on either side. A short race, a sprinter’s course and he would be through!”

The Post-It note listed an address in San Francisco. I folded it and put it in my wallet. I walked past the kid ringing up cards. The man with the Playboys had found a chair and was flipping through the TV Guide. The bearded guy with the Prince album inspected the tower of Nintendo games. 

            “Onward,” I said, jingling through the door.