The Pirates' Cooper II

As for my pay I was earning far more then I had ever expected to make when I was living on land. At first I saved my pay like my father, a thrifty man, had taught me. Unfortunately I soon set my behavior by the example of my companions and my savings disappeared. I took to gambling in my free time with the rest of the crew and several times did I lose the entirety of my pay in this way. When I didn’t lose all of my pay through bad luck with dice I lost it in taverns and brothels soon after we would put to shore. It didn’t matter where we landed, by the end of the week my money would be gone and even I couldn’t tell where. The only portion of my money that didn’t go this was the money that I set aside out of every pay to send to my brothers to assist in the support of my father. I couldn’t think of not helping them while I had money in my pockets and not even the prettiest girl in town could have pried that money from my hand. I might not consider my fathers house to be my home anymore but I still had my duty to him as his son.

I was in this destitute state one day and decided to take a walk down to the Sign of the Mermaid. It was one of those taverns that sits next to the harbor and thrives on the sea trade. Sailors found their way there when they were looking for work and captains found their way there when they we short on hands. It was also a good place to check and see that a captain you were considering sailing with treated his crew in a proper fashion. I had sailed with a bad captain once before and it was a mistake I never wanted to repeat if I had a choice. That night I heard that Captain Johansson was looking for an entire crew. He was a fresh new captain with a fresh new ship and no one really knew much about either of them but I needed the money so I went in search of the man at his lodgings.

I can’t say that I was impressed by Captain Johansson. He was too inexperienced and far too eager to prove himself. Such captains tend to be over eager to assert their authority as well. Had I been in a better position financially I would waited until I could find a better job but I was one meal away from starvation. Besides, who knew when there would be another ship, the industry was in a slump and people who had a job were holding on to them. I moved my sea chest on board that very night.

We sailed that very Friday which caused a bit of talk on board the ship. It is a well known fact that sailing on a Friday is bad luck but the captain dismissed our comments and declared he wasn’t going to fall behind schedule for a superstition. We raised our eyebrows at this but said nothing. It hadn’t got bad yet, it would and later people would say that we had all been punished for our foolish sailing day.

I had been right about the captain; he was a very overbearing man once we were at sea. The crew grew to hate him very quickly but there is very little that a crew can do at sea about their captain, or on land for that matter. The captain’s word is law and he reigns higher then God for most sailors, after all he can dictate that we work on Sundays and holds the power of life and death for those who disobey him. He is a man above the law and every sailor must acknowledge this. I just did my job and kept out of his way, I was lucky; my job meant that I rarely crossed his path. The only time that this wasn’t the case was when all hands was piped; it was then that I felt the lash across my back. I make a very poor sailor. My knowledge of ships continues to be only of their barrels and wood and when asked to assist in the working of one I made a very clumsy and slow hand. More then once did I feel the blows of the quarter master but I still got off better then most on that ship.

To be continued...

The Pirates' Cooper

I am sorry to leave off in the middle of a story, and I know I already posted a story with this title so let me explain. This is the kick off for National Novel Writing Month, and I participate every year. So I have yet to finish a complete novel in the month as it is and I sure don't have the time to also write a page a day of short stories. So I will post a page a day of my first Nanowrimo story instead. I had more pages then there are days in a month so I thought I would start posting now. Thank you for your understanding.

I watched as the ship disappeared into the distance with more despair then I can even begin to describe. At this point it would be better to just jump off the ship and drown myself. I had been on that ship two hours before, three hours ago it had been sailing peacefully through the waves and I had been going about my day to day business. I had been on better ships in the past but at the moment I would be willing to give up all payment and work twenty four hours a day until it reached port just to be back on it.

After such a dramatic declaration I suppose that it would be best to explain what had happened. I am only a normal man and unused to telling stories so I pray that the reader will excuse the clumsy and uneducated way that I tell my tale and will indulge me.

My father was a cooper and he taught my brothers and I well. I had three brothers but one died when he was twelve due to sickness and suddenly I was the youngest of the family. My father had a fine business but it couldn’t support three men so as we got older it became more and more obvious one of us would have to leave. There wasn’t any discussion about it, no one ever mentioned that belts had to be tightened and there wasn’t enough work for us all but we kept watching one another and it soon became obvious to me that I would be the one who would have leave. It was only natural since I was the youngest and the less experienced.

It wasn’t easy finding work in the city. There were already plenty of coopers around and many of them were looking for work. The money that could be made reflected this and even had someone been willing to hire a journeyman cooper I couldn’t have lived on what I would have been paid. I couldn’t let this stop my resolution to leave my fathers house though, I couldn’t be a burden on my brother any longer and so I wandered down to the docks. This was truly a last resort. Ships coming in and out of the harbor were always looking for coopers but it was hard work surrounded by hard men. It was only the thought of my brothers that enabled me walk up to a ships captain I had heard was looking for help and offer my services. I wasn’t sure if I was happy or not when he accepted me in spite of my inexperience. My brothers didn’t come to see me off but they did each give me a quick hug as I left the house for the last time and my father gave me a nod, a reward for having done the right thing. I never returned to that house.

The next few years were spent accustoming myself to the new world that I lived in. At first I only went on short voyages, around England nearby countries. As I grew more accustomed to life aboard merchant ships I traveled farther and farther from home. During this time I learned all that was expected of me. During the constant movement of the ship damage occurred to the barrels in the hold. It was my duty to replace destroyed casks and repair the ones that were damaged. I also sometimes helped the ships carpenter with his work and when all hands were called I had to report with the rest. For the most part I was in an enviable position however. While the sailors were forced battle all weather I was rarely forced to come above deck if I didn’t wish to. I was also able to keep slightly more regular hours which was a relief.

To be continued...

The Godfry Kidnapping

I realized when I was looking through the stories I have put on here that I have a lot about criminals and none about the enforcers of laws. I thought I would change that.

“Come out calmly, with your hands in the air,” I said, even though I didn’t expect the guy inside to actually listen to me, he didn’t. There were some things that they made us say even when it wouldn’t do any good. That was one of them. I mean it wasn’t like I was good at talking anyway, that wasn’t part of the job really. I was part of the kidnap squad of the city’s police force and most of the communication that went through my hands was either police reports or ransom notes, in both cases they were generally poorly written. Neither job, cop nor gangster, required a lot of literacy. I have to admit that most of the time I liked reading the ransom notes more, some of them were amazingly creative and it was always a challenge to think of ways to get around the conditions they would place on the delivery of the ransom money. I don’t want to make it seem like I was on the kidnappers side, ever, I hate kidnapping passionately but police reports have a form behind them that gangsters don’t have to follow.

“I don’t want to have to shoot,” I said, and I was telling the truth. Every time I opened fire I got an earful from the chief about alarming neighborhoods. There was also always the risk that I would accidentally shoot the kidnapped victim which would be a public relations nightmare.

I waited for some noise from inside the apartment I was facing but all was silent. Someone had responded to my knock a few minutes before so I knew I wasn’t on a wild goose chase but I wasn’t getting anywhere talking to someone who wouldn’t respond anyway. This was the only lead I had had on the kidnappers the whole week and I wasn’t about to let anything get in my way. I kept my gun in one hand as I tried the door handle with the other. The officers behind me tensed, ready to shoot if anyone tried to take my head off.

The room was empty, with a window at the far end of the hall open onto the fire escape. I swore, I hadn’t checked out the house enough, I hadn’t considered back ways that needed watching as well. Not that I had enough men to watch all of them even if I had thought of it. It wouldn’t change the fact that I was going to get a earful when I got back to headquarters. I could see a car pull out of the garage below me but I couldn’t shoot, I had no idea if the victim was in the car and while I was an amazing shot I couldn’t risk a stray bullet. All it would take was one and I could have the blood of an innocent on my hands.

“I got the license plate number,” said the man next to me. He was my second in command and as close to a friend as I had but I was in a foul mood and in no mood to have anyone talk to me. I whirled on him.

“What good do you think that will do George?” I snapped. “They’ll have changed them within three miles as likely as not. We’ve lost them.”

“Yes, sir,” said George, slipping the paper with the license number to a police officer next to him. It would be spread through the city police within the hour I was sure, even in my anger, George would see to it that it was looked for, just in case. He was meticulous while I was reckless, the perfect balance to my personality.

To be continued...

The Artist IV

Brent never considered himself to be a good judge of his own art but as he stepped back he couldn’t avoid the feeling of satisfaction of a job well done. It had taken him two weeks but it had been worth the effort. After all a part of that had been waiting for layers of paint to dry, which wasn’t really work. He wrapped the painting in brown paper to protect it from what the elements might throw at it, and once again ventured out of his lair. It was vanity on his part, he knew, to want to once again show a painting to someone who would appreciate it and have it displayed in the proper setting.

Brent reveled in the way that the women in the shop cooed over his painting, though he was a little concerned when they kept saying that it looked just like him. Though it had been a self portrait he hadn’t meant it to be too good. Still these had been the experiences he had dreamed of at one time; he had wanted nothing more then to have people praise his talent and now it was happening, again.

The winter streets seemed slightly more comfortable then they had for the last several months and Brent decided that rather then go back to his basement room right away like he usually did he would go out to eat. He had the money, though normally he hated to spend it, it seemed like a time of celebration some how though he couldn’t have said exactly what it was he was celebrating. It wasn’t really the new painting hanging in the gallery with the name Michael on the bottom and what he was assured really was his face looking at customers. Instead it was a feeling that he was celebrating, a feeling he hadn’t had in a long time. Like a dream Brent floated through dinner and drifted off for home.

Brent tried to run when he walked into the gallery a week later to find his agent looking at his self portrait thoughtfully, but he was far too late. The moment that he had walked into the art gallery the cage had been closed and the trap had been sprung. People who Brent recognized as close friends and family members came from all sides to block the exit and his agent turned to look at him.

“This is by far one of your better pieces of work. It was only by chance that I saw it of course. I still go through art galleries looking for talent. It’s a shame you didn’t sign it with your real name, it diminishes the value.”

“I don’t want to go back to that life,” Brent said, trying to back away from all of the familiar faces. The gallery owner seemed to be watching bemused.

“I understand it was stressful for you dear, we really should have found a psychologist for you, you have been having problems haven’t you?” asked his mother, trying to throw her arm around his neck. Brent ducked neatly away and found himself facing his best friend, who still had his cigarette in hand in spite of the no smoking sign on the door of the shop.

“That’s what they’re saying Brent, you know. They are saying that you’ve cracked, let the pressure get to you. That not everyone can be the greatest artist of our generation, and you let it get to you.”

“I suppose I did let the pressure get to me. Well I just don’t like it,” Brent admitted. “So I’ve left it, goodbye,” he tried to head for the door but his way was blocked.

“Your talent will find you out you know,” his agent said. “You can’t resist painting and you can’t resist sharing your paintings with the world. So long as you show such talent the world will find you and place you in a spot of importance.”

As they carried him away, Brent considered this. He paused only for a second to sign the self portrait with his real name and give the gallery owner permission to keep it before his was whisked away to wherever they kept truly talented artists. Except for one thing, Brent never painted again, he had reached his decision and if he would never be allowed his peace while painting he would surrender it. The self portrait still hangs in the gallery, insured for millions of dollars, as Brent’s last painting before he just sort of dried up, and arguably one of his best.

The Artist III

Brent now made his way to the art gallery through the frozen streets of the city, winding between the shadows of men who he failed to truly see. They were not people that he cared about; they were not part of his world. His world was small, and select and it allowed him to do as he pleased, which counted for a lot.

“You do yourself no justice selling things like this,” Brent said, running a hand down the frame of a low priced painting and looking at it critically. “I am not saying that I expect every one of your pieces to be done by masters but this looks like hotel art. I could have done better at twelve.”

“You’re an artist?” asked the owner of the gallery. She never argued with his appraisal of her art pieces, mostly because usually she agreed with them. She was not very surprised to hear him talk of doing some form of art; she had suspected it all along from the way that he talked about art. For him it seemed to be a type of love, he showed more interest in a painting then he ever showed in a person. Even now he was looking at the painting instead of her, even though they were having a conversation.

“I have done some painting,” Brent admitted, though the less people knew about him the happier he was.

“You should bring one of your pieces in for me to sell,” the gallery owner suggested. “It couldn’t hurt to try and I would be happy to sell it for you.” Brent considered this. He didn’t want anyone to see his work, he knew that he was good, but it was still drawing attention to himself. On the other hand he needed some new clothing and that cost money. He would also need some more paints and he knew that he couldn’t earn enough at pawnshops to get that sort of money. It was hard enough to find a pawnshop that would take his paintings at all. Most of them weren’t willing to take art of any sort. The ones that were, weren’t willing to pay much for the pieces. It would be a risk to his status but the more he thought about the more of a good move it seemed.

“I’ll bring in a painting for you to look at in a couple of weeks,” Brent promised the owner of the gallery, thinking of the blank canvass at home and what he could do with it. Ideas were already swirling through his head as he walked back to his easel in the basement of the abandoned building.

Brent realized that he hadn’t done a self portrait in a long time. Of course that would simply add to his chance of recognition but he doubted that too many people would see it or connect it to his face. It would give him something to work with. He didn’t own a mirror which helped comfort him. He was going to have to paint something from his memories, how he imagined himself, and whatever it was he saw in passing these days when he passed store windows. He doubted that it would look anything like him when he was done but it was something to do, and people tended to like pictures of people so long as they were done. They liked landscapes better but Brent and never painted just for the public and he was bored of landscapes. They were easy to mass produce if you didn’t care about quality but to do a good self portrait would be a true evaluation of his talent.

To be continued...

The Artist II

The oil pants were stacked next to the space heater so they wouldn’t freeze and get ruined. The paints were old and battered but well taken care of, speaking of a time when money had been spent in more plentiful amounts then it was now. Next to them was a series of brushes, carefully cleaned and arranged according to size. Brent used an old knife instead of a spatula, he found it worked just as well and he had never had any problem roughing it when he had to. He had known people in art school who had insisted on only the finest materials and had insisted that roughing it would damage the quality of the work. Brent had been willing to admit that good paints, over poor ones, and good canvas was important but he had become just as good with an old knife as one of the blunt spatulas they sold for artists to use. He liked to think of it as a testing of his boundaries and abilities as an artist that he could work on a short budget and in difficult conditions. Sometimes when he thought of the elaborate studios with their fancy lighting that he had been in he started to laugh.

Clothing was something of less importance to Brent then his paints but society frowned on not possessing any, and besides it was growing cold, so there was a box off to one side of his space that had some clothing neatly folded. When he wanted to wash them he would go to the laundry mat and search under the washers and driers until he found enough quarters to wash and dry his clothing. At one time he had just tried washing them and bringing them back to air dry but there hadn’t been enough air circulation to dry the clothes in his basement. They were not the clothing of a homeless man mostly because he didn’t want to look like one. He didn’t mind the lifestyle but he did mind being labeled and he really didn’t like being offered charity. That was one thing that he never did, he never begged, it didn’t seem right. He also didn’t like the way that people treated homeless people and had no interest in enduring that. When he got dressed in his slacks and button up shirt with his long over coat anyone on the street would think him just another business man in the city. The city swallowed up humanity like a creature and formed instead a single entity that rarely changed, even in the dead of winter. It was an easy place to blend in and never be notice. People would notice the details of a homeless man because they were a smaller community, but a businessman was a mindless corporate drone who could pass through walls without comment.

Brent was always very careful when he went up to the world above. He didn’t want to be discovered and dragged from his precious shelter. Technically he was trespassing but no one really had cared yet and he was hoping they never did. There was an art gallery nearby and they knew him by name there, not his name, he never liked giving people his real name when he was out wandering around, but they knew him by name just the same. In the art gallery he went by the pseudonym Michael, and they loved him even though he never bought anything. He would just wander the halls of the gallery and look at the pictures and sometimes make a comment about one of them that showed a broader knowledge of art then most art critics. For that the gallery owner was willing to forgive him for never actually pouring money into her businesses coffers. They were in no need of money anyway, they made enough money off of people who knew nothing of art but wanted to look the part. The owner of the gallery felt that the class of the establishment rose every time that Brent walked in simply because he knew and truly loved the art that she sold.

To be continued...

The Artist

Winter set in, and with it came that steady feeling that the world was asleep. The trees were, the animals were, the only thing that didn’t have the good sense to lay still under the blanket of snow were the people, who ventured out of their cave like houses against everything that nature ever intended. Deep in the caverns of the city there was someone who did sleep, and at the moment he was just waking up. He had been asleep for several days now but he didn’t know it yet and even if he did know it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Brent led what could be considered a blessed existence, one which could live in comfort anywhere and knew where to find what he wanted without ever having to work for it. Even his home, the tiny room in the basement of an abandoned building no one had entered for a year, had just come to him when he had needed a home. There were only two things that he had bought in the entire room, one of them was a space heater, he could have gone to a shelter or charity for it but he knew that they would ask questions and try to keep track of him and he liked his freedom. The second was a painter’s easel that stood in the corner away from the wall, which poured water during rainy days. The easel now had a blank canvass on it. The painting that had stood on it before had been sold at a pawn shop for enough money for the space heater and the new canvas. It was a life of breaking even but Brent didn’t mind it at all. It was how he liked things.

Food was getting to be more of a problem now that the snow was covering the world, but at least it kept it fresh. He made tours of the local groceries dumpsters where they threw away things that were past expiration. He had gotten food poisoning a couple of times but not bad enough to deter him. In some ways the cold weather was a blessing because it meant that the food would stay fresher for longer, during the summer produce left out for a day would be well cooked and start to smell.

To be continued...

Just Knowing II

The train came from nowhere, not out of the sky, but along a track and hadn’t been there before. It appeared under the train’s wheels and disappeared behind it. No one seemed to notice it except Kristy and her sister who watched it come and knew what it was. It wasn’t one of those new trains, slick cold and shiny. It was an old fashioned steam engine, though on looking closely Kristy couldn’t see an engineer or a tender car. That didn’t seem like a surprise however, she hadn’t expected the grim reaper, though she couldn’t have said what it was that she did expect.

Kristy’s sister knew that she was seeing something that she shouldn’t be, but that only added to her curiosity. Kristy turned and nodded to her and she knew that this was it. Kristy took a deep breath and stepped onto the train as it stopped in front of them. At that moment she took on the feeling of being something different. She was still Kristy but at the same time she wasn’t. There was going to be a body, somewhere, Kristy’s sister knew. There would be a funeral and crying, and stories, but at this moment it wasn’t sad, it was just Kristy moving on and the world was fine with this.

Kristy’s sister peered inside the car that her sister had entered while Kristy searched for a seat. Just like every other moment of this who strange event she knew that the other passenger were refugees from world war two. She couldn’t help but wonder how long they would ride before finally coming to rest but then she had to admit that spending forever in one place wouldn’t be any more entertaining. Kristy had always wanted to travel and now she would.

As the train built up speed Kristy’s sister could see the flashes of passengers, living their lives if that was how it could be phrased, inside. Then the train was gone and she was left there standing alone. She knew that she could have grabbed on to the back of it, or she could have stepped on when Kristy got on, it would have been so simple. For a second she felt regret but somehow she also knew that she didn’t belong on the train, at least not yet and maybe not ever. She shrugged to herself and then walked away to face the rest of her life, while the train sped on into the unknown.

Just Knowing

Everyone knew that Kristy was going to die, even complete strangers on the street. Kristy herself knew that she was going to die. However if you asked anyone, and again that included Kristy, how they knew none of them would be able to tell you. It was known just the same and no one ever doubted it. It was because of this that Kristy went back to where her family lived for what she knew to be her last days.

There was very little fuss, the definite nature of what was going to happen removed all that. Her mother cried a little, her sister patted her on the shoulder and that was that. Kristy herself didn’t do anything except quit her job, it seemed kind of pointless all in all. She wasn’t as upset as she would have thought she would be, the aura that surrounded her was one of peace and acceptance and people who normally would have been upset were calmed the moment that they saw her.

The only thing that Kristy’s father insisted was that she went to a doctor and get looked over but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her. They didn’t understand it themselves but they couldn’t help but have the same feeling that everyone else did that she wasn’t going to live longer then another few days. It filled those scientific men with frustration that they couldn’t label it, or say what gave them that feeling but that was how things stood.

And so, since she knew she was going to die, Kristy got to the business of tying up loose threads and taking care of final pieces of business. She gave away everything that she had, and what she had left she donated to charities. It meant no one would be fighting over the stuff and she could see the looks on their faces when they got it. The only things she kept were a couple of changes of clothing and toiletries. She didn’t think anyone would want her half used toiletries anyway.

Kristy spent a lot of her time with her family; they went out to eat, watched movies together and carefully avoided the entire subject of death. Kristy had always scorned the movies where the family bounded around someone’s sickness or their eminent demise but she was forced to admit that it happened. She and her sister grew particularly close with one another over those few days and her sister took some time off of work “so she could be there” as she said. Though she didn’t say be there for what, Kristy knew.

It was a glorious summer day that the entire house woke up knowing that this was the day Kristy was going to die. It was almost a relief after all the suspense and tension Kristy yawned and stretched luxuriously in her bed, it was the same bed she had slept in her entire childhood. Her parents had always kept her room the way that she had left it, with its posters of strange boy band singers, and its tasteless clothing items. She looked around it with satisfaction and put on the outfit she had been saving for the big day, her favorite.

Kristy’s mother had lain out all of Kristy’s favorite foods for breakfast and then, searching for anything to do, her sister suggested that they go for a walk since it was such a nice day. It did seem like a shame to be inside, and somehow Kristy knew that she had to be outside anyway. They walked hand in hand by the lake front just like they had when they were really little and hadn’t cared what people would think.

To be continued...

The Old Man V

The next day the old man got his coffee right away but he didn’t go to his table like normal. Instead, as I wiped trays so I was doing something and couldn’t have anyone complain, he continued with his story. He spoke in his quiet voice, but it sounded earnest. It was the sort of voice that makes you want to lean forward to catch every word.

“I was telling you before about how I dropped my future wife off at the house she lived and drove home myself, but having agreed to see her again. After a week I started to worry that she had just blown me off but then I got a phone call from her. I don’t think my feet touched the ground from happiness. She wanted to see me that Saturday, and she offered to meet me at the same dance hall we had been at before. I was all slicked up when I went that Saturday, and she was mighty fancy that night too.”

“So did you keep going out together?” I asked, liking the romance of the story so far.

“Not for as long as you might thing. At the end of that month she lost her job and her savings only lasted her about two months after that. She was desperate with no money for rent or food when I offered to marry her. That was all I could do you see, back in those days you didn’t just offer a unmarried woman a room in your house, it was best if you were married first or there would be all sorts of talk. I didn’t have the money to pay for her rent and food unless she lived with me either. So after dating for all of three months we decided to get married.”

“Didn’t your mother object to such a short romance?” I asked, remembering that the old man had said that was the parent that he had still living at that point.

“Not at all, she was overjoyed that I had found a nice girl to marry, even if she was a foreigner and usually my mother had nothing good to say about people from other countries. So that was that, we lived together until she died and while we did have our fights I have never loved another woman,” the old man looked sad again, and went to go sit down. I snuck him a refill of coffee when my bosses weren’t looking and put money for it in the till just in case the owner was staring at his video cameras. Random acts of kindness were considered bad business practice.

I started to feel almost like a granddaughter of the old man. Having opened up to me he continued to be filled with warmth towards me and it made going to work something to look forward to. I never found out where it was he lived or what his name was, and he only knew my name from my name tag, but we were still firm friends. There was no need for us to know anything else about each other since we saw each other every day and knew where to find the other one if we wanted to talk. I gave him a pair of socks for Christmas that I had knit myself, and to my surprise he had a present for me, a wooden spoon he had whittled out of pine.

One day the old man didn’t come to the restaurant and though I looked for the white cowboy hat the next couple of weeks it never came again. I supposed I knew he was dead, but not knowing his name I couldn’t even go to the funeral home or look in the obituaries. After the third week I just shrugged, walked up to the manager, and quit. If an old man could live like he had with only a middle school education could manage to have the life that he had then I figured I could do better if I tried. I haven’t looked back since.

The Old Man IV

“You never did get to tell me how it was your wife came to this country,” I reminded the old man as he waited for his coffee.

“She came across with a family to watch their children. She left her own children with her mother. She couldn’t afford their trip over here and once we did have the money they didn’t want to come over here. They had grown to love Hungary and they wanted to stay with their grandmother. I wonder if they weren’t also scared of me, a strange American man that their mother had married half out of necessity.”

“Half out of necessity?” I asked. The way that he spoke of his wife I could only imagine the old man being very much in love with his wife, and I hadn’t imagined that it had been anything but love that had brought them together. Instead now he was being extremely blunt about it being at least a small amount a marriage of convenience.

“Her bosses had thought that they would do better in America, they had spent a lot of money it turns out that they didn’t have and so they had to let go of their servants. They had just given my wife her month’s notice when she decided to have a bit of a fling to get her mind off of things and went out dancing. I was at the dance hall that night too, and we got to talking.”

“So you were a farmer?” I asked, I knew I was interrupting but I wanted to clarify.

“That’s right. My father was already dead and so I was the one running the farm, though my mother was still alive. I was in my thirties and unmarried, she was starting to wonder what was wrong with me. I had mostly gone to the dance to make her happy, I’m not big on the social scene, I sure didn’t expect to meet someone I would love the rest of my life,” the old man sounded wistful.

“How did you start talking to her?” I asked.

“I asked her to dance; she was standing so sad and lonely up against the wall that anyone would have felt sorry for her. After the dance I took her back to her seat and we started talking, in a polite way. I asked her if she was married, she told me that she had been at one time. Back then it meant the man had died, and nothing else, there was none of this divorce thing going around, or at least not a lot of it. I asked her if she had any children and she burst into tears. It made me awkward let me tell you, I had no idea why she had started crying but people had started to stare so I offered to take her outside until she had calmed down and she welcomed the suggestion. While we were standing out there under the moon, in the very chilly night she told me everything. About how she had been forced to leave her children, about the fact she was about to lose her job. I just listened to her talk and at the end of the night I drove her home.”

“How did her bursting into tears and having to be taken home lead to you getting married to her?” I asked.

“Well we talked in the car then too, and by the time we got to where she lived I knew I liked her and had the courage to ask her if she would go out with me again her next week off to go dancing again. She agreed, I think she liked me at least a little too.”

I wanted to hear more but the coffee was done and I couldn’t hang around any longer. The owner of the store had video cameras set up to watch us and if I wasted enough time I knew I would be called into the office and yelled at. So I handed the old man his coffee and he went to go sit down like always.

To be continued...

The Old Man III

I had no idea what to say to this strange revelation; I had never imagined that the old man had a story like that. It made anything that I would say sound insignificant and petty. It was too old of a story to offer my sorrows for his, it was too serious to brush off, and so I just stood awkwardly. The old man seemed to understand that he had put me in an embarrassing position because he muttered that he was sorry and went to go sit at his usual table until I brought him his coffee. Every once in a while I would glance over at him for the rest of the day and I thought I saw him touch the brim of his hat thoughtfully but it could have just been my imagination.

I stopped trying to start conversations after that, though I continued to be polite. I just didn’t know how to talk to the serious, dignified and now in my mind tragic, old man. My life had sucked up until now but I didn’t think I had taken it as well as the old man had dealt with the woes of his life and that made me self conscious and guilty of my own shortcomings. In his way the old man didn’t talk much to me either but one day he came in wearing a suit instead of his usual jeans, though his cowboy hat was still on his head. My curiosity got the better of me.

“Going somewhere fancy?” I asked him, as I handed him his coffee.

“I was just visiting my wife’s grave. I brought her some flowers.” I knew that I had started down another unhappy path through innocent questions but I was determined not to run away from it this time like I had last time.

“How long has she been gone?” I asked.

“Nineteen years, as of today. That’s why I was visiting her grave. I go every year. Her children are back in Hungary so I’m the only one to visit her.”

“Her children, not yours?” I asked, catching his choice of wording.

“I never met them; they have never had the money to come over, not even when she died. They are her children from her first marriage, after her first husband died, leaving her with three young children to take care of, she needed to find work.”

“So she came here to America?” I asked. This was the longest conversation I had ever had with the old man and I was determined to continue it. My manager on the other hand had different ideas.

“Go get more lids for the drink machine,” he interrupted and I was forced to leave for the back room with my question unanswered. I was kind of disappointed but it wasn’t like I would never see the old man again. There was never a day when he wasn’t in to drink coffee and look out the window and I supposed I could wait until the next day to find out more about the old man’s wife.

“Hello,” I said to my manager as I walked in. He looked at me a little oddly and I had a good guess. I was actually in a good mood and it showed in my voice and my step. It was probably the first time I had been in a good mood coming into work for the last year, but for once I had something to look forward to.

The old man set his cup for coffee on the counter for me and smiled at me. I smiled back and put some coffee on to brew. The coffee hadn’t been exactly expired yet but I had acted like it was so that I would have an excuse to talk to the old man longer while technically working. No one would notice, no one actually cared.

To be continued...

The Old Man II

“I never got passed middle school,” the old man said quietly, almost to himself. Then he seemed to realize I was staring at him because he got defensive. “It doesn’t mean I’m stupid, I’m just as smart as anyone who went through high school, I just had to help on the farm.”

“I would never have thought you were stupid,” I assured the old man. It was true; he was to dignified to be stupid.

“There are other types of knowledge other then what you learn in school,” the old man continued, as if I hadn’t said anything. I got the feeling that this was a sore subject with him and I imagined how he must feel in the modern society that expected everyone to go to college and I felt sorry for me. I felt bad for myself for not having finished college and here this man had received even less of an education then I had and he had survived.

I poured the old man his coffee and he went and sat down in his usual seat. I lingered a little around his area when I washed tables but he chose not to renew our conversation, he seemed completely wrapped up in his own world like he had been every other day I had ever seen him. I was afraid that I had offended him but thinking back on our conversation I couldn’t think of anything that I could have said that would have offended him so I dismissed that idea.

It was again over coffee that our next conversation came, and that wasn’t until a couple of weeks later when again we didn’t have any coffee already made. We had exchanged polite hellos a couple of times before that but we hadn’t really talked again until this point. It was another slow time, the old people usually come in during the slow times, when everyone else on earth is working or busy, they come out of the cracks of the world and have their hours of glory. I was leaning on the counter when he came in and I instantly put the coffee pot on, I didn’t even have to wait for his order anymore, it was always the same thing, day after day.

As he searched his pockets for change the old man brushed his head against the wall and his hat fell to the floor. He scrambled to pick it up as quickly as he could but he couldn’t bend low enough to scoop it off the ground. I saw his plight and went around the counter and got it for him. I handed it to him respectfully and he took it and shoved it back on his head. It was an embarrassing moment for the proud old man, I could tell by the way he looked at me, inspecting me for a hint of ridicule, but I felt no scorn for the old man and so he shrugged a bit and went to his table. Other then that event I thought it was going to be like any other day but in the time between the hat falling and me bringing him his coffee he seemed to have become talkative.

“I always wear this hat,” he commented, “every day, no matter what weather.” I looked at the battered, cracked, white leather and I believed him. I nodded my agreement and told him that I had noticed as much.

“It was the last thing my brother ever gave me,” the old man explained to me, touching the hat brim gently. “He went to war, long before you were born, and right before he left he put the hat on my head and told me to look after it for him. He never came back. I couldn’t have been more then eight at the time,” he added wistfully and I stared at the hat. The old man was over eighty in my estimation and if he was only eight when he got the hat it seemed like something of the distant past that belonged in a museum to my skewed perception.

To be continued...

The Old Man

Things can get a little boring working at a dead end fast food joint. I never intended to make a career out of it but things just sort of worked out that way and before I knew it I had no where else I was qualified to work at. To quench some of my frustration about my failed ambitions I took to observing the people around me. It gave me something to do and since most of the town passed through our little establishment at one time or another I had lots of material.

One old man caught my eye after a while. In the way of old people with nothing better to do with their time, and nowhere else to go, he would come in and order a cup of coffee and sit, looking out our window for hours. There were lots of people like him, old, bored, and lonely. Our restaurant was something of a gathering spot for them, they would sit together and talk and swap stories while their coffees sat unheeded and growing cold. This old man didn’t sit with the others though and that was the first thing that drew my attention to him.

In general the old man looked like any other old man that you might pass in a small farming town. He wore jeans and flannel shirts, with boots, more practical then for any attempt at looking good. The only thing that really stood out was the battered and ancient looking white cowboy hat that he never took off. Sometimes, as he sat away from the others, just looking out the window with that hat pulled over his eyes, I thought he looked like the loneliest man on earth.

It was because he looked as lonely as he did that I finally broke my rule about never talking when I was supposed to be working if it didn’t have something to do with work. I was washing tables and when I reached the one across from his I said good morning. He didn’t answer back with anything out of the ordinary other then what was polite but it was a first step and it opened up further communications between us.

The next day the old man came in as usual and ordered his regular cup of coffee. We didn’t have any made so I told him that it was going to be a bit of a wait, knowing that he wouldn’t mind. In the past he had just went and sat down when we had to make the coffee and someone would have brought it to him but today he decided to stay at the counter while I brewed the coffee for him. We didn’t have any customers and I had already done all of my work so I decided some small talk wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“At least you know it will be fresh,” I said, motioning to the bubbling coffee maker. The old man shrugged and I was about to write off talking to him as a failed effort when he decided to speak.

“I don’t mind. I’m in no hurry,” it wasn’t much of a sentence but it was something and I felt rewarded. I was even more amazed when he continued. “You’ve been working here for a while now.”

“That’s right, it’s been five years now,” I said, flinching at the realization. Now that I thought about it the old man had been coming here for as long as I had been working.

“Do you go to the college?” the old man asked as I got out his coffee cup.

“Not anymore, I used to,” I admitted. I didn’t want to get into the details, I was still ashamed that I hadn’t been able to keep my grades up enough to stay enrolled.

To be continued...

General Wellesley's Command XI

We all had kills in the end, not one of us hadn’t killed our portion of the enemy, and not one of us had died. I could look over my group with pride in the knowledge that they could be left to their own devices and that they would survive, I also knew that I had taught them everything I could. You can only teach so much, you can never teach experience which was the only thing that I had left that they didn’t. I let them loose on the enemy then, we were no longer a class, we were a squad, which took out the enemy and its supplies just like we had been before.

That was how our captain found us, sitting around the fire swapping stories of the days exploits. None of us had told him where to find us but it was well known he could find anyone when he wanted to. No one had heard him approach but no one ever did. He was one of those rare captains who were captain truly because he was better then the people who he commanded at what they did. He walked into the firelight and instantly our hands found weapons but I called them off, Alice, Jon and I were the only ones who knew him fore what he was.

“A nice group you have here,” the captain said as I stood and saluted. Alice and Jon followed suite and the others, getting the hint, stood slowly and saluted as well.

“Thank you, sir,” I said. I realized that I was a little sad, if the captain was here that meant that my comfortable days were over and it was time to go back to my loner life style on the battle field. The captain seemed in no rush however.

“I here you have been promoted,” he commented.

“Only temporary, sir,” I protested, knowing that he had always been against there being a chain of command in his ranks.

“Not anymore, we’re making it permanent,” the captain said, sitting down. You’re all involved in this so I’m going to tell all of you. This was made to sound like it was going to be for a short time only but you all have been permanently attached to this regiment, we are now an official regiment with special privileges rather then one permitted only on tolerance. That means more members obviously, and real officers to order them. I couldn’t have thought of someone better then you,” he said speaking to me, congratulations.”

“What are we going to do,” asked Corporal Chester. She sounded panicked and I couldn’t blame her. It was one thing to join this regiment because you liked the lifestyle, which was what I had done. It was another thing to be ordered to live the way we did with no say in the matter. I felt sorry for her.

“We’ll do exactly what you have been doing now but we’re going to be more spread out. Some of you stay here, some of you spread out. This war is going to be going for a long time and we need fighters like you. Go out and give them hell.” Even though it was the middle of the night and we had no idea where we were going we all knew when we were being dismissed, so we stood up, packed up our things and left the captain sitting alone by the fire. He would find us when he needed us. We all agreed that we would travel together, at least for a little while; we were finally a true regiment in the army now after all. I felt a little warm thinking about that, I was a real officer, in a real regiment, and I had people around me.

General Wellesley's Command X

“We’ve got to earn our money somehow,” Alice said, shrugging. I had to agree with her, I liked being in camp so long as there was something for me to do there but now that the conventional training wasn’t working I was ready to be on the move. Our recruits on the other hand showed even less enthusiasm then Jon.

“We’ve only been training for a week, sir,” protested Corporal Chester, in what could almost have been called a shocked squeal in anyone else. I started to wish that I hadn’t encouraged my men to be vocal about their feels with me. It meant that now that I was doing something they really weren’t happy with, I was being nearly deafened with protests.

“We trained for half a year of constant safe drills before we were sent here from England sir,” said another man. “You can’t send us into enemy territory after only a week.”

“We aren’t in England anymore, we’re already almost in enemy territory and as much as I would like to baby you it isn’t possible in the position we are in. We are right next to a battlefield. Our men repeatedly run out and fight and you want to stay safe and warm in camp while they do it?” I was starting to get angry but they had seen me angry often enough over the last few days that they knew they didn’t have to take it seriously. Not one of them backed down.

“We aren’t ready yet, sir. If you wanted us to march out against the enemy as common soldiers then we have already been trained for that, we could do that at a single order. This is all new to us though, we need to work at it more,” the man who said this worried me a little. He was another one of the privates of the army but he was a smart one, and seemed to have bookish tendencies and I didn’t trust either in a fellow soldier. I decided that I was going to have to change my tact to one that was more flattering.

“I would think that you would be honored that I think highly enough of you to think that you are up to this. I argued with General Wellesley himself that you were able to do this, he doubted you, but I told him you could do it. That means that if you can’t then my career is at an end, I am gambling on you men, don’t let me down.” It was an effective argument; I was appealing to their strongest emotion, other then greed, pride. They were proud to have even a fake officer telling them that he trusted them and thought that they did well.

It was through tactics like this that I finally got them deep into enemy territory, right outside of the enemy camp. I wanted to find the enemy General but I knew better then to think that he would walk alone and we could do anything about him so I didn’t look too hard. Instead I turned it into a contest between my recruits over who could spot him and then trail him, without getting caught of course, back to his tent. It was through turning these exercises into contests and games with rewards in them, that I made my men totally unafraid of what was in the enemy camps. It raised their confidence to new heights that even I hadn’t imagined. Corporal Chester was particularly daring and I started to bet with myself how long she would hold on to her life at this rate but she never failed to come back, usually with some wild story of what she had done this time.

This was stealth work, we were no longer working in a group, instead we were going out individually or at most with two people. The sergeant was joining in like he was one of the common soldiers, and had dispensed with being called sir by even the lowliest member of our group. It made me laugh sometimes but other times I worried about how any of these people would ever adjust back to army discipline when we got back.

To be continued...

General Wellesley's Command IX

Neither Alice nor Jon chose to confront my sudden seniority that night to my relief. I knew better then to push them and they knew better then to push me so we all carefully stepped around one another for the rest of the night, with the sergeant a silent observant of our dance.

It was first thing in the morning when the soldiers Wellesley had promised us arrived. One saluted in front of me, making me feel extremely awkward. I had never been saluted in my life. The woman who had paid me the honor stood at attention as the rest of the men went into rank behind her.

“Corporal Chester reporting for duty, sir,” she announced, and even her voice was dripping with military discipline. She was everything that I and the others of my regiment were not, she was structure.

“Starting today I and my friends here,”I motioned to Alice and Jon, “Are going to be teaching you everything that we know about living behind enemy lines. You have all been specially chosen for this training so I expect you all to be the best of the best. I will not take it easy on you,” I announced. I hadn’t meant to give a speech but the only person who smirked even a little was Alice, and she was always laughing at me. The others looked totally serious and even stood maybe slightly straighter.

Within a week I decided that doing simple test runs around our own camp was useless. It was good for teaching the basics but there was no danger, and danger was the greatest tool for learning that I could think of. A real life situation where they had to succeed at what I was teaching them or die seemed a much better way of teaching them. I returned to Wellesley’s tent.

“What do you want?” he asked, I hadn’t expected a warm welcome so I wasn’t disappointed. I had already gotten Wellesley’s measure and knew that it would be a cold day in Hell before he showed any graciousness to anyone.

“I am looking for your permission to take the men you gave me into the enemy lines to train, sir. Drills are good for basic teaching but they are useless unless my men can then put them into use in the real situation,” I explained.

“Are they ready to be put to use already,” Wellesley asked doubtfully.

“Not on anything difficult but on easy missions they might be of use, at least some of them would be, sir. Mostly this will be a training exercise but if you can think of anything easy you would like to order, I would be happy for them to do it.”

“Can you make the occasional enemy soldier disappear? That isn’t too hard for your men is it? I know you did it when you were working behind enemy lines before.”

“I think we can manage that, sir,” I said smiling. When he had asked if they were ready for missions I had been worried he would think up something hard. There was no point for me to invest as much time as I had into my soldiers if they weren’t going to be put to use but there was also no point in training them if they were instantly going to be sent to their deaths. Wellesley had chosen just the right level of task for them though, the sort of task I would have chosen for them myself as a training exercise. It had a real taste of danger, a need for them to apply what I had taught them, but it didn’t send them into true danger yet. They wouldn’t have to sneak around an enemy camp to do it.

“We’re already being sent into enemy territory again?” Jon complained when I announced our new orders. “I had hoped we would be able to take it easy for a few more days. Taking it easy is such a rare event in our lives after all, I try to milk it for all it’s worth.”

To be continued...