Infinite Stupidity

This story is inspired by the song ‘Eli The Barrow Boy’ by The Decemberists. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s a fanfiction though. A youtube embed to the song is posted at the end for your benefit

My old buddy Eli was a pretty hard working guy.

He grew up not having much, and I guess that gave him the drive to bust his ass anything he needed something. If he wanted some pocket money he’d knock on all the neighbours doors asking for odd jobs. Would sell the lemons from his back yard to strangers on the street. That sort of thing. Had a good mind for business, did old Eli, though most of what he made he gave back to his folks cause that was the sort of guy Eli was.

He wasn’t great at school though, but hey, he was always talking about how he was gonna get out of schooling, start his own business, do what he wanted and not have to do what the man told him. When his parents got themselves killed in a car crash when Eli was 16, he up and left school straight away, and got himself a crappy job at a fast food place to help pay the bills. “Ain’t nuthin’ to the decision, I ain’t goin’ anywhere here.” he told me when he came in to let everyone know.

Hardly saw him for a month or so after that, but then one day I’m walking round in the middle of town and I hear this guy yelling at me to come see his wares. I turn around, and there’s Eli, parked up in the sidewalk with a cart covered in odd and ends. I went over to see him, and he told me about how he’d started selling whatever he could find here in the middle of town whenever he weren’t at his job. He was making a bit of extra cash, but it wasn’t great. Pretty much everything he took home went into making sure his brother had clothes and schoolbooks, and if there were a couple bucks left over from that, it went straight back into the business.

After that I’d go and give him a hand whenever I could. Eli was probably one of my best friends anyway, and it was a lot of fun sitting there shooting the breeze all day, trying to rustle up some business. We’d sit there, passing a beer between us and he’d yell out to anyone walking past to come and have a look at whatever he had for sale. Sometimes he’d get lucky and manage to get a whole pile of something dirt cheap, like the time he talked a farmer out of a big stack of sweetcorn, and he’d look a sight there in his ripped jeans and dirty t-shirt crying out “Corn cobs! I got corn cobs for the buyin’!” Tell you something, no matter how he looked, if he’d put his mind to it he could’ve probably sold that corn straight back to the farmer at twice the price, that’s how convincing he was.

Couple years later the little brother got himself a scholarship to some nice college, off on the other side of the country and Eli dropped the fast food job seeing as he didn’t need to support him anymore. He put all his time into the business, and I got busy with my own stuff, new job, a lady, that sort of thing, so we didn’t really get much chance to see each other. Every now and then I’d walk past him yelling at folks to come and buy something and I’d say hi, but I’d never have the time to stop and talk. Felt guilty about that, so I made sure I set aside a few hours to stop by and spend some time with him.

I showed up at his stall, and there he was with a woman, gotta be one of the prettiest I’d ever seen. He had his arm around her waist, and they were smiling and laughing away. Hey boy, how’s it goin’, I called out to him, and he waved me over and made introductions. “This is Mary”, he told me, the biggest grin on his face I’d ever seen. We spoke for a bit, found out she was a school teacher, met Eli while she was out doing some shopping and saw something in him, so she asked him out for a drink. Seems they’d been together a few months, and it was nothing but a good thing.

After a while it turned out that Mary had some errands to run, so she shook my hand, kissed Eli goodbye, and made her exit, Eli staring after her the whole way. Soon as she was out of sight the old boy turned to me and said “I’m the luckiest motherfucker alive that landed a gal like that”. I agreed, and asked him if he were planning to make an honest woman out of her. “Soon as I can”, he told me, still smiling away, “but I wanna put away as much cash as I can ‘fore I ask ‘er. Pay fer the weddin’, ‘er dress, ‘n ev’rythin’ so I can show her folks I can support ‘er”

We talked for a while longer, Eli interrupting me every couple minutes to drum up some business, help someone out, till it got late and I had to be getting home. I shook Eli’s hand, told him how happy I was, and the boy straight out hugs me in the middle of the street. After that was done I took my leave, but not before promising Eli I’d come back soon as I could, and even take him out for a beer one of these nights.

Couple weeks went by and I hadn’t had a chance to get in touch with Eli, when I heard that the city was passing a new law stopping guys like Eli from setting up shop in the middle of town. Instead they were meant to go to some park in the middle of the suburbs, away from everything. Day or two after I heard I got a knock on my door, and Eli’s standing outside, a tear in his eye.

I brought him inside, made him a cup of coffee, strong, the way he likes it, and asked after his problems. He took a couple sips of his drink, then tells me about how he was going to have to close up shop on account of there being no business. He’d considered breaking the law and setting up in the middle of town anyway, but he’d never be able to break even with all the fines and everything. And another job seemed to be out of the question as well.

“Mary’s tellin’ me that she can get me a job, no problem, but I dunno if I can work for no one else again. That cart’s been my life long as I ‘member now”. I asked him if he’d ever thought of starting up a real shop but he just said “Naw, I need the fresh air. Bein’ cooped up inside all day ain’t good for no one.”

To make matters worse his brother sent him a letter a few days ago, something about not wanting to come home when he finished college. Apparently he’d made himself quite a life over there and wanted to make the best of it. Can’t say I blamed him, but Eli took it pretty hard.

I offered him a beer, we had a good talk, then he went home, a little drunk, but none the worse for wear. I was a little worried about him, but hey, he’d seen worse times. He had the love of a lady, and really, that’s all that matters. Couple days later though, that’s when it hit me that it was all he had, specially when Mary went missing.

The newspapers printed a nice picture of her, but didn’t say much. If anyone knew where she’d be they weren’t saying nothing. I managed to find Eli, and I told him to come stay with me, that he shouldn’t be alone, but he wasn’t hearing nothing of that, wanted to be at home in case she turned up on the doorstep, so I packed up some clothes and stayed on his couch, cause that’s what friends do isn’t it?

Got to be two weeks, then three, four since anyone had heard from Mary, and then one night Eli never came home. At that point he’d been out drinking whenever he could, but always came back, crying about his missing lady. I called the police that night, but they told me not to worry, then a couple nights later I called them again and they said they’d start looking for him. Next morning I got a call, they’d found him. He was all dressed up in a rented suit, but he was lying face down drowned on the riverbank. They were saying he’d drunk too much and fallen over the side of a bridge, but I had another idea, specially when the news broke that a body’d been found buried in a pine grove a little down the way.

I knew Eli’d found out what had happened to Mary, that she’d met a pretty grisly end, and couldn’t bear to be without her. Guess he’d figured that he’d see her on the other side and wanted to make it pretty soon, cause it seems like he got himself all dressed up for a wedding when he decided to go. Must’ve got himself the money for that dress after all.

Still, I swear, you go down the middle of the town, you can still hear him hollering away, selling whatever he’s got hold of now. Seems a man never really gives up what he loves doing.