The Golden Parachute
a short story
by Paul D. Dail
Copyright 2011- De los Diablos Books, inc.
Smashwords Edition
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“Vintage American Flag” portion of cover art from:
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Jarom Myers stood shivering in the damp night air of Manhattan while Mary searched out “a decent bathroom.” While he waited, he cursed the power that he knew a woman could have over a good man.
Not that he necessarily considered himself a good man, but he figured if they couldn’t resist the temptation, what chance did he have?
Just like every other pseudo-valiant act Jarom had carried out in his twenty-two years on this earth, it was because of a woman-- Mary Delaney from his Sociology 310 class to be specific-- that Jarom now found himself temporarily camped out with hundreds of other protesters just off Wall Street in Zuccotti Park.
The question he contemplated tonight as he waited for Mary was exactly how temporarily he would be there. It was late October. Halloween was just a few days away, and it was looking like New York was just going to skip autumn this year and head straight into winter. The nights under Jarom’s tarp were starting to get pretty chilly. He had even heard that rain was predicted tonight.
Unfortunately, the air wasn’t the only thing cold recently. It didn’t help Jarom’s mood that he was still sleeping alone, even though he was the one who friggin’ brought Mary to New York in the first place. As he looked around himself over the sea of tents and orgiastic masses of bodies driven together by the colder temperature and huddled on the ground, he decided that he was probably the only one still relying solely on his own body warmth at night.
Just as Jarom was wondering if tonight might be the night Mary would actually let him stay, he spied her coming down the street, and based on her body language, he had a pretty good idea the answer to that one. “Any luck?”
“Don’t ask,” she said. “You ready to go?”
That depends, Jarom thought. “Yeah, I’m beat,” he said. “Let’s get you back to your tent.”
They wove through the maze of tarps, tents and bundled forms on the ground. It was quieter than usual tonight. Must’ve been the threat of weather. The rain that hit a few days earlier had made life pretty miserable.
“This thing’s losing momentum,” Jarom said as they walked. Mary didn’t respond. “How do you think it’s all going to end?” he asked her. “Winter’s gonna be here soon enough, and then what? Who will be the last ones to leave? The bums probably.”