Archive for November 27th, 2011

#22 Pierre

He never quite knew how to answer when people asked him if he was French.  Maybe, somewhere along the line, he guessed he must have had some in the gumbo that was his swapland bloodline.  A little French, a little Seneca, a little African, and yeah, maybe eve a little Anglo for good measure.  Who knew?  His people weren’t exactly the type to keep tidy records, anyway.  His name, well, apparently one of his grandpaps carried it- and on up the line to who knows what unlucky frenchie got hisself stranded with the gators and the spanish moss, knee deep in the muck that was his family legacy.

Not that he should speak so ill of his roots.  His granmama would tan his hide, she heard him talikn’ that way, but he was miles from swamp, and planned on being so for the rest of his natural life.  Blame the teaspoon of Anglo in him, but he’d had about all he could handle of the hot and humid.  He liked winters, places that had weather, land that was dry enough to track on easy as you please, with predators you could hear walking up to you.

But there were times when his past caught up with him, when he could hear his grams talking in his ear like she was standing right there beside him.  Like every time he laid eyes on little Mouse.  I spite of that, or maybe even because of that, he hadn’t been able to stay away from here ever since she set up her little table across the street from the club he worked at evenings.

He’d scoffed the first time she set up, with her little palm reader’s sign and trinkets laid out over tattered a tattered velvet cloth that did little to hide the wheeled trunk under it.  He had been prepared to walk right past her, maybe even told her to take a hike on personal principle, but then he did walk up to her.  Walked up to her, smelled the cheap liquor on her breath, and was about to lay down some hard local law on her when he looked in her eye.  And picked up one of the little square cloths tied to a string, and was frozen dead still for the space of a couple heartbeats.

“That’s for love,” she said, words softened but not slurred.  “Not what you need.”

She shuffled trough some of the little scraps and picked up a different one, trading it for the other.  Pierre hoped she didn’t see his hands shaking.

She didn’t seem to when she answered.  “Here- this is what you need.  Makes you hard to spot in a crowd.  Won’t hide you in a room less than three, or if someone knows you and is looking, but even then it can fuck up their aim.”

He’d taken it, swallowing, not saying a word, and handed her the five she asked for in return.  He wasn’t that surprised when it had come in damn handy.  He’d rolled in on and broken up a shakedown in a corner of the club that night, the fuckers acting like they never seen him coming, one bastard swinging wide and loose with a broken bottle that should have by all rights ended up in his gut.

He knew it was more than just luck for a variety of reasons.  He’d known she was for real the minute he made contact, grams had passed at least that much of her skills down into his blood.  And the little scrap disintegrated like ash right after his men had dragged the bastards in question out back for some serious talking.

The next day, he showed up with a bottle of something quality, as was proper, but the girl wouldn’t drink it alone.  She held on to it, uncorked, until he got done with his night, and they shared a drink, watching the sun come up cold and bright in the steel blue sky.  From then on they had an arrangement.  She gave him the heads-up when she had what she called an inkling, handing off trinkets like they were baseball cards, and he kept her in cheap liquor, since she refused to drink the good stuff without him.

Even though he might have thought it, he never told her she seemed awful young to be a drunk.  And even though sometimes he could feel the questions on the tip of her tongue, she never asked him how he knew what she was at.  She never even asked him if he was French.

#21 Mouse

Mouse was certain that at some point in her life she must have had another name, but this was the one that Bear and the Old Lady gave her, so that was the one she figured she’d stick with.  The Old Lady liked to argue that it was the name she had given herself, as she had been found nibbling away at their larder for weeks before they finally took her in, daring those fuckwit parents of hers to go ahead and try taking her back.  They didn’t try, just as happy to keep collecting welfare on her and not even have to see her little face.

Mouse had been four at the time.  She didn’t remember much of that, but when she was old enough to ask questions answered, the Old Lady gave her the honest truth.  What mouse did remember of the time before was Cold and Hungry, so as far as she was concerned it had always been the Old Lady and Bear.  They kept her warm and never hungry.  They shoved so much love into to her that she had no choice but get to know it, and in time, get to loving back.

But that was before, and Mouse was a full-grown woman now, by anybody’s reckoning, although for the past year or so, Bear would probably argue that she wasn’t acting in any way like one.  But they weren’t here, were they?  And that was the problem.  They had sent her off on her own after a lead on some top-dollar truffles that had turned out to be a gold mine, worth the shitty weather that holed her up in a cave for a few days.  And by the time she got back home, they were gone.

Well, not completely gone, they’d left their bodies there for her to find.  But the parts that mattered they had taken away, both holding cups half-full of overkill whose bitterness she could smell from across the room, even over the odor of rot.  She left that minute, locking up the beautiful hand built home they called the shack tight enough to serve as their mausoleum.  Safe enough that no hungry critters could come in and tear them apart from each other’s arms, but easy access for all the bugs that would come in to send them back to mama earth, as they would have wanted, as was right and proper.

That they took their own lives didn’t burn- that was their right, she believed that as much as they both did.  That they didn’t let her know it was going down, well, that’s what had her grabbing the gallon of cheap whisky the Old Lady kept for making tinctures.  It was the only thing she took with her.  She was good and drunk by the time she hit the town road, and she stayed that way, not quite drunk enough to be mortally stupid, but drunk enough not to give a fuck about much of anything.

Bear would be frowning at her something fierce, she could almost see it out of the corner of her eye, telling her to get her head out of her ass.  But why, she figured?  Not like he was really there anyway.  Not like he was really there at all, she thought, drowning it out with another deep swig.  Burning out the tears before they had a chance to fall.