Ouroboros - WIP
I.
Several hours had passed by since I poured the most recent mug of coffee for a lonely road-hog with a dollar and change in their pocket, and I had been washing the same square foot of countertop in a circular motion for twelve minutes. Counting the ticks as they pick and prick at my temples. Thud, thud-thud. The plastic-edged analog clock that hangs on the wall above the pass-through window into the kitchen is grotesquely abrasive when you take a moment to drift away and begin to hear it.
Or, maybe it was more than twelve minutes that I had lost.
The buzz of the blue and yellow alcohol-brand neon sign behind my head--beer that no one ever really orders here--chokes in and out of irritation ranges depending on the ebb and flow of the retro radio station that I put on at ten o’clock every evening. Helps to wind down those that have been sitting in my diner for hours longer than it took them to eat Lotti and Jóska’s food--ten bucks on the bill, for two dollars worth of quality.
Whether it is comfortable or not--something that could easily be either true or false depending on the night in question--it is a significant pattern. One that has kept me ticking boxes and hoping that I get the opportunity to do this exact mundane thing tomorrow. A grander aspiration for a romanticized greater purpose has been sapped from me for some time. At present, the ideal is monotony.
Whomever came up with the will not go quietly into the good night has never tried to contend with the deviation dreams that protrude from every orifice during and after the rehab and recovery process. No, that is not a spout of AA bullshit, it is the truth, and it is the vibration in my bones.
The small set of copper bells attached to the inside of our front door jingled, a noise in which my ears have learned to almost completely tune out at this point. The thin dark brown front door to the shack I call a business--with the boxed window, without the professor’s office fogging--sees numerous folks file in, and back out again. On a daily basis. Some the same folks. The majority are new and never-to-be-seen-again faces. Match that with the giant, nearly wall-to-wall booth-height window stretched across the front of the rectangle-shaped diner, and the professional level of no longer noticing the traffic in and out of the twelve parking slots protruding from the front of the building, I just don’t clock the people that come and go from this truck-stop, highway-adjacent, propped-up mediocre coffee providing establishment. Though, in truth, I am proud of this little set-up and the imagined sensation road-warriors have when they see this oasis just past the turn-off.
It is also, generally, none of my fucking business who is weary and wants a nip of caffeine, who is tweaking and need a decaf to relive or pretend, or who it is that slides a food-stamp across the bar to me embarrassed that their bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich -- probably the only actual meal they have consumed in a week -- is paid for by the municipality or the state. Be who it may. I do not care who walks through that door unless they plan on robbing the place, can’t pay their bill--and even then I am not partial to feeling obligated to chase them down and acquire my rightfully deserved six dollars and twenty-seven cents for a sandwich made by two failed lawyers--, or those looking to eventually stir up some kind of scene with their personal problems.
That night. I probably should have cared.
For the first time in what felt like the entire evening, I was not even facing the counter. Instead, rinsing my washcloth in the sink next to the towering (and ancient) four-pot coffee maker. It was weathered-steel in majority; industrial. With some faded copper logos, dials, and handles. Unfortunately, the distraction I was participating in while standing there, over the intricacies of our coffee maker melted away the second he spoke.
“Hello, Buko.”
It rang in my head, and accompanied the sound made by my bar-stools compressing.
Shit.
—
Aside. Given the middle name Bukowski by my mother -- who was a fan of flagellating poetry and hereditary alcoholism -- Buko became a colloquial nickname. One that only my least favorite type of people used or knew. One I had hoped I would never hear again. For the rest of my life. Especially spoken in such a fat, obese, I am addressing you with this relevant and revealing nickname on purpose kind of way.
My eyes closed slowly. With a very heavy weight. Like large metal garage doors. Forearms leaning against the edge of the sink, the crunchy -- yet somehow wet -- cloth in my hands slipped out like molasses and slopped onto the bottom of the steel sink with an audible sound. A foley experts wet-dream. Reaching over and pushing the faucet handle towards the tap, I finally opened my eyes.
And my mouth.
“Agent Steyori. I ... “ turning around I saw the clean FBI black two-piece suit with a white dress shirt and a thin black tie, all wrapped around a semi-leathery man. Fifty-something with the same colored tone of skin that an eighty-year-old reporter who has spent twenty years on the ground in Kandahar would have.
His face was one of a human who may have loved once. But was struck with the ideal nature of “saving the United States of America” quietly from behind a cinched designer tie, and how this drastically dissolved his chance of spending more than a handful of true moments with someone special. It was a lifestyle choice. One that I never truly got the inclination regarding whether the right path was chosen. Of all my abilities to read and manipulate people, he was harder to pinpoint.
“I am sorry that I have the pleasure of hearing your voice again. Something I was hoping to avoid until the good lord ...”
I could not help but crack a small smirk when this came out of my mouth. God? Me? Always gets a childish giggle brewing inside of me
“...decided to take me from this Earth” I finished. After taking the pause for all of that graceful exposition.
“And it is great to see you too, Mr. Ellis,” he replied. Almost friendly.
—
Corbin Bukowski Ellis is my full legal name. At least, last time I checked ... or … was arrested.
“What can I do you for, Agent?” and I reached over to grab a pot of coffee nearing the end of its drip cycle. “Coffee?” holding it up high.
A nod. “Please” as he taps the counter and leans back on the stool he sat atop.
There was not a single of the thirty-five strands of thought that could properly conclude on a real answer to the question: what on Earth is he doing here?
I placed a short white ceramic coffee mug on the counter and tipped the pot.
“Buko ... I know you planned to live every last day your life has left in it never seeing me again.” He was avoiding eye contact, not a great sign. Especially for someone as authoritative as I know he wants to be. Either that or my coffee pouring skills were actively blowing his mind. “We... no. I, need your help. And your expertise.” And I almost kept pouring. For the rest of eternity.
Catching the pot at the last second, I pulled away and threw it back to lay upon the rooftop hotplate of the coffee maker. Agent Steyori’s cup sat there. A vibration would have sent that java over the rim.
“Suppose I will pass on the creamer.”
“So,” I had to ask without so much as a brief glimpse of antagonizing wordplay or cynicism. A judgment that I have received on numerous occasions. “What is it this passive convict can do for you, Sir.”
I could see the muscles in his face fighting the urge to look up at me. Instead, he remained laser-focused on the over-poured cup of black coffee that sat in front of him.
Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, he reached up and spun the mug just enough that the handle was positioned on the left side. From his perspective. He was a lefty. A tidbit of information I had already gleaned thanks to a horrific familiarization period between myself and Jacob Steyori.
Without looking up. “I need you to remove someone ... someone dangerous.” He lifted the cup to his mouth and took a breathy sip of the still incredibly hot beverage. While I sat awash and woozy, with every memory I have ever stored in my mind regarding the incredibly un-brief experience of living in my seventy-square-foot cell.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of his pitch.
The clink of his mug hitting the counter snapped me out of a very muscular daydream. This abrupt return to reality was further marred by the fact that Agent Steyori was now looking directly at me.
Checking me.
Perceiving my sanity, and gauging my attention. I was excellent at what I did because I could pick apart a person with just a study. So, it is obvious when someone else is sizing me up.
And that is when he colored his goal with the particulars that brought him to that very specific red pleather stool he purposefully sat upon at that moment.
“ ... And I need you to do it without being caught.”
