The break1
Sid awoke as Desmond entered the room in her typical abrupt slicing manner. ‘Wake up baby, coffee time.’ 2
Sid groaned, not ready to be awake. He made the effort to sit up. ‘You’re always so bossy.’ 3
She handed him the coffee. ‘You need it. Wake up, we need to talk.’4
‘What about?’ 5
‘Drink up.’ She sat on the bed beside him. She fidgeted with a pack of cigarettes, opening and closing it.6
‘How very suspicious.’ Sid sipped the coffee. Desmond’s manic grin was absent. He took another sip.7
‘What’s up?’8
Bitting her lip, she finally took a cigarette and lit it. She offered the pack to him but he waved the offer away. He wanted one but had gone a three days without one, damned if he was going to have one now. Sid lifted the mug of scalding coffee to his lips. 9
‘I can’t be with you anymore.’ 10
Sid choked and spilled coffee all over his lap. ‘Fucking hell!’ he threw the blanket off, spiling coffee everywhere as he put it down on the bedside table. ‘For fuck sake.’ He rubbed his burning legs. Desmond jumped up grabbing a towel from the floor. She handed it to him apologetically.11
‘You couldn’t have waited?’ 12
‘Sorry. I’m serious this time.’13
Sid looked Desmond in the eye. ’How serious?’ She couldn’t hold his gaze, looked instead at the packet of cigarettes. 14
‘Why?’15
‘I love your mind. I love that you’re creative. I thought we would be good for each other.’16
Sid got out of bed, pushing by her. He dressed without a word. He finished and found his boots. ‘I think we’re great together.’17
‘We were but you are too soft.’18
Sid grunted, pulling on his socks and ramming his feet into the boots.19
Standing, he went to the door, turned to face her. ‘I can’t believe you would do this after all I have done for you. Remember how you used to get drunk and cry every night?’ Would it be better if I was like all those other guys you fucked?’ 20
There were tears in her eyes. Sid knew he was the only man who had ever been nice to her. ‘Would it have been better if I beat and rapped you?’21
Desmond, still sitting on the bed, was tense as a guitar string wound too tight. She wanted to throw something at him; she wanted to scratch his eyes out. Restraint wasn’t usually one of her strengths. Her emotions ran in shallow nerves close to the surface and they always got the better of her.22
‘Why does your spine only show when we argue? You would be great if you were like this all the time.’23
Sid shook his head in disgust and turned his back on her. He kicked his way through the mess of miscellaneous crap on the way to the front door. ‘You’re just as fucked up as me.’ 24
Better a manic flake than a spineless coward. This was the Desmond’s thought as the front door slammed loudly. 25
The job26
Work went by on autopilot, he delegated responsibility where he could and spent most of the time in the office on paper work and on the phone placing orders. He spent the shift sorting out the usual mess of slacking teenagers. At less than five dollars an hour, who could blame them for screwing around? Occasionally he had to deal with angry customers complaining about messed up orders or being short-changed. Periodically, Sid went out into the kitchen and usually found the staff ignoring health and safety regulations or not working. He saw one of the trainees picking his nose. The kid was embarrassed when Sid asked if he was going to wash his hands. 27
It wasn’t up to Sid but the store was run much like a day care. The hot water urn, considered a dangerous piece of equipment, meant Sid had to frequently unlock it so that staff could use it to make coffee for the customers. Sarah, a seventeen year old girl cut her finger on a cardboard box while opening it; they had to fill out an accident report. Later she came back from the toilet having found a used syringe. Regulations prohibited her from disposing of it herself, a simple matter of picking it up and placing it in the “sharps bin”. Sid, being the highest ranked official on duty, had the pleasure of disposal. 28
The shift went tediously by. Sid was grateful, if for nothing else, that he wasn’t stuck working in the kitchen with the deep fryers, as he had previously for more than a year. 'Poor bastards', he uttered to himself as he stuffed the last of a “Happy Chicken Burger” into his mouth. Don’t taste it, just eat it. 29
‘Where are you?’ Sid was on the phone talking to a register operator whose shift had started without her fifteen minutes ago. Apparently, she wasn’t coming in any more. There was no reason to bother asking why. It was always the same reason. Sid called around but no one wanted her shift. Saturday night, no notice, no surprise. 30
The last hour before handing the store over to Josh was an intense drag spent working on the register to fill the short fall. Josh arrived ten minutes late, another no surprise. 31
‘You don’t seem very happy today,’ Josh said as Sid handed him the keys. ‘It’s company policy to smile and shit, ya’ know.’32
That was something Sid was meant to push on his staff, customer satisfaction and a happy dinning experience. ‘Same old shit, man.’ 33
The pub34
By the time Sid entered his usual pub, there wasn’t one moment of his shift that stood out. All the events, images, faces and names blured with almost two years of virtually the same thing. The pub was the only place in the city, other than Desmond’s tiny and technically condemnable apartment, that he felt at home. It was dark and usually quiet. The furnishing looked as if they came from discards pilled up by the side of the road. The couches were slashed and torn, the wounds bulging with exposed foam stuffing. An old piano sat against the far wall, it was missing keys and out of tune. Beside the piano was an ever increasing and diminishing pile of empty kegs. Old road signs, advertisements and scribbled portraits of artist decorated the darkly smugged red walls. 35
It wasn’t just the furnishings that were ancient and arguably unfit for human accommodation, the building itself had not been refurbished since its erection more than two hundred years ago. Some of the damage caused by an almost endless stream of patrons had been patched and repaired but much of it had been left. There were holes in the walls and roof, tiles were missing and floorboards cracked. How the place had safety inspectors was... suspicious but not unwelcome.36
Too bad Desmond loves this place too. The thought of seeing her was not appealing but he wasn't about to abandon the strange anachronistic pub. 37
The bar crowded with regulars. Solemnly, he nodded to them. Billy was behind the bar, he was the owner and bar of the establishment, fixture too. He was in his late fifties; his hair still thick, curly and wild; his frame weedy; his eyes wild. The guy was a published author with several seedy poetry collections behind him. That was long ago, he would always remind Sid whenever he tired to bring the subject up. In reality his last publication had been just six years ago, with his first at the age of 26. Their relationship was perfectly amicable but strictly localised to the bar and typically booze related.38
‘What’s up mate, you look like a bag of bones and shit today?’ This was a fairly typical greeting a regular could expect. 39
Sid shrugged. ‘Just one of those days, you know.’40
‘Ah, a shit happens type’o day.’ 41
Sid nodded. He ordered a beer and as habit dictated, he dragged it off to his usual corner. Sitting gin one of the mismatched armchairs, he pulled out his notebook and uncapped his pen. Nothing came… Damn I want a cigarette. Desmond was on his mind but he decided he wasn’t ready to write about her yet. The words would flow like cheap wine when the time came. He focused on the beer instead. Soon it was gone and he was back at the bar. He sorted through his wallet, a fifty and a twenty-dollar note and nothing in the bank for another six days. 42
‘Poetry for booze?’ Sid asked as he handed over the twenty.43
Billy looked around the bar, then down the back. ‘You’d die up there tonight.’44
Of course, he was right, it was one of those nights devoid of “arty gits”. Some nights, when the crowd was right, the quiet bar would spontaneously morph into a noisy open-mic poet’s festival. It was too bad those nights were rare. For some of the regulars, those few occasions were an experience worse than a karaoke night and a kidney transplant combined. 45
Billy handed over a pint of dark ale and his change. ‘Next ones on the house,’ he said quietly so the other drinkers didn’t over hear. It wasn’t uncommon for Billy to hand over free drinks but he always liked to play things cool. 46
Sid returned to his notebook in the corner with his beer. He picked up the pen and began writing.47
Blind bastards chanting48
Egalitarian emancipation49
But say it not, that 50
We are beggars51
Fucked by economic cock52
With our souls on hock53
To work life away54
For bills due to pay55
Over a bottle of wine56
We tell each other 57
One day, everything will be fine 58
59
(To be continued...) 60
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