Was a late Wednesday morning in the first week of August, muggy as all get out, had only done two shines so far, but got one decent tip. It was getting up to about noon, I was hungry and decided to go over to Pete’s for a pastrami grinder. None of my bookie friends were around to watch the shoe shine box, so I slung the thing over my arm and took it with me. Half way across Divinity Street, I saw Nikki coming out of Jonsies running towards Novack’s Pharmacy, which I had just left. Guessed she didn’t see me in my usual spot once across the street, and she’d started to turn back toward home. I screamed her name as loud as I could, but thought she couldn’t hear me over the traffic at the West End corner. Lost sight of her as she went back towards Jonsies. There were two ways to get to Pete’s from Novack’s, you either crossed the end of Divinity Street, past Spas, and then went over the bridge and crossed West Street, or you easily crossed School Street next to Jonsies, and just ran a short distance along the sidewalk over the river to the luncheonette. The shoe shine box over my back got stuck in Pete’s door, and one of the owners, Archie Gatzuras, had to help me out getting it in. She was sitting on the last stool at the counter talking to Archie’s brother, Johnny, in Greek. Felt like the biggest idiot in the place. I’d seen her, lost her, and she beat me here. Johnny waved me to come down to the end of the counter, there was one seat open, and it was right next to her. He left us alone. She, taking the shoe shine box off my shoulder, went over and stuck it in the corner. Coming back next to me, her arm was put gently through mine, accompanied by another big Nikki smile. “You can out swim me, Joseph Michael Bergeron, but you can’t out run me.”
Posted on: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 21:34:53 +0000