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Iron City
A man walks into a bar and looks around. Around him are other men drinking after work. Work has let out. Outside it is cold. He is out of work. The cold has condensed on the window in little rivers of wet and the men are worn. At least that's how it looks to the man who has just finished turning around. And now he is faced with a mirror. A mirror in which he faces the faces of other men. Men let out of the very same work for which he searches. Everything has turned around. He can see the bald spot on the back of the bartender's head. It touches him. The backs of men are in front of him. And there are men in back of him too. Two men talk about work. The bartender holds out his drink. He drinks to the two men who continue talking and walks out of the bar.
This is the simple truth of his day as he steps out onto the walk and walks away into the crowd.
We find him again with his newspaper on the train. An editorial at the end of the want ads interrupts his train of thought and he wants nothing more than to get off as he listens desperately for the long whistle while the seeing-eye dog seated across the aisle cocks his ears and looks up. "Love is blind," he says to the dog's owner. And then the man gets off the train.
The drink has affected his thinking. He tries to imagine how the world must seem to the blind man. He shuts his eyes as if he were looking into a mirror. He throws away his newspaper and remembers the bar and feels alone. The bartender holds out his drink but he cannot see him. He opens the door.
This is the simple truth of his day as he steps into his home. Unlocking locks and relocking them. The sound reminds him of the stutter he once had but is now gone and he is silent. He flips the light switch and pulls off his boots. He butters bread and boils water. Outside it is beginning to snow and quarter moons collect along the bottoms of each wooden windowpane as the glass frosts over and he drinks his tea. By the crossword puzzle he is asleep.
He dreams there's a knock on the door and he reunlocks the relocked lock and greets a non-descript man who stands like an echo of himself on the threshold. Then he leaves. It is still cold outside and he has become the man at the door of his dream. From there he back tracks. Boards the train and heads toward the bar.
Once again he's faced with the mirror and faces the two men talking after work. He looks about. The bartender holds out his drink. Everything has turned around. He lifts up his glass and toasts the men, worn and cold, now that he is one of them, and everything is different.
He stirs.
Nothing can wake him.
Albert Sgambati resides in New York City. His prize-winning novel, "The Waiting Room" was published by Miami University Press (2006). Recent work has also been featured in, "All Roads...But This One", in a limited edition from Luddite Kingdom Press, San Francisco. Both his prose and poetry have been widely published, as have numerous non-fiction features. In addition to his purely literary pursuits, Sgambati spent the better part of the 1990s working as a beat reporter for a major daily newspaper in Mexico City. (July 2005) (June 2008)
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