Page 42 - WTP Vol. VI #4

QuikStop wall clock says 9:23. I ask Dolores for the bathroom key, and she hands it over with- out saying nothing about paying customers. I walk across the lot. Someone pulls in for gas, taking
the turn heavy. Nearly hits me. The car wash ain’t going. It’s too cold. Snow piled up on the far end of the lot.
Jesus in the Form of a Goat
I try the key. It sticks and then goes in. I twist my wrist just right. The door creaks open. Lemon cleaner, mold, standing water, and drip, drip, drip. I hit the light. I’d fix the sink for her, but she’d nev- er ask. I’m in the mirror. Strikes me every time. You get to an age, you don’t see yourself no more. But I was drunk once. Must’ve been a kid. Thirty or so. And the light bounced funny, me standing there, a cartoon of myself, wild colors and really real. The “Hey, I know you,” kinda feeling. The same mirror. Same QuikStop except cleaner then, the lights brighter. And here I am now. A lightbulb out. Mustache, grey. This old canvas vest. Hat cov- ering the bald spot. Long hair, grey. Paint and joint compound on the sleeves of my sweatshirt, grey.
“I’ll pay tomorrow.”
“It’s ok. We throw out the extra.”
Back in the parking lot, I search the seat crevices. There’s three nickels and a dime. Jesus in the form of a goat sits in the passenger seat. With big square teeth jutting out, he’s bleating at me to go inside. He nudges yesterday’s coffee cup and cries out louder than ever. I slam the door but can still hear him as the QuikStop bell rings, ding-a-ling-a- ling. Door closes and Dolores is staring.
about in church.
~
“Coffee?” Dolores asks. “No cash.”
“Nothing?”
“I got a job today.”
Snow’s been pushed off both sides of Cherry Run, the banks two feet high and the road narrow. I call the homeowner. Dolan Mallory is his name and he lives in one of those named communities. Barrel Creek Homes. A tree fell on his house and he doesn’t know what to do. That’s what I’ve been told. I’m a sub-contractor. Called in for small jobs. Patching holes for old ladies whose husbands
“It’s been a while?”
The phone rings once and he picks up. “Hello.”
“It’s been a while. It’s the cold. No one’s contract- ing when it’s cold.”
“Yeah, this is CJ. I’m the mud guy. Gonna patch your hole.”
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“You’re good for it. Take it, CJ.”
She grinds her jaw like she does, and I can see the muscles twitch beneath the scalp of her bald head.
I put the sugar in first. Then the cream. Then I fill it to the top.
“I’ll pay tomorrow.” A line you’d hear in a movie. But real. Me. I hand her the key.
“Ok.”
She doesn’t move from her stool, her arms crossed and her teeth grinding away.
The bell rings, ding-a-ling-a-ling. Jesus in the form of a goat chews his cud, his head just above the dashboard with his eyes staring off to some prophetic future; miracles and resurrections
and forgiveness and hell, the shit they mouth off
are either too old or too dead to climb a ladder. They’ve already re-shingled the roof. The tree bounced off and the old man either cut it up him- self or had his son do it.
eRic J. sMitH