by Laura Bickle
Betty’s chatting with a couple of construction workers. Their helmets perch on the tables beside them while they look over the menu. An old man reads the newspaper in the corner and nurses his coffee.
I slide off the stool and wander into the back.
Lily’s standing before the fry basket, humming to herself as she shakes the grease out of the fries and hangs the basket on a ledge for them to drain. She’s always warbling like a bird. Hamburger patties sizzle on a tarnished metal grill. Chili simmers in a crockpot, and a half-sliced tomato lies on the cutting board. A Styrofoam plate stuck in the corner holds burned scraps of meat for the cats.
“You’re like the girl in that movie, Lily,” I say.
She blinks and turns to look at me. Lily always smiles when I speak to her. That habit isn’t just for me. She smiles when anyone says her name. But I like to imagine that it’s extra-wide for me.
“Oh yeah?” she says. “Which movie?”
“That Disney one. Cinderella. Just sub the cats in the alley for mice and the sparrows in the gutters for her birds, and you’ve got it down.”
She laughs. “You’re sweet.”
“It’s the truth.”
She shakes the spatula. “Flattery will get you an extra cheeseburger patty.”
“Well in that case, you’re Cinderella, and Snow White, and...uh...” My knowledge of Disney princesses fails me.
She laughs at me. “Go help yourself to the ice cream. There’s a new bucket in the fridge.”
I reach into the refrigerator and scoop some vanilla ice cream into a plastic cup. I pour some strawberry syrup and milk over it and attack the lumps with the hand blender on the counter. Ice cream spatters only on my shirt, not the wall. Smooth. I jam a straw into the cup and suck up the strawberry goodness until the cold gives me a headache.
“School’s almost out,” Lily says as she places squares of yellow cheese on the burgers.
“Yeah.” I always dread the summers, but Lily looks forward to them. “But this will be different.”
“The last summer before...” Her voice trails off. “Before everything else.”
I stop slurping. “We’ll have graduated.” Shit. It’s closer than I thought. “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”
“Adulthood is imminent.” She makes a face and starts scraping the unoccupied side of the grill. She turns her back to me, but the scraping on the flat grill top is nearly vicious. Burned material curls up at the margins as she works.
“I thought you were looking forward to...afterward.” Not ‘adulthood.’ I don’t feel like an adult.
“I guess. I got my acceptance letter from SCCC today.”
“What?” I blink stupidly.
“Starboard City Community College.”
“That’s awesome!” A goofy grin spreads across my face.
“It’s just community college.” I can see a flush at the margins of her face. “I’m not like Rose...going to University with a full-ride scholarship.”
“That’s Rose,” I say. “Your sister is doing her deal.”
“Rose happens to be brilliant.”
“This isn’t about Rose. This is about you.”
“I guess. Mom says I can still live here, so it won’t be so different.”
“See? You have a plan. Which is a lot more than I’ve got.” Sucking air through my straw, I contemplate my future. Erf.
“What are you gonna do?”
“The Army recruiter has been sniffing around pretty heavy. Says I need to gain twenty pounds before they’ll take me.” I’m half-serious.
“You’re not a joiner. You’d hate the Army.”
I don’t want to state the obvious: I’m gonna be stuck selling tchotchkes in my dad’s store. “But the Army’s away from here.”
She turns back to me, and her brown eyes are sad. “I’d miss you.”
My heart trips, and the air bubbles in my straw pop in my mouth.
Before I can answer, Mrs. Renfelter shrieks and there’s the sound of glass exploding out front.
CHAPTER 3
I race to the front of the store. Lily’s on my heels, brandishing her spatula. I skid to a stop behind the counter, surveying the situation.
It does not look good. Mrs. Renfelter stands in the center of the floor. She’s dropped a tray of glasses, and she’s surrounded by ice, cola, and broken glass. That’s not what worries me.
What worries me are the guys standing in the middle of the checkerboard tile floor. One is big, real big...so big that he can’t button his jacket over his six-pack, and the shoulder seams are straining to contain arms the size of lamp posts. His face is pock-marked, and he’s got a cold stare like a fish. I’m betting he’s the muscle.
The guy next to him is clearly in charge, a middle-aged dude in a white linen jacket. He’s relaxed. Too relaxed. His gaze travels from the mess on the floor to me and Lily. Dismissively, he returns his gaze to Mrs. Renfelter.
The last of the customers, a man with a construction helmet, slips out the door.
“Is there a problem here?” I try to do my best impression of Bert, failing miserably. My voice squeaks.
The guy in the white jacket smiles. His teeth are bleached so white, they must hurt. He puts his hands on his hips. His jacket pulls back, revealing a pearl-grip pistol.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Lily whispers. Her spatula wavers. A gobbet of grease falls from it and lands on the floor. We all stare at it.
“I don’t want any trouble, either,” Pearly says. “We’re merely here to remind Mrs. Renfelter of an overdue debt to Mr. Spivelli.”
Fuck. Everyone knows who Mr. Spivelli is. Mr. Spivelli doesn’t have a first name. He’s like Elvis. He only needs to go by one name—though sometimes he’s called “Young Don.”
Mr. Spivelli owns the only chain of dry cleaners in town. “Family owned.” He’s also the newest scion of the Spivelli family, mobsters who’ve run gambling and liquor since Prohibition. Along with the dry-cleaning biz, they also legitimately own the Byzantium Casino.
More or less. Rumors are that the poured foundation of the building includes the corpses of their enemies. I’ve never had the urge to walk up to the building and use the Bunko to find out. That’s one of those things I just don’t want to know.
Mrs. Renfelter is pale, and her lips are pressed into a crimson slash. “I’ll have the money next week.”
“That’s what you said last week. And the week before.” Pearly wanders to the jukebox in the corner. He peers through the glass at a selection of tunes that hasn’t changed since 1985. “You must understand that I have to bring something to Mr. Spivelli.”
“She says she doesn’t have it,” I chirp up. My heart’s pounding. Lily’s hand winds into my sleeve.
Pearly flicks a negligent gaze to me. He knows I’m no threat to him. He doesn’t bother to answer me. He plugs a quarter into the jukebox and punches a button. Tears for Fears warbles from the machine about everyone wanting to rule the world. Pearly hums along. “Nice jukebox.”
“You can have it.” Mrs. Renfelter’s voice is barely a whisper.
Pearly inclines his head to the jukebox. The Muscle plods to the machine. At first, I think he means to pick it up and haul it out of here. But he makes a fist and slams his elbow down into the glass, like he’s an MMA fighter looking to punch somebody’s spleen out through their spine. The music shrieks, and the lights in the jukebox dim.
“Mr. Spivelli has no use for a jukebox,” Pearly observes.
“Take what’s in the register,” Mrs. Renfelter squeaks.
The Muscle heads behind the counter. He punches a key, and the cash drawer slides out with a ring. Calmly, he collects the bills in the register and stuffs them into his jacket.
My hands ball into fists. Heat crawls up my neck. I want to do something. I should be doing something. If I were seven feet tall like Bert, I’d like to think I’d be mopping the floor with these tools. But I’m not, and I’m really afraid that if I tr
ied to pull something, I’d get somebody killed. Or maybe I’m a coward. It could go either way.
Pearly nods at me. “Good boy.”
Damn it. I’m a coward.
“There’s not enough money here,” the Muscle growls. I’m surprised he can count. “Not anywhere near.”
“I’ll get it,” Mrs. Renfelter vows.
“I trust that you will,” Pearly says mildly.
The door jangles behind them. A big silhouette darkens the doorway. Bert. I heave a sigh of relief. Judging by his reflection, he’s still wearing his Jersey-boy persona.
“Hey. What’s going on, boys and girls.” It’s a statement, not a question. Bert blocks the way out, his arms crossed over his chest. He takes in the glass on the floor and the broken jukebox.
“Personal business,” Pearly answers, his hand creeping toward the hem of his jacket.
“I’m nosy. Whassup?” Bert’s not budging.
Mrs. Renfelter pushes to the front. “It’s okay, Bert. The gentlemen were leaving.”
Bert gazes at them with narrowed eyes. Bert is afraid of nothing. I guess being a denizen from hell will do that to a dude. He doesn’t budge, not until Mrs. Renfelter tugs him away from the door.
Pearly and Muscle leave without another word, their feet crunching on the glass.
My breath comes out in a rush. “Jesusfuckingchrist.”
“What the hell was that about?” Bert snarls. His tail is lashing, rattling the glass like windshield wipers slicing through ice in the winter.
Mrs. Renfelter sags into a booth, and Lily puts her arm around her mom.
Bert glances over his shoulder, probably trying to decide if he can catch up to that white Caddy slowly tooling down the street. “Those guys weren’t selling Avon.”
“Mom?” Lily nudges her mom. I can tell from her expression that she’s just as confused about what’s gone down as we are.
Mrs. Renfelter stares at her palms. She refuses to say anything at all.
WE HELP LILY AND MRS. Renfelter clean and lock up early. I sweep up the glass, and Bert drags the broken jukebox out to the Dumpster. It looks sad just sitting there—full of tunes from an older era, waiting to be devoured by the garbage truck.
I’m worried for the girls. Lily promises me she’ll try to get her mom to talk, shoves me out the door in order to do it. Bert is already mumbling to himself about getting them a gun for the counter. Lily swears us both to secrecy. That makes me really damn uncomfortable. Not that I want to blab everyone else’s business to my dad, but this sort of feels like something he should know.
The sun is setting, and neon has begun to light up the street. North of the pawn shop, the bail bonds sign is glowing. Across the street, the tattoo parlor is open for business, and the lights from the casinos on the distant boardwalk burn bright enough to blot out the stars. Here in the city, I never see very many stars. But I imagine taking a boat across the water sometime, seeing the Milky Way the way it’s pictured in my textbooks at school: a white shadow on a black blanket studded with light. I’m still not convinced that those pictures are real—maybe just some special effects—but I’d like to see for myself.
Bert heads to the front of the pawnshop to see about the gun. I let myself in the back door, hearing voices with an undertone of snoring up front. I make my way toward the snoring.
Pops is where I left him, sleeping at his desk. None of his papers have moved, but his head has slumped forward on his chest, and his lower lip trembles when he exhales.
I unplug the coffee maker. Again. Clearly, he’s been conscious at least some of the time I’ve been gone. I fan the burned smell with a file folder and bring a Styrofoam box to Pops’s desk. I touch his shoulder gently. “Pops.”
He lurches forward, then backward, his eyes snapping open. For a moment, I’m certain he doesn’t know where he is. I often think that he doesn’t know when it is, either. When Pops is startled, he can think he’s in the military all over again and threaten you with a stapler until his brain catches up with his reflexes.
“Huh? Hrrrmph?” he says, blinking at me. “Erasmus?”
“Yeah, Pops. It’s me, Raz.” I pat his cold forearm. It’s tattooed with a picture of a sailor girl on an anchor in blue ink. Pops always calls her Lola. That was my grandma’s name, but I never remember her looking like Bettie Page in a swimsuit.
The old man starts coughing, coughing hard. I run to get him a cup of water from the water cooler, and he drinks it down quickly. I know something’s not right about him, but I wonder if he knows, too.
“I was asleep...” he growls, putting it off as me disturbing his nap.
“I brought you some dinner.” I open the Styrofoam clamshell box. “Your favorite.”
The old man’s craggy face lights up. “You brought me a Spamburger with everything?”
“A Spamburger with everything. With loaded cheese fries.”
He stares into the box with the delight of a child opening a present, then looks up at me and pats my sleeve. “You’re a good boy, Erasmus. Don’t let any of the rest of those assholes tell you anything different.”
I snort. Maybe not as good or as willing a tool in the shop as my dad wants, but my intentions are good. And I’m the one who always brings Pops dinner.
His hands shake a bit on the plastic silverware. His full head of silver hair, curly like Santa’s beard at the mall, mocks my father’s thinning hairline. He got put in the back to ride herd on the paperwork after his vision got so bad, he accidentally dropped some pretty big coin on a fake Rolex.
I think my dad and uncle actually do most of the paperwork and bank deposits—they just want to give him something to do. My uncle once hissed to me, If you don’t keep busy, you die quick. We gotta keep him busy.
“You feeling okay, Pops?”
Pops stuffs a fry shrouded in cheese and bacon into his mouth. “Fine. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just...it seems like you’ve been sleeping more.”
He snorts. “When you’re old, you’ll take naps, too. And when you’re old, hopefully you’ll be lucky enough to still be in this place and be able to take a nap whenever you like while your sons argue with the customers.”
Some luck. I keep silent for a moment while Pops chews. “Pops...what’s the strangest thing you ever saw with the Bunko?”
Pops leans back in his chair. He stares up at the ceiling with cheese on his chin, thinking. “One time...when I was stationed on Okinawa, I was on shore leave. One of my mates came back to the ship, totally plastered. He brought something with him, a stone he’d dug out of the corner of a temple with his pocket knife as a lark.” The old man’s lips purse. “It wasn’t a lark. There are strange spirits in Japan. There are strange spirits, everywhere, really.”
I nod.
“I mean...you’ve seen ghosts and ghouls and, well...Bert.” He waves dismissively toward the front door. “Japan has an interesting class of spirit, called kami. Most spirits and otherworldly critters that you and I deal with were human at one time, or close enough to human to have some feeling. Alive. Like Bert. He’s a pain in the ass, but he has twinges of human feeling sometimes. Sometimes.
“Kami are different. They’re spirits of nature or ancestors, little gods of rocks and trees and storms and rivers. Kind of like locus genii—elemental spirits of the land. They never started out human. They don’t covet our humanity. The best thing to do with them is leave them alone or placate them. Little shrines are built to them all over the countryside, with offerings for good weather, bountiful crops, and smooth water.”
Pops takes a bite from his sandwich. The Spam slides a bit from the bun. He wipes the grease that dribbles down his chin with a napkin. He misses some of it, and I have the urge to do it for him, but I resist. Treating Pops like he’s helpless would result in World War III. My dad took his car keys away from him last year, unleashing an utter shitstorm of howling that lasted from dusk to dawn. Pops eventually made copies of the keys. When my dad’s not lookin
g, he drives wherever the hell he wants to.
“Anyway, the kami. There was a kami attached to this rock. And it was monumentally pissed about being disturbed and taken from its nice shrine and dragged to a cramped ship full of swearing sailors.” The old man pauses. “It probably also makes a difference that this kami was female.”
I snort.
“The rock gave me the heebie jeebies the instant he brought it on board. He dropped it on the floor between our bunks and started sawing logs. I stared at it, totally fixated. It turned over and over in the night, rolling by itself down the length of our bunkroom. My mates were too wasted to see it. Hell, I thought I was too wasted to see it.”
“Pops,” I say, picking at a hangnail. “I have a hard time believing you were a virgin in the military. That you still had the Bunko to see all this.”
Pops holds up a finger. “This was my first tour of duty, son. And that was soon to be corrected. Not that this was any of your business. Anyway...what I saw then was an ordinary haunting. I hadn’t used the Bunko on it...yet.
“It took me all night to work up the nerve to touch that rock to Bunko it. And what I saw...” The old man closes his eyes, remembering. “She was something else, that kami. A fox-woman. Wild and gorgeous, with long black hair that reached her ankles, tangled with briars and cherry blossoms. Her eyes were brown, like a fox’s. She wore a white silk kimono, and a fox tail crept out from under the hem. She was barefoot. And plenty pissed.”
“Sounds hot,” I mutter. “Sort of.”
The old man chuckles. “I saw her pacing the edge of the temple grounds when I touched the rock with the Bunko. I saw her den beneath it and the trees surrounding it. She had been pretty damn happy. And then my buddy went and disturbed her. I knew then that this was not going to go down well.
“That morning, I tried to talk him into taking the rock back where he’d found it. He laughed and told me to quit messing with his stuff. He locked the rock up in his footlocker.
“That’s when shit really started getting weird. That rock knocked around in the footlocker every night after that. A storm whipped up, the likes of which I’d never seen. Waves washed over the boat and sucked men out to sea. The ship nearly capsized. We all went below decks, listening to the anchor chain creak and groan. We were terrified we’d take on water or capsize. This close to shore, that kind of thing was unheard of.
