Grinning Cracks

by K W Taylor

  She hopped down from the counter stool, smoothed her apron, and flipped her braids behind her shoulders. She withdrew a small pad of paper from her pocket as she reached the man’s table.

  “Hi there. My name’s Cassie, and I’ll be your waitress today.” She still sounded perky because it was early enough in her shift that her feelings hadn’t been hurt yet.

  He looked up at her, taking off his sunglasses to reveal two large grey eyes. The pupils were blown wide open, as if he’d been staring into the sun all day. He smiled faintly, and Cassie thought he looked stoned.

  “Hello, Cassie.” His voice was soft and low and marked with a slow, flat quality that bothered her.

  But it was his eyes that made her feel even stranger. She couldn’t stop looking into them. She tried to get a sense of his age, but couldn’t. He could have been twenty-one or fifty. Soon, she realized she’d been staring without saying anything. She blinked hard, cleared her throat, and asked for his order.

  He looked back at the menu. “Just a piece of toast, actually. And a glass of water if you have any.” He closed the menu and looked back at her. “If we have any?” She chuckled. “What kinda place don’t have water, I’d like to know!”His slight smile broke into a wide, toothy grin. “Plenty,” he said. His expression was now looking nearly ghoulish, and Cassie forced herself to smile broadly and laugh.

  “My cousin’s been to Europe, and they make you get bottled there. But our tap’s good. We have a filter, so it’s clean.” Her words came out in a nervous tumble.

  He gazed off for a moment. “Yes, it’s all bottled back home,” he said. His tone made it seem as if he were reciting something he’d memorized.

  Cassie thrust her notepad back in her pocket. “I’ll be right back with your order, sir,” she said. She walked away quickly, nearly breaking into a little sprint. Even after she turned away from him, she could still feel the man’s eyes boring into the back of her skull.

  In a few minutes, she returned to the table bearing toast, water, silverware, and a small caddy of jelly packets.

  “Can I get you anything else?” She was timid now, and she kicked herself for it. What had he done that had been so threatening?

  He took the glass of water and drank it all in one long swallow, catching minute dribbles from his bottom lip with the bone-thin fingers of his left hand. He held the empty glass out at arm’s length, turning it around and regarding it as carefully as he’d studied the menu. “Yes,” he finally said. “Could I have another?” He handed the glass back to her.

  The man ended up drinking four glasses of water in a row and nibbling at his toast. He stayed in his booth for over an hour. Occasionally, he would withdraw a small black book from the breast pocket of his jacket and scribble in it for a while, then close it back up with extreme care and put it back.

  Finally, Cassie brought him his meager bill, and he gave her a twenty dollar bill.

  “I know that’s more than the check, but keep the rest,” he said, sliding off the bench and standing up. He towered over Cassie by over a foot. “Sir, you know this ain’t a five, right?”

  He grinned, the strange fang-teeth flashing at her again, and put a hand on her shoulder. It felt light and warm through her uniform sleeve. “Yes, I know. You’ve been kind. Thank you.” He slipped on his sunglasses, gave a strange, awkward little wave, and was out the door before Cassie knew what had happened.

  She was alone in the dingy dining room, the bored cook whistling to himself in the kitchen. Harmonica and banjo whirred away on the tinny jukebox. Cassie sighed and sat down at the counter, picking up the magazine she had abandoned when the man had first come in.

  “Guy was an alien.”

  Cassie looked up, startled. The cook was leaning out over the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room. “What now?”

  The cook gestured at the now-empty booth with his spatula. “That fella there. Alien.” He shook his head. “They love it out here in the desert, all easy to land a spaceship and shit. Like a goddamn moon base out there. Roswell ain’t far, after all.” Cassie looked back at the booth as if doing so would help her recreate the man in her mind’s eye. Strange and creepy, sure, but…

  She turned back to the cook and rolled her eyes. “Clem, you been listening to the radio too much.”

  Outside, a black car with a telephone satellite on the roof stood waiting. The man walked across the parking lot, nodded at the driver as the back door was opened for him, and got in.

  “Good meal, sir?” the driver asked.

  “Hmm? Yes, yes, I suppose,” he answered. He looked out the window. “So much to see here, isn’t there?”

  “I guess so, sir. Kind of the middle of nowhere, though, y’know?”

  “So it is,” the man replied.

  “Place like this remind you more of—”

  “A bit, yes,” the man said hastily. “Though I think home was more like this long ago, before I was even born.”

  The driver gave a nervous laugh. “And when was that, sir?” When his employer didn’t reply, he laughed again, somewhat more strained. “I’m only kiddin’ around. I ain’t really askin’ ya.”

  The man made a noncommittal humming sound and plucked his book from his pocket again. “Drive, if you don’t mind. Just drive.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  Floater

  Sister, you know how it is

  with a man made handsome by illnesses.

  In the ice water,

  in the frozen dark,

  his bones’re on prom’nent display.

  Sister, you know what I mean

  of a man who’s gotten quite brittle and clean,

  becoming angular,

  becoming feminine,

  his eyes are quite haunted and black.

  Sail down drippingly,

  brush his hair lovingly

  as flesh on flesh rots to a scream.

  Sail down then you’ll see

  everything beautifully

  trapped in the cage by the sea.

  Sister, you know how it is

  with a man made lovelier in his last sleep,

  with the crimson mouth

  and the ink-stained hair,

  he emits the stench of decay.

  gradlon

  The sea was rough. Stepman was the only hand on deck. The box floated forward. He first thought it was a lobster trap abandoned in the channel. As the box banged against the hull, there came a knocking from within. Perhaps there were still living fish inside. Stepman cast a harpoon into its lid, dragging it aboard.

  The resident of the box unfurled her tail, revealing pearlescent scales and dazzling, ruby-red tresses. “Thank ye, sire,” she trilled. “Now we be wed for all time.”

  Stepman gaped at the mermaid. “I don’t know if there’s room for you in my bunk.”

  Iannic-ann-ôd

  Do not cry out. Except no amount of control could stop him, as usual. Abruptly, he stopped his nightly wander, letting his head fall back, and screamed. “Iou! Iou!”

  Oh, my God, nobody hear that, please! He kneaded his face with the heels of his hands.

  His soggy fisherman’s sweater was heavy with sea salt and stained with kelp. Anyone who saw the man from a distance would think he was fine, but up close, it was clear his skin was a sickly pale green, the pale green of death and decay.

  Some nights, no one heard him yell out his agony. Some nights, the town was safe. But others—

  “Iou! Iou!”

  He wanted to sit and stay quiet and still, but the need, the overwhelming need took over and—

  “Iou! Iou!” he called in response. Please, don’t repeat it, whoever you are! You poor bastard! He leapt over the rocks, narrowing the distance between himself and the still-living human inexplicably being drawn into his curse.

  “Iou! Iou!” the human called. There was a smattering of laughter off a ways. Perhaps the human had company, and they thought they were playing at imitating a bird or an a
nimal.

  “Iou! Iou!” Now the fisherman’s spirit was leaping again, springing over sand and shrubbery, spectral footsteps padding along the remaining distance.

  “Iou! Iou!” Stay quiet! If he could speak, he would have warned the men to shut their mouths, for the love of all that was holy, if they wanted to survive a minute longer.

  “Iou! Iou!” More laughter. “Aw, g’wan, Jim, ‘t ain’t but a legend, y’know. Bloody stupid bloke you are if you believe in that shite.”

  Jim’s neck was broken by invisible hands. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  The fisherman wept, fading back into the mist.

  Il Necromanticismo

  O cruelest lover who crushes soul fire,

  I clutch your garment—

  don’t abandon me.

  Patron saint of the second-best ones,

  I pray you’ll come soon to rescue me—

  possessing nothing,

  awaiting Heaven’s breezes,

  never lucky for I am not your favorite.

  You go and carry on with all the others.

  I cannot care;

  just come back to me.

  Angel of beauty,

  you pity my love.

  I draw a circle and summon Salieri.

  They cannot know what power they wield as they

  whisk you away,

  away from me.

  I touch your body—you’re unresponsive.

  Whose hands can give you that ecstasy?

  Slit my throat and drown my ghost

  in a sea of mediocrity so

  desperately.

  Salieri, won’t you sing to me?

  the korrigan

  “Heightism!” The dwarf shook his fist at the officers. “Would ya be hasslin’ me if I were tall as you grand gangly buffoons?”

  Pembroke looked at Wembly. “I told you,” Pembroke muttered, shaking her head. “Buncha bullshit right here.”

  “Wait, just wait!” her partner urged her. Wembley turned to the dwarf. “Sir, can you please recite the days of the week, in order?”

  A shadow passed over the smaller man’s face, but then he quickly recovered. “‘Scuse me, lad? What the devil does that prove?”

  “I’m with him,” Pembroke said. “Weirdest sobriety test I’ve ever heard of!”

  “It’s a test, but not for sobriety,” Wembley explained. “This is how we’ll know he’s not human.” Wembly gestured impatiently at the dwarf. “Sunday, Monday, y’know, on with it.”

  The dwarf sighed. “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday...” He frowned, his nose scrunching up. “Tuesday. Right, Tuesday. Then Wednesday, and...” His voice trailed off and he grinned at the officers. “Ya got me, boy.” He held up his hands. “I give.”

  The ground opened up and swallowed up the creature before Wembley could reach for his handcuffs.

  “Why can’t they say the days of the week?” Pembroke asked as they strolled back to the patrol car.

  “Why can humans and the fey can’t?” Wembley asked. “Who knows?” He paused before unlocking the driver’s side door. “You can say it, right?”

  Pembroke looked startled.

  Les lavandières

  The signal came late. Mally groaned and rose, rubbing her eyes.

  Padding down the hallway, she banged on Weese’s door. “Shake a tail feather!” There was a grumpy sound from within. Mally repeated the action at Avery’s door.

  The three women stomped down to the laundry room, where they found the shrouds waiting. “There’s a lot!” Avery cried. She crouched down to examine the basket.

  “I wonder what’ll happen,” Weese said. She grabbed the bottle of soap from the cabinet.

  “These things won’t wash themselves.” Ever-practical, Mally opened the door, ushering the others through.

  As they wandered to the river, their identical green nightshirts made them blend into the terrain.

  The instant they finished, forty soldiers were shot in a morning raid. When their bodies were sent home, their burial clothes were already fresh and ready.

  “I hope there’s fewer tomorrow,” Avery said as they walked home.

  The others nodded.

  The Lovers

  “This isn’t real?” Izzy blinked up at him. Her voice was flat, emotionless.

  “I guess.” He took a step backward. “But ...“ He wanted to say more, but all his thoughts were tangled, jumbled, incoherent. Instead, he simply sighed.

  Izzy tore her eyes from his and moved away, flopping down on the sofa. “Well, I mean, it’s not like I hated you or something,” she murmured. “I thought you were nice enough.” She frowned. “I guess. I’m trying...it’s so hard to remember. I’m thinking through this veil of—”

  “Love,” he interjected. The word pierced the room like an arrow, even though he’d spoken it quietly.

  She nodded, looking down at her lap. “Love,” Izzy agreed after a moment’s silence. “It’s hard to think through all this love.” Her voice was rougher now, the thick quality of someone trying not to cry.

  “Do you care?” he asked. He was still across the room, making no move to comfort her, though he desperately wanted to. But everything was second guesses now. Did he want to go to Izzy, touch her, hold her? Or was something making him want to? And did it matter?

  “I care about what was done to us,” Izzy finally replied. “I care about not having choice.” Now she looked at him again. She still wasn’t crying. “This doesn’t have to change anything if we don’t want it to.”

  But did they? “I need some time.” He was outside before she could say anything else. That heart-shaped face, those eyes…he couldn’t be around Izzy right now.

  Except that she followed him. He could never hide from Izzy; she knew everything about him, all his mind’s workings, all his tendencies, even what direction he’d walk down the sidewalk when he stormed out of a building.

  “Tristan!” Her voice was a shriek, a yelp, a desperate cry on the autumn wind.

  He turned. He couldn’t see her through his own tears. They ran to each other and embraced.

  Three months earlier, there had been two glasses on a table. Two sips. That was all it took.

  MARCUS

  No one said it would be easy. But now, faced with the reality of such total, utter exposure and trust, he found himself feeling somehow incompetent, despite all the practical knowledge he had of the process.

  When Sally could tell he was making no move toward her, she sat up, blinking fluffy false eyelashes at him. “Was it something I said?” she asked.

  Marcus pulled his gaze from the long, shapely legs thrown carelessly across his lap. Women wore such short dresses these days! He could never decide if this delighted or scandalized him. “You’re perfect, darling,” he told her. “It’s got nothing to do with you at all.”

  Her bottom lip began to quiver. “Don’t you love me?”

  Oh, didn’t she know by now? Marcus felt his cold, dead heart start to break. “I love you more than anything or anyone ever,” he reassured her. “Sally, you’re everything to me.” He clutched at her hands and pulled her close to him. “I want nothing more than to do this for you, for us.”

  “So then do it,” she urged. Her arms went around his shoulders and she stroked his back gently. “I want to spend my life with you.”

  The process was something clinical and abstract to him. He’d never done it, and yet he’d seen it done many times over. He was no longer young, after all, and until he met Sally, he dwelt mostly among his own kind, shunning the day and skulking about in back alleys, living in basements, caves, and hovels like a rat. Even in such conditions, these filthy scavengers like him still sought solace in others, still sought to find and make mates for one another.

  It wasn’t like the old days.

  Marcus slid himself out from under Sally and strode to a shabby loveseat across the room. He flopped down upon it, his shoulders slumped.

  “Once upon a time, I would have had to ask
permission,” he said quietly.

  Sally sat up, sliding her shoes on as she did so. The straps across the tops of the chunky Mary Janes gave Marcus a brief flash of the dolls lined up in his sister’s nursery. Sally resembled them a bit, not just in her clothes but in the pink flush of her cheeks and the shiny curls of her hair. She was a perfect plaything, this little creature, though there were certainly extra pleasures he could know with her.

  “That was going on two hundred years ago,” he blurted out.

  Sally frowned and leaned forward. “What was, dear?”

  Everything, he thought bitterly. “The courts,” he said instead. “The high courts haven’t existed in quite some time.”

  “You’re free to do it without applying to do so?”

  Marcus nodded.

  Sally made a tiny whimpering sound. “If that’s so, why won’t you do it to me?”

  “Because it could kill you,” he replied. “I need to be certain I’m strong enough.”

  He longed to comfort her and stay the night, but all conversation between them would stay this tense until he gave in to her requests. And so he left while he still had time, lest he get himself trapped the entire day in her small, airless flat, unable to leave without turning himself to a cinder.

  On his way along the soot-covered city street, Marcus decided to visit Helen, an elder who’d been seventy years old for five times that long. She rented the basement of a row house near Alamo Square, just a few miles from Sally’s building, and could often be found pushing dope on the humans near the Scott Street side of the park.

  He didn’t find her in either place but rather in between the two, whistling merrily as she tied her shoelace on the bench of a bus stop. She turned before he even spoke and flashed him a toothless smile.