Idle Ingredients

by Matt Wallace

  White Horse replaces the phone in his pocket and stands up from the bench he’s been occupying. Every nerve in his torso seems to protest the action, and he curses under his breath from the pain.

  “You okay?” he asks her.

  “I wasn’t drunk,” she insists.

  “Sure you were.”

  “I was not! It was a political protest.”

  “How is throwing a bottle of bottom-shelf Old Crow through a window a political protest?”

  “It was the Water Board’s window. All this shit on the news about the water in Flint. We’ve been drinking poison water on the res for as long as you’ve lived there.”

  “We’re not on the res anymore.”

  “The water’s still poison.”

  “The reservation isn’t even in this state.”

  “It’s the same thing!”

  “Right. I’ll bet that made all kinds of sense when you were drunk.”

  “I wasn’t . . . !” she begins, then her whole being seems to relent and her shoulders slump as she sighs.

  “Did you tell anyone at Sin du Jour?” she asks, sounding penitent for the first time.

  “No, but I’m gonna have to. They want to arraign you next week. Bronko knows people who can squash it. You’ll end up doing six months at least if they don’t make it go away.”

  “I don’t want Bronko to know.”

  “Tough. You want some food? You gotta be hungry.”

  For a moment she looks like she’s about to say something shitty to him, but she either doesn’t have the energy or can’t come up with anything worthwhile.

  In the end she just nods.

  They walk down the street, White Horse holding on to one of her slight shoulders for support, until they come to a local pizza place. White Horse orders them two slices of pepperoni with jalapeños and a couple of sodas while Little Dove settles gratefully into a seat in front of a table by a large window.

  Neither of them has talked about what happened during the False Idols’ attack on Sin du Jour, not even to each other. But the power she unleashed that night in her fear and panic is all White Horse has thought about since.

  “You know I’m no good at this kind of thing,” he says, placing the food in front of her and carefully navigating his old, broken body into a seat.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I remember the last time you pulled a stunt like this. You were thirteen. I had to come and get you then, too.”

  “Because you were the only one left.”

  “I told you about your mom that morning.”

  “I was there. I remember.”

  “She was a good lady. She loved you. She tolerated me. She just couldn’t find it to treat herself with as much kindness.”

  “I said I remember.”

  “I remember you running off. Didn’t even say anything when I told you what happened. I was worried about what you’d do. To you, I mean.”

  “I’m not like her,” Little Dove says through clenched teeth.

  “I was actually relieved when they called to tell me you threw a rock through that bilagáana cop’s windshield. Even if I had to pay for the damn thing.”

  “They let me off. Sympathy for the little Native girl whose mother just killed herself.”

  White Horse sighs. “This is all my fault, in a way.”

  “‘In a way?’”

  “I sensed the power in you when you were a little girl—”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “It lay deep and dormant. And I just thought . . . I hoped . . . it would stay there.”

  “I’m fine,” she insists.

  “You don’t want to deal with what you are, with what you’re becoming, so you’re trying to be that pain-in-the-ass kid again. Acting out. But you can’t go back. You can only go forward.”

  “Into what, Pop? Huh?”

  White Horse rubs a hand over the grizzled contours of his ancient-looking face.

  “Look, I know I ain’t worth shit, all right? I never was. Not to any of my wives, not to your folks, not to you, and not to our people. I don’t have the stuff Hatałii are supposed to have. But I was born with the power. Just like you. And just like you, I’m stuck with it. I don’t know why. The elders didn’t know why. The other Hatałii, the dedicated ones, all painted up and waving their hands like idiots, couldn’t one of ’em call a spirit forth if you gave ’em their own reality television show, they definitely didn’t know why. They only knew they hated my wrinkled ass. Maybe if it’d been one of them, born like this, our people’d be in better shape. But I doubt it.”

  Little Dove is hugging herself, near tears. “Pop, what’s your point? What do you want from me?”

  “I was never a grandfather like you needed, like you deserved, but what you need now is a teacher, someone who understands what’s brewing inside you. And that’s me. If there was someone else, someone better, I’d get ’em for you. But there ain’t. Just me. So if you’ll let me, I’ll do my best to be your teacher.”

  “Teach me to be what? A Hatałii? Medicine woman? Why the fuck would I want to be any of that?”

  White Horse is already shaking his head. “Teach you how to control what you’ve got, and how to use it. What you use it for, what you become, will be up to you.”

  “Nothing is ever up to me,” Little Dove says with deep disdain. “It never has been. I’ve always had to take care of the rest of you. I never had any choices, not one. I still don’t.”

  “Well, then this’d be a welcome change, I expect.”

  Little Dove just stares at him across the table, suddenly at a loss.

  “Your pizza’s gettin’ cold,” he says a moment later when she still hasn’t spoken. “Eat up. We can argue more later.”

  She watches him pick up his slice and take a bite. Eventually she picks a pepperoni off her own slice and pops it into her mouth.

  “I was drunk,” she admits.

  “I know,” her grandfather says. “You should switch to weed when you’re stressed out. It’s more mellow. Especially that busboy’s stuff.”

  Little Dove laughs, just a little. “You really suck at being the adult.”

  “I know that, too,” he says.

  WRECKS OF GALWAY BAY

  “This is an absolute bloody outrage!” Ryland shouts to the indifferent heavens in his thick brogue. “I demand satisfaction! And in the likely event I no longer possess the facilities required to experience that emotion, well then I demand vengeance! Empirical! Objective! Everlasting!”

  “You talk funny,” the tow truck driver observes with an indifference to rival that of the heavens themselves before sliding his considerable bulk into the cab of his rig.

  “While your first language is New York Public School System, clearly!” Ryland fires back at the outside of a slammed door.

  The tow truck pulls away, taking with it Ryland’s battered RV with its mostly deflated tires.

  He’s clutching the neck of a wine bottle with scarcely an inch of comfort left at its bottom. A packet of cigarettes with three butts left inside is crushed in his opposite hand. It’s all the second-generation alchemist was able to salvage from his mobile laboratory/home before it was trussed up on the flatbed that is now being driven away from Sin du Jour.

  “What in the hell is going on out here?” Bronko demands.

  He’s standing at the service entrance of the building, knife-scarred fists on his hips.

  “Are you responsible for this?” Ryland demands right back at him. “Because if so I’ll remind you we’ve had a longstanding verbal contract vis-à-vis my domicile.”

  “I haven’t had your rusty shit box towed in three years, Ryland, what’d possess me to do it now?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, and frankly the senselessness of the act is what makes it so hurtful to me, personally.”

  “I’m afraid I’m responsible,” a new voice says from inside the building.

  Bronko turns and steps away from the ser
vice entrance. Luciana emerges, fingers clasped in front of her and a pleasant smile on her lips.

  “I do apologize for any inconvenience,” she continues, “but the vehicle was both an eyesore and a safety hazard. And I believe you’ll agree we’ve had enough safety concerns as of late.”

  “Well then . . . madam . . . I obviously cannot argue with any of your points.”

  Ryland pauses, reaching back and grabbing the back of his neck to tamp down the hairs that are suddenly standing up there.

  “This is very odd,” he says.

  “What’s wrong now, Ryland?” Bronko asks.

  “I find myself intensely sexually attracted to this woman,” he informs Bronko without hesitation or embarrassment.

  “Well now . . . that’s rude as hell, but why is it odd?”

  “It’s odd because I drank my sexual impulses into utter and complete abatement years ago! I have no interest in the female gender, sexually. Or personally, professionally, politically, or conversationally, really.”

  Bronko turns to Luciana apologetically. “I really am sorry about him. He’s brilliant at what he does and all, changin’ the damnedest things into useable ingredients, but he’s more or less useless at everything else in life.”

  Luciana continues to smile passively. “No apology required, Chef Luck.”

  “I am standing right here, if you’ll recall,” Ryland reminds them.

  Bronko doesn’t seem to hear him. Now that he’s looking back at Luciana his attention is solely focused on her.

  “Dear me . . . this is also odd,” Ryland says.

  “What’s that?” Bronko asks absently, still smiling back at Luciana.

  “I distinctly recall being very angry a moment ago, and yet now I find myself compelled to agree utterly and even gratefully with this woman I have never before met.”

  “Then we’re all good, right?” Bronko asks, completely missing the point.

  Ryland takes a full five-second swig from his wine bottle, finishing it. He lights a new cigarette and inhales half of it in less than a minute.

  “My name is Luciana Monrovio, Mister Phelan,” Luciana introduces herself. “I’m Sin du Jour’s new executive liaison and consultant.”

  “I blindly accept all of that,” Ryland assures her.

  Luciana crooks her neck, regarding him oddly. “You know, you don’t so much articulate your thoughts as narrate them.”

  Ryland nods. “That is a fair assessment.”

  “It’s refreshing. That kind of real-time connection to one’s processes is rare. In any event, I’ll find you new quarters. Inside the building. All right?”

  “Yes, mum.”

  Luciana nods, turning and walking back through the service entrance.

  Ryland takes a long drag on his cigarette, squinting after her.

  “Is she a mentalist or something?” he asks Bronko, who is also watching her walk away.

  “She’s something, all right,” he says.

  PASS THE AWKWARD, PLEASE

  Lena’s not actually surprised her key still works the lock, she’s surprised by her doubt that it would.

  She enters the apartment she’s shared with Darren in Williamsburg since they both came to the city together. The television is on, and she can hear him laughing at whatever is playing, probably on Netflix. Lena closes the door behind her as loudly as possible and drops the small knapsack she acquired on the road.

  Darren is sitting on the beat-to-hell sofa they bought from the landlord, watching The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. She’s in the middle of mentally judging his taste when she sees that James is lying on the sofa with his head cradled comfortably in Darren’s lap.

  “Whoa,” she says, far more out loud than she intended.

  They both look up and see her standing there.

  “Holy shit,” Darren says. “Lena.”

  “Hey,” is the best she can come up with, and Lena thinks she should’ve planned more words on the way over.

  Darren eases his lap from beneath James’s head and stands, turning to face her. James climbs up from the sofa as well, smiling warmly at her.

  “It is good to see you are okay,” he says. “We were all of us worried for you, even after Chef Luck tells us he knows where you are and that you are all right.”

  “It’s still good to see you’re not dead,” Darren adds.

  “Yeah. Thanks. I should’ve called first. Or, you know, called weeks ago. Sorry about that. I . . .”

  Lena trails off as she really looks at Darren for the first time. She eyes the beard, the short and spiky hair with not a drop of product in it. He’s still wearing his St. Guadalupe medal, but he’s even switched from boxers to skin-tight boxer-briefs.

  “What’s with the lumberfox porn beard?” she asks him.

  Darren begins to involuntarily reach up to touch his beard, but he manages to stop himself halfway there. He lowers his hand.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No!” Lena says quickly. “It’s . . . it works. It totally works. It’s just . . . really different.”

  “That’s kinda what I was going for.”

  “I told you she would like it,” James says to him.

  “I wasn’t worried about whether you’d like it or not,” Darren insists to Lena.

  “He was worried whether you would like it not,” James says immediately, smiling even wider.

  Lena can’t help laughing.

  “Jesus, this is weird.” She drops her bag, hands resting on her hips as she regards them both. “So, you two are, like, a thing now? Officially?”

  Darren and James look at each other, and the answer is obvious in the private grin they share, in the way their eyes mirror one another’s.

  “Yeah, I guess we are,” Darren says.

  “I should blow town more often, huh?”

  The dreamy look leaves Darren’s face, and he frowns at her.

  Lena clears her throat. “Too soon, huh?”

  He nods.

  “I will leave you two to talk, okay?” James offers. “I need to write my mother an email, anyway.”

  He picks up an iPad off the little table beside the sofa and wanders down the lone hallway of the apartment.

  Darren watches him go, waits until he hears the door to his bedroom close. He looks back at Lena.

  “He writes his mom like every day. It’s weird.”

  “You mean actually liking your mother?”

  “Yeah.”

  Lena nods. “Fair. Listen, I don’t want to crash in on you two here. I kind of feel like I’ve given up rights and privileges or something—”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Darren says, interrupting her. “We’ve just started going out. That’s all. He doesn’t live here. You do. It’s your home.”

  Lena stares at him, at more than a bit of a loss. It’s not just his hair and personal grooming; his personality, his whole demeanor has changed. Darren never talked over her before, let alone with such decisiveness.

  “What happened to you?” she asks, bluntly.

  He doesn’t answer at first, only reaches up and scratches at his beard.

  “You know, my first impulse is to say how I don’t know what you mean, but I know exactly what you mean. I guess the short answer is I grew up a little. It was time.”

  Lena is now at a total loss. “Wow. Just . . . wow. So, you’re not, like, pissed at me?”

  “I was,” he admits. “Then I was just confused. I thought . . . I thought we were good, after Los Angeles and everything that happened and talking in that hotel room.”

  “We were,” she assures him, genuinely. “We are. My leaving wasn’t about you, dude. Really.”

  “I mean, that’s cool, but not answering my calls or calling me back for over a month was kind of about me.”

  “No, that was about me. That was all about me. I couldn’t . . . I just couldn’t talk to anybody from here. I can’t even explain why.”

  Some of that anger he claimed had dissipated seems to retur
n to him. “I’m not from here, Lena. I’m from the same place you are. The exact same place. I’ve known you longer than anyone. It’s supposed to be us against them, or at least it used to be.”

  “You’re right, okay? It was shitty. It was a shitty, cowardly thing to do. I have no defense. I’m sorry.”

  That seems to deescalate him, at least for the moment.

  Darren nods. “All right. Well, you should get unpacked.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. James made this stew called mafe. It’s his mom’s recipe. It’s lamb in a peanut butter sauce. It’s pretty sick. You’ll dig it.”

  “Cool.”

  Neither of them moves, however. There still seems to be a piece missing from the moment, a plug to stop it up and end it, and Lena isn’t sure what that is.

  Fortunately for her, the new Darren seems to have a firm handle on it. He walks around the sofa and over to her, embracing her easily, comfortably.

  “Welcome home,” he says.

  It feels awkward to her at first, but as soon as she hugs him back her body remembers all the years they’ve spent as best friends.

  “Thanks,” she says into his shoulder. “Christ, you even smell manlier.”

  Still holding her, Darren giggles.

  “Annnnnnnd there it is,” she says, giving them both their first genuinely shared laugh of her return.

  “Hey,” he says, stepping back from her. “Have you called Ritter yet or talked to him?”

  She blinks up at him, surprised. “I . . . what? Why? Why would I . . . ?”

  “He was really worried about you. Bronko had to stop him from going after you when you split. He was going to have his whole team trying to find you. He hasn’t really talked about it much, but I guess it’s that soldier thing, you know? He sees you like one of his own.”

  Lena realizes he has no idea she and Ritter spent the night together (or spent the next morning together, several times).

  She nods for far too long while she thinks of something reasonable to say. “Um . . . I haven’t talked to anyone else yet, but I’ll . . . I’ll, like, thank him for that when I see him.”