Inspiration

Inspiration

By

Richard Thompson 

Just like that, it came. Like a flash of lightning in a summer storm, a torrent of inspiration came sleeting out of the cosmos and threw itself bodily into my mind. Oh wait, that was the heavies boot going into my gut. Reality check, no divine inspiration here, no odds on favourite to win and certainly not the great redemption I spent so much of my spare time dreaming of in those endless days of summer that encouraged indolence and a slack approach to life. Nope, it was just my monthly reminder that I owed somebody money that I couldn’t afford to pay. The beatings were getting routine. I didn’t owe enough to justify a leg breaking but did owe enough that it couldn’t be let go. No amount was micro enough to be let go.

   The heavy was breathing heavy by the time he grew to exhausted to continue with the leg workout on my gut and then he grunted, “better have something next week or it’s your face I’m gonna rearrange .” He slobbered just for good measure, the drool running down the side of his face giving him a dangerous leer.

   “I will.” I always said that, just like he always expected although with the vig counted I had repaid my loan some ten times over by now but had never managed to get the principal to drop even in the slightest. Loan sharks have been learning from the banks it seems in this day and age. I dragged myself upright and staggered out of the alley while the heavy nonchalantly turned the other direction and began to saunter off, his weekly duty completed.

   It was like this every week. First he would roust my cart and help himself to a couple of hot dogs and then he would loiter scaring off potential Friday afternoon buyers and then he would shake his head sadly and grab me by my arm and the beating would begin. He wouldn’t even bother to count the grubby bills I held out for him. It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. The cart had been a bust. Another inspiring self employment scheme that was meant to lift me out of poverty but instead had just nailed me to one street corner for a dozen hours a day five days of the week with the weekend shifted to outside of a local club with late nights and drunken buffoonery. What had seemed like divine inspiration had once again turned into something distasteful with the added inclusion of debt to make it all that much more worth while. The payments had been steady and good for six months but then business dropped off with the closure of the business tower I had used as my point of launch. It wasn’t the only tower with 100% vacancy. The entire downtown core had become a ghost town with people hurrying about their business heads down and masks obscuring their features. No one stopped for hot dogs in this sort of climate and with the winter months still ahead I was starting to seek out more desperate measures as ideas on what I could do to get me out of this situation.

   It was like checking my mail. Nothing but utility bills and Medicare invoices with the occasional camouflaged letter that would make my heart sing to see. Maybe it would be correspondence from an old friend or maybe the winnings of a lottery ticket I did not buy. Nope, it would be a discreet invitation to borrow a small amount of money to get you by in todays current economic conditions that would be easy to repay once your business picked back up again. A mistake he would not make again. With the interest charges equivalent to usury it was a deal with the devil make no mistake. Every day there was temptation and every day I failed in my chosen discipline. It was both depressing and disheartening at the same time.

   What a waste of a post secondary education I thought to myself as I checked the cart over for its needs. Plenty of meat steaming and the condiments were full. A depressed hot dog market was in the offing. My humanities degree was supposed to help parlay me into a career earning based on my creative writing. Editing at the very least but instead it had resulted in a hot dog stand in the middle of a middle class city that was dying the suffocating death of world events at a rapidly increasing pace. With the unemployment comes less sales and even the big box stores were hurting badly these days. Then crime would increase as people become more and more desperate turning to any means possible to alleviate the anxiety that was pervading every aspect of this city and its population. You would think with the increase in drugs and organized crime you would see at least an uptick in the hot dog business. Nope, not in the slightest and me with weekly loan payments to make on a loan that will never get paid off. If I defaulted he would take my cart and break my legs, a small price in his world, a life ending alteration to mine. This was the only thing putting food on my table, even if it was mostly old product. I needed the hot dog cart. Without it I would be sunk and completely at sea in this massively changing economy that at one time encouraged you to distance but had yet to come up with a feasible plan for keeping the economy rolling. It had all seemed so surreal in the beginning in the early spring. The hot dog cart would pay and the pandemic would miraculously disappear by April. This had not happened. The hot dog cart was a back breaking menial job good for providing some food on the table and not much else and the Pandemic…well…apart from everyone being bored with it, it seemed to be sticking around and getting itself ready for the all encompassing second wave which may or may not have the same severity of the Spanish influenzas second wave which was 100% fatal in all who contracture it all those years ago. Millions perished in that second wave. Millions more f potential hot dog customers being served by a soon to be over the hill university graduate with debt up to his bruised eyeballs and no means of escaping the ever tightening circle that was his tiny desperate life.

   Another week past, another beating taken, and another slow business day on top of it all. I made myself a quick hot dog with some ketchup on the bun but forswore the onions and mustard, saving those condiments for the paying customer. After finishing I tossed the bun end at a bunch of pigeons then watched dully as one snagged it off the ground and flew off towards the roof of the building across the square block of cement that doubled as the city square. The noon bells began to ring out from the church on the other side of the square indicating that at least some potential customers would be making there way down to the square to load up on some artery clogging cart food that could be had from over a dozen vendors parked in their cube vans in a long line along the square. So much for missing out on this bling about the competition I thought, having been completely blinded by the seeming ease of the job when I bought the cart. Only to be hit with licensing fees, kickbacks and other assorted business costs that seem minor but eat into a quarter of your earnings in any given year. 

   “Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh,” he muttered under his breath. “‘Tis a sorry day indeed for the intrepid entrepreneur and his fool proof business model. A model that somehow managed to convey the true wealth and reward that can be had from the private ownership of a hot dog stand, while seeming to miss out on all of the negative sides to said cart ownership. Not the least was borrowing the money to do it from a local loan shark who made cheque cashing kiosks look like a benign sending from God.

   He wondered idly what the heavy would do to him next Friday as he handed over two quick dogs for a five and some change back. There was a line up waiting to get at his hotdogs. Just two people but two people waiting in a line which was the first time this had ever happened to him. The customer finished with adding condiments to his dogs and walked off, the second in the lineup dropping out to join him. That left just one but one was better than none thought the hot dog vendor in his never say die overwhelming personality that allowed him to shrug off non stop negativity with a shrug of the shoulders and a grin to his invisible audience.

   Next week maybe he would have his legs broken, or maybe he will sell enough to satisfy the rapacious needs the loanshark had. Maybe the pandemic would do something different, maybe he might socialize next week. Might meet someone. Maybe he will suddenly become rich out of the blue. Or maybe none of those things would happen. Just another week barely scraping by feed office jockeys, lawyers and businessmen in between their high powered appointments. Another week in his dingy studio apartment eating stale hot dogs and buns and staring at the blank screen of a TV that screamed “can’t afford cable.” Another week with nothing guaranteed except the inevitable appearance of the heavy and a shot kicking to remind him of debts he could not pay.