by TJ Klune
LATER THAT night, he cooked a TV dinner that came out looking nothing like the picture on the box. BEEF ENCHILADAS! the box said, but Gus was convinced it should have said BARF ASSCHILADAS!
He ate it anyway, and thought maybe next time he went shopping (Sundays, always on Sundays), he would try a national brand rather than a store brand. The thought vexed him slightly (as change often did), but he made the firm decision and tried not to notice how sweaty his palms felt.
He thought about turning on the TV, but he rather liked the quiet, so instead, he picked up the encyclopedia next to the recliner he sat in (Pastor Tommy’s old chair, and he doubted he could ever part with it, no matter how much it hurt to see every day). He was on the letter G from the print year 2010. Much to their horror, it’d been the last year Encyclopaedia Britannica had decided to provide hardcover print editions, relegating anything further to the Internet. Given that Gus hadn’t had a new edition since 1995, Pastor Tommy had splurged for his son’s birthday and bought him the entire thirty-two volume collection.
Pastor Tommy would have said Gus had shed a tear when he’d started opening each of the thirty-two individually wrapped books. Gus would have said that Pastor Tommy was a liar and that he’d merely had allergies hitting him especially hard that day. “It’s all the grass clippings,” Gus had said in a slightly strangled voice.
Pastor Tommy had just smiled and toked on his joint.
But Pastor Tommy was gone, and Gus had some reading to do. He opened the book to where he’d left off, and began reading aloud about how in February 1875, the SS Gothenburg wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef. Between ninety-eight and one hundred and twelve people lost their lives. Such a tragedy. Harry S. Truman apparently didn’t give two shits about the loss of life as he curled up in Gus’s lap and slept.
Eventually, it grew dark and Gustavo Tiberius took himself and Harry S. Truman to bed.
Before he fell asleep at precisely 11:00 p.m., he looked up at the ceiling and said, “Today was an okay day. Tomorrow will be too.”
And he almost believed it.
Chapter 3
HIS ALARM went off at seven in the morning.
He opened his eyes.
He said, “Today is going to be an okay day,” to no one in particular.
He rolled off the bed and completed his morning exercises, because his body was a temple.
He stood, wiping the sweat from his brow.
He looked down at the nightstand and saw the inspirational calendar. He’d forgotten to burn it the night before. He told himself he could do it over the weekend. He thought about ignoring the message for the day, but he knew that Lottie and the We Three Queens would ask him about it and he wasn’t in the mood for deflecting today.
He sighed.
Life was hard.
He tore off the previous day’s message and read today’s.
Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.
“What the fuck,” Gus said.
Grumbling, he showered, cleaned his teeth, and did not smile and/or flex in the mirror.
He wore black slacks and a black Emporium shirt. He fixed his name tag to make sure it was straight.
Harry S. Truman waited for him in the hall. Gus picked him up and took him to the kitchen.
He ate his apple while the ferret played with his pellets.
When they’d finished, Gus locked the door behind them and they headed out into the world.
“YOUR AURA is browner today,” Lottie said as soon as he’d walked in the door.
“Good,” Gus said. “That is what I was going for. I succeeded.”
“Hmm,” she said.
“Hmm what,” Gus asked without asking at all.
“I had enough muffins left over,” she said. “I didn’t need to make any more last night.”
“Oh,” Gus said. “How joyous.”
“So I googled auras.”
“Fascinating,” Gus said. “You should keep what you do in your spare time private because that sounded wrong. Black coffee.” He paused. Then, “Please.”
Even the please hadn’t thrown her off track. “What did you learn this morning?”
He sighed. “That you shouldn’t look back, always forward, which, honestly, is ridiculous, because what if you’re walking down the street and some deranged ninja with a blood feud comes up behind you with a sword and stabs you in the kidney? If you had looked back, you could have seen him coming and taken appropriate countermeasures to ensure your kidney remained intact. Black coffee. Please.”
“Deranged ninjas,” she said. “Lord knows there are a few of those out there.”
She turned to make his coffee, but not before wrapping a frosted lemon square and shoving it across the counter.
“You don’t know,” Gus said, leaving the pastry where it sat. “They’re ninjas. It’s kind of the point that you don’t see them coming, especially if you’re not looking for them.”
“Well,” she said. Her eyes narrowed. “Best Screenplay nominees and winner 1937.”
“The category was actually called Best Story back then,” Gus said. “The nominees were Norman Krasna, William McGuire, Robert Hopkins, Adele Comandini. The winners were Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney for The Story of Louis Pasteur. It’s about a scientist who injects himself with rabies.”
“Well crap,” Lottie said.
“Yeah,” Gus said. “So—”
“Brown auras mean loneliness,” Lottie rushed out as if Gus hadn’t even spoken at all. She capped the coffee cup and slid a sleeve up the sides. “And yours is brown. Like bear-shit brown. Or maybe otter shit. Or maybe bear and otter shit combined.”
Gus gaped at her.
She shrugged. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“About bear and otter shit?” he said, sounding slightly strangled.
“About being lonely. Gus, it’s been getting worse.”
“I’m not,” he said, shoring up the walls around his heart and mind. “I’m perfectly fine and everything is fine, and did you know a ship crashed into the Great Barrier Reef in 1875? Over a hundred people died and it was apparently preventable. So sad. Well. Good talk. I have to go to work.” He spun on his heel and did his best to not look like he was fleeing.
“Tuna salad?” she called after him.
“Ninjas with blood feuds,” he reminded her without looking back.
“Thanks for coming to Lottie’s Lattes!” she said. “Where we—”
But the door closed behind him, cutting the rest off.
He wasn’t lonely. He would know if he was. He would.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t.
HE OPENED the doors to the store precisely at nine.
At exactly 11:54, the We Three Queens entered the Emporium.
“Life-changing!” Bertha said.
“Shocking!” Bernice cried.
“Fucking stupid,” Betty growled.
“Cannibal feminism with unsubtle attempts at erotic overtures,” Gus said. “I would expect mixed responses.”
“Speak, cadet!”
“For fuck’s sake, I’m not your—oh, you’re making that face again. Fine. Jesus. It said I should never watch my back and always look forward so I don’t trip and fall into a cavern or exposed sewer entrance. But I don’t want to get stabbed in the kidneys so I always look back. I can do both at the same time. The musculature and bones in my neck allow for range of motion.”
“Hmm,” Bernice said. “That makes… sense. Sort of.”
“Is someone threatening you?” Betty asked, cracking her knuckles. “They say they were going to stab you? You tell Ol’ Betty here. I’ll make sure you don’t get stabbed in the kidneys.”
“It was a figure of speech,” Gus said. “And that was emasculating. I can take care of myself.”
Bertha and Betty snorted while Bernice pinched his cheeks.
Gus said, “God. Whatever. Shut up.”
“You tell me, you hear?
” Betty said, and Gus wondered if he should just hand his balls over now. “You’re under the protection of the We Three Queens.”
“Maybe we should get him a jacket,” Bernice said. “I think he might have the shoulders for it.” She eyed his shoulders critically, and he attempted to cover them up with his hands but realized rather quickly how ridiculous he looked.
“And some boots,” Betty said. “Chaps too. What’s your inseam measurement?”
“Why, I don’t believe that’s any of your business,” Gus said stiffly. Plus, he’d never really measured, so he had no idea. Was that something that everyone was supposed to know? He reminded himself to look it up in the encyclopedia when he got home, but remembered he was only on the letter G, and he couldn’t skip ahead. He was destined to wonder for months.
Bernice looked down at his legs. “He looks like a 32 long.”
“I beg your pardon!” Gus said, hunching over and covering his crotch for reasons even he didn’t quite understand. He didn’t believe an elderly potential lesbian would know anything about how to measure a man. He wasn’t even sure she was right to begin with.
“He’d probably fit in my jacket,” Betty said.
“I can’t wear a pink jacket,” Gus said.
“Someone isn’t secure enough in their masculinity,” Bernice whispered.
“I am so secure,” Gus said. “I couldn’t even be more secure. I’m, like, Fort Knox secure.”
“Okay, princess,” Betty said. “I believe you.”
“The Cannonball Run,” Bertha said, holding up a DVD case.
“Ah, Burt Reynolds,” Bernice said with a sigh. “Lord knows I could never say no to that.”
And… huh. So, sisters, then.
“Don’t forget Farrah Fawcett,” Bertha said. “In all her glory.”
And… double huh. Bisexual lesbian sister-lovers? It was a mystery he had to covertly solve.
“Are there feminist cannibals in this one?” Betty asked. “I don’t know if I can handle any more cannibals. Feminists are okay. Most of the time.”
They all looked at Gus. “No,” he said. “No cannibals. Or feminists.”
Lottie came in. It was ham this time. No tomatoes, either, which meant Lottie didn’t face Gus’s wrath for yet another day. She was lucky that way.
Lottie and the We Three Queens all left together. For a moment, they all stood next to the Vespas, and Lottie was flailing her hands around her. If Gus were any good at charades, he might have been able to figure out what they were talking about. However, charades was one of the few talents Gus had yet to master, and he speculated Lottie was telling them about an encounter with Bigfoot she had when she was twenty-five. Either that, or it was a feminine issue and Gus had no place for those. There was a moment, when all four women looked back into the video store and he swore they all had matching, evil grins on their faces.
That… that didn’t bode well.
Then they parted ways, the We Three Queens driving away on their Vespas and Lottie going back to her shop.
No one else came in that day.
Just the way he liked it.
He closed the Emporium at five.
It was Friday night.
Time to party.
He went home and made a chicken and rice TV dinner. He picked up the encyclopedia and continued on through the wide wonderful world of the letter G.
At seven, he had a beer, but just one. Any more, and he’d be drunk encyclopediaing and that would just be a reckless thing to do. Pretty soon, he’d be skipping whole letters and bending pages and he’d wake up in the morning with a headache and regret, the encyclopedia smashed on his face like it was some common book. The walk of shame to his bedroom would be miserable. No, it was better to just have one while he read his father’s gift in his father’s chair.
It was Friday, so he didn’t turn in until eleven thirty.
As Harry S. Truman made himself comfortable curled up next to Gus’s head on the pillow, Gus took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He said, “Today was an okay day. Tomorrow will be too.”
Then he fell asleep.
Chapter 4
THE ALARM went off at seven.
He opened his eyes.
He said, “Today is going to be an okay day.”
He rolled off the bed and exercised.
He finished and stood, eyeing the inspirational calendar.
He thought, briefly, of ignoring it today.
But it was part of his routine now.
He tore off yesterday’s message and tossed it in the garbage.
A simple hello could lead to a million things.
“Yeah,” Gus said. “Like herpes or getting fisted.”
Stupid fucking inspirational calendar.
It was Saturday.
He showered and dressed.
His name tag was straight.
Harry S. Truman acted like a jerk.
Gus ate his apple.
The ferret played with his food and chittered happily.
After, he loaded Harry S. Truman into his carrier.
They left the house.
It was raining.
“Motherfucker,” Gus grumbled. He reached back in and grabbed Pastor Tommy’s ancient umbrella from the stand by the door. Pastor Tommy had been of the firm belief to take an umbrella wherever he went, because Gus, old boy, it could rain at any moment, no matter if the sun was bright and beautiful, and he was always going to be prepared, plus his hair tended to get way too curly when it got wet and he always came out looking like a drowned poodle, oh my god.
Gus could relate. It was the Tiberius family curse.
“Sorry,” Gus said as Harry S. Truman complained loudly as rain fell into his carrier. “Don’t yell at me.”
He thought about forgoing his coffee that morning. Just this once.
He sighed and crossed the street.
The bell jingled overhead.
He shook out his umbrella and waited for Lottie’s colorful commentary.
Instead, a male voice said, “Hey, man. Look at you. All wet and wild.”
Gus froze.
Now, it should be said that Gus was not of the… personable sort. He knew he had resting bitch face, he knew he scowled more often than not, was considered grumpy and odd, and the majority of people that he came into contact with would agree he was generally off-putting. Sure, most of the town of Abby, Oregon, would smile and wave at him just as sure as they would whisper among themselves about just how strange Gustavo Tiberius was, just how quiet he was now that he didn’t have Pastor Tommy to speak for him. Pastor Tommy had been the face and the voice of the two-man Tiberius family for as long as anyone could remember. When he died, the voice went quiet and soft, only speaking to a select few, and really even then only when absolutely necessary.
Gus was not a people person. And that was with people he knew.
And this… this was not a person he knew.
He slowly raised his gaze, knowing his eyes were probably wide with something that could possibly be construed as slight terror. His heart was thudding in his chest.
There, behind the counter, stood a man.
He was younger than Gus. Probably. He wore a dark green beanie that was far too large for his head, the top falling over the back of his head. A tuft of dirty blond hair stuck out and rested on his forehead. His dark eyes were framed by thick black frames and rested on a slightly crooked nose. He had a beard, scruffy, but probably made to look so on purpose. It was darker than the lock of hair sticking out from underneath the beanie.
He wore a button-down shirt, open at the throat, revealing miles and miles of pale skin with little curls of hair (darker still, Gus thought, unable to stop himself) on the chest before the shirt closed. His middle was wrapped in one of Lottie’s red aprons, cinched tight around his wiry body, tight and compact.
But it was his arms that Gus got stuck on. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled to the elbows, and almost every inch of skin was covered in tattoos, b
right and colorful. He could see birds and names and flowers and sharp lines. He wondered just how far up his arms they went.
He looked back up at the man’s face, aware that seconds had gone by and he’d done nothing but stare.
The stranger had a small smile on his face, the faint hint of white teeth, eyes crinkling along the edges. He was lean and pretty and so very, very sunny, and it was awkward.
Gus could not think of a single thing to say, so he said a simple, “Hello.”
The smile widened. “Hey, man. Raining cats and dogs.”
Gus (being Gus) said, “The first recorded use of that phrase was in the 1651 collection of poems Olor Iscanus by Henry Vaughn,” all the while thinking shut up, shut up, shut up!
The man cocked his head. “That right? Henry Vaughn, you say? Respect.”
Gus swallowed thickly and tried to control whatever the hell was going on with his heartbeat. “Where’s Lottie?”
The man said, “You’re Gus, huh?”
And that didn’t help at all, so Gus said, “No,” rather defensively, because he was off center, it was raining, and there was a stranger with lips and ears that stuck out slightly and that shouldn’t be fucking endearing. Then, “I mean, yeah. Yes. Gus. Gustavo. Gustavo Tiberius. That’s me. That’s who I am.”
“You sure?” the man asked, leaning down over his arms on the countertop, never taking his eyes off Gus. His fingers tapped a staccato beat on the counter that Gus couldn’t help but follow. “You don’t sound sure, man.”
Gus narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure, man. How’d you know?”
The guy gave a lazy shrug. “It’s on your name tag. Gus, anyway. But Gustavo Tiberius? That’s… epic. Like, you should be standing on a hill with a sword drawn and a dragon by your side kind of epic.”
Gus scowled even as he flushed because he was most certainly not epic. “Yes. Well. Okay. Black coffee.” And because he wasn’t a complete asshole, he added, “Please.” And then, “Now.” And then, “Please.”