One More Year: A Christmas Story

By Steve Siciliano

When Michael Adams pulled into the driveway the woman was just starting her fourth attempt at making a pie crust. Before going into the house, Michael picked up a fire truck, a soccer ball and an over-sized plastic bat off the lawn and then did a quick pass with a shovel on the front porch steps. Five minutes later when he walked into the kitchen the woman didn’t look up at him. “He’s in his bedroom,” she told him.

Michael watched the woman’s face while she attacked the flattened disc of dough with a rolling pin. “Any idea what’s wrong?” he asked her.

“He won’t tell me. I hope you remembered the pie filling.”

“I did. It’s right here.” Michael put a paper bag on the table then went to the foyer to hang up his heavy winter jacket and take off his boots. On his way back through the kitchen he spotted two pools of melting snow on the linoleum, glanced at his wife, then wiped them dry with his stocking feet. When he was walking down the hallway he heard something slam hard against the counter top.

“What is it Susan?” he called out.

“You bought the wrong stuff. I specifically told you pumpkin pie filling.”

“Isn’t that what I got?”

“No. You bought plain pumpkin.”

“I’m sorry, Susan,” Michael said. “I’ll go back to the store after I talk to Joey.” He stood for a moment in the hallway and when no other sounds came from the kitchen he tapped on the bedroom door, opened it, and saw his five-year old son lying on the bed staring at the ceiling.

“Hey, buddy,” Michael said. “Is it okay if I come in?”

The boy turned and faced the wall. “I guess.”

Michael closed the door, sat on the bed and placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Mom told me there’s something bothering you.”

The boy reached out and followed a line of smiling, drum-playing monkeys on the wallpaper with his fingers.

“Don’t you want to tell me?” Michael asked.

The boy turned on his back and put a pillow over his face.

“What was that?” Michael asked. “You know I can’t hear you when you talk into your pillow.”

“I said you lied to me.”

“I did? When did I lie to you?”

The boy took the pillow off his head and threw it across the room. “Dicky Brown laughed at me when I told him we were putting cookies out tonight for Santa Claus. He said Santa Claus is nothing but a big lie.”

Michael looked at the tears pooling in his son’s eyes and thought about the wooden sled, the Star Wars figures and the big box of Legos that were hidden away in the attic. He thought about how now there would be no wonder in his son’s eyes when he woke to find those things under the tree on Christmas morning. Michael was hoping for at least one more year of vicarious enchantment.

“There’s a difference between a nice story and a big lie, Joey,” Michael told his son. “Sometimes it’s hard when we have to stop believing in things, in wonderful things, but parents tell stories to their children because they want them to be happy, not because they want to hurt them or be dishonest with them. And that’s a big difference. Does that make sense to you?”

Michael Adams wiped the tears that were rolling down his son’s cheeks. “Tell you what, buddy” he said. “Let’s pretend for one more year that Santa is real. I think it would be good for mom if we did. It will be our little secret. Do you think you can do that?”

Later, after going to the store for pumpkin pie filling, Michael and Joey Adams built a snowman, had a snowball fight and made snow angels on the front lawn. Before they went back into the warm house for big mugs of hot chocolate, they ran around the yard with their mouths opened wide and tried to get big, slow-falling flakes of snow to land on their tongues.

A Family Tradition and a Tale Well Told

The author's father and niece

By Doug Dorda

When I was a young boy, I would stand just beyond the entrance to the living room and listen intently to the stories my parents and their friends shared among themselves at gatherings or parties. I distinctly remember the majesty of the setting: a warm fireplace bathed the room in a soft amber glow, shadows danced along the walls, and I stood as a silent observer with my head peaked around the corner so as not to interrupt the humorous, often entrancing tales that poured so freely from my family and their company. I imagine it was something akin to those classic Norman Rockwell paintings depicting the centuries-old tradition of stories told by those who love one another to one another so that we may come to know each other better.

I count myself lucky that my personal history is inundated with memories such as these, and I find that in their recollection I can immediately be transported to a place and time within my own past that is as vivid as if I were standing in that hallway right now. One such story has always colored my “holiday spirit” and I would like to recount that for you now.

My mother and father stood to the left of the fireplace, and our friends and neighbors sat amongst the couches and other furniture in the room. The fire was reduced to a mild blaze, and embers glowed deeply. The house was rich with the scents of a holiday feast, and every eye turned toward my father as he stepped forward, signaling that he was about to begin.

“I have met Santa Claus,” my father said with a smile and a deep voice that made me certain he was telling the truth. “A few years ago when my son Brandon was born, I was on the roof of the house putting up Christmas lights. Well, I lost my footing and began to slide toward the edge of the roof. I tried desperately to cling to the shingles, I clung to the string of lights, I splayed my feet out, and still I slid.

"The whole world seemed to spin and I knew the ground was cold and hard under the snow. Well, I thought, looks like I will be spending Christmas in the ER this year. Just as I went over the edge, a hand caught hold of mine and pulled me up onto the roof. I was in shock, as you may imagine, because I knew there was no one on the roof with me. I looked around, and a man with a white beard dressed in red overalls stood on the edge of the roof with his hands on his hips. As he looked up from the ground toward me, he said 'Almost decked your halls there, Wally'. 

"I laughed as he helped me to my feet. I thanked him over and over again before asking him who he was, and how the hell he got on my roof. 'I'm Chris,' he said, “I'm your new neighbor, just moved in a few days ago. I saw you up here with the lights and thought I would introduce myself and offer to lend a hand. Seems like I caught you before you took one last sleigh ride. Oh, and I got up here the same way you did. I used the ladder. I guess you forgot about that seeing how you tried to dismount the roof a minute ago.'

"'Welcome to the neighborhood, you jolly S.O.B', I replied with no small amount of sarcasm. I thanked Chris again, and he made good on helping me with the rest of the lights. After a few more hours work he calmly explained that his 'jingle bells' were freezing off and that he had to get going back to work.

"'Thank you again,' I said, "And hey, a word of advice, lay off the holiday puns.' Chris laughed at me as he descended the ladder and said that it was a side effect of his job. 'What is it you do?' I asked. As he sauntered down the street he called back:

"'I make toys, Wall. Maybe I'll bring some for your little boy.' I shouted a thank you, then quickly realized I had never asked him where he lived, or how to get in touch with him. I gingerly took to the ladder and tried to get down and catch him before he was too far off.

"'Merry Christmas, Walley. I'll see you next year.' Chris' voice came from the roof. Now how the hell did he get back up here, I wondered. I looked up and saw eight reindeer, and that pun-making, red-clad, jab-taking 'good Samaritan' parked in a sleigh on my roof. I thought for a moment that I had actually gone off the roof, and was experiencing some sort of hallucination. Santa, as I now knew he was, laughed at my dumb expression and took off into the sky.

"For a few months after that I was convinced that I was insane. I told no one the story until about the next December, not even my wife. Mary thought that I was spending too much time in the cold, and she insisted on helping me with the lights that year so that I didn’t make an ass of myself again. As we worked into that night I turned my eyes to the sky often, and I sighed. Mary was right, I thought, it must have all been a wonderful dream. When we had finished with the lights, and stood as a family in the yard admiring our work, I heard a hearty laugh that seemed to echo down the street. My eyes snapped back toward the road, and there he came, dressed just like the year prior, flying like a bat out of hell down the block. Presents appeared in every home as he passed, and our eyes met only once. Santa winked at me and said, 'See ya next year, Wall.'

"I know it sounds nuts, but every year I hear that laugh, I see his sleigh damn near breaking the sound barrier, and he says 'see ya next year.' Funny thing is, Mary never hears or sees him, but sure enough there are presents under the tree that I didn’t put there when I come inside. I hear him right now!"

With that my father would run outside and make everyone go with him. My brother and I would go out the back door and peek around corners to try and catch a glimpse of the mystical present man. Little did we know that it was our family's intent for us to do so. They knew well that we listened to the story and would run outside for a look. As soon as we left the house, one friend that was left behind would put presents under the tree so that as my father exclaimed, "Ah, you just missed him! There he goes!" and pointed into the sky we would be sure to find Santa's presents under the tree as we came inside.

Year after year it went on the same way. Sure the story changed a little here and there—the language became a little more colorful as my brother and I grew older and older. But the magic of the story and the sense of connection we all felt to it, never lessened. Eventually my brother and I grew too old to be tricked by the story any longer, and one Christmas Eve we wondered if it would be told ever again. However, our young nieces had never heard the story, as we observed, and so the tale is passed to a new generation.

The collaborative telling of and listening to tales is something that I personally view to be of the utmost importance in society. My father and mother felt the same way. Through the animated telling of tales you truly engage a group of people, you put smiles on their faces, but most important, you foster creative magic in those who can not wait to find their own tales to tell. It is my sincere hope that you all find time to come together with family, friends, or both and simply share your stories with one another. You may just find it to be one of the best presents you receive this holiday season.

From all of us at Siciliano's – Happy Holidays!

Convenience Store Stories: Schrodinger's Cat

Fiction By Steve Siciliano

On the morning of his seventy-fifth birthday Erwin Schrodinger found a kitten huddling beneath the picnic table under his back yard grape arbor. He had gone out in a light rain shortly after dawn to toss handfuls of Cheerios along the line of Rose of Sharons. When he was done he leaned against the chain-link fence and looked up at the bare branches of the maples then down at the blackening green pods lying in the grass underneath the walnut tree. “There they come, Mary,” he said when the first few sparrows began appearing. “Now your birds are happy.” It was when he was walking back to the house that he spied the cat.

Erwin wiped off his glasses on his shirt tail. “Well look it there, Mary,” he said. “A little white kitten.” He stooped down, reached into the plastic bag and tossed out a handful of Cheerios. “Are you hungry?” The cat looked at Erwin and meowed. ‘Okay, Mary,” Erwin said, then went into the house and came back with a bowl of milk.

While the kitten lapped the milk Erwin went into the garage. “Now where did I put that old cat bed? Ahh, there it is. Now aren’t you glad I didn’t throw it away? Where do you think it came from, Mary? Yes I’m going to keep it. It’s my birthday after all. Did you remember it’s my birthday, Mary? Now where’s that litter box?”

That afternoon Erwin walked to C’s for cat food and a bag of litter. “Today’s my birthday,” he told the young clerk.

“That’s nice, pop. Eight seventy-four.”

“I found a kitten.”

“That’s nice, pop. Eight seventy-four.”

“A little white kitten,” Erwin said and smiled.

“Twenty-six cents back. Have a nice day, pop.”

When Erwin was out the door the clerk shook his head and lit a cigarette. “He’s kind of a strange old duck.”

Michael Adams looked up from his liquor order. “Oh he’s a nice guy. His wife died a couple of weeks ago.”

“I think he’s a little goofy.”

“Well, maybe a little,” Michael said.

On a nasty morning in February when Erwin Schrodinger went out to feed the birds he didn’t notice that the cat had slipped out behind him. It was when he was walking up the porch steps that he saw paw prints in the snow.

“How long has she been gone?” Michael asked while he watched Erwin tacking a flyer to the store’s bulletin board.

“About seven days now.”

“In this weather?” the clerk said. “Ain’t no way that cat’s still alive.”

“Shut up, Frankie,” Michael said. “You know Erwin, someone might have taken her in.”

“I know, Michael. I know there’s the possibility that my cat Sadie is alive.” He placed the cup of thumb tacks on the counter then looked at the clerk. “Then again this young man might be right. There’s also the distinct possibility that she’s dead. I look at it this way, young man. At this moment, Sadie is both dead and alive. I guess I won’t know one way or the other until I actually see her.” He began walking out of the store then stopped and turned. “Until I see her with my own eyes. One way or the other.”

“I told you that old man is goofy,” the clerk said a little while later.

“I don’t think so,” Michael said. He was looking at the picture of Erwin Schrodinger’s cat on the flyer. “As a matter of fact, I’m quite convinced now that he’s not.”

Convenience Store Stories: The Natural Order

Fiction by Steve Siciliano

There was a time when the Creston Heights neighborhood was known as “the bloody fifth,” a moniker it acquired because of its location in the city’s fifth ward and because of a rather gruesome murder/suicide involving an ax and a shotgun that dominated the headlines of the Grand Rapids Herald for weeks. It was predominately a German neighborhood back then, a solid neighborhood despite the pejorative sobriquet, inhabited for the most part by first generation immigrants who had come to the city to work in the gypsum mines and furniture factories.

After the war (the first war), a group of area merchants formed an association, threw fifty dollars in a pot and held a contest to give the neighborhood an official name. Helen Kaufman, a day-dreaming sixteen year old who loved roaming the northeast side’s still undeveloped, pine-forested hills, was awarded the prize money for her winning submission of Creston Heights.

Michael Adams met Helen on an April morning years later, when she came into his store for the weekly lottery. That day she told him she was eighty-five, that she had lived in the Creston neighborhood her entire life, and that the site of the store he recently purchased, C’s Liquors, was once a butcher shop owned by her uncle and grandfather. Through the spring, summer and fall of that year Helen walked the two blocks to C’s every Wednesday. When Michael saw her walking to the store one day on icy sidewalks after the season’s first snow, he volunteered to bring the tickets to her. During those weekly visits Michael sat at the dining room table with a cup of tea and listened to Helen reminisce about the neighborhood.

He heard about the splendid streetcars that used to run up and down Plainfield Avenue and about the day a frightened-to-death bear cub climbed up a telephone pole. She told him about the magnificent Fourth of July celebrations, the marvelous Labor Day parades and how she would go to the Creston Theater for glorious Saturday afternoon matinees. She told him that the ghastly tattoo shop was once a bakery, the horrible pawn shop a hardware, and that the drug store that was in the now abandoned building next to his store had a wonderful soda fountain. She numbered off all the businesses that had closed—the bank, the florist and the grocery, the shoe repair shop, the barber shop, the candy store—and lamented the neighborhood’s once-tidy houses, beautiful flower gardens and well-kept lawns.

One day Helen brought out some old photo albums that she and Michael leafed through while they sipped their tea. “How long were you married, Helen?” he asked.

“Forty years,” she said. “He died from a bad heart.”

“Do you have children?”

Helen fingered a small gold crucifix hanging on a delicate chain around her neck. “We had three. Danny was killed on Iwo Jima. He was only twenty. Marie. Marie died in a car crash when she was thirty-three. I still have Laura, but…”

“But?”

“She’s dying. I pray every day that I go before her. I’ve already buried two. I don’t want to bury another.” She touched a black and white photograph of three smiling children sitting on a porch stoop. “All my friends are dead. You learn how to accept that. But parents should always go before their children. Of course that’s the way it should be. It’s the natural order, Michael.”

The following Monday a frail, middle-aged woman wearing a stocking cap came into C’s and walked up to the sales counter. “I’m looking for Michael,” she said.

“I’m Michael.”

“My mother wanted you to have this.”

“Your mother?”

“Helen Kaufman,” the lady said. “She wanted you to have this.”

Michael looked at the black and white photograph and then back at the lady. “Is Helen alright?” Helen Kaufman’s last surviving child looked out the store’s plate glass windows, wiped at her eyes, and shook her head no.

The Wisdom of Vito Brunelli

Fiction by Steve Siciliano

In exchange for the six hours he spent raking leaves at the Dominican convent Vito Brunelli got a ham sandwich, a twenty dollar bill and a holy card with Raphael’s crucifixion on the front and the Serenity Prayer on the back. He stuck the bill in his pants pocket, the holy card in his shirt pocket and tossed the half-eaten sandwich to a dog that was licking a Slim Jim wrapper on the sidewalk in front of C’s Convenience Store. He leaned on the five iron that he used for a cane and rubbed his aching right knee before going into the store for a package of Bugler cigarette tobacco and two fifths of Wild Irish Rose.

Two hours later he stumbled into a clearing next to a stretch of abandoned railroad tracks where three men were huddled around a camp fire passing a bottle. He sat at the base of a small tree, took a long, final swig of wine, tossed the empty bottle in a high arc towards the tracks, then took the pouch of tobacco out of his shirt pocket and began rolling a cigarette. “Hello you lousy, drunken bums,” he said.

“This here’s a private party,” said a man who was sitting on a ripped lawn chair and poking at the fire with a stick. “Ain’t no cheap ass wops allowed. Ain’t that right, Lennie?”

Lennie was standing next to the fire warming his hands. “He can stay if he got more wine. You got more wine there, Vito?”

“If I did I wouldn’t share it with you bums.”

“Look who’s calling us bums,” said another man sitting on a five-gallon bucket and looking at a Hustler.

“I think there ain’t nothing worse than a cheap ass wop,” the first man said. “I ever tell you guys about them cheap ass wop tires?”

“Shut up with that damn joke already, Dugan,” said Vito.

“Dago through mud, dago through snow…”

“Shut your trap,” Vito said again, “or I’ll run this here goddamn five iron down your throat.”

“…and when dago flat, dago wop, wop, wop.”

When Vito was trying to get up Lennie reached over and grabbed the five iron. “What you going to do now you cheap ass wop cripple?”

Vito knew it could have been worse. He felt lucky that he had gotten out of the fight with only bruised ribs, a sprained right hand and a swollen left eye. He felt lucky even though Lennie broke the shaft of his five iron against a tree trunk and now, leaning against the iron railing outside the Catholic church, he felt lucky that it was raining. He knew the rain would make him look even more forlorn and more forlorn meant more money in the tattered baseball cap he was holding. Vito waited for the people to file out after the Saturday evening Mass, and when he took the pouch of Bugler out of his shirt pocket the holy card came out along with it. Leaning against the iron railing in the cold, steady rain, he read the Serenity Prayer in the light of a flood lamp.

While he limped in the rain down Division Avenue, the change heavy in his pocket, his knee hurting, his ribs aching, Vito Brunelli prayed that God would give him the courage to change the things in his life that he could and the serenity to accept the things that he couldn’t. He knew that he had enough money in his pocket to get his cane back from the pawn shop. That would be a start. He imagined that if he tried real hard there were some things that he could change; other things it didn't much matter what he did, the change would never come. When he was in front of the house where he rented a room he stood on the sidewalk trying to decide which was which. Then he limped across the street to the convenience store, and thanked God for giving him the wisdom to know the difference.

The Return of Harry Winston

After an extended absence, Steve's close friend and confidant Harry Winston is back, this time with an enigmatic, Bourbon-fueled post. We've come to expect nothing less from old Harry. He's quite the character. Enjoy!

Been laying low lately. I have this little place, a hut really, on a lake up north and it’s there where I go whenever I need to be alone. No telephones, no television, no radios. No electricity, no running water. I never bring anything to read and there’s nobody to talk to but the squirrels and birds, chipmunks and loons, hawks, beavers and the occasional eagle. One day I drifted for hours in my old wooden boat watching a high drifting eagle. The eagle and I had a nice long-distance conversation. I go there whenever I need to not think. The Crazy Hippie made a sign that I put above the door that says “No Thinking Allowed”. But I’m back now. I’m back, I’m thinking again, and I’m thinking I’m going to be okay. The other day when I stopped in Siciliano’s, the Perch joked that he’d been checking the obits to see if I was dead. Well, I’m not dead but I should be. I came close, I came real close.

I’m not going to get into details. Maybe someday I will. Jimmy told me that I should put it all down, that I should write a book. He’s a big fan of Chandler and Hammett, Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. He loves watching old Bogart movies. Jimmy thinks it would make a good story and it probably would. The story of a hard-boiled private eye who wasn’t as tough as he thought he was, who had a weakness he didn’t know he had, who got mixed up with a very smart, very evil woman.

Tonight I’m getting drunk. I have a wound that has to be closed and to close it I’m going to need a little anesthesia. I’m finishing my fourth Knob Creek on the rocks and I’ve just motioned to Jimmy for another. When he brought the last one over he wouldn’t put it down until I gave up my keys which means tonight I’ll be sleeping in his office on an ugly couch that he bought at some antique store on Bridge Street between his third and fourth marriage. When I told him once how ugly that couch is he laughed and said the only reason he keeps it is because his fourth wife hated it. Here he comes now with the Bourbon. That a boy Jimmy. Put it on the table then go back to your Bogart movie. But keep keeping an eye on me. And keep that sawed-off pool cue ready in case there are any sharks out there who smell blood and want to even a score.

I’ve known Jimmy a long time, seen him drunk plenty of times, but not once because of a woman. He’s got the right attitude when it comes to women. Hell, when you get right down to it I guess he’s got the right attitude about everything. “Shit happens,” he always says. “Shit happens, Harry,” he said that day fifteen years ago. Not “I’m sorry, Harry”, or “Hang in there, Harry,” or “You’re better off without her, Harry”. I guess that’s what I get for having a god damn Taoist as a friend. Don’t commiserate with someone’s pain just tell them that shit happens and to go with the goddamn flow. He pissed me off so much I stopped coming around the bar for six months. All I wanted was a little sympathy but I got nothing but “shit happens.” All four of his wives left him and not one time did it bother him. He told me the first one left because he worked too much, the second because he smoked too much, the third because he snores. Yeah, whatever, Jimmy. He gave me some other bullshit reason why the fourth one left but right now I can’t remember it. Maybe it was because of the couch. Maybe it was because he’s a Taoist. Maybe that’s why they all left him. Maybe they got sick of him telling them to go with the flow. Tonight I’m getting drunk because of a woman. Actually I’m getting drunk because of two women. The one who wounded me fifteen years ago and the other who recognized that the wound created a chink in my armor, that it became my Achilles heel, my kryptonite, or whatever other goddamn thing you want to call it.

Samantha Lowe was smart and she was evil. I say "was" because she’s dead. She’s dead and Charles Brewster is headed for prison. I should be the one who’s dead. The only reason I’m not is just pure luck. Samantha Lowe wanted me dead and she came real close to getting her wish. I’ve said before that you have to be smart in my business but I never saw it coming, never saw how they set me up. I’m getting drunk because it’s time to finally examine a fifteen year-old wound and stitch it up and if it takes a little anesthesia to do it well so be it. For fifteen years I’ve been afraid to look. Maybe you know how it is. Maybe you had once been cut and you knew it was such a bad cut that you were afraid to look. Well it’s time now that I look.

There, I did it. Doing it was Jimmy’s idea. He told me that when you discover a weakness you have to examine it before you can eliminate it. Well I examined it and I’m quite sure that I eliminated it. I guess time will tell. The next time he looks over at me I’m going to give him the A-OK, the old thumbs up. Thanks for the tip, my friend. I’m going to finish this drink and then I’m off to bed. Or off to the couch. That big, over-stuffed, lovely old couch.

Enough to Face the Sun - Chapter 1

Not to be outdone by his brother Mark, whose cartoons will appear regularly on The Buzz, Steve Siciliano today makes this offering, an excerpt from his novel-in-progress “Enough to Face the Sun.” Steve’s first novel, “Putting Butterfly Wings on The Thinker”, will be published in April, 2011, by Siclianos Market Press.


“Christ, it’s hotter than hell out there.”

When Charlie Reynolds’ voice shattered the late afternoon quiet I looked up from my crossword and saw Paul, the bartender, wince. Charlie sat down on the corner stool, slapped his palms on the bar, looked over at me and nodded, then brought his hands together and cracked his knuckles.

“How’s it going today, Pauly?”

“Just fucking wonderful,” Paul said. “Making people happy.” He put his newspaper down and began pouring Charlie a draft.

“Whoa there, buddy. Don’t want a beer.”

Paul took a deep breath then dumped a half glass of beer down the drain.

“Gin and tonic, barkeep. Lots of ice.”

“What kind of gin?” Paul held the empty beer glass in his hand while Charlie passed a thick finger across his cell phone. “What kind of gin, sport?”

“Uh, that new one I told you to get in. Anyone know how Detroit did today?”

“Lost three to two,” I said when Paul didn’t tell Charlie the score.

“Fuck! Lost another one. How’d the Cubbies do?”

I was about to answer but when Charlie started texting I went back to my crossword. Paul put the gin and tonic in front of Charlie then walked back to the middle of the bar and picked up his newspaper. Charlie put his phone down and took a sip of the drink. “Damn, this is good gin. Selling a lot of this, Pauly?”

“Nope.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s popular as hell at the club.”

“That’s nice,” Paul said.

“Guy at the club turned me on to it.”

“That’s nice.”

“I can’t believe you’re not selling it.”

“That’s nice,” Paul said.

Two men in suits came in and Charlie swiveled his stool and watched them hang their coats on the high hooks on the side of a booth. Paul slowly put his newspaper back together then glanced up at the sports scores running across the bottom of the muted television screen before walking to their table.

“How’s the crossword?” Charlie asked me after he swiveled back around.

“Hard,” I said. “Fridays are always hard.”

“Never got into them. My old man did them all the time. Hell, he probably still does.”

“It passes the time,” I said without looking up.

“How’s business?” Charlie asked. “Cigar shop, right?”

"It's getting better," I said.

Charlie’s phone rang and I worked on the crossword while I heard about his round of golf in the morning, how hot it was on the golf course, about the lunch at his club with the “docs”, how he had impressed the docs, how he bought a new pair of shoes, about a new set of clubs that he looked at but didn’t buy, about how the Caddy was still making a noise, how he ran into Fred Peterson at DeMario’s, that he forgot to pick up “your god damn shampoo”, that DeMario asked him to go to Vegas, that Fred asked him to go fishing Sunday, and that they would have to take the kids to the “damn water park” some other day. With that, Charlie put the phone done, the conversation over. “So you’ve been open what, about a year now, right?”

I nodded.

He picked up his phone again then set it back on the bar next to his drink. “Most new businesses fail within the first year. It’s a fact.”

“I’ve heard that,” I said.

“Has the smoking ban hurt?”

“Probably a little.”

“God damn government keeps taking away our rights. It should be up to business owners to decide if people can smoke in their own joints. Right Pauly?” Paul was restocking liquor and didn’t say anything. Charlie looked at his phone again. “What are you drinking?”

“Beer.”

“I can see it’s beer, chief. What kind of beer?’

“IPA,” I said.

“Tried an IPA once. Too bitter.”

“IPA’s are hoppy.”

“Nothing like the Silver Bullet.”

“Well, to each his own.”

“Can I buy you another one?”

“No,” I said. “I have to get going.”

Charlie’s phone rang again. He went over to a pool table and caromed the cue ball off the bumpers while he talked. Paul put his newspaper down and walked up to me. “Going to have another?”

“No, I’ve got to go.”

“How was it today?”

“Slow,” I said. “About two hundred when I left.”

Paul nodded. “I was slow too. No one wants to go out in this heat.”

“Well, Charlie’s here,” I said.

“Fuck him. How’s your new guy working out?”

“Good, he knows his shit.”

“Well that’s got to help.”

I took a five out from my shirt pocket and laid it on the bar.

“This one’s on me,” Paul said.

“Come on, Paul. I can afford to buy a beer.”

“I know you can,” Paul said.

I noticed one of the men in the booth looking over at us. “I think those guys want another.”

Paul walked away and while he was mixing the drinks Charlie walked back pumping a clenched fist over his head. After he sat down he clapped his hands together then snapped his fingers.

“Just landed me a huge account.”

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Hey Pauly I want to buy the bar a drink.” Charlie swiveled in his stool, “this one’s on me fellas,” then swiveled back. “How about you?”

“No thanks.”

“Damn, I feel like a cigar. Did you get those Opus X’s in yet?”

“I told you they won’t sell them to new shops.”

“They’re great fucking smokes. Ever have an Opus X, Pauly?”

“Thanks for the drink,” one of the men called out.

Charlie swiveled and raised up his glass. “My pleasure. Cheers. What do you fellas do?”

“‘Lawyers.”

Charlie chuckled. “I’ve got a shit ton of lawyer jokes.”

“I bet you do.”

“I sell drugs,” Charlie said.

“Thanks again.”

“You guys ever have an Opus X?”

“No.”

“How about a Cuban? Cubans are awesome. Remember that Cuban I gave you Paul?”

“It was shit,” Paul said. “Counterfeit.”

“No fucking way!” said Charlie.

The man glanced at his watch and looked at Charlie. “I don’t smoke.”

“Really? Not even on the golf course?”

“No,” the man said. “I love the smoking ban.”

Charlie moved his drink and phone to the high top table next to the booth and argued about Michigan’s new smoking law with the lawyer. One of the neighborhood bums came in and when Paul refused to serve him he told Paul to get fucked. After the bum went back outside he pounded on the front window and gave Paul the finger. I finished my beer and put the empty pint glass on the inside edge of the bar. Paul walked up, took a deep breath, and picked up the glass.

“Some people are hell, Matthew,” he said.



Steve Siciliano is a merchant, philosopher, and writer. He lives in Grand Rapids, MI with his wife and two dogs.