Puddy Comes Through with the Sequel

For those of you wildly anticipating the sequel to last year's Festivus story by the one and only Puddy, this is your lucky day...

It was cold. Cold in the way that the city gets that’s unlike any other cold. The cold rises from the concrete, it whips between buildings, and it sweeps down alleys. It finds you, exposed, waiting for a cab, standing on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette.

The man outside took a long drag and the cool menthol filled his lungs. Sure, it’s cool now, but it’ll be warm in the morning, when that two-ounce chunk of mucous, blood, and lung finds its way into the shower drain. Behind the man was a bar, still open, but not for long.

The barman watched out the window, cleaning a glass that ten minutes ago had held six fingers of his finest bourbon. The man outside had finished that bourbon, sat quietly for a while, then laid a $100 bill on the bar before standing slowly and pulling on his coat. Without waiting for change, he had walked outside to where he now stood in the cold.

The barman had called a friend’s cab company (when you’re a bartender for long enough, you get to know the numbers to the cab companies, the people, and then they start bringing you hams for the holidays for sending so much business their way) so the man didn’t wait too long in the cold. There wasn’t much snow in the streets, so he was content to let the man wait a few minutes before calling him back in. A wisp of smoke rose from in front of the man and was swept away instantly by the wind.

The bartender could see the street start to illuminate as a car approached. He put the glass down that he was drying and walked to the front door, glancing at the Miller High Life wall clock as he went. 12:56. At the door, he saw the white cab pull up, its crooked “Taxi” light on the top glowing a dull yellow. He locked the door and flipped the main light switch as the man climbed into the back seat.

The cabbie was smoking a cigarette in the cab. His window was rolled down halfway, letting the brisk wind into the cab. It was an older cab, with no plastic barrier between the front and back seats.

“Too cold for you?” The cabbie asked as he saw the man pull his coat around him tighter.

“No. I think I’ll smoke, too.”

The cabbie nodded and handed the man a lighter, then rolled his window up a bit to let the man get the cigarette lit.

“Dead out tonight.” The man in the back said, cracking his window open.

“Yeah. I already sent all my cabbies home. This is my car.”

“I guess I was lucky to catch you.”

“We make our own luck. What’s your name?”

“Mann.”

“Mann. Two ‘n’s, I suppose?” The cabbie looked up and saw an orange disk bob up and down, nodding agreement. “You like that bar back there?”

“It’s fine. It’s a bar.”

“I don’t like bars. I like drinking at home. That way I don’t need to find a way back. I don’t like having to rely on the competition.”

“Fair. We all have things that grieve us, don’t we?”

“Damn right about that.” The cabbie flicked his cigarette outside as the cab pulled up to a stop light. “What about you? What do you have to grieve about?”

“That list is interminable.”

“We got time. We’re fifteen minutes away from your stop.”

Mann looked out the window. The cab motored down the street. There was no one on the sidewalks. He looked back at the cabbie.

“Mostly it’s people. People who are in it for themselves. Don’t get me wrong, everyone needs to be in it for themselves, but not at the expense of others.

“People who want a hand out. People who feel like they’ve been wronged in some way when the only way they’ve been wronged is by parents who didn’t raise them well enough. Those parents grieve me because everyone starts out with a blank slate and some parents don’t let their children grow into something better than the parents were. Parents who don’t realize that no matter how good things are for them, there are better things for their children.

“People who make bad choices and blame society. People who get offended too easily. People who look for the bad in everything they hear. People who wait until someone they meet does something for them before they decide on that person’s character. People who don’t start out by giving people the benefit of the doubt.

“Women who think that having a conversation with a man makes the man think they deserve to share that woman’s bed later in the evening. Men who think a woman willing to have a conversation with them will want to share a bed later in the evening. Men who think that women are meant to be looked at instead of being understood. Women who want to be understood by men but that don’t understand when the man they’re talking to is one who will listen without wanting to share a bed.

“People who can’t enjoy themselves by being alone. People who don’t understand the value of quiet. People who are scared to walk down a brightly lit street in the dead of the night.

“People who don’t like to read books. Not people who don’t like to read the books I like to read, but people who think that there’s nothing out there for them to read.

“People who won’t think you’re going to hell because you don’t go to their church. People who can’t see that there is no way to know who’s right about religion, so why not just let people do what people do. Jesus might come. He might not. Generations have passed without him, don’t let yours be spent waiting. Spend it doing.

“People who tell me I should stop drinking just for the sake of stopping drinking. People who think that my drinking must have to do with dealing with some other shortcoming.

“People who poison good vodka by putting Red Bull in it. People who ruin good rum with Diet Coke. People who ruin great bourbon by putting anything in it. People who ruin bad bourbon by putting anything in it.”

Mann paused. He lit another cigarette and stared out the window.

“That’s a long list off the top of your head.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

“I see. Don’t you have anything to feel good about?”

“Of course I do.” Mann was staring at the cabbie in the rear-view mirror.

“We still have time.”

Mann flicked the cigarette out half-smoked and leaned forward, draping his arms around the headrest of the passenger seat.

“I feel good about family. Real families that make sure that family is taken care of first and which aren’t afraid to let family members fail from time to time. Families who pick that person up when they’ve failed and make them better for it.

“I feel good about people who know when to keep things to themselves. I feel good about having something between two people that needs to be kept between them. I feel good about things that aren’t supposed to feel right, but do anyway because they’re shared.

“I feel good about songs that talk to you.

“I feel good about the little hairs on the small of a woman’s back. I feel good about cleavage. I feel good about the way a woman’s ass looks in the right pair of jeans. I feel good about making sure that women know it when their ass looks good in the right pair of jeans.

“I feel good about waking up, smoking a cigarette, and then running three miles. I feel good about…” Mann’s voice trailed off and he slumped back in his seat. The cabbie waited, glancing quickly between the mirror and the road.

“This is my stop,” Mann said. Directly in front of the cab, the moon shone directly between the rows of buildings on either side, framed by the concrete structures.

“What? We’re still five block away.”

“We’re five blocks away from where I thought I was going. This is my stop now.”

The cabbie pulled alongside a long row of cars packed tightly on the curb. “You’re the boss.”

Mann handed a $100 bill to the cabbie and stepped outside. He didn’t wait for change.

He walked down the brightly lit street in the dead of the night, slowly smoking another cigarette.

Comments

[puddy]

Be forewarned, though, this won't get mentioned on Oprah.

[jackie]

"Be forewarned, though, this won't get mentioned on Oprah."

Failure.

[TMan]

Puddy,

Nicely done.

[Assman]

I don't like to read books. I just don't. Never have, never will.

And it's not because books aren't good or entertaining. The physical act of reading text without pictures makes me sleepy and frustrated. Maybe I'm just a seven year old.