Feature Photo by RustyGrey

This story is a continuation FROM, which starts HERE…

July 15, 2019

If our train of tomorrow was at your feet, you wouldn’t have a chance at impact. And what a daring stand you become—so they’ll cry at your funeral. My father always said, “when it rains, everyone gets wet.” Then I’d ask, why do the homeless wake up soaked, and the wealthy spread their umbrellas for wind and rain to distort?

Sitting at a dive bar of uptown, so were a signage of desires. Nerves risen by the eyes of others who’ll question my place, my setting, and candor, now she watches, awaiting her prowl.

“How long have you lived in Port Avanti?” Asks the bartender.

“Many years,” I say.

Pondering out the bar’s front entrance, “got damn this weather, right?” She stares.

“Yeah, and our wolf moon’s rising.”

Washing through the streams of Mahan[my body], my drink calms honing eyes. Meanwhile, Nwaka, my father’s longtime friend, lays eyes on each patron who’s elevating my blood pressure. Loud enough to get the attention of drunken feet asserting themselves passed us, a resting beast face expresses my cool, calm, and collected demeanor.

“Anu, boy, how’ve you been?” Asks Nwaka.

“Great, just getting ready to move out the city. Got loses I care less to recoup,”

“Wait, what? You playing ball again?”

“Out of all people, I thought you’d get it without me saying.”

“Well, I’m not a wi-fi guy.”

.

.

.

Returning from relieving myself at the stall, drink three settles the vegus nerve. “You play a sport?” Asks the bartender, placing my drink.

“I did, and enough of it,” I respond.

Turning to the panhandling gentleman outside the bar’s doorway, he kneels, and the bartender’s mouthing smack carries the soundtrack to a beggar’s paradise. “Geez, these guys have no respect, right?” She says. “Just trashing the places they sit at; with their hands out for a handout.”

Nwaka signals with his arm for the man to join us at the bar. “Can he have a beer?” Nwaka asks.

He enters, dragging his muddy boots across the bar’s waiting area, pocketing his rail-pass, and the bartender throws a fiber-towel across the bussing station. “Excuse you, there’s a wet floor sign in case you didn’t notice,” she points.

How wealthy must you be to mop an entrance on a rainy day? Business is business.

-Budd

Continued here…