“I just heard. What happened?” Chris asked Jackie over the cell phone.
“I thought your boss was going to get me a helicopter job not some ’scout’ bull shit,” Jackie answered with considerable annoyance in his voice.
“He was supposed to man, I don’t know what happened. I was in Port Jeff all day, I’ll call him now and…”
“Don’t sweat it.”
Chris could tell his applicant was pissed, “I’m sorry Jackie. Hey, where are you? I’m still buying the beer.”
“I’m at the Jamaica station waiting for the next train. I’ll pass on the beer, I’m kind of beat, long day,” Jackie replied. “I gotta go man.”
“All right Jackie, I’ll call you tomorrow,” and Chris heard the line go dead, his former applicant having broken off the connection. Staff Sergeant Lewis felt his blood start to boil for he knew in his heart that Jack O’Shea would’ve made one helluva soldier. “Gottdammit!”
Jackie had two hours until the next train to Southampton. “I need a smoke,” he thought. “And a drink.”
Walking past a bum, dressed in Army fatigues and sporting long hair tied in a pony tail with a mangy beard, sitting outside the station, Jackie found a convenience store not far from the Jamaica station. With the sound of the bell attached to the front door still ringing in his ears, Jackie grabbed a can of Budweiser from the cooler and set it on the counter. “Pack of Marlboro Red,” he said pulling out his wallet.
The store clerk, speaking with an Indian accent said, “9 dollahs and 8 tsents pleez.”
“You’re shittin me?” Jackie asked. When the immigrant from Bangladesh didn’t respond, Jackie argued, “How can a beer and a pack of smokes cost 9 fuckin bucks?”
“1 beer ees 4 dollahs and…”
“You’re shittin me?” Jackie started, then said, “hold on, just give me a fuckin six pack and the smokes.” After forking over 13 dollars, Jackie walked the twenty-feet towards the station where the bum was still camped out on the sidewalk, and sat down.
“Beer?” he asked the bum.
“Thanks,” the bum answered.
“Smoke?” he asked after handing him a cold can of Budweiser.
“Thanks,” the bum answered.
After several minutes of nothing but the sounds of a train passing by heading into the city, the exhalation of cigarette smoke, and the chugging of beer, Jackie said, “I almost joined the Army today.”
“Pussy,” the bum replied.
“What?” Jackie asked incredulously.
“Pussy,” he repeated matter-of-factly without looking at his newfound friend.
“No, you got it wrong man, I wasn’t afraid to join, I just didn’t get the job that I wanted, they were jerking me around,” Jackie offered, suddenly realizing how lame his reasoning for walking out sounded.
“Pussy. Ya didn’t join cause you was afeared. Plain and simple.”
Jackie handed the bum another beer. He took it.
Several more minutes passed in silence. “Jack O’Shea,” he said offering his hand.
“Rhine Roberth,” the bum replied not taking Jackie’s hand.
“Nice to meet you Rhine.”
“Rhine,” the bum corrected him.
“Rhine.”
“No you dumb ass pussy, Rhine!”
“Ryan?” Jackie asked somewhat tentatively.
“Thath whut I said, gimme anuther smoke?”
Jackie gave him the pack and another beer. “You a soldier?” he asked.
“Nam, two years, back in ’74,” Ryan said. Then, for the first time since Jackie sat down, he looked him dead in the eyes, pointing a dirty, wrinkled finger at him and said, “There ain’t nothin’ better in this world than a solja. Nothin’!”
After a few awkward minutes, Jackie stood up, bent over and pressed a 20-dollar bill into Ryan’s hand. “Half for food ’solja’, OK?” Ryan nodded. “Thanks man,” Jackie said and left to catch his train.
His cell phone rang just as the train got underway. “Hey space cowboy, where the hell are you?” Patti Buckley asked in her sexy, raspy voice.
“Visiting a sick uncle,” he answered. “I’ll be home tomorrow,” he lied, not wanting to talk. He felt strange. He felt a weight on his shoulders, a heaviness in his heart. “I’ll call you when I get in tomorrow OK?”
“Sure,” she said, wondering what the rhythmic train-like sound was in the background. “Call me tomorrow space cowboy,” and she hung up.
Jackie slumped back into the vinyl covered orange seat putting his feet up on the seat in front of him, exhausted from the day’s activities, “pussy,” he chastised himself before nodding off.
Sgt Hook out.
Jackie O’Shea- Space Cowboy
Jackie O’Shea- Barkeep
Jackie O’Shea- Prospect
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This post is filed under: Jackie O'Shea & La Vita Dolce
