Bittersweet (standard:drama, 740 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Jul 27 2007	Views/Reads: 3375/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Sometimes, even the memory of proud accomplishments is not powerful enough to alter the realities of now.

BITTERSWEET 

I went to the shoemaker but my shoes weren't ready.  There was plenty of
time, so I crossed the street and sat down in the ice cream shop. It 
smelled of chocolate and coffee and cinnamon, twinkled with strawberry, 
misted with lime.  Under me, a rickety bent-wire chair squeaked as I 
put down my briefcase. I took off my hat and gloves, resting my cane 
against the ancient radiator. 

Outside, the cool day had already grown darker -- it was mid-afternoon
-- and bright speckles of rain were bursting into beads and rivulets on 
the windowpane.  Millions and millions of drops, falling, coalescing, 
flowing over the curb and down the storm sewer. 

The menu recommended orange sherbet today.  "Top it with bittersweet
syrup and a couple of mints," I told the waitress, a sweet young thing 
who wore a black satin mini-dress, a snap-back pencil and a smile.  
"Coffee, too?" she prompted.  "Why not," I agreed, "Black, with sugar". 
She swished her mini-skirt and went off to fill the order. 

Seven years had passed, and my big job -- the biggest I ever built --
was holding up fine!.  It was more than a decade now, since I pulled 
together a crew of architects, engineers, laborers, excavators, 
pipe-fitters -- all told some two hundred workers -- and led them, step 
by step, through a complete redesign and rebuild of the entire sewage 
and storm drain system for this half of the city.  Three years, it 
took.  Three years. 

And nobody goofed up -- nothing failed.  We rejected any  cracked pipe 
and  X-rayed the bell joints to make sure they were sealed.  Each level 
grade was laid out by surveyor's transit, then every slope had to pass 
the ball-bearing test again before we covered up the pipe.  We used 
check valves at interlocks between sewers  -- that way, rats got 
trapped uphill and flushed out after every storm.  To keep roots out of 
the pipe I brought an idea from Portugal: a high pressure air blast to 
blow out clogged drain lines. It would burst open all the balled-up 
plastic bags, foam rubber cushions, plastic pails: anything. Each 
terminal was designed to link onto a future extension, so expansion of 
the sewers and drains would be as easy as pie.  This system was utterly 
unique -- a model  for our day and age.  It would last a hundred years, 
maybe more. 

Only one hitch: the city never paid me.  Construction went ahead faster
and faster, but the payments got further and further behind.  
Meanwhile, the bank got more and more generous with its loans.  When we 
were all done, the city had nine million dollars worth of sewers and I 
had fifty dollars cash, with a seven-million  dollar loan hanging over 
my head.  The city never got around to paying me the sum I contracted 
for. 

The day we set the last manhole cover, my two lawyers were killed in an
expressway accident. Their papers were never found.  A couple of nights 
later, five account books recording the entire project were blown to 
shreds (along with the night watchman). They said a gas leak caused the 
explosion. I carefully examined the faded, acid-burned pages and 
decided to keep my mouth shut. 

Very little had changed in the past seven years.  Sometimes the bank
manager buys me lunch.  My loan is still on his books.  Once in a while 
I go down to City Hall and talk with the young kids who took over for 
the erstwhile City Fathers -- my good old buddy-buddies who authorized 
the sewer job.  The kids are really polite.  I love to watch them 
grinding their little axes while I wait.  Sometimes I think they take 
too much for granted. 

Remembering my shoes, I made a note to come back tomorrow and pick them
up. 

The waitress brought my orange sherbet swimming in a hot, dark brown
liquid.  The jelly-mints were melting and congealing in lumps around 
the smutty orange mound.  Oily clumps of chocolate fudge were 
dissolving in the hot moat around the ice-ball. The whole concoction 
looked inedible -- a conflict of clashing flavors.  I asked her: 

"What is this?" 

"Coffee" she said, radiating her sweetest smile and giving a curtsey. 

"Isn't it great?  You've got a peachy idea there, grandpa.  I never
would have thought of adding coffee.  Can you taste the bittersweet?" 

I took a spoonful.  I could taste the bittersweet. 

*.*.*.*.*.*


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