working familiar territory

working familiar territory

fiction
edward w pritchard

Hamilcar was sitting along side the road at the bottom of a small hill where the road curved sharply and traffic as it passed him had to slow to a near stop and then accelerate quickly to make grade as the road meandered into a sleepy rural town.

Although Hamilcar awoke confused and out of sorts, not quite himself,  he had worked this territory long before as a druggist salesman's assistant so as he devised a plan of where to go now this dark night he remembered that there were a few bars and a general store that might still be open as the position of a new full moon told him it was not quite midnight.

Struggling to walk along the dark road and avoid the infrequent traffic it was a pity that he didn't have his car with him as Hamilcar had difficulty with the small hill sloping into town and more than once he wished he could climb and summit the new fifteen foot security fence that ran along side the road to protect the few dark houses from traffic and provide the simple country folk living hereby privacy from tourists wishing to observe the rural lifestyle which in truth was vanishing rather quickly as the area here in this part of the Country urbanized. Also it was unpleasant for Hamilcar when the drivers of the infrequent speeding cars on the country road slowed a bit to see who was walking on such a dark night as few people actually walked anymore especially after dark. Smiling to himself Hamilcar remembered the hefty weight of the druggist salesman assistant's supply samples bag he used to carry about with ease back in the day in the old territory rain or shine over hill over dale day in day out for twenty two years.

At last, at last the small rural town appeared. The bar had changed hands more than a few times since the last time he was here and country music wasn't Hamilcar's thing especially played this loud. For some reason people here were still allowed to smoke indoors as even the deputy sheriff's sitting in the back were smoking as they tried very hard to make time with the girl tending bar who looked to be half their age. Hamilcar decided to order his beer to go as he had a headache and his knees throbbed from the walk into town but, the good news,  the small bar carried his brand of beer and by the quart, cold and available.

There was some trouble with the money Hamilcar used to try to pay the owner of the bar. There was a large wad of small bills in his wallet but the printing on the bills was unfamiliar and foreign. Rather than the familiar stately dead presidents faces on the bills in his wallet most of his money seemed to contain faces of women. Finally Hamilcar passed the entire wallet to the bar owner. He would have to trust him to make the right change on the cost of the three quarts of beer just this once it seemed. The deputies in the back of the smoky bar were beginning to take note of what was happening there at the cash register and Hamilcar was shy to cause a scene of any sort.

Hamilcar decided to go back down hill when he left the bar, back to where he had just came from because of his ancient aching knees and the darkness. Temptation was high to drink a little from one of the quarts of his favorite beer as he semi marched on, easier on the sore knees, but as an former druggist salesman assistant Hamilcar was shy to cause a scene of any sort and it wouldn't do for him to be pulled over for public intoxication especially in the old territory, even out here in the boon docks where sales were hard to generate without a car or a proper suit and no druggist salesman's assistant sample case.