Happily wed, the new couple settle into the two-bedroom penthouse, with Ruiz beginning his new job as manager of the Eden Palace. The apartment is quickly transformed into a spotless family home full of sunny walls, sparkling windows, and Ruiz’s astronomy books lined up tidily on shelves that he made himself.
But then, ten months later, one gray autumnal Tuesday, Ruiz sees a man wearing a black hoodie. It’s the same day that the spiky graffiti of Los Espejos appears on the Eden Palace’s stucco façade. The man, standing next to the Chinese takeout joint, is short and dark. Even at a distance from across the street, his sinister eyes bore into Ruiz’s with obvious intent.
Ruiz steps up to the curb, where a delivery van advertising potato chips is illegally parked. Intentionally, he matches the other man’s threat level; his eyes are just as cold and deadly. Both men stay that way for several minutes until a container truck, belching exhaust and blaring its horn at careless pedestrians, fills the street.
When the asphalt again clears, except for the delivery van, the man in the black hoodie is nowhere to be seen. Ruiz jerks around. Right—left—behind—everywhere and nowhere. But he sees nothing. Only the chilling markings of his old gang’s signature tag.
Predatory instincts reawakened, a wolf in a forest, Ruiz backs up, brushing past a man and woman sitting on the stoop, to reenter the Eden Palace. His teeth glint from an overhead fluorescent bulb. He makes a last quick check of the sidewalk. Still nothing.
The door slams behind him.
Cars whistle past. Pedestrians, staring at the pavement, hurry either to jobs or mostly squalid apartments. Then the delivery van, too, disappears, revealing a hugely obese man plodding along the sidewalk, serenely munching a packet of potato chips.
“Evening, Ajeno!” Jackman’s sitting on the stoop, next to Sally Howie. Excitedly, they motion for the big man to join them.
“We sing,” explains Sally. “Watch, okay?”
Jackman starts a tune with the middle-aged woman joining in on the chorus. “Up, up and awaaay in our beautiful balloon.” Smiling brilliantly, Sally bumps her shoulder, in time, against Jackman’s as they sit, singing, side by side on the stoop.
Ajeno has finished the packet of chips. Now, fascinated while watching the other two, he licks salt from the packet turned inside out.
Jackman and Sally finish the tune in a delirium of giddy notes. “Would you like to join us?” asks the middle-aged black man. “You pick the tune. Sally and I have already done all the songs we know.”
Ajeno, looking bashful, moves his feet restlessly in place. “I don’t know singing. Singing is hard.”
Jackman makes to protest, but Sally, wildly nodding, pulls Ajeno down to the concrete step. “That’s okay. Me and Noah, we sing for you!” The affection she beams into Ajeno’s face is one of complete devotion. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
Meanwhile, upstairs in the penthouse, it takes Ruiz an hour’s worth of pacing the apartment floor before he can reclaim the civilized impulse not to kill.
“That smells heavenly,” breathes Crystal a short time later. Just home from school, she enters the small kitchen, its walls plastered with cheerful Mexican tiles. Pots and pans hang from a rack over the stove. Her hands sneak around her husband’s waist as he stands at the stove, stirring a pot.
Giggling, she waves a Post-it note in his face. “Did you see this? It’s an invitation to Muriel Zielinski and Sam Bratcher’s wedding—can you believe it?!” She smiles at the small square of paper. “I guess we started something with our nuptials.” When Ruiz doesn’t respond, she looks up worriedly. “What’s wrong, honey?”
Ruiz places his hand on the slight swell of her stomach while staring into her eyes. “You will be careful, yes?”
“Mmmmm.” She presses herself against him in reply. “You know, we’ve got the place to ourselves tonight. Ajeno will be going out after dinner to play with friends until at least ten.”
Ruiz groans, partially forgetting the man in the black hoodie.
Two hours later, she’s making a “tut-tut” sound when Ajeno, happy but tired, stumbles back inside the apartment. A quick inventory is made of his bruises and cuts—rosy-red stamens dripping amid blue petals.
“Baby,” she chides, double-locking their front door, “You’ve gotta tell Rosie and Smu Chen how they’re playing too rough. Just look at these bites and scratches!” She pulls the sweaty shirt off over his head. “Here, I’ll put disinfectant on ’em, then it’s time for bed.”
He forces a cracked and yellowed fingernail behind a molar, where something’s caught. “Do we have cookies?”
“You know what Enrique says: no cookies unless you finished your veggies.”
“But I ate most of ’em. Just not the carrots.”
Crystal sighs contentedly as Ruiz’s footsteps walk firmly above them, up on the roof. “Okay, maybe this once. I’ll bring you a couple with your milk. And, baby?” When the fat man glances at her, she explains how the whole family needs to be especially careful. “Nothing for you to worry about—Enrique’s going down to the police station tomorrow—but, just for a few days, we gotta keep things locked up so no one gets into the apartment. Understand?”
“Sure, I understand.” The fat man nods with childish emphasis. “But everything’s okay now.”
Maternally, she smiles. “Of course it is, honey.”
Ajeno’s arms go around her, his great head dangling over the petite woman’s shoulder while he pats her hair. “You’re my favorite, Crystal.” A silly grin crosses his face. “And I can’t wait to meet my new brother!”
She laughs. “It might be a girl, you know.”
Brow furrowing, Ajeno peeks at her midriff. “Nah, it’s a baby brother. We need another bed soon, huh?”
“You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?” He nods as, fondly, she rubs the slight bulge. “Family is everything, I guess.” Blinking hard against happy tears, she forces a brisk tone. “Well, go on now! Brush your teeth and then get into your bed.”
She makes more “tut-tut” sounds while heading for the door, past the towers of dirty clothes left on the floor. “Just look at this pigsty. Now tomorrow’s wash day, and I expect all these clothes in your hamper by morning.” She calls back from the doorway, “Is that understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Happily, the big man surveys his cluttered bedroom. He’s still trying to suck the molar free of food. But what he likes best about his new room is the massive bed, assembled by Ruiz. It looks cozy now in lamplight—soft and pillowy, like a mother’s lap, its sheets freshly laundered. Crystal has even laid out his enormous pajamas on the triangular wafer of bedspread.
He begins gathering up one armful after another of clothes. The dirty laundry that doesn’t fit in the hamper gets kicked under his bed. Namely, a red flannel shirt and a wadded-up, powder-blue suit coat. He’s still sucking loudly on his tooth. Then he tries a fingernail scraping against the molar. But even this isn’t enough. Unhinging his jaw, he finally sticks first one hand and then the other deep into his mouth.
Fingers grip dark fabric. Slowly, laboriously, he disgorges it over his tongue, past gums and his perfect circle of shiny white teeth, not yet tingling from toothpaste, and across his swollen lips. A belch follows relief from his clearing of the molar. Puzzled, he holds up the wet garment, which tastes of sweat. Oh, yes! That came before the popcorn. Tidily, he lays out the black hoodie on top of the clothes in the hamper. Tomorrow, Crystal will launder it.
The End
About the Author
Born in Louisiana and raised in Tennessee, D. Clark Gill remembers being plopped, as a four-year-old, in front of a tiny TV in 1966 to watch the very first episode of a strange new show called Star Trek. Now with a Ph.D. in English literature, Gill still claims to be a fan of offbeat stories, whether in this galaxy or the next.
So Special in Dayville is Gill’s first published novel.
ecial in Dayville
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