“Destiny Plus One”
After the meet at the park I came straight to my office, where I laid out the cards to see how they’d play. Each time they were dealt they came up the same: Streaks and runners on britches outgrown, belonging to Dolores — the maid with the spades.
It appears that my landlady has her hands on a racket: shuffling birdies around a big-boy net, hitting doubles and triples way outside the average. Playing volley with a house that’s known to always win. Sticky fingers in Pudendum…that’s dangerous game.
How long has she been operating under my nose? And what does the fact that she’s doing so say about me?
‘Reality check, Kevin — you’re more dangerous than you think. Consider it a possibility you’re sleep-training again.’ It’s too improbable her skill set would evolve on its own.
The truth hurts: I’ve fully transitioned into an autonomous weapon. Cut deep in the rough with Occam’s rusty razor, my hands are like curses that save people’s days.
Kaepernicking the flag that shares a wall in my office with a poster of Elvis and the back of his jacket, I tribute the brothers, teeth in a grit, and sing a little song we’ve all shared before: “I can’t escape the fact that ladies love danger, but what kind of man would I be to put one in harm’s way? Is never knowing love the price of my skills? And what kind of payment options does a layaway take?”
I’m answered by a picture on my desk, taped to a binder. Trapper-keeping my heart, the root of my strength:
More than just another flame to dwindle or a pretty bird to catch, she was a fire-breathing dragon, and I was her prey. I’m talking about the kind of girl that would beg for your other walkie-talkie, and then keep you up late, ear to the speaker, waiting for her to code another fart with directions for the long lonely walk down an aisle of broken glass. As sore on the eyes as a ruler on hips: Like a dish made for chafing — both effs on the table.
I paid a pound of laughter every time she gave a pinch. “Wake me if I’m dreaming,” she always would say.
The poems I wrote about peacocks, she loved to no end. And rich as they were alone by themselves, when sugared a little with interpretive dance, they effectively turned her girlfriends all jelly. Unfortunately, theirs was the kind that spread salty and bitter. As she fell in lust, they drowned in their pain. For too many days we suffered in their longing. And out of their insatiable hunger grew heartbreak a name — K-Boi the Love Stroke: Destiny Plus One.
Sweet with the moves like a licorice twist, I met every challenge of theirs with a karate-hands routine. Only in submission did they permit us a rainbow. I’ll never trust anyone else with my Cabbage Patch Kids…
Plenty of lessons were learned from the time of back then. Like how if you only dance alone you’ll keep your heart out of the rubble. Knowing now that nothing’s as fragile as a person’s human boundaries, I refuse to trust any technique that I haven’t honed myself. And damned be the days that I have to opt for backup. Because when backup missteps, yours truly pays the price.
Now, with the Dolores situation, of course it all makes sense: Her trips into Chinatown for high-stakes Pokémon. Her babysitting tournaments, juice-loose with Pogs. Her fascination with crypto, current on the exchange. I can bet with one or two guesses when she’ll grease the wrong wheels: Sometime in the future — either sooner or later.
Less a matter of when, more a matter of who: Because when a secret like hers gets flagged by The Service, there’s not enough hips in the world to break an old lady’s fall. Even if the cats in her nip don’t scratch or meow, some pussy with the feds will eat a turd out her box.
This being a problem I’m unlikely to solve in one sitting, I better take advantage of the early morning wees, so that I’m not in a rush to lay down with the sun. Slowly rolling into a lull, eyelids as heavy as a windowless van, I groom a pep persuasive enough to let the slumber to happen: ‘Everything bouncing on my knees will be registered later. There’s not a zone safe enough to distance Kevin Boinkston from a lead.’
…
At 7:59 a.m. my knife-hand wakes up before me. Numbers flipping on my desk try to signal an alarm. A tuck-and-roll off my sleep pad… in the silence I’m Adonis. Victim One for breakfast, it’s time to start the day.
Most practitioners wouldn’t kick-flip into jumping jacks from a dead-eyed sleep. You can guess what it says that I throw in a burpee.
Thirty-second bursts have been known to change the world: That’s the motto the city pays me to ingrain.
Where trouble runs deep, I’ve matched it with a cover. And the next four hours are crucial to my keeping it alive. If I don’t go about my day the same way as every other, the other cases I’m working might spook themselves away. I’ll have to trust that Shukahkahka finds himself in good hands. And that Dolores won’t do anything too rash to intercede.
Drenched in my own sweat, I call it a workout, leaving twenty-nine minutes until the widow-maker rings. I hope for the sake of those today sharing my proximity that, for the time-being, my aggression’s been drained.
Under the spray of a nozzle in a handicap shower, I sit on the bench and take a moment to think. Not because I can’t while I’m standing, but because this old watch tower’s nipples enjoy a little spray.
I think about how these civilians need to improve their amenities.
I think about if I had inherited a fortune and couldn’t use a phone.
I think about how different life would be if my work permitted friends.
And I question what good is a family that never earns your trust.
Body now as dry as my thoughts, I lace up my boots, wondering which unlucky recruit I’ll break first — right off the bus.