Just Another Day

He spied the young man sitting on one of those vinyl covered kitchenette chairs on the sidewalk in front of a burned, charred home. The chair was discolored and ripped with pieces of muddy yellow foam leaking out on to the cement. The young man’s clothes appeared to be smoking.

He walked over to the disheveled young man, put out his hand and introduced himself.

“People call me Blackie.”

“Lester.” He held out his hand and they shook.

“Got another chair?”

“Sure, they are part of a matching set. Well, they did match this morning.”

Blackie sat down next to him. For a brief moment they just stared out to the horizon watching the sunset outlining the buildings across the street.

“You do know you are smoking.”

“Yeah, but I plan on giving it up for health reasons.” Lester smiled at Blackie and then pulled two bottles of beer from a cooler alongside his chair.

They sat there staring as the evening sky darkened.

“Yeah, I was caught up in a kind of explosion earlier this afternoon.”

“You okay?”

“I will live, but the kitchen, the kitchen I think, the kitchen has passed.”

“Are you telling me that you killed a kitchen?”

“Not by myself. I did have help.”

Another pause. Another sip.

“She went to the hospital, the guys from the fire department kind of insisted.”

“Well, you still have your health.”

Lester coughed and turned to Blackie. “Yeah, there's that. Don't have no kitchen or kitchen set anymore. That's real vinyl. Was a kind of red, came complete with a table. They were a wedding gift from her parents. I saved these two chairs.”

Another long pause.

Lester stood. He ran his hands through his singed hair. “Yup, this has been one of those days.”