by Nina Post
She checked the pneumatic tube room. The ringing was coming from a red metal box inside the closet-sized space. She unlatched the casing of the red box. Inside, there was a ringing phone labeled Answer as 'Special Situations International: We're Usually Awake.
Kelly shook her head and unhooked the receiver. "SSI, You Won't Catch Us Napping."
Special Situations International once had their headquarters in the spacious top floors where Kelly was now living rent-free, which meant that she was squatting. But no one ever bothered her about it. She had no idea what SSI did, only that Mr. Black – a former SSI executive whose office she occupied – used to be an elite orienteer, evidenced by the photos on his wall.
"Yeah, this is Jerry Shanks," said the loud voice on the other side of the call. "I'm a bail bonds agent with Shanks Brothers Bonds down on Locust Street." Kelly winced and held the phone a few inches from her ear.
"My client failed to make his court appearance," Jerry said. "This is the number he gave me as a contact."
"What's the name of the client?" Kelly crossed an arm over her waist and propped her elbow on her wrist.
"Driscoll," Jerry said, practically yelling at her. "Archie Driscoll." He pronounced it AH-chee Dris-kul.
She sat on the one small chair in the tiny room. Archie Driscoll?
"I need to recover that money," Jerry said. "I'm responsible for the bond payment. Hello? You still there?"
She knew full well how his business worked. "Did this Archie Driscoll give a company name?"
"C-A-H. That mean anything to you?"
Because of his thick accent, she said, "Charlie-Alpha-Hotel, right?"
"Yeah."
Clucking Along Holdings, a Driscoll Family Company. It was one of the last buildings standing after Pothole City was obliterated. Maybe she had a living relative. Or maybe this had nothing to do with her. What was SSI supposed to do? May as well try and pick up some extra money. "You need him apprehended?"
"That would be nice."
Kelly took down some notes and by the time she hung up, had a job. The kind of job she was arguably good at, and the kind of job she liked. But she had resolved to make an effort to be herself, to be the real, accept-no-imitations Kelly Driscoll, so she would try to keep her own word. As she closed the door to the tube room, the phone rang again. For a phone that hadn't made a peep since she took up residence, it was disconcertingly active. One more call, but then she would really have to leave. She had to do a show of What's On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi, before meeting Af, the former angel of destruction she was thinking about way too much.
"Special Situations International," she said on the red phone. "We're Excessively Caffeinated."
Tubiel, the single-purpose angel in charge of the protection of small birds, and the SP she was closest to, came in and held up a Cluck Snack cereal box. He was wearing his usual outfit of shiny black patent sneakers with a mirrored metal letter on the sides; jeans with a large mirrored metal brand sign; a puffy black nylon jacket zipped up to the top; and mirrored aviator sunglasses, which were on the top of his head. He must have been out on a job, she thought.
"This is your client," a male voice said over the phone. Confident, but with a barely perceptible undertone of worry. "Institute Code Cluck Snack immediately," he said, slowly, and with precise diction.
She checked inside the phone case to see if there was a code legend. There wasn't, but she would start with the basics. "I'm actually new here. Which client?"
"Your only client."
"I don't have any clients. I just got my badge."
"Clucking Along Holdings," he said. "SSI's only client!" He took a breath. "This is Hamlet Gonzalez, Clucking Along Holdings' Vice-President of Snacks and Flavors."
Kelly recovered. "Of course. I meant that we, the elite team here at Special Situations International, share you as a client." She had no idea what SSI did or what kind of special situations they handled or if they were an elite team of anything except orienteering. "As much as I have to be reminded since I got my employee photo taken," she said, "I realize I don't have an exclusive relationship with Clucking Along Holdings. Though it often feels that way."
Kelly wanted to uphold SSI as a functioning entity. She and the SPs were squatting in the building. If Clucking Along Holdings discovered that Special Situations International no longer existed, they could kick her and the SPs out on the street. If that happened, she would have to steal and take temporary residence of the Cluck Snack street van.
Hamlet sucked in a breath. "Code Cluck Snack is the top emergency level, the top priority. It means that you drop everything and find our missing president. We would like to handle this discreetly. Clucking Along Holdings has never held a press conference and does not encourage media visits to its plants, so do not inform them."
"If you insist," Kelly said, humoring him. "You have a code for finding your missing president? How often does he go missing?"
"Not often," Hamlet said. "Not for this long. "Don't you have a guide or a legend or a manual or anything like that?"
"We have a manual, but Mr. Orange dropped it down the laundry chute and it got stuck."
"Yes, that is like Mr. Orange," Hamlet said in a thoughtful and slightly critical tone. "May I speak to your supervisor?"
"I'm sorry, but they're out for Founder's Week," Kelly said.
"SSI takes a whole week to celebrate their founding?" Hamlet sounded incredulous. "We take only one day at CAH."
"SSI takes our founding very seriously," she said.
"I'll have to take that up with Mr. Orange," Hamlet said. "They left you in charge?"
"I'm the only one who can lift the water jug for the cooler."
Hamlet Gonzalez didn't know that Special Situations International had vacated their headquarters without leaving so much as a forwarding address.
"Tell me more about this missing president," she said.
Kelly scribbled down what Hamlet told her and was very, very late for work. And late for meeting Af.
Kelly closed her eyes as a fallen angel with curled-up black lycra wings leaned over and patted Kelly's face with powder. The giant water scorpion, normally the elevator attendant, applied color to her lips with one arm and brushed her hair with another. Kelly shook them off and sprang out of the chair.
"I have a very small window of time for these two interviews. The accountant is meeting me in twenty minutes." Those two sentences summed up why she felt like a greyhound in a pug-sized cage.
"Smile more!" The camera operator gave up on Kelly with an exasperated sigh, then tilted his head to the side from behind the monitor. "Ask yourself, 'What would Roger do?'"
Kelly smiled, but not in the way the operator would want. "Roger would transform into an iguana the size of a whale and ascend to the higher form of regional manager."
"Touché," the camera operator said. "Our first guest is on in five, four, three, two, one." He pointed a finger at her, indicating that she was live.
"This is What's On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi," Kelly said into the camera. "The award-winning local access variety show out of Amenity Tower – Pothole City's finest, and only, luxury condominium. I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll." She paused and glanced out the window at the waiting area outside the door. "You may have seen our first guest eating a power breakfast of coffee and an angel claw at his new favorite restaurant, Pothole City Donuts, located right here in Amenity Tower." With a strained cheerfulness, she smiled and said, "'Pothole City Donuts: We Fill the Potholes of Your Soul with Fried Goodness.'"
After a deceptively short second, in which she took in the scope of her life thus far and wondered how, exactly, the choices and coordinates of her life had put her in Roger's studio chair, she continued. "Or you may have seen him installing and personally trimming sculpted hedges in the shapes of Pothole City business leaders. It's the mayor of Pothole City, Whip Whipson."
The mayor strolled onto the set, a man – or minor demon, or whatever he was, Kelly didn't know
for sure – with a steak-and-cake loving girth, pasty skin, and a blue blouse with elastic sleeves just past the elbow.
"Hello, Roger, it's good to be here." He sat slowly, with a tortured wheeze. Kelly pictured an elephant sitting in a circus ring surrounded by handlers wielding long sticks.
"My name isn't Roger," Kelly said, though she wouldn't have minded pretending to be Roger for the show.
The mayor turned to check with his assistant, a movement which seemed to take much longer than it should have. "Isn't this –?"
"What's On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi? Yes," Kelly said, "but I'm not Roger Balbi."
"I – Well, we can't all be Roger Balbi, can we?" The mayor recovered with attempted panache and an episode of exerted breathing.
"No, we certainly can't." Kelly smiled with the corners of her mouth. Please let this be over, she said in her mind like a mantra. "Mr. Mayor, can you compare the condition of Pothole City a mere three weeks ago to its condition today?"
The mayor put on a serious expression and steepled his bratwurst-sized fingers, which didn't have the 'master of reason' effect he was probably after. "After the loss of nearly twenty-thousand buildings in Pothole City, only three structures remained: first, the building we're in right now, Amenity Tower; second, the former headquarters of Special Situations International, just across the street; and third, the current headquarters of Clucking Along Holdings, makers of Cluck Snack products." The mayor shifted in the chair and adjusted his elastic cuffs.
"Our city is very fortunate that Clucking Along Holdings took the lead on the rebuilding efforts. New buildings are sprouting like shoots from the rubble. Within just days after the conflagration, entrepreneurs started businesses on any platform they could find. In fact, new business formation is at an all-time high, as entrepreneurs from all walks of life have set out to meet the needs of our population during the rebuilding process" The mayor wheezed, already out of breath from the exertion of talking.
"Such as the vice and bootlegging entrepreneurs who are taking control of the city and dominating illegal markets with the assistance of the city's so-called business leaders?" Kelly said evenly.
The mayor's assistant, standing by the door to the studio, shook his head like he was trying to shake off a spider. The mayor coughed into his hand, which resembled an unadorned cinnamon roll.
"The mayor's office and the Relief Society are doing everything in their power to restore authority," the mayor said.
The popularity of Amenity Tower had skyrocketed, and Kelly, as very reluctant interim manager, was getting grumpier by the day. Interviewing the mayor did not help, and dealing with the Amenity Tower board of directors was gnawing at her very soul. But she needed to wrap up the interview and storm through the next one so she could get on with her work. Not for the first time, she wondered how in hell Roger got by.
"What are you doing to rebuild a semblance of government in Pothole City?" she asked.
The mayor cleared his throat, a sound that reminded her of the faulty carburetor in the sidecar motorcycle she used when she drove Tubiel around returning small birds to their owners. Their many different owners, all over the city.
"After the destruction, I signed a proclamation and assigned administration of the relief initiative to the Pothole City Relief Society," the mayor said.
"And who are the members of the Pothole City Relief Society?" Kelly asked.
"The Relief Society is comprised of the city's most prominent business leaders," the mayor said, puffing out his chest.
Kelly silently cursed Roger for leaving her in this position, and Claw & Crutty, the property management firm that ran Amenity Tower.
"Who exactly are the business leaders in the Relief Society?" She wouldn't have asked if she didn't already know it was a short list.
"The Pothole City Relief Society includes the founders of United Donuts Co. and Pothole City Donuts," the mayor said, "as well as the president of Clucking Along Holdings; the Chief Executive Officer of Claw & Crutty; the founder of Pothole City's leading garbage disposal company, Pothole City Waste; and several attorneys."
Pothole City Donuts was the new donut shop leasing space on the first floor of Amenity Tower, and it was doing much more business than United Donuts. Kelly didn't even know why the founder of United Donuts was in the Relief Society. But then, the number of available business leaders was limited.
"And finally, Mr. Mayor, how would you classify the mood in the city right now?"
The mayor intertwined his fingers on his lap. "I would characterize the city's mood as understandably fearful and despondent, but also hopeful. And dare I say, exhilarated over the prospect of change, of moving forward. I think people are focusing on the small things."
At the moment, Kelly was exhilarated over the prospect of having a snack.
The show's second guest, a wiry man with a mustache and an amused expression, passed through the studio lights to take the seat across from Kelly.
"Why don't you introduce yourself to our viewers," Kelly said, giving the man what she hoped was an encouraging smile, and not a menacing snarl. The camera operator gave her a thumbs up.
The man leaned forward slightly. "Sure. My name is Sugar Montana, and I'm the Pothole City Transportation Commissioner."
"Thanks for taking the time to appear on What's On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi, Mr. Montana."
"Call me Sugar." He nodded, and his smile was so fast it was almost subliminal.
"I'm sure our audience is keenly interested in Pothole City's deteriorating pothole situation," she said.
Sugar cleared his throat and darted his eyes at the camera. "Of course." He slapped his hands on his knees and sat up a little straighter. "The residents of Pothole City have probably noticed more potholes this year. This is clearly due to the combination of last year's blizzard, along with frequent freeze-and-thaw cycles, and the demons in the underworld seeking points of weakness in old asphalt. Our revised pavement strategy calls for more so-called 'pothole killer' machines for use in alleys. We don't want to be called Sinkhole City." He chuckled softly.
The assistant manager had already corralled the third set of guests inside the management office lobby.
Kelly narrowed her eyes. "Don't you think that the utter destruction of Pothole City just weeks ago has something to do with the worsening pothole situation?"
At the studio window, Tubiel cupped his hands around his mirrored sunglasses with the side safety mesh and looked into the studio. He waved at Kelly, then put his hand back to the glass.
"Yes, that could have something to do with it." Sugar's mouth quirked, delicately, to indicate his facetious tone. "After the destruction, much of the rubble was swept or trucked away. Some of that rubble was hastily backhoed into the lake, forming an artificial beach of rusted iron spikes and chunks of gravel." Sugar glanced at the window, presumably to make sure that the mayor wasn't listening, though Kelly got the impression Sugar didn't much care if he was.
"This process almost certainly caused more potholes to form," Sugar continued. "Moreover, traffic consisting mainly of Pothole City Cab Co. Livery drivers, city vehicles, and Cluck Snack delivery wagons started flowing through the city before the street-resurfacing program got underway. This definitely worsened existing potholes."
Tubiel jumped up and down at the window. Kelly saw only the top of his head bounce up. He must have been standing on someone earlier.
"And how many potholes did you fill last year, Commissioner?" Kelly asked.
"Over seven-hundred-thousand street potholes," Sugar said. "Crews also filled more than fifty-thousand potholes in alleys, considerably more than the previous year."
"Wow."
"Yeah, wow," Sugar said with a smile. "Our department would like to be less reactive to the problem."
The third guest, a band called Frog Hotel, clattered into the studio with their equipment as Kelly went out. She wanted to stay and watch, but there was the meeting with the accountant about the reserves and the
investment accounts, the package she had to put in the delivery drop box across the street, and most important, a snack.
https://curiosityquills.com/kindle/last-donut-shop/
https://curiosityquills.com/kindle/one-ghost/
“SHOT BOY!”
Eric Snackerge could easily disregard the warm hand sliding up his chest, but ignoring the ghost who ruined his life was far more difficult.
He set his tray on an unoccupied table and retied the vest that one of the women had yanked open. The two shreds of fabric barely covered his nipples, and connected across his chest with looped suede laces. Eric’s dark brown hair, cut short but bordering on floppy, dampened against milky skin and curled around a broad forehead, under his ear lobes, and into the down of his neck. From the front, his face resembled a traffic arrow, the square lines of his cheekbones jutting into the point of his square chin. Big eyes the color of a Pennsylvania quarry pool blazed with grim determination and a tinge of desperation under dark, gently curved eyebrows.
“Get back here, sexy.” A bangled arm extended, hand clutching like one of those carnival claws closing on a stuffed animal, then beckoning like an invitation to a kung-fu fight, which was what his job often resembled. Eric retied the laces on his matching brown suede short-shorts, which exposed the top edges of his hip bones and approximately 97% of his legs. He suspected his manager deliberately used laces that couldn’t actually be tied, and wondered exactly how much work time was lost over the constant retying.
He saw the ghost in his peripheral vision as he took the tray back to the bar and rolled his eyes.
The ghost, who liked to go by “Rex,” would be average weight if he took on a substantive form. He was a few inches shorter than Eric’s six-foot-two height, and was wearing his usual long-sleeved, frayed-collar shirt over a t-shirt, jeans, and Chukka boots. His hair was longish and almost reached his shoulders. Only Eric had the dubious honor of seeing him, though even to Eric, Rex had the faded, oddly monochromatic look of an instant photo from the seventies that was left out in the sun.
