Sid

[KB.]

Sid stretched out as he woke up from the usual dream; it was the same dream he had been having for years, almost every night. It always started with him in a big room filled with friends and old loves; and it progressed to him seeing those people disappear one after another until only he was left. As the dream, it was far too familiar to be called a nightmare at this point, as it ended he saw an open field; it was autumn. The leaves were bright orange and blood red; they covered the ground in patches like the beard of a teen age boy. He could see a perfectly rectangular hole in the ground up ahead. He would walk up to the edge of the grave look down and see the casket, just an old wooden box. He would always look around and notice the sad absence of anyone; and then he would look at the head stone. It had his name, and his birth date, but the death date was always blank. Thank the good Lord for small miracles; even in dreams. The only nights he didn’t have the dream were the nights he was too drunk to remember what a dream even was. He cussed himself for staying sober the night before.

Sid made his way outside and grabbed his pack of smokes from the window sill; he lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. As he stood on his back porch and leaned over the fence he looked to his left and saw the steeple of the Lutheran church, he smelled the pizza cooking at the carry-out joint next door and he heard the bell ring at the school that was one side of the alley he took to leave his apartment. It was cool, almost nine in the morning. He finished the vice and walked back inside, left the door open to bring some fresh air inside. He sat down at his computer and turned some music on; he figured he would skip breakfast and just get some lunch down the street in a hour or two when the bar opened up for the day. He slowly got up and took his shirt off, and headed to the bathroom. He needed to shave; both his face and his head. Sid looked at himself in the mirror; too damned skinny was all he saw. There had been a time when he couldn’t stand to look at himself in the mirror, and now he was getting that way again. From one extreme to another. He saw the old tattoos, one his old nickname in black Roman style letters, and one an almost neon shade of red; it was the Chinese symbol for Loyalty. There had been six of them who had gotten that tattoo; he hadn’t seen any of them in a long damn time. He looked out of his window at the Dali like representation of a place he used to know; he didn’t imagine he would ever see any of them again. He heard Curtis Mayfield singing “Be Thankful for What You Got” in the living room; he almost swayed a little to the music.

Sid was the only one of the travelers who stayed in town. Ishmael used to but he had been banished, tossed out like yesterdays trash by folks who you never really saw. He had been here longer than anyone; and it just didn’t seem right that he was left out in the cold so to speak. Thadd was never anywhere but that car of his, Sid didn’t even think he slept. The three of them were different than the rest of the people here. They were far different than the ones who you never really saw, and even different from the people who were more than bit players. The three of them were called the travelers, they were constantly looking for a way out; and even though Jolene made it a weekly ritual to try and get old Ish on her motorcycle with promises of leaving; she really wasn’t trying to get away.

Sid cut his hair and shaved; he got in the shower and let the cold water stream around him as he put his hands on the top of the shower door and leaned in towards it. His head hurt, and he needed badly to figure out what was wrong with him. People in this place got sick, but he was withering up, and not so slowly. He hated it; he had always been a pretty big guy, sometimes way too big. It had kept him out of a lot of trouble; now his bones stuck out, and he felt vulnerable to the world around him. He finished up in the shower and dried off using a towel that was in bad need of being washed.

As he dressed he frowned at the loose fitting clothes; everything was too big these days. The world, this place, and these clothes; they were all far too big. He looked over at the clock and saw it was only a little passed ten o’clock. It would only take him five minutes to walk to the bar, and it wouldn’t open till eleven. He figured if Jolene was there she would open the door for him and let him in anyway. He re-tied his shoes and locked the door behind him as he turned west and headed up the block.

Jolene was wiping the bar top down; she would have to open the door soon, and let the regulars wander in like ghosts on some damp moor straight out of a horror movie. She looked out of the east window and saw Sid walking up the sidewalk; he stopped at the paper machine to get his daily crossword. She made her way around the bar and went to open the door for him. She had it open and waiting as he walked up the three steps into the place.

Sid, walked slowly up the sidewalk, looked around at the troublesome reproductions of the store fronts and apartments that had been his home some time ago. It was like he was living it all over again, except this time he knew the answers, and the outcomes. None of these fakes had anything about them that could make them true. None of the apartments held the homes of his old friends from St. Louis. The bar was the worst of it all. It had Jolene, who used to be someone else, and she sometimes remembered him, and sometimes she didn’t. Even she was not the same; she had changed when she picked her name. All of her had changed. There was no one else in that place that was even close to what had been his center, his home, in that city before he got here. He stopped at the newspaper machine and placed two quarters inside in return for a crossword puzzle that would hopefully keep the other words out of his head for a little while. Just a few moments respite was all he wanted.

He turned to walk up the three steps into the bar, and as he looked up he saw Jolene looking at him, smiling, with the door open. It was early and she must have stayed sober; she wasn’t changing from one woman to the next right in front of his eyes. Sid thought to himself it was too bad Ishmael had lost his eye sight; he would have loved to see her in the mornings after a night without rum and coke. “Good morning Sid, how was your night”? ‘Dream filled as usual, I see you stayed in last night, good. Try and do it more often”. “Mind your business Sid; I’m not your burden to carry anymore”. “Good enough Jolene, fix me a drink, White Russian – tall”.

Sid opened the crossword and lit a cigarette; he needed some glasses badly, but he struggled on to read the clues. He got one word down, and then a second. His head started hurting again and he put the pen down and decided to unravel the puzzle of his drink instead. He looked to his right as someone he didn’t know walked in and sat down in the far corner, he was an older man and knew where the menus were kept. Sid hadn’t seen him in before, but maybe he usually came later in the day. Jolene walked over to him and asked if he was ready to order; she went back to the bar and filled a glass with ice water, and took it to the older man, and told him to take his time; just let her know when he was ready. Sid looked at Jolene and she made him another drink. She had always known how to make a good White Russian.

Sid heard the door open again and watched as another person whom he had never seen before entered into the bar. This person was a stark contrast to the previous. She looked familiar but in an almost forgotten about way. She looked around as she walked in and headed towards him; he picked his spot because it was usually safe from people crowding his elbow room. He didn’t mind one bit that this fun sized woman was headed straight for him.

She sat down, pulled out some rainbow colored glasses; they looked like cheaters. The kind you get at a drug store for about four dollars, not prescription; they just magnified things a bit. He watched as she grabbed the crossword and his pen. She frowned a bit, and looked at him, “What is this letter, you write funny”. Sid thought about answering, but figured it was rhetorical as she looked away and started filling in some answers. He saw Jolene looking over with an amazed stare. Sid took a moment to look at this woman; she was short, not much over five feet, fun sized was the perfect way to describe her. Her hair was as black as a starless city night. Like the sky when he was in Houston. Her skin was kissed by the sun; she looked so very healthy the way it shined even in this dark, hazy room. Her eyes were a deep brown that matched the bar top. She looked up at him with the glasses on the tip of her cute little nose. “What are you looking at that is making your eyes tell a story to me”? Sid was a little surprised, no one talked like that; did they? Her voice and her words; sweet and Southern, dusky. She sounded like an old Southern Baptist benediction hymn. She had brought him back home in his mind in the span of seconds. Just a few words had done something in his mind that he had said he would never do again. He was back where he had been before he found this place one lonely night. Shake it off Sid he said to himself. Shake it off.

Time slowed down in his head, how could he answer this question she had asked? The truth, the whole story, would take a decade to tell. War and Peace would look like a Dr. Seuss sized book by the time he was done. So he did what he always did when he had to say what was on his mind out loud. He just mumbled something about nothing, and motioned for another drink. She moved closer to him, he could feel the warmth from her; it made his throat close up. The drink wouldn’t go down; it was like she was doing it on purpose. He got up and went to the restroom, at about ten paces his throat relaxed and he swallowed what was waiting. He walked into the wash room and turned the water on, splashed cold relief across his face, and rubbed his head with both hands like he would do when he got nervous. He looked at himself in the mirror and wondered what damn story his cursed eyes had been telling. He almost wished he could just pluck them out sometimes; take them and give them to Ishmael. You for damn sure couldn’t see any stories in those eyes, or whether or not he was telling the truth or hiding from it.

As he walked back out Jolene asked him if he was ready for lunch and he nodded his head. He noticed the space between that dark haired woman and his spot next to the wall had gotten smaller. He sighed as the radio started playing “The Space Between”, he didn’t need surrealism in his life right now. He sat down and told Jolene to fix him a glass of tea for his lunch. “What are you having to eat”? Sid looked at Ms. Fun Sized, “Crispy chicken sandwich, with bacon and chips”. “Sounds good, I ordered the buffalo chicken sandwich, with chips. Do you know if it comes with a pickle”? Sid nodded and told her it did. She smiled and looked back down at the crossword, the glasses were about to slip off of her nose. He had no idea what possessed him to do it, but he reached out and gently pushed them back up. She didn’t move; she didn’t even flinch. Jolene brought him his tea, and his space between something carbonated. He noticed the man who had come in earlier was drinking tea now with his pizza. He looked pleased, but the tea was almost gone. Jolene looked at him, “Sid can you go up stairs and grab some more tea; I’m out down here, and no one else will be in for awhile. I need to keep an eye on the food”. He carefully moved his chair closer to the wall and stepped around his lunch companion slowly. He headed up stairs and looked around for the tea; he found it and brought it downstairs sat it on the edge of the bar and carried the empty container back up stairs.

When he got back down the second time he noticed the food was out; he was starving and watching the woman sitting in his space made his mouth water. He pulled his bar stool out and sat back down. He noticed she had more chips than he did, and her piece of chicken had to have been at least twice the size of his. He poured hot sauce over the chips and added far too much salt to them. He moved the chips around looking for his pickle; it was nowhere to be seen; he looked over as his neighbor was cutting her sandwich in half, and saw two pickles in her basket. So she stole his crossword, made him tell stories with his eyes, caused his throat to tighten at the taste of his favorite drink, made his mouth water with thoughts of after midnight wall crawling pleasure, and now she had kidnapped his damn pickle. “Where the hell is my pickle Jolene”? “I don’t know Sid; I put it in the basket, under the chips. I know how much it annoys you to dig it out”. He looked across to his right as this woman took a bite out of a pickle; she looked up winked at him, and laughed.

They ate in silence; the only thing making any noise was the gleam in the dark haired woman’s eyes every time she took a bite form one of the two pickles. As she finished her lunch she smiled at him, said she would see him again soon, and placed a twenty on the bar. He watched her walk out, and shook his head.

“Who was that Sid”? “I have no idea Jolene, but she stole my damn pickle”. “She was crowding you a bit over there in your little corner”. “Yeah she was, but it was fine. I didn’t mind”. Sid reclaimed his crossword and noticed something written in the margin of the page. “She won’t ever have flowers in her hair, at least not in this place. That ain’t the woman you used to know. No flowers, not here, ever”. He read it over and over; it made perfect sense, but he didn’t understand how she had known to even think about writing something like that.

He thought about paying up himself and heading out but the door opened again and Ishmael walked in. Sid headed to him and grabbed him by the elbow; he noticed Thadd walking back outside to his old Ford.

[KB.]

horatio;649982 wrote: Man, these Sid/ Ishmael pieces may very well turn into a Magnus Opus of splendiferousness. It’s wry, humorous, insightful, and leaves me wondering what the Sam hill kind of woman would steal a fella’s only pickle, then turn around and eat it right in front of him like that. Jeez.

This is good stuff guy!


Thank you Horatio. Did I call these a Magnus Opus; because that is what I called my hopes for it else where.