Strange Associations
By Darrel Bird
Copyright 2011By Darrel Bird
From New York to freaking Augusta, Georgia in one freaking day, on two freaking planes: one plane to Atlanta, then a prop job over to Augusta, a town that smelled like crap, and looked worse. Condemned! That’s what he was, condemned, because his boss had declared one morning at meeting that he, Joel G. Callahan, was the best in the business of making his company money, said company being a company that sold textile goods from hell to Hong Kong. In other words he, Joel G. Callahan, would take the Augusta office or get fired.
So here he was in downtown Augusta, with an upstairs office overlooking Main Street, while his wife was back in New York in her downtown office on the 15th floor overlooking Wall Street, said wife not even coming near to moving to any Augusta, Georgia or anywhere else.
He, Joel G. Callahan, had a secretary who sat in the outer office looking like a lump, while he, Joel G. Callahan, tried his best to get the single air conditioner that sat in one window to work right. It moaned and groaned as if it had never worked right in all its fifteen years in existence in that one window.
Joel had taken to watching the goings on in that section of Main Street when he gave up on the air conditioner and opened the other window that was the escape from the stifling heat, but let in the interminable crap smell.
In the loneliness of his cursed dead end job, after he made his morning calls, he stood looking out that window. Augusta was a soldier town, with Fort Gordon just a few minutes away by bus; the buses arrived steadily every few minutes, disgorging soldiers in Khaki uniforms across the street.
He often wondered what a soldier’s life was like. They came into town by the droves on the first of the month to spend their paychecks, and then went back to the base as if nothing had happened. A lot of them had breakfast at the little restaurant next to the hotel.
Today was Friday, right after the first of the month. He stood watching the prostitutes work the soldiers. The prostitutes would take them to the hotel, where the hotel manager got paid doubly from the whores’ kickbacks, and from the men who followed them to the rooms. He took to timing it for different prostitutes; the most proficient had it down to a science of about 20 minutes. The prostitutes made good money.
The soldiers bought them iced tea at the bar that sat on the other side of the hotel, while paying the bartender the overly priced shot of whiskey. Sometimes the whores even took a whiskey instead of the brown colored tea, but only enough to deaden whatever feelings they were having at the time. The prostitutes would drown their sorrows after they returned home to their run-down apartments and flats that dotted any soldier town.
A bar on one side, a restaurant on the other side of a hotel, which sat in the middle with cab stands and bus stops in front, made up a machine that ground out dollars for the owners, the cab company, and the bus company, and paid fat raises to the police department and the city council. The hell of it was, thought Joel G. Callahan, they didn’t have to move 20 feet, much less to a town as far away from New York as Augusta, Georgia was. He missed his wife as he stood in the heat, and watched as a prostitute brought another soldier out of the bar, and around to the hotel entrance.
I ought to quit this job dead cold and go back to New York. The thought slid through his mind like a rocket on rails, but he knew he wouldn’t do it. He had gotten to where he was climbing that corporate ladder from the slums to the top, fighting all the way, and Joel G. Callahan was not about to give it up and quit.
A drop of sweat rolled off his forehead to the hard wood floor, as he watched the prostitute arrive back on the street exactly 20 minutes to the second. It wasn’t the whore that caused him to sweat though; it was the interminable Georgia heat. He slammed the window closed. Another day done in Georgia, he thought bitterly.
Joel walked to his small upstairs apartment on Third Street, just 2 blocks off Main, took out his key, and opened the door, only to be met by a sweltering blast of hot air. He pulled off the sticky dress shirt and stripped to his underwear. He opened the window quickly and cranked up the air conditioner to the highest setting. Soon the room cooled to tolerable limits as it flushed out the heat and brought in fresh air. He prepared his supper in the Microwave, and pulled off his shoes to watch re-runs on TV. Another night in Georgia.
Tossing and turning in the night, with visions of his wife going through his head, he wondered what she was doing tonight. Where were she and he going with this? Questions buzzed around in his brain like flies on stink. He missed his New York office, he missed their comfortable apartment, he missed Wall Street. Hell… he missed everything. How did I end up in stinking Georgia anyhow, fer craps sake? I fight my way up the ladder to this? If there was a building tall enough in this town, I’d go jump off it.
The next morning he walked the six blocks to the restaurant that sat beside the hotel, the July sun already making inroads to destroy what cool there was, as it beamed down on his particular part of misery. As usual, the restaurant was crowded with soldiers and office people. He looked for a place to sit.
He found one empty booth and sat down to stare at the menu, even though he knew what he was going to order before he looked at it.
“Mind if I sit here?” He looked up at the woman standing before him. She had green eyes and large breasts with lots of cleavage showing, and too much leg.
He indicated the seat across from him with one hand, and she sat down tiredly and sighed. His eyes went back to the menu he was holding.
“Buy you breakfast, honey?” He looked over the menu at the green eyes.
“Sure; it’s not every day a woman offers to buy me breakfast. You look tired.”
“Yeah, long night.” She sighed as she transferred a wad of bills about two inches thick from her cleavage to her purse. Joel knew what she was; he had seen her on the street from his office, but he just decided to talk to her like any other person. It was no business of his, anyhow. The waitress came to take their orders. Before she did, though, she snuck a sneer in at his sitting with the woman. To hell with you, lady; you aren’t doing much better that I can see.
She ordered the same thing as he did: bacon and eggs medium; of course, with the ever-present foul tasting Georgia grits, which he forgot to tell them to leave off his plate. Geez I hate grits. The waitress stuck up her snoot and walked over to the next table to take an order.
The woman acted like she could care less, her tired eyes taking in nothing, as she reached in her purse and withdrew a pack of cigarettes. She sat smoking silently until another waitress brought their food. Joel was glad it wasn’t the same one who took their orders.
They ate in silence, just glancing at each other across the table, until finally she spoke.
“Say, do you want to go dancing tonight?”
“And where would this be?”
“There’s a dance hall at a road house about 3 miles out of town. I just thought you might be up for it.”
He thought a minute while he chewed and swallowed the last of the bacon. “You know, I just might at that, it’s usually too hot to sleep anyhow.”
She scribbled her number on a napkin, slid it across the table to him and got up to go. “I’ll be up around 4 this afternoon…call me if you want to go.” No one seemed to notice the exchange as she got up to leave.
At 4 sharp his hand hovered over the phone. Eventually he dialed the number; a sleepy voice came back, the huskiness of day sleep apparent in that voice.
“Say, this is Joel Callahan, the guy you sat with at the restaurant this morning? I forgot to get your name; do you still want to go dancing?”
“Oh yeah, could I call you back, Joel? My mouth tastes like crap. G
ive me a minute to wake up, will ya?”
“Of course, the number is 569-8762.”
“OK, I’ll call you in a few.” The phone went dead and doubts about this craziness began to assault him. What am I doing, about to go out with a whore? The thought again slid through his mind like crap through a goose, but he knew he would go, whore or no whore.
At 4:30 sharp the phone rang. “Can you be ready at six, honey? I’ll pick you up in my car, and we’ll toot on out there, OK?”
“Sure; you can pick me up at 230 Chestnut; it’s not far from the hotel.”
“I know where it is; see you at six.”
The phone