A Minute of Your Time

A Minute of Your Time by Timothy Dewey
copyright 1998

If time were money, Alan Carter would be a millionaire. He had all of the time in the world.
A gentle breeze carried the warm morning air into the window of the Piccolo Cafe where Alan sipped his morning coffee. It was a small cafe, in the European tradition, with a tiled floor and tastefully placed art and conversation. He knew everyone there. The way you know a certain grocery store clerk, or the crossing guard at the school intersection, and they knew him. It was the only place he had ever been a fixture in, and it was as comfortable as an old night shirt. He spent most of his time molded to the window seat, with the newspaper angled to allow him to read while watching the people walk in and out.
It had been six months since Alan had lost his job. They had phased him out, his position no longer cost effective. It had done wonders for his lack of self esteem, growing like some devilish fern in the back of his mind... choking off any seeds of hope with it's presence.
Up until this very day Alan lived off of his savings, always waiting for a call from the office with an alternative job offer. They had told him in a junk mail sort of way that they would keep an eye out for another position that would make good use of his skills. The call would never be made. The seed of hope would only grow dusty on the low priority shelf of some clerk's mind, deep within the bowels of the company.
Today was the day it would happen. He didn't know what to expect, it just felt different today. The feeling was anticipation, and it stood out from the normal, cloned day that he was used to having. He stood and paid for his coffee and walked out of the Piccolo and up the street to check the phone booths for money as he had done every day at this time for the past six months.
As he stuck his finger in the change slot the phone rang... and rang... and rang. "Hello... " Alan said sheepishly as he fingered the thin dime from the change well. He gave a fleeting thought to the timing, expecting an operator to demand he put the dime into the coin slot so the phone could digest it.
A frail, wisp of a voice talked into the phone. It was the voice of someone near the end of their life. The words were separated by labored breathing and faint cries of pain smothering the dimming light of life as the person slid closer and closer to death. "Please... please help me... "
Alan pulled the phone in close to keep the street noise from drowning out the fragile voice on the line. "Are you alright? It sounds like your hurt." Alan asked.
The voice whined in agony as Alan helplessly listened "I... I've been stabbed." Another sharp draw of breath.
Alan grabbed the phone with both hands, figuring he had better keep this person alert and on the line so he could find where to send help.
"HEY... Don't you stop talking to me." He told the voice, "Where are you? I'll send some help."
The bleeding entity on the other end of the line was silent. Then with a build up of labored breathing, "I... I don't know... an apartment house."
The sound of sirens blazed past behind Alan as the local fire department rocketed down the avenue on their way to some far off emergency. Alan shielded the phone from the ear splitting noise to protect the person on the other end of the line from any more discomfort.
"Now look, I want to help you, but you have to tell me where
you are. Is there a window?"
The voice on the other end of the phone whimpered in pain as it searched it's surroundings for a view to the outside. "Yesss... ehhh... window. Palm tree..."
Alan moved as much of his body into the semi‑phone booth as possible to eliminate any distraction. "A palm tree, what else do you see? As he talked he could hear the sirens from the fire engines on the other end of the line as they raced past on their way to their destination. Alan pulled away from the phone for a moment and listened. He could still hear the sirens from his location. From what he could tell, they were going west toward the foothills.
He thrust the receiver back into his ear, the sense of urgency welling up in him with new found force. "I need something else. Can you tell me something about the house?"
He waited for a response. He heard nothing, not even breathing.
"HEY, DON'T YOU DIE ON ME!" Alan screamed into the receiver. People passing by looked at him as though he were a lunatic, having no clue that he was trying with total desperation to save a life. He struggled to hear even the slight movement of clothing, a shallow breath, and then .... "roses." It was as though the word had been said from miles away, a disembodied voice readying itself for a spiritual journey.
Alan listened for more until he figured he was out of time. He let the phone dangle and raced to the corner. He didn't know what to do... where to go... PALM TREE! His view was hopelessly
blocked by the two story buildings on the avenue. He ran around the corner, remembering something he had seen every day for the past six months.
The fire escape clung to the side of the building, the extendable portion placed deliberately out of reach. "DAMN IT!" Alan screamed in total frustration and overwhelming helplessness. Each step he took seemed to present another obstacle. Each second life vanished in heartbeats.
Alan was never a physical type of guy. The forty or so extra pounds he carried above his belt had been with him like an unwelcome house guest. Came to visit but never left. Always making him uncomfortable. Today, it would be as though he lived alone. He made a run from the corner and leapt with an "Air Jordan" accuracy as caught the bottom rung of the extendable stair. It quickly yielded under his weight, each rung available to him he grabbed, climbing it while it made its full extension.
At the top of the stair he scrambled onto the fire escape, panning the horizon for the palm tree. The immediate landscape presented itself in a blend of greens and browns fading away into the pale blue brown sky. Panic pulsed through him. There was no way he would find a palm tree in all of this.
The sirens... yes. They came from the foothills. He looked in the general direction, squinting, trying to divert all of his physical strength to his vision. In a small clutch of beige apartment buildings he could make out a palm frond, no two, poking up from the urban sprawl before him. He made a mental note of the vector and bailed down the fire escape.
On the street once more he turned the corner and returned to the phone to hopefully get confirmation on the location. The phone was now in it's cradle, most likely replaced by someone
passing by, annoyed at the inconvenience of it all. Alan looked at the phone. It was as though now that it had been hung up, that person's fate was sealed.
"NO! DAMN IT!" He wailed. The sound of his voice echoed down the mall of buildings, drawing disparaging glances from a buzz of people who stopped to look. For them, time ticked by with basic meaning, marking segments of their day for meetings and appointments. For Alan, time meant death, right here, right now.
He ran over to them, "Somebody help me, that phone... a call, someone's been stabbed." As soon as he approached, they scattered like pigeons in the park.
Alan ran. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him. No one would be of help to him. He had wasted to much time already. If that person was going to have a chance, it would be with him and him alone. His sense of direction was good, and he aimed toward the only clue he had. He focused on his direction, tunneling his vision, his mind, to the task at hand. To each side of him, the surroundings blurred by in a brush stroke of vivid color and sound. He could feel his heartbeat, his breathing, all seemingly willing to let him make this one mile run without effort.
Within minutes the apartment complex came into view. The three buildings surrounded the palm tree in the courtyard like covered wagons around a camp fire. Once he stopped running, the adrenaline tapered off, leaving him in unending pursuit of his breath. He scanned what looked to be hundreds of balconies, all of them the same.
If time were money, Alan would be in dire straits... he had none to spare. This person had only seconds left if they didn't get help. They could see the palm tree, he reasoned, so the room was obviously facing the courtyard. He ran from one side of the landscaped lawn to the other, and then he saw them. Roses, in the window of a second floor apartment, six from the end. The adrenaline was back, with re‑enforcement.
Alan ran to the door of the building and pulled it, locked. A panel of names and door buzzers presented itself to him to the left of the entrance. He wildly pressed all of the buttons in turn, like a virtuoso. A buzz of electronic conversation answered originating from a dozen apartments.
Alan thought quickly, "Uh... pizza delivery." The electronic door latch hummed in the door jam and the door was open. In an instant he was on the second floor, taking the steps three at a time. He ran down the hallway, counting doorways. When he reached the sixth one he pounded on the door.
In his mind, the person lying inside this door wasn't going to answer, so he tried to open it. The door was locked only for an instant, then it slammed open. Shrapnel from the door jam blew into the living area of the apartment. The momentum of the force he used to break through the door carried him into the middle of the apartment. He stood there, stunned. Alan was the visage of a mad man. A sweating, bug eyed, heavy breathing mad man who had
just broken into.... the wrong apartment.
In the bedroom doorway a rather thin, nude man stood in all of his glory, his wife, or lover... or both stood next to him with a bed sheet hastily covering her. The tremendous racket and
the ensuing intrusion had caught them mid stroke.
"What the hell is this?" The little man screamed. Alan shook off the confusion and thought an explanation would be totally futile. He ran to the window and looked at the roses, then out at the adjacent building. Of course! They could see the roses. He looked at the apartments across the way and saw only two that had a good view of the vase of roses in this window. One of the other apartments had an array of plant life growing from hanging pots that would certainly have come to mind before the roses. The other was free and clear, with the curtains open only slightly. Second floor, five from the end.
Alan turned and commanded the wisp of a man standing in the doorway to call 911, that there is person that needs an ambulance. The little man hesitated, as if he were going to say something in defiance.
Alan stepped toward him, "DO IT, DO IT NOW!"
He ran out and down to the first floor. Just when thought his luck might run out, that this whole effort would end up in vain, he saw an old woman walking out of the adjacent building. As she cleared the door, it started its slow return to latching position, only to be snatched open as Alan burst through.
Upstairs, he bounded down the second floor hallway with such force that several people ran out and after him, thinking it was a fire or an earthquake that he was trying to escape. When he reached the fifth door, he angled in and broke through like a lineman heading in to sack a quarterback. The others in the hallway just watched, realizing now that they weren't in danger, or at least the type of danger that put them in the hall in the first place. They peeked in through the broken doorway.
Alan knelt down over the pale woman, a blood soaked phone receiver still clutched in her hand. A long, wicked looking knife, that seemed as though it could kill just by being in
sight, lay next to her. Four nasty stab wounds oozed with the faint, but present pulse. He looked towards the door at the people gawking, "Get the paramedics up here as soon as they arrive."
The sirens made their approach, the little man had called as asked. Alan looked down at the woman. She was in her forties, and extremely well dressed, especially for this working class neighborhood. He bent down and whispered in her ear, "It's gonna be alright, you'll see. You did the right thing, you hung on."
The sirens stopped and frantic screaming could be heard from the courtyard. Two paramedics clambered in, carrying two or three cases of equipment. Two more followed with a portable gurney.
He stood back and watched them work on her. They spoke into a cellular phone to the emergency doctor back at the hospital, letting him know that she was coming and that her vital signs were weak. Once they had her on the gurney, she was gone. One paramedic patted Alan's shoulder. "Looks like you got here just in time."
Two days later Alan sat in his chair by the window at Piccolo. He sipped his morning brew and watched with anticipation. Nearly everyone partook in the morning paper, and today was no exception. It started with glances, and guarded conversation, then eventually all eyes were on Alan. Someone slowly began to applaud and the cafe erupted with cheers and clapping as they acknowledged the celebrity among them.
Alan was indeed a celebrity. The woman he had saved was left for dead by her son, who planned to make it look like she was murdered so he could collect his inheritance. When Alan had found her, she only had seconds left to live. A moments hesitation on his part, and she would have expired, leaving her son with a fortune in high technology stock and real estate. She had a lot of money. Money that corroded and mutated the relationship with her son until he became so obsessed with its control that he would kill his own mother to get it.
She was recovering in the finest hospital in the area. It
was fate that she misdialed the phone, that Alan Carter was there to answer the call. She had tried to dial 911, but had pressed a redial button by mistake. Her son turned himself in once he found out his plan had failed. He was awaiting arraignment on attempted murder, and a myriad of other crimes that, when convicted, would keep him behind bars for the better part of his lifetime.
Alan was happy with just the attention he was getting, and he honestly expected nothing in return. So you can imagine the surprise on his face when he opened the registered letter that was delivered with a dozen red roses, right to the window, his window, at the Piccolo Cafe.
The letter read as follows: "To a true hero, who took the time to help, who took the time to care. Thank you Mr. Alan Carter, I will never forget you. Please take this with my deepest respect and gratitude. Sincerely yours, Pamela Simms."
A cashiers check for $1,000,000 slipped out of the envelope and onto the floor of the cafe. He picked it up and looked at it, a broad smile diverting the tears that ran down his face.
If time were money, Alan Carter would be a millionaire. Time... you can buy it, you can give it, you can spend it and invest it. It was a valuable asset to Alan and a lifesaver when shared with Pamela Simms. Time is what you make of it.

A Token of Appreciation

A Token of Appreciation by Timothy Dewey
coyright 1996


Tom Bowman held it in his grimy hands, turning it over. He looked at both sides, feeling the metal, polishing it with his nervous fingers as the rusted Pontiac scooted into traffic leaving him in a cloud of oil smoke.
It was a gift, a token of appreciation from the old man he had just helped on the freeway. The guy looked like a gypsy. He was about eighty years old and sounded like he was right off the boat from Armenia. He had broken down on the fast lane side of the freeway. Tom popped the hood and found the mechanical linkage going to the old carburetor had come off. All he did was squeeze the connector a little tighter with a pair of pliers and popped it back on.
The old guy was so happy, he cried. He told Tom there were very few people who would stop, unless it was their job, and then they would have charged him an arm and a leg. Tom said nothing, but it was his soul purpose for stopping as well. Surely this old guy had a twenty in his wallet that he would throw his way. A garage mechanic would have charged him minimum fee to look at the car, a tow truck driver would have tripled that just getting him there.
But the only thing the old guy pulls out of his pocket is this... this thing. It isn't money, probably not even worth anything, although there is a chance that it might be gold. He told Tom it is a token of appreciation, that it is special. "It only works five times." He said with his thick accent. Tom thought the old guy must be senile. "Read the words to yourself, and things will happen." He said with a smile and a wink just before pulling into to traffic.
"It isn't worth shit." Tom says to himself as he pushes it into his pocket and gets back into his car. He knows of a jewelry store nearby that might tell him if it’s worth anything.

Down on Broadway, he pulls into the public parking and cruises until he finds a meter with time remaining. Tom isn't a penny pincher on purpose. He has been out of work now for five weeks. The construction job he was on went bust. Some accountant had decided he needed a bonus so the thirty workers on the job went without pay for the two weeks leading up to the accountants disappearance, and now the four weeks after that. "Little bastard" Tom thought, "if I only had you in front of me."
On his way to the jewelry store he checks the pay phones for money. He keeps his eyes pealed for any dropped changed in the gutter or on the sidewalk. When he walks into the jewelry store the owner of the little shop stiffens. Tom looks as though he might be here to rob the place rather than to ask questions. When he pulls the token out of his pocket the old jeweler breathes a little easier.
"Hey, is this worth anything?" Tom asks, setting the token on the black velvet mat reserved for showing the fine jewelry in the display case.
The jeweler scrutinizes the piece under a large inspection glass. "It's bronze... very old." He hums as he turns it, rubbing here and there. "Very old," he repeats.
"Then it must be worth something." Tom says, looking out of the corner of his eye at some watches on display on top of the counter. He hasn't resorted to stealing, not yet. But he is close, and so are those watches.
The jeweler clears his throat. "These words, do you know what they mean?" He asks Tom, bringing up a cloth to wipe the counter top. It is a seemingly innocent move that has him taking the watch display and moving it to the back counter out of Tom's reach. The jeweler has been in business to long not to spot a possible loss of inventory. He gestures to the token, "The words along the border."
"Yeah, I saw those. Looks like Greek or something." Tom says, once again turning the token in his hands.
"Armenian. It says "hajes perne meg vargian". The closest English translation would be "seize the minute, or seize the moment."
"Hajes perne meg vargian? Hajes perne meg vardian." Tom repeated to himself. "Hajes perne meg vargian?"
The jeweler turned off the light under the inspection glass. "It's not worth anything to me. Might be some kind of collectors item though."
Tom snatches the coin and put it in his pocket. "Hey, thanks." He says, turning and walking back out on to the street. As he starts down the street a black Corvette `63 split window coupe rumbles down Broadway headed for Hwy 101. He looks at it with longing as it passes. While his attention is diverted, he collides with a man looking in a shop window.
"Whoa, hey... sorry about that." Tom says. He nearly knocked the man over. He turns his attention back to the Corvette. The driver is oblivious to the car backing out of one of the parking spots. With a wincing crash, the Corvette is stopped in the street. The Toyota Tercel that hit him pulls back into the parking spot.
Tom stands and watches the argument for moment or two, fiddling with the token in his pocket. He shakes his head, "Hajes perne meg vargian?" He says aloud, "Why would they put something like that on a coin?" Then...
He is back outside the jewelry store. Beside him, another black Corvette passes by, identical to the first, drawing his attention. As he turns back to the sidewalk, he collides with the man at the store window. "Hey… what the hell?" Tom knocks the man over. "Jesus, I'm sorry. Let me help you."
As he helps the man to his feet he watches the Tercel up the street back in to the Vette. He just stands there with his jaw agape. "What's going on here?" He says to himself, pulling the coin out of his pocket.

Two days later;
Tom Bowman had stopped when he watched the Corvette get hit for the second time. He knew he had something more than just a useless token of appreciation. If it held some kind of power, he would have to test it. He didn't quite see the big picture, the possible usage of this power on a global scale. All he could do was think of himself, and his immediate situation.
He had taken the coin to a local grocery store and watched from the window, thinking in one-minute increments. It seemed as though that was the amount of time that had been repeated the first time outside the jewelry store. When a register was left unattended for a moment while the clerk helped a customer find something down an aisle, Tom repeated the moment with the token. He just stepped in and cleaned out the cash during the second play the moment, then walked down the street.
It still is dangerous, this second chance. Knowing that someone will not look back, and in that same instance hoping that a pair of unseen eyes is not looking at you. It is after the store experiment that he decides to use it the other way.
He times himself outside of a bank in the city. One minute to go in and hand the teller the note, and then take whatever he can and be out the door and out of sight. Then he can just say the words on the coin and the next minute he will just walk away and never enter. But will the money make the jump from one moment to the next, or be back where it started. He will take the chance.
This way was certainly much more exciting. He waits outside the bank for the lines to die down. Tom vibrates with anticipation as he watches a teller station open up. He walks in carrying a knapsack, controlling his urge to run.
He steps up to the teller, a young Oriental woman who greets him. Tom wears no dark glasses, ball cap, or anything else that might have put her on guard. He has written his note on a blank deposit slip he had pulled from the courtesy station. She looks at it, then at him.
Tom had written that this was a robbery and that he had a gun. He wanted large denominations up on the counter or he would kill her and everyone else before shooting himself. The teller didn't hesitate, pulling stacks of bills up on the counter.
With a quick scoop Tom pulls them all into the knapsack, swings it onto his shoulder, turns and walks away. He doesn't see the teller hit the silent alarm, or her gesture toward the plain clothed guard at the door. As Tom approaches, the guard draws a large caliber handgun and levels it at Tom's head.
"FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR."
Tom doesn't anticipate this one, but his nervous habit of palming the token had it in his hand as they went up in the air.
"Hajes perne meg vardian." Tom says. In the instant before time reversed itself the bank guard thought he had himself some foreigner, maybe even a terrorist. Then, that moment of time ceases and Tom is standing in front of the teller.
"Can I help you, sir?" She asks with that bank teller smile that they must have taught in some training class plastered across her face.
Tom stands there for a moment, not sure whether he has done anything illegal yet. "No... I, uh... forgot my passbook. I'll be back."
He turns and walks toward the door. The bank guard is eyeing him as he approached, then opened the door for him. "Thank you." Tom mumbles. He smiles at him, and then the smile grew wider. He can feel the added weight of the cash in the knapsack... it had worked! However that magic worked, it apparently moved him, and whatever was with him, back and forth between the void.

Back in his car Tom counts his take. It totals a little over eight thousand dollars. For some reason he thought he would have a little more. The bank teller’s performance seemed as though she was doing everything as quickly as possible. But she was handing over smaller denominations, one stack at a time. He would have to study this in order to make his next two usages of the coin the most productive.

Sitting alone at his kitchen table in the small apartment, he tosses back the last of a bottle of Johnny Walker... the spoils of his victorious day.
Tom has never been this dishonest in his life. He has always been someone to look out for others, to not take something that didn't belong to him. It will be easy to justify his actions. After all, he is the one that got screwed by that accountant, he is the one that had to go with no paycheck. It is his bills that are due. And a bank, hell they're a bunch of crooks anyway. Look at the savings and loan debacle, he reasons to himself.
He lifts the squared bottled and lets the last of the drops drain onto his tongue. "The hell with it."

The morning finds Tom standing in front of the Bank of America branch on Broadway with a folded newspaper under one arm. The token is in his jacket pocket, his fingers turning it nervously. He would periodically release it when he was worried about his thoughts, his wishes. He wasn't sure if just thinking the words might make the token work, but he didn't want to chance wasting the two shots he had left.
He had done some thinking. His next score would have to be better than the last. The weight of the pistol, the cold, hard, steel. He could feel the unwanted mass pressing into his side like some cancerous growth. The thought had come to him half way through the bottle last night. The teller would respond much better to a real gun, and his wishes when it was presented... pointing, aiming.
Tom walks inside the branch several minutes after it opens. With the gun he is worried about hurting somebody. So he wants to get in there early, when there will be less traffic. Tom Bowman isn't a bank robber or a practiced thief of any kind. He doesn't have the instinct to plan a robbery, that felonious survival instinct that would cover his ass at every possible angle. Purely successful bank robbers, those who aren't picking up soap from the floor of some prison shower are few and far between.
A line has already formed at both merchant teller windows as well as the line that feeds the three open teller windows for the public. Tom shakes his head. Where did these people come from? He looks at his watch. Only fifteen minutes have gone by since the doors were unlocked.
He fills out the note on one of the deposit slips, finding himself looking for cameras, the position of the managers, the exits... only one that he can see.
The lines grow longer rather than shorter, and Tom finds himself standing in one of them. He wants this to be over. Now people are behind him... all around him it would seem. This doesn’t feel right.
"Next please." A gentle voice calls. "Sir?"
Tom looks up with a slight start. Damn, he thinks to himself, nothing like drawing attention to yourself.
He steps up in front of the young lady. How can he point a gun at this pretty girl. He hands her the deposit slip and then pulls the gun and set it in the newspaper. To anybody standing behind him it looked as though he had pulled a
wallet from inside his jacket, setting his newspaper down on the counter at the same time.
To the off duty police officer waiting in the teller line, Tom Bowman looks out of place. His movements, those darting eyes, the effort to look normal when it was quite obvious that things are not. He is trained to notice things that are out of the ordinary. So when the Tom placed the newspaper on the counter and it bulged much more than a folded newspaper would, it draws his attention like a shark to the kill.
The teller looks at the deposit slip, then at Tom. She cut to Tom's patting hand on the folded newspaper, the gun's muzzle peaking out at her, the bore of the barrel looking like an open manhole to the young girl's frightened eyes.
This time Tom requested the money be put in a bank bag. Placing a knapsack on the counter is so obvious. So the teller reaches beside the counter and pulls a large bag up to the cash drawer and starts emptying the stacks into it. She is not as well prepared as the last teller he robbed, much more nervous. Large denominations stuffed the bag as she hastily zips it shut. Good, Tom thought, she was quick. If he used the coin right now, he would still be in line and he could just turn and walk away. Tom reaches up and grabs the bag, his newspaper and gun. Shit, his hands are full. How would he grab the coin? Just as he is shifting the newspaper and gun under the arm holding the cash bag...
"FREEZE", the off duty cop yells. Screams from the clutch of bank customers taper off into to silence as precious seconds tick away. "Hands in the air, NOW!" He held his H&K 40 caliber service pistol at head level. With the slide pulled back and the hair trigger in contact with a steady finger, the barrel lowers until it is aimed at Tom's chest.
Tom eyes opened wide. His hands held high to the order of the policeman's authoritative voice. Reality strikes him like a fist in the face. He would have to move, and now, if he was to get out of here. If he is lucky he would have only just now stepped up to the teller if he were to repeat the moment.
With all of the bank staff and customers watching, he drops the bank bag from one hand and the gun and newspaper from the other. When the gun hits the floor, it goes off. The round blasts upward from the floor. It tears through the teller station and through the young woman's stomach, coming out of the small of her back. In the same instant the well trained finger squeezes and the cop’s weapon fires.
Tom Bowman is tossed backward from the impact. The pain a combination of the force and ultra nerve burn from the bullet passing through his chest. Ribs instantly shatter, the spreading hollow point round taking bone along with it as it forces through his lung and exits out of his back, that wound the size of a silver dollar... all in the blink of an eye.
He is on the floor, his hand in his pocket, the cool touch of the token in his fingers. But his mind is a flurry of damage control, of confusion, of screams and moans, some from the bank patrons, the teller... some his own. He has know idea how much time has passed before he said the words.
The cop thinks it is a prayer as he bends over to listen. The last words of a dying man. He has seen too many gunshot wounds, has been in too many situations not to know that this is a fatal wound.
"Hajes perne meg vardian... " Tom whispers. But time was not on his side. The moment repeats; he is reaching into his pocket, the bag drops, the newspaper and gun hitting the floor, the gunshot that will eventually kill the young teller, and then the flash of gunfire from the officer.
Once again he is flung backwards. Once again he feels the excruciating pain of the round tearing through his body. His mind is on track this time and he knows what is happening. "HAJES PERNE MEG VARDIAN!" He yells, trying in desperation with his last use of the coin to stay on this side of life.

"Sir?" The young lady repeated, "What can I do for you today?" Her sweet bank teller smile grew a little larger.
Tom lets out a pent up breath. A sigh of relief from the situation, from the pain he was in just moments ago. The gunshots didn't carry over. They are both okay. Had the bullet lodged inside of him, the outcome would not have been the same. He holds the bank bag in one hand… and it is full.
"No.” He looks at her, so relieved she wasn't injured. "I left my check book in the car."
He walks out of the bank and into the warm sunshine. "Oh what a day, what a beautiful day!" He smiles as he walks down the street. At the first trashcan he comes to he dumps the gun, newspaper, and note. On the corner, an old man dug in the pockets of a dirty sweater. As Tom passed, the old man holds a hand out, "Any change for a war veteran?"
Tom stops and looks at the old man. He pulls the token out of his pocket and flips it into the outstretched hand. Tom caught his eye and spoke firmly, "You've got five chances, old man. Read the words to yourself and things will happen." As he walks away, the old man looked down at the ancient coin in the his dirty palm, then back at Tom Bowman as he continued down the street.
The power of the token, to repeat the flow of time itself, to offer someone the chance to change, to give... or take from it. For Tom Bowman, he took, giving his chances away to the dark side of his soul, and he almost gave his life for it. For others, who knows?

Not A Day Over Thirty

NOT A DAY OVER THIRTY by Timothy Dewey
copyright 1994




Ken Andrews takes notes from the stacks of books on the long oak table at the county library. Even though the internet holds research materials above and beyond what he requires, he always comes to this library. It is a love affair, of sorts, Ken and books. Research is a painstaking task, but a necessary evil when making a living as a freelance writer. He is working on a series of articles, he hopes, on the legends and myths of ancient civilizations. He had run the idea by an editor at National Geographic and was given the ball and told to run with it.
He has been writing professionally since he was thirty five, ten years ago. Ken’s work consumes him and he likes that. It leaves little time for anything else. From all outward appearances, he is a bit of a slob. He dresses like he eats, conveniently. If it can't be microwaved or bulk washed it isn't part of his life.
The county library is a marvelous place. One of the oldest buildings in town and it holds microfilm and some actual copies of newspapers and magazines from long before the turn of the century. Ken finds these sources of information particularly interesting. They are old enough, and buried so deep inside the bowels of the library that slight plagiarizing here and there seems almost acceptable. Who would know? Once on a dare he copied an entire article, word for word, and sold it to the same magazine that had printed it fifty years earlier.
He looks at his watch, 4:30pm. The library will be closing tonight at 6:00pm and he has to use the microfilm machine. Ken grabs his notes and a pencil and heads for the stairwell that leads to the basement.
When he reaches the bottom level he goes to the area that holds the copies of the Tribune, the states oldest newspaper. It was first published in the early 1800's. The editions from that era had been transcribed and then copied onto the microfilm. Some days, in the midst of researching one article or another, he would find himself reading a weeks worth of the publication without ever getting to the subject at hand. It is fascinating.
No one seemed to know or care about the treasure of these microfilmed artifacts. He would get spooked often, all alone in the basement, the ghosts of nearly two hundred years reading over his shoulder as he sat in the corner of the weighted room.
But today someone has found his informational treasure trove. There are five or so microfilm cartridges, each from different decades, missing from the rack. He is curious to see who shared an interest in the town's ancient history.
Ken peeks around the corner and sees a young man in his late twenties or early thirties sitting at the machine. He is casually dressed, jeans and collared shirt. At his feet is an open briefcase containing several copies off of the microfilm machine. It is apparent that he has been crying.
Ken backs around the corner and makes a little noise to let the man know someone is coming. He rounds the corner to see the man stuffing a tissue back in his pocket. The sobbing has ceased. "Will you be a while?" He asks the man politely, looking at his watch to signal his urgency.
"No... I'm finished here. I have enough information." He rewinds the cartridge in the machine and pulls it out. After closing the briefcase, he goes to the cartridge rack and reinserts them in the right places.
With the room to himself, Ken makes quick work of his research into the past. He is a whiz at finding what he needs on the microfilm. In fifteen minutes, his task is complete.
As usual he is the last one out, followed by the librarian, one Sheila Huber. He has dated her several times, never getting past the dinner and movie stage.
“Good night Kenny." She says affectionately. He is reminded once again that it is only by his choice that he has never run the bases with her.
"Good night, Sheila."
He watches her walk toward a small green Fiat. She is high on the ten scale for a librarian. "Sheila... "
She spins around, her long red hair making the turn seconds after. "What?"
"Do you want to have dinner with me tonight?" He already knows she will. He is busy thinking where.
"Sure. Pick me up at seven?"
"Yeah... seven is good. See you then."
She starts her car and drives off into the night. A rain shower has left the city with a clean rinse, and now a full moon reflects on every surface it can. He watches her tail lights melt into the ribbons of light shimmering on the wet black pavement.
The single lane Tenth Street Bridge spans the river at what used to be it's deepest point. Even then it was a deadly drop from the bridge to the water, over ninety feet. The river had been dammed up about five miles out of town for the power plant forty years ago, and the only water that flowed under the bridge this night is the runoff from the sudden rainfall of hours ago.
Most people use the new four-lane bridge down on Thirteenth Street that opened this year. The Tenth Street Bridge was constructed in 1910, and is scheduled for demolition in the following months. Ken is pretty much the only one using it in the past month because his house is only a block away on the other side. No one else felt safe on the old span, especially with the newly constructed multi-lane marvel several blocks away.
Tonight an old Buick station wagon is parked midway across the bridge, and a man stands precariously over the side of the rail on the four inches or so of concrete that runs the length of the bridge. A position outside of what any normal person would consider safe.
Ken hits the horn and flashes his high beams. It doesn't budge the man. If anything he inches out over the void a little more. In the high beams, Ken recognizes the young man from the basement in the library. He kills the engine and lights, then gets out.
"Hey there, what are doing, friend?" The words sound foreign to him, not quite what he wants to say. "Come down off of there, buddy, before you get hurt." Better.
"Leave me alone." The young man calls back. He starts talking to himself. "What do I do? What? WHAT?!" He calls into the darkness over the empty riverbed. The traffic from the Thirteenth Street Bridge drones back at him from blocks away, dozens of drivers oblivious to the possible suicide of this man.
"I'll listen if you want to talk." Ken walks closer, now at the back of the young man's station wagon.
"I don't want to talk. Leave me alone, or I'll jump." He gripps a rusting light standard, one of twenty that had lit the span in the early years.
"If you were going to jump, you wouldn't be threatening me with it." Ken recalls the line from some cop show, it seemed to work then. Keep them talking, that was the key. And they say television isn't educational. "What's your name?"
"Allan. Allan Solace." He releases his grip on the pillar and is now balancing on the four inches once again. "I don't know what to do."
Ken steps slowly closer, and is now at the front of the car. He can see Allan wiping the tears from his eyes. "What do you mean?"
Allan turns and looks at him, "Not another step, man!" He has a wild, unpredictable look in his eyes.
"It can't be that bad... nothing is." Ken leans back on the wagon. "Tell me about it. Girl friend dump you? Money trouble? What?"
Allan takes a deep breath and releases it. "It's more than that. Today's my birthday, man. It's the worst day of my life. I got fired from my job today for something that wasn't even my fault. Denise, my girlfriend, I got her pregnant nine months ago. I went back to the house for a little moral support, you know? When she find out I lost my job, she goes off. Now she wants me out of her life. She said she's going back to her folks in Nantucket after the baby is born."
"Hey, there's always tomorrow." Ken replies. "You wait, the situation won't seem so bleak."
"I found out there is no tomorrow, man." Allan turns. "I was at that palm reader's, spent my last twenty."
Ken nods, he meant Madam Siro's at the end of town. Up until now he thought it was harmless, having a palm reader telling the townsfolk that they would win big in Vegas or that a romance was in the future. This was entirely different. What could she have told this man?
Allan continues, "I thought she was going to tell me I would win big in Vegas or find a new girlfriend, something that would pick me up. Instead she tells me my family is cursed, the males. Only one spirit would be able to pass between the males."
"Oh come on now, you didn't take her seriously. It's an act man. She's a side show act." Ken says angrily. He would pay a visit to Madam Siro's when this was all over with the cops. Something like that can't be legal.
"I didn't think it was serious either, until she mentioned the fact that my father was killed the day I was born, and his the day he was born. She was right man... I looked it up."
Ken takes a chance and steps up to the railing. "What do you mean she was right?"
Allan chooses to ignore the move to the railing, not quite sure what to do. "She told me to trace my lineage. It was a curse or a hex… some damn thing, from the old country a couple of hundred years ago. If I want my baby to be born, I have to give it up. She was right man, I looked it up." He points to the briefcase in the front seat of the car.
Ken opens the passenger door and grabs the briefcase. In the glow from the dome light he releases the catches and opens it. Inside he finds the copies of the microfilm. He turns to talk to Allan but he is gone.
"NO!" Ken runs to the edge of the bridge and looks over. In the moonlight he can see Allan's body sprawled ninety-nine feet below in the rocks that make up the riverbed.
"OH... MAN!" He turns away. "DAMN IT!" He walks back to the station wagon and pounds his fist on the roof.
Minutes pass. He takes the briefcase back to his car and sits down, pulling a flashlight from under the seat. The papers Allan had copied were obituary and birth announcements from the vital statistics section of the Tribune. They went back about a hundred and fifty years in thirty year increments. Each page shows the death of a man. Some have sketches and later pictures of them in life. They indeed resembled the man on the bridge. On the same page, in the birth announcements, a child… a boy to be exact, was born to the widow on the very same day.
Over on the Thirteenth Street Bridge the flashing red lights of an ambulance are darting through traffic. Inside paramedics are too late to make it to the hospital. They will have to deliver the baby here and now. The stress of Allan losing his job has Denise in labor three days early, and she cries his name as the pain begin.
Across town, at Madam Siro's, the lights are off and the doors to the business closed and locked. Allan's twenty-dollar bill blows off of the porch where she had thrown it. It tumbles down the dampened streets in its balled up state. The cleansing spell she had administered seemed to help it along, away from her domicile. She sits in the dark, staring into what she thought was a useless ball of round crystal. After the reading, she was too afraid to move.
Up until now, the whole thing was a show, a scam. When Allan Solace walked in she really saw something. She had read about it in her mothers diaries, heard about it on the porch and in front of the fire on those days and nights when her mother would talk about the witchcraft of long ago. Her mother was a real psychic. Born with a caul, a veil of skin over her face. It was the true sign of the power. She could see into the past as well as the future.
She had told her of a curse so dark that it would fill the crystal with inky blackness of a Pharaoh's tomb. It was the curse that protected such places as ancient burial grounds and crypts. Somewhere in Allan Solace's distant past, one of the males of his clan had stolen from a protected sight, and now he, as well as all of those who came after, would pay the price.

The Gambler

THE GAMBLER by Timothy Dewey
copyright 1992






The lithe machine stormed past a line of cars on the highway. He held on for dear life as the beast made a run up the stretch of road that would surely had launched him if he had wings. It was midnight. The weekend was here.
A Sportster, it was his. He sat on it like it were built for him, although it was born decades ago, and had seen several owners. It had a custom look for a '75, an antique in the style of the bikes of old. He let off of the throttle and slowed between traffic. In the constant arc of light emanating from the vibrating mirrors, he had thought he noticed a vehicle closing in on him, could be a cop. A small car whizzed by, it's taillights instantly melting in with the glittering jewels of distant light in his path.
His ass hurt, it was cold, he had no gas gauge or reserve, but under the ill-fitting helmet, he was smiling... as best he could at 80 miles an hour. Several exits passed by without warning. He thought again about the fact that he had no gas gauge or fuel reserve. What was the range on this thing? On his only highway ride he had gauged it at just under 50 mpg when he knew the distance and the gallons he held. But he had tweaked the carb during a little fuel problem, and now he was just guessing. The last exit had the only gas station open that he had seen at this hour of the night. With a bold twist he throttled on into the night and gained on the garnet red lights of the future in front of him.
Twenty minutes had passed. In his mind he reasoned out his range, feeling for any indication that he might be wrong. He had put about three gallons in and ran it while he figured out his fuel problem, but how much distance had he covered during that troubleshooting stint. With a slight jolt he got his answer. the steed struggle for fuel, it coughed radically, a bolt of blue tailpipe lightning struck the highway. Still behind the pack of racing cars, he had room to perform the scavenging, side to side maneuver that he hoped would slide any remaining fuel down the throat of the beast. With a final lunge, his mount died beneath him, leaving the sound of the wind in his ears as the bike coasted to a stop. He cursed his hopeful ignorance as the bike stopped and he examined his position. In the distance, the slowly revolving gas station sign shone like a beacon in the crisp night sky. Luckily, it was a Sportster... and easy to push.
Inside of thirty minutes he was at the pumps. None of the cheap gasoline had enough muscle for the big twin engine. He loaded it with the next best thing, ninety-two octane and some octane booster, and was on his way. Lake Tahoe was a four hour drive from the San Francisco area. He had taken out a little more than an hour on what fuel he had. When he filled the tank, a little less than four gallons registered on the pump. Even with something not running quite right he figured he at least would have thirty five miles to the gallon, enough to get him home.
Once again he was blasting past the speeding traffic on the highway. Sacramento, Placerville, and then the twisting mountain road of highway fifty still lay in his path. The freshly fueled steed beneath him bolted like a rocket through the cluster of machines in and about the roadway. He reduced them to pin points of light as he raced to an open area of the road. The night was clear and crisp, cold stars shimmered above him as the sky met the blackness of the road ahead.
Since the refueling, he had figured on topping off at the first stop in Placerville, before climbing into the mountains. As he approached and passed the exit, he wondered why he gambled like this. It was a twisted venture, to take a chance at running out of gas before he reached his destination. As he left the exit to the gas stop behind him, he calculated and reasoned away the chance of running out of gas. Three and a half gallons at thirty five to forty miles to the gallon, running rough of course, would still leave him a slim margin of safety. But the bike wasn't running rough, it ran like a thoroughbred on a dry track at Bay Meadows. He would gas up at the first station in Lake Tahoe.
The roar of the engine subsided as he guided his mount through the stop and go sections of the highway in Placerville. With a twist he was up to highway speed as the sleeping hamlet disappeared behind him, swallowed up by the first turn of the ribbon of black highway. The temperature dropped by ten degrees as he climbed into the mountains. He could feel every minute climate change as he rode through them, savoring every warm pocket of air he blasted through, taking it for all it was worth. This was the ride, it was all of the discomfort, balanced with the thrill, the gamble. Just him and his machine, his iron horse... and the wind.
An hour later he crested the peak and slowed for the descent into the Tahoe basin. Before him lay a blanket of shimmering red and yellow lights from a dozen sleepless casinos in the distance. He geared down and slalomed the bike down the steep succession of turns and twists in the road until he motored out onto the floor of the basin. His turn was ahead, his ride not through. He guided the beast to the right and onto the base of yet another mountain. It would be another thirty minutes and he would be warming between the sheets of his bed, his lady next to him.
The pine trees and mountainous walls of granite blurred by him as he powered the bike up the mountain road. His thoughts were of the end of the four hour ride, the discomfort of the lengthy journey seeped into his thoughts like water through a leaky roof. A Sportster was never meant to be a touring bike. To the top of the this last mountain, the descent into the Carson Valley, and his trip would be through. Twenty more minutes as the bike flies. He was enjoying the hardy hoof beats of fifty two horses as their thunder cracked the serene morning air.
Like a bolt of forgotten lightning, it hit him... he didn't get gas in Tahoe. The urgency to finish the trip completely blocked it from his mind, until now. In an instant his casual, distant connection to the ride became a tense search for any sign of irregularity. As he went through a sweeping turn, he let off the throttle in a vain attempt to conserve fuel. The lights of his little town were in sight, he had a chance. With little fanfare, the horses stopped, the wind was once again the only sound, aside from the blaring curse of his ignorance.
It was nearing three thirty in the morning. He couldn't have picked a more desolate area to run out of gas. Four miles behind him lay the small town of Woodfords. Ahead of him lay the town of Gardnerville, his final destination. He would push the bike until someone passed by, if anyone did. The lights of his little town beckoned to him, staying well out of his reach for now. He tried sitting on the bike, pushing with his feet.... no good. Once again he got off and pushed. To each side of him he detected movement in the darkness. The moon was absent from the sky, giving him an unrestricted view of the universe, it's unending pin points of light glowing like bits of phosphorus on a black sand beach. Again movement in the fields on either side of the road. The mountains stood in the darkness behind him, they had yielded to the open grazing land of the valley.
Hundreds of head of dairy and beef cattle watched the man push the Sportster down the four miles of highway. He knew his wife was sleeping, or he hoped she was. He felt uneasy... no phone, no way to let her know. Any attempt to wake any of the ranchers that lived several miles off of the highway would probably be met with gunfire. If she was sleeping, it would be for nothing anyway. He would be home, but when. The man walked the bike some more. Headlights appeared seven miles down the road. By turning the ignition on and of, he blinked an S.O.S. at the on coming pinpoint of light.... to no avail, they turned off and he was once more left to push the bike to it's eventual destination.
Before the end of the journey, eight cars would fly by on the highway. Even though he had a full beard and leathers on, and the fact that it was in the middle of nowhere and four in the morning, he still resented the fact that they wouldn't stop for him. He cursed them as they flew by, changing lanes to avoid any possible confrontation. In their mirrors, they could see the man yelling at them in the fading glow of their tail lights. Why would he be pushing this bike down the road at four in the morning, for his health? That did seem to be it, at least to them. In forty five minutes the sun would be rising. He could feel his wife's eyes staring into the darkness from a warm, cozy bed. She was awake, he knew it. Just to pass the time while he walked the bike, he tried to let her know he was alright through the mental bond he knew they shared. He walked on.
When the sunrise came, it spilled onto the mountains to his left. The ten thousand foot peaks were painted majestically in a pale golden hew as the light from a new day took away the shadows of the unknown. He could see the road clearly now, and his place upon it. The movement of the cows in the pastures on either side of him were no longer mysterious and eerie. The serene countryside and towering peaks made him feel fortunate to be witnessing something he had taken for granted for so many years. A short distance ahead was the spot he had waited to see. A pull off next to a grouping of mailboxes, and a short distance away a ranch house. His bike would be safe while he walked the next two miles to his home.
As he set the bike behind the mailboxes, a man emerged from the farm house. He looked over at the bike, and then the biker. The rancher disappeared into a shed as the biker walked by. When he emerged, the biker asked if he could buy a gallon of gas. The rancher replied that he had none. Any fool could see the dozen or so pieces of gas powered equipment in and about the yard. It wasn't uncommon for a rancher to even have his own gas truck. The biker pointed out the fact in passing, but received no response. This guy wasn't going to help him. It would be a waste of time to ask about using the phone.
He hoofed it down the road, his neighborhood in sight just beyond the grazing field, but still almost two miles away. The road seemed endless as it wound it's way into the barren high desert behind his little town. It was, however, a short cut compared to the highway. The fences that ran along the road held in the cattle as they grazed, but there were none in the meadow this day. He held back the urge to jump the fence and take the shortest route between two points. He had lived here long enough to know that the road was a short cut compared to the fields. There were unseen trenches and washes, any number of fresh cow piles, and animal burrows, all of which would certainly curtail any time you would save having gone that way. He looked at his watch, two and a half hours had passed since he had run out of gas. His wife was still asleep, he hoped. In the back of his mind, he could feel her waking presence, her worry as she looked out of the front window.
He had arrived every weekend at or around three in the morning from his job in the bay area. On this night, the first night ride on his new bike, he had not come home. She stood at the window, a tear in her eye as she thought of the children, the possibility that he had met with disaster. She pushed the bad thoughts to the back of her mind. Thoughts of him lying dead somewhere off of the mountain highway, or of his broken and bleeding body being stuffed into an ambulance. She looked down at the number she had copied from the phone book for the highway patrol. In ten more minutes, at six o'clock, she would call. Just show up... please. After wiping her eyes, she silently walked back into the bedroom to get the portable phone.
As she walked to the back of the house, he stepped onto the sidewalk from the dirt road and walked through the awakening neighborhood. He was nearing the end of his journey, and was glad to almost be home. This was the first time he had ever walked six miles under these conditions. The only other time he had walked any great distance was with a thirty pound pack and a night of partying in the mountains with his back packing buddies. One thing for certain, he would never run out of gas on this bike again. Twice in one night is enough.
He walked up to his front door and put the key in the
lock as silently as possible. If she was still asleep, he
did not want to wake her, or the children. As he entered and
closed the door behind him, she came from the back room,
phone in hand, the speed dialer chasing the busy signal until
it would win out. At first, she was angry. What happened,
why didn't he call, then she hugged him and cried. He felt
her love in a strong, encompassing, python like grip, her
gentle sobbing rocked them as they stood together.
Damn it, he thought... he had hoped this scene wouldn't
play, that she was asleep. But it did, and she wasn't. She
was with him on that road, the whole time. In her heart she
could tell something was wrong, and she was right.
In his explanation of what happened, and why he didn't call, he left out the fact that he had run out not once, but twice. She would never understand the failed reasoning he went through, the chances he took. When he was through, she got the kids up and they all headed up to gather the bike.
As he poured the fuel into the tank, his wife and kids waited for the beast to thunder to life, Two kicks and it rumbled beneath him, eager to run after the brief sleep. He mounted up and with his family escort, headed off into the sunrise. He was glad to be home.

Signs of the Time

Signs of the Time by Timothy Dewey
copyright 1992


Leon folded the well scrutinized map of Thailand up and put
it back in the large manila envelope that held the other
paraphernalia vital to his upcoming vacation. He quickly modeled
the new hat he had bought, a rather khaki colored bush hat, the
side pinned up with an airline logo pin in an Australian Outback
kind of way. Leon pulled the hat from his head and stuffed back
into the bag from whence it came. He smiled widely, "Leavin'
tomorrow!"
To say I was envious was an understatement. A vacation to
Thailand was as far away to me as a date with Lady Di. "I won't
think of this place, or you guys, for the next eight days." Leon
stated as he returned to the flap drive motor he was
reconditioning. I gave him a curt smile and looked back and the
large valve I was working. It lay in twenty pieces in and around
my work bench. Time for an unauthorized coffee break. I would
most certainly go unnoticed in this football field size shop at
the airline. I could, in fact, light my hair on fire and run
around in circles and my associates would not bat an eye. Doing
your eight hours a day in an airline accessories shop conditioned
you to just do your work, and never mind what anyone else did.
I took my cup of coffee in hand and meandered over to Leon's
bench.
So when are you leaving pal? Have you got a choice of
flights?"
Leon fended me off as he continued to work on his unit
while he logged down a minute bearing tolerance he had just
measured, then considered an answer to my inquiry. "While you
are walking in from the parking lot tomorrow, look up. There's
only one flight and I'll be on it... leaves at 2:30 in the
afternoon."
I sipped down the coffee with my teeth clenched to
avoid any surprise at the bottom of the cup. "Ever been there
before, in a war or something?"
Leon shook his head, "Korea was before me, Vietnam after me.
Nope, I haven't been to Asia... up until now."
As I walked back to the bench, my nemesis, Dave,
tossed a balled up piece of garbage into my coffee cup. "Ten
points..." he yelled and then returned to his work. I made a
mental note that I would have to get my revenge before the night
was over and then returned to the headache of a unit sitting on my
bench.
As promised, Leon hopped the one and only flight, a 747-400,
destined for Bangkok, Thailand. His work bench stood empty.
This vacancy would only be noticed by several workers who relied
on him for technical assistance, good conversation, or a good
laugh. Anybody else at this immense operation would be oblivious
to his absence.
The day dragged on with it's usual lack of vibrancy and
variety. Because it was a Friday, the traditional weekend inquiry
was passed about like a hot potato. One person would ask the
next what they had planned so they could tell them in turn what
they had planned, then they would move to another location and ask
the next person. It was a rudimentary custom in the shop and
gave a gave you an artificial sense that someone actually cared
what you were doing.
Dave and Bob were having some last minute discussion at Bob's
bench that took on hushed tones as I arrived. It wasn't that they were
talking about me or had something they didn't want me to know about,
Dave just did it to tick me off.
"So," I said, "What are you going to do this weekend Dave?"
"Yard work." The reply was standard for Dave. If he actually
did yard work every weekend his yard would look like Buchardt
Gardens.
Bob announced he was to take his leave of this stinking
city and motor up to his soon to be retirement retreat. "What
are you going to do Tim?" Bob asked with what seemed to be
genuine concern.
"I have to go to the library. Still doing that report on the MIA/POW's
of the Vietnam War for my night class. It is due in two weeks."
As the remainder of the afternoon decayed into night, we
would take turns wondering what Leon was doing on his 15 hour
flight.

Leon took a long draw off of the bronze beverage swilling
about in the plastic cup among the clutch of ice cubes. His
flight was already to long, and he had already watched two movies
and read a tree's worth of magazines. He flagged down the
flight attendant and ordered a couple more drinks. If all went well, he
would be sound asleep for the next six hours of his flight, and wake up in Thailand.
He finished the last of the drinks and laid his head back. It what seemed like
minutes the flight attendant walk by and ask him to raise his seat to the full
upright position. He looked at his watch, could it be? He had been asleep for six hours.
He silently thanked Jim Beam as he focused in on what was going on around him.
The passengers were made ready for landing by a throng of flight attendants
who were busy stuffing pillows and blankets into overhead compartments and
gathering complaints and food trays.
The plane touched down on the tarmac in Bangkok and the passengers gave
a collective sigh. As they exited the aircraft the warm, humid air blasted them
like a belch from a volcano. This did nothing to improve Leon's general condition,
which was mildly hung over. He showed his passport and went through the normal
motions of entering a foreign country. Before leaving the airport he exchanged his
currency into Baht, the local dollar, and then claimed his luggage. He only spoke two
languages, English and money. At least one of them would be helpful here in Thailand.

He checked into his lodging at the Bangkok Towers and was quite impressed.
The room actually seemed to be worth the two hundred and eighty dollar a night
price tag. He pulled several bottles of his favorite liquors from the mini bar and
what looked to be a crystal glass disguised as a bud vase and took them out onto the
balcony.
The view was splendid, again worth the money. The balmy weather was working
on him, conditioning him. He looked off into the distance through the Bangkok skyline.
Below him the city was in full swing, traffic blaring away below him with only the slightest of noises actually reaching his ear. Far off to the left of the hotel was the thick mat of the triple canopy jungle that extended beyond view in a misty wave of heat. He had told the company travel agent to put him in a hotel at the edge of the city so he could experience a little of Thai wilderness and adventure.
Leon called down to the concierge and made dinner reservations in the Tower restaurant. "Seven o'clock, I want to eat at seven.... good. Hey, are there any nice walking trails for a quick hike?" Leon wanted to shake off the thirteen hours of sitting he had done on the flight over. A young lady on the other end of the line told him that she had some brochures that offered several fine hikes on the hotel property.
Leon hung up the phone and mixed himself a large cocktail, donned his shorts and walking shoes, his new hat, and he was out the door. He strolled through the cool air-conditioned lobby and up to the beautiful young girl behind the concierge desk. "Hi there. I
just called about the hiking brochure." She smiled in a public
relations manner and handed him the brochure. He spared her any
compliment about her gorgeous appearance, figuring that she
probably heard it from any number of drunken, out of line tourists.
Leon stood there and examined the map of trails. The one
that skirted the jungle behind the hotel looked as though it
would provide him with the most to see.
The young lady confirmed it, "That is one of the finest trails to hike... it goes by a
waterfall and through the outskirts of the jungle. Please obey the signs though, sir.
You may not go off of the trail, it could be very dangerous."
"Dangerous?" Leon echoed.
"Yes sir," she continued with wide eyes, " there are many wild animals... and snakes. There's a shuttle leaving for the trail head in about two minutes outside that door..." The young lady was interrupted by a phone call and Leon took his leave of her.
He sipped down part of the potion he had mixed himself in the hotel room and boarded the shuttle. After a short ride the shuttle heaved to a stop and Leon got out and took off down the
trail that led towards the jungle. There was hardly a sole on the path, it was quite peaceful. The whirring noise of the city eventually gave way to the motion and tones of the living jungle.
Leon tipped his hat to a German couple that offered a cheerful "Guten Tag" as they passed on the trail on their return to the hotel. He walked further into the jungle with every step,
the path offering glimpses at lizards and colorful insects.
Off to his right he watched as a long green snake slithered down the branch of a tree. "Look at that." He said in mild amazement.
As he walked further down the trail the daylight was having increasing difficulty filtering it's way down through the thick cover of jungle trees and foliage. He could hear a waterfall
ahead, it's unending fluid motion lending a pleasing hush to the noises emitting from the jungle. He reached the end of the trail and watched the water cascade over several rock formations and end in an emerald green pool at it's base.
The sign mounted on one of the trees read;
End of Jungle Trail - Do not continue - Trespassing Forbidden.
Another just below it detailed the waterfall and thickly matted jungle.
Leon walked several yards past the sign in defiance. He could hear another waterfall in the distance. He looked around to see if anyone was looking and then continued on into the jungle forging his own path as he went. The warning sign disappeared in the thick growth behind him, and although he was not aware of it, he had become lost... in more ways than one.
The sound of the waterfall he had been following diminished until it was gone altogether. He stopped and listened carefully, but heard nothing but the life of the jungle around him. He
turned back and walked in the opposite direction to get back onto the jungle trail. After several minutes he began to realize the situation. Looking up offered no navigational bearing, around
him was the never ending forest of analogous trees and ferns. He continued in the direction of the hotel, trying in mounting desperation to find some discernable landmark. As he strode through the bush, he was aware of a different sound in the jungle around him. In an instant he was surrounded by a squad of men, clad in black, carrying automatic weapons.
Leon froze at their shrill command, their leader pushing him to the ground as they spoke in what sounded like local tongue. A thonged foot put unbearable pressure on his neck and he soon
passed out.
Leon was slapped into consciousness and then yanked to his feet. The cold barrel of a weapon prodded him down what appeared to be a trail. In front of him, two of the black clad men led Leon and the others with a destination in mind. Leon was two bewildered to speak at the moment. All he could think of was why he didn't see this trail before... and who the hell were these guys.
He shot a quick glance behind him as he was prodded along. There were six altogether, the last one sported Leon's new hat. He had no idea what was going on. "You guys with the hotel?"
His question was answered with a quick blow from the butt of an automatic rifle. He stumbled forward, the open wound on the back of his head flowed scarlet. Who ever these men were, Leon seemed to be their prisoner.

Back at work I toyed with the project sitting on my bench. A hapless array of diaphragms and regulators, poppets and pins, that, when assembled correctly, kept an airliner full of people
safe and on time. Time for another unauthorized coffee break. I took my cup and went on a social tour of the shop to pay my respects to my associates. After all, they had given up the better part of a day to be here at work with me. That in itself deserved a little of my time, work to do or not.
As I passed by Leon's bench, I couldn't help but notice he was not there today, or the last four for that matter. "Hey Bob, when was Leon suppose to be back?"
Bob, one who was always ready to converse with almost anybody, stood up and walked over to Leon's empty work bench. "Tim lad, I thought he was suppose to be back on Monday... I think he must have had a little trouble catching a return flight."
I scoffed at the idea, "Come on Bob, he has enough seniority to bump Moses. He would at least be able to catch a flight at least some time during the week. It's Friday, he must have caught a bug over there and is sick."
The reasoning was there. He was after all in Thailand, a single man's paradise. There must be more things you could catch there than trout in the Russian River. We passed that answer in and about the shop to anyone who asked. On my way to the sink to rinse out my coffee cup I passed the foreman's office.
"Hey there," I called to get his attention, "is Leon sick?"
The foreman looked at a well stacked pile of paperwork and pulled a single sheet from the middle. He ran his finger down the page and stopped, "Leon is A.W.O.L. since Monday."
I thanked him and returned to my bench. Bob noticed my quick exit from the foreman's office and surmised correctly as to why I was there.
"Is Leon sick?" He asked with concern.
"No... He's A.W.O.L., since Monday."
We both silently began to worry much more than just minutes ago. Where was Leon?
The night passed quickly, as does every Friday night in the shop. We traded the usual insults and practical jokes. We were playing the "what are you going to do this weekend" game as the clock counted down the minutes. None of the responses seemed to change from week to week, month to month, but we asked anyway.
"Yard work." Dave replied.
Bob was going to lock himself in this weekend and finally rent a video or two he had wanted to watch. And of course I still had the finishing touches to make on my POW / MIA's of the Vietnam era report for my night class.

My reading table held the books I had checked out of the library, dangerously stacked like rock pinnacles in the Utah desert. I completed the bulk of the report, and had to leaf through a few of the picture filled publications to get a note or two for my reference page. My eyes were heavy, and if I didn't stop soon I would do more harm than good. I turned several pages in a pictorial edition of Time / Life... and something caught my eye. I turned back the page and looked at the top picture. I rubbed my eyes slowly to allow my them to focus and stop playing tricks on me. The man in the picture wore a hat just like the one Leon had shown us before he left on his trip.
The caption under the photo read, "Viet Cong with prisoners on Thai / Laos border." It was dated 1969. The man in the picture guarded the small group. His left hand holding an AK-47 at waist level, the barrel aimed at five men. One of the small indiscernible faces seemed familiar. I got up out of my chair and rustled through a desk drawer to find my magnifying glass. When I had it in hand, I returned to the photo and lowered it into viewing range.
The hat the man with the gun wore bore the airline pin, one of recent logo, holding the side up in Australian Outback kind of way. Behind him, the prisoners sat on the ground, there hands on their heads. I felt a chill rake through my body as though I had been dumped naked into the frozen waters of Lake Tahoe. There was Leon... sitting in shorts and a shirt, a wide eyed helpless look on his face. Around him sat several others, dressed in fatigues and torn flight suits. Prisoners of a war long since over, lost with time, and for Leon... lost in time.

Gina's Gift

Gina’s Gift by Timothy J. Dewey
copyright 2006

The view from the train might as well have been open ocean as far as the eye could see. I look at it, but I don’t see it. I just see her. Not the way she looks now, but the way she looked when she visited our home in New Mexico.

My cousin Rick, not at all familiar with how to handle news of this nature, left me a message on my answering machine. “Hey, Nick, Gina is dead… natural stuff. Hell, she was what, eighty something?” You get the picture. I must have stood there for fifteen minutes looking at the machine and the little red light, remembering. I wasn’t sad about the news, just sad for the fact that I never got a chance to see her where she lived.

Gina is my grandma. We call her by her first name because it carries something fresh within it, like a rose or something, a spark of life you wouldn’t expect in your grandma. Gina loved the city of San Francisco, her home for fifty or sixty years. She lived there by herself for much of that. Her husband, my grandfather, died before I was born, and I am thirty-four.

Now Gina has extended the invitation to me to come see her since I was twelve years old and able to fly on my own. But when I’m a kid we don’t have the cash to be flying out to Cali for little Nicky to visit his grandma. I had a good childhood, but we weren’t flush with funds. Now I am self-employed for the last ten years, computer networking, and go all over the western states, but never made it to Gina’s, not once. It’s not that I hadn’t tried to, or at least thought about it, but things happen. The job runs too long, another comes along back-to-back, girlfriend calls to tell you she is moving out as we speak, things happen.

Now here I am, on a train to the city to see where Gina lives. I spent three hours taking the one-hour flight from Vegas, where I live and work, to San Jose where Gina’s lawyer has relocated. There was a reading of the will about an hour ago. I didn’t care for it.

My cousins, I don’t really know them. There are three of them. Two that show up, one is in Somalia or Ethiopia or someplace like this with the Peace Corps.
The two that showed up were not Gina’s favorites by any means. I was her favorite. How do I know this without having seen her face to face for twenty years? One word… letters. I sent Gina a letter every month. I was religious about sending her those letters since I was eight years old. She knew as much about my current events and me as I did with hers. And in every letter she sends me back is a little red flower… a friendship flower she calls it. She says she only gives those to her special friends. I doubt the cousins ever saw one from her, and if they did they probably smoked it.

My cousins, they saw her as a bag of money that they couldn’t keep their hands out of. She wasn’t rich by any means, but when her husband died his life insurance went into the hands of some pretty savvy investment counselors that were friendly towards Gina. Needless to say, the original investments paid, and she parlayed that into a pretty nice nest-egg.

Now Gina doesn’t spend a lot. She lives in the same apartment, owned by the same landlord, for forty years. He isn’t trying to make it rich off of his tenants, and they all are like family. So she has some funds to spread around to the relatives. I saw plenty of it in birthday cards and little gifts here and there, but I never asked her for any of it. The cousins on the other hand were constantly playing her for a few hundred here for bills; a couple of thousand for a car they had to have for “school”. Hell, if these guys were in school as much as they claimed they would be doctors and lawyers by now. But no, David manages a video store and Rick is an unemployed roofer at the moment.

At the reading they both smile ear to ear when the lawyer hands them the manila envelopes from Gina’s estate. I even see a tear in Ricky’s eye, but I don’t think it is for her. Ricky is probably crying out of relief that he can pay back a little money he borrowed from the wrong people. He had tried to shake me down for a grand for the same reason a while back. I didn’t have it, but even if I did I wouldn’t have given it to him. Notice I didn’t say lend it to him.

Me, I don’t get an envelope from the lawyer. Instead he hands me a letter, written on Gina’s stationary, that and a bowling bag.
“What’s in the bowling bag? Gina doesn’t bowl.”
The lawyer leans forward in his chair and motions toward the sealed envelope.
“It’s all in the letter, Nick. Read the letter and then we will talk about it.”

The cousins both stand. Ricky wipes his eyes.
“We, uh… we’re done here, aren’t we?”
The lawyer looks at them, a flash of contempt in his eyes at their disregard for Gina’s memory. He had been her friend for almost twenty years, and knew how much she loved her family. He is sure it wasn’t reciprocated by these two.
“Yes, unless you want to know what is going to happen with Gina’s ashes?”
“Hey, she’s gone, you know. I’m not much for visiting cemeteries. I’ll keep her here.” He pats his chest. It sounds hollow. With that he and David slip out of the office and leave me and the lawyer to talk.

The letter is in Gina’s hand, written three years ago. It is a request for me to take her ashes to the city, to her apartment. There I will receive instructions on where to spread them. There is also a check. The lawyer says it is twice what the cousins took home. He tells me that they had gone to her so many times that she had already let them spend a lot of their inheritance.

“I didn’t read anything about the bowling bag.”

The lawyer smiled and hefts it up to the top of the old oak desk.
“Gina.” He says with a smile as he unzips it and pulls a container out of the canvas and imitation leather. It is not ornamental at all, not like the pretty urns you see in movies. It looks more like a thermos.

The lawyer can see the question forming, “Yes, it’s a thermos. She wants you to spread her ashes in the city, Nick, and she doesn’t want you to get in trouble doing it.”

From the train station it’s a fifteen-minute cab ride to Chestnut Street and Gina’s apartment. Before you know it I’m standing in the street with Gina in hand, a daypack slung over my shoulder, looking up at the window boxes on the top floor, her apartment. The street noise is heavy, but seems blocks away. Here it is a little less hectic, a little more trees, a gentle breeze that carries aromas and sounds that never find their way to my senses in Vegas. The tang of seawater, a hint of garlic, baking bread and fresh roasted coffee, it all mingles with the exhaust of my departing Yellow Cab.

I buzz the door into the courtyard until I hear a voice calling to me from inside. “On my way. Keep your pants on and your finger off that button.”

From around the corner comes the old man, Tilly. I know it was him from Gina’s letters. She had a thing with him once. I think Ike was President then. They remained friends all along, and now here he is, in the flesh.

“Hey, Tilly, I’m… “

“Nicky, I know who you are. I couldn’t make it through the day without her showing me a picture of you.” He unlocks the gate and it swings open with a squeal. Tilly draws the can of WD-40 like a gunfighter and hits the hinges with a couple of squirts. “Damn sea air.” I wait for him to twirl it back into tool belt. It doesn’t happen.

He motions to the bag, “Is that her?”
“Yeah, Tilly, that’s her.”

He smiles sharply and then turns, choking back a sob. With a wave of his hand he motions me to follow. I feel bad. Guys like Tilly watch their friends drop like autumn leaves, one less person to talk to, to relate old times… the good old days. A future full of ungrateful strangers who can’t remember what it took to get this far.

We step into a small, wall-stacked office that dares any earthquake to bury its occupant. Tilly sweeps some papers aside and grabs ball of keys that looks like a metal porcupine. He gives me a little nudge as he steps past me toward the stairway in the courtyard, waving me along. “Gina was on three.”

He walks by a small elevator nearly hidden from view by a heavy black security gate. I stop, he continues. “Hey, don’t you want to take the elevator?”
“In the worst way.” He starts up the stairs, “Damn thing has been out of service for a month. He stops on the steps and turns, “Don’t know anything about elevators, do you?”

“No, but I can recommend a good slot machine,” I shoot back. Nothing. “I don’t know if Gina told you, but I live in Vegas.”

He starts up the steps, “I’ve seen the pictures you sent her.”

He moves up the steps slowly, telling me about how long Gina had lived in the building, how they used to go out dancing at night. He tells me how during the Big War the town would be going twenty-four hours a day. You could dance all night and then walk to Chinatown for a late dinner… or early breakfast depending how you looked at it.

“Can’t do that now-a-days, end up robbed and busted up in some alley, even the girls. Gangs of kids ruined it for everyone.”

By the time he is done talking, we are standing outside of Gina’s apartment as he unlocks the weathered door. “They haven’t taken anything out of here yet. It is just as she left it. In three days, they come and clean it out.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, “You let me know if you need anything, Nick.”

I don’t know what to expect, maybe something between an old folks home and old memories, and maybe that old person smell. But Gina’s apartment is clean and perfect, an extension of her, of her simple beauty. I can feel her there with me, a sweeping gesture as she displays her home to me. I had never seen it, not once.
Out of the windows is a view worth millions, from the Golden Gate to Alcatraz. No postcard or snapshot can contain the magnificence, the movement. At the bottom of the window are the little red flowers growing in the window box.

“Wow, Gina, this is beautiful.”

I opened the windows and let a gentle breeze work its way into the corners of the room. A small table with two chairs was placed under the window in the kitchen. The floor under one of the chairs was scarred and worn. Under the other chair… cat hair.
She must have taken her tea there at the table in the afternoon. I knew from her letters that she did coffee in the morning at some caffé down the street.

I take Gina’s seat at the table and look out over the bay. I can see through her eyes; the afternoon paper or a magazine next to a steaming cup of Earl Grey, shipping traffic and tour boats on the bay, a gentle sea breeze, and at the bottom of her view the red flowers in this window box as well.

I look through the kitchen. It is small but effective. A refrigerator holds the smell of fresh vegetables and a hint of smoked meat, someone has stocked it for my visit. On the counter she has strings of garlic, an ornamental bottle of olive oil, and a bottle of wine. Near the sink is a handwritten note. It is from one of Gina’s friends that knew I would be coming. There are directions to a bakery several streets down, it will be easy to find. I will know why. I am to come as soon as I am able.

Outside on Chestnut Street a slight breeze moves the seventy-degree air at tree top level. From the sketch in my hand, I am to cut through the alley and over two streets. Next to Gina’s building is a wide alley, a single lane that would allow someone to pull into the garages on the bottom floor of each building.
I hear music, Sinatra, echoing about overhead. Laundry dances in the slight breeze. The heavy scent of garlic from somebody’s kitchen as they cook their lunch wafts down from above.

My footsteps echo off of the concrete canyon of single car garages. On two or three of them the taggers left their mark, little bastards, like a moustache on the Mona Lisa.

I step out of the alley into the street and walk past the storefronts. Ahead of me on the right is the bakery on the corner of the next street. I can tell because of the little red flowers in the flower box outside. Before I reach the door, I can hear the two women inside announcing my arrival.

“Nicky!”

The younger of the two women moves quickly around the counter, tells me her name is Carla, and grabs me in a bear hug.
“Oh, Nicky, Gina would be so happy to see you here.” She brushes a tear away but doesn’t let it dim the moment. “Gina talked about you all the time.”

She guides me over to a chair by the window and has me take a seat. Outside the window was the flower box, a burst of little red flowers that burns into the pastels of the buildings.

“Nicky, this is my mother Tesa.” She brings her around the counter and I stand to greet her. She has a sweet smile for such an old lady, in her nineties I would suspect. I don’t have to wait long for confirmation.

“Mama is ninety-three years old. She and Gina would sit here in the morning and make the walnut potica and some of the cookies. They would just talk the old language and chatter away for an hour or so, then Gina was on her way to her next stop.”

Tesa holds my hand in both of hers and smiles. She is crying at the same time, but not sad, you know. She rattles off something in Italian and pats my hand.
“Mama says your Gina’s little angel. Gina talked about you all the time. “How did that trip to San Diego go, anyway?”

I flash a smile. Gina must have talked about me. My San Diego trip was only ten days ago and I had only told her about the day before she passed. “It was fine. A lot of work, you know.”

Tesa’s eyes brighten and she heads back around the counter and then to the back. On cue Carla pours me a cup of coffee and they both meet me back at the little table by the window. Tesa sets a plate down in front of me with several thick slices of bread with a spiral design. Then she tells me what it is but I can’t understand a word.

“Mama wants you to know that she and Gina made this walnut potica about a five days ago. It is hand made with a walnut paste that Mama has made forever. She and Gina would make three of these every week.” She gestures to the coffee, “She loved the smell of this coffee.”

I take a sip of the jet-black brew. It tastes like tar.

“Oh no,” Carla moves the cream and sugar over, “You can’t drink it like that.”

“Thanks for letting me know.” I smile and pour a lengthy stream of cream into the blackness until it lightens up to a rich mahogany. She takes the liberty of adding two heaping spoonfuls of sugar to the mix and then takes a seat, along with Tesa, at the small table.

In the silence that follows I realize that they are waiting for me to taste the potica. It is wonderful, like bread and pastry all in one.

“This is marvelous.” I take another bite and follow it with a swallow of the powerful Italian blend coffee. It is rich marriage of flavor that you know are meant to be enjoyed together.

By my expression alone, Tesa knows that I get it, that I appreciate the effort and the love. She stands and bends over the table and kisses my cheek, then presses the side of her face to mine. It is a very familiar show of affection, one that Gina would bestow upon each day of her visits. Tesa grabs my hand and walks me behind the counter, talking all the while. Behind me Carla translates every word as we walk in the back.

We stop at an old black and white photo pinned to the wall. It was the Cliff House on the coast, the sidewalks filled with tourists. Two women smiled for the camera, dressed in Sunday clothes.
“Mama says this was her and your grandma back in the day.” From the looks of the clothes and the cars almost out of frame, it had to be shot in the 1960’s.
“How long has she known Gina?”
“Mama has known your grandma since Gina moved here.”

Tesa understands the conversation, a nod here and there in the right spots. She can probably speak English well enough to converse after sixty years here in the states, but can express herself better in Italian.

She reaches up and touches the photo. I expect her to break into tears but she doesn’t. She reaches up to an old cork bulletin board and pulls another hand written note from beneath a pushpin. Tesa holds the note to her chest and speaks to me. Carla whispers in my ear like she is translating something top secret.
“This is a five hundred year old recipe from the old country for a soup that Gina would make momma.”

Tesa turns the paper over and there is Gina’s writing; a recipe and a shopping list. She presses the recipe in my hand and then says something to Carla.

“Momma says you are to go down the street three blocks to Boca’s store and buy these ingredients. It is part of your journey today.” Carla nods and smiles. All of this is some kind of plan that has been arranged for my benefit.

I hug them both, shoot down the rest of my coffee and take my last bite of potica, and then I am out the door. Carla sends me off in the right direction, says I won’t miss the place.

It is mid afternoon and the sound of the city is mild here. Traffic isn’t as hurried, tempers aren’t flared, and people seem to be a little more content. I walk by a truck double-parked, flashers blinking, unloading cases of wine into a restaurant. Both the driver and the manager say hello as I pass. Not in Vegas.
I walk until I see them, the little red flowers, this time in a small patch of earth surrounding the tree out in front of the old store. An old man sits on a stool on the sidewalk amongst the produce on display. He is reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe. As I approach he hobbles off of the stool and straightens his sweater.

“Nicky!” He says, “Welcome… welcome, Nicky.” He reaches out a leathered hand and puts a stone hard grip on mine and shakes it. These hands have seen some heavy labor.
He motions me in the door to a small table and chairs and we both take a seat.
“I am Vin Boca.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you sir.”
“Gina and I would sit here in the late morning and we would play checkers.” He pulls an old board up from under the table and a small wooden cigar box that looks like it had seen a thousand uses. “She would always win. I think she cheats.” He says, trying to puff his pipe back to life.

I haven’t played checkers for fifteen years, and then it was something a young man would do to please his grandmother. But with checkers, it isn’t a thinking man’s game. That is what Gina liked about it. She use to tell me…

“You know,” Vin interrupts my thought, “Gina would say that they should fight wars this way, by playing checkers instead of killing each other.” He smiled at me and then overturns the cigar box and dumps the checkers on the board. “She thought that it put everyone on a level playing field.”

“She told me that before every game, sir.”

“Hey, Nicky, not so formal. I know you like I’d know my own grandkids if I ever had any. You call me Vin, or Vinnie.” He takes his pipe and does what pipe smokers do to prepare it. I watch the ritual for a moment and then look out into the small store. No one is here but the two of us.

“Vin, this is nice. When is rush hour?” I don’t mean anything by it, just an observation.

Vin looks around, aware of the lack of patrons. He leans forward, like he has a secret that no one else should hear. “You know what, Nicky, these Italian women here in North Beach, they won’t go to a big super market. Even if they wanted to, there isn’t one for miles, and most of them don’t drive or even own a car.”

He finishes the pipe loading ceremony and then puffs it to life. It smells great. He continues.

“When you want to buy groceries, you get in your car and drive to the store and buy enough for the next week or two, and then come home and unload into the freezer. My customers, they don’t come from there. Where they come from they didn’t freeze anything, hardly refrigerated anything either. They buy for the day, sometimes for the meal they are cooking. And I have a delivery boy that brings it to them. So I do alright, regardless of how it looks.”

He has the board set up and takes the first move. The war is on. “Gina would kick my butt every day, but it was fun to talk to her." He looks up at me, "How was your trip to San Diego, Nicky?”

He makes quick work of me on the checkerboard, then goes in the back and returns with a paper bag full of groceries. “You got that list Tesa gave you?”
I pull it from my pocket and hand it to him. He pulls some reading glasses from his pocket and puts them on, scanning the list to make sure he got it all. “That is everything.” He hands me the bag, and I thank him.

“What do I owe you?”

“It is all taken care of. Let’s just say I’ll trade you for the artwork.” Vin smiles and nods to the old cash register. On the front of the machine is a drawing of the Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Pointe, one that I had drawn for Gina from a postcard she had sent me.

“Oh my God, I was ten when I drew that.”

“It has been here ever since. Gina put it there the same day she got it.” He smiled and winked at me, “That is what she would say to me when she would show up here, that she wanted to come sit and look at her picture… and kick my butt at checkers.”

I’m choked with emotion. It hits me.
Vin puts a hand on my shoulder, “Gina was the highlight of my day.”

Now I am walking up a side street. Four blocks up and one over I will find the coffee shop she goes to each morning. I’ll know when I am there. Along the way I see the same little red flowers, not everywhere, but just in certain spots; an old beauty parlor, a doctor’s office, a book store, they all have some of the flowers planted in a window box or a planter outside. I look in the window of the beauty shop as I pass by and the two women inside wave at me like they know me. I smile back.

I feel comfort where I never have felt it before, just walking down a city street. It is soft and warm, the breeze is just right, the aromas authenticate the moment like an artists signature on a masterpiece. I can feel Gina’s presence as I turn the corner four blocks up.

The front of the Café Piccolo is alight with a burst of the little red flowers in the planters on each side of the door. It is not so busy in the early afternoon, but still there is a presence. As I approach the low hum of conversation spills out of the open bay windows onto the narrow street. Outside there are three men sipping strong brew, involved in a heated discussion in Italian, the sports page passing between them for reference.

I walk in unnoticed and take a look around. This place has been here for a while. It seems to have never been redecorated, just continually decorated, an eclectic old world version of TGI Fridays. Back in one corner there is an old upright piano that is closed for business, now used to display the twenty or so pictures in frames on the top, some on the music stand and closed keyboard. There are shots of the café during one celebration or other, everyone having fun. There are posters on the wall for happenings at the Geary Theater from the old days, and rock and roll events from the 60’s and 70’s at Winterland. On the wall behind the counter is blown up picture of a man playing the piano and a woman standing behind him. Just from her expression you can tell she is in love with him.

“Nicky?”

I turn and there in front of me is a shorter, and much older version of the man playing the piano in the photo.

“That was your grandmother and me many years ago. She would come in evenings and we would play the piano and sing songs, have a few cocktails.” The old man stopped talking and shook his head, “I’m sorry, Nicky, I forgot to introduce myself, I am Joseph Tribante. Just call me Joe.”

“Joe Tribante. Now there is a name that needs no introduction.” I smile and shake his hand. “I have heard your name in Gina’s letters just about every time she wrote me.”

Joe was the constant with every letter Gina sent me. When she went somewhere, it was usually with Joe. He was her company, her confidant, and with every word she wrote I realized that this was her love.

“Joe, I’m so sorry.” I feel the need to comfort him about Gina’s passing more so than with the others. If he was the love of Gina’s life, then she was certainly the love of his.

Joe stops for a moment to gather himself, he was hit hard by her passing, but would not let me see that side. “We had fun, me and her. Gina never stopped being the young girl I fell in love with.” He looks up at her picture and back at me, “Come with me.”

We go in the back. It is neat and clean, and very hot. There is a coffee roaster turning in the far corner, being watched over by two of the guys that were outside moments ago. The smell of the coffee is the same one that greeted me when I left my cab four blocks away.

Joe goes into a small office and comes out with a cassette tape and a cd. “This is me and Gina from a long time ago. I had a man record it on vinyl back in the day, and then we had it transferred to cassette.” He turns the tape over in his hand, “I played this so many times that I thought I better transfer it to a cd before it is lost.” He hands me the disk, “This is yours, Nicky. She would want you to have it.”

We go back out front and he walks me to the door. “Look familiar?” He gestures to the red flowers.

“Yeah, I get it, they seem to be wherever Gina goes, huh?”

Joe nods, not quite letting me in on it. We sit at one of the small tables. “You coming tomorrow to take care of the ashes, Nicky?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You make this your first stop. We’ll have a cup of her favorite and you can put a little of Gina in the planters.” He nodded to the large sidewalk urns bursting with the little red flowers. “Then you make your way on her path, but in the end you save a little for the bridge. You and I will do that one together, okay?”

The sun is setting on the phenomenal view out of Gina’s windows. I stand and watch the traffic, the tour boats on the bay, a scattering of gulls in abstract flight fill the void between sea and shore. The cat that was at Gina’s front door is rubbing up against my legs, it misses her too.

The fragrance of Gina’s secret recipe takes me back fifteen years ago, and countless visits before that when she would come to visit and make her “friendship soup”. Along with her making the soup would come the explanation;
“Friendship soup comes from the old times when you would walk the village and collect from each of your friends and neighbors an ingredient for the soup. Then you would all get together and share in the end result.”

As the steam rises from the pot I put Gina’s music on. The recording was ancient, but the songs are beautiful. I don’t know who it is, maybe Cole Porter, maybe not. But I can hear Gina’s voice. I can hear her smile in the words.

I open the bottle of wine that was left on the counter. I sit down at her seat by the window, the cat takes the spot under the other chair, and I enjoy the view, the wine, the peace that is Gina’s apartment, and the Friendship soup. Outside the window night has come. The edges of the Bay sparkle with light from Sausalito to Richmond.
I pour a second glass of wine and take a walk in her apartment. It is truly as she had left it, neat and clean, as though she had just stepped out to run an errand.
In her bedroom there are pictures on the nightstand. Different generations smile back from this celebration or that, an old black and white of Gina and my grandfather. I am reminded that he was younger than I am right now when he passed.
I see teenage versions Rick and Dave in a couple of group shots, and a large picture of me with my arm around Gina fifteen years ago in New Mexico. I shake my head at my ignorance; at thinking that time would wait for me to see her.

The wine is working on me. I can feel my emotions on the surface. I have to wipe them from my eyes as I walk to the closet. I open it to the wonder of Gina’s wardrobe, some bright like a garden of wildflowers, some elegant for a night on the town, and some just for walking the park trails in New Mexico with her grandson.

I pull the string on the bare light fixture and the top shelf of her closet reveals five shoeboxes stuffed with correspondence, the tops held down with some thick rubber bands. I pull them down and bring them to the table in the kitchen.

In the candlelight I pull one of boxes close. Inside are personal letters, all from Joe, and after the first paragraph I put them back, embarrassed. This is something meant only for Gina’s eyes. This one I will give to Joe tomorrow on our trek to the bridge. I put the top back on and scoot it to the other side of the table.

In the next I find cards and letters from the family, some very old anniversary cards, birth announcements, and plenty of birthday cards. In the bottom of the box I find pictures of family, of Rick and Dave when they were just boys, of my mom and dad, of aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors. I put the top back on that one and push it out of the way.

In the last three boxes are every letter and card I had ever sent her. I can’t believe she kept every letter. I leaf through the boxes, the envelopes date from only last week all the way back to when I was a kid. I pull a letter from the middle of one of the boxes. In it is a drawing of a desert scene complete with a horse and a cactus. I smile; I remember when I drew it. With each letter I pull I read pieces of my life, from cub scouts to college graduation, it is all there. Some with school pictures missing my two front teeth to the cool stages of high school. She has them all.
I swallow the rest of my second glass of wine and stretch. I can’t seem to stop smiling, happy with what Gina had here with friends, her place, her daily routine. She had a very full life, no regrets. I am the one with regrets.

I am about to put the top on the box when I see a card poking out of an envelope. It is the very first card ever put in the box. I pull the envelope and the card is in it sideways. It is a friendship card, one that isn’t sent for any other reason other than just to make a friend feel special. The postmark on the envelope was from when I was eight years old, just after we moved away to New Mexico. Inside, the card is something an eight-year-old boy thinks his grandma will like. It is a simple message, “To my Best Friend” above a basket of little red flowers, and on the inside the message “Let’s keep our Friendship Growing!” Below that is a little package of seeds long since empty.

I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, and then shake my head at my callousness. I try to tell myself that I didn’t know how special she thought I was. I didn’t know how much of her world seemed to revolve around me. In the same thought I know it is bull. She made me feel special every day of my life, even when I wasn’t around to notice.

Sleep in Gina’s apartment is surreal. I dream of home in New Mexico, of sunny mornings at our kitchen table, of Gina and I making plans to hike and then get an ice cream cone. Then she is here, with me in the apartment. It is dark out and the city lights here and around the bay are trying to shine through a mist of fog. She stands at the window, her back to me. I join her and I am eight years old as she hugs me close.

Now we are walking through town; the bakery, Vin Boca’s store, down the avenue to the caffé. She doesn’t speak to me, but I can feel her meaning, her joy. We walk through the door of the caffé and we are on the Golden Gate Bridge. She takes me to a spot out over the water and places my hand on the outside of the railing. I feel something under my fingers.

I awaken to the sounds of traffic and a knocking on the door. “Nicky, you up?”
When I open the door the cat bolts into the daylight. I forgot to let it out when I laid down last night. I figured it was an outside cat, and not Gina’s from the lack of cat food and litter box. I apologize as it disappears into the shrubbery.
“Hey, Nicky, we better get going. There is a hell of a breeze that kicks up off the bridge in the afternoon. We will want to get out there before that happens or she will end up on the road.”

“Yeah, hey… Joe,” I rub my eyes and hunt for a fresh shirt. “I am glad you own a coffee shop. I could use some something to wake me up.”
“This her?” Joe looks in the bowling bag, a little smile on his face. When he looks up his eyes are welled up. I am hoping the whole day isn’t going to be like this.
“This thermos is Gina’s. We took it on long walks, drives.” He mentally shakes it off and is fine again.

I stuff the shoebox with Joe’s letters in the bowling bag. As an afterthought I grab an old wooden spoon from her kitchen and throw it in as well and we head off to the caffé.

At the caffé I sit down with him at one of the tables next to the flowerpot to the side of the entrance. One of his employees brings me a double espresso macchiato. I load it with a generous amount of sugar. Even then I grimace at my first sip. The rest are heavenly.

I pull the shoebox from the bowling bag and push it across the table, “Joe, this is yours.”

It is an awkward moment for both of us. Joe isn’t accustom to crying in front of anyone, but we are family of sorts and it is okay. He pulls a couple of letters from the box and just looks at the envelopes. I have the feeling he has the matching set of letters in a box at his house.

“Wait for me,” he says and then disappears into the shop to stash the letters.
When he returns we begin. He pulls the thermos from the bowling bag, and then holds the bag up with one finger, “Do you want this?”

I shake my head. We both agree that it isn’t Gina. “Must have been that lawyer’s idea.” He gets up to throw it away, but I remember.

“Wait, Joe.” I reach into the bag and pull out the wooden spoon.

When he returns, we begin. I open the thermos and pour a little of Gina in the flowerpot, stirring her in with the wooden spoon. Joe nods his head and we move on.
With each stop; the bookstore, the beauty shop, the doctor’s office, we have an audience on our secret quest. They each, in turn, pay their silent respects to Gina as I pour a little into each place and fold her in with the wooden spoon. At the bakery, I am sandwiched in hug from both Carla and Tesa after I stir some of her into the window boxes. They give us the last of Gina’s walnut potica and we are off to the bridge after we grab Joe’s car.

It is almost noon as we walk out on the span. I am hoping it isn’t too much for Joe. If you do the math he has got to be in his eighties. But he just keeps on truckin’. For the first time I am leading the way, letting my dream guide me.

“Where are you going, Nicky? This is probably fine right here.” Joe is trying to tell me that he is nearing the point of no return. He will make it back if we stop right now.

“Wait for me Joe, I have to see something.”

I walk ahead and start running my hand under the outside of the rail. After about thirty feet, I start to wonder if it was just a dream.

“Come on, Nicky, let’s do it,” Joe calls after me.

I am just about to pull my hand back and it glides over something. I stop in my tracks. The breeze blows at my back, my hair dances over my face as I feel it.

“What is it, Nicky?” Joe is beside me now.

I peel the tape off of the underside of the rail and pull it up for inspection. It is a piece of cellophane tape, about six inches long, with a little red flower, long since picked and dried with age. I fold the ends of the tape over the flower to protect it and then put it in my pocket. This is the spot.

Without a word I open the thermos and dump the contents into the wind. Gina’s ashes float out over the bay and disappear. I feel Joe’s hand on my shoulder. I put an arm around his waist and we share the moment.

The next day, after an early evening meal at Joe’s with Gina’s North Beach family, I am back on a plane, headed for the bright lights of Vegas. This morning I had the ladies; Carla and Tesa, and the gents; Tilly, Vin Boca, and Joe, come up to her place and take something of Gina’s that they felt was special. Both of the girls took a piece of Gina’s wardrobe to wear at the Bakery, Tesa an old button up sweater that Gina wore every day, and Carla a flowery blouse that Gina would wear on special occasions.

Tilly wanted to move the window boxes with the little red flowers down to his apartment. He would keep the tradition alive. Vin grabbed the decorative olive oil and the garlic, I had the feeling she had won both in a checker game. Joe just wanted to keep the thermos.

I left instructions and money with Tilly to have the movers box up Gina’s stuff and send it my way. At some point in time the family would probably make it out to sift through some of it.

Now I am sitting, eyes closed, trying to make the next couple of hours go by without notice. There is a massive vibration and acceleration, and I am on my way as though shot from a cannon. Conversation blends with the deep hum of twin engines, lulling me into semi-consciousness. Before long the smell of fresh brewed coffee pulls me back. I smile, my heart warmed with recent memories. My hand slips into my pocket and grasps the little red flower in cellophane and I close my eyes once more.