Listen to Jim’s podcast:
http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/
or read his story below:
The No-Ending Stories Remain Neverending
It’s the stories that don’t quite end that fascinate me.
Happy endings are easy to compose or imagine, but Hapless Endings—now, that’s another thing.
Tiny, suspenseful stories that do not quite complete themselves pervade my life.
I am five years old, way back when, watching my Uncle Brandon servicing a customer’s car in front of the Sinclair Oil pump at my Grandfather’s general store.
Brandon checks oil and tires, cleans windshield, dabs at a bit of mud sticking to the front fender—you know, in these olden days when service stations actually provide service.
Then, he pops the gas tank top and starts pumping, keeping an eye on the meter. Uncle Brandon leans over the pump handle, lighted cigarette dangling from his lips, eyes squinted against the smoke. A half-inch-long glowing ash is just inches above the rising fumes, and even at age five I wonder what would happen if the ember dropped into the tank. It is a fleeting thought that remains with me to this day.
Uncle Brandon McGee survives hundreds of fill-ups with nary an accident, and he lives to entertain me with his gentle humor and family anecdotes through the years.
But every time I spy dangling ashes, I think about him.
There, across the street from my home, a worker uses his leaf blower to move detritus from one yard to someone else’s yard, all the while squinting from the cigarette he puffs. In the parking lot near my shop, a break-timer sucks on his lighted smoke while texting. Laughing, gossipy smokers remain outside the shop, taking final drags before entering and sharing their fragrance. Later, I sweep flattened filters over the curb, mimicking the leaf blower man by moving my stuff into someone else’s territory. Then, street sweepers will move those filters yet again. And the wind will bring them back to the door to be re-swept tomorrow.
Like I say, these overlapping neverending stories just keep on telling themselves, and seldom do they wrap themselves up into neatly-phrased punchlines. I can only pretend that each tale ends happily.
Does Uncle Brandon someday regret his habit? Does the leaf-blower reform? Do the shop-door puffers awaken and develop replacement habits? Does the texting break-timer survive his serial inhalations?
Do I ever stop watching, observing, wondering, writing, passing along my neverending thoughts? Maybe you can come up with a satisfactory ending. Or at least a hapless ending
© Jim Reed 2015 A.D.
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast