Now and Laters

It was the year that his learning disability grew legs. Outstretched in front of a coloring book, he watched as his friends learned to decipher the unfathomable scroll of glyphs on the page. They soaked up words and sentences while he repelled them. It was his first lesson in abject difference. Never quite like the others, there was now a name for his isolation. All was not completely lost, however. There was the thing with the Now and Laters .

It might have been his lifeline, his escape hatch from a stunted reality.

It was probably the bulging pockets that spoiled the ruse. Surely one of the teachers must have noticed. Each morning before school he would stop at the five-and-dime and cradle the quarter between anxious fingers before buying the pack of *Now and Laters, a *chewy candy that came in a grouping of ten with each individual joyously cradled in its own separate wrapper.

Scarcity and Abundance

The relative abundance of Now and Laters at the shop struck a stark contrast to the scarcity once that school bell rang. He might not have known much about deciphering the dancing words on a page, but scarcity he understood.

Word quickly spread through the school yard. A new candyman was in town and his fame was growing. He bought a pack of 10 for a quarter, and then sold each separately for $0.10 a piece. After a week he was able to buy two packs each morning. Then three. Then four.

This was before the age where backpacks were required, so his two front pockets would have to do. The bigger his business grew, the more his pockets bulged.

The pockets must have given him away eventually. Or maybe it was the sight of so many ruddy cheeks chomping after recess. Ironically, most of the kids were reduced to reading in garbled tones as they tried to unlock their jaws from the gooey, sugary glue that had now overtaken them.

The Fall Of and Empire

The announcement came towards the end of the school year. The continuous chewing of raucous children interrupted by the principal piped in over the loud-speaker. There would no longer being any selling or buying of personal items among students.

The boy peered down at his newly emptied pockets, and silently cursed to himself. Put out of business by school regulations. As the other kids craned their necks backward to look at him and snigger, he realized that he was no longer the outcast.

His reading had improved greatly since the beginning of the year.

He would be just fine with or without his *Now and Laters *empire.

Now and Later

Now he was a child with a learning disability struggling to read. Later he would become a writer of poetry and books. A doctor.

Now he was the candy king of his school, later he would become a business owner, a side hustler, an investor.

Now he was a student, a learner, a traveler on a path to adulthood and the world of employment. Later he would become financially independent and work to forge a new unfettered path.

But his dreams. His dreams would never change.

A few quarters rolling through his fingers and a pocket bulging with product.

And a schoolyard full of perspective sales.