Just Feed Sam

From the frosted panes of a dirty bus window stuck shut with ice from a storm the night before, Ms. Vivian Johns sat in the regular meditation of sameness that passed before her every day at this time. No remarkable thoughts surfaced on this early morning, just as they did not on most mornings. She is waiting for the bus to make its way to the center of town, where she hurries the down three quick steps where she steps off and marches nearly straight into the same greasy spoon where she has been a server for the past 17 years.

It’s a good, reliable job, for the most part. She enjoys her work. It certainly isn’t what she set out to do 36 years ago, when she first arrived in the city. Originally, she came to the city with her lifelong love. Who knows where he is now? Enamored by the big city lights, he was quick to leave his sweet country girl. She pondered, “Was she happy?” She wasn’t unhappy. Vivian decided to stay because, frankly, there really wasn’t much to return home to except the judgy eyes of a small town.

Vivian wasn’t young anymore, but she wasn’t old either. She had certainly done her time behind that bright orange, formica lunch counter, counting the little white overlapping boomerang shapes as the late afternoon sun warmed her face. Her lunch regulars visited, as they do nearly every day. She comforted them as much as they cheered her. They came in for her chili, her specialty. Crafted with time, skill and care. She had been experimenting with flavors she missed from back home.

Every day, when four o’clock rolled around, she would gather her coat and bag, and sit at Table 1, waiting for the bus to pull up to take her back to her companion, her one true love, her Siamese cat Sam; patiently awaiting his dinner. On the bus, she gazed as the world breezed by, an ad on the back of a magazine left on the seat beside her caught her eye. “SEE AMERICA!” She thought to herself… she’d never really seen anything, never really wanted to, never really thought about it. It was an ad for a cruise.

Vivian envisioned being served instead of being a server, of being somewhere else, not just anywhere else, but this place. This fascinating place. A phone number stared back at her from the glossy back cover. “Thank you!” she thought. The entire journey home collapsed into slow motion in her eagerness to make that phone call. Vivian didn’t have much in the way of money or even ambition, but this felt necessary - she was going to make this happen one way or another.

Finally home, she flies past Sam, who - is clearly offended by the break in her routine. Coat still on, she feverishly dials the number from the back of the magazine. She is so warm now, she is sweat-soaked. A salesman picks up the line and spits out his salesy spiel, which she ignores until he can get to the point – the cost. What would this cost? This place. This experience. She has to do it. She deserves it.

Impatiently and impulsively, Vivian now wants only this. The salesman, taking his time recounting the necessary details, lands on a cost of $16,000. Vivian gasps and is devastated. How can this be? For 11 days? If she added in the costs of her lost work, boarding Sam, and flights, that’s a cool $20,000! And, girls like her don’t get vacation time. No. Definitely not. Can’t happen. Dream crushed.

Vivian, confirming the price with the salesman, cannot bring herself to say a cordial goodbye and hangs up the phone. She sits down. Instead of being flushed with excitement, a quiet rage takes its place. Still, someone needs to feed Sam.

“How is that even an option for anyone? People go on $20,000 vacations?” Is this what she would even do with $20,000? This place? This trip? Having been home for nearly an hour, Vivian removes the confining coat and wet galoshes, and goes directly to bed. This madness will not rob her of good sleep. Simply - she does not have the money. Problem solved.

Her mind is crowded with possibilities. Think what having $20,000 would do for her. It would ease her daily struggle; improve her quality of life. She could buy a car or a condo with more elbow room... FOOLISHNESS!

The next morning Vivian consoles herself with a quick stop into the corner bookseller. There she finds just the thing to bring her some relief, a little black book to capture her thoughts. With this little bit of retail therapy, she will purge her mind of the ever-growing list of wants, needs, and dreams; in this moment, she is satisfied.

Vivian cannot stop her mind from thinking about the difference $20,000 would make in her life; it gnawed at the moments between dreaming and daylight. She cursed the salesman. Obsessively, she scribbles her what-ifs, why-nots and why-nows into her little-black book.

What has she been doing with her life? Working, working, working. Is it all just to pay the rent? Is there a purpose to the diligence and routine of her prompt, daily bus stop attendance? The front right pocket of her winter coat is where the little black book lives, and the more she carries it, the more she conjures; she accepts the space to dream. Perhaps she can become one of those people who can will good fortune.

Vivian continued to catalogue this unfamiliar stream of consciousness, of dreams. She was nearly 60, about to retire, and she was tired. She cursed the salesman again, and the magazine.

Staring out the same bus window, only days before, she had been content. The sight of a bookstore reminds her of the little black notebook she has nestled in her coat pocket. She is profoundly frustrated, angry at herself for failing to do anything significant with her life and frustrated by the things she could have done. This little black book captures the story of her unlived life, and she is deeply sad.

Once again on her route, in her seat, on her bus - she pulls the notebook from her coat pocket and thumbs through the now, filled pages. Line after line. 130 perfectly, perforated pages. In her reflective melancholy, she thinks, “what a waste of a good notebook.” It would have better served to keep track of errands or grocery shopping lists, instead of unfulfilled dreams and elusive frivolities. It weighs heavier with each passing day.

Vivian carelessly jams the object of her frustration back into her coat pocket and stares once more into her everyday reality, a blurry meditation of store fronts and streetscapes. She is so used to seeing the sameness of things that she is disconnected from it and yet absorbed by it.

A man. A loud man. AN OBNOXIOUS MAN! A man with many packages and bags wedges himself onto Vivian’s seat, suddenly forcing her small frame closer to the cold window and rudely jolting her out of her complacency. She is annoyed. In her solace, she hadn’t noticed the influx of people now occupying her bus. “What would these people do with her $20,000?” She laughed. Her money? She had become so accustomed to writing her $20,000 dreams down in the little black book that she had forgotten that there was no money, just a notebook full of dreams.

She began to feel more content and reconsidered the money. After all, she didn’t actually need anything she didn’t already have, and she had plenty of time in her life to do some of the “affordable” things she had carefully logged into her beloved little black book.

The bus stopped. Vivian, empowered and optimistic, stood and shouldered her way down the crowded aisle, down the three quick steps, and off the loud bus with its, all too bright fluorescent lighting.

Three blocks down and one block over, Vivian stops at her mailbox and sifts the junk from the bills. There is a suspicious piece of “junk” mail. She carries the bundle upstairs under her arm, tossing the pile on the coffee table to focus on her first priority, Sam. Someone needs to feed Sam.

After toying with the idea of simply throwing the unexpected envelope away, she decides to open it. She reads in oversized letters, “CONGRATULATIONS! Ms. Vivian Johns, it is our honor to award this check in the amount of $20,000 to you for your submission of a most superb recipe. We have had many applicants this year and you are the first prize winner for your Greasy Spoon Chili.”

Vivian sat back. No. She did no such thing! This must be a scam. What if? How would they have gotten her recipe? Vivian sat back and closed her eyes. She recalled a coworker asking a lot of very specific questions some months back about the “magic ingredients” of her chili. No. It can’t be? Vivian stood straight up and marched right back out the door heading back to the diner.

However long the day had been, she couldn’t resist knowing more. After what felt like the longest bus ride ever, she charged through the glass double doors of the diner to find the night shift girl who had asked her all those questions.

“I knew you would never submit your recipe,” Tracy said. “So, I did it for you.” It was real. The $20,000 check. It was real! Her hand dove into her coat pocket for the little black book. It was gone. Gone? Vivian searched frantically for her little black book, but it was gone.

The bus. Skating across the newly mopped floor, she rushed out the doors of the diner, barely catching the last bus home for the evening. Vivian spent the entire ride tearing apart each sticky, worn, leather seat. Gone. Her beloved notebook. Now, she was one of those people. Vivian had the money she had hoped for. Her dreams, they were gone.

It was obvious to Vivian what she needed to do with her $20,000 windfall. She took the day off work, deposited the money into her modest bank account, and walked back to the corner bookseller. Vivian bought a brand new little black book.

THE END

This story is written by Erin Elisabeth Western, 2/15/2021