Uhhh! Brendridge.

So I was traveling to my job today as a salesman for the car lot of the east side of Texas.  The city is rather large, but I mean it’s nothing like Houston or Dallas, still there are pockets of communities to which you may ride, or drive.  I took my car into the city known as Brendridge, parked the car and got on the train.  I had to transfer once and today it went surprisingly well.  On my other trips to Brendridge I’ve had so many problems with the people I meet and the crime and flying bullets are always a problem.  OK so I hate Brendirdge; it’s really not the safest place in the world.  I get chosen to come here every-time we have a sale here because I seem to have the natural ability to do it well.  Maybe I am just an idiot who gets stuck here and the boss is taking advantage of me, though still for my good, because for the least I know it is for Susan’s good.  I would gladly do it in her memory.  Susan is frequently on my mind since her death 14 years ago.  She drowned, and that’s how it felt for a long time without her, like I was drowning.  There was later a sadness and a sickening emptiness.  The emptiness would only be replaced through time.  It still hurts today.  Sometimes the sickening apathetic feeling comes back though in a new form.  And here in Brendridge.

Brendridge is a dangerous place.  Once on a run here as designated by the boss, I was sent to another car sales company which was at the time being robbed.  I was just entering when I saw the cops come flying in.  Two of them, followed by a third larger vehicle.  I couldn't help but fantasize on why such a police presence would be required.  He’s dead already, I thought, and I didn’t even get a sale today; this trip to Brendridge was for nothing.  I ended up turning around and leaving but on my way home in the car again on the freeway, I stopped to help a stranded car in the middle of what would seem a desert to anyone not from Texas.  I helped a woman change her tire as she had driven off the side of the road and hit a natural obstruction of rocks and bushes. She created quite a mess and a lot of terrible and worser may have happened considering the state of mind she was in, but she was safe though frightened understandably. 

Apparently she was the businessman’s wife of some Texas conglomerate business man.  Dumb and loaded. Or maybe she was just very sympathetic and loaded.  She smiled a smile neurotic with tears in her eyes and a pasted face giving me 20,000 US dollars for helping her.  She also had on her person, in her car, and was on a lot of drugs and thought I was a police officer at first.  Her husband is not going to like this I realized.  We also had to bury a dead body, or that is what I told the poor thing to set her on the most immediate path towards her husband, calmly, safely.  A dead body can sometimes do that for some people, and other times it’s the opposite.  Brendridge trips are not quite usually so pleasant and not one of many have been dull, eventless.

This time I appreciate that it seemed safe enough, and very pleasantly I got to the location in some downtown district, but without that downtown feel.  This city with it’s low buildings and slum-like tendencies, not to mention the danger just around the corner in up-town and the North side and South East districts, prevented it from feeling like a downtown.  I got to the sales place, Micheal’s they called it.  I then really was surprised when before lunch I was handed cash in an envelope for my own trouble, as well as given strict assurance that the sale is finalized from some very dull-witted but good intentioning people.  I collected copies of the contracts, and as they all left, the lawyers too, I took a HUGE handful of candy from the waiting area glass.  It was nice.  Extremely sour candy.  Chewy too.  Tasted like fruit, but I was disappointed as it was supposed to be that chemical-tasting, which we’’ve learned to call otherwise, sour stuff like you find with Cry Babies, and other extremely acidic “sour” candies.  There also were regular sweetened losanges and some f*****g Tootsie Rolls.  I dig those every now and then and especially when eating sickening amounts of candy.   

The candy, on the way home on the train I ate a bunch, although they had gelatine and I avoid eating gelatine, but today … f**k, it’s Brendridge playing tricks again.  OK I’ll eat gelatin, Brendrige, as long as I don’t have to go into that store again.  The heroine addict asleep on the floor near her dog just outside the store.  The drifters drinking beer from large containers in paper bags.  I got back to the car past the blood stained Train exit 3, near the gun and liquor store, some industrial company, and the pornography complex and Weavel park.  The train exit bloodied from a gang incident some three months earlier.  The car was safe, and no slashed tires.  I opened the door and got in.  Drove home swiftly returned the documents to headquarters and drove across my small Texas hometown Alabasco and returned to my room where now I sit.  

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

This would be a wild job. Your description made the city come to life and the characters have reason and purpose. I like the description of past and present incidents of crime. You create vision of dangerous places and I hope he was paid well for this job. Thank you for sharing the outstanding story.
Coyote