Published
Mr. Jones was a man amongst men, your ordinary, everyday kind of sardine sailor. He worked when the sun rose till its setting and found peace in the smaller things of life. He ate only what he needed, bought only what he could afford, and dreamed of only one thing he could never have: escape.
But this was no rare dream of Mr. Jones alone, as everyone residing in Grimesville felt the same; they wanted out. Each night Mr. Jones would tuck himself in to sleep, and look to the only clean possession he had. A little framed picture of a little boat on a little dock on a little island; a little space in a little place that was solely his to keep clean.
Ya see, grime covered the walls in Mr. Jones’s apartment. The old furnace was clogged with soot, the rooms smelled like foot, and the floor was lined with schmutz. This was no oddity or out of place space when in the context of the town itself, as even if he could have seen out one of his few small goo-covered windows, the outside was the same.
Grimesville was a stain of gooey grime and grit, slimy slippery sardine spit, and metallic rusty rot. Buildings were built tall and with rounded edges, bubbly bulging things that seemed to be born bathed in residue. Large plumes of black and gray sooty smoke billowed out of the also black pipes atop each roof, jutting out like jagged barely welded-on exhausts from their jalopy-like homes.
Grimesville was built where a town had no business being: suspended entirely over the sea. It rested on a raised wooden platform one square mile wide that seemed to be perpetually draped in a monotone mix of muted light. Dark clouds sat sulking overhead without rest, leaving Grimesville caught between the gray sky above and the gray sea below. The only two things said to ever be able to live there were people and sardines; and the only two things ever said to grow there were grit and sedentary aspirations.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, nearly nothing noteworthy ever came to pass in Grimesville. It was a place of mundane work, mundane meals, and mundane everything. Tourism had dried up after the great sardine migration of 1752, leaving nothing but the locals left to linger and sustain what was an unnoticed spot of existence in the booming world around it.
Its Mayor, Guillermo Grimes, of the long line of grimy Grimes Grimesville mayors, had done nothing to help. His town was about as stagnant as sardines in a bucket on a hot summer day, unmoving, unmotivated, and on the verge of death. But this did not stop him from squeezing every last bit of greasy juice from his townsfolk, or as he called them “his little sardines.”
Mayor Guillermo Grimes wore a black pressed top hat that sat loosely on his oiled-up, long since bald head. Accompanying this was his black suit, red tie, mahogany cane, and, most importantly to him, his lucky pearl-white gloves. A well-known fact about Guillermo was his disdain for dirty hands. Strange, perhaps, for the mayor of a town called Grimesville, though not for a man that had spent his whole career keeping his hands clean as the grime grew under his polished boots.
In his gluttonous pursuit of greasy sardine gold, Guillermo decided it was time to stir some life into his old, rotted-out town of steel and salt. And with what better way than a raffle? As he saw it, “There’s no easier way to juice the sardines of all the gold they’ve got than to get ‘em swimming after something shiny.” The townsfolk would get their excitement, Guillermo would get their shillings, and if his greasy little plan went right, his lucky gloves might just earn their title.
Signs were posted around Grimesville at once, as the raffle was to start and end that same weekend. They laid out the rules as follows: “All sardines sold this Saturday will come with a ticket for your chance to win a nice, new, and most notably, clean houseboat. The winning number will be drawn Sunday by none other than the magnificent Mayor Guillermo Grimes himself. So empty your pockets, fill your barrels, and buy some sardines for your chance to sail! Mayor Grimes assumes no responsibility for lost tickets, fish sickness, or unfortunate luck. His drawing, however, is final.”
For the days that followed, talk of the raffle permeated every conversation in Grimesville like the stench of putrefied fish. Boats there were only ever used for hauling sardines, and the thought of owning anything “clean,” let alone “new,” sounded almost too good to be true. The Mayor, for maybe the first time ever, was right, as when Saturday morning came, so did a sardine storm in Grimesville.
People packed like sardines filled the docks. Young and old, meek or bold, poor of gold, grimy sailors, barrel balers, and everyone that lived in the cracks came slinking out of their unhomely holes. They bought up all the sardines they could afford or carry, until every last one was gone. All the while, Mayor Grimes watched the whole affair from his new favorite chair overlooking the courtyard, rubbing his lucky pearl-white gloves together as all the sardines got gobbled up. No one, in the entire town of Grimesville, could pass up the chance at an escape; well, no one other than Mr. Jones that is.
Mr. Jones had a distrust of the Mayor and smelt an extra stinky scent wafting off this whole “sardine raffle” situation. But even so, this wasn’t his kind of thing. He didn’t believe much in luck, and hated the thought of getting caught in a big crowd. His mother had always told him, “You can spend all day chasing luck, but fate has a way of catching up to you.” So, Mr. Jones smeared aside just enough sludge so he could peek through his window and watch the frenzy unfold. Patiently he waited for the commotion to die down before he too slunk out of his unhomely crack to pick from whatever scraps were left to make dinner.
But no scraps there were, as every last sardine was bought up. There were no loose sardines, sardine fillets, sardine casseroles, sardine sandwiches, sardine stews, sloppy sardines, or even a single sardine tail at the bottom of any barrel. No sardine this, no sardine that, and no sardine nothing. There weren’t even any sardine vendors left, they’d packed up and made their way home as there wasn’t even a single sardine morsel left to sell.
But still, Mr. Jones was hungry for at least a snack. So he scoured and searched and lurched around late into the night just looking for one little savory sardine scrap to get his hands on. Eventually, that scouring and searching and lurching took its toll. His feet ached, his stomach groaned, and Grimesville had gone quiet beneath its usual dark blanket of black clouds. Altogether annoyed with the whole affair, Mr. Jones decided the only thing left to do was find himself a chair and rot away what remained of the night.
Thankfully, one chair had somehow survived the day upright, sitting lonely on a ledge above the courtyard. Mr. Jones figured it was as good a place as any to rest his aching bones, so up he stomped, all while grumbling under his breath about the mess and his lack of dinner. But just as he went to sit, he stopped.
There, in front of him, was an odd looking white spot on the ground beside the seat. He even at first thought it might have been a clean shilling, but had dismissed that idea quickly, as finding anything clean in Grimesville was about as rare as an albino sardine. So, he leaned in a bit closer and saw that it was no clean spot at all, but rather a single raffle ticket resting neatly above the grime.
Mr. Jones picked it up and turned it over in his hand, running his fingers over the number pressed into its face. “Some poor sardine must have dropped it in all the commotion,” he thought. Now looking up and around at the courtyard in front of him, there wasn’t a single sardine soul in sight to claim the ticket other than himself. So, with a shrug, Mr. Jones tucked the ticket into his pocket and thought nothing more of it that night. Of course, we already know he didn’t believe much in luck, but he didn’t believe in littering either.
Sunday then came, and for the second day in a row every resident of Grimesville crowded into the courtyard. Crumpled tickets filled pockets, hats, shoes, purses, buckets, barrels, and fists. Some people had hundreds, others had thousands, but Mr. Jones stood there with just one.
At the center of the square sat a great round fishbowl atop a little wooden stool, stuffed right up to the brim with raffle tickets. Beside it stood Mayor Guillermo Grimes in his black suit, red tie, pressed top hat, mahogany cane, and of course, his lucky pearl-white gloves. Alongside his outfit he wore a greasy smile that was so wide and heavy with the weight of greed it nearly slipped off his face.
“My little sardines,” he began, waving his cane in an entirely unnecessary fashion.
“The time has come.”
The crowd fell silent.
He stepped toward the bowl, reaching with one of his gloved hands up, up, up, and at full extension it stopped just short of the rim. Guillermo cleared his throat.
“A stool.”
One of his attendants hurried off and returned with a little wooden step-stool which Guillermo yanked out of his hands and slapped down on the grungy wooden planks beneath him. Then, he climbed aboard, straightened his coat and hat, and tried very hard to behave as though all of this had been a planned part of the festivities.
Now, just tall enough to peer over the rim, Guillermo dunked one of his hands into the tickets and began stirring them around with great theatrics. He dug and dug for several lengthy seconds before fishing out a ticket and holding it high above his head. He did not look at it.
“The winning number is…”
He called out, pausing for effect.
“237…”
Mr. Jones looked down at his ticket.
“…589…”
Nothing in the courtyard moved.
“…3221”
Mr. Jones’ eyes bulged as wide as a sardine’s.
Guillermo reached into his lucky left glove.
Mr. Jones looked up.
Guillermo reached a little farther into his left glove.
Mr. Jones looked at his ticket again.
Guillermo checked the other glove.
Mr. Jones raised his hand.
“I believe that’s me.”
Then Guillermo’s greasy smile did indeed slip right off his slicked up face.
For the first time anyone could remember, Mayor Guillermo Grimes had nothing to say. He continued his search from one glove to the other and back again. He checked his pockets, beneath his hat, inside his coat, and finally turned both of his precious “lucky” pearl-white gloves completely inside out. He couldn’t believe that “his” ticket, or rather, Mr. Jones’s ticket, wasn’t still in its clean hiding space where he had left it Saturday morning. But he had called the number, the rules had been written clearly, and all of Grimesville had already heard Mr. Jones win fair and square. There was nothing the Mayor could do without getting his hands very, very dirty.
And so, he picked back up his smile from the grime on the floor and stapled it back to his face, although now it was clenched tighter than the lid on a sardine tin. Mayor Guillermo Grimes then reluctantly handed Mr. Jones the keys to a nice, new, and most notably, clean houseboat, and Mr. Jones could hardly believe it.
By sundown, he had packed everything he owned up in that boat, which didn’t take all that long. A few clothes, some keepsakes, and one little framed picture of a little boat on a little dock on a little island. He set the picture inside his new houseboat and looked at it for a while, then drew his eyes up to admire the view out his new clean window.
For the first time, that picture looked a little less like a dream. Mr. Jones started the engine and sailed away from Grimesville, past the soot-covered docks, past the sardine boats, and out toward a sea he had spent his whole life wishing he could look at through cleaner windows. Behind him, Mayor Guillermo Grimes stood at the end of the dock, still staring down at two inside-out pearl-white gloves where the winning ticket had once been stored. Ahead of him was the bow of his little boat, a little horizon, and somewhere beyond it, perhaps, a little island of his own.
—Connor