Tag: people

The Cannon

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

Giggling, two little girls chased each other around the old Civil War cannon.

A mother lifted a baby from a stroller. “Look at you!” Carefully holding the baby’s waist, she stood two short wobbly legs on the cannon.

A young man came up to the cannon’s end and peered into it.

A bearded gentleman strolling through the park paused to test his knuckles on the hard cannon.

An elderly man and woman sat at a nearby picnic table.

“That,” commented the old man, “might be the very one that killed my great great grandfather’s brother.”

“Could be,” replied the old woman.

“Brothers. Killing each other.”

A little boy on the grass was flying in every direction chasing a pigeon. The pigeon somehow always remained just beyond reach. The little boy shouted excitedly and veered to attack the pigeon from behind. The bird eluded him easily.

The little boy saw the cannon, ran up and stopped beside it.

He stood behind the cannon and looked along its inert length to sight a chestnut tree.

“Boom!”

He looked up at the chestnut tree that had not been blown to pieces.

“Boom!”

The chestnut tree was enormous, green and beautiful. It must have been very old. Above the grass it rose, the bark of its wide trunk furrowed with age. The green leaves fluttered slightly in the wind, and in the sunlight they made the old tree seem like a bright mirage.

“Boom!”

Another pigeon flew down from the tree to the grass. The little boy saw it and turned. The cannon was forgotten. The chase resumed.

“Thrilling,” said one of the old people.

A Small, Small World

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

An ice cream truck was near.

…it’s a small world after all…

Zella waved goodbye to the school bus driver, turned around and sprinted down the sidewalk toward the cheerfully ringing chime.

…it’s a small world after all…

Vincent, straightening his shirt collar as he stepped out of the barbershop, heard the repeating notes. He searched a pocket for change. Without appearing too eager, he hurried down the sidewalk.

…it’s a small world after all…

Sam and Jane entered the hotel lobby after an exhausting day. They heard the happy tune and grinned at each other. They stepped back outside.

…it’s a small world after all…

Errol knew leftovers would be for dinner. He walked slowly, dreamily through the city. He smelled rain coming. He arrived at the music, stood in line.

…it’s a small world after all…

Naomi, sitting in her parked patrol car, writing up another report, rolled down the window to listen. She set her paperwork aside. She opened the door.

…it’s a small world after all…

Bryce lay with his back against a wall. He’d lost his job. And then he’d lost his girlfriend. His eyes were closed. He heard the distant chime. He jumped up.

…it’s a small world after all…

Zella stood on a balcony trying to see the street below. Her old eyes were failing. She remembered the sudden bright thrill of ice cream trucks turning corners, and the merry chimes. She remembered how people at any hour would mysteriously appear from every direction to grasp melting bliss.

…it’s a small, small world.

Breaking Bread

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

A shoe kicked at a pigeon. The bird moved away as it pecked at the sidewalk.

“Sally would insist that’s Julius Caesar or Cleopatra,” mocked James, standing under the awning at lunchtime.

“Napoleon,” Liz suggested.

Sally, the office manager, actually believed in reincarnation. She was obsessed with the concept and spoke about it constantly as if she were an authority. Which was ridiculous. She asserted hamsters, lizards, cockroaches, even slugs might have once been human souls.

“You know, that could be a Greek philsopher,” James laughed, kicking harder at the bird. It spooked momentarily then resumed its circular walk. The pigeon’s tiny eyes looked right, left, down at the sidewalk, left, right, up at the two, back down. Its ridiculous head never stopped pumping. “Didn’t the great Plato call us featherless bipeds?”

Liz laughed. She nibbled at her bagel.

The bird did walk like an ordinary person. It strutted purposefully forward, one leg following another. It’s two eyes never stopped searching the small space in front of them.

The pigeon was simply going about its daily business, looking for crumbs, guided by animal instinct. Propelled by hunger.

The little bird was the embodiment of persistence.

A broken feather in one wing dangled as it walked.

Just a pigeon. Perhaps more ruffled than most.

“Poor thing.” Liz tore off a chunk of her bagel and tossed it onto the sidewalk.

The pigeon batted its gift about, the way all pigeons do.

Money Changer

~ Richard Schulte ~ 6 Comments

A week cashiering at the convenience store and I was bored.

Ring up beer. Ring up chips. Ring up cigarettes.

When you’re a psychology student coping with exorbitant tuition, you’ll take any job.

At first the customers kept me entertained, and some were actually interesting, but I began to observe definite behaviors and it became so predictable.

There were customers who never stopped complaining. There were customers who wanted to stand there and talk and talk and talk, about nothing, holding up the line. There were customers who’d pick up every product in the store and read every label as if they had nothing better to do.

Some of the customers were completely shameless. Right in front of my eyes they stole coins from the little plastic penny tray on the counter.

But one regular customer puzzled me.

The elderly woman came into the store every afternoon. She must’ve had a serious case of osteoporosis because her posture was severely stooped. She wore a bad wig. Standing beside her rickety little cart, the old woman would always lean against the counter and ask for two cheap chicken wings and one lottery ticket. And as she waited, she’d reach into the little plastic penny tray and start fingering the coins, picking them up, staring at one, then another, turning them over.

But she never stole.

The old woman did exactly the same thing every day. She’d reach into that tray, very deliberately turn several pennies over with her fingers, take none.

Obviously she was compulsive.

As I looked down on this pointless behavior it began to bother me. She was certainly poor. I assumed she was tempted by the presence of a few pennies. I concluded that one day she’d steal a coin or two. Like so many other customers.

Money changes people.

“Tell me,” I said one day, feeling more irritated than usual as she turned another coin over. “Why do you do keep doing that?”

She looked up at me, eyes bright. “Heads is lucky.”

I looked down at the little plastic tray. She’d turned every coin heads up.

She’d made the pennies lucky for everyone.

The Teddy Bear

~ Richard Schulte ~ 7 Comments

As the meeting broke up, Reggie and I stood by the conference room window, gazing down at the city.

Many stories below it was a typical weekday. Cars pushed down the avenue. People hurried to and fro along the sidewalk, scurried into and out of buildings.

“There he is again,” I remarked, pointing straight down. Moving past our front door was a homeless man.

At one time or another everybody in the office had encountered this homeless person. Every day the man shuffled along in front of our building, wearing the same shredded clothing, face lost in caveman hair. But today he carried an enormous teddy bear.

“He must’ve won it at the county fair last summer,” joked Reggie.

“Leave him alone,” Beverly chided, having gathered her laptop and folders. “You don’t know his story. He obviously has a mental condition.” She hurried out of the conference room.

“Obviously,” Reggie said to me and laughed. “Remember that woman who looked like a corpse who used to hang out at the bus stop screaming and shouting? Now that was one loony tune. I wonder what happened to her. Probably overdosed.

“Oh, check this out,” he continued enthusiastically. “A couple days ago I saw a guy steal a ladder. I was in line at the bank looking out the window when I saw some homeless guy grab a ladder leaning up against a building. Then he starts running off with it. Then here comes a security guard running after him!”

I laughed.

During lunch hour I had to go to the bank myself.

After dumping cold coffee I rode the elevator down to the lobby and stepped out onto the busy street.

With less than an hour I had to hurry. I had to walk five blocks to the bank, wait forever in line then return in time for the next meeting.

It appeared everyone else in the city had urgent business, too. People on a mission flooded down the concrete channels, careful not to collide.

They streamed smoothly along, like ball bearings that were magnetized, each repelling.

Thousands of paths intersected but seldom touched.

I crossed Fourth Avenue and turned a corner. And there he was half a block away, shuffling very slowly toward me. The homeless man. Carrying that enormous teddy bear.

The man was shambling along as if he were aimless and had no place to go. His face was hidden in hair. His two bare arms closely hugged the bear. With unseen eyes he seemed to stare straight ahead through every person that passed by.

I regarded the huge teddy bear and all of a sudden imagined the homeless man as a small child. In my mind I removed his beard, clipped his hair, erased grime and the cruelty of Time to picture him–try to imagine him as a very young child. And I wondered if, once upon a time, he’d been happy.

How could a child know he’d spend years of his life on the cold street?

As I drew near the man, a disturbing truth became evident. Contrasted with his very dirty arms and ruined clothes, the large teddy bear was clean and new. Where had he grabbed it?

The bear certainly didn’t belong to him. I wondered if there was a child somewhere in the city that was heartbroken.

The homeless man was in front of me. Pretending I didn’t see him, I veered to one side.

He blocked me.

“I found this on the street,” he said clearly, presenting me with the teddy bear. “Is it yours?”

Litter

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

There is no street parking near my apartment building. I have to park several blocks away.

One day I was walking out to my car when my eyes chanced upon a piece of litter.

Nothing angers me quite like litter. People who blithely toss trash into their neighborhood are so careless and selfish. I’m tired of picking it up.

The discarded thing lay on the sidewalk. It was a tiny notebook–one of those cheap notebooks people jot quick notes in.

I stooped to pick it up.

I had resumed walking, and was searching for a trashcan, when all at once it occurred to me that somebody might have accidentally dropped this tiny notebook.

I turned it over to examine the front and back cover. No name. I opened to the first page. A couple of sentences had been carefully written in pencil.

I love my uncle Ernie. I love how he makes me laugh and how he makes pancakes for me and my sister.

All of the pages that followed were blank.

Oh wow, I thought, this isn’t quite what I expected. Evidently a young person had begun to write some happy thoughts. Perhaps it was an essay for school. Or the beginning of a journal. The tiny notebook had probably fallen out of a pocket. A worried somebody would probably be looking for it.

My course of action was obvious. I turned around and retraced my steps. I sought the exact spot where I had found the dropped notebook. I carefully set what I had first thought was litter back on the sidewalk, so that it could await its destiny.

What else could I do?

As I finally approached my car, I came upon an unusual amount of trash by the sidewalk. A small heap of garbage had gathered between some dying bushes. I fought off my anger. Why can’t people control themselves?

There was spoiled food, discarded cardboard boxes, bottles and cans. The smell was unbearable.

Then I noticed a sleeping bag behind the pile. And someone inside it. A young man with leaves in his hair was bundled up, his face hidden.

Unheard Words

~ Richard Schulte ~ 2 Comments

The streetcar came out of its barn every Sunday. Like a relic from an era long forgotten, it ding-ding-rattled down the center of Transverse Street near City Park. The restored streetcar lurched, jerked, impeded impatient cars as it moved through the shadows of high modern towers. It halted long and inconveniently. Few people rode it.

A traveling businessman who needed to be at the convention center in no more than twenty minutes stepped aboard.

The streetcar driver was waving his arms while he waited for the traffic light to turn. He was engaged in a conversation.

“Who’re you talking to?” asked the anxious businessman, sitting down in one of the empty seats near the driver.

“That’s Edmund,” explained the driver.

“What?”

“That’s Edmund. He used to manage a cannery north of the pier where the aquarium is these days, but that was well over a century ago,” explained the driver, smiling up at the businessman’s reflection in the rear view mirror.

“What are you talking about? I don’t see anybody.”

“That’s because Edmund has been dead for over a hundred years. He likes to ride through the city and remember those old days. He tells me stories that everyone else has forgotten.”

The businessman stared at the back of the driver’s head. “Are you crazy?”

“No, I’m not. What’s that? Edith says I’m crazy. No, Edith, everyone in the car thinks the only crazy one here is you.”

The businessman rapidly turned about and observed rows of narrow, empty seats. He wondered if the ramblings of this apparently deranged driver would make him late. He looked out an antique green-tinted window at rush hour traffic and people hurrying down the sidewalk and decided it would be smart to remain quiet.

The traffic light finally changed. The driver started the streetcar with a sudden jerk. Waving his arms, he resumed his former conversation.

“You’re right, Edmund. It’s exactly like those old days leading up to the war. Everyone getting ready for the future. People coming and going, worrying how to survive should the worst happen. Nothing ever seems to change. He’s probably going somewhere important. No, I’m sure the man thinks his trip is very important. Can’t you tell by the way he’s dressed? There’s no point saying that. He can’t see or hear you, Edmund–you know perfectly well that you’re nothing but a sad, used-up ghost. So why do you keep trying to talk to the living? What’s that Stanley? What did you say?”

The streetcar driver looked up at his rear view mirror and addressed the increasingly annoyed businessman: “Stanley sees you live in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Which is an amazing coincidence. That’s where his grandchildren live.”

The businessman jerked his head back, startled. “What the hell? Who told you that?” His intense aggravation with the driver turned to angry suspicion.

“Stanley was born in Brookfield many years ago,” explained the smiling driver. “He was raised there, in a farmhouse a few miles from Al Capone’s distillery. Then he moved here to the city and died from a series of strokes two years later. He has an important message for you. He wants you to inform his grandchildren who still live in Brookfield that he loves them.”

The streetcar bell dinged as it pulled into a station. The doors flapped open. The businessman bolted from his seat and fled. Not a living soul boarded.

The driver pulled a handle to shut the door. He started the slow streetcar again with another jerk.

“No, Stanley, that man is gone. All of this talking scared him away. I’m sorry. You know I have no control over the actions of people. No, I can’t go after him–who would drive? You say you would? A ghost? Someone with two hands has to drive!

“I realize you tried your best but you couldn’t reach him. I’m really sorry. You love your grandchildren. You love them with all your heart. You want Seth and Marge to know you still think of them. You want them to know you still love them.

“Eventually somebody else who still lives in your small town will take a ride with us. Be patient. Somebody will.”

One Man’s Philosophy

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

“The problem with being thoughtful,” explained Burt, “is you quickly understand that most people aren’t. People don’t want to be philosophers. They simply want to feel good.

“People coming down the sidewalk are almost one hundred percent predictable. All they think about is their hair, the money they owe, winning the lottery, and what’s for dinner.”

Burt took a long drink from his paper bag.

“Have you ever wondered why people love dogs? Why do you think people identify with dogs? Oh, how wonderful it would be to lead a dog’s life. People actually want to be dogs.

“Look at them smiling.

“See that group of people coming our way? Pull one of them aside and ask their life’s purpose. I dare you to ask and hear what they say. You’ll get some feel good shit, a feel good God, mindless contradictions that cancel out to nothing. Then they flee.

“Cattle are more interesting.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because at least you can grill cattle.”

I looked down at Burt. His eyes were red and downcast. I began to really wonder if there was any hope. “When’s the last time you had something to eat?”

“Fifteen minutes ago. Some passing idiot gave me half his jelly doughnut.”

“Why do you think he did that?”

“Because I begged for it.”

“But you know he didn’t have to.”

“Yeah he did. Look at me.”

Waving at a Distance

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

Joey liked to talk to himself about deep mysteries.

He often talked about religion, and sacred texts, and sleeping outside in moonlight, and the little-known teachings of prophets, and the cruelty of rich people, and the innumerable conspiracies of the Masons and the Illuminati.

Most days he sat on a bench halfway down the pier waving at people. He really liked to wave at people passing at a distance on the big harbor tour ships. They were the nicest.

When those people saw him they all waved back. Leaning on the ship’s rail, or sitting in rows on white plastic seats facing the water, the people upon seeing him would all wave at him with happy faces and genuine smiles. They’d wave and wave and wave, as if they couldn’t wave enough, and Joey waved happily back.

Even at a distance he could clearly see their faces. He could see how the free wind moved in their hair and he could see the strange way that passing sailboats tugged at their eyes. In their eyes he saw a deep love for the gentle, rippling water and the floating clouds in blue sky. He loved those things, too.

He easily saw their joy. As he waved, he could feel an electric love and yearning passing between them, like radio waves across the water.

Even at a distance, Joey could see the light in their eyes.

When Joey waved at people who were walking past his bench on the pier, they ignored him.