The sky was pink and hazy with the late October heat, and Mr. Gilford was walking back from the pawn shop in his best gabardine suit and a homburg hat. His hearing aid was turned down to avoid the noise of traffic.
The light turned red before he made it across Olympic Boulevard, but the cars waited for him patiently. Nobody honked. He shuffled onto Normandie, right past the Korean Pavilion. He marveled at it every time he saw it. They had brought in craftsmen from the old country to build it a decade ago. Real artisans. Or was it two decades ago? At any rate, the pavilion made him feel like he had entered Koreatown proper. Before that, nobody would have even noticed.
Mr. Gilford made his usual stop at the tortilleria on 8th Street. It was a Mexican market with a small tortilla factory inside. You could see the production line right off the sidewalk through a big window. They had known him for years there. It was understood that whenever Mr. Gilford walked by, a small bag of corn tortillas would be handed to him. There was no exchange of money involved—just smiles and hat-tipping from Mr. Gilford.
He paused at the window and, shading his eyes, looked inside. He wasn’t sure if it would be Miguel or Manuel at the machine. The conveyor belt was going, transporting the small, pale discs into the oven. Then he saw Manuel arriving with a fresh batch of masa. Manuel saw him, too. He placed the dough bin on the steel counter and gestured for Mr. Gilford to stand by. A minute later, a boy ran out of the store and handed him a small paper bag. Mr. Gilford didn’t know the kid. He turned up his hearing aid.
“You Manuel’s boy?” he asked.
“No, mister. My papa is Miguel López López.”
The kid’s eyes were big and nearly black.
“Sure, I can see the resemblance now.”
He shifted the bag with the still warm tortillas to his left hand and extended his right to the boy.
“I’m Mr. Gilford. Pleasure meeting you… And what is your name?”
“Miguel Miguel López López.”
This reminded Mr. Gilford of an old comedy routine. He decided to go with it.
“Let me guess… And they call you Pedro?”
“Why would they call me Pedro, mister?”
“Sorry, bad joke.”
“They call me Miguelito.”
“If I had any children, they would be called Miguelito, too.”
The boy grinned widely and ran back into the store. Mr. Gilford waved to Manuel through the glass and tipped his hat.
He continued to stroll for a few blocks. There was no traffic on 8th Street today. City workers had started to block off this stretch of Koreatown for the Día de los Muertos celebrations. There were barriers and temporary ‘No Parking’ signs everywhere.
Passing Fedora Street, Mr. Gilford peeked around the corner. There was usually a Salvadoran taco truck parked there. But not today. Not with all the preparations for the Day of the Dead. Mr. Gilford sighed and kept walking. He loved those carne asada tacos and just thinking about them now made him hungrier than he could allow himself to be. Jaime, the truck’s operator, would always make him a beef taco on the spot. No onions, of course. And today, Mr. Gilford could even pay for one, or at least offer to pay, although Jaime would have none of that.
A slim man in a wifebeater passed him. He was smoking. A few feet ahead, he exhaled a thick, bluish cloud. Mr. Gilford stepped slightly to the left to intercept the secondhand smoke. He inhaled deeply through his nose. It was delightful. He managed another good whiff before the smoker got too far away.
Mr. Gilford passed Catalina, the street he lived on, and kept walking. In the middle of the next block, he entered a small Honduran grocery store. He waved to Señora Teresa, the old lady behind the counter. She nodded back, but without a smile. Her lack of enthusiasm didn’t surprise him. He picked up some black beans and a can of tuna from the shelf and approached the register.
“Señor Geelfor, I cannot do again,” Señora Teresa said firmly, but with a note of regret. “The boss, he say no credit for jou. No más.”
“Señora Teresa,” Mr. Gilford replied in a conspiratorial tone, “today I square off. You can take the book out.” To make his point, he produced a wad of cash bound by a silver clip. Señora Teresa looked him in the eyes and shook her head.
“Ayayay, señor Geelfor! What jou pawn today? Jou have anything left?”
Mr. Gilford took his hat off and placed it on the counter. He smoothed out his thin silver hair and tilted his head.
“No need to get personal, señora.” He smiled. “What’s the damage?”
She reached under the counter for the ledger. It was a thick book, full of stains on its faded cardstock cover. Mr. Gilford looked at her short, knobby fingers flipping the pages until they found his tab.
“Seventy-five dólares.”
“Plus the beans and tuna.”
“Eighty.”
“And one cigarette.”
Señora Teresa sighed theatrically. She reached under the counter again and took out an open pack of cigarettes. Expertly, she knocked one out. It fell onto the open ledger and rolled into the center fold.
“Still a dollar a pop?”
She just rolled her eyes. Her full, round face glistened in the heat. Mr. Gilford couldn’t believe how smooth it was, as if all the wrinkles had decided to skip it and settled down on her hands instead. He gave her the money. Señora Teresa crossed out the debt and closed the ledger with a dramatic thud. It startled him a bit.
“Jou cannot go on like this, señor Geelfor,” she said. “Somebody should do something.” Her tone was almost accusatory.
“You wanna marry me, Teresita?”
"¡Vete de aquí, gringo loco!"
They both smiled at each other.
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’.” Mr. Gilford put his hat back on, slid the cigarette behind his ear, and turned to the door.
“Geelfor!”
He turned back. Señora Teresa came from around the counter and dropped a can of spicy ground beef into his shopping bag.
“Jou cannot make carne asada with tuna, Geelfor.”
“You’re an angel,” he said quietly, his eyes downcast.
He backtracked one block to Catalina and turned right. His apartment building was only fifty yards away, but he was feeling exhausted. He made it to the front steps and sat down on the landing. He took off his hat, forgetting about the cigarette. The cigarette went flying and rolled down the steps, all the way to the pavement. “Goddammit,” he muttered. As he braced himself to reach down, the front door opened. He watched a pair of legs skip down the steps, one foot landing squarely on his smoke.
“Oh, hey, Mr. Gilford,” said the legs. Mr. Gilford looked up. It was his neighbor from the first floor. He knew the face well but blanked out on the name. The only Black guy in the building.
“Hello,” Mr. Gilford sighed back.
“All good, man?” inquired the first floor neighbor.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette on you, would you, mister?”
“Nah. Don’t smoke. Sorry, Mr. Gilford.”
The man started to walk away but paused after a few steps and turned.
“Whenever you want to part with that suit, I’m your man,” he said. Without waiting for an answer, he pivoted with grace and continued on his way.
“Yeah,” Mr. Gilford said to himself.
Then he stepped down, knelt on the pavement, and collected as much tobacco as he could from the cigarette’s corpse.
***
Inside his third-floor studio, Mr. Gilford wobbled to the window, pulled up the shade, and opened it all the way. He dropped the shade immediately. He didn’t want to see the view. Directly across the street was an enormous community school complex—all steel and concrete—taking up the entire city block and walled off like a maximum-security prison. He had never gotten over the Ambassador Hotel, which once stood in the very same spot, being demolished right before his eyes, brick by brick, over the course of six long months. Sure, the hotel hadn’t been in operation for at least three, maybe four decades, but still—that craftsmanship! The place had class. It was special. Since the moment they took a wrecking ball to its Coconut Grove club, the shades on Mr. Gilford’s window had stayed permanently closed.
He took off his jacket and hung it on a hanger on the closet door. His dress shirt was soaking wet. It wasn’t the weather. He was sweating more than the gabardine would allow, because the threadbare lining of his jacket had been reinforced with silver duct tape.
Even his silk tie was damp. The knot hardened. He managed to loosen it enough to slip the noose off his neck. Taking off the shirt required little effort, but the undershirt clung to him like a second skin. He had to peel it off. In the bathroom, he splashed some water under his armpits and on his face.
He came back into the room and turned the jacket inside out. The lining was now pretty much all duct tape, but he needed to check for any new rips. He found one near the left sleeve, right on the side seam. He grabbed the roll of tape from the shelf and ripped off a three-inch piece to cover the tear. Then, just for the hell of it, Mr. Gilford put the jacket on inside out over his bare torso. He looked in the closet mirror. An astronaut, he thought. The silver spacesuit matched his hair.
Instinctively, he reached into his right pocket for the pawn receipt, but the outside pockets were now inside, and left had become right. His fingers fumbled for a moment, but the ticket was there, along with the pen. He sat down at the table and placed the ticket in front of him, flattening it with his palm. Then, carefully, he drew a pip of the seven of clubs in the chit’s corner.
He opened a wooden card box and took out a bunch of old pawn shop tickets. He added the new one to the rest and shuffled them thoroughly. He stacked them neatly into a deck, and placed them on the table face down.
The pawnshop money was thin and always went fast, barely patching the gaps in his expenses. There had never been a chance in hell that he could redeem anything. He was aware of that from day one. But Mr. Gilford refused to view each ticket as a receipt for his failures. It was what it was. So, every time he returned from the pawnshop, he drew a pip in the corner of the ticket. He had turned cashing in on his past into a game to take the edge off what most bystanders would call defeat.
The involuntary collection had begun with the voucher for his wedding band, which he marked as the Ace of Spades. His late wife’s ring and the rest of the jewelry became the foundation for the remaining Aces, four Kings, and a single Queen. In the last two years, everything else of value, including his grandfather’s monogrammed silverware, his father’s service pistol, and his in-laws’ porcelain tea set, had been reduced to cardboard chits. Mr. Gilford’s eighty-two-year biography produced only a short deck of playing cards, granted, but at least all the suits were finally complete. From the Aces to the sevens.
His eyes shifted to the bright rectangular spot on the wall above his bed. He had taken down the painting that morning, the last item of any value in his possession. But now, the discoloration on the wallpaper was beginning to bug him. The wallpaper was at least four shades darker than the pale rectangle. One shade of darkening per decade, he thought.
He got up and, steadying himself against the table, took off his pants. Carefully, he shook the last bits of tobacco from his pocket onto the seat of the chair. It wasn’t enough to roll a cigarette. Mr. Gilford shrugged and pinched what was left between his thumb and forefinger. With his free hand, he closed his right nostril and inhaled the snuff through his left. He sneezed five times rapidly, but then his head spun pleasantly for a good thirty seconds.
He took off his spaceman jacket, flipped it right side out, and hung it in the closet. Clad only in boxer shorts and socks held up by garters, he returned to the table and sat down. He sneezed twice more, then grabbed his pawnshop ticket cards and began placing them in a row, face up. Each ticket was just that now—a playing card—and the game was Solitaire. His Irish wife used to call it Patience.
***
Hi J.K., I found you via Nicolas Sutro.
Such a great story - perfect from start to finish. The Heart suit trumps the other ones here. Thank you for sharing it with us.
There must be so Mr Gilfords making their way through. Patiently.
How many words here, man? So economic, so comprehensive.
And, as per Deidre Lewis, so noir.