Time On His Hands
Time on His Hands by John Frazee Word count: 1,533 The lines of light could have been drawn with a ruler, they were bright and razor sharp. Only the ageless dust which clouded the air could take the edge off those five o’clock swords of sunlight as they cut across the second row of bottles, the finer row of poison, but not quite the best. Shards of light were flashing on and off more frequently then earlier in the afternoon. Each blink meant one more body passing by outside, in the world of the suits. The rapid fire flashes could mean only one thing, it was rush hour for them and time for Georgie to get up and leave. You could always tell what time it was outside, if you sat on the same damn stool in the same damn place for the better part of your adult life, as Georgie had. You could tell by the sparse light infiltrating the blinds which hadn’t been adjusted or cleaned during his tenure there. You could also tell the time by the deliveries taking place, each delivery was announced by an explosion of sunlight through the front door like an enemy hand grenade, the mailman, the kid selling newspapers, and of course the beertenders changing shifts. The time of day therefore was never much of a mystery. Nighttime however was quite a bit harder to pin down, but if you wasted enough hours there the subtle changes were more easily interpreted. Except four AM, closing time always came as a complete shock. Even the time of the month was easy to keep track of. There was the vendor on the fifteenth, stocking the smokes and the so called toiletries machine in the crapper, then the guy who changed the forty fives in the old juke box and Tommy doing the books at the back table with his number twos and lots of erasers. On the first of each month they delivered the cocktail napkins and peanuts and then there was Wendy the waitress’s heightened edginess arriving on the same day each and every month. Whatever the day, time or year for that matter was, Georgie felt that getting up and leaving at that precise moment was the right thing to do. He would act out his pantomime of brushing himself off, straightening out his clothes, then stopping off in the toilet before departing for the day. Georgie first spotted the watch on the sink where a bar of soap would ordinarily be if he were in the home of a human being, or in an establishment frequented by human beings, but this was a public restroom in a bar, devoid of soap. He could not believe his luck. This was certainly a positive sign that things were finely turning around for him. Wanting desperately not to be yanked from his new found path to luck and prosperity he stealthily slipped the watch into his front pocket and hit the door running, his hands still dripping. Avoiding all eyes, his exit was simply punctuated by the tipping of his imaginary hat to the remaining crowd and Tommy, his host for the afternoon. It seemed as if hours had passed before Georgie worked up enough nerve to take the watch out of his pocket, which had become its temporary tweed vault, making sure he had not been tailed, for to hear those words he most dreaded, “Hey that looks like my watch,” shook him to the very marrow. He slowly but surely worked his way across town, which was easy to do if you were on foot, Georgie was always on foot. He tried to convince himself how fortunate he was not to own a car or to be stuck in a cab with the meter running, it was a good thing it was only himself he was trying to convince for his argument wouldn’t have carried much weight with anyone else. You can get clear across town without even stopping or missing a beat, the traffic was always so bad you could simply walk in between cars, even if one hit you, it would never be going fast enough to receive much more then a smudge and a dirty look Georgie could not recall ever finding anything before; he grilled his memory like a cheap detective over and over, questioning his knowledge of past events again and again yet came up with nothing. He was preparing to play good cop, bad cop with himself when suddenly his interrogation jarred an old memory from the deep recesses of his mind. Cleaning off the cobwebs he recalled once at the ripe old age of twelve or so, while waiting for a light to change at the corner of Thirty Seventh Street and Lexington Avenue along with the usual business crowd of suits and skirts, suddenly a very well dressed man about three bodies down from him bent down to pick up something small and very shiny and slipped it into his pocket (exactly in the same smooth movement Georgie’s new found watch had experienced a short time ago). Now this gentleman of the smooth pocket move looked as if he had never bent down before, much less in the street. Twelve years of growing up on the streets of Manhattan were about to kick in and start paying dividends. Before the flap of the pocket had slammed shut on the mans suit Georgie started franticly screaming, “My ring, my ring! I’ve lost my ring!” Now it is difficult to get the attention of a crowd o Thirty Seventh Street and Lexington Avenue but this was ridiculous, no interest in the plight of this tyke was shown at all, the drama classes from his street smart degree kicked in “My mother is going to kill me! I can’t find my ring!” he screamed even louder as his eyes scanned the curbs and gutters. Still no reaction, even by New York standards this was a hard hearted, rough crowd. The don’t walk sign on the opposite corner was starting to turn green, Georgie knew he had precious seconds left before his audience would depart, taking the suit with the jewelry with them. All the screaming, crying and pathos had failed to bring even a sliver of recognition. A lesser man would have given up, but not Georgie, in a last ditch effort, he ran up to and stood face to face with the man this entire escapade had been orchestrated for in the first place and in a scene worthy of Oliver Twist, begged the man directly. “Mister, have you found my ring?” Seeming to have noticed Georgie for the very first time, the man replied “No, I just found this old cufflink.” That was as close to finding anything Georgie ever got. The watch had really started burning a hole in his pocket by now. He ran into two of his old friends, feeling he could probably trust them and considering his desperate need to tell someone about this sudden dramatic swing in his once rotten luck, he related the watch story to both of them. ”Let’s see it”, said the taller of the two, “I have to be sure no one has followed me,” Georgie said. “Which toilet did you say you found it in?” the shorter friend asked. “At Tommy’s bar and grill over on Forty Second, across from the hotel.” “A. goddamn tribe of Apaches couldn’t have followed you that far”, Shorty said. Shorty was practically the same height as Georgie, but he had made the mistake of hanging out with the wrong guy, his constant companion was a several inches taller and very thin. His friend wasn’t quite tall enough to be called “Stretch” so the monogram of Shorty became mandatory for him. “Go ahead and laugh if you losers want to but at least my luck has turned around and things are finally looking up on my side of the street,” Georgie said with an attitude and confidence he had never before felt much less projected. Despite the risk of further mockery Georgie still looked up and down the street and quickly glanced behind his back insuring privacy before slowly, methodically removing the watch from its warm tweed vault. “Look at that beauty,” he said as if revealing photos of his first born. Slowly, carefully, almost regally, he slid the genuine leather strap to the hole which had already been broken in, it fit Georgie like an old glove. Trying to smell the leather, he glanced at the face for the fist time, the brilliant gold numbers sparkled in the sun, as the large letters TIMEX, glowed as if they were neon. This truly was the first day of the rest of his life. Shorty, apparently in awe, sensing the overwhelming magnitude of the moment said, “Allow me to be the first to ask you, pardon me Sir, do you have the correct time?” With an air and arrogance Georgie snapped his wrist into position and curtly replied “It is a quarter after, my good man.” “A quarter after what?” his taller friend asked. He could still hear them laughing from three blocks away. There was no hour hand on the turning point of Georgies miserable life
Copyright © 2008 John Frazee |