April 2022
Have a few new stories coming out over the next month or so. There will be a new story, interview podcast and reading of my story, “Ghost Bike” sometime next month. I’ll talk about the other pieces when they get closer to publication.
Meanwhile, I was looking to submit a flash piece to a market asking for reprints and as I poked around to find it and sadly the online magazine, Story Pony, (April 2020 issue) no longer exists. It has fallen through the spaces between the flooring and is resting in the collection of dead things under the porch. So here’s a little freebie to read.
Can Man
by R. Gene Turchin
I am only the messenger. People see me trudging along the street, great unwieldy bags of cans in each arm and I see their looks. They think I am homeless–maybe a hopeless ranting derelict taking my cans to some hidden place but they are wrong. I am the messenger—the errand boy. The message is in the numbers and I am not worthy to know the meaning.
“Your left bag must contain exactly 225 cans and the one on your right arm, 189. Do not deviate.” I nod. He does not care what contents they held before the gathering, only that they be empty and clean. I collect soup cans, corn, soda, peas, fruits and even beer, but not too many beer because it’s hard to get the stench out. I count them at least three times for each bag because he will know instantly if the count is wrong by looking.
He hides behind the broken wall, faded red brick and dry mortar. I only hear his voice or sometimes he leaves a painted cardboard sign. The numbers are different each time.
The pants of my Brioni suit shone with the sticky residue of sleeping on the street. Wool wears well but a year of brushing with concrete and cardboard alters the texture. In summer, I traded the jacket as it was more a pillow than a worn thing. The exchange brought me a large pillowcase, a receptacle for all I owned.
Hubris, ego, drugs and drink brought me to this place. I worked on the thirtieth floor of the Delaney building. I don’t remember the work but it wasn’t useful, and I didn’t build things. There was a woman who may have loved me. She had a name and soft hair.
One day the toe of my fine Italian shoe caught on something and I spilled my emptiness out. We shared an apartment until I forgot to go home. She saw me once, later, not believing it was me. I looked up from where I sat with only a half full bag. The day had not yet caressed the high sun. She said a name. I shook my head.
“Spare change?”
She repeated the name and then hurried, as if some wolf had caught the drift of her scent.
The value is in the precise number of cans. He gives each the number early when we come to his place beneath the building. When it is right, he allows eating with him, a shared cart of hamburgers.
If the numbers are not right we are failures. He does not count, only asks if we have fulfilled our mission. The bad side of me, the one that tries to remember, suggests he uses the cans for money. I push the thought away. It is a matter of trust.
END.