The clutter all about, the color if it all, those garlands of plastic marigolds tinting the air, corded hanks of prayer flags in deep primaries, parched pastels of dried flowers hung in sprays down the cool white-painted wall, the shelf of joss sticks in upright packets brightly popping, fire and sunrise and sand, the glass case beside filled with ceramic thimbles, each of them topped by tiny figures, green coats, brown hats, red dresses, yellow baskets filled with flowers, black top hats and upflung fishing poles, wee blue towers topped by redly conical roofs, and also the jewel cases of compact disks, identical copies neatly stacked for sale, titles and images difficult to make out through light-gleamed plastic wrap, Songs that Made this Country Great, says one, and The Return of Pansy Smith and Violet Jones, Leaf & Liege, Selections from the Big Book of Oregon Ghost Stories (the Audiobook), the rack of sweatshirts and hoodies and windbreakers and rainshells a jumble of clashing yellows and reds and bright blues and cloudy greens with a handwritten sign at the end, ALL REDUCED, and oh so many candles, never touched by flame, he’s turning about, Sweetloaf, taking it all in, his expression a dismissive assemblage of cocked brow, snarled lip, “This?” he says, “this, this fucking shit, this? is it?”
“There’s a, workroom, loading dock, storage space thingie out back,” says Jo, sat behind the counter, pointing over a shoulder with a cheap ballpoint pen, her hair colorless, her polo shirt periwinkle, “but otherwise,” she says, and shrugs.
“You are a fucking Duchess!” he shouts, spinning about again, his matted pompadour, his goggles pushed up on his forehead. “You’re gonna sit here and play fucking shopkeeper?” He shoves at the counter between them, hard enough to rattle the postcards in their spinner rack. “I’m pretty sure,” she says, “the shopkeeper is whoever owns the shop. Keeps it, you know? I’m just a, a clerk, which, wow. Dickensian.”
“So you’re just gonna fucking what, sit there?”
“And, you know, sell stuff, to people who walk in, ring stuff up, clean and straighten whatever needs it, in a couple weeks,” she’s set down her pen to take up the spill of business cards unsettled by his blow, tap them back into a neat stack, “I’ll get a paycheck, because I’m getting a paycheck, I can look for a room to rent, when I find a room, I’m moving out of the motel, it’s a process. Bit by bit,” the door to the shop is opening, bright sunlight slicing into those colors, “I ran away from home,” she’s saying, “and then I ran away back, so I have to start all over all over again, you know? Hey,” she says, to Kristen, smiling in her yellow polo shirt, “So this is your friend from the city?”
“Yeah,” says Jo, “this is Sweetloaf, Sweetloaf, this is Kristen, an old friend of mine going back to, what, third grade?”
“Kirsten,” says Kirsten, offering him her hand, “you should’ve stayed, last night. We had some fun,” but both of his stay stuffed in the pockets of his bomber jacket, he’s turning away, looking to Jo, “Sweetloaf,” says Kirsten, a little loudly, “that’s, that’s an unusual name – what is that, a nickname, like, a street name? Is that your street name, Sweetloaf?”
“It’s my fucking name,” he says, looking at her sidelong, and she lifts up both her hands, whoa, “I’m just,” she says, “it’s a funny name. Sweetloaf. Like, Sugar Bread.”
“You know what’s a funny fucking name?” he says, turning toward her, taking a step toward her, leaning in as alarmed she steps back, “Kristen Kirsten Karsten Kerstin Kristine Krystal Kirsten!” he shouts, a hand out of his pocket, jabbing an index finger at her, and then “Boo!” and she flinches dramatically. “I,” he says, “you know,” but then he shuts up his mouth, stuffs that hand back in his pocket, “write your fucking letter,” he says, grimly chagrined, “your grace, so I can get the fuck out of here,” and he pushes past Kirsten, throws open the door, stalks out into the day.
“Nice friend,” says Kirsten.
“Yeah, Kirsten, sorry about that. He’s a little, ah – ”
“He’s a lot, actually, is what he is,” and a shudder passes through her, shaking something off. “What did he, run numbers with you or whatever?”
“Something like that.”
“Well,” says Kirsten, “I was just coming over to see if you wanted to grab some lunch or something.”
“Can’t,” says Jo, with a shrug. “My first day, she’s already got me flying solo.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“It’s your own damn fault,” says Jo.
“I could bring something back? Tacos? I was thinking tacos.”
“I’m good, actually. But thanks.”
“Yeah, well,” says Kirsten, headed for the door, “you got a letter to write or whatever, I guess.”
“Hey. Kirsten,” says Jo, and Kirsten looks back, her hand on the handle of the door. “Yesterday was fun,” says Jo.
“Was it?” Letting go, a step back into the store. “Because you looked like you were miserable, like you wanted to be anywhere else in the world.”
Jo looks down, a sigh, “That’s just, I guess, my natural charm? It was a, a good, distraction, that I really needed. So. Thanks.”
“Maybe we’ll do it again, sometime,” says Kirsten, and out into the brightness she goes. Jo takes up her pen once more, looks to the empty pad before her, takes a breath. She starts to write.
The light, that weird light, the sun’s up there, somewhere, on its way down the slope of the day toward the far-off line between sea and sky, where a darkening chases the very edge of the world, too diffuse to ever be mistaken for clouds, but inching up the arc of it all, out where inches mean miles. He doffs his hat, brightly white even under such thinned light, careful of the long white feather tucked into the rumpled white puggaree of it, and his head is wrapped about in a white scarf that he pushes back and down, about his shoulders, revealing thick white hair unruly over a surprisingly young and unlined faces, his eyes behind silvery dim sunglasses, his smile settling into something gleefully anticipatory. He opens his mouth to say something, but bends over suddenly, coughing into his fist.
“Well,” he says, straightening, settling the hat back on his head.
A sound can be made out, under the erratic whistling of the strengthening wind, a rising growl, a thrumble approaching with that thickening darkness, deepening, growing, even as that far-off insubstantial bulk drips and droops in falling sheets, the calm unruffled surface of the sea shimmering clouding dissolving the line of the horizon, now fizzing, now leaping, exploding with thousands upon thousands of impacts too heavy too full to be any sort of rain, or even hail. The light, that light is changing, sheen and color leaching from the sand about him, the yet calm water before him dulling, greying even as the waves continue to roll in and endlessly out, the great lumps and chunks of fallen ice gone blue as their shadows all are snuffed, but he remains as bright as ever, his hat, his white scarf streaming with the wind, his puffy white parka, the skirts of the white greatcoat beneath whipped back from his white-trousered shins, his glossy white shoes on the sand, and the white teeth bared by his sharpening smile.
“Oh, this,” he says, to himself, there’s no one else, “this’ll do nicely,” he says.
Songs that Made this Country Great, written by Stan Ridgeway, ©1992. The Return of Pansy Smith and Violet Jones, written by Emma Bull and Lorraine Garland, ©1993. Leaf & Liege, written by Sandy Denny, Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Mattacks, and Richard Fariña, ©1969.
