Sixty odd years and counting with cropped bottle black hair that cups her skull like a helmet, a fleshy slope of nose and large, thick-rimmed spectacles which seem to defy expectations, swallowing her eyes. She presses the key in the lock and opens the door to the shop. Light seeps around her, nudging its way into those awkward nooks and crevices, washing over the rows of tightly packed shelves on the drab brown walls, like a luminous flood. Picking out the languid swirls of dust that hover in the air around her head and land, without any apparent motive, on the scratched glass counter in front. She sighs quietly to herself, a barely audible stretch of breath, takes off her cardigan and folding it, places it on a hook underneath the counter. She does the same thing on this day that she has done for the last twelve years. Today is no exception. So she opens the pock marked cash drawer and fills the little compartments with the appropriate change, tipping the coins mechanically into their proper place and smoothing the notes down with her fingers. And no, she has never been tempted. Not once. She is reliable, loyal and as honest as the day is long. And her name is Gloria.
Gloria walks to the doorway behind the counter, cocks her head to one side and stretches her neck forwards, her eyes fixed on the stairway beyond. She waits. She waits like this for some moments, suspended in time, breathing subdued, straining to catch the slightest sound from the flat above. But there is nothing - no sound of movement, no stirrings of life. Only silence, like an absence of air that floats down the stairway and fills the shop. She shouldn't be worried, not really but a familiar sense of foreboding is beginning to tickle inside her gut so she grabs a duster from a shelf beneath the counter and starts to wipe the glass with wide, sweeping movements of her arm, spasmodically cocking her ear to imaginary sounds from above. Silly to worry really and what's worse, she knows it's so. So really, very silly but she can't help imagining the worst. A grown man, whose life she still knows nothing about except that little chink she glimpses in the shop. That peek into the person she steals by just being there, day in and day out, must count for something after all. But such a solitary person, she can never draw him out. And she's tried, lord knows she's tried. She's tried because she loves him and she worries because she loves him, even though it's so, so silly.
Turning towards the shelves behind her she moves the duster along the endless rows of cigarette packets, sending more dust swirling out into the air. She pinches her nose with her free hand and stifles a sneeze. Strange how every day she repeats the same procedure and yet, there is always more dust. A thin, grey layer gently coating every surface, just waiting for her to disturb its repose with the cloth and then land again in another place. Sometimes, she wonders why she bothers, the dust seems to breed overnight and no matter how thoroughly she cleans and wipes there's always more. There's always more the next day. Chin up her husband used to say long before he left her. Chin up. She raises her chin a fraction, her head tilted to one side and continues chasing the dust.
Pepito was already awake when he heard Gloria in the shop downstairs. He lay for some moments, face down, on the mangled bed listening to her shuffle around the shop before deciding to get up. Now, standing before the mirror, half-naked and groggy with sleep, he slaps his cheeks with the rigid palm of each hand, right then left, until the blood flows beneath his skin with a sobering sting. He checks himself in the mirror and runs his hands over his flushed face, down over the darkened slope of jowls where his palms snag on the bristles with a muffled rasp. Stepping over to the dressing table he picks up the razor and returns to the wardrobe, moving the blades over his face as he walks, listening with muted satisfaction to the churning whine of the motor. Using wide, circular movements he moves it up over his cheeks and round over the back of his neck, catching those awkward little hairs that are sprouting up and growing with increasing regularity down towards his back. This was his mother's little job - the clipping of the hairs on the back and shoulders. She seemed to take pride in it and relished the chance to exert her motherly claim, pushing his head forwards with the tips of her fingers and clucking with her tongue as she guided the razor over his skin. It was her way of saying - look how much you need me, who else is going to keep those hairs in check when you can't do it yourself. But, of course, he could do it himself and yet, he allowed her that one little dignity. It was the least that he could do.
Placing the razor on the bedside table he checks himself in the mirror, turning his head left and right, then stretching, arms pushing upwards he flexes his spine and opens the wardrobe. A row of shirts of various blues hang to the left side while on the right, neatly pressed and perfectly creased are various pairs of trousers, all closely resembling each other in cut and colour. His choice is somewhat limited but still, his hand wavers between the various browns of the trousers and the different blues of the shirts. It's the same procedure every morning, a sacred procedure almost. He chooses his clothes which he slips on his skin and then covers with a light cotton lab coat for the purposes of his work. Only he knows about that life beneath the lab coat. That secret life that the clothes contain. Nobody else would guess that at the end of each day he sheds his coat like a serpent sheds its skin, renewed, reborn and already dressed. Except, there's something different about this morning. This morning, he is even more meticulous about the particular choice before him. For today he has decided. He's coming out. And for a man like Pepito, first impressions count. He stands for some moments, head pitched to one side, eyes narrowed in concentration, tapping his chin with his finger before pulling out several combination's of trouser and shirt. Holding them up to the mirror he scrutinizes each combination. Sky blue and chocolate brown. Dark blue and camel. It's an endless deliberation until finally he decides on a teal shirt and beige trousers. He stands back. He examines. It's a daring move he knows but you can tell he's pleased by the slow, sly curve of his lip.
She heard him. She heard him moving around upstairs. Dropping the duster she hurries to the foot of the stairs, her hand hovering over the banister and waits. Should she call to him? Let him know she's here? She's not so sure. Her heart says hurry but her mind says no. She wavers, left foot hitched to take the stairs and right one planted firmly on the floor. Which should she listen to? Her heart or her head? Left foot or right? She isn't quite sure. She contemplates her options, lining them up in front of her. She could turn around and go back into the shop, turn the sign, dust some more and wait for him to descend or she could climb those stairs, one at a time and make her presence known. It was a tough call. A fragile balance between tact and desire that was strung out on a tightened wire that she'd walked each day for the last few years. One wrong move and she could loose her footing and slip forever into that definitive chasm of rejection. Or worse yet, she might actually alarm him. And she knows she does. Sometimes, on those very rare days when she throws caution out the back door and with reckless abandon she moves a little closer, steals up behind him, brushes past him accidently, she can feel his back stiffen, smell the pungent sweat of fear. And it's all so silly. So very, very silly. Silly that beneath the cracked veneer, pulsed the heart of a passionate woman.
Tilting her chin, she gazes up the stairway and listens. She counts to ten, then shifting her weight onto her left foot she takes the first step. She stops. She listens again with her head half turned and eases herself onto the second step. Then the third and fourth. And it's plain sailing from there.
Meanwhile, primed and prepped, Pepito is considering his options. He has a meeting to fulfill with the owner of the strip club, Mariquita and his first instinct is to go straight there but then there is Gloria and she was bound to be a problem. Not a major one, for sure but nevertheless one he has to deal with like a persistent itch in the middle of his back - awkward to reach but still, he needs to scratch. Usually, he took his place beside her in the shop, serving the customers, checking the stock, placing new orders and counting the hours until the end of the day and his real life could begin. But not today. Today he has other plans. Plans that didn't include the buying and selling of tobacco, or Gloria, or any of her prying questions and she was bound to ask, she always did. And he knows he's taking a risk, exposed in daylight playing a role he usually reserves for the shady cloak of night but quite frankly, he doesn't give a shit.
He's juiced up on adrenalin, dressed up for a purpose but most of all, he's ready.
He's well rehearsed.
He moves over to the side of the bed, picks up the holster from the bedside table, buckles it around his waist and slips his father's gun inside. It's a snug fit, hugging his belly like a weightlifters belt but it feels good. It feels right. Then he shrugs on the jacket and tugs on the lapels. Slipping his fingers through the scattering of hairs that spring from his scalp, he takes a last look at his reflection and displays his approval with an affirmative nod of his head. He moves to the door and pulls it open just as Gloria has her fist primed to knock. Startled, she withdraws her hand and lets it fall idly by her side, shuffling nervously from one foot to the other as though her conviction had been erased by the sudden sight of Pepito on the other side of the door. But he doesn't wait for her to recall her purpose, her reason for climbing those stairs. Closing the door behind him, avoiding her eyes, he squeezes past, his back pressed flat against the wall and his protruding gut grazing her wrist.
"Just going out .." He calls over his shoulder as he retreats down the landing. "Shouldn't be long."
Moving quickly, he grabs his helmet and has already bolted down the stairs and out of the shop before she has a chance to open her mouth.
No questions asked, just the way he likes it.
Gloria walks to the doorway behind the counter, cocks her head to one side and stretches her neck forwards, her eyes fixed on the stairway beyond. She waits. She waits like this for some moments, suspended in time, breathing subdued, straining to catch the slightest sound from the flat above. But there is nothing - no sound of movement, no stirrings of life. Only silence, like an absence of air that floats down the stairway and fills the shop. She shouldn't be worried, not really but a familiar sense of foreboding is beginning to tickle inside her gut so she grabs a duster from a shelf beneath the counter and starts to wipe the glass with wide, sweeping movements of her arm, spasmodically cocking her ear to imaginary sounds from above. Silly to worry really and what's worse, she knows it's so. So really, very silly but she can't help imagining the worst. A grown man, whose life she still knows nothing about except that little chink she glimpses in the shop. That peek into the person she steals by just being there, day in and day out, must count for something after all. But such a solitary person, she can never draw him out. And she's tried, lord knows she's tried. She's tried because she loves him and she worries because she loves him, even though it's so, so silly.
Turning towards the shelves behind her she moves the duster along the endless rows of cigarette packets, sending more dust swirling out into the air. She pinches her nose with her free hand and stifles a sneeze. Strange how every day she repeats the same procedure and yet, there is always more dust. A thin, grey layer gently coating every surface, just waiting for her to disturb its repose with the cloth and then land again in another place. Sometimes, she wonders why she bothers, the dust seems to breed overnight and no matter how thoroughly she cleans and wipes there's always more. There's always more the next day. Chin up her husband used to say long before he left her. Chin up. She raises her chin a fraction, her head tilted to one side and continues chasing the dust.
Pepito was already awake when he heard Gloria in the shop downstairs. He lay for some moments, face down, on the mangled bed listening to her shuffle around the shop before deciding to get up. Now, standing before the mirror, half-naked and groggy with sleep, he slaps his cheeks with the rigid palm of each hand, right then left, until the blood flows beneath his skin with a sobering sting. He checks himself in the mirror and runs his hands over his flushed face, down over the darkened slope of jowls where his palms snag on the bristles with a muffled rasp. Stepping over to the dressing table he picks up the razor and returns to the wardrobe, moving the blades over his face as he walks, listening with muted satisfaction to the churning whine of the motor. Using wide, circular movements he moves it up over his cheeks and round over the back of his neck, catching those awkward little hairs that are sprouting up and growing with increasing regularity down towards his back. This was his mother's little job - the clipping of the hairs on the back and shoulders. She seemed to take pride in it and relished the chance to exert her motherly claim, pushing his head forwards with the tips of her fingers and clucking with her tongue as she guided the razor over his skin. It was her way of saying - look how much you need me, who else is going to keep those hairs in check when you can't do it yourself. But, of course, he could do it himself and yet, he allowed her that one little dignity. It was the least that he could do.
Placing the razor on the bedside table he checks himself in the mirror, turning his head left and right, then stretching, arms pushing upwards he flexes his spine and opens the wardrobe. A row of shirts of various blues hang to the left side while on the right, neatly pressed and perfectly creased are various pairs of trousers, all closely resembling each other in cut and colour. His choice is somewhat limited but still, his hand wavers between the various browns of the trousers and the different blues of the shirts. It's the same procedure every morning, a sacred procedure almost. He chooses his clothes which he slips on his skin and then covers with a light cotton lab coat for the purposes of his work. Only he knows about that life beneath the lab coat. That secret life that the clothes contain. Nobody else would guess that at the end of each day he sheds his coat like a serpent sheds its skin, renewed, reborn and already dressed. Except, there's something different about this morning. This morning, he is even more meticulous about the particular choice before him. For today he has decided. He's coming out. And for a man like Pepito, first impressions count. He stands for some moments, head pitched to one side, eyes narrowed in concentration, tapping his chin with his finger before pulling out several combination's of trouser and shirt. Holding them up to the mirror he scrutinizes each combination. Sky blue and chocolate brown. Dark blue and camel. It's an endless deliberation until finally he decides on a teal shirt and beige trousers. He stands back. He examines. It's a daring move he knows but you can tell he's pleased by the slow, sly curve of his lip.
She heard him. She heard him moving around upstairs. Dropping the duster she hurries to the foot of the stairs, her hand hovering over the banister and waits. Should she call to him? Let him know she's here? She's not so sure. Her heart says hurry but her mind says no. She wavers, left foot hitched to take the stairs and right one planted firmly on the floor. Which should she listen to? Her heart or her head? Left foot or right? She isn't quite sure. She contemplates her options, lining them up in front of her. She could turn around and go back into the shop, turn the sign, dust some more and wait for him to descend or she could climb those stairs, one at a time and make her presence known. It was a tough call. A fragile balance between tact and desire that was strung out on a tightened wire that she'd walked each day for the last few years. One wrong move and she could loose her footing and slip forever into that definitive chasm of rejection. Or worse yet, she might actually alarm him. And she knows she does. Sometimes, on those very rare days when she throws caution out the back door and with reckless abandon she moves a little closer, steals up behind him, brushes past him accidently, she can feel his back stiffen, smell the pungent sweat of fear. And it's all so silly. So very, very silly. Silly that beneath the cracked veneer, pulsed the heart of a passionate woman.
Tilting her chin, she gazes up the stairway and listens. She counts to ten, then shifting her weight onto her left foot she takes the first step. She stops. She listens again with her head half turned and eases herself onto the second step. Then the third and fourth. And it's plain sailing from there.
Meanwhile, primed and prepped, Pepito is considering his options. He has a meeting to fulfill with the owner of the strip club, Mariquita and his first instinct is to go straight there but then there is Gloria and she was bound to be a problem. Not a major one, for sure but nevertheless one he has to deal with like a persistent itch in the middle of his back - awkward to reach but still, he needs to scratch. Usually, he took his place beside her in the shop, serving the customers, checking the stock, placing new orders and counting the hours until the end of the day and his real life could begin. But not today. Today he has other plans. Plans that didn't include the buying and selling of tobacco, or Gloria, or any of her prying questions and she was bound to ask, she always did. And he knows he's taking a risk, exposed in daylight playing a role he usually reserves for the shady cloak of night but quite frankly, he doesn't give a shit.
He's juiced up on adrenalin, dressed up for a purpose but most of all, he's ready.
He's well rehearsed.
He moves over to the side of the bed, picks up the holster from the bedside table, buckles it around his waist and slips his father's gun inside. It's a snug fit, hugging his belly like a weightlifters belt but it feels good. It feels right. Then he shrugs on the jacket and tugs on the lapels. Slipping his fingers through the scattering of hairs that spring from his scalp, he takes a last look at his reflection and displays his approval with an affirmative nod of his head. He moves to the door and pulls it open just as Gloria has her fist primed to knock. Startled, she withdraws her hand and lets it fall idly by her side, shuffling nervously from one foot to the other as though her conviction had been erased by the sudden sight of Pepito on the other side of the door. But he doesn't wait for her to recall her purpose, her reason for climbing those stairs. Closing the door behind him, avoiding her eyes, he squeezes past, his back pressed flat against the wall and his protruding gut grazing her wrist.
"Just going out .." He calls over his shoulder as he retreats down the landing. "Shouldn't be long."
Moving quickly, he grabs his helmet and has already bolted down the stairs and out of the shop before she has a chance to open her mouth.
No questions asked, just the way he likes it.
No comments:
Post a Comment