What's in the box?

The funeral was nice, if just a tad bit sadder now that I knew Sid was Marie’s father.

He’s pushed me to date her. And now I know why. He was scared to leave her alone. And I guess our little time spent together every day for so damn long now told him that maybe I was a pretty decent guy.

Hell, I’d scrubbed out his fryers one day out of the kindness of my heart – not the $7.25 an hour, plus discount that he was paying me to be there.

But he never told me the damn secret to his taco sauce. And now he was dead.

“What are you ever going to do with the taco stand,” Marie’s sister Fiona asked her mother. Barbara had no answer. She hated tacos. She always believed that was why Sidney opened a taco stand in 1972. Just to get away from her. Even though all he did was love her. But he loved tacos too. Not as much as her, but darn close, he’d always say.

“I don’t know anything,” Barbara weeped. “It’s just too soon. Too soon.”

Marie hugged her mother. It was an awkward hug. She’d told me that her and her mom didn’t get along very well. Ever since she went to work in the taco stand as a teenager. It seemed all this family’s problems revolved around that bright yellow stucco taco hut. Maybe Sid’s passing would put to rest the family’s burden, I started to wonder.

Then I thought about those tasty tacos. And how much I was going to miss them. And miss my hours long conversations with Sid. About girls – little did I know his motive. About traveling – he’d been in the Navy, saw a lot more of the world then I ever would. About movies – his favorite was “The Shining” – “Fucking Jack Nicholson!” he’d always say. About cars – he got my obsession with my old 1991 Celica, saying “The first car you fall in love with is a lot like the first girl. You never forget her, and you always compare every one after to her.”

Damn I missed Sid.

I talked to Barbara about him for a moment. She was still crying and tried to listen to my stories. But they all revolved around the taco stand. And she seemed less than interested. Finally, I told her the story of Sid telling me I should ask Marie out. I’d not told Barbara that story. Nor had I told Marie.

“Oh, he talked about you all the time,” Barbara perked up. “On and on and on and on. In fact, he stopped talking so much about tacos when he talked about you. It’s why I tried to keep him talking about your blonde head so much!”

She hugged me and I hugged back. That was the first time I ever felt comfortable about Barbara. It felt good. There had always been a distance between us in the short time we knew each other. Little did I know she already knew so much about me.

“Well,” I said after a few more hours of standing around, eating mini hot dogs and cold cuts, “We need to get on going.”

Marie looked at me and shook her head. I knew she wasn’t ready to go, but I needed to get back in time to write. It had become an obsession of mine, writing on deadline for no reason except to make that deadline.

“Keeping my chops,” I’d tell her at 11:33 p.m. at night with a deadline of midnight to get it done. “One day, someone might actually hire me to write again.”

Marie knew this about me. She hated it. Maybe writing was my taco stand? I now had something to write about when I got back to the house. It was one she’d not want to read. But, I would show it to her anyway.

“I’m going to stay home with Momma,” Marie said. I’d never heard her call Barbara “momma” before. It was always “Mom” or “Mother”, but never “Momma.” Terms of endearment do indeed come out when they are needed the most.

I kissed her on the cheek and grabbed her hand softly.

“Call me if you need anything, babe,” I whispered into her ear.

“I will,” she said, pecking me on the cheek as well.

I started walking to the door when Rich came up to me. Rich was Fiona’s fiancé. He was a former tackle for the University of Auburn. He was a sure-fire first-round draft pick until he blew his knee out his senior year. The Tigers went on to win the national championship – and Rich had a ring to prove it – but he never got that feeling back on the field. He lasted until the fourth round, taken by the Buffalo Bills. He reported to training camp ready to go, but blew his other knee out on the first day of rookie camp.

Another year of rehab brought him into Game No. 11 of the Bills season. He’d been paid for one year to do nothing but workout, then for 10 games to sit on the bench. Finally he played. On his first snap, the defensive end pushed him to the ground and sacked the quarterback. He laughed all the way back to the huddle.

“Good job, no knees!” the defensive end – Will Bartonsmith – said to him. He went to LSU and never had a sack in the four games they’d gone head-to-head in college. Now, he was 1-for-1 in the pros.

Rich made it through that first season, and was nicknamed the “Revolving Door” by the media for his ability to allow rushers easy access with a push, as Jim Rome said.

One season in the CFL was enough to sour Rich on football. That’s when he came back to New Orleans. Met Fiona. Got married three months later. Now they have six kids and a mortgage. He drives a Saab of all things to the car dealership where he works security and signs an occasional autograph for a former Auburn businessman in town.

“Hey,” Rich says. “You need to see this.”

My attention was purely Rich’s when he took me into the back room. On a shelf was an old Monte Cristo cigar box. It was marked in Sharpie – “For Randy.”

“Sid left this for you,” Rich said. “He showed it to me a couple weeks ago. Told me to make sure Barbara ‘Didn’t steal this from the kid.’”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Rich answered. “Just don’t let anyone see you take it.”

I put the box under my coat and walked out of the room. Marie, Fiona and Barbara were all waiting in the living room, looking at me.

“What were you two up to?” Fiona asked with a little too much snark.

I looked at my feet, trying to do everything I could to not drop the cigar box.

“We were looking at some old photos on the wall,” Rich said.

“Yeah, especially the one from opening day last month,” I said. “I can’t believe Sid got it on the wall so quick.”

“He was like that,” Barbara said derisively. She walked back into the kitchen. Fiona and Marie followed.

“Take care, man,” Rich said.

“I will.”

“And take care of what’s in that box.”

I looked back, but Rich had already closed the door.

I wondered just what could be so important in this box. But, I wasn’t going to open it until I was safely at home. Will power was one thing I was good at. Unless it came to redheads.

mr. jones

The deadline is looming. I’ve got nothing to write about. I stare at the clock, it tells me “you better hurry up you stupid ass, your editor will be here in 10 minutes.”

I scan the shelves, looking for inspiration. I turn on the radio. I flip through a phone book. Nothing seems to have a story attached to it. Coming up with something interesting, or witty, or smart or simply filling the inches that I’ve got budgeted is almost always a breeze. But every so often, the writing elf leaves the building.

He’s gone right now, so I got outside to see if I can find him. I put sixty-five cents in the soda machine, the damn thing doesn’t spit out a Dr. Pepper. That’s gonna make me angry. I kick the damn thing. Out plops a Fresca. It’ll have to do, my pockets are only full of lint and scraps of paper with story ideas on them. Hell, why am I not looking at those bits of wisdom. I grab things when I have ideas. Profound ones they always are when they pop in there and demand to be let out. Almost 100 percent of the time, I throw the scraps of paper into a shoebox to be forgotten about. Worthless statements of fact or fiction that usually don’t jar a memory of profoundness when they’re read aloud again.

“Eggs are for suckers.”

“I love you. You love me. We don’t love each other.”

“I’ll buy you a river if you pee in it.”

“The bum has better clothes than me. I still give him a couple of quarters.”

Shit, if I had those quarters I’d be able to get the drink I wanted to get. Surely there’s an ironic tale in that somewhere? Fuck it.

I walk outside. It’s humid as shit. My clothes turn into sponges almost immediately. I can thank my grandfather on my mom’s side for a hairy back, a bald head and the ability to sweat myself into a river at the first sign of 80 degrees. Take that Wonder Twins.

I head west. Why? Because that’s the direction of progress. Of inspiration. Of the Pacific, mother-fucking ocean, man. (Use a Dennis Hopper voice there.)

My editor pulls up to the parking lot as I’m walking out of it. He sees me, waves. I don’t stop. This causes him to chase after me. I speed up. This is a game that happens every so often. If he was Faye Dunaway, we’d probably have fucked by now. But he’s not. He’s more Gabe Kaplan, without the Jew-Fro.

“Jones,” he yells, knowing full well I never respond when anyone calls me Jones. “Jones, have you filed yet?”

He also knows god damn well that I haven’t filed yet. I don’t ever file early. Even if it’s Christmas. I don’t believe in it. A good writer on deadline uses every second he’s got. You never know when one word might decide it doesn’t belong anymore. My first editor taught me that. He hated that he taught me that after a while, because I believed his fucking bullshit. He even told me one day he was bullshitting me over beers when he told it to me. “I thought it sounded like something Jimmy Breslin might have uttered,” he mused.

I thought it was something Ed Petruscwitz would say. I wonder if Ed’s still living in his double wide in the Arizona desert? Well, if he’s not, at least his memory survives to this day. And drives my editor bat shit.

He finally catches up to me after three city blocks. I’m sweating. He’s sweating. In another block is my favorite bar. I’m going to get a beer. This Fresca is awful. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Fresca before.

“Jones, where are you going?” he says as he grabs my arm from behind. He’s clearly winded from the walk. So am I, but I do a better job of covering it up.

“I’ve got to check with a source at Joe’s,” I say. “He’s supposed to meet me there in 15 minutes.”

That’ll give me 30 minutes before he calls me. I hate cell phones. Have no use for them. But they make me carry it. “So we can get in touch with you, Jones,” he always says when I scoff at the newest improvement that they hand me every six months or so. I do have a cool ring tone for when he calls me, Eazy-E’s “We Want Eazy.” It fucking drives him nuts when he hears it.

I go in the bar. It’s empty. Just the way I like it. I go up to my favorite seat, away from the televisions and not behind the taps, just to the right of them, and order a Newcastle. Jerry, my second favorite barkeep, is working the early shift. He’s reading the previous day’s paper. I point out to him that it’s yesterday’s news, and he flips me the bird. I like Jerry.

I milk my beer for about 34 minutes, well, exactly 34 minutes when a bunch of ladies in my phone scream “We Want Eazy!” I answer the phone.

“Jones, where the fuck are you? You’re deadline’s in two hours and your file is empty for today.”

“How the hell do you know that?” I queried.

“Because I went to your damn desk and looked in it.”

“Damn. You got me, boss. I just wrapped up with my source, be there in 10.”

“You damn better be!” he screamed as I clicked the phone off. I didn’t actually hear him say it, I just know he said it.

As I’m leaving the bar seven minutes later -- it’s a three-minute walk back to the paper -- I dazzling brunette is walking in. We make quick eye contact. Her eyes get wide. Mine stay the same. Just before the door slams shut behind me, I hear her yell out “wait a minute Mr. Jones!”

I turn around. She comes stumbling out the door. Her daisy-infested dress flaps in the wind. I suddenly am intrigued. She knows me. I don’t know her.

“I was told you’d be here,” she said. I was more intrigued.

“I’ve got a story for ya…”

Some days, it pays to go to the bar.