The Newsstand, Part 2
The robbing bastards never did turn up, at least not in the remainder of Pat’s lifetime which, as it turns out didn’t have a whole lot left when he showed Carl the gun. One fine Tuesday morning Carl was getting more than his usual allotment of entertainment from old Pat. Seems the kids had the day off from school, one of those clerical days that they have from time to time and they were infesting the store in large quantities buying junk food, comic books and sugary beverages. Pat was in full force barking “C’mon, hurry up!” at one kid who was having a particularly difficult time excavating sufficient coin for his candy from the various pockets on his pants and jacket and almost simultaneously charging from behind the counter to confiscate a comic book from a kid who had the temerity to look at it for more than 30 seconds without reporting to the register to pay up. “I ain’t running a library in here!” echoed off the walls of the shop for the 463,283rd time as Pat snatched the book and replaced it on the rack in a single fluid motion honed to perfection by years of repetition.
After the last morning group of urchins was duly separated from their money and Pat sat down behind the counter to take a breather Carl looked over the rim of his coffee cup and said “You look like those kids are running you down.”
“Bullshit.”
“Seriously Pat, you ever think about retiring?”
“To do what? Die? No.”
Carl shrugged and drained his cup. It was time to go anyway. Carl wandered over to the magazines and picked up the latest issues of two of his usual titles (the papers and the coffee and a fair amount of magazine purchases were what earned Carl his stool rights, after all) gave Pat the money and said “See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you too guy.”
Pat had a habit of calling you “guy” if he didn’t remember your name, and he forgot everyone’s name from time to time even the regulars like Carl so this wasn’t an unusual happening. Carl occasionally wondered what would happen if Pat ever gained a regular who was actually named “Guy”.
Carl turned up at the newsstand the next morning much earlier than his usual time as he had an appointment later that morning. He wandered in and noticed the morning papers were still bound in their yellow plastic binding tape which while odd wasn’t entirely unheard of on the days where Carl arrived very early. He took his keys out, wedged one underneath the binding tape and popped the binders open with the practiced wrist action of a veteran paper boy. Carl plopped the stack on the rack, took his copy and turned around to come face to face with a uniformed cop.
“Who are you?” the cop asked.
Carl was momentarily taken aback and as he glanced around the newsstand he noticed a few other uniforms staring at him as well.
“You got any ID, buddy?” the uniform in from of him barked.
Carl took out his driver’s license and handed it to the uniform and said “I’m a, well…” he almost said “a friend of the owner” but Pat didn’t really have any friends, at least none that anyone knew of. Pat more or less tolerated your company as long as you kept contributing to the bottom line of his business and didn’t annoy him too much. So Carl finished the sentence with “…a regular customer. What’s going on?”
The uniform handed Carl his license and said “Sorry buddy, the owner was found behind the counter this morning by a cake delivery guy. Looks like a heart attack sometime after closing last night. Cake guy had a key to let himself in the back. You gotta go though, technically we have to investigate this since he didn’t die in a hospital.” The uniform gently steered Carl back out the front door. “Sorry for your loss” he said and stretched a length of yellow tape at chest height across the doorway.
Carl stood on the sidewalk, numb and adrift. He stared at the storefront for a few moments noticing details he had never seen before. The crack in the glass at the bottom right of the large window, the worn wood around the doorknob, the scrolling lottery sign informing passers-by that the next drawing was worth 22 million dollars.
Carl blinked, looked down at the paper still in his right hand, then back at the storefront. Then he turned and walked down the street, unsettled but not quite grieving. Pat’s sudden passing didn’t rattle him. At Carl’s age he already knew his fair share of dead people and Pat wasn’t exactly a person who you became particularly attached to except in that way that you become attached to say, a mailman that shows up at a regular time each day or maybe a television personality that you watch regularly or a bus driver who is always on your route. If the mailman gets switched off your block or the TV show gets cancelled or the bus driver gets put on another route you feel a moment or maybe even a day or two of dislocation and disruption of normality. Eventually your routines get adjusted and you move on.
After the last morning group of urchins was duly separated from their money and Pat sat down behind the counter to take a breather Carl looked over the rim of his coffee cup and said “You look like those kids are running you down.”
“Bullshit.”
“Seriously Pat, you ever think about retiring?”
“To do what? Die? No.”
Carl shrugged and drained his cup. It was time to go anyway. Carl wandered over to the magazines and picked up the latest issues of two of his usual titles (the papers and the coffee and a fair amount of magazine purchases were what earned Carl his stool rights, after all) gave Pat the money and said “See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you too guy.”
Pat had a habit of calling you “guy” if he didn’t remember your name, and he forgot everyone’s name from time to time even the regulars like Carl so this wasn’t an unusual happening. Carl occasionally wondered what would happen if Pat ever gained a regular who was actually named “Guy”.
Carl turned up at the newsstand the next morning much earlier than his usual time as he had an appointment later that morning. He wandered in and noticed the morning papers were still bound in their yellow plastic binding tape which while odd wasn’t entirely unheard of on the days where Carl arrived very early. He took his keys out, wedged one underneath the binding tape and popped the binders open with the practiced wrist action of a veteran paper boy. Carl plopped the stack on the rack, took his copy and turned around to come face to face with a uniformed cop.
“Who are you?” the cop asked.
Carl was momentarily taken aback and as he glanced around the newsstand he noticed a few other uniforms staring at him as well.
“You got any ID, buddy?” the uniform in from of him barked.
Carl took out his driver’s license and handed it to the uniform and said “I’m a, well…” he almost said “a friend of the owner” but Pat didn’t really have any friends, at least none that anyone knew of. Pat more or less tolerated your company as long as you kept contributing to the bottom line of his business and didn’t annoy him too much. So Carl finished the sentence with “…a regular customer. What’s going on?”
The uniform handed Carl his license and said “Sorry buddy, the owner was found behind the counter this morning by a cake delivery guy. Looks like a heart attack sometime after closing last night. Cake guy had a key to let himself in the back. You gotta go though, technically we have to investigate this since he didn’t die in a hospital.” The uniform gently steered Carl back out the front door. “Sorry for your loss” he said and stretched a length of yellow tape at chest height across the doorway.
Carl stood on the sidewalk, numb and adrift. He stared at the storefront for a few moments noticing details he had never seen before. The crack in the glass at the bottom right of the large window, the worn wood around the doorknob, the scrolling lottery sign informing passers-by that the next drawing was worth 22 million dollars.
Carl blinked, looked down at the paper still in his right hand, then back at the storefront. Then he turned and walked down the street, unsettled but not quite grieving. Pat’s sudden passing didn’t rattle him. At Carl’s age he already knew his fair share of dead people and Pat wasn’t exactly a person who you became particularly attached to except in that way that you become attached to say, a mailman that shows up at a regular time each day or maybe a television personality that you watch regularly or a bus driver who is always on your route. If the mailman gets switched off your block or the TV show gets cancelled or the bus driver gets put on another route you feel a moment or maybe even a day or two of dislocation and disruption of normality. Eventually your routines get adjusted and you move on.
Comments