Jackpot. Chapter 5

José broods through the dust and trash along crumbling sidewalks. The half-dead buildings with their faded signs and dirty windows look slanted and menacing, as if they might fall on him at any moment in revenge against the neighborhood. He trashes his company badge and jolts when a sombrero-clad saguaro inked onto an empty tequila bottle smiles up at him, cheerfully waving its maracas. He takes a deep breath and squints his way across the blinding concrete. He could really use some sunglasses. At the end of the block he spots a Sun Shack and peers through the window. Look at all those happy people, trying on aviators and wayfarers and God knows what else. It makes him sick. Don’t they know buying a pair of sunglasses won’t solve their problems? He spits and it streaks down the window. 

“Right on, man.”

José turns around. There’s a hipster wearing a beanie, cardigan, and jeans despite the heat, his eyes shaded with a pair of circles.

“Fuck the system, am I right?”

José’s not sure about this guy. “Si.”

“Spanish. Nice, man.”

The customers are glaring at them, but the hipster doesn’t seem to notice.

“You… like Spanish?” asks José.

“I like all languages, brother. I’m a poet!”

“Really?”

The hipster rolls his eyes. “No, I’m just messing with you. Come on, of course I’m a fucking poet! You like poetry?”

“Do I like it? Poetry is my life!”

“That’s what’s up, man! I could tell you were a real one. So check it, we’ve got an open mic at six over at the Imperial Roastery if you want to come listen. Maybe you could even read some of your own stuff. What do you say?”

Tears in his eyes, José trembles with gratitude. “I would be honored.”

“Check, check. One, two, check. Check.” The MC taps the mic and feedback pierces the coffeeshop.

José’s sweating in a tuxedo in the back corner, awaiting his execution. He straightens his papers but his sweaty fingers smudge the ink and he panics and scatters them all over the table.

The hipster walks over carrying a battered notebook. 

“Yo, you made it! Are you gonna read?” 

José gulps and nods. 

The hipster smirks. “It’s alright to be nervous, man. Bearing your soul to the public is no easy task. They should give us medals.” He extends a friendly hand. “I’m Pete, by the way.”

José shakes his hand. “José.”

Pete takes a seat and takes off his beanie. “Now tell me, José, what are you running from?”

“What am I running from?”

Pete runs his hand through his charged hair. “Yeah, man. We’re all running from something, you know? That’s why we’re here. To stop running. Together.” He puts both hands on José’s shoulders and stares deep into his eyes. “Tell me what happened. The vibes were low when I met you, bro––what was going on under the awn? Ing?”

José takes a deep breath, too focused on working up the courage to tell his story to recall whether the Sun Shack had an awning. “Well, I’d just quit my business. You see, my friend and I started a successful company, and at first things were great, but then––”

“But then things got too corporate, huh? All about the money and nothing about the passion, right?”

“Sure, maybe, but it’s not just––”

“Well right on José. We’re all running from corporate greed in our own ways. Just take a look outside. Society’s fucked.” He leans back and taps his head. “You want to know what I’m running from?”

“Okay.”

“It’s a story I’m sure you know quite well, but I’ll tell it anyway.” A crowd gathers around their table. “July sixteenth, nineteen oh seven. Brazil, Indiana. A baby boy is born, a boy who will one day grow into a man who will change the world––I think you know where this is going.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well you should, because that man’s name was Argile Pepinpopper.”

José scratches his head. “The popcorn guy?”

“More like the Popcorn Tycoon! Anyways, through entrepreneurship and ingenuity, he popped right out of his small-town beginnings––” Pete pauses to let the crowd laugh. “And into homes and theaters across America.”

“What does this have to do with you?”

The crowd gasps. 

Pete holds up a silencing hand. “Please, José, let me finish. Argile Pepinpopper had a son, and then his son had a son, you with me? That son, José, is my third cousin, and as long as I can remember, I’ve lived in the shadow of the Pepinpopper name. It follows me everywhere, casting a buttery light on everything I do!”

Some bystanders wipe away tears. 

José wrinkles his eyebrows, failing to understand how a shadow can cast a buttery light. “Pete.”

“What?”

“If you’re so worried about that name following you, maybe you should stop telling people about it.”

Pete slams the table and peanut shells float up like reverse confetti. “Are you saying my pain is bullshit?”

“No, it’s just if you let go of the past, maybe––” 

The crowd boos. 

Pete stands up. “You just crossed the wrong poet, hombre. I’ll see you on stage.” Pete snaps his fingers and his entourage follows him across the coffeeshop. The lights dim and the MC retakes the stage. 

“Welcome, everyone,” he says, his smooth voice melting the tension. “Welcome… to you. Tonight is not only about the people performing. It’s about stories and passion. It’s about sharing an experience. It’s about… you.” 

The audience erupts in snapping. Pete shudders in agony, the cacophony reminding him of microwave popcorn. 

“Please welcome our first reader, a woman we all know well, Jacintha Crothers!”

The crowd snaps up a storm and Jacintha takes the stage. 

“Thanks everybody, thank you. You’re too kind. Thank you. It means so much to be here, in front of you all, reading my poetry. It’s so important to have a space like this where our voices can be heard.”

“That’s right!”

“Tell it!” 

Jacintha smiles. “Without you, I’d just have to read to my cat, and what’s the point of that? So thank you all. This means so much. You have no idea.” She clears her throat and reads a poem called “Your Ears are Like Music to My Mouth,” a long, free-verse testament to how much it means to her that other people listen to her read her poetry, a winding chronicle that takes up her entire slot. The audience snaps and cheers once more and Jacintha exits with a bow and a smile. Good for her, getting up there like that, thinks José, putting a positive spin on her set after his visceral, obsessive disagreement with her claim that there’s no point in reading poetry to a cat.

One by one the readers walk on stage, read beyond their five minute time limit, and soak up the snaps. Pete slowly, but never completely, adjusts to the sound. A woman sitting near José says things like “uh-huh,” “word,” and “she gets it,” throughout every poem, her admiration taking on its own poetic rhythm. José finds it very distracting. By the time Pete slithers up to the mic, she’s ecstatic, and so is everyone else.

“Yeah, Pete!” she shouts. “Tell it like it is!”

Pete winks at her. He taps the microphone and it softly booms like distant fireworks. He feigns humble nervousness and motions for everyone to settle down. 

“Thank you. And thanks to all the other communicators who’ve read tonight.” A few bold cheers shoot out. Pete smiles and waits an extra second. “Thank you. I could introduce myself, but I’d rather let my poems do the talking. This first one’s called ‘Argile.’” He opens his notebook and clears his throat.

Pop, pop, 

said Uncle Sam. 

Pop, pop. 

That’s all you’ll ever be. 

A shadow of a legacy 

stretching wide from sea

to sea.

Pop, pop.

Too clearly

I now can see.

My mind is free.

To be the me

I need

to be.

Pop, pop, Argile Pepinpopper.

Pop, pop.

The audience snaps it up, they really love this one, and Pete’s most dedicated fans quietly squabble over who’s heard him read it the most times. Pete waits for them to simmer down, then starts his next poem.

In the end, Pete reads for a full twenty-five minutes, far longer than any other reader, and his final poem is met not with snaps, but applause. When he’s done, half the crowd surrounds him as he descends from the stage, congratulating him as they prepare to leave––after all, who else was anyone really here to see? But wait! The show’s not over. Pete wants to see this next guy. A skinny overdressed Mexican man walks onstage despite the MC’s warnings that he’ll be crushed, that there’s no way he can follow up Pete’s electric performance! Seeing as Pete’s sticking around, the audience half-heartedly gives José their divided attention.

“Hola,” says José, grinning sheepishly. 

The crowd yawns. 

“I’m going to read some poems for you. They come from my heart.” José begins with a subtle, tranquil poem about the sadness that weighed upon his heart when he saw how his cigarette habit hurt his mama. A hush falls over the crowd like midnight snow. A couple poems later they’re hooked. José’s words resonate with them on a deeper level than they’ve ever experienced. It’s not about the spotlight, the fame, the immortal glory attainable only in coffeeshop open mics! No! This man has lived life and felt pain like no one else! Yet how is it possible that his poems are so universal? Almost everyone catches a glimpse of the overwhelming complexity of life and grasps the insignificance of their existence in the unfeeling universe while simultaneously gaining a deeper appreciation of the importance of their roles in the lives of their loved ones and even the lives of strangers. 

Everyone, that is, except for Pete. The importance he has enjoyed for so long is light drowning beneath a rising horizon. To stop José would be akin to reversing the rotation of the Earth, but he has to try.

“Hey!” Pete shouts betwixt two phrases so pure, thine ears would seek deafness, for no sound uttered by man or woman, beast or nature could compare in beauty. 

The crowd wavers between interest and anger. 

Pete points a nicotine-stained finger at the stage. “I know that guy! Yeah, I knew José back in high school and, like, he totally failed poetry class!” 

Gasps. The implications are clear. There’s no way someone who failed high school poetry could write verse so divinely human. José must be a fraud! The crowd boos. Rotten vegetables machine gun across the stage and José dashes for the side door, narrowly avoiding the botanical onslaught. He sprints down the cool alley and out onto the moonlit street. He should be terrified of the crowd, their disapproval should have crushed him, but as he runs for his life, he feels a kind of freedom he hasn’t felt since… who knows? He steps into the first bar he sees for a celebratory drink.

“One drink, please!”

The paunchy bartender grins. “One drink, comin’ right up!”

José is starting to feel good about this city, smiles at the muchachos yammering away in Spanish a couple seats over. The bartender returns with José’s celebratory drink. He takes a long gulp. Billiard balls clack in the artificial twilight. A poster for a brand of tequila hangs above the bar, its cheerful sombrero-clad cactus mismatching the atmosphere. There’s something familiar about this place, but José can’t quite put his finger on it. Then he turns to the bartender.

“Say, don’t I know you?”

The bartender scratches his stubble and glances at the ceiling. Then he remembers and snaps his fingers.

“Yeah! You helped fix my TV back at the old place!”

“I also shot three bandits,” says José.

“Can’t say I recall.”

“Well it happened.”

“Whatever you say.” The bartender shakes his head and wipes down the bar and José catches on. Better to leave those bodies buried. 

The exhausted MC droops into the room and orders the perfect drink to polish off a long, hard day.

“Looks like it’s been a long day for both of us,” he says to José.

“I suppose.”

“You alright?”

José nods and takes a sip. “Wasn’t so bad.”

“What’d you do to piss off Pete?”

“He told me he was living in the shadow and light of that popcorn guy and I told him he wasn’t.”

The MC sighs. “That’ll do it.”

The bartender interjects. “You boys don’t mean Pete the Poet, do ya?” 

“Yep.”

“Hate to tell you, pal, but your poetry career is over if you can’t make things right with him.”

José looks to the MC for answers.

“Afraid he’s right. I don’t think you understand the influence Pete has on the open mics around here. You’re blacklisted.”

“Dios mio.” José drains his drink right as a fly buzzes in. With frog-like reflexes, José slams his glass down around the pest. For just a moment, the fly is trapped, its life surely finished. But the glass fissures and explodes and the fly escapes, deftly navigating the airborne shards like a space hero through an asteroid field.

“I’m so sorry––”

“Get out!” shouts the bartender.

“I’ll clean––”

“Out!” 

Tears in his eyes, José gets up and leaves. Outside, the street has lost its magic, and the wind blows dust behind his teeth.

The bar door swings open and the MC runs after him.

“José, wait up!”

José sucks it up and turns around. “What?”

The MC catches up and bends over panting, his hands on his knees. “Look, things might seem dire for your poetry career, but it doesn’t have to be this way.” He catches his breath and stands up straight. “Now Pete’s ego might be easily bruised, but it’s also easily mended. A simple apology in the form of a poetic elegy praising his valiant struggle against the legacy of Argile Peppinpopper has a very good chance of changing his mind.”

José shakes his head. “I could never do that, because it wouldn’t be true. Pete’s a fool, and so long as he believes himself to be living in the shadow of the Popcorn Tycoon, there he shall remain.”

“Don’t you get it?” the MC asks, his voice cracking with desperation. “This isn’t about the truth, damn it! It’s about doing what it takes to be a poet! Sometimes you’ve gotta suck it up and say what you’ve gotta say or you’ll never make it in this town!”

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

The MC shakes his head. “You’re making a big mistake.” He takes out his notepad, scribbles something on it, and rips out the page. “Here’s my number. Think about it.”

José waves his hand to decline. “When I make a decision, I make it without hesitation. I am sure that this has hurt me many times, but to allow hesitation to creep back into my life would herald a return to pain far worse than anything I’ve experienced since I decided to stop hesitating.”

The MC sighs. “Well, alright.” He gives José a bold hug and bids him farewell. 

On the walk back to his apartment José is assaulted from behind by a man in a basketball jersey. Though the city life has dulled his desert reflexes, José fights him off, then he fights off the next guy and does battle with dozens of other amateur ninjas, ordinary folks compelled by some unknown force to jump out of cars and alleyways, to run out of stores and leap from trees, kicking and laughing. José climbs a fire escape and tries to pull the ladder up behind him, but his assailants are too fast and climb up after him. He scrambles higher and higher until he reaches the roof. Someone whistles and the mob coagulates into a liquid boot. The boot looms high above the rooftops and the moon shines through it. José strikes the toughest pose he knows, and in doing so feels a piece of paper stuck to the back of his shirt. The boot crashes down to smash him into blood, but stops midair when José removes the note. It reads “kick me,” and below it is the MC’s phone number. Prank over, the boot dissipates and its members stumble back to their lives, already forgetting their parts in something so great and terrible.

José wants to crumple the paper, but can’t bring himself to do it. The MC truly wishes to help him, and in writing “kick me” above his number, he’s shown José that if he doesn’t take help when it’s offered, this city will tear him apart. Paper in hand, José takes the long way home, leaping from roof to roof, jumping through his apartment window and landing next to his phone. He picks up the receiver and dials.