A fictional change of pace: The Tired Man
Sep. 28th, 2010 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dewlineSomething for the Pen and Paper workshop gang written in a rush over two hours before the meeting tonight.
Tired man, crazy man, old man but not quite so old yet.
He was making his way down Holland but hadn’t quite gotten around to outing himself as crazy yet. Back at the office, had they known what he was thinking of doing, they would have nodded, smiled…but not from contempt. Nor pity.
Respect, though? For a man who was about to put his reputation where his mouth and therapy bills already were? That, he’d have soon from his colleagues, his boss, his friends, and especially the janitors contracted to take care of the messes OutClean International made in the course of making their money cleaning up everyone else’s messes.
“Pick a pub, walk in, buy a beer, sit down with it, stand up again,” he muttered to himself, “and start singing.”
Simple plan. Crazy plan.
No one expected to make a go of it as a musician that way these days, of course. He didn’t, either.
As he finally reached the corner of Wellington, looked ‘round at the stores and shops and food and beer joints, he knew he didn’t have any such hopes. The best he expected was just a round of applause, maybe a beer on the house, and he’d go on home again.
That would be enough.
Just enough for one lifetime.
Then he could figure out what to do next on his bucket list.
Tired man, crazy man – so he kept telling himself -- finally crossed to the south side of Wellington West. Then, he turned ‘round to look first to the east. And then he turned to look to the west. He saw two, maybe three places, that looked halfway hospitable to his ambition.
The café in the ground floor of the theatre/apartment complex, he ruled out right away. He was there to fulfill his own ambition, not that of any talent scout. The theatre had a production on at the moment, and he had no idea who might be settling in to see the show. He didn’t care to find out by accident either.
So. No theatre.
Same went for the coffeehouse further to the west. Most of the people there would have eyes for their studies – paper and digital – or their newspapers or each other. And no ear to spare for anything else beyond the muzak of either the coffeehouse or their own computerized collections.
But.
The pubs bracketing the café, on the other hands…were another tale. Randomly self-selected customers in each of them, and he didn’t need more of an audience than that. Just that, and perhaps the permission of the shift manager, or should he be so lucky, the owner of the pub.
Which one?
Tired man, old man, trusted to tradition for this choice. He went with the coin toss. Heads, to the east. Tails, to the west.
The flip of the coin was followed by the landing on the wrist and the slap. He looked.
Tails. The western-side pub it was, then. Which suited him just fine. He crossed the street at the next signal shift, and walked in the front door.
The tired man would take his chances with the manager.
Tired man, crazy man, old man but not quite so old yet.
He was making his way down Holland but hadn’t quite gotten around to outing himself as crazy yet. Back at the office, had they known what he was thinking of doing, they would have nodded, smiled…but not from contempt. Nor pity.
Respect, though? For a man who was about to put his reputation where his mouth and therapy bills already were? That, he’d have soon from his colleagues, his boss, his friends, and especially the janitors contracted to take care of the messes OutClean International made in the course of making their money cleaning up everyone else’s messes.
“Pick a pub, walk in, buy a beer, sit down with it, stand up again,” he muttered to himself, “and start singing.”
Simple plan. Crazy plan.
No one expected to make a go of it as a musician that way these days, of course. He didn’t, either.
As he finally reached the corner of Wellington, looked ‘round at the stores and shops and food and beer joints, he knew he didn’t have any such hopes. The best he expected was just a round of applause, maybe a beer on the house, and he’d go on home again.
That would be enough.
Just enough for one lifetime.
Then he could figure out what to do next on his bucket list.
Tired man, crazy man – so he kept telling himself -- finally crossed to the south side of Wellington West. Then, he turned ‘round to look first to the east. And then he turned to look to the west. He saw two, maybe three places, that looked halfway hospitable to his ambition.
The café in the ground floor of the theatre/apartment complex, he ruled out right away. He was there to fulfill his own ambition, not that of any talent scout. The theatre had a production on at the moment, and he had no idea who might be settling in to see the show. He didn’t care to find out by accident either.
So. No theatre.
Same went for the coffeehouse further to the west. Most of the people there would have eyes for their studies – paper and digital – or their newspapers or each other. And no ear to spare for anything else beyond the muzak of either the coffeehouse or their own computerized collections.
But.
The pubs bracketing the café, on the other hands…were another tale. Randomly self-selected customers in each of them, and he didn’t need more of an audience than that. Just that, and perhaps the permission of the shift manager, or should he be so lucky, the owner of the pub.
Which one?
Tired man, old man, trusted to tradition for this choice. He went with the coin toss. Heads, to the east. Tails, to the west.
The flip of the coin was followed by the landing on the wrist and the slap. He looked.
Tails. The western-side pub it was, then. Which suited him just fine. He crossed the street at the next signal shift, and walked in the front door.
The tired man would take his chances with the manager.
