The Last Meal on Haight-Ashbury and other short stories with a twist

By N.G.Prasad

The Last Meal on Haight-Ashbury and other short stories takes you from the sixties hung-over Haight-Ashbury to the guilt-ridden mind of a mother who feels relieved over the death of her special child. From the powdery white snows of Kanazawa to the dark, deceitful schemes of an antique dealer. There are tales of an incorrigible Casanova helping a couple on the brink of breaking up and those of a five-dollar bill changing the life of an advertising veteran with twenty years under his belt. A phone call goes awry in Napoli while a grandfather clock may prove to tell more than just time. Enjoy the twists and turns in the latest offering by the author of four-star rated Ten Twisted Tales.

• Language: English
• Publisher: N.G.Prasad
• Release date: Jun 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513056845

Book preview

THE WALLET

It was right there by his side. A swollen wallet. Bulging with the pride of bundles of dollar bills and coins it could barely hold, like a glutton's stomach, almost obscene in its fullness.

He saw it on a chair as he sat down at the empty table of this quiet restaurant by the station. He looked like someone to whom life had been unkind for a long time. You could tell he was down on his luck, which was dutifully reflected on the size of his own wallet. His hands automatically went to his trouser pocket, his grubby fingers feeling for his wallet, thin and emaciated - a drought hit landscape sewn in leather, frayed at the ends and starved, except for some old name cards, receipts and coupons that had gone past their use-by date, much like his life.

It hadn't always been a barren desert, his life. It had seen sunshine and showers, bountiful harvests and abundant opulence. Sure most of it was ill gotten but they were there all the same, if only for a brief period. A gambler's riches, after all, had the permanence of youth and the peace of a guilty mind. But the lure of it was too powerful; the highs he reached when the cards fell his way and when the dice turned in his favour were too strong to be swayed by something as weak as reason in the form of advice from his family members. Money, whether he was pursuing it or hoarding it, had a way of erecting walls around him, walls that were impervious to anything sensible.

When you start living in your own world with its own rules and dictates, not everybody wants to be its citizen, and sooner or later you tend to lose people who don't fit in. So it was no surprise when his wife left him and took their two kids; she went back to her parents' house and got a court order that allowed him a once-a-week audience with his kids.

The loss didn't hit him at first; he was quite used to losing only to win it back later. But this time it didn't depend on luck, or his prowess at reading the game or marking his cards. This time, life had stacked up the odds against him winning his family back. Still, the initial reaction of indignant bravado gave him false hope. Where can they go? How long can her parents support them? The kids were used to an extravagant lifestyle, so surely the lack of it would have them knocking on his doors?  They didn't. By the time he realised what was truly precious, it had left his life irrevocably, like childhood, leaving him reminiscing in isolation.

'Listen, brother,' his loan shark had said a couple of days earlier, not emphasising the brother much, 'you need to pay up. You owe us a lot this time, and from what I hear, your luck has deserted you.'

He had sat quietly, not protesting, not disagreeing, just quiet, like a man facing his death sentence. In a sense, that's what it was. He had no way of repaying the money he owed to the loan shark. His house and car had been repossessed; his friends wanted nothing to do with him. He was alone.

'I'm not much for luck,' the loan shark had continued, 'not your luck at least. So I'm giving you a week's time before I send my guys around. That's my grace period for all the times that you paid me back on time, kind of a loyalty programme.' The grin that accompanied the last sentence had more menace than friendliness in it. There were no friends in this business, that much he knew. But knowledge and realisation were of no use to him now. He needed money. Badly. If not enough to pay back the loan shark then at least to get out of town and lay low for a while. Get a job where no one knew him and get a new ID and driver's license.

Which was why he was here, at the station. Even if he couldn’t get away like he wanted to, he could at least sit and look at the trains wistfully.  All he could do was look, as the money he had in his wallet was barely enough for the coffee he was going to order, let alone take him on a cross-country trip. He needed at least two hundred dollars for that and he was down to a dollar twenty.

That was when he saw the obese wallet. He could just stretch his hand in a lazy, unobtrusive way, drum his fingers nonchalantly on the thick leather-cased temptation, and slip it into his pocket now, couldn’t he? After all, yielding to temptation was second nature, and being thoughtless was his first. Repeatedly he had given into the Temptress every time she had made eyes at him coyly, from across the smoke-filled casinos, at the edge of the green tables and standing next to the croupiers. A flick of the wrists or a roll of the dice could change his luck and that was why he could never resist the root of all sins in the world: temptation. Without that, there would be no lure of the poker table; no lady of the night or next-door nymphets to ruin sacred wedding vows; no surreptitious deals in dark alleys for mind destroying drugs. If you could resist the root of it all, stay contented with your lot, and look temptation squarely in the eye and say, 'what else have you got?' then you were a man, a husband, a father and a friend. Otherwise you were just a heap of flesh and blood with a weak mind intent on the next fix.

'I have nothing to prove to anyone. I have stolen before, and that was when I had everything, family, friends, a reason to be ashamed of in case I got caught', he thought. 'Now I can just take this wallet, can't I? I mean who will know? Who will care?'

He looked around at the afternoon crowd that was thinning like the hairline on a forty year old man. The cafe was empty. He caught the eye of the girl at the counter who came over immediately. He cursed softly for looking at her. Now he had to order something and make sure she didn't see the wallet. He quickly placed his backpack on the chair, covering the fat wallet. 

'Hello, sir, what can I get you?'

'My family', he said, with a wry smile creasing his unshaven, tired face.

'What?' she said, stopping her chewing halfway.

'No nothing, coffee please', he said.

'Sure', she said and left.

'For once, why can't I do the right thing?' he wondered. 'Just this once, stand up and be counted as