READER: Lately, I've found myself having the urge to rework old short stories I'd written in years' past. This one, Missing Time, is one such story. Revising a work of fiction you've previously written after many more years of living in this crazy world adds a completely different dimension to the work. It's also a whole lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it.
If you missed the First or Second Installment of Missing Time it can be read here.
Tim stepped into the packed elevator, joining a sea of businesspeople lost in their screens, some already scrolling, others poised to begin. Yesterday, he had been lazy. Today, he needed to make it count.
He spotted his mark—a young woman pressed into the corner, small and withdrawn. Shuffling through the cramped space, he positioned himself beside her. Dark circles ringed her tired eyes, her shoes were scuffed, her shoulders slumped in quiet surrender. To a casual observer, she might seem fine, but Tim knew better. He recognized the signs. She was in the early stages of giving up.
Her family back home probably thought she was living her dream in the Big Apple. Maybe she let them believe that. But in reality, lunch had likely been a bag of Fritos from the office vending machine, and dinner might be free happy hour tapas at a neighborhood bar. Without a trust fund, life here was a constant balancing act—one misstep away from sinking.
New York had a way of seducing dreamers. It lured them in, held them tight, and didn’t let go until their best years had slipped through its fingers. A lucky few made it. Even fewer reached middle age with their dignity intact.
The doors slid shut. The elevator lurched downward. Tim staggered, just enough to make it look real, bumping lightly into the girl. In a fluid motion, he slipped a tight roll of ten hundred-dollar bills into her coat pocket.
“Pardon me. My legs aren’t so steady anymore,” he chuckled, stepping back just enough to maintain propriety.
She flashed him a quick, sympathetic smile—the kind he’d grown used to receiving. Old age had settled in fast. Soon, his hands would lose their dexterity. But for now, he still had time.
After Vietnam, finding work had been impossible. He had drifted up and down the West Coast, hitchhiking, taking whatever jobs he could. When employment dried up, he relied on the skills taught to him by an old hobo he’d befriended in an Oregon beer joint—pickpocketing, grifting, survival. He had only stolen when there was no other option, but the weight of it had never quite left him.
Now, at least, he could put that talent to better use.
On the street, he turned the corner, his mind already set on dinner. A thick sirloin from the butcher’s shop—a reward for today’s breakthrough with Rachel.
As the little brass bell above the market door chimed, he realized something unexpected.
He was smiling.
It had been a long time.
Tim didn’t know how long this feeling would last, but he planned to savor it, fully and deeply, while he still could.
"High and tight, Joe. Just like his pops." Paul patted his flat top with a satisfied grin.
Timmy climbed cautiously into the red vinyl barber chair, his small hands gripping the worn armrests.
The air was thick with the familiar scents of clipper oil, talc, stale beer, and Old Spice. Joe, the barber, looped a thin paper strip around Timmy’s neck, snapped the cape with practiced ease, and let it settle over him like a magician’s flourish.
He ran a comb through Timmy’s thick, sun-bleached hair, struggling to tame it. "Looks like it's been a while, boy. Gettin’ kind of shaggy."
Timmy smiled sheepishly, nodding at him in the mirror.
Joe sorted through a drawer, slid on the number two guard, and clicked the clippers to life. "How’s life treatin’ you, Paul?"
Paul looked up from his magazine, smirking. "Happier than a pup with two peckers. You?"
Joe grinned as he took a rough pass over Timmy’s head. "Busier than a one-armed man with crabs."
"That’s a good thing, right? ‘Cept for the crabs part. Explains some of those lopsided haircuts, though."
The men laughed, and Timmy laughed too, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. This was the first time he’d heard his father talk this way—joking, ribbing, slipping into some unspoken language of men. He watched carefully, trying to decode the meaning, trying to understand the way his father seemed to shift the air in the room with just a few words.
As he got older, Timmy would come to realize his father had a gift. Some people could command attention with little more than a look, a nod, a phrase just right. His father was one of them. If he had inherited that gift, maybe his life would’ve turned out differently. Maybe fate wouldn't have held so much sway over him.
Joe took another pass with the clippers, exposing a few freckles hidden beneath Timmy’s thick hair.
"Speaking of peckers and crabs," Joe said with a smirk, "Lyle said he saw you leaving the diner across town the other night with some redhead. Said the dame was gorgeous, like Lucille Ball."
Paul barely looked up from his magazine, flipping pages absently. "That’s what he’s going around saying, is it? You know I work nights down at the plant. One woman is plenty for me."
"Uh-huh," Joe grunted, looking over his glasses, unconvinced. He dusted a soft-bristled brush into a dented tin of talc, then dabbed the fragrant powder across the back of Timmy’s neck. With a quick flick, he removed the cape and paper strip.
"You’re ready to conquer the world now, sport." He tossed Timmy a Tootsie Roll from the glass dish on the counter.
Paul peeled off a few crisp singles from his roll, tucked them into Joe’s shirt pocket, and held his gaze just long enough for the barber to look away.
"Thanks for everything, Joe."
Outside, Paul jingled his keys as he walked to his gray Hudson Hornet, the summer sun gleaming off the chrome hood ornament. Timmy climbed into the front seat, sliding across the warm leather to the passenger side.
Paul placed the keys in the ignition, then paused, his hand resting on them. "Son, you understand that was just man talk in there, right?"
Timmy gave him a puzzled look.
"It’s just nonsense. Between us guys, understand?"
"You bet, Dad." Timmy unwrapped his Tootsie Roll, bit it in half, then carefully rewrapped the rest, tucking it into his pocket for later.
Paul shifted into drive, easing onto the road. As the car glided forward, he said, almost offhandedly, "Let me share a little secret I learned in the Army."
Timmy sat up straighter, listening.
"Everybody’s got a little crazy in them. First time you meet someone, the question you gotta ask yourself is, ‘What kind of crazy are you?’ Figure that out, and dealing with them gets a hell of a lot easier."
Timmy thought about this for a moment. "Mommy isn’t crazy, is she?"
Paul chuckled. "You bet she is. She married me, didn’t she?"
TO BE CONTINUED
~Eric Vance Walton~
Be well, make the most of this day. Thank you for reading!
(Gif sourced from Giphy.com.)
