authorjeffbaker

            Don’t Blame the Messenger

                                          By Jeff Baker

            “Okay, if you’re an angel, how come you’ve got a bicycle instead of wings?”

            “Angels are messengers,” the man at the front of the bike said. “Haven’t you ever heard of a bike messenger?”

            “Yeah, but I…Lookout!” Stan yelled.

            They swerved to avoid the car stopped in the road. Stan held onto the back of the bike for dear life. He was wishing he hadn’t listened about a half hour ago when the man had shown up at his hotel, asked if this was room 243, asked if he was Stan Howard and told him he was an angel.

            There was nothing angelic about the words the Angel spat out as he regained control of the bike.

            “Pardon my French,” he said.

            “We’re in Amsterdam,” Stan said. “And you told me this was urgent.”

            “It is,” said the Angel.

            “If you’re an angel why don’t you just OOOP!”

            They hit a bump in the road. The Angel swore again.

            “Why don’t we just fly?” Stan said.

            “I don’t have a license to fly with passengers,” the Angel said glancing back with a grin.

            “This is some kind of Amsterdam drug deal, isn’t it?” Stan asked. “I’m not into that. The only thing I ever…”

            The Angel interrupted.

            “The strongest thing you ever tried was weed; the last time was in College, January 23, 2006. That was at a party where you and Billy Mitzer went into the back room and made out.” The Angel slowed the bike to a stop. “But you really had a crush on Kev Sanchez and you never told anyone.”

            Stan’s jaw dropped.

            “Billy is straight; he’s married with three kids and was so stoned he doesn’t even remember that night.”

            “How do you…” Stan began.

            “I’m an angel. I know things. Like your needing to be right here right now. And that my telling you I was an angel was the only thing I could say that would get you on the back of this bike.”

            Stan had stepped off the bike when the Angel started pedaling away.

            “Hey!” Stan yelled. The Angel looked back and called back at Stan.

            “You might want to give Kev Sanchez a call.”

            Stan thought about running after him, but instead turned and started walking back to the hotel.

            The woman had been pounding on the door of room 243 for about five minutes when the door across the hall opened.

            “He’s not there,” the man said.

            “What?”

            “He left about thirty minutes ago.”

            “Well, then I have the wrong room,” she said. “I’m looking for my aunt.”

            “Older woman? American?” the man asked.

            “Yes!”

            “I saw her in the lobby a while back,” he said.

            “Oh. Okay, thanks,” she said heading down the hall.

            “Do you want a cup of coffee later?” he asked.

            She stopped and turned. He was her age and there was something about him.

            “Yes,” she said. “In the café, downstairs. Later.”

            She smiled and walked down the hall.

            She seemed nice, he thought as he watched her go. Who knows? Maybe they were destined to meet.

                                              —end—

                                     Deliveries in the Rear

                                              By Jeff Baker

            There was a line outside Deliveries in the Rear that night. The bar was always crowded on the weekends and Chris was leaning all over me smoking what I hoped wasn’t a joint. Jason was craning his neck looking to see if he knew the guy at the door. The three of us had driven out there that night our junior year of college.

            “Hey, Mickey, how much cash you got?” Jason asked me.

            “About twenty bucks, why?” I said.

            “Looks like they’re doing a cover charge. And I brought my I.D. but not my wallet.” Jason said. He was always forgetting his wallet.

            “Great,” I grumbled. This was 1982, and the only gay bar in the area.

            “I should have thought about bringing some beer to wait to get into a bar,” Chris said. “Hey, there’s a sign on the door.”

            “Lemmie check,” Jason said. He walked up to the front of the line for a moment. I felt like I was in the junior high lunchroom and they’d tell Jason to get to the back of the line.

            “Maybe it says ‘Closed for repairs,’” Chris said.

            “Cover charge is five bucks a head, it’s for some charity,” Jason said as he walked back. “Says something else; that slaves get in free with their masters.”

            “Kinky!” Chris said with a grin.

            I did some adding in my head. One of us was getting in free if we wanted to pay for a few drinks. By the time we reached the front of the line, we’d figured it out. Jason had said they were issuing “slaves” white tank tops. Jason had a shirt, Chris and I just had leather vests, but Jason didn’t have any cash. So, Jason, grinning, put on one of the tank tops with “Slave” written on it in magic marker. We sat down and I handed Jason a few bucks and told him to get us two beers apiece and that he was driving us home.

            “Yes, Sir!” Jason said heading over to the bar. I looked around in the typical dim bar light. I could make out several other guys in the white shirts, one giving his “master” a backrub.

Jason came back with the beers, bowing to us, playing the role to the hilt. A guy at the next table leaned over to us.

            “How much you think they’ll get for him?” the man said, indicating Jason.

            “Uh, he’s not for sale,” I said. Chris was snickering as he drank his beer.

            “They’re putting them up for auction later on for charity,” the man said, pointing to a sign by the stage. I stared at the sign; that was what it said.

            “Oh, I’m Steve,” he said.

            “Mickey,” I said, starting to laugh, imagining Jason being auctioned off to a bunch of little old ladies, none of which were going to be at the bar.

            About an hour later, Jason and the other “slaves” stood on the stage where the bands usually played as a drunken emcee in a top hat called out for bids, with all the money going to a local charity and all the “slaves” going home with their owners for the night, as the emcee said; “to do whatever you two want to.”

            When the bidding got to Jason I started laughing. He was mugging and flexing his pecs to the whistles of the crowd. There were a couple of bids and then Chris (who’d had a couple more beers) stood up and yelled “I bid five-thousand dollars!”

            Dead silence. Everybody stared at Chris.

            “Um, I don’t have five-thousand dollars,” Chris said. “I got twenty!”

            “Sold for five-thousand dollars,” the Emcee said.

            In the end, Steve offered thirty bucks and I put in some of my cash along with Chris’. Jason drove both of us home and Steve and I exchanged numbers.

            That was thirty-four years ago. Chris is gone now and I haven’t seen Jason in years. But Steve and I have been together thirty-two years now. It’s a heckuva way to meet, but hey! It worked for us!

                                                   —end—

(One note—I just glanced at the picture and saved it to my phone and wrote it on my lunch break. Somehow, I didn’t notice the buildings!)

                           Doctor Livingston, I Presume

                                           By Jeff Baker

            “I thought I’d find you here,” the first man said.

            “What? Oh, it’s you,” the second man said.

            “Who were you expecting?”

            “At least you didn’t ask me if I was Dr. Livingston,” said the second man. “That’s gotten old.”

            “Actually, it hasn’t been said yet,” said the first man. “Not for about another, let’s see, how many billion years?”

            “Millions of years,” said the second man. “It’d be on the display in your machine. You know, I’d almost forgotten we’d made the working prototype. Very cramped, but it apparently works if you’re back here.”

            “Tracking gizmo works pretty well,” said the first man. “It’s how I found you. “I figured you’d used the newer machine to cut out of there.”

            “All that fol-de-rol about paperwork and procedures. Of course I left!”

            “You came all the way back here to the Jurassic just to get away from the office!” The first man began to laugh.

            “Well, we’re not in the Jurassic,” the second man said. “We’re in the Cenozoic, I think. No big dinosaurs. And this view is worth it. The clouds, the hills, the lake.” He looked up and grinned. “It does get wet, though.”

            “I noticed your umbrella,” the first man said.

            “It poured a few hours ago. Look over there! A bird!”

            “What kind of bird?”

            “Not sure,” said the second man. “But I think it had feathers. Maybe the first one.”

            “We have to get back you know,” the first man said, staring out across the lake. “But not just yet.” He sat down.  “I brought coffee.”

            “Good,” said the second man. “I thought about it, but I was in a hurry. Pass the thermos, will you?”

            “Sure. Oh, look at those birds!”

                                                —end—