Wanted: Single Rose
Page 2
He’d be tricky with his phrasing and see how she’d respond. He’d write minimal words mimicking her style: mixed intrigue with reality.
Once again, she wrote back one week to the day, in lovely deep violet ink.
Sir Sun’s cheeks bloomed red. His heart pounded within his chest as he read and re-read the letter. It was delicately scrawled on a blank sheet of paper. It smelled of violent violets, roses, and bruises—it smelled of Velva.
He carried the letter to his desk, sat and stared at his typewriter. He slid in a piece of stationary, put his hands on the keys, but nothing came. He retrieved a pencil from the small tin of writing instruments on his desk, stuck it behind his ear and tapped his index finger against his jaw, thinking. An idea occurred, and he blushed as he put his fingers to the old keys, careful to give a double tap on the space bar, because, like him, the keyboard had its quirks. The click-clacking was soothing music to his ears, and he hoped the mysterious Velva found him as intriguing as he did her.
* * *
Saturday night, Sir Sun sat on a park bench at sunset, waiting. Doves cooed in the maple trees and shat at his feet. He held a single red rose, its color shouting life and a vivacity Sir Sun wished to possess. The cascades glimmered like giant popsicles beyond Spindler River, and a nearby church bell called all sinners to come home.
She was late.
He wondered if he’d made the right decision asking her to meet him at the park in the same city he lived in. He thought she would find beauty in the woods, river, and the view refreshing. But right this very second, the park felt… lonely.
Sir Sun watched his namesake fall behind the pines beyond the river and wondered where she was, his Velva. Occasionally, he heard footfalls on the path behind him. He’d turn, expecting to see her. But no one was there.
A nippy breeze blew in quieting the doves, and the sky grew dark, as did Sir Sun when Velva didn’t show.
Sir Sun stood, sighing, and buttoned his sports coat. He gently laid the rose on the bench. He followed the path around the beach, then through a forest grove leading to the sidewalk. When he rounded the bend to the parking lot, Sir Sun startled. A few inches from his feet, a tiny beast squirmed in an inky puddle.
Squatting, he recognized the foul creature as a pigeon, writhing in what appeared to be oil. However, the liquid lacked the iridescent rainbow shimmers. The puddle was a deep, deep violet without any other color. Curious, he touched the fluid, rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, being careful to avoid the bird monster. The substance was indeed purple. Almost like ink.
Odd.
The pigeon meeped at him once and continued to flutter in circles in the puddle. Despite the pigeon’s struggle, its beady red eyes remained on Sir Sun. It watched him, almost accusing him. It was as if it knew of Sir Sun’s perverse sexual needs, as if it knew the deepest, darkest secrets tucked in the scars of his heart. And it was suffering because of the secret’s darkness. It was caught in Sir Sun’s midnight, and it was as if it begged him—pleaded with him to be released.
There was only one way to ever be released of Sir Sun’s secret.
He scanned the park. It was empty of both people and cars.
“We are the same,” he whispered to the tiny bird.
They were both ill creatures, running amok in oily darkness. They deserved no mercy despite their common, ordinary appearance. “One of us can be put out of our misery.”
The bird tweeted at him and continued in its pirouettes in the oil.
Sir Sun lifted his leg and stomped on the bird. There was a muffled crunch! as its ribs gave out under his foot, then silence.
Sir Sun drew back appalled. Dear Lord, what had he done? He stared at the deflated creature. Crimson tears fled from its cinnamon, lifeless eyes. Blood dribbled from its beak into the oily substance, turning the fluid a more vibrant color—alive.
He wished to feel alive.
A snap—much like the snap when he had stomped on the bird—sprung from a nearby grove of pines and ferns. Startled, he jumped away from the bloody, silent mess and turned toward the sound. It was dark now save the streetlamps illuminating the empty parking lot.
He squinted his eyes.
A few hundred feet from the path, a human shadow hovered behind a tall stump nestled in the pine trees. A plush huckleberry bush grew from the top of it, making it difficult to differentiate one shadow from another. He took a step toward the stump.
“Hello?” He thought he saw the shape of a trench coat.
A couple emerged from the trail. Hand in hand they laughed and giggled, walking toward Sir Sun. When he glanced back at the bush, the shadowy figure was gone.
As he walked to the bus stop, a discomfort sank into the pit of his stomach. He thought of what Mr. Fiddler had asked him a week or so back. Are you in trouble, Sonny?
He had thought nothing of it then. Mr. Fiddler was always caught up in the dramatic, but now Sir Sun began to wonder. What had the Super said? Something about men in dark glasses and trench coats asking about him. FBI? CIA? But that sounded so Hollywood. Truly, that didn’t happen in real life.
Or did it? And the worst question of all—did they know?
The bus arrived just as the couple squatted over the dead bird in the oily substance. “Oh my God!” cried the woman. “Who could do such a—” But Sir Sun had already stepped inside the bus. The doors shut, and they were off.
Later that evening, after showering and pulling on his robe, Sir Sun sat at his typewriter for a long while. The men in dark sunglasses and trench coats possessed his mind, but Velva possessed his heart, his lonely, dead heart. Putting his fingers to the keys, he wrote:
2
Conjugation Bonding:
two willing and able of conjugating, sexually
The next week was hell. He’d torn his apartment apart looking for video cameras. He’d checked his phone for bugs. He closed his shop and gave it the same treatment though he dusted and tidied as he went. He looked over his shoulder every time he left his apartment, doing a double-take at every man in dark sunglasses.
Even Sara had noticed.
She asked why he kept looking out the diner’s window, and he’d told her he was looking for someone.
But he didn’t fool her; he could see it in her eyes. She knew he had no one, but perceiving his agitation, she kept quiet after that.
Mr. Fiddler could give him no more information about the description of the men who had asked about him, and by that time could not remember what questions they had asked.
To make everything worse, Velva hadn’t written back right away, and that was driving him batty. What if the men in dark sunglasses and trench coats had kidnaped her and were holding her somewhere to force a confession from him? But if so, why hadn’t they contacted him?
He worried about Velva. His mysterious Velva.
Sure enough, a week and a half after his apartment and shop rampage, he received a letter from her. His heart practically sang. Instead of feeling lightheaded and dizzy, he felt ravenous for contact. He tore the top off the envelope inside the post office, drawing attention to himself. He didn’t care.
She wrote:
Sir Sun stumbled back against a wall, not sure if he felt relief or horror. He tapped his index finger against his jaw.
My stem quivered at the bird.
His mind devoured her words over and over like a famished aphid. He remembered the shadowy figure behind the huckleberry bush. It had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared: the men in dark trench coats stalking him. Where had she been? He had heard light footsteps behind him when he sat waiting on the park bench, perhaps she had decided to scope him out first, make sure he wasn’t a sicko. He recalled what he had done to the pigeon, and Sir Sun’s face flushed with shame, and yet she had said her stem quivered. In a good or bad way?
He reread the letter.
Your violent rose was there.
Did the word your imply that she was his? That she possibly liked him despite his cru
el act? (But really, it had been merciful, and the bird knew that. He knew that.) Then there was the word violent. It both disturbed and intrigued him. He tapped his finger on his jaw, thinking, utterly befuddled, then moved on to the next bit: was there.
There, as in, while he waited for her on the park bench as the sun set? If she was there, then why did she leave? Her letter raised too many questions and gave no answers.
“Sir, are you okay?” A postal worker touched Sir Sun’s shoulder and he jumped.
He feigned a smile at the nerdy blonde in glasses and noted the concern etched on her face. “I’m fine. It’s just—” he nodded at his letter, not knowing what to say.
She sighed sympathetically, patted his shoulder and continued walking down the hallway.
Sir Sun tucked the letter into his trousers pocket and walked out into the rainy day. Usually, he would have brought an umbrella, but he had been so busy looking over his shoulder for vehicles following, he hadn’t noticed the rain.
On his way home, he skipped Sara’s Diner, stopped by his shop and flipped the sign from Back in Five Minutes! to Closed.
He trudged up the stairs to his apartment, exchanging waves with his twenty-something goth friend down the hall. Ah Lam squatted by her apartment door, rearranging textbooks in her backpack. Her hip-hugging skinny jeans dropped down her backside, revealing a cherry blossom tramp stamp and red strings of her thong panties.
He glanced away quickly when she looked over to see why he was still in the hall, and he stepped inside his apartment banishing her lovely vision from his mind, and focused on the goal, which was, of course, clearing his small home from invaders. Invaders in dark sunglasses and trench coats. He tiptoed to the kitchen. A folded washcloth he’d used earlier still sat in the sink, all the dishes were in place and the floor clean. Sir Sun even looked in the refrigerator and under the sink. All was in order. He then inspected the living room, then the bedroom and bathroom. Everything seemed in place. Relieved, he strode to his living room, pulled Velva’s letter from his pocket and set it down by his typewriter.
Outside, a car honked three times. Sir Sun rushed to his window and opened it. A cold rush of air blasted him in the face. He looked both ways to see what was going on. A man in dark sunglasses and coat hopped into a navy four-door sedan, the driver, also wearing sunglasses despite the rain, gazed up at Sir Sun’s window.
Sir Sun jumped to the side, but he knew the man had already spied him. He heard the car speed away. By the time Sir Sun looked out again, regular Friday small town traffic had resumed. He breathed in a breath of air, shut his window and leaned his balding head against the frosty glass.
Who were the men in black, and what did they know? Perhaps, they had known Velva was watching, too. Perhaps, they had set him up, dumping a puddle of oil on the ground and sticking the bird in it.
But how would they have known that he’d squashed the bird?
His head hurt. There was nothing he could do about the men at the moment, except to keep watching—and waiting.
He thought of Velva and walked over to the typewriter and sat.
One thing was for sure; her letter had raised the level of the mating dance. The suspense of meeting her, his mysterious rose, was almost too much. Sir Sun wouldn’t be able to carry on without laying his eyes on Velva. At least once.
He put his fingers to the keys and typed. He had an idea that would kill two birds with one stone. On his way to the post office, he picked up a can of pepper spray at the hardware store.
* * *
Saturday evening, he found himself once more winding in and out of the paths through Spindler city park. Sir Sun clutched the pepper spray in his pocket, keeping a look out for puddles of ink and injured pigeons, for dark shadows and light footsteps. This evening, however, he saw nothing out of the ordinary.
The birds, perhaps sensing him as a predator this time and not a friendly passerby, kept quiet and nestled in their trees. In the distance, the church bells rang. The park settled into a deserted silence that gobbled his very footsteps.
He sat down on the same park bench and, for a while, watched the river wind and gush along its course. The water was unusually clean and clear. Purple, heavy clouds blocked the sunset. It had a lulling effect until the darkness finally consumed the river, leaving him alone. Again.
An owl hooted in the forest.
He twisted around, looking in the direction of the bird. The rose he held pricked his forefinger, startling him.
“Damn!” He stood facing the forest. He dropped the rose and snatched the pepper spray out of his pocket. He sucked on his pricked finger, tasting blood. In his mind, he kept seeing the beady red eyes of the pigeon, accusing him, cursing him—haunting him.
Sir Sun heard a whistle. It wasn’t the owl’s call or even a whippoorwill’s. “Velva?” He slid the pepper spray back into his pocket and picked up the rose.
He rushed down the path toward a patch of maples, almost sliding in a pile of wet leaves, and that’s when he saw it. A giant shadow crouched on the strong arm of a maple.
Sir Sun dropped the rose and retrieved the pepper spray, approaching slowly. “Who are you?”
Three facts hit Sir Sun all at once: One, in the dim park lights, Sir Sun could see that the shadow was a man. Two, the man had a noose about his throat and rope in his hand. Three, Sir Sun couldn’t make out his clothes, but what he did see would forever be burned into his retina: the man wore baby blue suede shoes.
The man stood and tossed out his arms as if he were about to fly away. He exclaimed, “I win!”
Sir Sun cried out as the man leaped from the high limb.
The man smacked into the trunk, breaking his freefall.
The rope swung back and forth, heavy with the weight. The body pirouetted in tiny circles.
“My God!” Sir Sun dropped the can of pepper spray and ran to the swinging body. He grabbed a blue shoe, shook it. “My God!” he repeated.
He scanned the lonely park, then yelled toward the parking lot. “Somebody call 911!”
Sir Sun would have called himself if he carried a cell, but as it happened, he didn’t have one. He’d refused to buy into the new technology. He didn’t buy anything he couldn’t fix himself with a screwdriver or a hammer.
But today he regretted his old-fashioned stubbornness.
He shook the man’s leg again. “Can you hear me, fella? Are you still with me?”
The man’s light blue eyes bulged. His mouth gaped open and closed like a goldfish, open and closed, open and closed, gasping for air. Slobber dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
Sir Sun grabbed the man’s legs—his blue suede shoes smashed into Sir Sun’s face—and lifted, giving the man a brief relief from his struggle for air. He eyed the tree, wondering if he had enough time to clamber up into the maple and figure a way to cut the rope. A whisper groaned from the man’s lips, stalling Sir Sun. He looked up into the man’s sky blue eyes.
His lingering consciousness pleaded with Sir Sun.
They made eye contact.
He saw Sir Sun. And Sir Sun saw him. He saw secrets—horrid, monstrous secrets. Secrets worse than his own. Secrets that the man could no longer live with.
He wanted to die, to be out of his misery. Who was Sir Sun to stop him? Cruelty was letting him live. Compassion was letting the man have what he wanted. “Okay, fella, okay.” He let go of his legs, and then, after a quick inspection to make sure he was still alone, he grabbed both knees, lifted, and yanked down with all the might he could muster.
The body slammed down on the rope. The man’s eyes bulged bright as the moon. Sir Sun heard the short snap of his neck.
He took a few steps back.
And that is when it happened. The man danced. He danced in his blue suede shoes like Elvis on speed.
Sir Sun stood paralyzed, watching as the man tripped the light fantastic in the dark shadows of Spindler Park. And though the rope creaked under his weight, Sir Sun knew that in death, dancing man h
ad never felt lighter, freer.
In the frantic death dance, the left shoe fell limply to the ground, its previous magic now gone.
The legs slowed their dancing and finally stopped. Sir Sun stood back when piss dripped down Dancing Man’s pant legs into the one fallen blue suede shoe.
He was hypnotized watching the piss, pure and yellow, fall like tears into that lovely dancing shoe.
A young couple screamed. Sir Sun startled and stepped back, slipping on the same pile of leaves from before.
An ambulance would soon be on the way, but it was too late for Dancing Man. He hoped this man’s secrets were gone with him. Looking again at the piss filled shoe, he hoped some dignity remained for Dancing Man, but the shoe told otherwise. How would his own end be? Would he piss into his shoes? Would the world uncover his secrets?
The couple stood by Sir Sun, speaking in hush tones, calling and texting, snapping pictures on their cell. Soon more people came, but Sir Sun wasn’t there to watch.
He had turned and walked back to the park bench before the ambulance arrived. Velva wasn’t there, but somehow he knew she was. He knew she’d seen the whole thing with Dancing Man. He took the long path along the shore of the river around the park, avoiding the crowds. He looked for shadows behind the trees. Listened for footsteps in the bushes. Only the river spoke to him, murmuring of its world and ways.
Instead of taking the bus, he walked. He walked for hours in the crisp autumn night. He tapped his jaw and thought, tapped and thought. He thought about the men in dark jackets and sunglasses. He thought about Velva. He thought of many, many things but one thought in particular, a dark one, kept speaking to him. And when it did, he’d see Dancing Man’s blue shoes, tap dancing across a dark stage.
The thought was this: Velva liked it.
He didn’t know how or why, but somehow he knew. And the worse thing was, it pleased him, too. It pleased and sickened him at the same time.