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Patriot Act

Jerry Cunningham

    One Saturday, Gary Portend looked at his profile in the bathroom mirror and held in his stomach. “You know, dear,” he said to his daughter on the phone, “I had to buy a new belt.”
    Gary Portend turned around and looked at his profile from the other side. Flab hung.
    “I went through the last three holes on my old belt, and I was walking to the store - you know I walk everywhere since I stopped driving - and I kept pulling up my pants. Over and over. That’s when I knew. I lost some serious pounds. Time for a new belt!” Gary Portend said.
    Gary Portend made a face in the mirror as he looked at his teeth; he scraped them with the nail on his index finger.
    “I swear to God I’m gonna have to buy all new pants. Yeah, it’s that carb diet. I saw it in a magazine at the library and ripped it out when the librarian wasn’t looking. No, not the Korean one or whatever, the tall blond one that sucks on computers. You know you pay fifty cents for every hour when you use the computer. They’ve got a little piggy bank. You just walk up and put in your quarters. I swear the tall blond one watches me like a hawk. A freaking hawk,” Gary Portend said.
    Gary Portend scraped at a small wart on his eye with the nail on his index finger and said: “I gotta go. There’s no bus on Sunday. I gotta catch the last one in like ten minutes to make it to the April Fool’s Day sale at the nursery. Yeah, everything’s cheaper there even on a regular day. I wanna catch a good deal if I can. You gotta come down one of these days, ok?”
    Gary Portend walked out of his apartment building and then waited five feet in front of the sign at the bus stop and glanced at the pamphlet in his hand; the bus schedule said that the 2X bus heading north was due at 4:09 p.m. At 4:08 p.m. the 2X pulled up with its flashers on and only a couple of passengers. The driver, a woman, said: “Staying in town?”
    Gary Portend said: “Of course. It’s the only way to ride for free, ain’t it?”
    The woman smiled; Gary Portend sat right behind her. The 2X drove on and passed new construction: a large apartment complex with a sign in front said: “Grove Side Apartments: A Lifestyle Community For Those 55 And Over.”
    “You know,” Gary Portend said to the woman, “there’s no grove back there. It’s just how they sell it to the geezers. I’m almost one myself, fifty-four and proud of it, but I don’t want to hang around a bunch of old people ‘til I die. You get my meaning?”
    The woman smiled in the mirror and said: “Where ya headed?”
    “The nursery. Just a mile. April Fool’s Day sale. I’m gonna pick up red, white and blue flowers for my oldest daughter and put them in one pot. She’ll get a kick outta that,” Gary Portend said.
    The woman said: “That’s awfully thoughtful. How many daughters do you have?”
    “Three. The flowers are for the one who still speaks to me,” said Gary Portend.
    Gary Portend laughed; then he said: “This bus is like having your own cab. I’ll just grab the last bus back and I’m done,” said Gary Portend.
    The bus slowed and then stopped across the street from the nursery; Gary Portend got off the bus, crossed the street, walked over the gravel by the sign for the bus stop and then walked into the nursery. There were several customers at the checkout counter as Gary Portend walked to the back of the building and out to the aisles of flowers and plants outdoors. There, he picked up a cardboard box and picked out a plant with red flowers, and a plant with white flowers, and a plant with blue flowers.
    At the checkout counter, the clerk, a teenaged girl with a headscarf, said: “Did you find everything all right, sir?”
    “Not really,” said Gary Portend. “I wanted to find a checkout girl and instead I got one of you people.”
    The clerk handed Gary Portend his change.
    Gary Portend carried his box of plants to the sign at the bus stop and stood five feet in front of the sign. He took out the bus schedule and studied it; the last bus was due five minutes later: at 4:44 p.m. He placed the box down on the gravel. At 4:44 p.m. he saw the bus coming and picked up the box of plants and held it with two hands. The sign on the front of the bus said “3X” and the flashers were off. Gary Portend put his left hand under the box to free his right hand; he waved at the bus driver, an older man with a black baseball cap. The bus driver waved back. The bus kept going.
    “There’s no such thing as a 3X bus in this town,” Gary Portend thought, “so maybe it’s just an off-duty bus.”
    Gary Portend waited another fifteen minutes.
    “Un-freaking believable,” Gary Portend said out loud, as he began the one mile walk back to his apartment building.
    On Monday morning at 7:59 a.m., Gary Portend grimaced at the young receptionist at the Municipal Building as she opened the lock on the glass front door.
    “Where’s the bus people?” Gary Portend asked.
    “Transit is on the second floor, sir: the steps are right there, and an elevator is down the hall,” said the receptionist. “Do you have an appointment, sir?”
    “Who’s the top guy, who’s the boss of the Transit idiots?” growled Gary Portend.
    “Sir, the Transit Manager is Bob Stevens. He’s in his office. Do you have an appointment, sir?” asked the receptionist.
    Gary Portend bounded up the stairs. He saw an office that said “Manager” and a man walking towards it with a cup of coffee.
    “Are you Bob Stevens?” Gary Portend asked.
    “Yes, sir. And you are?” said Bob Stevens.
    “Gary Portend. I’m here with a serious complaint. What kind of crappy hiring do you do with my tax dollars?” said Gary Portend. “I want you to write this down and make it all official.”
    Later, at his desk, Bob Stevens said: “Mr. Portend, you’ve made your position clear. The computer says that the bus driver on the 2X route on Saturday afternoon was a new gentleman. Perhaps he didn’t see you.”
    “The idiot had the sign on the front of the bus say ‘3X’ and there ain’t no 3X in this town, is there?” shouted Gary Portend.
    “Well, no sir, there is no 3X, but that’s just a function of the driver pressing the wrong button during set-up. It’s a simple mistake. More importantly, Mr. Portend, perhaps the driver just made a typical new employee mistake and didn’t see you or just missed the bus stop. He’ll get used to the stops in a jiffy, I’m sure,” said Bob Stevens.
    “Didn’t see me?” responded Gary Portend. “Are you out of your freaking mind? He waved at me! You wouldn’t be so protective of the old moron if I’d got mugged by a thug from the big city when I walked home - then I’d have a case! And you’d be out of a job!”
    Bob Stevens said: “You really want him fired over this? I need to talk to his supervisors first, of course.”
    “It’s a matter of me getting mugged or not,” replied Gary Portend. “It’s a matter of me maybe getting hit by a car when I walked home with my stupid box of stupid flowers. It’s a matter of safety. I’m here to do what’s right for this country, Mr. Big Shot Transit Manager! You should do what’s right for this country, and keep your stupid job at the same time!”
    “Mr. Portend, do you really think that getting this new employee fired is a patriotic act?” asked Bob Stevens as he sipped the cup of coffee.
    “You bet your life I do,” said Gary Portend. “I got time on my hands, and this is a small town. I only moved here to get away from city scum. But you want me to get mugged. I’m telling you, that ain’t gonna happen. It’s you or him.”
    That fall, the rains came early. Gary Portend’s oldest daughter drove down in the rain and visited; she picked up her father at his apartment, smiled at the potted, wilted, red, white and blue plants and haphazardly placed the pot in the back seat of her car. She then drove her father to a restaurant off of the freeway. On the way back, Gary Portend saw a man with a handmade cardboard sign standing at the upcoming freeway exit.
    “You know dear, if we were in the city,” said Gary Portend, “they’d come up to you with a handful of newspaper and pretend to wash your windshield when you stop at the light. Then, if you don’t give them money, they kill you. Thank God I moved you girls away from those people.”
    The car stopped at the red light; the windshield wipers squeaked. The man with the sign wore a black baseball hat and he held the sign with his left hand; with his right hand, he held out an open palm.
    Gary Portend waved back.

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