Night At The Plaza

Short fiction by Jon T.

Visual by Sandolore Sykes

This piece is part of The Lot, the first volume of SUM FLUX. Featured in Edition II, this work is one of eight contributions to this edition. Read more about this zine and its theme here: https://sumflux.substack.com/p/volume-1-the-lot.

Shaved at least a minute off the food run since I showed Kimmy my secret knock. I keep track of exposure time, write it down in the log. She gives me a medium bag full of day-olds tonight, and I give her the good lucky salute and thank her for her service. Makes me a little sad in the corners knowing she won't have long now. Don’t know how she’s made it this far, workin' Daddy Donuts till the clock runs out. I tell her about the ghoul gas but she always just shrugs it off with a 'poor-you smile, like I’m the crazy one.

It's a hundred-yard skedaddle back to the short bus 'cross the customers only blacktop, top-lit with just a couple of penta-beam floods, shinin' down eternal, like midnight sentries—‘cept those eyes haven't any armies. Right? Nothing to dangle down and swat away the coyotes.

At 11:34, I see some everdeads takin’ a piss on the back door of 'Ol Schooly. And I wouldn't care so much but I need to get back in my wheelhouse without a bunch of messin' around with the locals. The murder mist'll take care of them sooner or later. I just gotta get back in the mobile, breathin' that sweet O asap—scrubby clean and toxin-free. I think about dashin' but It’ll just fuzz-out my ventilator and make a scene so I calculate a quick alt, de-smear my goggs with the fleecy inside of my hoodie, and start walking the long way around the perimeter. This is gonna fuck with my timings but I aint prepared to do battle with these two unsavoury mutánte delectos.

I keep my side-eye scopin’ around the mostly empty lot. My adopted homeland and refuge, I am intimately familiar with every yellow bracket, every crack and curb, and every smear-stained patch of slick on this urban pasture. And this evening, I am sharply aware of a dangerous tingle transmittin' from a white 'n blue capback parked in the corner, in front of Lucky Foot Massage. Looks like security.

The pair behind the bus are groping at each other's pants now. They're leanin' on my back wheels so I can probably strafe around the far side and get in through my foldy doors while they're busy tuggin' and snortin'.

And as I curbwalk around, swinging my snack bag, there's a cluster of dressy night legs on the boulevard, laughing at my prophylactic body armor and life support apparatus. They call me nuts and mock my vigilance and I tell them they’ll be dead before sunrise. No one ever believes me.

Back in Greater Parkistan, I'm approachin' homebase, and I see the headlamps from the security truck light up and hear the annoying dog whine of electric motors creep toward me and my bus, which is now rockin’ on its coil springs with these interlopers playin' pushy shovey on the side panels, their belts around their ankles. There's no decency anymore, and I gotta remind myself not to get involved. Just slip into the habitat and let the strip mall patrol do their job.

Old Elgin, the New Horizons Pharmacy manager, used to come by every once in a while, pretending to give me a hard time about boondockin', but he didn't bother doin' anything, long as I kept to myself. He tells me last week that they're hirin' some Gold Falcon Protection Services to keep an eye on the grounds. Crime's on the rise, he says, and I tell him, tapping my tox-ometer, that the only rise going on is an increase in poison particulate in the atmosphere.

The thing rolls up and this canvas loaf soldier jumps out of the vehicle with a twenty-pound Maglite swingin' across the pavement. He tells the perverts to get the hell outta here but when they flip him off and jeer recklessly, he unslings his stun gun and clips one of them in the butt cheeks with the flyin' shock prongs. Electro Interruptus and they both go down in comic spasms.

I'm frozen, watching from the front grill, peekin' 'round the corner at the commotion. The uniform gets up over these two and starts layin' boots to their half-naked bodies until they unseize themselves and scramble away into the street. He then turns his attention to me. I don't exactly blend in to the surroundings, and I am not oblivious to my unusual presentation but I'm suddenly feeling the tickityticks of anxiety as he up-downs his beam in my direction.

They told me about you, he says. And for a brief moment, I think maybe this is a head-nod acknowledgment of my longstanding tenure here at the plaza. But then he says I better pack it up and roll on. Says, letting a paranoid mental case like me camp out here is bad for business. All I can do is start backing away and hope I can jump inside my quarters before this psycho guardia gets any closer.

I drop my bag of donuts and hold up my reflective glove hand like I need five minutes, which seems to satisfy him for now. So I get inside my baby and bar the door. I see him out the driver-side window just standing there waiting, thunking his flashlight in his puffy palm all threatnin' like; but I don't intend on going anywhere anytime soon. I need time to decontaminate. Gotta wash off the world. Purify. Shrug off the shadows of the evening and bathe in my UV for an extra long spell considerin' the major wrinkle in my routine.

But my ablutions are cut short by that obangatang hammerin' and yammerin' outside like he's the new superintendent of this dreadland. I'm loathe to do it, but I gear up to inform him of his mistake and assured misfortune when I hear more voices. Maybe four or five. So I spread my side curtain and glimpse out into the early morning gauze of night and see that the horny pals have come back with friends, and they're swarming the Gold Falcon with fists and pointy shoes. And though he's putting up a good fight, they've got him at the knees and pinned his neck down. One of them grabs my discarded sack of sustenance and flings out the donuts, rolling across the tarmac. They hood him with the plastic bag and pull it tight. I can see him trying to gnash and tongue-poke his way through the wrap but it clings close until his body loosens and sags underneath the gang of assailants.

They leave the body and I watch for signs of life. I look at the rise and fall on the bladder of my CO2 absorber then back out the window to the Gold Falcon, but there's no rise, no fall. His big blue mass, static, phasing under the lot lights.

A coyote comes and sniffs him out. Then another. And another. I fill my lungs deep and pull my little curtain closed.