I wiped my forehead once again, propping my elbows against my knees and wishing the trees at the edge of the way weren’t dead. I had watched my tense-looking parents disappear around the corner of Rich Street at about 9:00 the previous night, which meant it had to be around 4:00 in the afternoon. No, wait, Alabama was on Central time, so I guess it was 3:00. I began to look down at my wrist once again, but winced away, knowing it would be like looking at a gaping wound. Grandpa gave me that watch for my sixteenth birthday. It wasn’t expensive or anything, just a reliable analog timepiece with a plain brown leather strap and brass buckle. 469Please respect copyright.PENANABsiTRxXIGM
I remember being angry the night of the funeral. Not angry, actually, but thoroughly pissed off. Pissed off at the cancer. Pissed off at the doctors who couldn’t save him. Pissed off at the stupid Livestrong commercials with people who hadn’t watched their loved one wither and waste away.
Pissed off at Grandpa ‘cause he couldn’t beat that stupid, goddamn cancer.
That’s why I had thrown the watch in the river. I was going to hell for that, for sure, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the look of disappointment he would have been giving me if he were watching from some celestial plane. I rubbed at the spot on my wrist without looking at it. What mattered was the fact that I had thrown the last tangible piece of him I possessed into the calm, dark waters below the bridge.
I would have killed for a cigarette.
It was my craving for nicotine and my need of discerning the time that drove me to scope out a suitable place to satisfy both needs. The bus station building itself was a hundred years away or so, but I doubted that they would have cigarettes. My eyes fell on a lonely looking old deli caddy corner to where I was seated. If I couldn’t find my fix, the least I could do was get myself a cold drink. Every tired muscle in my body protested as I slowly pulled myself to my feet. That was another thing about the Alabama heat: it made you not want to move unless it were absolutely necessary.
The street before me was a lonely asphalt river devoid of any passing cars, so I didn’t bother taking the extra effort to walk to the corner to cross the crosswalk. Suitcase in on hand, I dragged my sunscorched bones over the blazing surface to the solace of shade on the other side. At first glance, I thought the deli was closed; the windows were all barred up and the shade over the door was pulled down all the way. A dirty little white sign off to the side claimed they were open, though, so I pulled open the door and stepped inside.
It was with a miserable sigh that I discovered that the Alabama heat isn’t confined to the outdoors. The inside of the stunted little brick building was just as hot as the outside, though it lacked that tease of the possibility of a cool breeze giving a moment’s relief. The door slammed shut behind me with clang of one of those little brass bells. I had no sooner than set my suitcase down in front of the counter than a tall, slim man with a bushy mustache and a snap-button shirt popped his head out from a doorway in the back.
“Be with ya right quick, kiddo,” he called through a crisp southern drawl. I was taken aback for a moment, as the bus driver had been lacking any sort of accent, but this was pretty much as deep as the “Deep South” could get, I supposed, and I’d better get used to it. I tapped my fingers on the counter and eyed the glass case full of cigarettes hanging on the back wall. The selection was miserable, just Marlboro Reds, Newport Menthols, and a few off-brand herbal types. Six dollars for a pack of Marlboro Reds? That was damn near piracy! Back home I’d only fork over six bucks if I had to pay someone to get a pack for me. I was tall for my age, though facial hair was a genetic benefit my ancestry seemed to have been cheated out of, so it was a fifty-fifty chance of having to show I.D. I stuck my hand in my jeans pocket and fished out the thin wad of cash my parents had left me with for the bus ride.I counted out thirty-six dollars. Really? Thirty-six? What a strange number.
“Sorry ‘bout that, guy. What can I do ya for?” The man, whom I presumed owned the mom-and-pop style deli, came out of the back with a huge tray full of freshly baked bread. My stomach grumbled and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten since I’d downed the salami sandwich Mom had packed for me at about eight that morning.
“Uh, do you have any cold drinks? It’s hot out there today.” I said, trying to both seem friendly and a little bit older.
“You’re not from aroun’ here, are ya?” The man chuckled, swiftly unloading his tray of bread into a battered old stainless steel warmer. I shook my head and tugged at the neck of my t-shirt, which was sticking to me so badly it felt like a second skin. “Yeah, I know it ‘cause ain’t nobody in their right mind from aroun’ here goes out in the middle of the day, see,” He continued with with a wink. “That, an’ your Yankee accent.” He pointed at a large Pepsi brand refrigerator in the very back corner of the shop. “Drinks are in there, son. Two bucks apiece.”
I thanked him and made my way over to the refrigerator which, to my delight, had two plastic bottles of Dr. Pepper sitting at the very back. I took both and brought them back to the counter. The man rang me up for four dollars before asking me if there was anything else I wanted. I browsed over the handpainted menu on the all for a moment before deciding to keep it simple. “Could I get an Italian sub, please?” I asked, trying to stand up straighter and taller. “And a pack of Marlboro Reds, too?”
“One Italian sub and a pack of Reds, you got it, kid.” He pronounced it “aye-talian,” which I found pretty amusing. The man turned around and snapped open the cigarette cabinet. “Aw, I’m sorry son, we’re all outta Reds. Las’ pack is jus’ fer show. Will ya take somethin’ differ’nt?” My heart, which had jumped for his neglect of seeing my I.D., fell again. I hated menthols and even though herbal cigarettes always tasted like dirt, it was better than not having them, so I settled on a pack of “Weston” brand cigarettes, which I had never heard of before. I handed over twenty of the thirty-six dollars and got two dollars and some change back. I slipped the pack of cigarettes in my pocket and opened one of the bottles of soda, downing nearly half of it while I watched him begin making my sandwich.
“So what brings ya down here to these parts?” The man asked as he slapped a healthy glob of mayo onto the loaf he had in front of him. Crap. I hated mayo, but I hated to say anything about it just a little more. I’d just have to try to scrape it off or something.
“I’m staying with, uh, some relatives for the summer,” I answered shortly. I tried not to be a skulking, rude teenage most of the time, but I had my cigarettes now and I was hoping to keep contact with strangers to a minimum. I had three whole months of strangers ahead of me I had to deal with and I wasn’t looking to extend that in any way. Besides, if I told him my parents had shipped me down here, there’s no doubt it would be obvious I wasn’t old enough to have bought the cigarettes.
“Where you comin’ from?”
“Ohio.”
“That so? Long ways from home, kiddo.”
“That’s probably a good thing,” I said with a sigh. As much as my parents didn’t want me bumming around the house all summer, I didn’t really want to deal with constant reminders of Grandpa’s absence for three months.
“Young fellas your age is usually lookin’ for trouble close to home,” He said, raising an eyebrow at me as he began feeding a block of cheese through an electric slicer.
“I’m not looking for anything, really,” I said, glancing out the window.
“Everybody is lookin’ for something. You prob’ly jus’ don’t know what it is, yet.”
“Probably” I said dismissively, hoping to end it there. The conversation was getting a little too personal for me.
The man finished slicing the cheese and went to work on a thick tube of salami with a huge knife. “You stayin’ here in Birmingham?”
I could see that he probably wasn’t going to let me stand in peace, so I decided to play along. “No, my aunt and uncle live in Gorham, wherever that is.”
“Ooh, boy! If ya think it’s hot here in the city, wait’ll you git out there to mud country.” He made a face. “Gorham ain’t too itty bitty, but it’s sure as hell in the middle’a nowhere. Great fishin’ out that’a way, though,” he chuckled, skillfully arranging a medley of meat and cheese atop the mayo.
“I used to go fishing with my Grandpa,” I blurted out. “He died two weeks ago.” I wasn’t sure why I told him that; maybe it was because this tall, southern-talking deli owner was the first person I had talked to since saying goodbye to my parents yesterday. Maybe it was because, despite soft words and reassuring hugs from everyone who came to offer condolences, I was still all kinds of torn up inside. Either way, I felt like a fool and a little kid the moment the words came out of my mouth.
“Well, son, I’m real sorry t’ hear that.” He put a few slices of tomato on the sandwich and stopped what he was doing so he could look up at me. “That’s a damn shame, huh?”
“Yeah,” was all I could say around the lump in my throat.
“Were you ‘n’ your grandaddy close?” He asked, sliding the sandwich onto some paper and wrapping it up neatly.
“Pretty close, yeah.” I admitted, taking the sandwich from him. I started playing with the corner of the paper between my fingers, folding and unfolding it. “He used to take me down to the river to fish with him in the summer. Every Saturday, two o’clock on the dot.”
“Soun’s like a dream to me,” he said with a grin, wiping off his hands on a towel hanging off the counter, which he then began to wipe down as well. “What’d you fellas catch up there in the North?”
I thought of those lazy Saturday afternoons Grandpa and I would spend sitting on two metal lawn chairs just downstream of the bridge, casting out across the slow moving waters, sharing a pitcher of Turkey Hill sweet tea between the two of us. Grandpa would be taking a nip or two off of his old grey flask every once in awhile, content as I’d ever seen him. “We’ll just catch whatever passes on by,” Grandpa would say with a smile. “No sense in getting all wound up over a few lil’ fishes.”
“Whatever passed on by,” I repeated, feeling the knot tighten a little in my stomach. The man bobbed his head, as if he understood exactly what I meant.
“You keep your chin up there, son,” he said to me with an encouraging smile. “Alabama’s some prime fishin’ country, you make sure you catch you’self a keeper for your grandaddy, y’hear?” I nodded blankly, thoughts drifting along the riverbank with Grandpa’s bobber.
“I better go,” I said, glancing out the window. “Thanks for the sandwich.” 469Please respect copyright.PENANAqlXRDYmExP
“Sure thing, son,” He said with a nod. “I hope you find what you’re lookin’ for down here. You have a good one, now.”
A good what?469Please respect copyright.PENANAClShP7cDFh