Head Cases Part 2

They talked about Aunt Reba, Mom's new car, and Cynthia's grades. Somehow Mom was never able to turn the conversation back to that sore spot she loved so much. Cynthia could never understand her mother's fixation with the past. Let the dead be dust.

"Got to go, Mom," Cynthia finally cut in. "Got cla.s.s. Love you, bye."

Cynthia locked the apartment, left the beggar to his daydreams, and caught a bus downtown. A fat man with an anaconda face sat next to her.

"Afternoon for the pigeons," he said.

Cynthia stared straight ahead. She didn't want to hear him.

"At the airport, cannonball to the heart,' he said, thumping his chest for emphasis.

He didn't exist. None of them did, not him, not the Puerto Rican woman with the scars on her cheeks, not the longhair with the busted boom box, not the old man asleep under his beret. These people were nothing but hollow flesh. Formed from dust, pa.s.sing through on their way back to dust.

The bus stopped and she got off, even though she was two blocks from her destination. "Cigarette weather," the fat man shouted after her.

She bought a hot dog from a street vendor, after checking under his cart to make sure the beggar wasn't hiding there. She sat on a park bench, ate the hot dog, and threw the wrapper into the bushes. Pigeons pecked at the paper.

The bench was perfect for a late afternoon nap. The seat was made of evenly-s.p.a.ced wooden slats, so she could occasionally open her eyes and make sure the beggar wasn't lying on the ground beneath her. He could have been hiding in the shadows of the tall oaks. But he was most likely in her bedroom, waiting.

Cynthia's back ached by the time she awoke near dusk. At least some of the weariness, built up over months of restless nights, had ebbed away. She hurried around the corner, ignoring the strange people on the sidewalk. Their faces were blank in the glow of shop windows.

The counter clerk at the Hop'N Go nodded when Cynthia walked in the door. They settled the register, Cynthia mumbling responses to the clerk's attempts at conversation. Her shift started at ten, and she rang up cigarettes, condoms, candy bars, corn chips, shiny products in shiny wrappers, taking the money without touching the hands of those giving it. At midnight, the other clerk left and the beer sales increased.

At around two in the morning, a young man in an army jacket came through the door. It was that point in the shift when the wild-eyed ones came in, those who smelled of danger and sweat. Cynthia wasn't afraid of being robbed, though. Compared to the beggar, even a loaded automatic was a laughable threat. But this customer had no gun.

He placed a can of insect spray on the counter. His fingers were dirty.

"Four-seventeen," she said after ringing up the purchase.

"You don't look like the type of person who works a night shift at a convenience store," he said. He put a five in her hand.

She tried to smile the way the manager had taught her, but her face felt like a brick. She glanced into the man's eyes. They were bright, warm, focused.

"How fresh is the coffee?" he asked when she gave him change.

"I made it an hour ago."

"Bet you drink a few cups to get through the night. Always thought it was weird, people who didn't sleep in a regular cycle."

There was a b.u.t.ton under the counter which she could press and send an alarm to the police. If he kept being friendly . . .

"It's natural to sleep when it's dark," he continued. He smiled, his rows of teeth even between his lips. He looked to be two or three years older than Cynthia.

"Unless you have to work in the dark," she said.

"Throws your whole cycle off. Do you go to State?"

Another customer came in, this one the normal, shifty-eyed sort. The man in the army jacket poured a cup of coffee and sat in one of the corner booths near the refrigerated sandwiches. The shifty-eyed man bought a can of smokeless tobacco, glared at Army Jacket, then asked for a copy of Score from the rack behind Cynthia. The magazine was wrapped in plain brown paper, but Cynthia could imagine the lurid pose of the cover girl, airbrushed b.r.e.a.s.t.s thrust teasingly out.

The shifty-eyed man paid, rolled the magazine and tucked it under his arm, then headed out under the streetlights. Army Jacket brought his coffee to the counter.

"Pervert," Army Jacket said. "Bet you get a lot of weirdoes on this shift."

To Cynthia, the weirdest people were the ones who talked to her. But this guy didn't talk crazy. Even for a man whose mouth was a cavern filled with invisible snakes.

"It's okay," she said, feeling under the counter for the alarm b.u.t.ton. "My job likes me."

He laughed, took a sip of his coffee, then poked his tongue out. "Ouch. That's hot."

She pointed to the sign that was taped to the coffee maker. "Caution! Coffee is hot," she read aloud.

Army Jacket laughed again for some reason. She read the name sewn in a patch above his breast pocket. Weams. He didn't look like a Weams, so she decided to still think of him as Army Jacket.

"My name's David," he said. "What's yours?"

"Alice Miller Jones," she said, making up a name from somewhere.

"Alice. That's a good, old-fashioned name. Most girls these days are named Maleena or Caitlin or something trendy like that."

"Ask Alice. Wasn't that in an old Sixties' song?"

Army Jacket, who might be a David as far as she could tell, shook his head and took another, smaller sip of his coffee. He reached in his pocket for change. "Guess I better pay for this."

"Ask Alice."

He smiled. "What do you do when you're not running a convenience store register, Alice?"

"Trying not to sleep."

His eyelids drooped slightly. "Sleep is the greatest waste of time ever invented. There are so many better ways to spend time. Even in bed."

She looked at him. His eyes were like Styrofoam picnic plates, bright and empty. "I have a strange bed," she said. "Would you like to see it?"

His hand shook, splashing a few drops of coffee on the floor. She took the change from him and the coins were covered in sweat.

"Sure," Army Jacket said, leaning stiffly against the counter in an attempt to look relaxed.

"How do you feel about dust?" she asked.

His eyebrows raised in a questioning expression. "I don't mind a little dust. Dust thou art, isn't that what the Bible says?"

"Only talking Bibles."

A couple of people came in the store, rummaged around near the candy rack, then came to the counter with a bottle of wine. Cynthia thought one of them had swiped a candy bar. He had a bulge in his front pocket. She decided to let him wait, so that the chocolate would melt and stain his underwear.

"I can't sell wine," she said. "It's illegal to sell alcohol after 2 AM."

The man with the bulge looked at his wrist.w.a.tch, which was plated with fake gold. "Sister, it five o'clock. It already tomorrow, and I goin' by tomorrow time."

"Sorry," she said, folding her arms. "Cigarette weather."

"What the h.e.l.l?" the man said.

His companion, a pasty-looking blonde, grabbed his arm. "Forget it, Jerry. I got some back at my place."

"This b.i.t.c.h tellin' me it ain't tomorrow yet," he said.

Army Jacket cleared his throat and straightened himself. "Sir, she's only doing her job," he said, looking down at the man from a four-inch height advantage.

"She's only doing her job," Cynthia said.

"Don't get smart with me, b.i.t.c.h." The man raised the wine bottle as if he were going to swing it. Army Jacket stepped forward and grabbed his wrist, taking the bottle with his other hand. The man grunted and the aroma of vomit and cheap booze wafted across the room. He struggled free and headed for the door, the blonde following.

At the door, the man paused and squeezed the bulge in his pants. "Got something for ya next time," he said. The blonde pulled him cussing toward the street.

Army Jacket placed his coffee cup on the counter.

"You get a lot of weirdoes on this shift," Cynthia said.

"I already said that. When do you get off work?"

They had breakfast in a little sidewalk cafe. Cynthia ordered coffee and b.u.t.ter croissants and scrambled eggs. Army Jacket was a vegetarian, but he said he could eat eggs. Cynthia thought that was strange, because eggs weren't vegetables.

They reached Cynthia's apartment just before noon. "So, where's this bed of yours?" Army Jacket asked.

Cynthia had a few boyfriends in high school. After the beggar had started sleeping under her bed, she'd quit dating. But now that Army Jacket was in her apartment, she decided that she'd been foolish to face the fear alone. She'd give Army Jacket what he wanted, and then she'd get what she wanted.

She led him to the tiny bedroom. She half-suspected that the beggar crawled from beneath the bed while she was gone, to sleep between cloth sheets and dream of being human. But the beggar belonged to dust, the dark, permanent shadow of underthere. The blankets were rumpled, just as she'd left them.

"You don't mess around, do you?" Army Jacket said.

"It's only dust," she said.

"I didn't mean that kind of mess," he said, looking at the dirty laundry scattered on the floor. He sat on the bed, Cynthia watching from across the room, waiting to see if the gray hand would clutch his ankle.

He patted the mattress beside him. "Come on over. Don't be shy."

She looked out the window. "Looks like cigarette weather."

Army Jacket took off his army jacket. Without the jacket, he was just a David. Not a protector. Not some big, brave hero who would slay the beggar.

"Come on," he said. "This isn't a spectator sport."

She crossed the room, crawled onto the bed beside him, mindful of her feet. They undressed in silence. David kissed her, then clumsily leaned her back against the pillows. Through it all, she listened for the breathing, the soft knitting of dust into flesh, the strange animations of the beggar.

David finished, rolled away. "Where are the cigarettes?"

"I don't smoke."

"What's this about 'cigarette weather,' then?"

"The man with the anaconda face said that."

"Huh?"

She put her arm across his chest, afraid he'd leave. She scolded herself for being so dumb. If David left, she'd be alone again when darkness fell. Alone with the beggar.

David kissed her on the forehead. "Ocean eyes like ice cream," he said.

She tensed beside him, sticky from the body contact. "Did you hear that?"

"What?"

"Under the bed. A noise."

"I don't hear anything." David made a show of checking the clock on her dresser.

The soft choking sound came again, the painful drawing of an inhuman breath. The beggar stirred, fingers creeping like thick worms across the floor. He was angry, jealous. Cynthia should not have brought another man to this bed. Cynthia belonged to the beggar, and always had.

"He's coming," she said.

David sat up and looked at the door. "d.a.m.n. Why didn't you tell me you had a boyfriend?"

"Only crazy people talk to mirrors."

David reached off the bed, grabbed his clothes, and began dressing. "You're crazy, Alice."

"Who's Alice?"

David ignored her, teeth clenched in his rush to pull up his pants. "I hope to h.e.l.l he doesn't carry a gun."

"Shhh. He'll hear you."

David slipped his arms into his jacket. Now he was Army Jacket again, just another one of them, a hollow man, a mound of dust surrounding a bag of air. None of them were real.

Except the man under the bed.

Army Jacket struggled into his shoes. Cynthia leaned forward and watched, wondering how far the beggar would let Army Jacket get before pulling him into the velvet.

"Green licorice. Frightened of storms?" Army Jacket asked, his breath shallow and rapid.

"No, only of him."

"Razor in the closet since yesterday." Army Jacket tiptoed out of the room, paused at the front door and listened.

"He doesn't use the door," Cynthia called out, giggling. The beggar would slide out from under the bed any moment now, shake of the acc.u.mulated dust of his long sleep, and make Army Jacket go away.

The phone rang. It had to be Mom. Seven rings before Mom gave up.