Ronny Racer was the town oddity.She observed him in the coffee shop.He was peculiar but Norman like him.He was sweet and thoughtful.A big kid really, bringing his own provisions to the cafe.People stopped and stared as he stirred in powdered creamer. Stuff even the lawyers at Osgoode Hall wouldn’T touch she overheard a man say one day.
Ronny lived alone with his all grey cat named Rocky. At least it was another heartbeat in the place,he guffawed to Norma as she poured coffee into his beatup silver thermos.
Christmas loomed.
She had seen Ronny a few days before, wondering is he would get a turkey dinner. He wasn’t interested in the local free Christmas dinner as he had been an invite to his brother’s farm just outside of town. Norma tucked this information in the back of her mind wondering what other singles where doing.
Later she dropped into a new initiative storefront place that served cheap food for homeless people, run by an older woman struggled through by fundraising. While she would like to put on a free dinner,unless someone donated a turkey, that wouldn’t happen. Many of the townspeople did not care for the place being so close to the theatre district. Local churches wouldn’t help. Not their ministry. Not their mandate.
Ronny would drop in there for a bagel. He usually paid. He avoided food banks, surviving on his disability, refusing cat food from the Humane Society.
He managed.
The morning he left for his brother’s, Norma saw him at the cafe. He planned to go on his bike. His brother would bring him back in his truck.
Norma was a little concerned, for while it wasn’t snowing, the temperature had dipped to minus four overnight. He seemed confident to make the ten mile trip, stating he had done a hundred mile race a few years ago.
Norma looked at him. He was top heavy, an enormous man really. Rambo style headband shoved over shoulder length unruly blonde, grey root hair style. He had a funny grin revealing missing back teeth as he waved goodbye. She ran up a prayer watching as he unchained his ten speed Peugot racer.
Suddenly a very pleasant looking man came in dressed in tan slacks, and a doe skin jacket. He brought his breakfast to the table beside hers. She always sat in the quiet corner and teasingly said.
“You know if you sit there you have to wash the dishes, this is the staff corner.”
This struck Dan as funny and they quickly fell into conversation. He surprised her when he said he was a trucker. He didn’t fit the profile. He was too sophisticatedin his soft soled Hushpuppies. She had thought he was some sort of courier. He lived in Peterborough. His runs where from the States. He just came through Toledo where folks called themselves Toledanas, so when he passed through Michigan, he wondered if they where call Michuginas. TO BE CONTINUED, END PART ONE