Second Chances
And Other Short Stories
By Jeff Roulston
Short Fiction
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
ISBN: 978-0-9920678-2-3
Copyright 2014 by Jeff Roulston
Contents
Second Chances
Have A Nice Summer
First Snow
About The Author
Other Books By Jeff Roulston
Connect With Jeff
Second Chances
My memory is terrible!
When I was at the bus stop this morning I had to run back in to grab the bus tokens I'd forgotten. The people out there looked at me like I was insane, standing around and waiting for five minutes and leaving just before the bus came.
As I was turning to head back inside my ugly-coloured brick apartment building, I noticed that a gorgeous girl was walking up toward the stop from the other direction. She was a little deeper-complexioned than me with that poufy, curly hair that I'm such a sucker for. You could make out her figure even in the winter parka, scrub bottoms and Air Max's she was wearing. I was able to take in her sexy in that quick glance as I retreated from the stop, but I couldn't see her face. Was she smiling at me?
I got a real good look as the bus pulled away without me as I rushed back outside. She was blood-rushingly beautiful, with light brown eyes, smooth, make-up-free skin and an explosive smile. I froze, realizing that she was smiling at me. I melted, and caught myself before I fell on the icy sidewalk. Her smile brightened as time finally quickened to its normal speed and carried the bus past me.
I jogged carefully and calmly for a second bus just pulling up to the stop. I still had a chance to make it to this job interview on time. I'd been trying to get back into the radio business since I finished college down south, where I'd had my own hip-hop show on the campus station. I was a minor legend down there, the first to play and interview several down-south artists before they blew up on mainstream radio.
Back home in Toronto I was a 22-year-old kid in the country's biggest media market, a city obsessed with indie rock and possessing only one urban station. After three years I was still taking whatever job would prevent me from having to move back in with my parents.
When this new station, Real 99.5, was announced, I applied the very first day they accepted applications. I always had copies of my air-check tape on me—even my phone had the mp3 versions on it—and my resume was updated—well, it didn't need updating because I hadn’t had any radio gigs since college, so getting my application together was a five-minute job. Even though I was not considering the possibility of not getting an on-air job, I applied for street team and sales positions too. I hated myself for doing it, but even with some creative editing, my resume only really had my two-year stint as a big fish in a small historically-Black college pond. The sales position was the one that I was invited to interview for, and it would have to serve as the foot-in-the-door to my dreams.
I was not excited though, and maybe that's why I was dragging my feet getting out of bed and getting ready this morning. My ex-girlfriend used to tell me that when I acted this way, it meant I didn't really want whatever I was going for. I'd argue, and she'd be proven right, and I'd realize later I really wanted something else—or in her case, someone else.
I probably should've been thinking about how to tie the experience from all of my unbearable call centre jobs to selling advertising air-time on the radio, but today my “someone else” was that smiling, curly-haired dream girl that I'd missed sharing a ride with on a packed, stuffy rush hour bus by mere seconds. She didn't look familiar, did she? I hated trying to meet women on the bus or subway, or any other way that involved approaching a random girl I'd never seen before and trying to pick her up. It didn't feel organic enough, and besides, I was shy and I was pretty sure women wanted to be left alone on their way to work or school. But she smiled at me! If I saw her again I'd do it. She might get off at the same stop as me right now; her bus was only a car or two ahead! What would I say? Compliments are so corny, I'd just say hi and introduce myself. My mind raced to catch up with my pulse.
I snapped back to reality when I saw the bus I had to take next pull up as we approached my stop. The bus ahead, with Smiling Beauty on it, pushed through the traffic light as it turned yellow and rolled into the stop on the other side of the intersection. My bus didn't make it.
Even then, in danger of being late, I was more interested in scanning the faces and bodies coming off the bus ahead for the girl, in case I had to be ready to man up and talk to her. I didn't think I saw her.
Seeing the bus I needed to catch slide through the intersection and leave woke me all the way up. I was screwed.
I knew my little memory problem would ruin my life sooner or later. I was only riding the bus in the first place because I forgot to show up to a court date for a traffic ticket. I didn't even manage to remember within the 30 days the court gives you to pay the fine after receiving an automatic conviction, and my license was suspended. I was lucky though; the copper who pulled me over for Driving While Black could've slapped another ticket on for driving with a suspended license too, but he let me go. If my car wasn’t parked collecting rust, I'd have easily been at the radio station by now.
I burst into the main reception of Real 99.5 at five minutes after nine. I had gotten off on the floor below at first, which housed the studios, instead of this floor where the offices were. That had cost me two precious minutes or so, and when I told the receptionist I was there for an interview, she told me I was too late. It was a group interview, and the other three candidates had already been taken inside.
As the elevator door opened to let me on and take me back down from my lofty dreams to my crappy life, I reached into my army jacket pocket for my phone and headphones. I wanted some rebellious hip-hop to blow out my eardrums and make me feel better. Forget that sales job, with its shirt-and-tie dress code, I didn't want it anyway. But my phone was not in my pocket. I stuck my hand in the door's path to keep it from closing while I dug for it some more. I dug deeper, but still came up with lint.
I rushed back into the office and the receptionist immediately pulled my phone and ear buds out of a drawer as if she hadn't expected me back so soon. I must have rested them on the desk absent-mindedly. "I couldn't get any money for it," she said with a sympathetic smile as she handed them to me.
I laughed and took them. "Thanks."
Back on the elevator, leaving the life I was chasing for good this time, I couldn't decide who I wanted to listen to on my trip home. The car stopped one floor down, and two men got on, one I recognized right away as the legendary radio personality that Real 99.5 had stolen away from the city's other urban station. My favourite professor in college always talked about elevator speeches, and coached us to have one ready in case of an opportunity like this. I had nine floors to make up for missing my interview for the foot-in-the-door job.
"Original Mike!" I stuck out my hand to dap him and he complied. "Congrats on the new gig bruh, I'm excited to hear your new show! We have the same taste in hip-hop!"
"Thanks dude," he replied naturally. "What taste is that?"
"Nas, Common, Gang Starr," I answered proudly. "But there's a lot of dope new stuff when I search too! Kendrick, Elzhi, J. Cole's mixtape stuff."
"Word," he said.
"Check it out Mike, my name is Jordan Gordon and I was here to interview for a sales position, but I was late because I didn’t really want it and I missed it, but I realize I was on time to meet you and ask about what I really want, which is an on-air job!"
Mike glanced at the man who had gotten on the elevator with
him. Original Mike had on jeans and fresh Jordans; the other slightly older man wore a suit.
"If you had an air-check tape I might've been able to help you out brother."
DING! The elevator stopped at the ground floor. My nine floors were up.
OG Mike and the suit strode out of the car. I caught up and held out my phone and buds to him. "My air-check," I said.
Mike tried to hide his surprise and put one bud in one ear and handed the other bud to the suit. I pressed play.
The suit turned out to be Real 99.5’s program director, Mike’s new boss. By the end of the three clips I played them, I had an audition and an interview scheduled for the following week. I bounced out of the building lobby excited about life. My day was turning around.
I had old-school party hip-hop in my earphones when I turned the corner toward the stop where I'd catch the bus home.
I heard an odd sound that wasn't a part of the track. I looked to my right and saw a grey car barreling toward me, sliding on ice that neither the driver nor I had seen. It was too late to run, so I took a power step and jumped off two feet as high as I could, as if I was jumping for a rebound in a men's league basketball game, except I tried to tuck my knees to my chest to bring my feet higher off the ground. As a kid I had always imagined what I would do to avoid being hit by a car, and I was surprised that I actually did it without hesitation.
I cleared the hood, and felt a small wave of pride, but my vertical leap was not so high in the church shoes I'd worn for the interview. I didn't clear the whole car, and the windshield clipped my right foot, slamming my legs together and sending my body into a sideways spin as the car flew under me toward a bus shelter. Instinctively I tried to tuck myself into a ball, and did, but I couldn't stop spinning. The ground came up and hit me on the side of the head.