Written by a police officer on the Bangor ME PD
-The Storekeeper-
by Tim Cotton-
Pete, the clerk at the Quik Pick, saw him pulling in at 0237hrs and rushed across the store to the four-pot coffee maker. Pete prided himself in making fresh coffee for customers.
Bunn coffee machines are guardians against the slowly creeping sleepiness which haunts those who work late nights and early mornings.
Similar stainless-steel sentinels stand watch in small stores all over America. With a little coaxing from Pete, this Bunn made the best coffee in town. Incidentally it was also the only coffee in town at that hour.
Pete made sure the machine was kept clean and that the pots were always spotless. He worked 6 nights a week, didn’t talk much about his past life as a bookkeeper, and always said, “God rest her soul” when he spoke of his wife.
The widower’s boat shoes- a Dexter Shoe Company staple- had come apart about five years before. The smooth and formerly flapping soles were held to the blotched-brown leather uppers by several frayed loops of four-and-a-half-year-old silver duct tape. The stuff held nicely. Pete claimed the shoes were better than new.
What should have been a signature squeak of synthetic rubber soles on the well-waxed tile floors had now taken on the tones similar to that of a fine pair of footie pajamas being shushed across a kitchen floor by a 4-year-old searching for a morning bowl of Rice Krispies. Shush, shush, shush, scuff, shush.
“Don’t grab it yet, Timmy. I just started it when you pulled in.”
The cop walked over to the magazine rack and perused a swap and sell guide for a few minutes. He needed to find a, new-to-him, reasonably priced canoe. His old Grumman 16-footer had been run over by a pickup truck at a tent site near Big Pleasant Pond a few weeks before.
“Still looking for a canoe?” Pete asked while wearing his signature smirk. “Yes, Pete, I am still looking for a canoe,” came the reply from behind the racks of Bic lighters, cheap sunglasses, corn chips, and beef jerky.
"You shouldn’t have driven your truck over your last one!”
“I never should have told you that story, and let’s be clear, I BACKED over it” the cop replied coldly as he put the magazine back on the wire rack.
“There will be a time when you can let that go and we can start our conversations with things like, I hope your night has been fabulous, and good to see you, Timmy.”
Pete laughed again and pulled the Winston cigarette out from behind his ear. “You gonna be here a minute?” he asked as he stepped outside. He kept the door open to listen for the phone which never rang after midnight. The cop said, “I have to wait for the last bit of nectar to drip into that pot, don’t I?”
Pete used a paper match to light the cancer stick and took a drag. He held the smoke in his lungs like he had taken an oath to keep it safe from all harm, only freeing it to the cool night air when he determined he needed to make room for another pang-quenching drag.
The sulphur from the match hung in the air for a moment and the cop caught a whiff. For some reason the smell of burned paper matches and freshly lit tobacco carried memories of fishing trips with his buddies who smoked while they sat quietly with rod in one hand, butt in the other, while they patiently overlooked brooks and small ponds around Maine.
The cop had never smoked. His grandmother had died of complications from a stroke brought on, in-part, from cigarette smoking. It never seemed like a good idea.
He watched Pete smoke like a poorly shod character actor. He looked up at the stars and hummed unnamed songs. Pete waved at a couple of regularly scheduled truckers who passed at speed; honking the air horns as they rattled their overloaded diesels up the hill near the store.
Pete was the unelected mayor of that dark stretch of lonely road for 6 nights a week. A welcome conversationalist for the lonely ladies leaving the late-shift, a cheerful cheerleader for scratch-off addicts who thought they were winning because they collected five dollars in proceeds after buying ten dollars worth of tickets, and all the men who needed a cold sixer placed in crisp paper bag which had to be snapped to attention by the widowed clerk.
He had held better jobs, but treated this job like it was the best job he had ever held.
Pete walked back in and poured two cups of coffee. One for the cop, and one for himself. His vintage aviator glasses were bent, and had apparently been bent back, in several crooked spots along the temple. His green Izod golf shirt, untucked, was faded but clean. He wore Levis which always showed a well-ironed crease.
From a distance he looked like a neatly dressed older man going to minor league baseball game in late summer. Up close, and over a deeply-discounted cup of early morning coffee, he looked like a worn down and smiling widower who enjoyed the company of a diverse group of people, all with similar stories, for six nights a week.
Pete growled, “Arrest anyone tonight?” The cop replied, “Not yet, unless you have a sordid criminal past which you have been keeping from me.” Pete smiled and asked if the coffee was at least adequate. The cop said, “Barely.” They both laughed and sipped as the hum of the cooler compressors filled in the awkward spots of silence between the two tired men conversing about nothing in particular.
Pete said, “Walk out back with me.” The cop asked if he treated all his customers this way. Pete replied, “Only the customers who can’t back up a pick-up truck while camping 50 miles from the nearest asphalt”
They meandered through the storeroom, stepping over case stock of candy bars, paper products, and flats of Diet Coke and Root Beer. Pete unlocked the steel door after disarming the panic-bar alarm and opened it into alley where he parked his rusty 1988 Ford Ranger.
The roof rack on the aluminum truck cap held a red Old Town Tripper canoe. It was scratched, dinged, and dented but the Royalex was a resilient material. The boat had plenty of life left.
Pete asked him if it looked familiar. “Nope, it doesn’t.”
The cop’s answer made Pete’s night all the better as it allowed him to deliver a line which sounded like it had been practiced for days- “That’s because it’s not flat on one end like the one you destroyed on your camping trip!”
Pete laughed, the cop smiled and replied “Well, which river are you planning on canoeing? The St.John? Allagash? St. Croix?”
Pete said, “Where do YOU want to go? It’s yours now, I haven’t used it since 1983; my wife and I used to fish the Union River in that boat. Haven’t put it in the water since she died, God rest her soul.”
“I can’t take your boat, Pete. Let me buy it from you. That boat is worth 750 bucks at a minimum. I’ll get you the money next week.”
Pete scowled and said, “I don’t want your money, I want this thing out of my barn. Take it. When you have a son or a daughter tell them Uncle Peter wanted them to go fishing. I’ll drop it in your dooryard on the way home from the store in the morning. I’ll put it out in back of your place, on the grass. Don’t run it over!”
They finished their coffee outside, in front of the store, while Pete had another smoke. The cop said, “Pete, is there anything you need that I could trade you for the boat? It’s so kind of you to offer, but I don’t feel right about taking it for nothing.”
Pete scowled and said, “I have to get back to work. The boat will be in your dooryard tomorrow. That’s the end of the story. Go camping again when you get some time off, it paddles well and is a lot more stable than your old Grumman. Especially now that it’s flat on one end. You will never make your 25 years if you don’t take some time for yourself.”
Pete blew Winston smoke up into the air like he was crop dusting the stars- “Buy me a roll of duct tape so I can polish my shoes.”
“I’ll do that Pete, I’ll do that. They even make the stuff in brown now.”
He flashed his spotlight through the window as he drove up the hill toward his remaining business checks. Pete flipped him the bird. Pete was pleasant like that.
****
-The Storekeeper-
by Tim Cotton-
Pete, the clerk at the Quik Pick, saw him pulling in at 0237hrs and rushed across the store to the four-pot coffee maker. Pete prided himself in making fresh coffee for customers.
Bunn coffee machines are guardians against the slowly creeping sleepiness which haunts those who work late nights and early mornings.
Similar stainless-steel sentinels stand watch in small stores all over America. With a little coaxing from Pete, this Bunn made the best coffee in town. Incidentally it was also the only coffee in town at that hour.
Pete made sure the machine was kept clean and that the pots were always spotless. He worked 6 nights a week, didn’t talk much about his past life as a bookkeeper, and always said, “God rest her soul” when he spoke of his wife.
The widower’s boat shoes- a Dexter Shoe Company staple- had come apart about five years before. The smooth and formerly flapping soles were held to the blotched-brown leather uppers by several frayed loops of four-and-a-half-year-old silver duct tape. The stuff held nicely. Pete claimed the shoes were better than new.
What should have been a signature squeak of synthetic rubber soles on the well-waxed tile floors had now taken on the tones similar to that of a fine pair of footie pajamas being shushed across a kitchen floor by a 4-year-old searching for a morning bowl of Rice Krispies. Shush, shush, shush, scuff, shush.
“Don’t grab it yet, Timmy. I just started it when you pulled in.”
The cop walked over to the magazine rack and perused a swap and sell guide for a few minutes. He needed to find a, new-to-him, reasonably priced canoe. His old Grumman 16-footer had been run over by a pickup truck at a tent site near Big Pleasant Pond a few weeks before.
“Still looking for a canoe?” Pete asked while wearing his signature smirk. “Yes, Pete, I am still looking for a canoe,” came the reply from behind the racks of Bic lighters, cheap sunglasses, corn chips, and beef jerky.
"You shouldn’t have driven your truck over your last one!”
“I never should have told you that story, and let’s be clear, I BACKED over it” the cop replied coldly as he put the magazine back on the wire rack.
“There will be a time when you can let that go and we can start our conversations with things like, I hope your night has been fabulous, and good to see you, Timmy.”
Pete laughed again and pulled the Winston cigarette out from behind his ear. “You gonna be here a minute?” he asked as he stepped outside. He kept the door open to listen for the phone which never rang after midnight. The cop said, “I have to wait for the last bit of nectar to drip into that pot, don’t I?”
Pete used a paper match to light the cancer stick and took a drag. He held the smoke in his lungs like he had taken an oath to keep it safe from all harm, only freeing it to the cool night air when he determined he needed to make room for another pang-quenching drag.
The sulphur from the match hung in the air for a moment and the cop caught a whiff. For some reason the smell of burned paper matches and freshly lit tobacco carried memories of fishing trips with his buddies who smoked while they sat quietly with rod in one hand, butt in the other, while they patiently overlooked brooks and small ponds around Maine.
The cop had never smoked. His grandmother had died of complications from a stroke brought on, in-part, from cigarette smoking. It never seemed like a good idea.
He watched Pete smoke like a poorly shod character actor. He looked up at the stars and hummed unnamed songs. Pete waved at a couple of regularly scheduled truckers who passed at speed; honking the air horns as they rattled their overloaded diesels up the hill near the store.
Pete was the unelected mayor of that dark stretch of lonely road for 6 nights a week. A welcome conversationalist for the lonely ladies leaving the late-shift, a cheerful cheerleader for scratch-off addicts who thought they were winning because they collected five dollars in proceeds after buying ten dollars worth of tickets, and all the men who needed a cold sixer placed in crisp paper bag which had to be snapped to attention by the widowed clerk.
He had held better jobs, but treated this job like it was the best job he had ever held.
Pete walked back in and poured two cups of coffee. One for the cop, and one for himself. His vintage aviator glasses were bent, and had apparently been bent back, in several crooked spots along the temple. His green Izod golf shirt, untucked, was faded but clean. He wore Levis which always showed a well-ironed crease.
From a distance he looked like a neatly dressed older man going to minor league baseball game in late summer. Up close, and over a deeply-discounted cup of early morning coffee, he looked like a worn down and smiling widower who enjoyed the company of a diverse group of people, all with similar stories, for six nights a week.
Pete growled, “Arrest anyone tonight?” The cop replied, “Not yet, unless you have a sordid criminal past which you have been keeping from me.” Pete smiled and asked if the coffee was at least adequate. The cop said, “Barely.” They both laughed and sipped as the hum of the cooler compressors filled in the awkward spots of silence between the two tired men conversing about nothing in particular.
Pete said, “Walk out back with me.” The cop asked if he treated all his customers this way. Pete replied, “Only the customers who can’t back up a pick-up truck while camping 50 miles from the nearest asphalt”
They meandered through the storeroom, stepping over case stock of candy bars, paper products, and flats of Diet Coke and Root Beer. Pete unlocked the steel door after disarming the panic-bar alarm and opened it into alley where he parked his rusty 1988 Ford Ranger.
The roof rack on the aluminum truck cap held a red Old Town Tripper canoe. It was scratched, dinged, and dented but the Royalex was a resilient material. The boat had plenty of life left.
Pete asked him if it looked familiar. “Nope, it doesn’t.”
The cop’s answer made Pete’s night all the better as it allowed him to deliver a line which sounded like it had been practiced for days- “That’s because it’s not flat on one end like the one you destroyed on your camping trip!”
Pete laughed, the cop smiled and replied “Well, which river are you planning on canoeing? The St.John? Allagash? St. Croix?”
Pete said, “Where do YOU want to go? It’s yours now, I haven’t used it since 1983; my wife and I used to fish the Union River in that boat. Haven’t put it in the water since she died, God rest her soul.”
“I can’t take your boat, Pete. Let me buy it from you. That boat is worth 750 bucks at a minimum. I’ll get you the money next week.”
Pete scowled and said, “I don’t want your money, I want this thing out of my barn. Take it. When you have a son or a daughter tell them Uncle Peter wanted them to go fishing. I’ll drop it in your dooryard on the way home from the store in the morning. I’ll put it out in back of your place, on the grass. Don’t run it over!”
They finished their coffee outside, in front of the store, while Pete had another smoke. The cop said, “Pete, is there anything you need that I could trade you for the boat? It’s so kind of you to offer, but I don’t feel right about taking it for nothing.”
Pete scowled and said, “I have to get back to work. The boat will be in your dooryard tomorrow. That’s the end of the story. Go camping again when you get some time off, it paddles well and is a lot more stable than your old Grumman. Especially now that it’s flat on one end. You will never make your 25 years if you don’t take some time for yourself.”
Pete blew Winston smoke up into the air like he was crop dusting the stars- “Buy me a roll of duct tape so I can polish my shoes.”
“I’ll do that Pete, I’ll do that. They even make the stuff in brown now.”
He flashed his spotlight through the window as he drove up the hill toward his remaining business checks. Pete flipped him the bird. Pete was pleasant like that.
****
