My side

Chapter 8 The music

A pigeon pecks around a stale piece of pizza. Two fat rats sniff around in the gutter. A crow flies overhead, cawing ruthlessly.
I look around the parking lot. Besides the five and dime and a broken down looking pizza place, the strip mall is empty. Boarded up buildings line the pavement, casting a forgotten, dead look around the place.
I look at the digital clock being cast form the billboard. 3:27.
I kick an aluminum can, displeasing the pigeon. What am I doing here? It was just a dollar. Do I really need it back? But maybe the dollars not the reason why I'm here. Maybe it has more to do with a misty blue eye and a croaky laugh. I don't know.
   I look again at the clock. 3:34. He's  late. I'm thinking about leaving when the 3:30 bus pulls up across the street. I hear the door creak open, a shuffling of feet, then the door closes and the bus pulls away. On the sidewalk, there are two men. One is talking very rapidly into a phone pressed to his ear. He begins to walk quickly away.
   The other man is very old. His clothes are old and torn. He begins to shuffle across the street. I turn back around.
   I hear the man approach, he sits down on the bench best to me.
   "I don't think I caught your name, miss." He says. For the first time, I catch the hint of a Brooklyn accent.
   "I don't think I caught yours either." I reply. He chuckles. "Why how rude of me. The name is Bernie, though the friends call me smackle." I frown.
   "Smackle is an odd name." I say. He smiles. "Might I have the honor of knowin yours?"
     "It's Kay, I reply." He nods thoughtfully. "Kay's an odd name too."
   I shrug. "Well, then, I think I owe you a dollar." He says after a pause. Reaching a hand into his coat, he pulls out a crumpled bill. I take it silently.
   "Well, if it's alright with you, I'd love a soda pop." He said, his eyes twinkling.
   10 minutes later I sat with Bernie in a shabby booth in the five and dime. There had only been two kinds of soda, lemon and strawberry, and we'd both gotten lemon.
   I liked Bernie. I liked the way his eyes twinkled, and how I could always tell that he was listening to what I was saying, even if his left eye kept whirring around in its socket. It hadn't taken me long to realize that there was something unique about this man, something... different.
The first thing he asked me, when we sat down was, "now what was you buyin last week at that grocery mart?"
I was a bit startled. "Ice cream and ketchup and pineapple juice." I say. He laughs. "Pineapple juice?!"
I nod. "My mom loves juice." He's still laughing. "Why I didn't know there was such a thing as pineapple juice." He laughs. I shrug.
His laughter fades. He's looking at me. I look up into his strange eyes. "Why are you doing this?" I ask him.
He doesn't respond right away, though I know he knows what I'm talking about.
Finally, he turns to look out the window. " you remind me of me self." He says, a lost look in his eyes. "Ya see, my father was shot'n killed a block away from me house when I was very young, and after cancer took me sister a few years later, well I just didn't see no point in living no more." He smiles a sad, lost smile.
" well I just, sorta, faded. Notin dat nobody said was worth hearin any more, and the world outside me window just wasn't worth seein. Life had lost all meaning."
I'm looking right at him. And I'm listening to every word he says. And I find that I'm caring about it.
"Well, I just wanted to get away from it all. And so a'course, the drugs come next, and then the bottle. Well, after a while, I just didn't see no point in that anymore either. It wasn't helpin. I knew then, that somethin had happened to me. I wasn't the same anymore. And I don't think I'll ever be the same again. I was different."
I look at him. I remember his strange eyes, and his colorful laugh. I had known there was something odd about them. Now I knew why.
"I knew, when I saw you, dat you was de same way. And in a way, that didn't make me so different no more. And for the first time in what seemed like forever, I saw the color again, and I heard the music. And I knew it wasn't over for me."
We're silent for a moment. And then "music?" I looked at him. He grinned. Standing up, he took a nickel from his pocket and plugged it into an old jukebox.
Suddenly, a sound like no other I'd ever heard filled the room.
'Just a small town girl. Livin in a lonely world.'
"She took the midnight train goin anywhere...." Bernie joined in. He extended his hand to me, to pull me up. I surprised myself by letting him take it. He nodded at me to sing the next line. And suddenly I realized I knew it, though I'll never know how.
"Just a city boy. Born and raised in south Detroit!" I sing. Bernie throws his head back and laughs. "He took the midnight train goin anywhere...."

Authors note:
Hi. Thanks so much for reading. Just so you all know, I really care about and love you guys. One of you in particular. You know who you are. That's all I'm going to say. I hope that proves it to you. Please follow and enjoy the story everyone!