The Prospective Client

          He stepped into the foyer, and found an incoming customer waiting for him there. The guy swept a hand grandly to the exit door like a chorus lead in an absurdist opera. So, Singleton left, with his free and large variety pack of generic toaster pastries. He wondered if this was what socialism was like. After all, he needed the toaster pastries. But, he then realized that he had come nowhere close to living up to his abilities. This thought gave him a slight headache.

            Outside, there was no flash flood, just a newer normal. And since Global Positioning Service had also gone down, there were about five cars at a stand-still at various odd spots and angles in the parking lot, despite clear skies, a lack of water, and a plethora of signs. So, there the vehicles sat, humming, with the running lights on. Those people, sitting in their vehicles with their purchases, had defaulted into our national sport.

            Singleton waited in the shade at the corner of the building with others, watching the corner for the bus. Behind them, SenseWorth began to regurgitate people, each carrying at least one electronic product. There was a buzz amongst the thin crowd he was with.

            “There’s no electricity, so they think they can’t sell ‘em! They’re giving away anything that has to plug in.”

            A large man turned to Singleton, laughing.

            “That’s stupid! There won’t be no electricity forever. Gotta grab what you can!”

            He jerked his head toward the entrance of the store.

            “C’mon!”

            Singleton didn’t, but later, wished he had, or something. For, from behind the large man, as he darted away in a manner quicker than large, (had he played tackle?) appeared Connie, who carried a small, fresh, shiny corrugated box.

            “Here you go!” Connie attempted to hand Singleton the box, but he would have none of it.

            “It’s free, and you need it,” Connie said. “We’re giving them away.”

            Singleton had looked at the display on the box. It contained a small toaster.

            “Oh, jeeze, thanks for the effort, but that’s okay. I don’t toast these.”

            Connie was offended.

            “What do you mean, that’s okay? You don’t have a toaster.”

            Singleton wondered how Connie had arrived at this (correct) conclusion. By now, a small crowd had gathered, each of them holding at least one electronic product, and some of them had no need to wait for a bus. Someone asked:

            “did he steal it?”

            “He stole something free?”

            “I like my Pop-Tarts untoasted. And I don’t toast anything else…” Singleton told Connie, hoping to end the conversation amicably and without further conflict.

            Connie jabbed a few times at the box he held.

            “Toa-ster Past-ries. You need a toaster.” She forced the box into his stomach. “Take it. It’s Freeeee.”

            Singleton stammered ‘no’ and shook his head.

            “Alright, then.” She dropped the box full of toaster onto the concrete sidewalk, near the cinder mulch. There was a:

            “Clang! rattle…”

            The crowd gasped. Connie marched back toward the store, her badge fluttering in a breeze of hurry. Singleton turned and left.

            “Hey,” one in the crowd shouted, “you forgot your toaster!”

            He darted quickly across the parking lot and swooped behind a burgundy Mariner, idling and humming there, which contained at least four people, each, as seen through the less-tinted windows, pointing to all points of the compass and arguing. Now Singleton was out of sight of those who were concerned about his toaster-less state.

            Although it would be a long walk to anywhere else a bus was likely to stop, Singleton decided to walk along the highway and go up 35^th street, rather than linger.

            Then he remembered that he’d placed his library book on the register counter in SenseWorth. Singleton nearly stopped, but he walked on, toward a bridge that was tricky for pedestrians. He wouldn’t go back for the book, and hoped that it would be turned in, and not placed in ‘Bestsellers’. He would finish it later.

            Dealing with traffic while walking was a bit easier since there was road construction. Well, the road was set up for construction, but none was happening at the time. A set of cones took the four-laner to two, with bright orange plastic rods separating traffic going both ways. But Singleton found it easier to walk on the part of the road that was closed off, with some equipment parked, before he crossed to a narrow sidewalk that was still open, to walk over the short overpass.

            As he walked, he found himself hemmed in to the waist by thick, vertical concrete slabs to either side. He heard a distant comment, looked back, and saw a man on a bike on the other side of the road, where he had been walking before. The man went past him on the road, as far as a large generator, which blocked the way, and stopped. Rather than backtrack and enter the proper side, he got off the bike, and, lifting it on his shoulder, climbed over the slab and onto the road. There was a honk from behind. Cars had backed up. Singleton stopped and wondered if he could blend in to concrete. He clutched his toaster pastries to his chest and observed.

            The man had a beard that Singleton envied, and wore a black t-shirt that said ‘STAFF’ on the back in big, white block letters. He carried the bike across the busy, two way worksite, and climbed over the rough railing on Singleton’s side. Cars coming at him, luckily, stopped. Then the guy put the bike down, got on it and pedaled away.

            When he’d succeeded in crossing the bridge, Singleton looked both ways before darting across to the other side just before the highway met 35^th street. When looking to cross, he saw Mister Safety Second riding his bike far down on the shoulder of the highway. As he approached the intersection, a car, a boxy old Buick, slowed, then stopped there. A man got out of the passenger side, and began shoveling fast-food trash with his hands from the passenger footwell and onto the grass past the curb. He reached back into the car and was handed more. He was given more small paper bags and cups, which, turning around, he tossed on top of the pile. And stood and looked at it for awhile. And looked up at Singleton walking toward him- and glared. Then he got back into the car, and it took off, spraying asphalt gravel and dust. The car labored up the hill at moderate speed, but with some effort.

            As Singleton slowly walk-turned the heckofa corner, looking at the mess they’d left behind, something caught his eye. It was something of a particular color of green, skitter-rolling toward him through the grass. He swung his arm down, and plucked up the twenty. He did it again, further past the pile. With a quick, furtive glance, Singleton determined that that was probably the extent of the ground score.

            Then he walked up the 35^th street hill. For awhile, he was just trudging through crabgrass, trying to reach the sidewalk, and he finally found some as he came to the top of the hill. At that point, looking over the horizon, he could see that there was some event adjacent to the golf course five blocks ahead. There were posts and flags marking the event off, and a few people on the boulevard along the street, standing there; doing something. There was no boxy old Buick, though. He stuffed the forty dollars into his hip pocket. Some at the event ahead stretched down the sidewalk and on the grass his way. One woman he could see, with long, wavy black hair with auburn highlights, stood closest, at the corner of the event, seeming to wait for his arrival. She waited until he walked close, and spoke quietly.

            “You look like a client.”

            Singleton paused at her observation.

            “I’m not a client. I don’t know what a ‘client’ is.”

            A car slowed next to them on the busy, bottlenecked road, and the driver kindly waved both across as they talked, although they both obviously didn’t want to, and shouldn’t have besides. Singleton could barely see the flicker of the driver’s hands through the tinted windows. The mysterious auburn-haired woman looked down; gathering thoughts. Singleton thought she was really weird.

            “No matter. So, you’re not a client.” She pointed back at the event. “But that’s what they may think. Just walk on by.”

            Singleton left her quickly. There always seemed to be someone telling him what to do.

            “That’s what I planned to do,” he told her as he quick-stepped away.

            “Just walk on by…” she told him.

            Singleton started walking between the string of flags on one side, and about five people of many ages waving to passing cars on the other. One girl held a sign that said “FREE BALLOONS!” He thought that was great. Back when he had a car, he thought, he may have stopped just for that. Another, a man in shorts, held a sign with colorful, perforated cut-out letters which spelled out: “Client Fest!” The woman’s advice started to make a bit more sense, as Singleton walked through the gauntlet. There were about twenty people in the gathering; most were within the confines of the flag barrier, at various display tables, talking. A woman holding a clipboard darted to the barrier beside him, and said:

            “You must be one of our clients!”

            “I,” Singleton sighed loudly and confused. “Don’t even know what your group is. I’m not a client.”

            “Well, don’t limit yourself! Don’t sell yourself short. You can always expand those skill sets!” she chirped, and referred to her clipboard. She was joined by an excited man in a “Client Fest” sweatshirt.

            “What’s your name?”

            “Well, ‘Not A Client’ for starters,” Singleton told her. The man beside her looked on Singleton with pity, but Singleton knew not from where it came. The woman chuckled. Singleton explained.

            “I’m not anyone’s client,” he told her. The woman listened attentively. “I mean,” Singleton explained, though he shouldn’t have, “what does your group do? Who do they help? I mean…” he went on, I appreciate…um…what rates a client? What needs do they have that qualifies them?”

            He’d now found his voice in this strange situation. The man beside the woman smirked confidently, as the woman took a breath and serenely answered-

            “Whaddya got?”

            Singleton had spied a port-a-potty at the corner at the far side of the small event grounds. He decided to take another tack.

            “I have a few things, actually…” he told her, “Really, I do. Um…but…I need to use…” He nodded to the portable toilet. The woman nodded her head to him.

            “Be right back.” Singleton walked a few steps, zigged through a gate of the event itself, then zagged along the flags to the port-a-potty. He turned back, and the client-hunters were watching him. Singleton opened the door. They stared. Then he took a big step, not into the toilet, but around that open door, and swooped behind the entire contraption. Then he hopped over the flag barrier, and, keeping the box between him and his sponsors, began to walk.

            Have you ever seen the walking events in the Olympics? To tell, the truth, they look kinda funny as they walk. Heel, toe, heel, toe. It’s a sport, though. A viable sport. That’s how Singleton walked for the length of two lawns, keeping the portapotty between him and them before he had the courage to turn back around. All three that Singleton had talked to were now near the event entrance, talking amongst themselves.