The Papaya Deadline

The bull kept charging at him in the dreams—that same massive creature from the Country Kitchen paper towel commercials, its horns improbably sharp, its eyes somehow knowing. Jack would wake at 3 AM, heart hammering, before remembering he'd been fired three weeks ago.

The severance package would last six months if he was careful. But Jack wasn't careful. Jack was currently sitting on a barstool at Chico's at eleven in the morning, watching a dog—some sort of terrier mix—nap beneath a table where two men in baseball uniforms discussed their rotisserie league with theological intensity.

"She said I needed to find myself," Jack muttered to his beer. "Like I'm misplaced car keys."

The bartender, a woman whose name tag read 'GINA' but whose face suggested she'd seen everything and liked none of it, slid a bowl toward him. "Your wife said that?"

"Ex-wife. As of yesterday." Jack peered into the bowl. "What's this?"

"Papaya. It's on the house. You look like you need something that's not alcohol."

Jack took a tentative bite. Sweet, musky, unfamiliar—like guilt. "She took the house. The good car. Even the fucking hat rack."

"What kind of hat rack?"

"The one I built in woodworking class. Back when I was going to be a teacher instead of whatever the hell I became."

Gina leaned against the back bar, studying him. She was wearing a fedora, angled just so, like someone who'd learned irony could be armor. "You know what the difference is between a bull and a bear market?"

"I used to know."

"Bulls thrust upward. Bears swipe down. Either way, you're probably dead meat." She poured herself a coffee. "My ex left me for his dental hygienist. Said I was too cynical."

"Are you?"

"Absolutely." She grinned, something genuine cracking through. "But I'm not alone."

The terrier woke up, stretched extravagantly, and trotted over to Jack, placing its head on his knee. Jack buried his fingers in soft fur, felt something unclench in his chest.

"Funny," he said. "I came here to drink myself into oblivion."

"And instead you got free fruit and a dog's unconditional affection." Gina slid a napkin toward him. "Write down your number. I know a guy. He's starting a nonprofit. Pays crap but you get to feel like you're helping people instead of moving money around for people who already have too much of it."

Jack looked at the napkin. At the dog. At the remaining papaya, glistening in the bar's dim light like something impossible and new.

"What's the nonprofit do?"

"Teaches woodworking to at-risk youth."

Jack wrote down his number. Outside, he could almost hear the distant crack of a baseball hitting a bat, sound carrying from somewhere, summer beginning, the endless impossible sport of starting over.