everything except himself

It had just started to rain lightly as the tower’s maintenance man parked his utility van a block down from the tower, right in front of a mom and pop pizza shop he knew well. The shop, in the face of bankruptcy before the tower’s construction, has flourished since the tower was built. Back when the city hall building was still standing, no one came, until the proposal for the tower came up, that is. At first, the town hall meetings for the tower’s construction didn’t effect the shop’s business, since people still left the meetings to go eat at the newly built and highly advertised West End: Theater, Restaurant, and Grocery. Though it was much farther away than the pizza shop, everyone wanted to go feel like they were a part of something new, and, hey, it was popular at the time. So, people did it.

Now, what changed the West End fad? One day, as everyone was sitting together in the former city hall building — there is a new one being built — the people, forced to sit closely together for lack of space, were also forced into talking for the failing air conditioning unit.

“Boy, I can’t wait for this meeting to be over with. Wonder what’s takin’ em so long?” A man said this aloud to no one in particular.

“Hey, where y’all goin’ after the meeting?” It was a rhetorical question from a man dressed in a way that didn’t suit his drawl. “We’re all headed to the West End,” he continued, even though everyone already knew that everyone else was going to the West End, but saying it still had that kind of effect of impressing people.

All the while, the mom and pop of the mom & pop pizza shop were passing notes back and forth like high school kids, until pop broke into laughter and mom turned her head to snicker in secrecy.

“Hey, what’ch’all laughing about over there?” A different man asked. “Heat gone to your heads?”

“You know West End?” Pop asked.

“Yeah, an’ who doesn’t?” Another man broke in. “We’re all gonna go eat there later, maybe catch a movie, too.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it’s called ‘West End: Theater, Restaurant, and Grocery’, right?” Pop said it with a smile.

“And it’s the best thing what ever happened to this town!” A woman chimed in, leaning over the back of her chair.

“Yeah, yeah, but don’t you think it’s got the damnedest name?” Pop said, hinting at something with a wink.

“I mean, it’s long but I don’t mind saying ‘West End’. It sounds nice!” The woman was looking confused.

“Well, I got another name for it!” Pop shouted, looking around and standing up a bit to make sure all the others could see him. “Let’s spell it out! ‘West’ starts with a…” he waited.

“‘W’,” mom said, acknowledging her husband.

“‘W’!” Pop repeated it loudly, getting more people interested. “‘End’ starts with a what?”

“‘E’,” a few people said back, trying to figure out whatever pop was talking about.

“‘E’!” Pop was smiling. “‘Theater’ starts with…”

“‘T’,” more people shouted back in a kind of unison.

“‘T’, and that spells, ‘WET’!” Pop was turning around in place, with his finger pointing up at the ceiling. “Now what does ‘Rest-aur-ant’ start with?” Pop commanded.

“‘R’,” more and more people were interested.

“And ‘And’ starts with an ‘A’, and ‘Grocery’ starts with a ‘G’, and that spells all together…”

In one big guffaw, pop’s makeshift congregation shouted, “Wet rag!”

Like a lightning strike, this revelation shot through the crowd. Everyone realized they couldn’t be caught dead at a place called “Wet Rag” now that everybody knew about it. They had to come up with somewhere to eat after the already late-to-start meeting ended.

“So, where we gonna eat then?” A man asked his wife.

“Well, now!” Pop interrupted. “I don’t know if you know,” Pop was drawing them in, “but me and ma’ here we run a pizza parlor. We’d be real happy to see you all there after the meetin’.” Pop was smiling the same smile he wore when he and ma’ applied for the loan to start up their business 10 years ago. It worked then…

“Now, I don’t know if I speak fer everyone here, but I know I don’t know where that is…” The man pop interrupted said back.

“We’re right down the road! You can probably see it from the winduh!” Pop was pointing out the window. “See? There it is!” Not that anybody could see it — not that anybody had seen it for all the times they’d probably driven past it — but Pop’s confidence made it seem like it was there. “So, can we ’spect y’all there after the meeting?” Pop was still smiling the smile, the one that got him the loan — the very same one that got him his wife, even!

“Well, shucks, it’s right there, too. ‘course’n I’ll be there,” said the man back to pop. “How ’bout y’all?” The man was striking up the crowd.

It worked, though. Mom and pop hadn’t seen so much business ever before in their 10 years of running the pizza shop. It’s really amazing how it all worked out, since they served well over a hundred people that night, but now, the catch is, just what were ma and pa writing back and forth to each other:

This is what ma wrote: “Sure is hot.”

And pa: “Yeah.”

And ma: “We should leave this joint. They ain’t even got A/C.”

And pa: “We can’t just leave, ma.”

And ma, again: “Then you better come up with an excuse!”

And pa after a few seconds to think: “Okay, you start laughing.”

And ma, kinda upset: “You gonna tell ‘em I’m crazy or something! No, sir!”

And pa, again: “You wanna leave, don’t'cha? Just start laughing. I’ll do it, too.”

Ma and pa have been busy almost every day since then, and that’s how it all started, with them just wanting to leave. Of course, you couldn’t exactly tell other people that’s how your business took off. You have to come up with a good story, like, “That new tower’s what brings us all our business. You’d never believe it’s been standing for five years already!” It’s not like they’re lying when they say that, either. It was the meetings, and the tower has been up for 5 years at this point; it’s just it isn’t the whole truth, but who has to know?