by Rudolph James

Special to the G21

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NEW ORLEANS, LA, USA - There's a cement island in between Broadway and Seventh Avenue in New York City's Times Square area in the middle of which stood Chester Rude. He was hanging on to the iron railing which ran through the middle of the island. He was gasping for air. He was dying. He was sure of it. Only that day, Chester Rude did not die. Maybe the cards had turned in his favor, or maybe his life long practice of side stepping life's little inconveniences had finally paid off. Whatever the reason, that day, Chester Rude did not die. Instead he lived so I should make his acquaintance.

I met him in a bar in Pittsview, Massachusetts. I was there to meet with friends of mine who were to come in from Canada and New York in three or four days for a joint trip across the northern part of the country. I write music reviews for a small downtown arts weekly in New York City. They said there were some clubs I should check out along the way.

Pittsview is a small hill town in the northwestern part of the state where the main strip consist of a few retail shops, a bakery, a bar, a drug store, two gas stations and a grocery store. Since it also had a motel, which is where I was staying, and a bus station, which is how I got there, I had to assume there was more to Pittsview than that, although if there was, I never did see it.

I was sitting in the bar, drinking a beer, when Chester started talking to me.

"You know, I always wanted to go to New Orleans," he was telling me.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Do I know you?"

"New Orleans," he emphasized. "I mean, just for the music, that's what I would go for."

He was reminiscing on years of dreaming when he told me all about the music in New Orleans. He talked about the parades, the food, the coffee shops and the all night bars. He spoke like a true native of the city, which I thought odd, since he also mentioned to me he had never been there. How he knew the city so well I don't know. Somehow, he created a city in his mind that paralleled the real city as I knew it and, judging by the way he spoke, he's been there many times.

Chester Rude stood up and backed away from the bar a few steps. He bent forward at the hips and put his arms out to support himself on the bar. For a few seconds he stood there bobbing his head up and down between his shoulders.

"You know," he said. "There's always something. No matter what you want to do, there's always something."

He looked over at me and displayed the beginning of a smile. He was about to laugh for reasons known only to himself.

"By the way," he said. "My name is Chester Rude. They call me Rudy."

"Jim Roberts. Call me Jim."

Chester excused himself and went off to the men's room. I thought this would be a good time to finish my beer so I could tell him I had to leave when he came back. I didn't want to get into a long conversation with anyone because I wasn't going to stay. I had things to do in the morning. I grabbed my mug and downed the rest of my beer when this other guy on my right started talking to me.

He was pleasantly intoxicated and holding onto his drink so he wouldn't fall off his barstool and he said; "I couldn't help overhearing your conversation with that old guy."

"We really weren't talking about anything," I said.

"No, really, that old guy is right. There is always something, but I really don't know."

"Then why are you agreeing with him?" I asked.

"Nah, I'm just saying. I don't know nothing about parades or nothing, but ... " He picked up a shot of what looked like bourbon and threw it back. The barmaid had just brought over a fresh mug of beer and set it down before me. The guy that I was talking to watched with interest while she took my money and went to make change. I took a sip of the beer that I didn't order.

"I'm sorry," I went back to our conversation. "You were saying?"

"Nah, I was just saying. Let's say you want to go to a parade and it rains or something. That's why I could relate to that old guy." He pointed over in the direction of the men's room.

"A little rain never stopped a parade before," I told him.

"Yea, but it ruins everything," he insisted. "You know, it's all wet."

"Some people would say it adds to the excitement."

"Excitement?"

I faced forward and concentrated on my beer. I didn't know what else to say to him. I didn't know how we started talking about parades. So I thought I'd change the subject. "What are you doing here in Pittsview?" I asked him.

"I'm here looking for work," he said.

"What type of work do you do?" I asked him.

"I'm a fisherman," he said. "I fish for crabs."

"I think you're on the wrong side of the state," I told him. "You should be closer to the ocean."

"You're wasting your time talking to that guy." Chester was back at his barstool. "I was talking to him earlier," Chester said. "I'm glad you came and sat between us."

"Why didn't you just walk away if he was bugging you so much?" I asked.

"I'm comfortable here," he said. "Where would I go anyway?"

"I don't know," I said. "Try New Orleans." I laughed a little when I said that and Chester laughed along with me to be polite. Somewhere behind the laughter there was a train leaving for New Orleans.

"You know," he said. "I had an opportunity to go to California when I was younger."

"What happened?" I asked him.

"Well, it's a long story," he said.

"Most stories are."

Chester Rude began what turned out to be a long story. He told me about his friend that he grew up with in New York City and how after high school they each went their own way. Chester went upstate to work on his uncle's farm. He stayed up there for some years. One day, he got a call from his friend. He said his friend had just left the Navy after four years and was trying to hook up with him.

"Cool, man. Cool. That's what I call a friend." The guy on my right was impressed. He had a fresh drink in front of him and was eagerly waiting to hear more.

"So did you connect?" I asked him.

"Yea. He called me from the city. How he found me I don't know. He was going to California and wanted to know if I would go with him."

"You should of went, man. You should of went." The guy on my right was slapping his hand on the bar. He was thoroughly excited. I could see why Chester was glad I sat between them.

"So, anyway," Chester continued. "He had this car that his father gave him. Since I didn't have much money and was kind of tired of the farm, I thought it would be a good idea to go down to the city and drive across the country with him." And so Chester Rude continued with his story.

I stayed at the bar much longer than I thought I would. After so many beers it really didn't seem to matter. Chester and I started buying each other beers. I even bought the guy on my right a shot of bourbon. He was kind of all right.

And there the three of us sat. Me, the guy on my right, and Chester telling his stories, laughing, drinking and saying there's always something. After more beers and long tales and shots of bourbon Chester said; "That's why I don't make plans any more. Everytime I make plans to go somewhere ... "

"It rains!" The other guy said and started to laugh.

"Look guys," I said. "I hate to interrupt all this, but I have to go."

"What?"

"I have to go," I said again. "I'm meeting some friends here tomorrow morning."

"Really?" Chester seemed interested.

"Yea. They're supposed to take me on some cross country trip."

"No kidding?"

"Not if it rains you ain't going," the other guy said and laughed hysterically.

---

After I left the bar I headed back to the motel. It was sometime past midnight and a strong warm breeze was blowing through the deserted streets of this small New England town. I walked past the bakery, the grocery store, the drug store. All closed. I walked, weaving across the intersection where the two gas stations were while the strong warm breeze blew around me. The only person in the street. Deserted streets and strong warm breezes after mid-night always frightened me. It made everything seem unreal; like I was the last man on earth. I kept telling myself that wasn't so as I walked through the breeze back to the motel.

When I got to the motel there was a message for me at the front desk.

Jim. There's been a change of plans. They're coming out of Canada into Syracuse. We heard you were staying here. Came up to get you. You're not here. We'll wait for your call. Call us at (the phone number and address of where they were meeting in Syracuse).

The desk clerk was smiling at me. He was happy he gave me the message.

"You didn't think of telling them to check the bar, did you?" I asked him.

"Never saw 'em," and he continued to smile. The time-worn gentleman was showing off his new teeth.
"Did they ask if I checked out?"

"Don't know. I just got here."

"When is the next bus heading west on 90?" I asked him.

"Not 'til tomorrow."

"Do you know when?"

"Yep. Tomorrow."

I called the bus station and found out that, due to a gas leak, it was closed. The recorded message informed me that it should be open by six a.m.

"Listen," I was addressing the desk clerk. "The bus station is closed. It won't open until tomorrow."

"Told you so," he said.

"I need a wake up call."

The old man continued to smile. I figured my friends were still in town somewhere and they would check on me or they left already and I would have to call them the next day. I told the old man I was going to my room.

When I got to my room I was too tired to concentrate on anything but TV. When I turned it on they were showing a rerun of "M.A.S.H." I caught it just in time to see Radar and Hawkeye driving in a jeep on what was obviously an important mission when the jeep failed them. I'm not sure which episode it was but it started me thinking about Chester Rude.

He left upstate New York for the city thinking he was going to have a ride across the country only to find out when he got to his friend's house that his friend's parents were in the process of a rude divorce. His friend's sister was also there. She had just returned from living in some peaceful commune in Kansas somewhere only to find life in the big city too much for her to handle. She grabbed a chef's knife and went screaming through the apartment waving it from side to side, and whether by accident or on purpose she put a small slash across Chester's throat and ran out the door and down the stairs and into the street. She slashed the tires on the car and smashed the windows and cut the spark plug wires because the car was a bad thing or she was trying to stop her father from leaving or whatever her motives were Chester never found out. The only thing for certain was that his trip fell through that day.

"I guess she didn't know that her father had given the car to her brother," I remember Chester telling me.

"So what did you?" I asked him.

"I had no choice. I only had a few dollars on me so I took a room and started looking for work. I didn't want to go back to the farm anyway."

"That's just the way it goes, man," that from the other guy. He never argued with anything. He accepted everything the way it was.

---

I was sitting in my room thinking a nice hot shower would do me good right now. I left the TV on for company and started the hot water running and waited for the steam to fill the bathroom. As soon as I stepped into the shower I felt immediately cleansed of all the smoke and grime and absurdity one accumulates in a bar. Everything was slowly dripping out of me, but not Chester's stories.

"After about a year of living in the city," he was telling me. "I decided to leave. I had to skip on a months rent or else I wouldn't be able to do it."

"A lot of people do stuff like that," I told him. "I wouldn't worry about it."

Chester Rude wasn't worried. He took that rent money and headed for the train station. He was going to make that trip to New Orleans. He ran around the block so he wouldn't get caught standing in front of the hotel with his suitcase. He was on the next block up trying to hail a cab.

"I was standing there trying to get a cab when I saw this guy on the other side of the street get mugged."

"What did you do then?" I asked him.

"I didn't get a chance to do anything. The muggers came running across the street in my direction and knocked over an old lady who was crossing the street. So I ran out to help her instead."

"Cool, man. Cool. Nice move." The guy on the right was very supportive of Chester's actions.

So was I, in fact. That was a nice move. Only when Chester ran out to help the old lady he was hit by a car that was being chased by two police cars that just came from around the corner. One of the police cars stopped at the scene and Chester's main concern was that they would find out he was skipping on his rent. He showed them his I.D., which still had his upstate address on it and said he was on his way home. The officers made sure the Good Samaritan got to the hospital and after a week's stay his uncle came down to pick him up. He spent the next year on the farm recuperating from a broken hip.

The steam was getting thick in the shower and I was feeling around for the soap. I finally found it underneath my left foot. My leg shot out from underneath me and I came straight down in the tub. My right foot remained stationary and my knee bent up and smashed into the soap catch built into the side of the tub and I had sharp pains going down my thigh and around my lower back. I just lay there motionless for awhile and let the shower pour down on me as the "Suicide is Painless" theme song came on at the end of "M.A.S.H." and the phone was ringing.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out who was calling. It was either my friends checking up on me or it was the old man at the front desk giving me a wake up call already. It didn't matter because when I tried to get up to answer the phone I couldn't move.

After time and a painful effort I managed to shut the water off and hop over to the bed. I shut the TV off and got under the covers and lay- wide eyed in the darkness. The pain was now in both of my legs and my lower back felt as if I was lying on a small pile of rocks. I thought about reaching for the phone. I heard my breathing quiver and felt my temperature rise. It was in this feverish state that I fell into dreams. The type of dreams only fever can inspire.

---

"Jim! Help me!"

"Rudy! Is that you?"

"Yea. Please. I can't breathe. Help me!"

I wanted to run over to him but every time I tried my bus came and I thought I should get on it.

"Jim! I can only breathe in. I can't breathe out. Help me!"

"Go help that poor man," an old lady who was standing in line with me was saying as she was pushing me into the street.

"O.K.! Wait! I'm coming!"

"You better go now. It's starting to rain," the bus driver said. She was smiling and closing the doors on me.

"O.K. But get me when you come back."

I ran over to the cement island in the middle of the avenue where Chester was. He was hanging on to the iron railing, which ran through the middle of the island. He was gasping for air.

"I was running across the street trying to get to New Orleans," Chester told me. "I was almost there. I thought I was there. Then all of a sudden I couldn't breathe. Now I'm back in Times Square."

I stood there looking at Chester. He was bent forward at the waist, with his arms out to support himself on the iron railing, looking down the entire length of Broadway as if it was the last time he would ever see it. I turned and started to walk away from him. I was going to leave him there.

"Jim! Come on! Let's go! We gotta get out of here."

Chester was pulling me back from behind as Radar was running up the street with a knife, screaming, repeatedly, "You can't leave 'till tomorrow."

I grabbed Chester by the shoulders and turned him around to look at him and I was looking at myself.

"Let's go, Rudy." I was pulling him the other way and having a hard time getting him to come along. "Come on, Rudy, let's go. Our bus is coming."

I turned around to see why Chester Rude was so hard to pull along and saw that I was holding hands with an old man who was smiling and saying; "You're not here. You're not here."

We were sitting on the bus, headed on our way ... Downtown? Chester was sitting next to me and he was saying, "I really wanted to go to New Orleans, Jim, but I got scared. Then I couldn't breathe right."

"Rudy, this is our stop," I said. There's the hospital."

"But what about my trip, Jim? What about my trip?"

I was sitting on the floor in a long white corridor with my hand stretched way above my head. I was the only person there and there was a strong warm breeze blowing through the long white hall. A police officer came walking over to me, smiling, and handed me an umbrella and said, "Cool, man. Cool."

---

It was ten o'clock in the morning when I woke up and I felt like I was lying in a puddle. I got out of bed feeling a little better than when I got in. My fever was gone and the pain had subsided a little bit. I got dressed, with some difficulty and without a shower, packed my bags and was on my way out. There was a different guy at the front desk. He was more knowledgeable about the bus schedules than the old guy from last night. He told me there were no messages and I missed the nine o'clock bus but there was another one at two-thirty. I had a few hours to kill and decided to have breakfast at the bar. Two eggs, toast, hash browns, coffee: $1.50. With sausage or bacon: $2.25. I'd seen the sign the night before.

The town felt much better in the daylight. The shops were open for business and the people were walking around tending to their daily chores. Everything looked nice. The ghost town of the night before vanished with the night. When I walked into the bar my friend greeted me.

"Going somewhere?" he asked.

"Looks that way," I said.

He was either still drunk from the night before or he got a fast start on this morning. I went over and sat next to him. He was the only person in the bar.

"Yea. I don't blame you," he said. Had enough of this town, huh."

"I didn't plan on staying anyway," I told him. "I would have left last night but I missed my ride."

"That's just the way it goes, man."

When he said that, I suddenly wasn't as hungry as before so I just ordered a cup of coffee

"Have you heard from Chester since last night?" I asked him. It was a standard bar one liner but I couldn't think of anything else to talk to him about.

"Oh! That old man?" He perked up a little bit. "Yea," he said. "He called here this morning. He's in the hospital."

The barmaid overheard our conversation and came over. "Are you Jim Roberts?" she asked me.

"Yes."

"Do you know Chester Rude?"

"Well, yes. I left him here last night."

"He called here this morning looking for you," the barmaid said. "He wanted to wish you good luck in your travels."

"Do you know why?" I asked her.

"No," she said. "I wasn't here last night."

"Nah, man. I was here," the guy on my right was saying. "I know why he never made it out of the barroom."

"Why?" We both asked.

"It's a tough story, man. He was all psyched, too. After you left all he was talking about was New Orleans. He was all hot to go. He was probably gonna leave today."

"So what happened to him?'

"He was trying to get out of here through the back door last night. Just before he walked away he turned back and shouted towards me, 'If you see Jim, don't forget to tell him ... ', then all of a sudden; Pow! The whole damn thing fell down on him."

When I left the bar I started walking towards the bus station. I still had a couple of hours left but I thought I'd wait at the station. Before the end of the day I would hook up with my friends and be on my way.

As I walked towards the bus station I started recalling vague images of the dream I had the night before. I suddenly felt guilty for not stopping by to see Chester in the hospital; that I was just going to leave him behind. I rationalized the guilt by telling myself it was his fault I missed my ride. If I had never met him I wouldn't have stayed in the bar as long as I did. Maybe I wouldn't have taken a shower that night. I found myself thinking there's always something to screw things up.

Then I felt worse for Chester. If he had never met me he wouldn't have stopped by the back door to leave a message for me. A message I'll never get. Chester Rude would not have been standing there when that pick-up truck backed into that rotted old four-by-four holding up the awning and have the whole damn thing fall down on him.

The bus station was coming into view and I was having second thoughts on what I should do. Should I stay with Chester a little while longer, or should I just leave? I walked into the lobby of the bus station and the man in the ticket window smiled at me and asked if he could help me.

"Yes," I said. "Can I catch a train to New Orleans from here? I've never been there before."

---

RUDOLPH JAMES is a bartender and fiction writer living in New Orleans. This is his third story for The World's Magazine.