So Special in Dayville Read online

  “Now, Mister,” spits Flannel Shirt, “don’t go jumpin’ to the end of the story. Leasth not justh yeth!” He lisps while sucking his dental plate back into place.

  It takes a few minutes for Ruiz to respond. “What,” he growls feebly, “do you want?”

  “Well, compadre,” Flannel Shirt rubs his hands together. Joining him is a heavily muscled younger man who moves from around Ruiz, the Mexican’s own automatic dangling carelessly from his hand. “I want lots of stuff. But if you’re forcing me to say what I want the most, I’d have to say job satisfaction.” He shoots a sideways look at his companion for confirmation. “That’s right, ain’t it?”

  “Sure,” comes a bored reply. The young man, running an exploratory hand over his own bicep, appears interested only in the flexing of his muscles.

  But Flannel Shirt becomes, if possible, even more animated, and Ruiz recognizes the gleam of sadism. “You see, me and Maynard, here, work for Beau Louie Sanderson.” He straightens the flannel shirt with empty pride. “I’m his chauffer. But, ya see, I don’t wanna be a chauffer the rest of my life. Understand? I mean, I got me some dreams. I wanna climb the capitalist ladder, getting bigger and better and richer than I am now! Understand?”

  The eyes of Ruiz have gone flat black as he gazes up at the other two. “Do you know,” he asks quietly, “who I work for?”

  “Nope, and we don’t much care. The fact is my name’s Herman J. Werman, and Mr. Sanderson says if I help him with you, I can dress anyway I want.”

  Ruiz’s eyebrows lift. “Seriously? I thought the flannel was a disguise.”

  “What are you, thupid?” Werman sucks again on his dental plate while preening himself. “Flannel’s the cloth of the future for when the Ice Ages return.” He plucks a wad between his fingers. “People will kill for this thuff when the thnow thtarts!” More sucking of the dental plate before he repeats, “ . . . stuff when the snow starts!” He glares at his companion. “Right?”

  Maynard looks unimpressed. “Sure.”

  Werman whips out his cell phone, the movement staged as if well practiced. “Chill while I talk to the boss. Got it?” Taking Ruiz’s silence for acquiesce, the middle-aged man moves closer to the security light; its brightness is so strong that Ruiz can barely see the flannel outline.

  He shifts his gaze. His own gun looks odd gripped in Maynard’s hand. Still lying on the asphalt, he contemplates the muscular young man. Dividing the enemy has worked for Ruiz before. “So, who are you, the gardener?”

  “Nah.” Maynard politely stifles a yawn, “I’m the Sandersons’ chef.”

  “Chef?” Ruiz can’t keep a hint of incredulity from his voice. “You do not look like a chef.”

  Maynard shrugs, biceps rippling in the unnatural white light. “Yeah, my dad didn’t like me doing ’roids for bodybuilding. Said I was bound to go crazy or . . .,” he blinks sleepily, “get heavy into drugs, maybe a gang or somethin’.” Jerking awake, he clears his throat; a wad of phlegm pings against a nearby trash can. “Sent me to cooking school instead.”

  “And this, you like?”

  “Huh?”

  “Cooking, you like cooking?”

  Maynard shrugs while staring deep into gloom at the alley’s other end. “It’s okay. Pays for my membership at the gym, anyhow.”

  “An intelligent bargain, yes?”

  “I guess.”

  “Is it all right if I stand?” Ruiz adopts a wince as if he has hurt himself. He doesn’t have to pretend very much. “I need to stretch.”

  “Huh.” Losing interest, Maynard waves the gun. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  Carefully, Ruiz regains his feet. He’s having a problem breathing. Could he have a broken rib? “You are very kind.”

  “Hey!” Werman emerges from the light. “What’s he doing on his feet?!”

  Maynard scratches his head with the muzzle of the automatic. “Who knows? Anyway, we ’bout done here or what? I gotta get back to preheat the oven for tonight’s roast.”

  Werman turns his approach into a charge at Ruiz. The Mexican, still winded, is thrown off balance. He feels himself slipping as Werman drives him back into the alley’s dark side. An irrational panic rises in his gut as he feels his torso disappear into the darkness. At least his legs are still illuminated by the security light. He uses all his knowledge of street fighting against Werman, but, weakened by the earlier attack, Ruiz feels himself losing ground.

  Abruptly, a police car, siren screeching, comes careening into the alley. Werman, releasing Ruiz, exchanges a glance with Maynard who’s staring wide-eyed at the flashing blue lights. The latter drops Ruiz’s gun as they both start to run, their footsteps fading quickly into darkness. Ruiz gasps for breath. That second punch to his stomach is still commanding his attention as he fights to breathe.

  “Hey, Ricky,” says someone quietly. “You okay?”

  Ruiz lifts his head. Ajeno is leaning over him, his massive bulk sucking up most of the light in the narrow space. Ruiz squints, just making out the outlines of the alley with its overflowing garbage cans. “But where,” he struggles unsuccessfully to get to his feet, “where is the police car?”

  “I gotcha.” Ajeno grabs Ruiz’s hand as he might a child’s. The tall man feels himself levitated gently to his feet. “Police car? I ain’t seen no police car. Must’ve left fore I got here.”

  Ruiz shakes his head. “But that is not possible. The car was just here.”

  “Don’t see it now, do ya?”

  “No, but . . .”

  Ajeno supports Ruiz as they both slowly stumble back the ten minutes and two alleys to the diner’s back door. “Crime never sleeps, Ricky! They must’ve gotten another call and just left. I see it happen on TV shows all the time.”

  ***

  Glancing away from the darkened window, Crystal looks across the kitchen table of her neighbor, Beth. The old woman is holding her head. The girl pours the last of the kettle’s hot water into her chipped mug. Clump, clump, clump goes her cast as she hobbles across the kitchen floor to retrieve the sugar from a cupboard. “Go on, now,” orders Crystal, setting down the sweetener. “Drink that right down.”

  “You’re so good to me, dear.”

  “That,” says the girl sternly, “is because you’re the best neighbor we have.”

  Beth’s eyes twinkle. She was gone for at least an hour, and Crystal had wearied of listening to Eliza’s conspiracy theories on how workplace violence was going up due to heavier staplers. “Was Eliza very tiresome?” The old woman leans forward sympathetically. “She does like to go on about things.”

  “She was a delight,” lies the girl. “But not as much of a delight as you, Beth.” She notices the other’s sad smile. “If you don’t mind me asking, when did Eliza and Lizzie first start showing up? I mean, if you can remember.”

  “Oh, remembering a long time ago’s not the problem.” Beth puts a finger to her lips. “I guess it was just after I turned twenty-three. I remember, you see, cause my grandmother showed me a thank-you card I’d sent her. Her present to me that birthday was a . . . uh, well, let’s just call it a foundation garment.”

  “You mean,” Crystal stifles a giggle, “a girdle?”

  The old woman grins, leaning into the younger. “I said, we should just call it a foundation garment!” Abashed, the girl hastens to apologize even as Beth waves it off. “Don’t worry about it, honey. Eliza says I shouldn’t be so shy in calling a spade a spade. Maybe then she wouldn’t show up,” Beth winces, “. . . or write thank-you cards.”

  “Oh no! What was in the card to your grandmother?”

  The wrinkles on the old woman’s forehead deepen. “Well, I can’t remember the exact words—I mean, it has been almost fifty years—but essentially it was fuck off and die, you old bitch.”

  “That’s terrible.” Crystal purses her lips to keep a straight face. “Just terrible. So, what did your grandmother say when she showed it to you?”

  Beth, smile fading, turns away. �
�Oh, something about her just trying to help. Said how I needed another husband and that growing old alone was no fun.”

  “Sorry, but did you say ‘another husband’?”

  The other woman nods. “Yeah, guess I did. Richard and I married when we were both nineteen.” Her words are muffled by being dropped into her mug of tea.

  The girl reaches across the table; her fingers delicately tilt the other’s chin. “Richard?”

  “He died three years later.” Tears spill out of Beth’s faded blue eyes. “You see, I was driving our old station wagon back from the grocery. He’d gone to help me with the sacks because the baby was due so soon.”

  Crystal can’t help but react. “You were pregnant?”

  “About eight months.” The old woman sniffs, trying to blink away tears. “We were arguing . . . well, Richard was, at least. He kept saying how it was my turn to put out the rat traps. ‘Why,’ he kept asking, ‘won’t you put out the rat traps?’ But, now, I knew, as sure as I knew anything, that it was his turn. I knew cause the last time, when setting them out, I got my finger pinched, not paying attention, and had one snap shut on me.” She frowns critically down at the remembered-finger-in-question. “Lost the nail and everything.”

  “And Richard?”

  The old woman looks up. “Well, he just kept asking, ‘Why didn’t you set out the rat traps? Why?’ He was so busy arguing that he didn’t warn me. Normally, he’d have seen that truck turning up ahead of us. But,” she gazes past the girl’s shoulder, “not this time. So,” she flicks Crystal a glance of pure anguish, “I lost them both.”

  “That’s a lot for you to carry.” Crystal reaches to grasp her hands.

  A single tear snakes a lonely path down Beth’s cheek. “Oh, honey, I forgave Richard for that a long time ago. We all make mistakes, don’t we?”

  They sit a moment in silence. The girl, still teary at Beth’s story, musters a smile. “I think you’re very brave. To survive something so sad.”

  “Sad?” Beth seems to snaps to attention, looking confused. “What’s sad, dear?”

  ***

  Tonight the diner’s busy, but because of his injuries, Ruiz rings the cash register a little slower. He expects anger from the customers. Their feet are already exhausted, and because of him, they have to stand longer waiting in line. But they seem to adapt to his pace. The last woman in line smiles at him sweetly, sympathy large in her eyes.

  “They did not have to be so nice,” he growls at Ajeno. They have been assigned by Jones to close up the diner. The door is locked, and they work alone surrounded by empty tables. At the countertop, next to the grill, Ajeno wrestles with a bowl of mashed potatoes that tomorrow he’ll recycle into potato pancakes. Ruiz exclaims angrily, “I am not to be pitied like a child!”

  “You’re funny, Ricky.” Ajeno shakes his head at the other’s confusion. “They just saw you, is all. They’re soft.” Plastic wrap clings to the rim of the bowl under pressure by his bratwurst-sized fingers. “Soft like plastic. They fit on just ’bout anything.” He grins at the other man. “Same as you now, Ricky. It’s about belonging, ain’t it?”

  The Mexican turns away. He is not used to kindness, and he doesn’t like how it makes him feel weak. “What’s belonging got to do with it?”

  “Just about everything!”

  Sharply, Ruiz looks up. Ajeno’s exclamations always have a twisted gem of truth to them. It gives Ruiz the feeling that he’s had before with the fat man. Something’s going on that he doesn’t know about. “Everything of what?” he asks suspiciously.

  Childish confusion mars the other’s expression. “You knooooow.” Ruiz stays silent, glaring at Ajeno until the fat man starts up again, trying to be understood. “It’s about . . . uh, how we go around.” He twirls a massive index finger in the air. “Around and around the sun, faster and faster until today’s yesterday and tomorrow last week.” Abruptly, he stops his finger and smiles. “Understand?”

  Ruiz half-closes his eyes before rolling them. “We need to finish cleaning. Quickly. I have work to do tonight.”

  “No problemo.” Ajeno moves marginally faster. He has his own reasons this night for leaving the diner ASAP. Most of them have to do with his family, the Garcias. Though his mother, Maria, wants nothing more to do with him, Ajeno still misses her and his father, and even Alejandro. Mostly, he misses Maria slapping him, the sudden, sharp impact of her hand. The blow was always a reminder of flesh—its presence and limitations.

  He also misses how she’d nag him to take out the garbage or to stop stealing Alejandro’s food. He misses the furtive rustlings from his parents’ bed when they thought both he and Alejandro were asleep. He misses the trailer park’s easy camaraderie, its reassuring, unspoken communications. He’d never understood them. He still doesn’t. But the memory of their silent dialogue continues to warm him like a bright sun shining in winter.

  It’s been two years since he’d met up again with his father. Ajeno was walking along the street near the industrial park when, across the street, he saw his father standing just outside a bus stop. Dust from the cement factory, where he still worked, had given Fernando an ashen, statue-like appearance.

  This factory job was one his father first took when Ajeno and Alejandro were very young. It was to make ends meet. Especially after the girls were born. He always laughed about it being temporary. But somehow, over the years, it stuck to him like chewing gum to shoes. He tried getting other jobs, but for one reason and then another, they all fell through. And by the time both boys could legally quit school after the sixth grade, he was regularly coughing up blood each morning.

  “Hey, Papa!” Ajeno called from across the street. The statue’s head jerked up. They exchanged glances.

  His father tried turning away. But it had begun to rain and his head couldn’t turn from the cement stiffening his skin. Trapped, his eyes were forced to lock on Ajeno’s until a city bus slid between them, breaking the link as Fernando’s cough shook him free of the concrete shell.

  Tonight, with the diner closed in record time, Ajeno lumbers heavily through the trailer park’s darkness. He and Ruiz had parted at Los Arroyos and Bastion Boulevard.

  Ajeno likes night. It makes it easy for him to move through Dayville unnoticed. When someone approaches, he can just freeze into any number of poses. Sometimes he’s a sports utility vehicle, or a bus stop, or a storage trailer. He’s had transit passengers wait beneath him during rainstorms and a policeman stick a ticket under his sunglasses once for standing in a red zone.

  He stops near a trailer with pink shutters. Ah! His nose leads him unerringly to the line of nearby garbage cans. Greedily, he lifts a cardboard box he’d been hoping to find. Ever since that chance sighting two years before, Fernando, his papa, has put out food for him in such boxes. At least two or three times a week. They are mostly hidden amid the garbage with its clouds of flies, and marked in thick, red ink as Rat Poison.

  “Where are my fajitas?!” screams Maria through an open window of the trailer. “¿Quién lo está robando nuestros alimentos?”

  Ajeno, licking his lips, carries the box to a nearby tree, where he sits, his back against the trunk, legs widely splayed like a child’s. Delicately, he unwraps the beef-filled tortillas wrapped burrito-style. Whiffs of bell peppers and onions crease his mouth into a happy grin. “Yum, yum, yummy!”

  Sauce runs down his chin. Gleefully, he extends his tongue as far as possible to catch its descent. When finished, he leaves the empty box and its cups, licked clean of condiments, by the trailer’s back door. His mother is still shouting inside. This, plus the rattling of pans, drowns out the sound of Fernando’s television show. “¿Está alimentando el parásito graso?”

  “He is not a parasite,” yells Fernando. “He is my son!”

  Maria screams back, “He is a waste of space!”

  “Ah, Mama, you have not forgotten me.” Ajeno smiles while having to stand very still. A pair of young lovers are kissing beneath his boughs.
/>
  Chapter Eight

  Late the next afternoon, Ruiz watches as a political motorcade crawls down Tenth. The mayor and his wife are sitting, smiling and waving to both sides of the street, all from the back seat of a tacky pink Cadillac. Surrounded by limousines filled with bodyguards and sharpshooters, the Caddy coasts across asphalt while portable speakers play “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

  Nearby, over on Hoskins Avenue, Sally Howie claps her hands over her ears as she slips down a brick wall as if she’s been shot. Even her nearby shopping cart gives her little comfort as her arms fall to hug herself tightly. The sound’s getting louder and louder: “. . . for he’s a jolly good fellow . . .”

  Sound, any kind of sound, frightens her. But music in particular grates on her brain like nails on a chalkboard. She becomes uncomfortable even if she hears someone whistling too loudly. Not that many people whistle in Dayville.

  “Go away soon,” she whispers to herself. “Go away soon. Then gone. No sound. All good then.” Panic, fluttering in her gut, threatens a scream of terror.

  “For he’s a jolly good felloooow—that nobody can DENY!”

  The woman, encased in soft, doughy arms, grits her teeth. Normality is safe. Quiet is safe.

  A loudspeaker screeches. The mayor’s voice booms forth: “Good Dayvillians, I am here to serve you!”

  Trembling, she presses her hands over her ears. Noise invites chaos. Low noise begets medium noise, which begets loudness, which begets thunderous . . . deafening . . . obliteration!

  Ignoring the loudspeaker, Ruiz starts to step through the diner’s front door when he points his aquiline nose at the horizon. There, a massive pale moon lifts above the skyline. He almost gasps. It’s enormous! He thinks of his fantasy of it growing larger than the earth. Transfixed, he stares.

  The moon is one of his favorite celestial bodies. Not just because he thinks of it as La Puerta, The Door, but because it’s the one he sees most clearly. The one who sees him, its light ruffling his hair. The one who, on dark nights when it’s absent or hidden behind ashes of clouds, calls to him from the void. During the moon’s full phase, Ruiz often stays awake three days straight, fiercely staring, gulping its light like mezcal.