Free Agent Tracker by Frank Reardon
Yesterday I worked until 8 pm. I typically don't work the later shift, but once or twice a month it’s required for butchers in my store. Friday through Monday are our busiest days, so we need a night butcher to cut steaks, shank, chops, for the person opening at 5 a.m. the next day. I finished the cutting early.
After most everyone left for the day, I worked for three hours with the young clerk Daniel who for whatever reason introduces himself as Dizzy. He's from Chelsea, Massachusetts, which made for interesting conversation topics since I’d grown up close to the city. We talked about the Celtics and the Tatum and Brown machine, but both agreed a repeat was unlikely with the way OKC had been playing. He mentioned how his friend, Lou, died, and he went back home for the funeral. The Chelsea he knows isn't the same Che-lousy I'm familiar with. The way he talked about it sounded like a foreign country to me. Smelly Che-lousy is now upscale Chelsea. Heroin addicts wearing acid washed jeans and puffy Chicago Bulls jackets ten years past the style's expiration date were traded in for salmon-colored shorts, higher education, and condos.
In hopes of passing time, I fucked around on my phone reading the dull headlines of the day, and different articles about NFL free agency predictions, hoping the Pats might sign a player I’ve actually heard of before. I took notes for a story in my Gmail that I’d never write. I paced inside nothingness, and watched the slow hands of the clock do its best to keep the minutes in place. Time didn’t want me to go home, it wanted me to stay put, to never leave, to listen and do the same thing for eternity. When I could no longer entertain myself, I listened to more of Dizzy's stories. Tales about how he partied all night, played cards until two-in-the-morning, then continued to party until late morning. He told me he slept for ten minutes but somehow managed to make it to his two to ten shift. I didn’t believe him at first, I thought, ‘no way he’s been up this long’ but then I remembered how much I enjoyed cocaine in the late nineties.
He mentioned a brunette named Alice, and how he didn’t want to pass up her invite to come over after work. He was tired, but he’d regret it if he went home. Not going to Alice’s house was worse than the act of murder in his mind. If he didn’t go, he wouldn’t have stories to tell his friends about eating out her big ass and licking her thick thighs like Christmas peppermint sticks.
Every time he moved, I smelled gravity bong hits. It was the strongest smoke I'd ever smelled on another person. It leaked from the threads of his clothing and traveled out into the store, attracting several bubblegum snappin’ girls willing to hang on to every lie he offered them. Watching him, I wondered if that's what I once sounded and smelled like to my older coworkers back when I was night bitch, talking all kinds of funny, tough guy bullshit with my chest puffed out. The clock hadn’t moved. I still had several hours to go. One sportswriter claimed the Pats would make a huge splash in free agency; they signed a player out of Tennessee I’d never heard of. My inflamed shoulders made me feel middle aged, but Dizzy's stories put me in a gated retirement community.
After a while words like "it goes by so quickly," and "enjoy it while you can," passed through my head, but I decided not to be like my long-ago coworkers who were jealous of youth. I decided not to use words that carried little to no meaning. I let the young, stoned guy enjoy life. Time is a funny mistress, often cruel, but she tracks with honesty. Always there to remind me that pain, humor, even love, fades us into the temporary.
Frank Reardon was born in 1974 in Boston, Massachusetts, and currently lives in Charlotte, NC. He’s published short stories and poetry in many reviews, journals, and online zines. He published five collections of poetry with Punk Hostage, Blue Horse, and NeoPoesis. He is currently working on a nonfiction column for Hobart and BULL, writing more short fiction; and will have a short story collection completed later in 2025.
