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**PRINT: THE2NDHAND’s 31st broadsheet features a short by Portland-by-way-of-Montana writer Aaron Parrett that captures the power and glory of ambivalence after, during, and prior to what the unemployed poet-protagonist comes to clearly see as, if not love, then surely "Tolerance," the story's title. Parrett is the author of The Translunar Narrative in the Western Tradition **WEB: THE ORIGIN OF MAN Eric Beeny
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THE ORIGIN OF MAN
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Eric Beeny
This story is part of a novel in stories still in progress, dubbed "The Immortals Act Their Age." Beeny's work has appeared in 5AM, 32 Poems, Main Street Rag, Nuthouse, Quercus Review, and others.
Late at night, streetlamps pouring light like black coffee out into the street, steam rising from the puddles of no cream, no sugar, melting the snow, and a man got to a bus stop not thinking any of that crap I just wrote.
He stood there alone.
He looked at his watch, looked down the street.
The street was empty.
In a few minutes another man got to the bus stop.
The two men nodded to each other through the warm smoke their breaths made.
They stood there alone.
Latter Man got curious, or he felt guilty for not knowing what to say or if he should say anything.
"Time's the bus come?" he said.
"1:55 it's supposed to be two stops down," Former Man said.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"You look like, I know you from somewhere," Latter Man said, jumping up and down to keep warm.
"Yeah?" Former Man said, his jaw quivering.
"Yeah."
"You look familiar, too."
The two observed one another with an eagerness to know things, all the things they missed out on or were there for but just didn't pay attention to.
This might not've been a thing like the first time either of them masturbated.
"Were you in the Pen?" Latter Man said.
"Nah."
"Good. Don't go there. It's no good for you."
"Nah."
"What about A.A.? You ever go to A.A.?"
"Nah."
The two men didn't say anything for a while.
They kept looking away and down the street and at their watches and then at each other when they thought the other wasn't looking.
Then Latter Man said, "I know. Didn't we fight?"
"What?" Former Man said.
"Yeah, like five years ago we got into a fight."
"Ah, shit, yeah."
"Yeah, I beat your ass," Latter Man said. "You just curled up into a ball."
"Well, you and your friends beat my ass."
"Still, I beat your ass."
"You helped," Former Man said.
"Yeah, well, you just fell down and curled up."
"I didn't know what was up. Ya'll snuck up on me. What was I supposed to do?"
The two men stood there not saying anything for a while.
Then Latter Man said, "Remember all the blood?"
"Yeah," Former Man said.
"All those knives."
"I remember."
"I've never seen that much blood."
"I've never bled that much."
"You must've felt like such a pussy."
"Didn't feel like much of a hero."
Latter Man laughed a little, and then said, "Where you coming from, work?"
"Yeah," Former Man said, looking at his watch.
"Time you got? I think mine's slow."
"2:03."
"Goddamn late."
Former Man tried to not think about years ago, what happened.
"Where you coming from?" he said.
Latter Man thought of lots of other things from back then, but figured he better lay off a bit. "A.A.," he said. "You fighting much lately?"
"I never fight," Former Man said.
A pair of headlights opened up out of the distance, and Former Man looked at them.
He watched them as if they were the universe if it was two fists blooming from a darkness stretching like the inside of a sock puppet back from the beginning of time.
"What?" Latter Man said, confused, half laughing, half insulted.
"Never did."
The bus pulled up to the curb.
It stopped and sighed, letting the air out of its tires to pick up these two passengers.
Former Man climbed the steps and reached into his pocket.
He put his fair in the box.
Latter Man didn't get on at first, just stood there on the sidewalk.
"You coming?" the bus driver said.
"Yeah."
He got in his pocket, stepped up onto the bus and put his fair in the box.
The bus otherwise was empty.
Former Man had made his way to the back.
He sat there looking out the window.
Latter Man held onto the balance bar sort of behind the driver as the bus pulled away.
He looked at Former Man looking out the window.
Former Man looked up.
Latter Man looked at him.
The two men looked at each other, and then they looked away.
From everywhere they'd come, just to be there on that bus, there was nothing else either of them could've done differently, nothing else they would've done now, forever.
They both had just enough time to exist to that point, when someone else would have to come along and dust them off, placing the moment in a glass case next to a fossil of the Earth in the Natural History Museum.
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