Pedro

Does the time make the people, or the people make the time? Are we a product of our station in history, or is history a product of us? Well I’ve never been one for the history books; never was much of an academic at all really. But I remember a story a fella once told me a long time ago; about a man, just an ordinary man. You see this man, Peter Novak as his parents named him, was well the man. He struck that perfect balance of time and place; he was undoubtedly a man of the time.

Pedro, his preferred nomenclature, was like the Zen master of his generation. He wasn’t particularly strong, particularly special, or particularly strange in any way, he was just a man; but he was happy with that and in the end that’s all that counts. He may have had a low station in a service industry job but to Pedro this gave him a lot of time to look about and see what’s happening in the world; not like newspapers or internet forums but real people, in real life. Watching, that just happened to be his favourite past time. Now like I said he wasn’t a particularly special man, no genius but no idiot either; so when he was watching, like he so often does, he just saw what’s what. He knew what was happening but not why. And if he did see something going on, like us so often he just didn’t know the right words to put it in a way that would make the world at ease. Like I said he was just a man.

Well now, you caught me rambling. Back to the story, back to Pedro. Besides watching his number one past time above all else was playing cards. He even had some friends doing it too, Jimmy and Rob. It was a hobby of theirs on a Tuesday night, when Rob’s wife was working late, to go down to their local pub and have a few beers while enjoying a few hands of Texas Hold ‘Em with Jim and Rob.

They never played for high stakes, nothing that you would miss and nothing that would weigh your pockets down on a good night. Because of this the landlord turned a blind eye to his most serene regulars breaking the law on his premises. After all they were just average men, why would they ever cause any bother?

“Stay away from strong booze and easy women.” His dad said to him so often as a child in his broken Balkan accent. Now this is most likely not something that came from his Dad’s own personal experience, after all the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree and his dad was just another man like Pedro. The only spectacular thing about Papa Novak was that he learnt English from all the old spaghetti westerns; probably where he got these little acorns of wisdom that he so often like to drop on his son. Now learning your English from the Wild West can be a problem especially for an immigrant living on a north Manchester council estate, a southern drawl really doesn’t help you fit in. Or disarm the xenophobic locals whose complaints always landing square on the shoulders of Pedro’s padre, he knew they meant none by it; after all it was just their way.

There I go rambling again now, “Stay away from strong booze and easy women.” This advice was wasted on young Pedro because he could afford a habit in neither. In fact, there weren’t ever many women in Pedro’s life at one time. They never exactly clamoured for second generation immigrants who were hardly lookers or charmers. But like every man Pedro had his fair share of romance, his sight now were focused squarely on a homely lady named Sue.

Sue was the one and only barmaid in, “The Oak” Pedro’s local pub. He liked nothing better than when Jim and Rob had gone home to sit at the bar and just talk with Sue. He never ever did anything more, he soon lost the chance, but he never did anything more because Sue was a married woman.

She wasn’t much to look at, plain in every way, except for her substantial bosom. Pedro could thank her three children for providing that when he fantasised about her on his lonely nights in. The only distinguishing feature about Sue was the bruises. See Sue was a battered wife, her husband was nothing but a drunk and he took his shame out on her.

Now it wasn’t Pedro’s place to go prying so he let it be. After all he figured if she was hurt so much she would just leave. He sometimes thought about how he could be her shining light, her knight in armour. They would ride off into the sunset in Pedro’s aging Ford Focus, he never thought he would get the chance; but life works like that sometimes.

Now from one of Pedro’s more, adventurous, examinations of Susan he saw bruising. Not the regular fare but black fist prints around her waist. Done with such force that each knuckle could easily be defined. Poor Sue just struggled on in silence but Pedro was after all just a man and he had reached his limit.

He waited outside their house one night, it was Sue’s late night in The Acorn and he would usually be their keeping her company but tonight his attention was on her spouse. He came staggering home the drunken mess he was, and Pedro was waiting.

Now if there was ever a time when Pedro should have got the words right and said something profound now would be the time. But no Pedro was just a man so when he beat this woman abuser all he could muster was a string of curse words finished off with a victorious, “Bastard!” He was no criminal mastermind; he was soon caught and sent down for life, the courts just couldn’t see the passion in it see. Well that’s it, that’s the story a man of the times, Peter “Pedro” Novak.