Rizzo At Noon

At eleven fifty-three, Beans set Rizzo on the back step of Rooster’s II and told him to stay.

She had a trash bag in each hand and the steel door balanced against one hip. Heat pushed out of the kitchen carrying onions, bleach, old coffee, and fryer grease. The wet air took it and held it close.

“Don’t get heroic.”

The door shut.

Stay was a human word. It meant trouble had been scheduled.

To the people eating lunch inside, the alley held two dumpsters, a grease trap, three milk crates, and a delivery pallet somebody had promised to move last Tuesday. Beyond the chain-link fence, sugar sand slipped into a drainage ditch beneath the palmettos. That was because people only believed in kingdoms when they charged admission.

The Red Tails lived beneath the Coke crates. Ketchup stained their tails from root to tip, and red receipt-paper flags snapped from kebab-skewer poles planted at their burrow mouths.

The White Ears held the broken freezer box near the fence. They powdered themselves with flour and carried chopsticks ground sharp against concrete.

Between them, beneath a bent milk crate, lay the Bright Sack.

Cheddar.

Actual cheddar.

Rizzo had been promised cheddar before. The promise usually became copper wire, a pawn-shop argument, or Bruce explaining why money and cheese were spiritually interchangeable. This was different. Yellow shreds pressed against clear plastic. Enough to feed every rat in the alley until somebody invented a holiday around it.

The Red Widow stepped from beneath the crates. One ear was gone. A soda-cap plate covered her chest, and a sewing needle rested along her back like a sword too thin to forgive mistakes.

From the fence came the White General, old and broad through the jaw, with flour in his whiskers and half a plastic spoon tied over one shoulder. His rats spread behind him. The Red Tails answered from the other side.

Nobody looked at the cheese.

Everybody looked at Rizzo.

The Red Widow bowed first.

The White General bowed lower.

Neither took his eyes off the other.

Rizzo, in the middle, didn’t know the right way to look to stay alive.

The Red Widow called out, “Name your house.” Rizzo gave his best guess at the answer she was fishing for. “Beans?” The General’s nose tightened. “There is no House of Beans.” Rizzo scratched behind one ear. “Sure there is. I have a matchbox stuffed with cotton there.”

A murmur moved through both armies. Somewhere above them, the exhaust fan coughed hot air into the alley and made the banners tremble. Beyond the fence, cicadas sawed at the live oaks. For one second the red paper became silk. The flour on the White Ears became war paint. The dumpster rose black against the noon sky, the tallest mountain in all of Florida.

The Red Widow circled Rizzo. His coat smelled of laundry soap, tobacco, and the warm place beneath Beans’s chin. No alley. No clan. No fear she recognized.

“You came unmarked at noon,” she said. “The Bright Sack belongs to the Red Tails. Help us claim it, and you will eat first.”

The White General struck the pavement with his chopstick blade. “The Red Tails stole our dead and painted their banners with the blood.”

“Ketchup,” Rizzo said.

The alley went still.

The Widow’s remaining ear leaned toward him. “What?”

“That’s ketchup.”

A young Red Tail glanced at his own tail as though the possibility had never been raised.

The White General stepped closer. “Fight for us. When the Widow falls, half the Bright Sack is yours.”

“Half?”

The General considered the clear bag beneath the crate. “A generous half.”

“Which half?”

The General’s mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

The grease-trap grate jumped in its frame. A green anole fled the brickwork.

Every weapon turned.

Something heaved beneath the iron, struck it once, then rolled backward into the black. Five mouths screamed from the same place. The sound went up the brick wall and came down wearing a different face.

The Red Widow whispered first.

“The King.”

The White General lowered his head. “Ours.”

The grate jumped again.

A knot pushed through the gap beneath it. Five young rats came into the light as one struggling body, bellies scraping concrete, legs climbing over legs. Their tails had twisted together behind them and hardened there beneath fryer grease, thread, receipt tape, and whatever sweet black syrup had leaked from the dumpster. One tail was stained red. Two sets of ears were white with flour. The others bore no colors at all.

Every rat pulled toward home.

The knot pulled them back.

One turned and bit the brother nearest him. Another kicked until a hind leg bent wrong. A third had gone hoarse but kept opening his mouth. The scream worked through him after the sound was gone.

The King had five mouths.

Every one of them was screaming for a different kingdom.

The Red Tails dropped to their bellies. The White Ears did the same. The Widow alone remained standing. The General stood because she had.

“Our blood binds it,” she said.

“Our mark crowns it,” he answered.

The young rats thrashed harder.

The alley began deciding what their pain meant.

Prophecy.

Judgment.

Victory.

Proof.

The words moved through the ranks until nobody remembered who had spoken first. Each rat heard the word he had arrived needing. Each looked upon the knot and found himself chosen.

Rizzo looked upon it and saw five rats tied together.

The Widow’s needle slid free.

“Choose,” she said.

The General lowered his chopstick.

“Choose.”

The word came from the red side, then the white, then from every mouth in the alley until it lost its owner. Rizzo’s body stopped before his mind did. His claws spread against the concrete. It had been heating since breakfast. The hair along his spine lifted one careful row at a time.

“Choose.”

“Choose.”

“Choose.”

The five young rats dragged themselves toward the Bright Sack. The knot tightened. One of them shrieked and turned his teeth upon his own tail.

“No,” Rizzo screeched.

The Red Widow mistook the answer for war.

So did the White General.

The alley broke open.

Red banners pitched forward. White blades rose. Flour burst into the sunlight. Ketchup streaked the concrete. Claws found faces. Teeth found whatever the faces belonged to. Names were shouted loudly enough to make hunger sound honorable. Beyond the fence, the cicadas kept working.

Rizzo ran beneath them.

A White Ear flipped over his back. A Red Tail’s needle opened the skin above his shoulder. He felt the cut after he was past it. Blood warmed his coat. His body kept the information and moved on.

The pie tin lay beside the pallet, one edge caught beneath a strip of black trash bag. Rizzo seized the plastic and pulled.

The tin turned.

Noon struck it.

Light broke across the alley.

The glare hit red and white alike. Rats covered their eyes. Blades went wild. Someone charged a shadow and apologized to it after.

Rizzo reached the knot. Up close, there was no king at all. There was grease gone stiff around five tails. Red receipt ribbon twisted through white cotton string. A strip of packing tape had folded over itself and caught fur, skin, and dirt inside it. Every pull drew the knot smaller. Every frightened body made the prison stronger.

One of the young rats bit Rizzo across the foreleg.

Rizzo bit the tape.

The rat bit harder.

Rizzo held on.

He couldn’t free five rats.

He could free one tail.

He planted both front feet against the knot and worried the tape between his teeth. Grease filled his mouth. Thread cut his gums. The young rats climbed over him, struck him, begged him, cursed him, and tried to flee through the body of the rat beside them.

The battle moved closer.

A chopstick blade struck the pavement near Rizzo’s head.

The White General stood above him, breathing hard. One eye had begun to swell shut. He looked down at the flour-eared pup caught in the knot.

The Red Widow arrived with blood along the edge of her soda-cap armor. She saw the red-stained tail pulled so tight the skin had split.

Neither looked at the other.

The General wedged his chopstick beneath the knot and lifted.

The Widow slid her needle under the packing tape.

Rizzo pulled.

They weren’t one and they weren’t at peace. They were just a gang of teeth pointed in the same direction.

The tape peeled apart with a wet rip.

One tail came free.

Then another.

The Widow worked her needle between two loops of thread while the General held the weight off the injured leg. Rizzo chewed through the syrup-stiff ribbon. The five young rats still fought them. Freedom had arrived wearing strange hands, and they had been frightened too long to recognize it.

A white-eared pup broke loose and ran beneath the freezer box.

A red-tailed pup followed him halfway before remembering which side he belonged to.

The third collapsed where he stood.

The fourth limped toward the fence.

The last remained beside the loosened knot, staring at the piece of his own tail he had nearly bitten through.

Behind them, the battle had stopped without admitting it. The Bright Sack waited beneath the crate, yellow and ridiculous. The Red Widow pulled her needle free. The White General wiped his chopstick against the pavement. A young rat, ear half-torn, heaved for breath. “Who won?” Rizzo spat grease and thread from between his teeth.

The back door opened. Every rat in the alley froze. Mama Bear stepped into the daylight carrying a bus tub against one hip. A breath of air-conditioning followed her out and died at the threshold. Her shadow crossed both armies and covered the Bright Sack. She looked over the ketchup tails, the flour ears, the sharpened chopsticks, the ruined knot beneath the grate, and Rizzo standing in the middle with blood above one shoulder and along one foreleg.

“Well,” she said. “Y’all been busy.”

She set down the tub, lifted the milk crate, and found the cheese. “There you are.”

The treasure rose into heaven between two human fingers. Neither clan moved. Mama Bear tucked the bag beneath one arm, then looked at Rizzo again.

“Beans is fixing to blame Bruce.”

She crouched and offered her hand. Rizzo climbed into it. Warm skin closed beneath his feet. Her thumb brushed the blood from his coat and came away red.

“I know she told you not to get heroic.”

Rizzo looked back as Mama Bear carried him toward the door.

The Red Widow and White General stood on opposite sides of the empty crate. Their weapons remained in their paws.

A biscuit fell from the bus tub, struck the concrete, and broke clean in two. The red-tailed pup reached one half first. The white-eared pup took the other. Neither asked who had owned it before it fell.

The Man Who Never Looked Surprised

Bruce LeRoy strummed his Puerto Rican flag hair pick through his fro. It snagged the third time through. “God lovin’ son-of-a-basket weaver!”

He saw the boy in the visor mirror before the boy saw the cab. He came out of the dark beyond Rooster’s II with his shoulders pitched forward and his chin tucked, walking as if every step had already been argued over and settled. One hand held a canvas duffel low against his leg. The other stayed empty, fingers opening and closing beneath the parking-lot lights.

Rain had blackened the asphalt without cooling it. The rain tends to carry heat into Florida. The boy crossed without looking toward the diner windows or the road. He opened the rear door and set the bag on the floorboard. Metal clanged inside. The canvas folded around something long that held its shape.

Bruce’s hand reached for the gearshift and stopped. His eyes closed. A long breath moved through his nose. He held it, then let it go. Not fear. Not surprise. Just a man finding the bottom stair in the dark. He opened his eyes and checked the mirror again. The boy had both hands on his knees. His back never touched the seat.

Bruce slapped the visor shut and turned the key one click.

“Where we headed?”

The boy gave him an address without searching for it. “Eighty-six Gardenia. Palmetto Oaks.” Bruce looked through the windshield at the wet road. His thumb rubbed once across the worn leather of the steering wheel.

He twisted the key. The cab fired to life.

For two blocks, the tires did the talking. Frogs answered from the drainage ditches. Smeared neon from twenty-four-hour gambling halls gave way to closed pawnshops, laundromats, and little churches gone dark.

The boy watched the houses pass one at a time.

Bruce adjusted the rearview mirror. “You ever notice Lee Van Cleef never looked surprised?” The boy’s eyes lifted. “Who?” Bruce held the boy’s eyes in the mirror. “That hurts. Man had cheekbones sharp enough to open mail. Played cowboys and killers, mostly men waiting on other men to make poor decisions.” Bruce turned beneath the yellow light.

The boy looked back toward the window. “I don’t watch old movies.” “They weren’t old when I watched ’em.” Bruce drummed two fingers against the wheel. “That’s how old movies get you. They wait.” Nothing changed in the boy’s face. One knee bounced. His hand stopped it. It started again.

Bruce took the long way around Lake Adelaide. The boy noticed at the second light. “Gardenia’s south.” “Roadwork.” “There ain’t roadwork.” Bruce glanced at the orange barricades stacked beside an empty utility truck. “There could be. City’s ambitious.”

The boy leaned forward. The duffel shifted between his boots. Metal rolled inside, then settled. Bruce kept his eyes on the road. “You eat?” “Just drive.” “That was the plan. Eating was a separate inquiry.”

The boy’s jaw tightened. A muscle worked near his ear. “You always talk this much?” Bruce considered it. “No.” He scratched his nose. “Sometimes I sing.” One corner of the boy’s mouth lifted. He sat back half an inch, caught himself, and came forward again.

They passed the entrance to Palmetto Oaks without turning. The boy saw the sign go by in the rain-splattered glass. “You missed it.” Bruce drove another hundred yards and turned onto a sugar-sand lane through a cemetery beneath low live oaks and wet Spanish moss. The boy’s hand went to the duffel zipper.

Bruce stopped beneath a broken lamp and shut off the engine. “Leave that closed.” The boy looked at him for the first time. Not through the mirror. At him. “You don’t know what’s in there.” Bruce opened his door.

He stepped into the wet grass and walked between the stones. Behind him, the rear door opened. The boy left the duffel bag where it was. Bruce stopped at a flat marker darkened by rain.

He cleared leaves from the name. The boy came no closer than three paces. “Who’s that?” Bruce stood with his hands in the pockets of his vest. The grave held a man’s name, two dates, and nothing that explained either of them. “Fellow I knew.”

Bruce looked toward the road beyond the trees, where headlights passed and disappeared. The boy waited. “He hurt somebody?” “Everybody hurts somebody.” Bruce’s gaze came back to the stone. “Some men just make a trade of it.” The boy’s breathing had changed. Shorter now. He looked toward the cab, then toward the cemetery gate. “What happened to him?” Bruce rubbed the gray in his goatee with one thumb. “I happened to him.”

Rain ticked through the oak leaves.

The boy stared at Bruce’s back. “He deserve it?” Bruce let the rain gather on his shoulders. “That question kept me warm for a long time.” The boy swallowed. “That ain’t an answer.” “It was mine.” Bruce looked down at the grave. “Till it wasn’t.” Beyond the wall, a truck changed gears. The boy’s hands released something invisible at his sides.

“Did it fix anything?”

Bruce looked at the last date on the stone cut beneath the name. “No.” The boy lowered his head. His hands stayed open.

They walked back to the cab without speaking. The boy opened the rear door and looked at the duffel. His fingers touched the handle, then moved back. He climbed into the front seat and pulled the door shut.

Bruce started the engine. “Where to?” The boy gave him another address, six blocks from Rooster’s II. Bruce put the cab in drive. “Good. I was getting worried you lived at the trailer park.” The boy looked at him. A short breath came through his nose.

Bruce turned toward town. Behind them, the duffel lay on the rear floorboard, quiet as a thing that had not yet decided what it was for.

forgotten Rain

The bell over Rooster’s II gave one thin jingle. Heat rolled through the open door and settled across Mama Bear’s shoulders. The chilled glass of the pie case clouded along one edge. She waited for the door to swing shut, let out a long breath, then looked up.

The man stopped inside the doorway with one boot across the threshold. The skin around his eyes had cracked into narrow creases, like dry ground that’d forgotten rain. The sun had cured his cheeks to the color of old saddle leather.

He took off his cap.

A pocketknife appeared in his right hand, its bone handle worn smooth. He turned it once between his fingers, tucked it away, and slid into the booth beside the window. Sugar sand sifted from the welts of his boots onto the tile.

Nora reached across the counter for a menu. Her black hair, unnaturally dark for a woman her age, was pulled back tight in a bun. The breakfast rush had worked a wisp loose. It tickled her cheekbone. Mama Bear poured coffee instead, handing it to her. “He needs this.” Nora carried him the cup, murmuring, “Sial ah.” Mama Bear smiled. “Thank you.”

Outside, an old pickup sat crooked between the lines. The passenger window was lowered half-mast. A leash, red, faded by the years, lay coiled on the seat, its brass clasp resting near the door, beside a dented water bowl.

Every so often his eyes went to the passenger seat without asking him first, the way a hand finds the switch in the dark.

Mama Bear topped off the cup. “What’re you eating?” He opened the menu. His eyes drifted across the pages without reading. “Whatever’s good.” Mama Bear glanced toward the kitchen, then back at him. “Meatloaf.” He nodded once. She worked the menu loose beneath his hand a finger’s width at a time and carried it away.

The man wrapped both hands around the mug. His knuckles were broad and scarred. White dust sat deep in the seams, past where soap could reach.

He drank.

Set it back in the same wet ring. Twisted the mug as if settling it into sand.

Mama Bear watched him glance toward the truck again.

When the plate came up, she carried it herself. Extra gravy. Potatoes. Green beans cooked past apology. A biscuit rested on the far edge of the plate. “I didn’t order that.” Mama Bear shrugged. “Biscuits don’t know that.” One corner of his mouth lifted. The other stayed put.

He ate slowly. Halfway through, his fork stopped. A pale dog hair clung to the front of his dusty Billabong shirt. He pinched it between two fingers, held it there, then tucked it beneath the edge of his plate. His fingers rested on the rim a moment longer.

Mama Bear turned toward the coffee station, water puddling in the crease of her eye. Nora cocked her head, tossing the loose hair from her face. Mama Bear cleared her throat.

Some things deserve the privacy of another person’s back.

When he finished, Mama Bear came back to the table. “Can I get you anything else? Maybe a slice of pie?” He glanced at the pie case, then shook his head. “No, ma’am. Just the check.” “Seven dollars.” He counted eight onto the table. Mama Bear slid one back. “I said seven.” He looked at the dollar, then closed his hand around it.

At the door, he stopped. Mama Bear watched him, the dish towel loose between her hands. “Hard going home to an empty house?” His eyes went to the passenger seat. The cracks around them deepened. “House was empty before.” He swallowed and put his cap back on. “Wasn’t lonely, though.” The bell gave another tired jingle.

The pickup lifted sand from the shoulder. Mama Bear watched it disappear into the afternoon until the heat folded over the road behind it. Nora came alongside her. “You think he’ll be all right?” Mama Bear turned back to the ticket rail and straightened two orders. The bell gave one thin jingle behind them. She reached for the coffee pot. “Hard to tell.”