Shorty (standard:other, 1233 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Oct 24 2008	Views/Reads: 3238/1967	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
What do you do when your work comes ro an end? Sell ice cream to the kids?

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

or a short bus ride when it rained.  The pay was bad but the work was 
steady; Shorty loved to use his muscles and he didn't mind the heat.  
In September, a lot of orders were canceled and I heard talk of a 
shutdown. 

The foundry didn't shut down all at once.  At first, a couple of workers
were told not to come in on Saturday.  Next week we were told to skip 
Wednesday.  Finally, the Boss decided that Columbus Day was enough of a 
holiday to celebrate.  He called us together and began handing out 
ten-dollar bills. 

"You all know there isn't any work.  Why don't you take a long holiday
tomorrow.  Go celebrate Columbus Day.  Here's a ten-spot for each of 
you.  It's coming right out of my own pocket.  Its all I can spare.  
The company's broke."  Most of us believed him. 

After Columbus Day, Shorty wasn't the only one to come back.  I watched
him from the bar across the street.  He walked around the building 
three times, trying all the doors and peering in at the windows, as if 
he could see a light.  There was no light.  All the doors were locked.  
He stood there, looking up and down the street, first one way then 
another, waiting.  He wasn't sure who might come. 

"It's all over, Shorty," I shouted across the empty street.  "Go home.
Find something else to do."  He didn't answer but turned towards me and 
shrugged.  I thought he might step down off the kerb and come on over, 
but he didn't.  Instead, he headed southward, back to the only 
possessions he had left: his wife and children. 

I saw Shorty one more time, years later. 

He was selling ice cream from a truck.  Each block he would stop and hop
off, then waddle around to the kids with a big smile.  At first, I 
didn't realize why he was smiling.  Then it hit me. 

As I watched, he reached up and picked a gleaming helmet off a hook
beside the door hinge.  With a flourish, and all the children grinning, 
he tied the chin strap, hunched up his shoulders and took a blocker's 
stance.  Laughs and shouts.  Then he reached out his massive gloved ham 
of a hand and drew open the ice-oven door.  Inside were all those 
lovely slabs of cool, molded ice cream bars nestled in their boxes.  
Shorty reached in and drew one out, shifting it from one hand to 
another.  Then he spun about, faced the crowd of kids and shouted, 

"Here's a hot potato!" 

Then he tossed an ice cream bar high up.  The kids craned their necks to
follow its arc.  And as it fell, a shower of hands shouted a glorious 
salute to Shorty, who caught it in mid-air.  I thought, "Here's a man 
who became, in the end, a little bit of everything he excelled at. 

Seattle, October 23, 2008 Gerald X. Diamond All rights reserved 


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