by A. R. Moxon
But Bailey assessed her own balance sheets, consulted her own catalog of possibility and likelihood and risk, and divined a pathway toward success, a market for something cheap and sweet in a place where wealth is rare, but a spare creased dollar, and the desire to part with it in exchange for the distraction of a momentary delight, is not uncommon. So, year after year, Bailey’s Donuts survives, a relic, a gem from the past, slowly accruing a cozy but yellowed and not entirely savory sediment. She breathes deep; savors the aroma of cinnamon and dough. It’s a real place. It’s her place.
It’ll be the only thing she’ll miss when they finally get their revenge and escape for good.
From where she stands, she can see the frontage of Ralph’s General & Specific. She’ll be heading there shortly. Bailey’s the floor manager, and in the dead of the afternoon (sandwiched by two shifts at her donut shop covering the morning and happy-hour crowds) it’s Ralph’s where you’ll find her.
Ralph’s is a two-story box, not as large as the cavernous superstores you’ll find out of the Island, but far cleaner and brighter than what you’d expect in an economic sinkhole, with space enough for goods besides groceries. It’s fronted by large-pane windows a dozen feet high, which begin low near the pavement and continue halfway up the wall. These apertures barely qualify as windows anymore; they’ve been pasted over nearly opaque with advertisements of deals long terminated, creating an archeology of marketing schemes and enticements, most of them doubling as prearranged coded messages from Donk to some business partner or other. It’s just another way, Bailey muses, that Donk hides every one of his intentions behind something distracting and complicated. Is it caution? Amusement? Even Bailey can’t say for sure these days. Take this morning, for example. For whatever reason, when she left for the donut shop this morning, he’d been wearing a bag-boy apron—during office hours no less—even though everyone knows he’s Ralph’s managing director. What’s his game? Only he can say for sure.
…and the eighteenth fight drew a crowd down at the abandoned factories—there was money on the line…a full-grown boxcar-banger, and you whipped him with a chain. When it was over, the three of you lived off the winnings, the fights a steady income during the long years of hiding until Ralph hired you; neither you nor Boyd nor Donk has gone hungry since that day…
Nobody knows how or why I win every fight, though, Bailey thinks, totting up purchases, enjoying the click and ding of the old-fashioned registers. They don’t understand how it is when I start to see all the possibilities. What does anybody know about me, really? Nobody even knows why I’m here. I’m just like everybody else, an extra without lines in Donk’s play, a mouse moving around in one of Donk’s—Daniel’s—mazes. Annoyed with herself to think that, in public, she automatically thinks of him by the street name instead of the real one. As if they’re nothing but co-workers, as if she works for him instead of with, as if they didn’t grow up together along with Boyd, hiding from Ralph through the cold and hungry years, as if the three of them hadn’t lived together their whole lives. To you, he’ll always be Daniel, but here, in front of others…he’s buried his habits of disassociation in you; ingrained, they require effort to overcome….
“Keep it moving please, sir,” she suggests to a mean-looking tough who’s already received his donuts…and a tightly-wrapped brown-paper sack full of powder. He’s dawdling longer than she likes. Startled by her request, he looks like he might be about to snap back at her, get himself into some trouble in an attempt to look tough, but then he remembers who he’s talking to, smirks to save face, and ducks away. She rarely has to tussle anymore—hence the boredom. Yes, sure, she carries a reputation, but Bailey knows how to put something into her eyes when she looks at you so the fight won’t even start. She thinks of it as “pride of ownership”—you’re mine. And it’s no lie, she thinks—they are mine. I can take them apart five different ways.
…and the fourteenth fight should have been with Mayor Ralph Mayor himself—and would have been if not for Daniel, but on the day of the greenhouse he was the cautious one, for once. He held you back, hid you—saved you, really, because that fight would have been your last…
She’d almost have welcomed a fight with the mean-looking dingus with his package of powder. She’s already annoyed by the very fact of the package—lately Donk’s been setting up criminal drops here at the donut shop, and it’s not the rep she wants for the place. It’s already started attracting unwanted attention. Inside, lined up against the windows, the gangster day-laborers and curious regulars sit on milk cartons, facing her register with practiced nonchalance. These are small-time hoodlums eavesdropping and drinking black coffee sweetened with cheap wine purchased at Ralph’s, hoping for a chance to be brought in on some big business by a gangster more senior, someone connected enough to have daily business with Donk. The line to petition Ralph’s right hand has grown too long, too exclusive—and they know Bailey is Ralph’s muscle on top of being his manager—and the rumor is she’s his family besides. This seems a good place to try to horn in on what’s happening, or at least try to read the tea leaves, as establishment crooks—goons, thieves, pimps, and the rest—make their way to the donut shack, proffer their coded purchases, receive their running orders. Some take a package, some leave one. If you guess right, there’s opportunity for you: employment on the heist, a kickback, a score. Today, however, many of the regulars have additional entertainment to reward their attendance, because here’s this loquacious loony just wandered in, blabbering and glabbering about the rough time he’s had somewhere in Tennessee, expounding about the dark evil festering deep in the heart of Pigeon Forge, footstool of the Smokies, Southern-fried playground of the country set. He’s talking about the fountain, the love, the boxes, and something else about gourds. It’s pure nonsense, and he won’t quit it—Bailey stopped listening almost immediately—but now, looking at him, it seems to her even he wishes he could stop; there’s a certain desperation in his eyes. It’s all this about Tennessee and Tennessee and Tennessee, and how he’s never going back. The poor bastard doesn’t even realize after this performance he’ll never be rid of “Tennessee” again. It’s his name now, whatever the HELLO MY NAME IS sticker on his shirt says. The regulars hoot at him, catcalling, mocking the stammer—Hey, can we get Tennessee here a cup of coffee? Betcha his story gets better if he’s got some wine in him. How interesting, Tennessee. Tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tell us more about this lottery ticket, Tennessee. But, before you tell us more, please tell us less. Laughing all the harder as, oblivious to their amusement, he starts again…Bailey decides it won’t do to allow this sort of distraction to continue—it started as a laugh, but it’s been twenty minutes at least.
“Enough.” Bailey grabs her broom. “This is a place of business, sir. Time to move on.”
“I was trying to move on,” Tennessee says. “In Pigeon Forge, I wan wan wanted to move on in the worst way possible.”
He hasn’t made to leave. She knows she’s got to do something. You don’t stay in charge if you don’t take charge, and word spreads fast about an enforcer who won’t enforce. Still, he’s a harmless loon; Bailey doesn’t want to hurt him. She tries to scare him with a show; spins the broom like a baton, slides her feet like a boxer. He just goggles at her. Rhythmically, she screams “Out! Out! Out!”—punctuating each syllable with a whack, judging the distances and the arc of the swing to make it seem like she’s battering the guy a lot harder than she actually is; in truth he’s only getting the bristle tips.
“I just need to lay low!” Tennessee shouts, bending for his glasses, which have been knocked to the floor, skinny arms protecting his face as the whiskers of the broom whip him. “I need a say say safe place to st—”
“I’ll lay you low if you don’t scoot, buddy,” Bailey whispers. “You’re not giving me much choice.”
Tennessee thrusts out his skinny stubbled neck plaintively. “I’ll scoot, ma’am. I’ll scoot.” Then he says
something that perks Bailey’s ears up. “I just saw this place and all these folks. Thought I’d come in and poke around, search for my boy lost forever. I got myself sidetracked is all. Just like, listen, friends, just like I got myself sidetracked in Pigeon Forge, sidetracked on my way to this nee nee neon…chapel…”
Bailey thinks—the Neon Chapel? This guy’s with Father Julius? She’s immediately protective. “Hop it!” Bailey smacks the floor solidly, purposefully just missing his head. Tennessee yelps, then makes for the doors, his bent glasses clutched in one trembling hand—but almost immediately, in he comes again. “Which way to the neon…?”
Bailey gives chase as everyone else hoots, but when they get outside, she calls and he turns. “Chapel’s that way,” she says, surreptitiously pointing, and sees the flash of gratitude on Tennessee’s face before he runs off. She watches him go. Nobody inside noticed her do it; none of them would think Ralph’s enforcer would do anything but stand and intimidate…but they don’t realize, she’s the store manager, too, and the manager always helps the customer. Nobody knows anything about you, Bailey thinks. Even Donk—Daniel—doesn’t care that you care about doing a proper job. He doesn’t understand your pride of ownership. He made fun of you for buying gorgeous vintage cash registers for both stores; he didn’t see how they contribute to the overall aesthetic. And none of the rest of them know that Donk should care about you, either…
The sun’s been up for hours and she can smell baking asphalt. Hot air hit her when she left the donut shack and it’s already oppressive; it’s been less than a minute out of the air conditioning and her brow’s beading. Bailey is shocked by the newly freed loonies milling around the parking lot, their lunchtime sedatives fully taken hold, shuffling around in medicated wonderment. She’s not shocked by their presence—Donk had been talking all week about the upcoming implementation of the Fritz Act—but the sheer numbers. Dozens of loonies have already managed to stumble up Transept to Ralph’s parking lot, and who can say how many more will come? They glisten with sweat, apparently unaware of the heat; anyway, they haven’t removed their bathrobes, and they’re frying out here. Somebody ought to do something, Bailey thinks. The Fritz Act is no improvement if it’s just expulsion, whatever the papers say. Eventually they’ll get to the borders of the Island and the bluebirds will run them in or club them down. They’re unsavvy, they don’t know the unspoken rules, they’ve got no idea who’s dangerous and who’s not. It’s like standing in the midst of hanging laundry; these terryclothed loonies make no attempt to avoid her. Look at them, wandering right up, unaware of your status—unlike these factory workers, first-shift line scrubs at Slanty’s Cannery heading to Ralph’s for some lunch for later—watch how they skirt you. Bailey smiles at them, just a bit; it’s that pride of ownership. Everybody’s heard what she can make of a man’s face, and they want none of it.
Then she sees, passing through the parking lot’s flotilla of loonies: Boyd, running harder than she thought he could, clutching a newspaper like a club for some reason, racing through the human press directly toward her, pursued closely by a sword-wielding fellow done up all in scarlet.
The two are upon her at once; there’s no time to draw a weapon. Luckily this strange redbird doesn’t know to watch for her any more than the loonies do. Bailey gives him a solid shiver with her forearms, knocking him wide of his target, wonders, Why is this happening? but already he’s moving on her, and Bailey, entering the familiar sleepy slow timeless place, ducks it as easily as a jaguar shrugging a low tree branch, throws her full weight directly at the spot she knows he least expects right toward his weapon letting the blade pass between her torso and arm capturing his forearm with both hands bringing the crown of her head hard into his stomach and as he whooshes out his breath she scissors her forearms on either side of his sword arm bending the elbow mercilessly back back back until he drops it with a clatter any farther and there’ll be the distinct pop of dislocation and he’s trying to scream but lacking the breath to do so he leaves his lower half unprotected so she puts her knee into his balls twice and throws him back onto his scarlet-clad ass. She steps back, breathing steadily and watching him levelly, drawing her baton; holds the leather-sheathed foot of steel in swinging stance and lets him watch her until he can breathe well enough to run away, snatching his weapon as he goes, hunched over in testicular distress, arm dangling. The loonies have scattered.
None of them know how I do it, Bailey thinks, watching him go. Well that’s how. I see the possibilities—all the possibilities—and then it all goes slow for me. It’s not that I can beat you. It’s that this is just one of a thousand ways I could have done it. It’s been like that ever since the first fight. He’d had a knife, too—the older kid, the bully—and as he had fled from her rage had filled her and she picked up the blade and threw it after him—not aiming to hit, but sending a message to the universe she would have been hard-pressed to put into words. A little girl who had just discovered she was dangerous. Too small to seem a threat to anybody; impossible to know she had found within a strange knowledge of time and vulnerability, a full awareness of danger. Anxiety no longer exclusively a defensive mechanism. Every dark possibility she could imagine happening to those she loved, she could also imagine for an enemy, and could manufacture harm for the latter as ferociously as she would prevent it for the former.
So that was fight number one hundred fifty-two, she thinks. It’s been a minute. He hadn’t been around long enough to know to be wary of you, but otherwise that guy knew what he was doing. Quick reflexes. Dangerous blade. And he meant to use it, too. He probably isn’t used to losing. And he didn’t know what to expect from you. If you face him again you won’t have surprise on your side. Back in the donut shop she sees the regulars pressed against the window; they saw it all. Good; just another chip for her rep.
But hold on, what did Boyd do to catch the attention of some loony samurai? Boyd doesn’t get noticed ever. Bailey’s baby brother Boyd’s a sneak, and there’s nobody better at it. Wan and gray-faced, Donk’s top thief and informant is possessed of a remarkable quality of unremarkableness, allowing him to leave upon the minds of others no impression at all. Serially overlooked is Boyd: by passersby, acquaintances, old friends, restroom attendants, and (crucially) potential witnesses, schemers, double-dealers, people talking about things they shouldn’t in places where they think they’re not being watched. Boyd will sneak on you, and then Boyd will remember what you say, his memory near photographic. He’s also, as Donk is all-too-frequently given to pointing out, a moron. Donk’s not entirely wrong. His Slanty’s Cannery line worker’s dungarees aren’t a costume or a disguise; Boyd’s decided (needlessly, in Bailey’s estimation) he requires a straight job to cover for his illicit business, so he wastes dozens of hours each week slicing fish on the line. Claims the mindless work helps him work on his writing, such as it is—when it comes to writing, Boyd is one of those who more talks about doing it than actually does it. So, yes: a moron. But he—much like Donk himself—is her moron.
“Who the hell was that, and what did you do to piss him off?” She says it half-joking, but then gets a look at his face. He’s all over sweat, and though he’s trying to hide it—running his free hand through his hair to reestablish his pompadour—he looks sincerely spooked. “I think we’ve got trouble coming,” he says.
“What trouble?”
“Let’s go talk to Donk,” Boyd says. “I’d rather not explain twice.”
* * *
—
Daniel’s in his office finishing what appears to be his final office-hours meeting. Boyd and Bailey wait. In time the door opens and Donk emerges, ushering out a man with a bald pate and a magnificent handlebar moustache. “I’ll see what I can do,” Donk’s telling him, but it seems the man isn’t as finished with his petition as Donk clearly is.
“They’re being all over the places,” the moustache says, heavily accented. He’s obviously from Domino
City’s Building 5 gang; the one they all call Presto. “Loonies—in our hallways! It isn’t rightful! Who are they to do?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Donk says.
“And some of them I think are being preverts. Wearing red pajamas.”
Hm, thinks Bailey, concerned. So our redbird friend is part of a flock.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Donk says.
“They cannot be keeping it up!” the moustache insists. “It will be coming to a war.”
He’s not wrong about that, Bailey thinks.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Donk says, with a certain finality that shuts the moustache up at last. He grumbles an insincere thank-you and makes his way back toward the front exits. Daniel watches him for a second, then turns his attention to them.