Soda

by Writing B.S.

His hand was sweating profusely as it gripped the worn hickory grip of the old .38 caliber Saturday Night Special. It wasn’t that there was a lot of heat in the pocket of the tattered old green army jacket; instead, the nervousness that comes along with making such a monumental decision, the kind of decision that will impact the rest of your life, caused the pores in the palms of his hands to pump out the moisture in overtime. If his nerves allowed for it, he could very shortly become eligible to be locked in a small room with bars on the door and window for the rest of his natural life. Of course, that would only happen if he were caught. The truth is that, even though he had only been convicted twice before of felony charges, hence the potential for garnering that dreadful third conviction, he had committed hundreds of crimes during his otherwise unproductive life.

Today was different due to the serious repercussions if anything went wrong. Experience had taught him that there was no controlling all the circumstances involved with pulling off a job like this. Sure, you could plan your every move in advance. You could make sure that your gun was in hand and primed for use. Weeks of mental preparation could prepare even the neophyte for the most difficult of jobs; and anyone who had any skill or resource that might be helpful could be brought into the mix to increase the chances of success. You could have done everything within your power to insure that everything went off without a hitch. But none of that planning could account for fate: something as silly as a stolen get-away car being stolen again before you can finish a job and get back to it; the horrid luck of a squad car rolling by during the crime instead of just one minute after it was over; or, maybe even a soda fountain service technician kneeling out of sight while fixing a leaking hose when you burst through the door.

Curtis “Sailor” Waters tried not to stand out in the weak shopping crowd that crawled along the sidewalk as he waited for the right moment. All of the necessary details had been considered and any reasonable alternative had been rejected as unsuitable. He needed the money that would come from the busy little pawn shop at the center of town; the one with the flashing sign calling for anyone and everyone with gold to bring it in and sell it at the highest price available. The typical avenues of gaining wealth were not available to someone like Sailor. After all, who would hire someone who could barely read childrens books, or count numbers larger than that needed to trade cigarettes in the recreation yard at the state prison. On typical days he could wander down to the day-labor agent and see what was available, but there would be no way that working for a day-labor agent would provide enough income to sort out the problem that plagued his mind today. It wouldn’t be enough even if the fat and greedy agent didn’t pocket for himself almost half of what the contractor paid for Sailor’s efforts at the end of the day.

People walked by with their bags in hand and their children in tow. Some looked Sailor’s way and some didn’t. Given his appearance, most would assume that he was a muscle’s twitch away from kicking his foot off of the wall he was backed up to and accosting them; some days that may have been the case, but not today. Sailor knew that these people wouldn’t be carrying enough money to make it worthwhile. Hell, even if they would have had enough earlier in the day, there was no doubt that they had spent it all by now. Sailor threw a menacing grin at those who dared invade his privacy, causing them to move away from him faster than they had approached. How fast would they have moved if they’d known that the middle-aged alcoholic with two felony convictions on his record and a third on his mind that stood at the corner like a dime-store Indian was holding a loaded gun in his hand? Even though Sailor couldn’t resist menacing the walkers and gawkers that ambled by, he never lost sight of the front door of the pawn shop that was the real object of his attention; inside that simple storefront was the answer to his problem-the only way he could settle this old score. Of course, everything is relative, and not every score could be settled completely, some were simply too big.

Sailor would never be confused with someone who had the basic life skills required to live a linear existence. Normal human existence consisted of: being a child, being a young adult, being an adult, being an adult who had taken care of life’s tasks and was then settling in for a comfortable sunset, and finally, moving on to the next realm in a self-respecting way. People like Sailor tended to jump around in life: they became an adult much too soon to allow for normal and healthy social development; they settled in for a long sunset while still a young adult during long periods of incarceration; they walked out of prison at middle age with no skills and a debilitating alcohol addiction from drinking distilled jailhouse “hooch”; and, finally, they were expected to make something productive out of themselves upon completion of their ‘rehabilitation’. If any of the pedestrians had ventured close enough, they would have been greeted with the unmistakable stench of the human body working overtime to purge its systems of the toxic elements in cheap alcohol. Sailor’s poison of choice was discount liquor of a clear nature: vodka, gin, or anything else that was low on flavor and high on alcohol content. Flavor was irrelevant to Sailor, he didn’t drink to enjoy it.

It had seemed like hours even though he knew it had been much less, probably twenty minutes or so. But finally, the pawn shop was void of all patrons. There was only one person working behind the counter, probably the owner, so there wouldn’t be any confusion while trying to keep track of multiple employees. It is very hard to rob a business when you have to give one person orders and keep others in line, watching your back and making sure no tried to run out a back door on you. And not being a food store, he didn’t have to worry about spending another twenty years in prison for shooting and paralyzing another soda fountain technician. If everything went according to plan, no one would be shot today and Sailor could address his issue without complication.

The muscles required to hold onto the gun were beginning to ache and sweat was soaking into the lining of his pocket. He reluctantly relinquished his handhold on the rusty old revolver and brought both of his hands out in front of him, rubbing them together even though it was easily seventy-five degrees in the sun on the uncovered concrete sidewalk. Just a few more minutes and he would be going. He wiped his palms on the front of his soiled pants before putting his right hand back into his jacket pocket and reattaching it to the wooden handle of the gun. He had to be ready in case anything went wrong. Waltzing into the store like a rookie, unprepared for whatever might come, would be a mistake that he wasn’t going to make. If things went sideways, it wasn’t going to come as a result of something he did or didn’t do; he had been down that road before.

A break in traffic provided an invitation that Sailor felt was intended specifically for him, so he leaned into the breeze created by a passing delivery truck and shrugged his shoulders and rolled his head on his neck like a boxer preparing for battle. No matter how many times he had approached a task like this, he had found no way to avoid the tight muscles and increased adrenaline that compounded with every step that brought him closer to his target. The first time he had walked into a cell block in prison he remembered his muscles and his mind being completely out of control. The body begins losing authority of voluntary muscles and the mind lacked cognizant thought during times of high stress. Professional fighters, soldiers, and the police all learned these facts early on. Sailor had learned over time and through trial and error. He tried to loosen himself up by moving his muscles, and worked to keep his mind clear by taking in deep breaths of the thick city air; it wasn’t much but it was all he could do given the circumstances.

The old red brick building that Sailor zeroed in on today was home to a place where the money poor but item rich people of the world could invert their fortunes, but it had once been home to a confectioners shop-a place where people with extra money could convert it into sugary happiness. Sailor had vivid memories of walking through the glass doors on Saturday mornings with his grandfather. It was one of the few highlights of his otherwise misguided youth, sampling each of the different styles and tastes of sweet treats that were prepared right there on site. He wasn’t particularly close to the man he called ‘Pops’ because Pops worked many long hours and wasn’t home during the part of the day when Sailor was wandering the streets with the older kids. Sailor had covered every square foot of that very street with his trouble prone mentors; the ones who had discovered him sailing a homemade boat on the pond at the local park and pressed him into service amongst their gang. That aimless pack had romped across the pavement with no regard for time or destination. They patrolled their urban domain with the same scrutiny as a pack of wolves, never missing an opportunity for an easy shakedown. In fact, he had committed his very first crime right here in his very own neighborhood; it was an impulsive and disastrous act that corrupted him all the way down to his very DNA.

As Sailor cleared the pavement and hopped up on the curb in front of the pawn shop he slowed his step and took a mental inventory again. His hand still clenched the old maple handle and his pocket was now completely soaked through. He hoped that he wouldn’t have to wrestle with anyone over the old gun; he doubted that he would be able to hold on to it with his hand being so slippery. After shrugging his shoulders a few more times he peered in through the dirty glass and looked for any surprises that could throw a wrench into his plans. Not much inside the store was the same as it was back in the days of sugary treats; the counter and stools were gone, the sparkling glass and chrome shelves on the walls had been replaced with dingy wood, and the floor was so dirty that the black-and-white checkerboard pattern tiles were barely noticeable. Much to his surprise though, Sailor could see that the embossed tin ceiling still looked down over the space like a watchman. In his memories, the ceiling had been bright and shiny-happy even. Today it was dreary and dull, dented and dust covered, forlorn and distant. He felt a quick twinge of regret that the same beautiful ceiling that had once beamed down upon him as an innocent child would now watch him commit a forcible felony-the felony that could be counted as his third, and that could guarantee that he would spend the rest of his life in a place filled with other people just like him. Sailor vigorously rotated his head left and right, he couldn’t afford to be distracted by such thoughts; he had a task to perform and he would not be scared away by foolish childhood memories.

Most retail stores today have some kind of bell or beeper that signals when someone enters through the door. Usually, these bells are unobtrusive and barely noticeable by visitors-a high pitched electronic ‘chirp’, or a maybe a soft chime. This door though, had some kind of ancient mechanical buzzer that roared like the arcing of an executioner’s electric chair; something one might only expect to hear in a house of horrors. Sailor visibly jumped, even more adrenaline being pumped into his muscles. He hadn’t expected that, just as he hadn’t expected the soda fountain technician to jump up from behind that sticky old machine he was trying to fix. And, just as he had done on that fateful day, Sailor jerked a gun from his pocket as he turned to face the source of his sudden fright. On this day though, Sailor would not send a bullet hurling at the perceived menace; he stood there shaking and pointing his gun at the door as it drifted closed on its own accord, but he did not pull the trigger. This situation created an opportunity that a big part of him wanted to take advantage of; he could run back out the door and probably never hear about this folly again. The whole world was waiting outside that door for him. He could just pocket the gun and go. Disappear like he had never even arrived. Such wasn’t possible though. With so many regrets in his life, Sailor was not about to fail at this critical task. He was committed; there would be no turning back.

Sailor’s mind came back into focus and he spun back around to face his fate. What he found was an unassuming old man standing behind the counter, the same person he now had the gun pointed at. This little man was ancient and his hair was snowy white; it looked as soft as a baby’s locks. Sailor’s mind flashed to a vision of a god-like figure, maybe one of those mythological characters from the movies with a voice that was deep and echoed off of the walls. He found himself mesmerized and frozen in place until the old man finally flexed the muscles in his face as he began to speak, but Sailor cut him off, running up to him and demanding money. The man simply stared at him, not complying but also not resisting him. It was the same look Sailor had seen in the eyes of the food store clerk that had watched him shoot the soda fountain technician those many years ago. There was something slightly different in this look though, something menacing. All at once it came to him, and Sailor knew exactly what that look represented; he suddenly found himself on the receiving end of pity. The old man could reach into Sailor’s soul and he knew his pain. Not just the pain he felt today, but the pain of his lifetime; and not just his pain, but the pain of everyone that had ever suffered by his hand. Sailor’s soul was like the side of an old building that had been covered with many layers of graffiti. Every story was still there, in vivid color, sandwiched between the story before and the story that came afterward. With the stories running together, it took a trained eye to put the shapes and colors all together into a coherent picture, but this old man had looked into the eyes of many desperate souls, he knew the man who stood in front of him though they had never met.

Sailor had no time for soul searching today. And he wasn’t going to turn around and run out the door like he had done before, leaving the money in the cash register and the soda fountain technician sprawled on the floor soaking up a growing pool of his own blood. In fact, it was exactly because of what had happened those many years ago that he would not-could not-run away today. Sailor took a step back and looked around the shop. Why wouldn’t the old man just give him the money? He looked up at the tin ceiling again-that damn ceiling. Back in front of him the old man remained frozen. What the hell was he going to do now? He couldn’t just shoot the old fool and not get any money. Finally, Sailor reached over the counter and began punching the keys on the ancient cash register. Nothing was happening. He couldn’t even tell if the machine was working because it was one of those old cash registers that didn’t need electricity. It was so old that if he could figure out how to open the cash drawer it would probably make the ‘ding’ sound of a bell; the old confectioners shop had a cash register with a bell-Sailor could still hear the sound of that bell in his mind from the times that the clerk totaled up his grandfather’s purchases. There was no doubt in his mind that it was one in the same.

The gun was getting heavy in Sailor’s hand and began slipping from his grip. This was taking too long. Sailor ran around the corner of the counter and continued pounding on the cash register. Still, the clerk refused to move, frozen like a statue with that same pitying look on his face; maybe he was a mannequin and Sailor just mistook it for being a real person. Sailor had no choice but to get the money in the cash register, and he was quickly coming to the conclusion that he might have to resort to hurting the old fool to get it. Could he do that? Could he hurt someone else-again? Sailor pointed the gun at the old man while he continued smashing his other hand against the cash register. How far would he go? The gun was shaking-or was it his hand? He had to maintain control; he didn’t want to have another accident like before. Then the cash register drawer exploded open, punching Sailor in the stomach; and as he had guessed, a bell as loud as a boxing ring echoed throughout the store. Sailor reached in and began grabbing money from the wooden tray. The slot for each denomination was mostly full, stacked with money waiting to be paid out to those selling their life at a discounted price. The money filled the pockets of his dirty pants and those of the old army jacket. It looked like more than enough; he was happy to see that he hadn’t come here for nothing.

Sailor suddenly felt a presence behind him; it wasn’t as if he’d heard or seen anything, he just felt it. Before he could look over his shoulder to investigate, a loud explosion rocked him off of his feet and on top of the cash register. It was the kind of loud sound that overwhelmed your thoughts and shut down your perception of the outside world. He couldn’t feel his body and never perceived his finger when it pulled the trigger of the gun that was still pointed at the old man’s chest. When Sailor’s vision returned though, he was greeted by the sight of the old man sprawled on the ground in the middle of a puddle of blood. Sailor never heard the screaming that came from the doorway behind him; after the almost impossibly loud sound he had just been exposed to it would be some time before his ears were of any use to him again. He did feel the pain, though. At first it felt like someone had hit him with a baseball bat, trying to send his shoulder over the fence and out of the park. He felt a burning sensation and he couldn’t raise his left arm. The more he tried to push himself off of the counter the less control he had. There was blood running down his arm, dripping off the end of his fingers, and he was still married to the cash register. Sailor dropped the small gun on the floor and used his right hand to press himself up off the cash register, and once he had finally detached himself and rolled around the counter, he made his way to the door. His feet were working as fast as they could but his left arm was completely useless; he ran with a jerky wobble. Sailor looked up and saw a dim and rejected reflection on the once bright tin ceiling. It was almost as if it was taunting him, telling him what a bad person he had become-so bad that even his reflection was no longer welcome. So be it, Sailor thought, the deed had been done. Screw that damn ceiling. The harsh rebuke of the door buzzer went unnoticed as he ambled across the threshold and out onto the sidewalk.

Once back out into the sunlight, Sailor turned to his right and ran down the sidewalk, that same sidewalk that he and his friends had kept domain over so many years before. His knees buckled as he ran, and he hoped that he could get to the alley and over a block to McNeil Park. His destination was on the other side of the park, where he had grown up. As he continued to cover the familiar ground, Sailor was beginning to wonder if his feet would carry him far enough; he was starting to feel light headed. His left arm still swung at his side, flopping back and forth like the pendulum of a clock marking out time-counting down the time he might have left. He imagined that he looked pretty silly, like when he and his friends were small children and played make believe, groaning like monsters and chasing after each other. Sailor had played with his friends in the park a lot when he was a child, but that was before the older kids took him into their fold. He didn’t play much after that, he was too busy patrolling the streets of their neighborhood, scouting for interlopers, looking as tough as his small frame would allow. Sailor didn’t try and look tough now though, his singular concern was getting to the other side of the park. He had to get to the other side of the park. It was all that mattered.

The numbness was spreading from Sailor’s shoulder, flowing down his back and toward his legs, and he was hardly able to see anymore. What vision he still had was like looking backwards through a telescope, everything was small and far off. He started to think now that he might fail. His legs were almost at a standstill, planted to the ground like the trunks of trees, unyielding of what little piece of ground they ruled over. The park now seemed bigger across than it ever had before. How could he have run across this wide expanse as a child, with such short legs? He must have only dreamed it. None of it was really true. He had never been a child; he had always been a grown-up, with grown-up problems. After all, children didn’t rob and shoot people just to show their friends that they weren’t afraid. He couldn’t really tell, but he felt like he was down on his knees now. That was okay, he would crawl if he needed to. He would get to the other side somehow, he had too. He had to fix it, that one thing that had taken away any chance of ever being anything but what he was.

A hundred yards away an old man sat in a wheelchair on the back porch of a house, seeing all that happened in the park and all those who came and went. He had spent many years watching over that park, from the seat of that same simple old wheelchair. It probably wouldn’t last much longer though, a foreclosure notice had arrived a few days earlier-along with a large sign in the front yard advertising the fact to the world. Although he’d like to complain about the situation as being unfair, he couldn’t. He had lived pretty well over the years in this old house with his daughter. She had moved him in and started taking care of him right after he had been hurt. Of course, he was sure that most of her motivation came directly from the guilt that she carried in her heart. Either way, he was lucky to have her. Unfortunately, times had turned tough recently though. The hours at her job at the plant had been cut, and his small disability payments weren’t enough to cover the difference. It appeared as though he would end his days sitting somewhere else besides on that porch, watching the children play in the park.

Sailor began to crawl on his right hand and knees, dragging his left arm and drooling blood and spittle on the grass as he continued making his way across the park. He hadn’t done much that was good during his life so he couldn’t fail at this last mission he had created for himself. And there wasn’t much time, that was clear to him now, so he steeled himself against the pain and pushed forward. Why had it come to this? Why had he gone into that store with a gun so many years ago? It seemed that everything else in his life had piled upon that one moment. No matter what he did to try and alter his course in life after that his path never changed; he always felt like he was destined to do bad things-designed with the sole purpose of disappointing not only himself but those that had once cared about him as well. Some people say life is written in a book, always had been and always will be; your story having been being determined since the beginning of time. There is no way to change it, it’s fate. Even if you tried to do something different than you normally would have, the book already had that written in it too-you couldn’t fool it, it knew. A prison in time and space, your life is your cell.

The old man on the porch saw a strange looking man crawling across the playground toward his house-he wasn’t moving very fast, but he kept coming. As the man crawled within a few yards of the porch it was clear that he was hurt-or he might be drunk, it could be either these days, it seemed that all of the young people today were corrupt and careless with their lives. All the kids want to do is to run wild and drink and use drugs. The old man had a grandson that had gone down that road; he had started running around with bad kids and did things that would only lead to trouble-and eventually prison. It had been many years since the old man had seen his grandson, and he probably wouldn’t recognize him today. The last memory he had of the boy was from the day that he became paralyzed-or, ‘when the incident happened’, as his daughter referred to it. A late afternoon call for a repair at one of the local food stores, the soda fountain stopping its only function, that of delivering sweet, dark nectar to children and adults alike through a colorful straw. It was a Friday and the owner of the store made a lot of money from selling soda over the weekend. It had to be taken care of that afternoon, and he was just the man to do it. Little did he know that it would be the last service call that he would ever make.

When Sailor reached the first of the wooden steps leading up to the porch his hand slipped in the blood that now poured from his mouth; his face smashed down on the wooden plank, bringing stars to his all but failed vision. The old man was watching him now; he couldn’t stop, he had to find a way. Sailor kicked with his legs, pushing himself upward and onto the next higher step, pulling with his good arm; one by one, he climbed like a Salmon making its way up the ladders in a rushing stream of water. He had to bring his mother enough money to pay the bank so she wouldn’t lose the house and his grandfather could stay on the porch-the porch that Sailor had put him on all those years ago. Sailor hadn’t intended to shoot his grandfather, it was an accident-as much as you can call robbing a store with a gun and shooting someone in the process ‘an accident’. When Pops had stood up from behind the soda fountain Sailor was startled and pointed the gun at him, pulling the trigger before he even realized that it had happened. Once he realized what he had done, he ran out of the store and hid beneath a train bridge for two full days. Sailor couldn’t stand the thought of facing his mother again; or his grandfather, if he lived.

The man crawling on the ground was definitely hurt, blood was pouring from his mouth and from a large hole in his left shoulder-the hole went through-and-through, soaking the green army jacket all the way to the waist; he looked more like a soldier crawling across a battlefield than what was probably a criminal crawling away from his latest botched job. The old man imagined that he had looked a similar sight while lying on the floor of that food store so many years ago, pissing blood out of a hole in his chest and gurgling like a drunk on a binge. This bleeding man was still moving better than he had been though, as once he had hit the floor in that store he never moved anything below his chest again. The man on the steps was pulling something out of his pockets now and dropping it in front of him. He climbed another step and then stopped, too exhausted to continue. He reached into his pockets with his good hand and pulled something out and dropped it; it looked like money. What a fool, this man that crawled on the ground leaving his life-blood behind like a slug trailing slime but reveling in money. Couldn’t he see that money meant nothing now; money would not solve his problems. The old man wished his grandson could have seen this before he had robbed that store all those years ago, maybe he would have learned something from it; he could have grown up to be something different than what he had probably become.

Sailor pulled the money from his pockets as fast as he could. It was difficult now because he was losing control of his fingers; all he could do was make a fist around the money, pull it out of his pockets, and then drop it. At least they would have it, though, his grandfather and mother; now they would have a chance at keeping the old house with a porch that looked over the park where children played. His vision was all but gone now, and the only sound he could hear was the ringing in his own ears; it sounded like the buzzer on the door of the pawn shop-arcing through is head, making it hard to think.

The old man could see that the man on the steps was barely moving now, sprawled out with money blowing around him like leaves in the fall. Odds were that he had probably never been any good anyway, just like his grandson. Should he call out for his daughter so she could try and help him, or, more likely, so she could call the police? No, that would not be fair to this man who had clearly failed in his life. The kind thing to do would be to allow him to go into whatever was next with some amount of dignity and privacy. Yes, he would just sit here with the man; just be here with him until it was over. He secretly wished that his grandson would come back some day and be here with him when it was his time to go, but he doubted that would happen. It had been too long now.

Sailor knew it was over now. His breath came in short draws and he had wet himself. He had seen dead people before, in prison, and saw that they almost always wet themselves as they were dying. He didn’t mind though, because he was here with his grandfather. It felt good to finally be here with him again after so many years. Sailor’s mouth was dry, he wished he had a cold soda. His grandfather used to bring sodas home from work at the end of the day-but that was before he shot him.