Dubuque Street

     His smooth, brown features are as placid as still water. The tan khaki shorts are slung to his knees like it’s a jaunty stroll in summer but it's a cold January eve with light blue skies ending weeks of clouds. The air is chilled and the snow freeze on the sidewalks is like snow cone ice, crunched and chunked. The snow smokes as the cars and trucks run down the street.
     “Hey kid, talk to me,” Stan says to the young man with the cap on who slouches against a glass topped display case. Stan owns American Pawn, he’s here to inspect.
     Beyond the front door the lights along Central Avenue are stars filled with pointed flames that are thrown out to the dirty snow. Stanley Samuel attends to the pawn shop. He moves in an aisle with a light footed pace that's intent, his arms swinging and head bobbing like a middle weight.
     "Hey kid," Stan says, stares at the theatrical remodeling in his pawn shop, "How's it going?"
     The pawn shop is ready to close for the day. The owner wants clarification about remodeling and the day's business.
     Freshly hung lights stream clear beams across dried, sanded and smooth plaster on the ceiling overhead.
 
     "Where are we?" Stan asks the drywall man.
     "I'm planning to do the texture work tomorrow night."
     "What are you doing Friday?"
     "Tomorrow's Friday."
      "Is it, oh yeah, okay." Stan says as he tries on another tired smile. "No, you can't. We didn't finish the front wall."
     The young man looks to the entrance and shrugs. "Hell."
     Behind the counter big Bill stands with Stan's two older sons.
     "Shorty, go get me the mud and the tools," the white faced dry waller says to Stan's older boy.
     "I'll get the front wall done then do the texturing."
     Smells of sanded plaster, of dust, of pipes, of cold street snow and traffic hang like clouds throughout the store.
    Big Billy wears a grey, woolen cap pulled over his square, little ears and in his left ear a silver loop hangs and every inch of him looks the pirate.
     The boys wear fresh haircuts and they smile like their father. The boys imitate Stan and each slouches by the cash register.
     The phone rings and Phillip asks about a battery.
     “Sorry, we don’t have one,” Stanley’s eldest boy says into the phone.
     “Hold it!” the young man at the far counter finds a battery in a clear plastic display.
     “Hold on! Hold on!” Repeats Phillip to his customer, “Yeah, we do have one.”
     The dark settles on the street like a mist. Billy's face seems otherworldly, distant. He ignores everyone but Stan. When Billy laughs at a joke it seems to be on him but he ignores himself and the group laughs at the joke the barrel chested man didn’t hear, the one about him. Billy turns away from the others, eyes toward a far wall, gaming hide and seek.
      Stan's eyes scan his displays and he stares at the walls where merchandise hangs and he wipes a counter and touches a computer.
     "How was business today?" Stan asks. Bill frowns and snorts that it was okay, pretty good,
not bad - offering smoke and fog to the query.
     "I see," Stan says and his worn profile amplifies an expected ... "What does that mean?"
       Billy's free to breathe a little lighter. The day tastes like flour. A dry air pervades the chaos.
    “Shorty, go get the mud and tools, will ya?”
    “Close up here in about forty five minutes,” Stan says.
    “Do you want to block off that back wall, what are you gonna do there?” The plasterer says.
     “I don’t know what we’re gonna do. Haven’t decided.” Stan says after the long day begins to creep under his skin.
      Outside the night traffic wheezes by when the brown man opens the door to leave. Lights like flames reach down to his bare calves, he smiles and waves. The traffic keeps moving along the relentless street, clearing the echoes of the conversation at the pawn shop, roving out past the plaster and contracts and dirty faces, each now looking for the weekend.