Polite Fictions

Charlie squeezes the dough between her fingers, watches it ooze between her knuckles, pushes it neatly back in a mound, then tugs and squeezes, on and on, a meditation. She is surrounded by flour and yeast. The place stinks of pink sugar and birth, heaven and earth, and it is the only place she feels completely comfortable.

 

She works alone in the dark and she’ll be home before daylight. Her very best manifests as everyone sleeps: later, she might dance on the hood of a car (like her mother) or sing with the band, but here, right now, she can dig her fingers in and be sinister. Before the oven takes over to crack and harden her braids and skinny perfect baguettes, she silently, selfishly wields salt and poppy seed at her masterly whim. She is beholden to nothing, but for temperature and chemistry.

 

He is unmanageable but he is brilliant, she thinks, wiping off flour this morning like every morning, a routine, on her jeans and then slides hot loaves under glass. He never laughs at her jokes; he just grimaces. He beckons her to come down from bar stages and kitchen counters because he wants to talk to her alone in a stairwell. Outside. Away. Are you ashamed of me?

 

No, he says.

 

She needs him to come closer, needs to touch him and watch him rise and settle in her hands. His skin goosebumps his grateful thank you but his mouth voices his rejection. There is no part of his skin that is wanting enough for her.

 

Fuck him, she thinks, as she high-fives Dodi, the owner and the opener, who hands her a cig and wheezes, Thanks, bitch. Charlie unfurls her hood, covers her head, flips the sign from Closed to Open, lights the butt and walks out into the dawn with regret about that letter.

 

Christ, is how she started it, I had no idea you mattered that much.

Then: a spasm. An involuntary constriction of muscle and sinew, tender skin and lungs swollen with tainted blood and sour airs, all suddenly erupting into violent protest at the new and unfamiliar sensation of trauma. He winced and shuddered, trying to steady himself against the pain, trying to force himself unaware of the new expanse of red, wondrous and rich spreading across his right side, growing strong and luminous like a new storm taking shape on the Atlantic — drawing deep from the infinite wells of salt and rage to find form, shape, substance.

He imagined Charlie would laugh at him. That was her response to everything he said: a laugh, like a harsh and broken cough. Everything a joke, played at his expense.

She would find this hysterical.

He shuddered again, involuntarily, and suddenly became aware that he was cold. Funny, in the midst of everything else, to become aware of something so small. To feel such chill in August. Fuck, he thought. This is not going well. Then he looked at the other man, lying there so awkwardly in that absurd suit, the expression of surprise and confusion on his face still vivid, the polished gleam of the fork curving gently from his temple. I'm guessing you'd agree.

He reached forward and wrapped his fingers around one of the candies. They lay across the man's chest like islands of cellophane on a sea of zoot. Fuck, he thought. A sea of zoot. I might as well be dead already. He unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth - it tasted of hot copper and peppermint - and then reached into his own pocket to pull out his phone. Flipped it open.

And discovered: no signal.

He slumped against the counter and caught a glimpse of himself in the chrome of a napkin dispenser, leaned in to get an eye at his bloody teeth.  He looked vampiric. Then a waft of cordite hit his nose, a nerve in his shattered shoulder ignited, and his stomach came up.  That put him back down on the floor.

What now?  What do people do when they're covered in blood in a room with a dead guy? I thought this shit only happened to criminals.  He rolled on his side and spat something out.  He realized he had no idea what happened to criminals.  Maybe they died of fast food and boredom and plain old attrition like everyone else.

Hold on.

He pushed himself up and found the other guy, folded up in the corner like dropped laundry.  Now that the action was over, he had time to get a look at the man who had shot him.

What the fuck, is that a zoot suit?  He pushed the thought aside and slid his hands under the dead guy's jacket, nausea percolating away at the thought of touching a corpse.

Twenty-three dollars rolled up with an elastic like a wad of real cash, a couple of hard candies wrapped in crinkly plastic, and a photograph:

 

He studied the faces.  Nothing.  No idea what this could mean.

A zoot suit?

Time to call Charlie.

He couldn't remember the order.  Had the muzzle flash come first?  Then the report?  Or was it the other way around?  Either way, the anvil that hit his chest and left shoulder soon after was the deciding factor.  A clear "no shit Sherlock" situation.  The pinkish cloud that still hung in the air was evidence of this.  And now, godamnit(!) his watch sounded odd.

The feet of the chair that he pushed across the industrial grade tile screamed with friction like an animal caught in a trap.  About to die.  There was a certain Irony in that sound that made him chuckle through a mouthful of crimson teeth.

"Think I look bad?  You should see the other guy."  He said to no one in particular, as he was the Last.

He chuckled again.  Candy cane teeth gleaming under the glow of iridescent lighting.  What worried him the most was not the place where his shoulder once was, but the letter in his breast pocket.  Words are a fragile thing, he thought to himself.  Very fragile.