The other day, the sun came out and the entire city was drenched by the warm glow of a February sun. The snow began to melt, leaving behind grungy-looking snow, and allowed all green and human life to finally come out of its winter hiding place. It was a sure sign, that the city streets and sidewalks would soon be filled with people. And maybe this time, with everything and everyone out in the open, it would be much easier to meet people, unlike my previous experience.
I walked down North Avenue and headed west to the lake, also known as Lake Michigan. It was such a perfect day. I could already see myself sipping an insulated cup of white mocha while walking down the path that followed the river and having one of those worldly intellectual thoughts that are usually reserved for the hero of a critically acclaimed, Hollywood movie. So, I made a quick stop at Alterra, a local coffee shop, housed in the historic Milwaukee River Flushing Station. That's when some random guy told me they knew I wasn't from around here. I didn't know whether this was a compliment or a diss, but I was rocking out my new vintage, navy blue peacoat I picked up in Chicago, so I knew I looked good, either way.His name was Sydney and he was a speech and linguistics major and when he heard me say "milk" instead of "melk" like so many Milwaukee-ians do, he knew I wasn't from around these parts. I agreed and told him "Wis-can-sin" was not my home of origin and we just started talking. Apart from having a degree in linguistics, he was also a bakery manager for a locally owned supermarket and a budding Hollywood screenwriter.
The last one totally made me roll my eyes, too. One opinion published in a local newspaper, and soon everyone thinks they're a writer destined for Hollywood. But as it turns out, Sydney actually was. He started writing a story about a guy named Helmut, that he met online through a dare, who in the course of four months changed his life altogether. They never met in person, since they were cities, almost world's apart, but they ended up becoming best friends, before Helmut died of pancreatic cancer. Before he died, Helmut told Sydney a story worthy of an Aaron Spelling soap opera: his mother was a prostitute and because of her busy and odd hours, he became a father to his baby sister, who died when she was only nine and then, when his mother was no longer of an attractive and desirable age, she allowed her landlord/lover to have his way with Helmut in lieu of rent, before the landlord/lover became angry and hung her to death in the bathroom, before he himself was shot to death by Helmut who witnessed the whole thing and did it out of self-defense, before the police unloaded their guns into his body, which resulted in a blotched surgery that may or may not have resulted to his cancer. I counted at least a dozen bewildered looks from customers who passed by, as Sydney told his story.
At first, Sydney wrote the story for himself. Then he shared it with friends who in turned shared it with their friends. Before long, the story made its way to an agent who immediately got in touch with Sydney and suggested he sell his story to a movie studio, before turning it into a book. Twelve film directors and three screenwriters later, Sydney was a mere touch away from finally having his story put onto the silver screen, but like all things in the glamorous world of Hollywood, these things take time.
I, of course, took everything he said, with a proverbial grain of salt, because who can really believe everything they hear? Take me, for example. You know my old boss, Alice? The one whose husband, Azten was arrested last March for allegedly being involved in a double homicide, so while he waited in jail for a trial, she was busy raising two daughters and gave birth to their first baby boy five months later, before she stiffed me out my paychecks, purposely ruined my credit and ultimately laid me off right before the holidays, all because she refused to stop living the costly lifestyle she had become accustomed to? Yeah, that one? Well, believe it and the update:
Azten was found guilty. On both counts of murder. A friend of a friend who was the present sheriff in the courtroom told me, officials played recorded phone calls that had Azten telling Alice what her alibi should be and what their friend's alibi's should be. Guess both Azten and Alice didn't know prison phone calls were personal. But the pieces fell even before then, during a climatic moment when Azten's mistress took the stand and gave the exact alibi, verbatim, that Azten told Alice to tell their friend. Even if he was innocent, the fact that Azten had people lie on oath for him, with undeniable evidence, was enough for the judge to give him two life terms for each murder, with the possibility of parole after a twenty five year period. His life is over. Even if he does get out after twenty five years, he'll be over 60 years old, with a damaging record that will most likely prevent him from holding a substantial job position and his family, especially his son, will never recognize him as an outstanding father.But besides the incriminating phone records, there was also the blatant fact that the flower shop his wife ran and that I used to work for, was actually a front for his real-life drug business. No joke. A small part came out during the trial, but was thrown out for irrelevance in the shootings. And though it was small, it was still big to me. All at once, I remembered that there were a few shady characters from time to time that came in asking for Azten or Alice, but then again, the flower shop was located downtown, which is home to some of the most colorful characters a city could ever have. But shady enough to be involved with drugs? Sure, I joked about it with friends when we had roses flown in specifically from Brazil, but who knew the jokes held some truth?
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