On the train, the self-made man liked to doodle on rolling paper. A habit that helped him limit the number of cigarettes he smoked. This particular day he drew smooth clouds in the shapes of animals with a pre-sharpened graphite pencil. The man looked up at times, aware of new passengers boarding the train. As he had just finished a startlingly realistic elephant cloud, a man in an old fraying coat and leather Clarks stepped on. The self-made man could see he wore a colorful Hawaiian shirt underneath as he sat down in the seat across the aisle. The stranger met his eyes and smiled. This made the self-made man uncomfortable and he looked back down at his drawing quickly.
Ten minutes passed. The train was running through his least favorite stretch of the city. Dilapidated buildings grew crooked from the ground like stomped on sprouts. He could feel the man seated across from him straining his neck to see his drawings. The self-made man sprinkled bits of tobacco onto his depictions of billowy animals and rolled the thin paper in a precise, careful fashion. His hands shook. Before he could search his coat pockets for matches, the man seated across from him held out a fat zippo lighter. The self-made man politely smiled a ‘thank you’ and dipped his head down to the blue flame, lighting his cigarette. In his fingers, the zoo of animals burned and died. He watched a plume of steam rise from a factory building into the sky and balloon into a giant clover.
The man in the Hawaiian shirt began speaking to him now. First beginning with ‘how do you do’, then ‘where are you on your way to’, and finishing with ‘oh you work there, what’s your job?’ He found himself lying frequently and was not sure why. He settled his eyes down at his freshly polished shoes and smoothed down his creased pants, hiding his ankles. His socks did not match today. Finally, when the conversation had come to a lull, the self-made man relaxed from his upright position.
He took a large drag from the cigarette. From across the aisle, the stranger coughed laboriously. A young girl, about three years old had turned around in her seat in front of the self-made man and stared at him emotionlessly. The man smiled at her, “hello.” The young girl did not respond, but instead grinned ear-to-ear. Her wispy blonde hair was artfully held at the back of her head in a shiny red bow. Her mother, who now was asking the child to please sit nicely, must have put quite a lot of time into this. The man smiled to himself, imagining the young girl squirming atop a bathroom counter while her mother struggled to get strands of hair to cooperate. He watched the mother fiddle with a piece of paper. It was getting soft as she continually crumpled it up and neatly unfolded it in her clammy hands. He could only make out a line of digits scrawled with blotchy ink. The way her wing tip painted eyelids moved up and down so rapidly reminded the man of a hummingbird.
When the self-made man exited the train, the rush of the wind greeted him forcefully, bending his lanky frame backwards. He composed himself, checking his watch, and molding his slicked hair into its normal position. The self-made man was running late. But not for a meeting or lunch with another suited executive. Despite his formal attire and tightly regimented schedule, it was the man’s day off.
His first stop was a soda shop three blocks away. Fishing for his wallet, the man ordered two strawberry ice cream cones. It was a bit too cold for ice cream. But he could vividly recall seeing other boys walking with their fathers in the park, both of them licking ice cream cones. So he would buy the ice cream. “On second thought, could I make the second cone chocolate?” the self-made man asked the aproned cashier behind the counter.
“Of course, no problem, sir,” the cashier grabbed the scoop for the chocolate ice cream. “That will be one dollar, please.”
The man paid for the ice cream and clumsily left the soda shop with both cones and his brief case in hand. The bell on the door called everyone’s eyes to him as he fumbled with his belongings. He looked down at his watch once again. The man always caught himself marveling at how time sped on and on without any regards to the people who needed it the most. The world could be so impersonal.
Suddenly the man stopped. A pink river with brilliant red flecks of strawberry had begun to trickle down his wrist and now a brown one was intermingling. He took no notice as the cold liquid ran into his suit sleeve. A window display of a store had caught his attention. He found himself entranced by it, unable to remove himself from his spot on the pavement. A homeless man with a beard a foot long crooning a Sam Cooke song passed him. He carried a rusty Folgers coffee can. A young lady in a cheetah print coat and bright red lipstick brushed his arm as she made her way to an interview at a modeling agency. The self-made man took no notice of anyone, until a woman sitting on a bench outside the store disrupted his staring. “A present for you wife?” She asked him. She had a warm, friendly face, freckled with sun spots.
The self-made man looked at her speechlessly. He did not nor had he ever had a wife. When he did not answer, she smiled and asked, “How far along is she?” She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck as a gust of wind went through the both of them. The man swallowed, flustered. He collected himself and walked away briskly down the block. Looking over his shoulder, he could see the woman on the bench outside of the maternity wear store stare after him with a confused expression.
Finally, he was there, and only eight minutes late. A boy in only jeans and a Superman tee shirt came bounding up to him, excitedly taking the chocolate ice cream cone from his hand. The self-made man watched amused as the young boy hopped on the bench next to the man, eagerly getting chocolate all over his face. He dug some napkins out of his briefcase and cleaned the boy’s face for him through the boy’s protests. The boy only talked after he had finished his ice cream. He, suddenly remembering his manners, thanked the self-made man for this kind gesture. “How is the third grade so far, Walter?” The self-made man asked him.
Walter looked up at the sky, deeply pondering this question. “School is dumb,” he said finally. The man laughed. He listened as Walter happily chattered about what he would buy with his newly acquired birthday money and how his mother planned to take him to a baseball game later that spring. This made the man’s heart ache. The word mother. After noticing Walter shiver in the chill fall air, he put his coat around the boy’s shoulders.
“I wish I had a dad,” Walter said suddenly, “all the other kids in my class have dads.”
The self-made man did not know what to say about this for some time.
“They’re not all that great, really. My dad didn’t like me much.” He said finally. He looked out into the empty playground where all the kids should have been and put his arm around the small boy.
Meg Bertram lives in Minnesota where she studies creative writing at Concordia University. Her work has been published in Rusty Truck, Fade Poetry, and Shot Glass Journal.