Jake hobbled along the wet sidewalk, his right side dipping down with each step because it was a few inches shorter than his left. His muscles ached, hair graying just below his black fedora. He had lived a harsh life jumping from job to job just to make ends meet or to eat. Luxuries like motels and beds were things that he couldn’t afford anymore, not since he was fired from the plant. He found himself moving from town to town trying to sell his useless junk as he called it now. His most prized possession was a snapshot of his wife Doris with the image of Jesus taped to the back, which was buried deep in his pants pocket. It was just one of the few things like his brown leather case, trench coat and hat that he had left to his name. These were the only things that gave him comfort or protection.
Jake paused, his breathing increasing from the heat and moisture in the air. He hated Nebraska especially in the summer time and even more so after it rained. Sliding the case from his shoulder he set it carefully on the sidewalk. Cracking his knuckles, he froze dwelling in the pain as it shot up his arms and out of his mouth. “Damn it,” he screamed and wondered why he always cracked them knowing that they would hurt.
From his pants pocket Jake pulled a handkerchief. With one motion he lifted his hat from his head, whipped the salty sweat from his face and then started to fan himself with his hat. It was hard enough to be a door-to-door salesman without having to endure this weather he thought. He adjusted his coat for a sudden breeze and exposed his right leg. Instead of pulling his coat back over it he stared at it in disgust of his own oddity. He studied the wood venire finish and the way the grain wrapped around his fake leg. It reminded him of everything he had then lost. The house painted white with a green front door and storm shutters. A small garden in back and a car with gas parked in the driveway. Tools and a mower in the shed. A bed, he thought, on a bed with soft sheets and the smell of lilacs.
“Ten years,” Jake whispered to himself, “ten years since I kissed Doris. Ten years since I’ve felt…whole.”
Moving his trench coat he covered his leg and breathed heavily. Jake pushed his fedora back onto his head and lifted his case from the ground. The shoulder strap snapped sending the case crashing against the ground, popping the lock open. Wine glasses, plates and silverware spilled out. A few glasses shattered upon the sidewalk. Jake straightened himself and grabbed the inside edges of his coat. He breathed once, and then screamed as loud as his throat could manage.
The broken pieces he left there on the sidewalk as he hobbled away, his case was gripped tightly in his left hand. He was determined more now to sell something. He had to pay for the broken glasses and food to eat tonight. He looked up to see the quiet neighborhood of Council Bluffs stretched out before him, an ease passed over him that he was finally coming home. It was a nice community, small to an extent—most people knew each other. Jake watched everything with his sharp eyes, the eyes of a salesman looking for the right opportunity to strike. Salesmen have to be like lions, he thought, his hand straining to hold the case as the strap dragged behind. He watched several mothers sitting on porches drinking their lemonade gossiping about what their husbands had done the day before. Doris often used to talk about him while he was working. She loved to gossip and knew everything about everyone.
Jakes gaze locked upon a pair of women sitting on a blue porch at a house a block up the street, he altered his step trying to not hobble as he approached. Neither woman noticed him until he was standing in the lawn just off the sidewalk. Removing his hat he brushed his hair with his hand.
“Ladies,” he spoke loudly.
There was a heavy-set woman in an orange dress that seemed almost shaken to hear him speak. However, the other woman slightly skinnier in a white dressed, pursed her lips and stood up to get a better look at him. Jake figured it must have been her house since she was the one standing. She seemed to study him, her lips pressed harder together as she moved towards the steps of the porch.
“Can I help you, sir?” she said loudly, her arms crossed over her chest.
“My name is Jake Eriin and I was wondering if I could interest you in some fine cutlery from the orient or glass cut by the China masters themselves,” he replied, knowing that everything coming from his lips sounded like shit.
The woman’s eyes furrowed, she uncrossed her arms and looked over at the woman in the orange dress. They conversed for a few seconds as Jake turned his hat over and over in his hands. Then the woman in the orange dressed glanced over and laughed.
“We aren’t interested in anything your selling Mr. Eriin, we’re sorry.”
“Thank you ladies for your time and I hope you have a wonderful day.”
As Jake bent down to pick up his case a blur of orange and red came out of the corner of his eye. He lurched back just as a small child wearing a red and orange striped shirt on a bicycle collided with him throwing him to the sidewalk. The bicycle front tire slammed into the case sending it sliding off the curb. The child however managed to stay upright and peddled away as fast as he could not bothering to stop or look back, but yelling “Sorry mister” after he was already a considerable distance away. Jake disheveled, searched around for his hat and propped himself on his shoulders to get his bearings. Though his anger began too subside from the initial collision, his demeanor changed when he looked at his case splayed open in the street. Glasses lay again strewn in the gutter some broken with plates and silverware tarnished or cracked alongside. His life was displayed for the world to see and still all Jake could think about was the dollar signs ringing up in his head of the money he didn’t have.
Jake looked up towards the porch once more and was met by looks of disgust. Both women held gasps in their hands. Not one made a move to help him and just as he was about to ask for some help they both turned and retreated into the house the screen door bouncing against the doorframe. His face lowered, boiling with anger as it turned a nice shade of red. Jake pounded his fist on the sidewalk feeling the pain shoot up his fingers and arm. It was then that he caught the sight of his right leg, his wooden leg exposed. That was what the women had seen, their mouths gasping at him in fear as if it was contagious or deadly. Picking up his hat from the ground, he lifted it towards the sky and cursed.
“Fuck you God, you took my wife, my life—now my dignity is all I have left so why don’t you take that to. You senseless bastard, my wife had you pegged wrong. Calling you mysterious and compassionate, no, cruel and obvious,” he said as he thrust his fedora back on his head.
Jake didn’t bother being kind or careful, but just picked up the glasses that hadn’t broken and pushed them back into the case along with the plates and silverware. He latched the case closed and gripped it tightly in his right hand as he stormed off down the street.
He hadn’t sold anything in a month, not since the old woman in the trailer park. She barely enough money to afford a steak or turkey, living off the disability she got every month from her dead husband. It didn’t bother him at the time, he thought, money is money who cares where it comes from. The smell still lingered from that old woman of cigarettes and peppermint. Maybe it was the curse of what he did to that poor woman, taking about everything she had for the month.
“You look like a sweet dear,” she said. “I will take two but they sure do cost a lot. Twenty-dollars that leaves me with ten dollars, but I have managed with less. Did I tell you my husband, he was in the Air Force—swept me right off my feet.”
He ran out of the trailer, nodding and listening to whatever story she felt like belting out. Even with the picture of Doris burning in his pocket and telling him to give the money back. Jake only patted his pocket humming and saying, “Yeah, yeah honey but even I have to eat.”
The streets bustled with life as he made his way down 17th towards a small diner on Broadway Avenue. Passing a toy store, Jake peered inside at the displays. Hula hoops just a $1.98. The kids will love them. He scoffed at the new contraptions knowing that they would never catch on. Baseball cards lined the bottom of the window. Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra stared back at him. Never did like the Yankees, he thought. His hand began to hurt, Jake tried to hurry to the diner and at least get a little rest, but his eyes kept getting drawn away. The Thomason Theater was playing some new movies. Shaggy Dog, Gidget and Sleeping Beauty.
“What a waste of money!” Jake mumbled exchanging the case to his other hand.
By the time he finally made it to the diner Jake had traveled at least two miles. He waited for the light to change so he could cross Broadway. Then a blue white-topped 1955 Chevy rolled up. Teenagers inside turning up the radio listening to something horrible with somebody yelling, “Jailhouse Rock.” Jake did the only thing he knew, he cupped his hand over his mouth and yelled.
“Turn it down.”
Every teenager in the car turned towards Jake and thumbed their noses at him. A boy, sitting in the back seat, his hair shaved in a crew cut, lifted his box of fries and hurled them from the car window at Jake. The fries hit him square in the face forcing Jake to stumble backwards and dropped the case to the ground. He tried to wipe the grease from his face but it burned. He couldn’t see where they were headed he just heard the peeling tires squeal away with the sound of laughter lingering. Jake finally used his coat to wipe the grease onto his sleeve. The situation only managed to enrage Jake further as he kicked his case off the curb and into the gutter. People stopped and looked at him in wonderment, before going about their business or crossing the street to avoid him.
“Can I help you?” said a calming woman’s voice.
“What?” replied Jake turning his red face towards the voice.
Still wiping the remnants of grease from his eyes Jake took a closer look at the woman speaking to him. She stood a few inches taller than him her sandy blonde hair tied into a ponytail in the back and a bright yellow dress with a white apron tied tightly at the waist. Her arms were folded firmly just below a nametag that red “Rebecca.”
“Just thought you might need some help. Especially after what those kids did to you,” replied Rebecca.
Jake looked away from her and moved toward his case.
“Let me help you with that.”
Jake slapped her hand away.
“I don’t need your help. I’ve dealt with plenty more crap than that in my life and I don’t need you, Rebecca, thinking you can make it all better,” said Jake as he grabbed the handle of the case and walking in the opposite direction towards the diner.
“I know you’re mad at me Doris,” Jake whispered to himself patting his jacket pocket. “But maybe it should have been me that died and not you, you were so much better at dealing with people. All I get is food thrown at me especially food that I can’t even afford.”
Jake quickened his pace towards the diner just wanting to get away from everything and relax. Sit down and drink three cups of coffee with the only money he had on him. Three nickels is all a lonely man really needs.
Jake set the case in the seat opposite him in the diner’s booth. He tried to find the one farthest from the door and from people. Removing his coat he threw it and his hat next to him in the booth. Armpit stains blotched his white button shirt. He slid his hand through his hair and wiped the sweat onto his pants leg. With a sigh he picked up the menu and began reading the specials. Everything was at least a dollar or more. Jake swallowed hard looking at the three nickels he had set on the table when he walked in. He needed to get something to eat, but what could he get that would be cheap enough. His eyes scanned the menu and the pie was ten cents a slice. A piece of pie and a cup of coffee he said to himself that was what he was going to have with all the money he had left. Jake set the menu down and rested his head in his hands, but he was jostled by a familiar voice.
“Well isn’t this a small world we live in,” said Rebecca.
Jake looked up to notice the nametag and yellow dress of the girl who had tried to help him earlier.
“Apparently too small if you ask me,” replied Jake picking up the menu to hand to Rebecca.
“Oh, and what will you be having today, sir”
“A piece of pie and a cup of coffee,” he said shoving the menu into her face.
“What kind?”
“What?”
“What kind of pie would you like to have? We have blueberry, cherry, pumpkin, boysenberry, banana crème and well I can never remember, oh, coconut crème pie. That’s it. So what’ll it be?”
“Um, I will have a cherry pie and here.” Jake slid the change across the table towards her carefully just to make sure that she got it all.
Rebecca smiled then flashed a look of concern when she took a closer look at him. Jake settled back down into the booth and pulled the portrait of Doris from his pocket. Rebecca quickly dashed away to fill the order.
“You always said be nice to people, Jake. I just can’t be nice to people who ain’t nice to me.”
Jake flipped the picture over revealing Jesus face on the other side. Rays of light extruded from his head and blood dripped down over his face.
“You never really try to be nice. Only just enough to get your way,” said the picture.
“What?” Jake threw the picture against the table.
“Jake you are only nice when you have to be. You make the life you lead, no one else can be to blame for that.”
“Are you talking to me?”
Rebecca set the plate and white coffee mug on the table.
“Actually, I didn’t say anything,” replied Rebecca. “Well at least not yet.”
“I wasn’t…I wasn’t talking to you.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what is the case for?” asked Rebecca kneeling just at the edge of the table.
“I do mind you asking actually,” answered Jake setting the plate and mug just in front of him.
“I was just curious what you lug this thing around for. Do you travel for your work? Are you on vacation?”
“I do travel, but not because I want to. Yah, see I’m a salesman that’s all the merchandise I show to people who, well, need it or don’t.”
“Don’t need?” asked Rebecca.
“Sometimes I can sell you things that you don’t really need at all.”
“That’s the way my son acts. He always wants this and that, but when he gets it the thing just ends up used until I decided to give it away or throw it away. I suppose it’s just the way kids are they don’t realize what they want or need.”
Rebecca’s eyes were drawn away when the bell rang to signal the opening of the diner door. Jake turned his head as well to see a boy wearing an orange and red striped shirt.
“That’s the same boy who knocked me over with his bicycle earlier and just kept on riding,” he said pointing with a single finger extended to the boy.
“Really, and he didn’t stop?” said Rebecca who quickly stood, wiped the front of her dress free of wrinkles and yelled towards the boy. “Toby come here!”
Toby looked startled as he froze on his way to the bathroom and looked over towards Rebecca. But when his eyes noticed Jake sitting in the booth just in front of her his eyes bulged. Toby lowered his head and slowly made his way to where Rebecca was.
“Toby, this man says you knocked him down earlier and that you just kept on riding, not bothering to stop and help him.”
“Oh, mom I was trying to get to the park. Everybody was getting ready to play a game of baseball and I didn’t want to get picked last again. It wasn’t my fault he was standing in the middle of the sidewalk.”
Jake didn’t bother to intercede into the conversation even with it being about him, but rather just watched the mother and son. He never had a son, but he knew Doris had wanted a child. That was what they were talking about that day when she died on Highway 29. While Rebecca and Toby were still talking he picked up the picture of Jesus and turned it over. Doris’ smiling face beamed back at him, but brighter than it had before. The faded colors of her auburn hair disappeared and the cracks along her face didn’t show up anymore.
“I’m sorry Doris, it was my fault.”
“Its not your fault at all sir, you were just standing there. Toby I want you to say you are sorry to the nice man and then go sit at the booth so that I can have a word with you later,” replied Rebecca.
Jake turned his face towards Toby.
“I’m sorry mister I didn’t mean to run into you with my bicycle. Mom can I go to the bathroom now, I really have to go.”
“Then get going but right back on that stool, got it?”
“Got it,” he said running off towards the bathroom.
Rebecca once again smoothed the non-existent wrinkles from her dress and sat down on the bench seat across from Jake nudging his case towards the wall.
“I just don’t know what I will do with him. I just wish his father were still around. I know that he could have dealt with these kinds of things better than me.”
“What happened to him?” asked Jake as he took a sip of his coffee.
“He was killed in a car accident up on Highway 29,” said Rebecca. “That was about ten years ago.”
The coffee stuck in the back of Jake’s throat making him cough. Rebecca looked at him to help, but he waved her off saying that he was fine.
“He was coming home from his mothers house, it was just after that huge snowstorm and the roads were slick, at least that’s what the police said. Toby was only a few months old at the time. He never even got to know his dad,” said Rebecca with tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “Why am I getting so worked up over this? I’m sorry let me get you another piece of pie or a sandwich to make up for what happened earlier.”
“That’s alright you don’t have to…”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said wiping tears away from her cheek. “ I know a turkey on white, that’ll hit the spot. It is our specialty and don’t worry its on me and I insist.”
Jake sat back and didn’t even try to argue with her. He was too busy thinking about Highway 29. That was where Doris died and he remembered there being another car there just past where they had screeched to a stop. Could it have been Rebecca’s husband? Jake began to wonder if he hadn’t caused damage to more lives than just his own. The storm had been pretty bad that night, probably one of the worst on record, still that was no excuse for him taking his eyes off the road. It was not an excuse, he told himself pounding the palm of his hand into his head.
“It wasn’t your fault Jake.”
Jake opened his eyes wider and looked around. There wasn’t anyone or anything near him. All the other patrons were sitting a few booths away from him.
“I’m down here Jake.”
His eyes focused on the table and the picture of Jesus. Once he could have explained it away as fatigue, but with the picture talking to him twice it could only mean that he was starting to lose his sanity. Jake tried to ignore the voice and pushed it from his mind as he raised the cup of coffee for another sip.
“Quite a few people have ignored me before, so I am used to it Jake. You’re going to have to listen to me eventually. Mostly because I will not stop until you finally except what is happening and then take the time to understand.”
Jake slammed his fist down against the tabletop. The plate of half-eaten pie jostled knocking the fork from the edge onto the table.
“Holy shit I’m losing my mind. This leg of mine must be rotting from the inside, poisoning me and I never even knew it,” said Jake his hands shaking reaching for his wooden leg to remove it.
“Well honestly I don’t think that you leg is doing that. But I can assure you that you aren’t hallucinating. I really am talking to you Jake.”
“How am I supposed to believe you, you’re in my head? Now look at me I am arguing with a photograph, what the hell is wrong with me?”
“You talk to Doris all the time. Why would talking to me be any different?”
“For instance she never answers back.”
“You imagine her answers though don’t you.”
“That’s different,” he replied picking up the photograph from the table.
“How?”
“That’s me talking, imagining what she would say, not someone else talking to me!” said Jake, his voice raised enough for the other patrons in the diner to start taking notice of him.
“Calm down. Jake you don’t need to get so worked up over this, besides what I want to tell you is that you need to start caring for someone other than yourself. Care about another for a change.”
“I did, once, and you took her away from me.”
“I didn’t take anyone from you Jake. The accident was simply that an accident, it wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
“It was your fault and why should I care about anyone else when all they do is throw things at me or treat me as less than human.”
“Did Rebecca treat you less than human?”
“No.”
“Well then it only serves that the problem here is you. You need to start caring and I assure you others will start caring, as well.”
“How can I be the problem?”
Jake waited for the photograph to answer back, but minutes passed without a response.
“Figures even Jesus won’t give you the whole answer. Got to figure it out for yourself. I’d be better off asking Confucius for advice.”
Rebecca approached from behind and set a huge plate on the table. Jakes eyes were immediately drawn to it. A huge turkey sandwich covered in mayo, bacon, lettuce and tomatoes. A side of fries surrounded the sandwich lightly sprinkled with salt.
“Why would you be talking about Jesus and Confucius? That seems like an odd couple to be including together.”
“My wife loved Jesus that’s how she used to say it. Never really understood him myself. She always used to say that he had all the answers, but I never saw any given out. Always had to have faith in him or something like that. If you ask me I want something I can see and feel, and if Jesus wants to be non-existent than that is what he is, non-existent,” replied Jake unflinchingly.
There was something about the conversation that hit him all at once. It worried him a bit, because never before had he ever wanted to share any part of his life with anyone, even friends. He seemed to be sharing more with this person like he used to with Doris. Rebecca asked a question and Jake felt compelled to answer it as if someone else was pulling the strings. Jake looked back at the picture and wondered what it meant, as if the thing he was talking to really was doing something divine and not in his head. He looked back to the giant plate of food then back at Rebecca.
“There’s no way that I can possibly afford to repay you for this and I don’t feel right excepting this either,” said Jake pushing the plate towards her.
“I wouldn’t feel right if you didn’t accept, but it’s also because I think you need something good to eat. Actually maybe you just need someone to show you some caring—you must not get that from many people.”
“Not really at all, my wife was the last person that I can remember,” said Jake leaning back against the booth seat.
“You don’t get to see her much with all the traveling you do.”
“I don’t get to see her at all anymore because she died ten years ago.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened and she slid her hand over her mouth.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” she replied her eyes wondering about the table. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did she die?”
“Usually when people ask me about my personal life I get defensive and angry, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering me right now.”
“See one nice person can affect you. I keep telling Toby that, but all I get from him is ‘oh mom,’” said Rebecca mimicking the voice of her son.
Jake looked back at the picture. “Yeah maybe that’s all someone needs. It was a car accident by the way. Doris died in the same storm that your husband was in about 10 years ago.”
He looked Rebecca square in the eyes to see her well up with tears again. She could barely contain it and started to cry, sobbing with her face buried in her hands.
“Here take this,” he said pulling a handkerchief from his jacket and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said her words slightly muffled by her hands.
Jake didn’t say anything just watched her cry and try to contain herself. He looked over to where Toby was sitting. Stuffing his face with pancakes unaware of what was happening, he was almost completely blissful.
“As kids we must always be just completely innocent, how nice that would be all the time.”
“What?”
“Your son never got to know his father, though I am sure the pain is there, he is probably distanced to the point where it doesn’t affect him at all now.”
“Yeah that’s true. But for all the things that I tell him about his dad, he just doesn’t think about it much because he never knew his dad. I guess he thinks I just make it up, that my memory of his father isn’t good enough or is just my own opinion.”
Jake peered at the boy for a few seconds basking in the idea of being young again. He could be unhindered by his past and wondering what his life would have been like had Doris not died. Would they have had a child? She always did want a child of her own, but I never let her have that dream always considered that work was more important and look where that got me, he thought.
“Thank you for the sandwich. It means everything to me. I’ll tell you it’s the best gift that I have ever gotten,” said Jake putting his hand over Rebecca’s as they clutched his handkerchief.
“You are welcome and thank you.”
“For what?”
“Listening, I don’t get to talk to many people much at all at work and well Toby shouldn’t have to hear this from his mother.”
“I guess you are right.”
Jake smiled a full smile with teeth glimmering from ear to ear something that he hadn’t done in years.
Rebecca stood and stacked the plate and cup on top of each other then disappeared behind the counter. Jake shuffled the plate in front of him, and then looked back at the picture of Jesus sitting at the table. The tape around the edges was loosening so he pealed it off, separating the two photographs, and from inside a small slip of paper fell out. It was old the paper browning around the edges like the photographs. Jake carefully peeled the page open and out dropped a hundred dollar bill. His eyes widened but were quickly drawn to the handwriting on the page. The writing was Doris’. The note must have been written the same day she had given him the picture before he left on the road, his first trip all those years ago. He set the note over the hundred-dollar bill and ate his sandwich.
Finished, he wiped his mouth with a napkin and slid the photograph of Doris and the note into his pants pocket. Slid the picture of Jesus and the hundred-dollar bill underneath the plate and scooted out of the booth. Case in hand, he nodded to Rebecca as she collected orders from another and said, “I left you a tip for all your trouble, and take his advice when he gives it. He is good at it.”
Rebecca looked at him confused but said that she would.
Jake walked out the front door of the diner and into the summer sun. The heat beamed down upon his face as he pushed his black fedora onto his head. Jake hobbled his way down the street towards the next town with his case still dragging the broken strap. He began to hum to himself and patted the picture of Doris in his pants pocket thinking about the letter.