So Special in Dayville Read online

  Crystal refuses to let it bother her that both young women dated Ajeno. They obviously hadn’t satisfied him the way she does. Smu Chen is far too skinny, her features immaculate. And while Rosie is still pleasingly plump, as evidenced by her present male-model boyfriend, Ajeno said her selfishness was a real turn-off. She’d never once offered to sponge-bathe him while they were dating. And when he began smelling, she’d actually suggested that he take a bath.

  Crystal decides that, with no one to speak to, perhaps the refreshing night breeze off the asbestos factory might calm her. The girl squeezes her eyes shut. That’s why she misses seeing the half a dozen powder-blue SUVs whizzing down Hoskins at top speed.

  “A penny for your thoughts?” Jackman has abruptly appeared next to her on the stoop. He rocks his shoulder lightly against hers. “You’re not usually out here this late. Something bothering you?”

  She brushes away a tear, angry with herself for crying. “Oh, I’m just being silly is all.” When Jackman says nothing, she blurts out, “We got another one of those letters!” Her watery eyes slide shamefacedly past Jackman’s gaze. “Anonymous, as usual, calling Ajeno all sorts of hateful things—oh, I just hate it when people prejudge him because of the fat!”

  Jackman shrugs. “Well, you gotta remember, pigeonholing strangers is a primitive survival trait. It’s a tendency that lies deep in our psyche as humans. It was there when the first caveman met his first stranger carrying a sharp stick.” Loudly, he snaps his fingers. “And BOOM! He had a millisecond to decide if this was a friend or foe.”

  “But that was forever ago,” Crystal protests. “And this,” she holds out her arms wide, “is the post-post . . . post-modern world. So why’s that stupid caveman still in our heads? Do you know that schoolchildren actually follow that incredibly sweet man just to call him names?! Because of his weight? And because he’s a little . . . slow in thinking things through? Why do those things even matter? All that matters is that he’s a good, kind man. And if they’d get to know him, they wouldn’t think such things.”

  The dark man nods. “Did I ever tell you ’bout meeting Ajeno for the first time?” His eyes narrow, gazing sightlessly upward. “Oh, it must’ve been ’bout ten years ago now. Yeah, ten years ago. Funny cause it seems like yesterday. You see, I was living here then, with the last wife.” He pauses as usual for emphasis, his ex-wife being his only venture into marriage. “And, not to put a fine point on it, but Ajeno panhandled me!” He grins, his white teeth glinting in the moonlight. “Yes, sir, came up to me, right there,” he points, “by that fire hydrant!”

  Crystal catches her breath. “And what did he say?”

  “Well . . .,” Jackman rubs the stubble of his chin, “can’t remember exactly. Something ’bout needing food, I think. That’s right! He asked for food because I remember saying to ’im that anyone as big as he was surely wasn’t going hungry.”

  She giggles in spite of herself. “You didn’t!”

  Jackman’s tone holds a vague reproof. “Now, child, you know me; I call a spade a spade when I see it.” He hesitates. “Funny, but he never seemed embarrassed or angry when begging. He acted like a child.” Palms up, he holds out his withered hands. “Just asking for what he needed.”

  “Oh, that’s not surprising,” exclaims the girl. “Ajeno is the least self-conscious person I know. I mean, it’s like he doesn’t even have an ego. Of course, he does. I mean, everyone’s got an ego, right?” She casts a quick glance up at their apartment building. “But, speaking of Ajeno’s homeless days, do you know how he got our apartment? I mean, he wasn’t working when I moved in here. I can’t figure out how he paid rent.”

  “No wonder you can’t sleep.” Jackman stands up to stretch. “Asking all these questions.” He holds down a hand to help her to her feet. “Time for you to go upstairs. You’ve got class in the morning, don’tcha?”

  Chapter Three

  Late the next afternoon, with music streaming from a cheap radio up on the kitchen shelf, Crystal glumly contemplates the counter. Sugar, vanilla extract, eggs, flour, crushed pecans, and bars of milk chocolate are almost completely hiding the peeling Formica surface. “I don’t know, baby,” she protests. “It seems like you eat a lot of cookies. And to be honest, I’m starting to worry about your health!”

  “Health?” repeats Ajeno. “But I’m strong.” Using just one hand, he begins lifting the refrigerator.

  “Stop!” Crystal, wincing, pats the appliance, looking for damage. She’s sometimes frustrated by Ajeno’s childlike understanding. “Remember how much it cost last time to repair this thing?” She relaxes when the refrigerator door opens and closes appropriately and the tiny bulb inside responds by coming on or going off.

  “Baby, I know you’re strong. That’s not the issue. I’m just worried about all this fat and cholesterol hurting you. You’ve seen me being careful about my diet. That’s why. I’m careful not to eat something that could be bad for me.”

  Gently, Ajeno lays his head on her shoulder. “But Crystal, you don’t got to worry. I’m not like you.”

  “Oh, I know you’re a big, strong man.” Playfully, she rolls her eyes. “But even big, strong men need to be careful.” Her fingers rub the skin over his belly button. Just where he likes it. “Plus, baby, I got exams to grade. That’s gonna take me most of the night. I really don’t have time to be making cookies.”

  Ajeno grins widely. “Oh, that’s no problem!”

  “No?” She shakes her head. “How’s that? Can you put more hours in the day?”

  “Sure, cookies hard, but time’s easy.”

  “Easy to say, babe, when it’s someone else’s time.”

  Bunching his lips together, Ajeno reaches over her head to switch off the radio. “You just gotta pay attention, right?” Slowly, he retrieves baking soda and salt from the cabinets and butter from the fridge. He adds these to the ingredients already on the counter. “So that all you’re thinking ’bout is cookies.” An irrepressible grin raises his cheekbones. “Cookies, cookies, COOKIES!”

  Resigned, she feels her own cheekbones rising like yeast in warm dough. “What am I going to do with you?” She shakes her head, her hands making shooing motions. “Fine! Go to your job. The cookies will be ready when you get home.” Waving a spatula at him, she adds, “But if little Timmy Gottelchuk doesn’t get his paper graded, it’ll be on your head!”

  Waving him out of the apartment as he gleefully plods through the doorway, she sighs. A glance at the stack of tests slumped over on the dirty mattress quickens her pace. Frantically, she digs out the last clean mixing bowl from beneath Ajeno’s collection of Star Wars casserole dishes.

  The cartoon of Yoda reminds her of Ajeno’s words. Maybe she can use the Force to make more time with which to get everything done. Is that what Ajeno meant? Deliberately, she slows her pace, thinking only of the cookies. Of how they’ll look fully baked, of how they’ll look as blobs of raw dough, of how they’ll look . . .

  Preheating the oven, Crystal giggles, chanting to the empty room, “Cookies, cookies, COOKIES!” In a small bowl, she adds together the salt, flour, and soda, their various shades of white almost indistinguishable. She arms herself with a big spoon before tackling the mixing bowl.

  ***

  Meanwhile, Ruiz, wearing a security guard’s uniform, stands on the highest industrial roof in Dayville. It’s a factory for making tampons, biodegradable paper products to catch failed opportunities—genetic sacrifices— to be flushed down pipes month after month after month.

  Below him, moonlight silvers roofs of shorter factories. Dayville’s nightscape, stretched before him, takes on an illusory, crystalline beauty. It’s almost 8:00 p.m.; his shift at Mom’s Diner ended almost an hour before.

  This factory reaches such a height that, most days, it pierces the smog layered over Dayville. It’s for this reason that Ruiz has volunteered for its night shift. This additional job doesn’t add to his cover story as he waits for transactions, but it gives him thi
s: a pinnacle connecting him to space. And to thousands upon thousands upon thousands of burning, shooting, gaseous confabulations of stars. Ruiz lifts his arms, crucified in moonlight. “T’amo, t’amo, t’amo,” he calls into clean, clear blackness.

  ***

  Dollops of pale dough speckled with chocolate fall on a greased cookie sheet. “Boom . . . boom,” croons Crystal as each dough-wad bombs the shiny tin tray. Her mother had taught her how to shell cookie sheets like the metal sheet was a wartorn battlefield. “Boom . . . boom . . . POW!”

  ***

  Ruiz has arranged to make the exchange in the alley back of the diner during his break. At the diner there will be no CCTV cameras like there are at the factory. Plus it’s a short walk from the factory that he can traverse in ten minutes. Privacy’s ensured because he’s the only diner employee brave enough to go out into the narrow, rat-infested place after dark. Events go as expected. It’s easy with no one around. The retreating footsteps of his contact echo on the wet asphalt.

  Pleased, Ruiz stuffs the bundled memory sticks into the pocket of his pants. Then a noise sends him whirling about. The mammoth girth of Ajeno blocks out the well-lit doorway of the diner behind him. “What,” growls the tall man, “are you doing here?”

  Ajeno shrugs before retreating back into the diner. “Just watchin’. See ya.”

  Ruiz’s hand flies to his waistband. He makes to follow the big man but then stops. He’s due back at the factory, and there are cleaner ways of disposing of witnesses. Someplace neutral and public will serve him better. Enraged, he wonders how the cook slipped up on him. How had he not even seen a shadow moving on pavement?

  ***

  “Yoo-hoo!” calls Crystal. She’s cracking the oven door to peer inside at the cookies. Her breath catches. Moist droplets of dough have darkened to a scrumptious golden brown. Her fingers itch to steal inside to pluck one from the sheet. Just for a little taste.

  ***

  With a fatigued “whoof,” the fat man leaves the diner two hours later. His brief foray out to the alley had only been for a short respite between flipping hamburgers.

  Plodding home on State Street, he passes a square house set squarely in a square block. Through a square window, Ajeno spies a young woman. She’s holding a baby. Silently, her lips move, and he guesses that she’s talking to the small creature. Ajeno sighs, his fat quivering. The bedtime story of the three bears always disturbs him—something about its monstrous image of a golden-haired thief stealing porridge.

  His footsteps sound loudly on the pavement as he leaves the Dawdleman house behind. Neither he nor Irene Dawdleman, the young woman in the window, notice the detached shadow that follows in Ajeno’s enormous wake.

  “Baby Bear then cried, ‘Who’s been sleeping in my bed?’” recites Irene. “‘And who is still here?’” Irene waits exactly ten seconds, gazing expectantly at the sleeping baby in her arms, before she kisses its forehead and prepares it for bed.

  She glances idly out the window to where a filmy black figure follows the shadowless fat man. Sharpened steel, glinting in moonlight, is clasped in the hand of the former. But Irene Dawdleman sees only the Jenkins’ car illegally parked across the street. Shadows don’t register with her. She and her husband, Frank, live in a brightly lit world of absolutes. As a mathematically exact couple—both young industrial professionals—they spend their days checking machine gauges, estimating gas volumes, and predicting production outputs.

  They apply similar rules to life. They work exactly forty-hour weeks, cut their grass exactly to a three-inch height, walk exactly five miles a day for exercise, fornicate two and half times a week for tension or procreation, and eat three sensible meals a day for sustenance.

  What they fight about constantly are shades of gray, all the shadows of life needing intuition to be understood. Tonight’s flashpoint had been a verbal invitation to dinner from Frank’s boss at the factory.

  “When,” Irene had enquired, “is the dinner?”

  “He said next Wednesday.”

  “Pretty short notice for us to get a babysitter in just a day!”

  “What are you talking about? Next Wednesday’s eight days away. I didn’t say this Wednesday.”

  “What’s today?”

  “Tuesday, why?”

  “And when will the next Wednesday fall in this week?”

  “Doesn’t matter cause that’s not how people use the phrase.”

  Irene replied primly, “I’m not responsible for the imprecision of others. If they want to look at the world ass-backward, that’s their problem, not mine.” Carrying the baby, she turned to leave the room, but not before sniffing dismissively. “But, really, Frank, I’m surprised at you!”

  Short-tempered Frank’s face grew very red, and he stewed about the exchange for exactly three minutes before snatching up the phone. “Just what the hell did you mean by next Wednesday?” he shouted into the plastic.

  The digitally enhanced voice of his boss replied clearly enough to send Frank’s blood pressure down to normal limits.

  “Oh, well, that’s fine, but a day isn’t much time for us to find a babysitter, is all.” More clarity had responded, and Frank was able to chuckle. “No, he’s a good baby. We’d be happy to bring ’im. Thanks.”

  He hit the off button as Irene returned, alone, to the room. “Funny man, Wally. Would you believe he scolded me too?” His expression abashed, he wrapped his arms around his wife. “Said I should know better. And that we’re to dine at his place tomorrow.” He held up a finger to stop her protest. “Plus, we can bring little Bobby.” He started kissing her neck. “You forgive me, baby, for being imprecise?”

  Tartly, she replied, “Just don’t do it again.”

  Promising undying precision, he clasped her to him passionately while reciting the numerical constancy of pi. He understands his wife because Frank’s own suspicions as to the imprecision of others makes him hypervigilant in noticing them.

  He’s consequently predisposed to loathe Ajeno, who lives on the next block. The obese, career-challenged young man is everything that Frank—the fit, career-minded young man—despises with an ill-disguised contempt.

  Irene, on the other hand, is almost completely blind to anything not conforming to the size and shape of her reality. She can pass Ajeno on the sidewalk, her eyes (mentally edited) not registering his bulk. “Fat man?” she’ll respond confusedly to Frank as they’re pushed into the gutter by Ajeno’s progress. “What fat man?”

  It is the Dawdlemans who are trying to organize the neighborhood, both to prevent crime and foster community identity. Will We Stand Together reads Frank’s picket sign, while Irene’s finishes the thought: Or Together Fall Apart!

  But now, this night, streetlights have already shut down. It is well past curfew when the light bulbs atop tall poles shut off with little clicks like dark fireworks, obscuring everything. Taking advantage of the blackened streets, Ruiz’s shadow is gaining quickly, his tennis shoes barely making any noise, their stealthy steps swallowed in the lumbering smacks of Ajeno’s hard soles against concrete.

  Ruiz has stolen a long screwdriver from the factory floor. Using his gun is out of the question. A gunshot would be too noticeable at this time of night. He is satisfied with the screwdriver. It will do just fine. Especially after he took a few extra minutes to file its tip to a razor sharpness.

  True, he could use his knife. But the screwdriver will be less painful to toss once it’s bloodstained than to sacrifice his own best switchblade, a knife he took off a former leader of his gang—Los Espejos, part of the Guerrera Cartel—after smashing his head against a dumpster. Sentiment is an emotion Ruiz tries to avoid, but that had been a special moment for him. It had allowed him to move up the career ladder of the cartel.

  ***

  The air’s quiet; a light rain falls. On the fifth floor of the Eden Palace, Crystal slides the last of the cookies onto a wire rack used for baking. Here they will cool until she can box them up in her Hello
Kitty Tupperware container.

  “Ajeno,” she softly whispers to them, “will love you!”

  ***

  Clouds now obscure the sky over Ruiz’s head. But for once, he’s grateful. Something in him resists killing when the stars are watching. Even still, he senses them—sounds, musical notes, like distant drum beats felt rather than heard. It’s a conscious effort for him to block them out. Instead he focuses only on the booming tick-tock of Ajeno’s footsteps. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

  Around them rise the city’s buildings, a fence of towering concrete. Ruiz warms the screwdriver’s steel in his grip. He comes up behind the other man. His elbow swings back, his arm a cellist’s bow, fueling the thrust. This is it! Now the fat slob won’t be around to ruin everything.

  ***

  Pleased, Crystal smiles while burping her Hello Kitty Tupperware container. Inside its milky recesses lie thirty-five perfect, silver-dollar cookies.

  Almost one hundred feet below her, his jaw clenching, Ruiz is just jabbing the screwdriver forward, piercing the fat man’s jacket, when the clicky-clack of a disabled lawn mower being pushed on the sidewalk makes him freeze.

  Silently, he darts into a crevice between buildings just as Ajeno passes another dark figure that grunts suspiciously, “Garcia.”

  “Dawdleman,” acknowledges the fat man happily.

  The other figure, still pushing the lawn mower, passes the crevice. Ruiz, who was prepared to kill both men, freezes, recognizing the second man’s name. This man is important to his plans. Dawdleman, still pushing the lawn mower, disappears around a corner as Ajeno safely reaches the lighted stoop to the Eden Palace.

  Hissing, Ruiz is forced to watch the fat man laboriously climb the steps before, with a short wrestle of his girth through the building’s double doors, gaining admittance.

  “Howdy!” One of Sally’s white, fleshy arms shoots out of the dark toward Ruiz.