Standing on a Corner

Image by mattcaz from Pixabay

I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, but women were the last thing on my mind. I was down to my last dollar, with nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. What I needed was a job.

Times had been tough. First the parts plant where I worked went out of business, then, because it had been the main employer in my town, just about everything else closed up as well. Nobody could afford anything but the essentials, and soon, some of us couldn’t afford even those.

The old folks stuck around, but a lot of us youngers headed out. I hitched half-way across the States and found myself on that street corner in Winslow, next to the statue with that sign saying, Standin’ on the corner.

Well, it was just me and that statue. The place was deserted. I found myself wishing the statue’s guitar was real, or that I hadn’t hawked my own to buy groceries a few months back. I could have at least busked a few dollars on some more populated corner.

A car full of women pulled up and got out. I didn’t bother telling them they’d left their car in the middle of the road. There wasn’t any traffic to speak of anyway.

A cute brunette sidled up beside me and asked if I’d take a picture of her and her friends with the statue. They’d come all the way from Canada to see the famous street corner from the Eagles song. “Sure,” I said. “Nothing better to do.”

She looked at me kind of strangely, but handed me her phone and the women, seven of them it turned out, arranged themselves all around the statue. I snapped their picture and waved them on their way. It wasn’t until after they had driven off that I found a crisp hundred-dollar bill in my pocket.

I stared at the hundred dollars, then down the road after the car, just a dot on the horizon now. I shook my head in wonder and gratitude as I stood on that corner, seven women on my mind.

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I pulled this one from the vault. It wasn’t a prompt story, but it remains one I really like. I hope you did too! Here’s a link to the song that inspired it.