Wanted: Single Rose

by Skye, Mav

  Gremlin tossed back her dark hair in one smooth, sexy movement. “Oh yeah, my grandma has a boyfriend named Dick, too. Fucked up name. Can you imagine being named after—”

  “Dick,” Sir Sun said louder than he meant to, “is short for Richard.” He drew his arm away from Strawberry, drawing a scowl and a pout from her.

  “Oh…” said the young crowd.

  “I’m so posting this on Facebook.” Freddy fished his phone out of his pocket. “Dick is short for Richard. Meet the Dick. Can I take a picture of you… Dick?”

  Sir Sun grabbed Freddy’s phone before he could snap a photograph.

  “Hey!” Freddy yelped.

  Sir Sun wasn’t sure what to do with the blasted thing. The photograph app was already on. So he aimed it at Freddy and clicked on the big button. Facebook immediately popped up, and Sir Sun hit post. “My name is Sir Sun, actually.” He handed the phone back to Freddy Krueger.

  Freddy said, “Hey, I’ve got five likes already.”

  “Awesome! Send it to me. I wanna post it, too.” Gremlin whipped her phone out.

  “If you’d stop unfriending me on Facebook, you could just share it off my page.”

  “No way, you kept posting that we were in a relationship and…” Her voice droned on.

  Sir Sun let out his breath relieved. He pressed his back against the hallway wall as the crowd tightened around him, intensely observing him as if he were the last of a dying species. He nodded at a scowling Caesar. “Halloween?”

  Caesar scowled. “No, we dress this way all the time, Dick.”

  The girls cackled in laughter.

  Freddy Krueger said, “Stop dickin’ around, Dick.” It was directed toward Caesar, which made Caesar pissed.

  “No, it’s Sir Sun. It’s my name, an unusual one albeit but, that’s what it is.” Sir Sun held out his hands and spread his fingers like he did when explaining a mechanical challenge to a customer.

  All the kids laughed this time, except for Caesar, who kept his laser-pinned eyes on Sir Sun.

  The college kids drew in even closer. They were taller, stronger—younger than he was. He found himself sweating, anxiety building up in his chest.

  “Sir Sun. I think that’s hawt,” said Strawberry, reclaiming Sir Sun’s arm. “Be nice to him, Sid.”

  “Yeah.” Gremlin wrapped her arms about Caesar’s big waist and made a pouty face at him. “Be nice, Sid.” She kissed his arm, then tried to wipe her lipstick off his arm, but only managed to smear it in.

  “Listen,” said Freddy, gaining back Sir Sun’s attention. “Just don’t tell the Super, he’ll bust us. You cool with that?”

  “Yeah, you cool with that, Dick Head?” asked Caesar clutching his fists into two balls. Gremlin giggled again.

  “It’s sexy when you’re angry Sid, but don’t punch him, honey.”

  The vein in Caesar’s forehead throbbed. “I don’t know. The old guy might look a bit manlier with a black eye.”

  “I think so.” Strawberry giggled and stepped away from Sir Sun. One minute a lover, the next an enemy. “Do it, Sid. Make the old man cry.”

  “Woah,” Freddy Krueger dropped the twenty-four pack and stepped up to Caesar. “Come on, man. Chill. He’ll tell the Super and the Super will call my dad, and my funding will be cut off…”

  “Back off, Freddy.” Caesar balled his fist.

  “Hey, hey,” Sir Sun spread his fingers, trying to think how to calm everyone down when a sultry voice beckoned behind the crowd. The mere silk and command of it cut everyone’s voices and laughter to the quick. “Sir Sun?”

  The crowd cut in half and boys and girls alike gazed, mesmerized as Velva, decked in a clingy polka dot dress and kitty cat mask, sashayed through the crowd of ghouls. She looked not from the left to the right, but kept her kitty cat eyes dead center on Sir Sun. “Not to worry boys and girls…” She drew off Strawberry’s hand from Sir Sun’s waist and dropped it nonchalantly.

  Strawberry stomped her foot. “Hey, you can’t—”

  Without drawing her searing hot gaze from Sir Sun. Velva drew her black gloved finger to Strawberry’s lips and said, “Shhhh…”

  Velva gazed at Sir Sun with complete lust and command in her cat eyes.

  She was impossible to resist.

  “He’s mine tonight.” She grabbed Sir Sun’s face and attacked his lips with hers. A playful kitten.

  Quiet surrounded the group, leaving only room for heat, hate from the girls, and the slow rise of erections.

  “Oh, okay, that’s cool,” said Freddy drawing back with Strawberry Shortcake. “You guys get a room!”

  And all the kids laughed.

  Velva kept kissing Sir Sun, mouth to tongue, tongue to tooth, tooth to tonsil. When she released him, Freddy Krueger and his gang were long gone down the hall and around the corner. Black Eyed Peas blasted, getting the party started.

  “So, now that I’ve rescued you.” Velva murmured, sliding her hand down Sir Sun’s clean white t-shirt to the zipper of his trousers. “What do you want to do next?”

  He was speechless.

  “I know,” she whispered. “Let’s dump the bodies and then spend the rest of tonight together.” She tapped at his nose like a button. “At my place. You’ve been a very good boy today.”

  Bodies… the thought made him sick. “I think we should wait until dark to get rid of them.”

  “You’re exactly right, Darling. So what do you want to do now?”

  A kid down the hall yelled, “Where’s my rubber ducky! I want my rubber duck!”

  Sir Sun grabbed Velva’s hand and picked up the bucket of bloody water. “We need to get out of here. Now.” They moved down the hall.

  “Here?” she asked, pointing at the stairwell doors leading up to his apartment.

  “No.” They passed the elevators and stairwell. “We’re going around back.”

  He led her through the main entrance, and around the corner of the building. To the side of the complex was a narrow parking lot leading out to the long grass and blackberry bushes that crept along the river.

  A century old maple spread its limbs behind the balconies, reaching towards Spindler river. It had begun its autumn ritual of shedding red leaves. Spindler River wound behind it. It wasn’t a huge river, sometimes just a trickle in the summer, but rain had kicked up a notch in the Pacific Northwest, and it was pregnant with water.

  “I’m wearing heels, Timothy; I can’t walk in this.” Velva pointed at the long grass.

  “Wait here. I’m going to dump this in the river.” He held up the bucket. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Before she could answer, he tramped into the grass, not minding the blackberry tendrils that clung at his pants or shirt. He didn’t look behind to see if she waited but stayed focus on the task of reaching the river. It was one chore he had control of.

  As he grew closer, the grass gave away to river rocks, springing dogwoods, cattails and dying buttercups. He tripped over a boulder sized rock jutting up from the mass, and he fell to one knee as if praying. Crimson water sloshed over the side into weeping daisies. The first frost had cut their last blooms short. Now they held the blood of another kind of Daisy. He thought he heard a voice, a tiny rasp rising from the ground. The voice of the withering blooms of daisies.

  “Not you, too,” he mumbled and immediately stood up.

  He tromped through the rest of the river flora, until he finally made it to the river’s soft edge.

  Spindler River was appropriately named, for it spun and wound this way and that, around the slight valley that dipped behind the town. With a heave, Sir Sun plunged the bucket, scrub brush, and contents into the river.

  He squatted and rinsed his hands and his arms in the cold, green water. Then he splashed some on his face.

  He sighed relief. He felt freer knowing the blood was no longer in or on his hands. “What am I going to do?” he asked the river, watching the bucket bob away in the current.

  He missed the simple rout
ine of his normal life. The morality and rules he’d adopted and had clung to washed out to sea the second Velva (and the men in dark sunglasses and trench coats) had stepped into his life, and yet, he didn’t think he could let her go for the world.

  Shakespeare himself had written about the cold, ironic tricks the universe played on lovers.

  “Why did they have to die?” he asked the river—as if it knew. As if it held the answer to life’s secret questions. Love had been sung and written about since the beginning of time. People have died for love. They’ve fought for it, killed for it. But for him and Velva, it wasn’t them sacrificing themselves for something they both desired. No, it was everyone else’s sacrifice. And either it made what they shared more real, more intense… purer than others’ love. Or it made them violent criminals using the cause of love to their own means and end.

  What would be the end to this story, his and Velva’s?

  Sir Sun contemplated this as the sun sank down behind the clouds in deep afternoon slumber, preparing for sunset. He pushed his hands into his pocket, feeling the edge of the shears he’d grabbed last minute. He thought of Ah Lam.

  Oh God, I’m sorry sweetheart.

  Two ducks squawked at him as they waggled their tails down the river. It reminded him of the rubber duck up in Daisy’s apartment. They’d have to dispose of the body.

  Ah Lam’s, too.

  He shook his head and turned away from the river. As he did, a crow cawed at him from the giant maple. A harsh breeze picked up, blowing in what would become frost overnight. As the wind brushed against his cold, wet hands, the chill crawled into his veins and froze them. His eyes sought out what the crow made such a fuss about. Sir Sun then realized the crow was not perched on the tree, but clutched a heavy knot made of rope. The long rope beneath the branch swung back and forth, back and forth in the raw autumn breeze. At the bottom of the rope, dangling from a hangman’s noose wasn’t a dancing man with blue suede shoes, but a scrawny skeleton. It hung limp and loose with a black bag slipped over its head.

  “My God,” said Sir Sun, bringing his trembling fist to his mouth, biting down hard on his knuckles.

  Ah Lam.

  The rope swayed to and fro over the river in soft, gentle motions as if it were rocking Ah Lam to sleep. Spindler River crooned a song, comforting the girl in its frothy gurgles, singing Ah Lam to a kinder eternity.

  College kids crowded out on the lower floor balcony. They leaned over the railing, a good fifteen feet off the ground. Sir Sun recognized Freddy Krueger and Caesar. Their voices were loud. “Dude! Check this out!” They pointed at Ah Lam.

  Another voice. “Right on! Your Super’s the best man! Nobody does Halloween like this anymore. Totally old school!”

  A female voice from inside the apartment said, “I think it’s sick. Gross. Come back inside.”

  Caesar and Freddy high-fived each other. A ghost in a white sheet accidentally dropped his beer can as he pointed at Ah Lam. “Dude!” yelled Freddy and tried to spit on it. It became a bet—who could spit on the beer can first.

  Sir Sun spun and made his way back to the sidewalk. He didn’t think that the kids had seen him, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

  At the parking lot, Velva was gone.

  Sir Sun turned toward the cluster of businesses down Main Street and walked the sidewalk, happy to get away from Spindler’s Roost. His feet drew him to Sara’s Diner.

  He stepped in, cautiously, and glanced around for Velva. She wasn’t there, but Sara was. She greeted him with a hug and broad smile—a smile that quickly turned into a frown.

  “Sir Sun! Oh my lordy, your face!”

  Sir Sun shrugged and felt his nose. It hurt like hell. Thanks to Velva and a frying pan. “It was an accident.”

  Sara squinted her eyes and frowned, she didn’t believe him, but decided not to press. “Right. Well, it’s so nice to see a regular. All the freaks and weirdos are out today!” She rolled her eyes and nodded her head toward a robot that was trying to sip coffee through his metal helmet.

  “I hear you,” he said, relieved to find a kind, gentle face. A face of reason and humanity, his dear friend Sara. She shooed him over to the counter where he sat on a barstool. She scooted around to the other side of the counter. “Well? What can I get you? Coffee and pie?”

  Sir Sun shook his head. “No, I think, a… Coke.”

  “Coke?” she drew back in shock. “These ten years I’ve known ya, laddie, and you’ve never asked for a Coke.”

  He shrugged.

  She laughed. “A Coke it is!”

  She turned to go toward the kitchen. Sir Sun said, “And Sara, a cheeseburger with fries.”

  Her mouth dropped and she guffawed, “Full of surprises lately, ain’t we? No problem, hon.”

  The robot’s voice boomed across the restaurant. “I’d like some ranch dipping sauce over here.” He pointed at his fries. Sara raised her eyebrow at him, giving him a look of disapproval. “Won’t it rust your iron?”

  “I-am-made-of-steel,” he said in a robotic voice.

  Sara rolled her eyes at Sir Sun and shook her head, then hustled into the kitchen.

  Sir Sun ran his hands over his thinning hair, tapped his jaw. What should he do? His fingerprints were in Daisy’s apartment and on Mr. Fiddler’s thigh. He still didn’t know where Mrs. Chow was. And Ah Lam was swinging from the maple tree. He could run away to Texas—Mexico even. The police couldn’t touch him in Mexico, but the drug lords probably would. “Fuck.”

  “Hey now, I’ve never known you to talk like that.” Sara sat the bubbly glass of Coke on a white napkin.

  She glanced at the bruise on his face. “You got some problems, honey?” She folded a few dishtowels behind the counter and put them away.

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” He sipped on the pink straw Sara plopped into his glass.

  “You’re not involved with gangsters are you?”

  This made Sir Sun laugh.

  Sara laughed along with him. “Wait. I got it. You’re in love, ain’t you?” She smiled and spread her fingers against her white apron, her eyes as blue and ancient as the sky.

  Sir Sun shrugged.

  “Yes, you are! It’s that gorgeous dame who was in here with you last night.” She clapped her hands together. It was her use of the words like dame that drew him to the restaurant. Sara was like a piece of heaven, trust and innocence stolen straight out of the fifties. The calm in the chaos.

  She said, “I knew it. I just knew it. So, what’s the problem? She swatting you with a caveman’s club?”

  Sir Sun smiled at the irony. No, just a frying pan, he wanted to tell her. “Love? I don’t know. I’ve only just met her.” He played with his straw. “I don’t know if I can be the person she wants me to be.”

  Sara leaned in, lowering her voice as if telling him a secret. “Met my husband the same way. We met in Dublin and it was love at first sight. He wanted to move here to the US and start a business. I didn’t think I could leave my family—my home—but I did. He wanted to start this diner. I couldn’t even cook! But, he taught me and eventually I even got good at it, though he was always better. He could cook the best damn burger in town, though he told everyone it was my recipe.” She smiled and closed her eyes, reliving the memory. “I did it. I came here and I cooked, all for him. Best decision I’d ever made.”

  Sir Sun sat quietly. Cooking dinner was different than killing a person. “I didn’t know you were married?”

  Tears filled Sara’s heaven blue eyes. “Oiy, he was taken fifteen years ago. Motorcycle accident. He was always a dangerous one, the risk taker. I had a hard time taking risks though I did it for him.” She wiped at the corner of her eyes and gave him a knowing look. “Love is always worth the risks, even when, especially when, it scares you.”

  It was a stupid question, but he thought he’d ask anyway. “What if the risks are… dangerous?”

  “Of course, they are! They wouldn’t be called risks if they weren’t dan
gerous.”

  Sir Sun leaned closer. “But… but what if it involved hurting others.”

  She nodded, her eyes growing wider. “It often does, Sir Sun. It often does. But what you need to ask yourself is this: Is it worth it? What does having the love of your life mean to you? What are you willing to risk it all for?”

  Sir Sun shook his head, biting his lip.

  “Everything,” said Sara, answering her own question. She wrapped her fingers over his. “You risk everything.” Tears filled her eyes again. They shared a moment.

  “Ranch-dipping-sauce,” said the steel robot.

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s coming.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “But it’ll rust that aluminum, though.” She whisked away.

  “It’s steel—”

  Sir Sun put his elbows on the counter and leaned his forehead into his palms. Sara words still ringing in his ears. Everything, you risk everything.

  Maybe so, but he wasn’t going to do it blindly.

  He slid the napkin from beneath his Coke.

  He looked behind the counter and found a pen. He flipped the napkin over and began to write, and as he did, a rough plan formulated in his mind.

  When he looked up, a cheeseburger and fries sat in front of him along with a bottle of ketchup. He gazed down the counter at Sara, who was pouring coffee for a young couple. She said, “Would you like pie with that?” She glanced at Sir Sun as she asked, instinctively knowing he was watching her.

  He smiled at her. Sara winked back at him.

  He lingered at the restaurant. Traffic picked up with ghouls and vampires. They kept Sara busy rushing about from here to there. Folks, in general, were laughing and murmuring. Once, a zombie flit in and out of the warm diner, claiming to want to eat everyone’s brains until Sara shooed him out with a dish towel. It gave the cozy place an unusual, lively energy. Sir Sun moved his dinner to an open window seat. His plan of action tucked away in his pocket. He relished every bite of his cheeseburger as if it were his last… or his first, depending on how one looked at it. Sara, every so often, fluttered in his direction, refilling another Coke and then another.