Second Hands

Bing Matherson grunted and rolled over on the flattened cardboard box he lay on, beneath the continuous roar of the cars and trucks on the overpass above. He shivered violently in the frigid air and pulled his threadbare blanket tighter about him.

“Winter coming early this year, Bing.”

“Yeah, Bob. I reckon you might be right.”

“Swig?” Bob proffered the whiskey bottle but Bing shook his head.

“Not about to start that now.” Bing rubbed his face, then his arms, massaging his bony limbs to create some kind of heat.

“It will warm you up from the inside, buddy.”

Bing shook his head again and stood to stretch. He grabbed his plastic bag of meagre possessions and wandered off in the direction of the cafes that lined a quiet street a few blocks away from the overpass. He whistled a slow quiet tune as he walked. Bing looked down at the toes of his left foot poking through his shoe, the right foot having no sole at all. His whistling dropped away when he could hear Brenda’s trill laugh through the doorway of Cake Capers. He could smell the coffee beans whirring away to powder in the grinder. Head still down, he walked quickly, trying to make it to the dumpsters on the next block without being seen.

“Bing!” Brenda called out. “Come get a cuppa.”

Bing looked up, forcing his sunken eyes and gaunt cheekbones to stretch themselves into what he hoped was a smile.

“Ever grateful to yer Brenda,” he murmured.

“It’s nothing Bing. Nothing at all.”

She fixed his coffee just the way she knew Bing liked it. Another face appeared at the porthole window that led to the kitchen.

“Bing, I’m coming. Don’t you go yet,” a voice boomed. Brenda’s mother was a woman who seemed driven by the compulsive need to hug anyone to her enormous bosom. She banged the swinging door open with her ample hips and seized Bing in a suffocating embrace. In her other hand, she had a plate filled with sausage, bacon, eggs and mushrooms and had toasted the bread to the barest golden brown, just the way she knew Bing liked it. Brenda slid onto the stool at the counter next to Bing with her own cup of coffee.

“You doing okay?” she asked him.

The sincerity in her big brown eyes made Bing shift around uncomfortably. “Yeah… yeah, I think I’m doing all right,” Bing replied while thinking of how he slept on a cardboard box under a bridge and foraged for scraps from dumpsters to avoid these entirely unwelcome conversations.

“I know it’s coming up two years since it happened, is all,” Brenda pushed. Bing knew she was only trying to console him or be helpful. He just wanted to pick up the sausage lying in its pool of Worcestershire sauce and ram it down her throat. He was so angry; So rage-filled. Instead, he squeezed his knife and fork, gently sliced off a piece of sausage and swallowed it down hard. Again, he forced his eyes and mouth into something that resembled a smile to make Brenda feel better.

It was two years ago, tomorrow that Bing and his girlfriend had been in Cake Capers. They had ordered breakfast and coffee. Marie had been overly excited and jumpy. Bing had wondered why, but shrugged it off. They had chatted and joked like a normal couple enjoying a breakfast date. Marie had scolded him for ordering sausage, bacon, eggs, mushrooms and toast just browned the way Bing liked it. Bing had scoffed at her remarks about heart attacks before he was forty and had picked on her about the number of coffees she had downed in one morning. They had been laughing as they finished their meal and asked for the bill. Bing had paid. He reached into his pocket and brought out a large velvet navy-blue box. Marie had clapped her hands and squealed with delight. “I knew it, I knew it,” she had said. Bing had grinned and cracked the lid of the box, revealing a set of keys on the white satin lining. Marie’s face had dropped like molten lead. Her eyes were filled with dismay and she choked on what she wanted to say. Marie ran out of Cake Capers into the street and was hit by a passing car. He had screamed and yelled and cradled Marie’s head in his lap but she was already gone. Brenda had called the ambulance. Her mother had flapped about uselessly crying and stroking Marie's face. Bing had gritted his teeth and wanted to slap her, wanted her to go away and just leave them be. Then the ambulance had arrived and Marie was gone and he couldn’t go on in his old life or job or see his old friends. He abandoned it all. Bing couldn’t stand the pity in the eyes of Brenda or her mother every time they forced him into their café and shoved free food and coffee in his face. He knew anyone who gave him so much as a curious glance got his pity story from them too. He knew, because random people had approached him, pushing a twenty into his palm or offering a pre-paid meal the next time he was in Cake Capers. The sympathetic looks and charity made him so bitter, he could taste it.

Bing walked with his head down, staring at his toes and tried to keep warm. The further he walked, the more the anger ebbed away and the calmer he began to feel. Eventually, he looked up and with surprise realised that he had no idea where he was. A lone store stood on the corner of the block. Its sign read Chelsea’s Second Hands. He pulled the old brass handle. A tinkling bell signalled his arrival. Bing’s eyes watered, struck by the smell of mothballs. In the dim light, he could see the store was impeccably clean. There wasn’t a dust mote floating in the shafts of sunlight filtering in through the sparkling window. Bing’s teeth were still chattering. He browsed amongst a rack of winter coats and observed a row of boots, polished fit to see a man’s reflection in the worn leather.

A kitten was licking its paws, seated beside the row of shining leather boots. Bing looked about for someone in charge of the store. He glanced back at the kitten and was surprised to see a child sitting in the exact spot the kitten had been. “Help you, mister?” The boy asked. His voice almost had a purring quality to it. Bing shook his head, sure he was imagining it. An extremely tall, thin man entered from a storeroom at the back of the shop. He was so tall and so thin, he almost seemed to disappear within the shadows cast by the shelving. Bing started to feel uncomfortable, like he was intruding on a very peculiar place. His hand had been resting on a thick, warm winter overcoat. He was desperate to buy it but he had no money. He was still cold, but in the shelter of the shop at least his teeth had stopped chattering.

“You need the coat, but you have no money and you don’t like charity,” the thin man said.

“That sums it up,” Bing said wonderingly. “I’m sorry, I’ll be going now.”

“You can help me with a job that needs doing. Then you can have the coat as payment. That way, you receive what you need without charity and I get my job done. No charity to speak of.”

Bing nodded, smiling a real smile. He looked about the shop wondering what needed to be done. It was all so clean. The man gestured for him to come into the store room. Blood spattered boots and overcoats were piled up on a bench. Dishes covered in food and champagne flutes with lipstick and similar blood splatters waited on shelves. Bing stared uncomprehendingly at the gore about the room.

“We are a one of a kind shop,” said the thin man.

“No kidding,” Bing muttered.

“We travel to murder scenes, accidents, war zones and any other place where death has sown its seeds of destruction. We take what practical items are at the scene, bring them back to Chelsea’s Second Hands and restore them to a sellable state.”

“So that coat I wanted, it was covered in blood like these?” Bing gestured towards the pile on the bench.

“That very coat belonged to a war criminal who killed himself in 1943. He had murdered thousands of people in prison camps but then fell in love with one of the prisoners. The woman he obsessed over helped him develop empathy for his captives and imbued in him an overpowering sense of guilt for all the atrocities he had committed. She was shot by another soldier who was jealous of their relationship. He, of course, then killed himself. I daresay you are drawn to that particular coat, not because of the warmth it will afford you as you sleep beneath the overpass, but the guilty conscience that is woven through its very fabric.”

Bing stared at him with his mouth hanging open. This man knew everything about him. He followed the man towards a clear bench. A pair of blood-soaked boots was placed before him and a stool presented. Bing sat down and began to wipe the blood and mud from the leather and prise out the filth in the tread of the sole. All the while, the tall man told the story of he who had worn them.

“But how do you find out about all this?” Bing asked eventually. “Coats from the forties and shoes from the twenties and all the stories that happened. How is that possible?”

The tall man smiled but said nothing.

As dusk approached, Bing stretched and stood, smiling at the row of boots he had cleaned to shining perfection. The tall man presented the overcoat to Bing.

“I really appreciate this,” Bing started.

The tall man interrupted and waved away his words. “If there is anything else you need, a day’s work will earn it for you here,” said the tall man, by way of invitation.

Bing stepped out into the dusk, feeling the warmth of the overcoat envelop him and ward off the oncoming night-time chill. He shoved his hands in the pockets of the overcoat and retraced what he thought were his steps towards the overpass but he couldn’t remember his route. He turned about in circles trying to listen for the sounds of the highway. He buried his hands deeper and felt something beneath the lining of the pocket. His finger found a small hole and he dug about, retrieving what looked like a combination lock. It had four rows of numbers to choose from but instead of a shackle, it had a small red button. Bing turned it about in his hand, wondering what on earth it was for. He looked up and saw the kitten rubbing itself against a lamppost. He turned in circles again, looking for a landmark and suddenly the child with the strange voice was standing in front of him. Bing yelped in surprise.

“I wouldn’t use that, if I were you.” The boy still had a strange purring quality to his voice.

“What is it?” asked Bing.

“A time machine,” said the boy, his voice almost ending in a mewl.

Bing laughed and shoved the thing back into his pocket.

“Right then, smarty-pants. Can you tell me which way back to the overpass?”

The boy pointed East. Bing looked towards the direction he had pointed and when he turned back to say thanks, the boy was gone.

Eventually, Bing passed Cake Capers, all shut for the day, thank goodness, and reached the overpass. Bob was out cold in a drunken stupor. Bing had his overcoat, so he put his threadbare blanket over the man and lay down on his cardboard with a sigh and immediately fell asleep.

As the sun rose on the anniversary of his lover’s death, the guilt on Bing’s heart was more oppressive than it had ever been. She thought he was going to propose. It was a diamond ring she had been expecting and instead she got the keys to a crappy Vespa. Bing had pulled out the device in his pocket and rolled the four numbers about until he got the date 2017. He stared at it, thinking about the warning from the boy. He pressed the button.

Bing was standing on the footpath outside his apartment. He was dressed neatly in dark blue jeans, button down shirt and a woollen overcoat. There was a bulge in his jeans pocket. Bing pulled out the velvet box. Looking inside, he cringed at the Vespa keys laying on the white satin. He hailed a cab and told him to hurry to Main and 5^th where Marie and Bing had been admiring the engagement rings in the jewellery shop window the week before. He bought the pear-shaped diamond on the thin gold band Marie had loved the most and rushed back out to the cabbie waiting by the kerb.

Back outside Cake Capers, Bing had waited for Marie. He must have left his scarf at her house because she was wearing it. Her cheeks were scarlet with the cold and her eyes bright with anticipation. She wrapped his scarf about his neck, kissed his cheek and they went inside. Before they could even order, Bing got down on one knee on the checkered lino floor. Marie had squealed with excitement and told him how much she loved him. All the customers in the café had cheered and Brenda and her mother had cried with happiness.

After breakfast, Marie and Bing had left Cake Capers and decided to walk to her apartment. It was pouring rain. Marie ran across the road and took shelter under the awning of a bakery. Bing followed, walking slowly across the road in the rain and admiring how beautiful she looked, even though she was dripping wet. The car came from nowhere. Marie screamed. She ran into the road and cradled Bing’s head in her lap but he was already gone. Brenda had called the ambulance. Her mother had flapped about uselessly crying and stroking Bing’s face. Marie had gritted her teeth and wanted to slap her, wanted her to go away and just leave them be. Then the ambulance had arrived and Bing was gone.