The kid didn’t give a name, so the gas station owner asked him for it.
“Why do you want my name? What’s the point?”
“I’m a curious old codger. I’m a curious old codger and you’re a respectful young man. When we run into each other on the street, we’ll know what to say.”
“I could give you a fake name,” the kid said. “Give me a minute to think.”
“Everybody’s got a name and everybody’s from somewhere. And I don’t believe you’re from Ohio.”
The kid started unwrapping the chocolate. Without looking up, he said, “If I had a cozy spot in the world like this I’d never leave it, either. I’d stay nested in all day and wait for people with things to do to stop by so I could talk their ears off.”
The gas station owner chuckled. “Nobody gave me this station, you know. It wasn’t a gift.”
“I’m just saying, you’re really good at sitting inside it.”
“Thank you.”
“You got a talent.”
“And how about you? What’s your talent?”
“I’m a people person,” the kid said.
“Yeah, I was picking up on that.”
“Everyone’s got to make a cozy place, don’t they? Whatever way they can. You got your ways, I got mine.”
The gas station owner was impressed. The kid was like a plucky raccoon poking back at an old bear. The gas station owner tried to think of something else to say, something to confuse the kid, but then the gal came back out from the restroom, a placid look on her face. The kid broke the chocolate bar and gave the gal half, and she nuzzled his cheek. She said goodbye to the gas station owner and then the kid held the door open for her. The gas station owner watched the pair all the way to their car, leaning into each other and gnawing on their candy, but neither looked back at him. He lowered himself back down onto his stool and then sat still, his back straight, nothing moving inside the station except settling dust.
MAYOR CABRERA
He sat in the basement of the motel he ran, the Javelina, watching a movie about a mayor who slaughtered all the new people who moved to his town. The psychotic mayor looked like Colonel Sanders, and this was making Mayor Cabrera hungry for fried chicken. Fried chicken wasn’t something he cooked himself, and Lofte’s lone restaurant didn’t offer it.
The motel had two guests, two single men, and they were probably settling in for the night. They wouldn’t bother Mayor Cabrera. He wanted fried chicken but his nose was full of the scent of elk stew. He was sick of elk stew. The mayor on TV was holding a big cookout in the town square. Whenever he spoke loudly, addressing the crowd, his accent got Southern. The whole premise of the movie, to Mayor Cabrera, rang false. As mayor of a small town, you needed every new citizen you could get. You would never murder your own tax base, your own economy. If there dwelled within you homicidal urges that could not be suppressed, you would drive a couple towns over to do your killing.
Mayor Cabrera’s town, Lofte, was in trouble. Two guests? The business at the Javelina told volumes about the health of the town, and two guests in a night was not enough to break even. Mayor Cabrera didn’t want to be mayor anymore. Being the mayor of a healthy town was one thing, but being in charge of a doomed town, going down with the ship and barely being compensated for it, was another. Usually being mayor didn’t mean much more than sitting at the head of the table during town council meetings. The other members kept the budget, brought items up for votes. Soon enough, though, Mayor Cabrera would be called upon to lead. He would be looked to.
Mayor Cabrera stood and stirred the elk stew. He took his shirt off and sat back down in his undershirt. Mayor Cabrera wore button-front shirts adorned with Western scenes because out-of-towners seemed to like it. For town meetings or when the occasional Turquoise Trail bus tour came through, he even donned a cowboy hat. No one could pin down Mayor Cabrera’s ethnic background, not even him. He had some United States Indian in him and some Mexican Indian and some regular Mexican and probably some regular American. Lofte, which was mostly poor white, had elected him, he believed, because they considered his murky blend of heritage to be perfectly New Mexican.
The psychotic mayor in the movie was spying on a young couple playing tennis, licking his lips. Maybe the mayor was a cannibal. Maybe he was going to have another cookout and feed the townspeople their neighbors. The phone rang and Mayor Cabrera picked it up and said, “Javelina.”
“I’m in nineteen. I was wondering what the story was on room service.”
“That’s a very short story. Your best bet is the diner down the street.
They’re usually open till midnight. Or maybe eleven.”
“I’m watching this movie. I’m kind of in for the night. You don’t have anything down there? Any food I could buy off you?”
“I have some stew I could bring up.”
“Is it good? I got cash.”
“It tastes like stew.”
“I don’t want to miss what happens here. The guy who was Freddie in Nightmare on Elm Street is this crazy mayor. You ever seen this thing?”
“I think I have.”
“He’s wearing some kind of sash.”
“Why don’t I bring you by a bowl in a few minutes? There’s no charge.”
“I appreciate that. I got plenty of cash, but I sure like to hang on to it. I like to keep it right here with me.”
Mayor Cabrera saw the commercials ending and then the man told him as much. They got off the phone. Mayor Cabrera opened a cabinet and began hunting for some plastic bowls, wishing he hadn’t mentioned the stew, feeling suddenly uncharitable, feeling that every little thing he did every day of his life he did out of some pathetic idea of professionalism. He did what people asked because it was easier than thinking about what he really ought to be doing. He served and served.
CECELIA
For days the sky had looked like rain, but only this morning had it begun grumbling. Cecelia and her mother were in the living room, the windows open, the TV on.
“Driving the birds crazy,” Cecelia’s mother said. Her wheelchair was positioned in a way that allowed her to look through the kitchen and out the back screen door, toward her chickens. She didn’t need the wheelchair. It had once been her sister’s, Cecelia’s Aunt Tam’s, in the months before she’d died. Cecelia’s mother had taken it out of the hall closet where it had been folded quietly for ages and had opened it up and polished the hardware and buffed the leather. That was all fine, but when she was done she hadn’t put the chair back in the closet. She’d started sitting in it now and then, to watch TV, and in time it became the only chair she’d use. The husband Cecelia’s Aunt Tam had left behind still lived in Lofte. He was the mayor, in fact. He and Cecelia’s mother had once been thick as thieves, but now they rarely spoke.
“You ever think of getting a dog?” Cecelia said. She didn’t say, Like a normal person.
Her mother made a face. “They kill little critters and leave the carcasses on your porch.”
“Because they want to impress you and show gratitude.”
“With a dead chipmunk?”
Cecelia knew why her mother couldn’t get a dog. A dog was an actual personality to engage; the chickens were merely a presence, something other than nothing. They generated a busy, low warbling that sounded like far-off weather.
“Can I make you breakfast?” Cecelia asked.
Her mother again made a face.
“How about oatmeal?” Cecelia started to get up.
“Not yet,” Cecelia’s mother said. “I’ll have something at lunchtime.”