First Night, part one

She was smoking. Wisps like a cirrus cloud knocked off its foundation swirled from her nostrils and climbed, spreading tendrils through her auburn curls. Barbara took a breath and a shroud covered her face, of course it did. I should have known then, but you know what they say about armchair quarterbacks. Roberts black shirt was long on her slight torso. It draped her, bunched up over her knees as she sat Indian-style on the rumpled sheets. I left before she smooshed out the spent fag.  Eggs. I required eggs more than I needed her accusing, her grievous silence.

 My shift was just beginning, his was nearing its end, but cops never punch a clock. A job was done when it was done. It happened tonight the northern lights were at their peak, so damned bright that the moon, embarrassed from trying, hid behind the one cloud in the sky. Here in Kenetica we always have that one cloud. Some of the residents even have a name for it: ‘Ol Beard’. Or ‘Gandalf’. Sometimes ‘The Great Grey Bush’.  The geezers talk about the cloud like folks in other towns talk about the weather, or the Yankees. So colloquial, there they’ll be on stools in front of the five and dime, or gathered like crows in the barber shop. “What’s Santa’s Fuzz up to this morning?” “About six foot, five.” Meaning low and to the East. From town that would be over the high school football field. Such was the talk around Kenetica. That and Molly Reynold’s skirt length, or this recent crop of freshmen. Bums, all of ‘em, and their old men too, for what it’s worth.

 But, what I was getting to was Robert’s shift just ending, and me robbing the donut shop, and the intersection we were on, and the collision. You see, I should have known because it was a done deal. This thing was going down like it always does, like it was written. I backed in, leaving the jacked pony running, because that was just good business. The green glowing crystals were so cheap and plentiful that a pony like this could go on idling for a week without giving up a centimeter of radiance. Also, I was just going to ditch it over by the landfill anyway. Sundays were the best for the donut shop. Phil’s Donuts was the hub, first of the week, and all day long. Phil had the grungiest, most god-awful donuts and confectionaries. His bacon was greasy and the eggs were flat, and dry. They were so dry that the geezers dipped them in their coffee. Let’s not even talk about the coffee. At Phil’s you got breakfast, and nothing but breakfast, even at ten thirty on Sunday night. If you wanted breakfast, then you’d better get it now, because Phil locked up at eleven, and wouldn’t be back until Wednesday morning, six A.M. Sunday night, ten-thirty, the coffers were full. Always. Robert’s at the end of his shift. Coffers’re full. Full charge in the pony. Locked and loaded. I got mine, Barbara got hers, but enough is never enough. Her bangs hung low, over her dusky eyes, but she blew them up and for an instant, through the nicotine haze, I could see her gaze shift far away. To the glare jumping off his chrome, and the crunch of the wheels coming up the drive. My cue to get, to vamoose. My thirst was quenched, the job awaits, I’m off.

 Everyone here has a job, from the bottom feeding geezers who live off of scraps and tidbits, to the cops and robbers, and all the way to the top where the white bright and shiny mayors watch the shimmering, shifting lights and pen tomorrow’s schedule in blue ink in complicated schematics on white boards so white you have to wonder what kind of industrial strength solvents the janitorial staff is sucking into their bleeding lungs. These are the things I think about when I climb out of jacked ponys with a loaded gat tucked in my waistband. The northern lights are so bright tonight.

 The lights are so bright. The place is closing down, and the crowd is sparse. Everyone knows everyone else. They see me coming, it’s to be expected. The coffers are full – it’s Sunday, they always are. I’m off my step, the lights are flickering, but in the shop nobody notices because it’s not the donut shop lights that are flickering. It’s out here in the night. Over my shoulder, I look up. There’s a catch in my get-a-long, worlds out of whack, Kenetica skips a beat. Have the mayors rolled over in their beds? I don’t know. The lights rev back up, I could almost hear the heavenly roar but for the grinding gears in my head. Barbara’s cloud obscures my better instincts; bright ash drips from the tip and pricks a pinhole in Robert’s shirt.

 “You know the drill, money in the bag, pop open that till.” I don’t know how I get to this point so fast, then the sirens come and that’s time out of joint as well. How am I waving the gun around like this, godammit, the door busts open and I’m sprawling on the ground, I must have pulled a girl from her stool and she’s under my arm and there he is busting in. It’s his job, Robert the Good. He hasn’t even pulled his gun. His badge is shimmering neon, but these days we call it something else. The  nicotine cloud has dulled my mind, which is jumping around like monkeys on the bed. One fell off and the doctor said… oh shit.

 The smell of gunpowder is in the air. I find it strange that I have never in my life smelled gunpowder. This is NOT part of the job description. I didn’t even get the money. How am I supposed to eat next week, or pay off my creditors or the mayor’s tax? Will Barbara even let me in the front door without her weekly supply of mood-laced cigs? Robert’s shirt covers her, she looks child sized and her collar bone gleams under the weight of the sullen chandelier. A body falls.

 Sunday is almost done in Kenetica, and I’m running.