Good Morning

A Story by nobody99

Just a cold morning in Buffalo.

I ashed my cigarette. A frigid gust of air pinched my cracked, red, cheeks. Wincing from the pain my thoughts as well as my eyes turned toward distraction. A man and a woman standing before me, took my attention.

“Marry, f*****g, I told you to shut that mouth!”

“But I…I…”

“Marry, damn it, I….” He felt the intrusion of my gaze. Quickly he turned away. As to erase me from his mind. I exhaled the last drag of my dead cigarette and slowly made my way inside. I wondered what that couple had been arguing about. Who they were? What lives they led? How their marriage came to that display of a consciously private quarrel in a consciously public place? My worries began to fester, anxiety bloated my mind. What if I become like that, what if…?

“Hey what do ya say there fella?” Anxiety immediately floated away like my last breath of smoke.

“Heyyy, Mr. Tom, how the hell are ya?”

“Oh well, I’m doing alright except for the fact that my blood sugar was up to 600 HUNDRED THIS MORNING.” He bellowed as he gritted his teeth and gave an uneasy smile.

“600, Christ Tom what the hell happened?”

“Well...” Tom explained to me like he did most mornings what had happened. In essence years of mal health practices and overworking. I listened intently as this ancient giant gave me the low down on his latest health crises, but slowly my eyes wandered toward the slam of a door. Walking out was the timid goddess, Catherine, Cat as I fondly called her. She was my boss as well as my lover. We had shared a series of passionate escapades. Both in and out of the workplace, she was my mine, but I wasn’t hers. Ten years my senior she still had the looks that could make any young boy quiver and any old man gasp. I drifted back to Mr. Tom he was still yammering on about his poor health. Poor son of a b***h I thought, working like a dog and dying like one too. What a f*****g shame, but he made his own bed. He lived the way he wanted to. He wasn’t showy or haughty. He was the last of the Mohicans, a family man. Oh we had discussed every aspect of our lives together families, friends, old loves, old losses, for an age gap… Hell there was no age gap. We were both human. Weren’t we? Our conversation ended sharply as customers began to funnel into the store.

“Maaaatt.”Wined a voice from behind the counter. It was Kristen. Short, stout, and loud she was my partner for the day. I whisked behind the counter to attend to the early morning savages demanding life’s necessities. Gas, lottery, and crudely made breakfast sandwiches. The sandwiches themselves were wrapped in shiny tinfoil. The tinfoil was wrapped in a thin film of grease that constantly irritated my dry hands and spread over any surface it came in contact with. A perfect way to begin a Monday morning.