She looked up at the sun and then back to him. "Oh, hey, not to be rude, but I’m a little behind on my walk. I gotta be somewhere soon. I’ll see you tomorrow then?"
"Absolutely, Vikktorea," he said with an appreciative smile. "Shuck’s coffee at five. But I get to treat for it!"
"I’ve no problem with that! I don’t know anyone who says no to free coffee. Anyway, I gotta go! Take care!" And like that, Vikktorea with two k’s jogged down the train tracks with her umbrella, up to the point when he lost sight of her behind some scrub brush.
He stood there for several moments before walking back uphill effortlessly to do the other side of the street. He was beaming and didn’t care who knew it. So they say every dog has his day. And sometimes a rare man wins the lottery. This was somewhere between the two of those and it felt pretty damn good.
Sunday came around. Simon slept little in the time when Vikktorea said yes to coffee and now. He felt young, like he was supposed to, once more. It was a welcome reprieve from the normal dreariness of his every day. He kept thinking of that one thing she said, almost as important as when she agreed.
"Thought you’d never ask me." Perhaps not to the same degree, but she had been waiting for him. There was interest there. She thought about him. Pretty, pretty Vikktorea, with the charms on her belt.
There was so much he wanted to ask her. What town she lived in. Where she was going when she was following the tracks like clockwork? And silly little things, of course, like what music she listened to. Maybe they would both be into Leonard Cohen together. He would sing those songs in his head often, but rarely listened to them. It would be nice to duet with someone, even if neither of them actually sang aloud.
He got a text back from Ramone. His swarthy friend in the leather jacket congratulated him and apologized for not responding sooner. He’d had a long fun night and wished Simon the same. The sideburned fellow didn’t have any aspirations of such a thing yet- it was the first date and Simon wasn't some slobbering player. If it went smooth and she agreed to another meet up, it would be victory enough. He wasn’t Ramone and wouldn’t try to be. She clearly didn’t want that type anyway. Somehow, that was extremely reassuring.
Jessie didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t expected to. Jessie was kind of frigid, regardless of who he was dealing with. Not that he wished ill of Simon’s new found luck, but he probably didn’t prioritize it as mattering terribly much either. Ramone once said to Simon, out of earshot of their other friend of course, that Jessie might have been asexual. He was a cerebral fellow. He didn’t bother with the prom. He showed no interest in people as a whole, outside of his two friends. And even then, he couldn’t be bothered to send a proverbial thumb’s up. His response, if he could manage the interest to share one, likely would have been a casual or dismissive, "Good for you."
The whole business with meeting Vikktorea later completely distracted Simon from even mentioning anything about the man in the black business suit and he hadn't left Jessie any voicemails about it, despite reaching his machine the other day. Regardless, for the time, Simon wasn’t even scared of his apparent pursuer, thanks to successfully asking his love interest out. Little else mattered at the moment. He was sure Ramone or Jessie would want to know about that sort of thing, but it just didn’t seem important right now. Maybe it was a fluke. It wasn’t as though the encounter was as tense as Friday night’s activity.
Today, he would put on his best and only cologne. It was imitation, of course; he couldn't afford brand name and the chemicals were all largely the same. He made sure his clothes were clean. His boots, free of mud. And his sunglasses worn after dark, only reflecting her in the light of a convenience store. The rest of the day would be spent taking it easy and making the work van look remotely presentable. No deli sandwich wrappers in the passenger’s foot well. Today, he had a reason to care.
For everyone else, it would be just another day. One with no rain, finally. That damp chill had to cease at some point. Dresden Port was made of dry sandy ground and scrub brush. It absorbed slowly. Everything needed a break eventually, including the land.
Ramone slept for a good half day after partying for most of the night with a fun but forgettable blonde girl. For the remaining portion, worked on his set of wheels under a mechanic’s light on his cracked asphalt driveway. His beloved vintage sixties Dodge Challenger always needed a little work. It was his dad’s gift to him and he treasured it. Black Beauty, his father had called it. It really was. Ramone had an eye for attractive things, after all.
Jessie, meanwhile, had a laundry list of clues written down as to what BC6 meant. He specifically didn’t log onto the Akashic Memory forum, if just to avoid the temptation of asking for a hint. Looking over his notes, he realized his rival of sorts may have given him one. The last line referring to Rumplestiltskin... of course that wasn’t it.
'Funny', BC6 had typed in with apostrophes used as quotation marks. Why? What was funny? The tone didn’t match anything else BC6 wrote. Jessie was looking for initials but that word kept coming back. He blinked. "Funny, funny... that has to be the clue. Otherwise, it could be anything, right? He wants to see if I can read between the lines and follow a clue." Jessie nodded to himself, thoughtfully. "I think I may have shortened the list of references on my list." With that, the stepped away from his computer and went to a collection of VHS movies from the eighties he had on a series of wooden racks. It was an absolutely extensive amount, largely gathered from yard sales and thrift stores. He hoped, as promised, the answer would be hiding from him in plain sight.
It was ten to five, by Simon’s cellphone. He wished he’d asked for her number, but it was just the anxiety talking. He knew some people liked to reconfirm arrangements in this day and age. He thought it was redundant- it wasn’t that hard to remember something important. But then again, his dad didn’t raise him on processed sugar. People weren't afterthoughts to him.
Customers came and left Shuck’s 24-Hour Convenience. Simon waited outside near his van, remaining in easy sight. He leaned against the sliding side door, illustrating in faded decal lettering his courier business. Hopefully, none of the local enforcement would give him a citation for hanging around today. One knows how small town cops can be with loitering.
Thirty minutes later, he sighed. She was walking. Maybe she mistook the time it would take to get here. She was thinking of this convenience store, wasn’t she? He shifted, stretching his shoulders.
After fifty minutes, he’d begun to pace. He picked up a copy of the area paper to pass the time while he sat on the curb, continuing to wait. It was getting dark, judging by the oncoming greyness of his surroundings and Shuck’s parking lot lights switching on.
By the time it was seven o‘ clock at night, he finished the paper and discarded the wrapper to a protein bar he purchased. It was clear now... she wasn’t coming. He had no way to figure out what was wrong. Something at home? Work? Or did she just 'forget' because the date wasn’t important? He hated to admit as much, but he knew girls who’d done exactly that to him in the past. Maybe she just wanted a cruel way to blow him off. Nothing stung like hope falsely given. Maybe to her, he was just another Ramone. And this was her way of telling him she was out of his league.
He tried not to be bitter, but he was not happy. Piling into his van, he drove down the lanes where he suspected she might try to walk up from the train tracks despite the hour. He even drove over roads where the tracks juxtaposed with the asphalt crossing. But there was no pretty young woman in red and black plaid. Just dust.
She wasn’t coming. He’d been ditched or otherwise stood up for one reason or another.
There was a time, in that a fish dragged itself onto land, past the mud, in the interest of being part of the dry earth outside of the water. There was air and green plants that grew there. But the fish saw no other creatures like himself there and there was nothing ultimately there for him. So he turned around and returned to the anonymous river from which he swam. What was th
e sense of crawling? He didn’t know.
Ramone offered commiseration with his friend upon reading the news on his cellphone. Maybe they could stop off at the bar. Ramone offered to pay. Maybe he would feel better. But Simon wasn’t in the mood and thanked him anyway. He just wanted a quiet night. Jessie wasn’t texted about this one. Which, realistically, was fine with both of them.
Back at home, Simon sat there on his rough textured couch in the dark and put on some basic cable with his remote. He skipped about but there was hardly anything worth acknowledging on the television as usual. So, he let it sit on the twelfth station, the one he most often stayed with. Local news and weather in his neck of New Jersey. He watched. There was no actual news- there never was. Nothing happened out here. Only the weather brought any real change. And like the channel itself, it cycled. Moments of dry and then rain. It seemed like it was always raining in Dresden Port. And so the weatherman smiled. On the side, Simon felt like he was forgetting some detail about his home, but it seemed unimportant in the meantime.
CHAPTER 6
The new work week brought nothing of great joy. Some proper courier deliveries, but never a forty hour work week without delivering some papers or ads. The way of the courier was fading into the past thanks to the industrialized shipping trucks that could carry hundreds of boxes each day. Without driving very far, which was neither too profitable nor practical with the cost of gas, he couldn’t easily compete with bigger corporate delivery groups. People rarely needed much done around Dresden Port itself. Even Heiowah didn’t need him much. He couldn’t recall the last time anyone in Black Mountain had him deliver parcels, and that was perhaps the only place more estranged from the modern day than Dresden Port itself. That was fine. The transmission on the 1990 Vandura didn’t like the mountains much, anyway.
He tried other things to expand, but there wasn’t much he could do. Any place worth living never had any work to be able to afford living there with, especially in New Jersey. Food delivery had been an option, but there weren’t a lot of orders to be had in a town this small, to say nothing of the relative poverty of the people here. Taxi-ing people in his work van wasn’t going to happen. The closest airport was almost a hundred miles away. And most people wouldn’t want to ride in a beat up van with bucket seats.
His father drove a taxi for a living before they had moved here. It left him jaded and a chain smoker. His dad always told him, "If you ever want to meet the scum of the earth, Simon, drive a taxi at night. All the human garbage comes out for a ride then." He was willing to honor that opinion; the man drove for twenty one years. Simon didn’t want to have that kind of bitterness.
Ramone checked in with his courier friend again on Wednesday evening. "Look, you’ve been down for, what, three or four days now? My offer still stands. Just come hang out with me tonight," he said over the static of the phone. Ramone liked his drink more than most, but he wasn’t an alcoholic because he could very much handle his liquor. He just didn’t want to be the guy drinking alone in a bar any more than he had to.
Simon meandered about going. "Come on, man. Do it for yourself. I know you get kind of depressive hanging alone in your house like that." Ramone had a point. Maybe a change of scenery would be good.
"Besides, I got somethin‘ for ya. And Jessie’s actually coming along on this one," Ramone said excitedly. Jessie? Ramone got him to come outside of his burrow- to a bar of all places? Simon had to admit to he wanted to see this.
Come eight o'clock, the weekend trio met up at a local blue collar sports bar known as Flip Tatum’s. The name wasn’t a euphemism for anything. It was the original owner’s name, an old man bar from the nineteen thirties or forties. Now his great grandson ran the place and modernized it a little. The pickled egg jar had been removed ages ago and there was now an electronic touch screen game in its place. There was even a wireless jukebox gently shining all sorts of colors by the door. Flip’s was all right. It was far cry from the rough and tumble past it had once known. Flip’s prized stuffed marlin from a nineteen fifties vacation was still on the mantle, though.
Jessie, Ramone, and Simon saddled up on the front seats by the bar itself. Ramone ordered his gloomier friends a round of Amstel. "Enjoy, boys. We should come out here more often." He was always trying, not for lack of effort.
"Thanks, Ra. Say Jessie, what dragged you out here tonight?"
Jessie took a large chug, licked his lips with a dull expression in his sunken eyes. "Him," he gestured with a stubby thumb to Ramone, flatly. "Who else calls me every week to go on a drinking run?"
Simon couldn't help but smirk a little. "No, no... I mean, why tonight? It’s like pulling teeth to get you to go anywhere outside of the Friday night run."
The Fix-It shop technician glanced with no particular amusement at Simon and then shook his head, staring forward at the lining on their side of the island bar counter. "Can’t a man just get outside once in a while without the third degree? You make this so inviting, Simon, I’m having an amazing time. Thanks. You should be the greeter at the diner down the road-"
"All right, all right! I get it. Sorry!" Simon wasn‘t actually upset, but everyone was familiar with Jessie’s acid and disdainfulness. It could be like a waterfall of sarcasm when he really got going. Sometimes, it was even warranted.
"Truth be told, I needed a break. And this fine knucklehead,” gesturing to Ramone, “wouldn’t stop with the calls," groaned Jessie. Ramone grinned, again immune to criticism. He knew they both needed to get out of their respective little hidey holes. "So yes, thanks Ramone. A little drink is good for me now and again."
"Yeah, thanks man," Simon acknowledged again. Free beer was free beer.
"Heh! Not a problem!" Ramone beamed. "And a lot of drink is good for me!" He finished his entire glass and immediately ordered another. Of course, this was nothing whatsoever. His tolerance for beer and wine was simply staggering. "So, what else have you guys been up to?"
"Mrm, nothing much really. Kind of a flavorless week so far," Simon mumbled.
Jessie hesitated. "Well... I’ve been busy. I’ve been trying to solve a puzzle."
"What kinda puzzle?" Ramone asked with mild interest.
"Ehh... it’s stupid. I’m trying to, um, figure out some guy’s name and I’m missing something."
"Well, how does it go?" Simon asked. "Maybe we’ll figure it out."
And so, Jessie told them the details. "It’s like this... I need discern what his name is, but he’s only got a single name apparently. He uses a handle called BC6 that references that name, somehow, but it doesn’t actually contain his name when you know what the initials stand for. Also, I think the hint is it references something ‘funny‘ so it might be a comedic movie or some piece of stand up. I checked my entire collection, but I'm stumped. It’s been driving me nuts."
Simon took a sip. "So, something or someone funny with the initials of..." he muttered.
Ramone sat quietly, racking his mind.
"Oh... I think I got it," Simon offered. "You think it stands for Bill Cosby? He was pretty funny in his time."
Jessie raised a brow. "It could be... but where does the six come into play? I wondered if that stood for an alpha-numeric initial, which would make it the letter F. If that’s the case, then the initials I’m looking for would be B-C-F. The C could be someone’s middle name then..."
"Maybe you’re over thinking it?" Ramone suggested with a sigh. "What if… it refers to his sixth movie? Which one was that?"
"Guys, guys... it’s so obvious," Simon said. "It answers itself if you know even a little bit about Bill Cosby’s career, given the puzzle."
"Well, what is it??" Ramone asked. Jessie leaned over curiously.
"Assuming Bill Cosby stands for BC and ‘funny‘- and we’re looking for a name from that clue, possibly with the number at the end? Guys, it’s Bill Cosby in Leonard Part 6. One of the worst comedy movies ever made."
Ramone winced. "Ohhh god, I saw that as a kid on TV once. That was
terrible! Nothing about that movie made any sense. Something like; Bill Cosby is a spy and there's animals running around, I think. I don’t know. I just remember it was all kinds of awful. And I’ve sat through Howard the Duck."
"I liked Howard the Duck," Simon sighed.
Ramone chuckled, ribbing his friend. "You and three other brave souls worldwide, Simon. Um... hey. Where did Jessie go?" They glanced over to find their friend had somehow vanished, leaving only a half chugged beer and a modest tip on the table. "Huh. Guess he heard what he wanted. That man's a proper Houdini when he has the mind to be, I guess."
With their grouchy friend gone, the two made small talk, played a round of darts, and had another beer. But it was a work night and Simon had to bundle up the circulars for tomorrow's run. It would be a long night of clammy ink stained hands folding paper by the hundreds while he watched whatever was halfway distracting on television. Chow mein sounded good tonight, too.
"Oh, uh... hey." Ramone mumbled as they were about to finish their last beer and head out. Simon glanced up, mildly buzzed. "Before we go..."
"About your text about that Vikktorea girl. For what it's worth, I'm sorry things turned out like they did." Ramone said in a low tone. It was Ramone's serious voice, when he was trying genuinely to be there for his friends. "It sucks she stood you up like that."
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