A Final Flavor - WIP
A Final Flavor
by Wyatt Fossett
It’s Autumn. The cold pressure through the air made it feel as if you were swimming in a pool of water with a varying temperature issue. Pockets of chill, motionless air drenching my skin like a comforting cool knit cardigan; my favorite wear. Only dreams of the summer’s sun remain. The tan of our skin fades as the calendar days fall from their glue. Layered clothes, pie flavored beverages brewing in the owner-operated boutique joints clad in décor of a town forgotten. There’s a new design of young adults, controllers, a clean generation of up-starters, and entrepreneurs.
When I focus on this cultural movement I am just plucking out the parts of our society that I am still a fan of. Ambition. Revolution. A fire lives there. It’s a pleasure to observe.
I walk from the low-lit studio in a part of town that once was the entire town. Now, those keen to own the world have re-breached its borders, reupholstered the furniture, laid fresh hardwood, and swept the drugged-up corruption from the cobblestone streets. Gentrification at its finest.
The low and looming air that sheets me in a shiver, greets me. I make sure the street-level door closes behind me without interruption or strange persons. The heel of my loafers clacks on the sidewalk while I begin my stride. The inside chest pocket of my blazer holds the pack of lucky strikes I call a crutch. One of many I had. One of few to survive my adolescence. I flip the lid of my zippo, and strike the wheel in the same motion. The first pull on the filter is my favorite. I feel like a younger man again. Strange concept, but accurate. I’m transported back to a day where I loitered in the spaces between townhouses, hung out with a variable collection of degenerates, and spoiled my own little chunk of a map.
A wind takes the corners of my jacket up in a flutter. I breathe slow. Standing on the street corner, awaiting the traffic signals to adjust to my needs. The noise of a metropolis aching under the weight of a million dreams explodes throughout the tall towers on all sides of the avenue. It’s a blaring sound that is comforting to some, nauseating to others, crushing to the weak, and fuel for the brave. I don’t know how, but I’m all four at once. Today being a good day, it is white noise. It’s like no cable in a remote place on a blustery day. A blanket. A wall of sound, inconsequential to my own bubble of consciousness. After a day of plugging away, I am officially checked out.
I cross a few streets, gently travel a few blocks, then stand under a sign displaying “Bus Stop” in bright yellow letters on a blue background. This is where I run into my first of many problems.
He’s lanky. Too tall for his own joints. His gangly body leans up against the storefront adjacent to the bus stop. Between each exhale; he lobs a tongued gob of saliva, and lord knows what other grease lay behind his teeth. He flicks his cigarette butt parallel to the sidewalk, without caring for those walking by. He garbles at an attractive woman that passes before slithering off the wall. Standing upright he clods over to my area where, his face inching towards mine, he inquires as to “the fack ghyu looken at?” Class act, this one.
All of a sudden the wail of the city begins to invade my calm, and I am left stranded in an ocean of rustling. Discourse and an old acquaintance of pine needles swim through my veins. I crumple the remaining reddened end of my Lucky before pocketing the used filter. Clenching my hand a tad tighter than a relaxed state would evoke. “Nothing.” I retort. Before I break eye contact, catching a clue of the pending bus arrival.
I quickly enter the public transport vehicle, flashing my monthly pass, finding a seat near the first of two doors off this rolling rectangle. Guess who decides to take the trip. You’ve got it. Sticks and bones enters, throwing a frightful glare at the driver before proceeding without payment. He claims a seat, vocally, and slinks into it. A young man directly behind him – the one with the obnoxiously loud music playing through his five-dollar earbud headphones – relinquishes his seat to a ghost as a tribute to the retched odor protruding from the thin man.
An ear-piercing “ha” jolts from the gross sod’s mouth. Seemingly for no reason. Scare tactics maybe? Who knows. Better yet, who actually cares?
The operators of this line have long since endured the pains of traveling through seedy routes of town. Clamoring patrons of the night, silky in their grotesque ways, bypassing a system that the rest of us pay an astonishing amount for. The drivers have learned not to say a word. Too many of them taken to the hand or scorn of an unstable mind. Worse yet, some fall to the seduction of post-life at the bludgeoning end of some disdainful youth’s outrage in ignorance. So, quiet is what they practice.
No harm to them. Discomfort for others. It’s hardly a fair wager no matter the side of die pointed skyward.
This snippet is a work in progress by Wyatt Fossett.
