April 21, 2008
EX CALCE LIBERATUS REDUX OR SETTLING UP IS HARD TO DO
| BERRIEN C. HENDERSON |
The morning came as thick and sluggish as Art’s own waking.
Mr. Stone chomped a half-smoked Swisher Sweet and grinned around it as the brass bell heralded Art’s entrance.
Art reached into his pocket and pulled out folded bills. “Mr. Stone.” He nodded.
”Afternoon, Art. What can I do you for?”
”Well, since you put it that way. Look. You said I could redeem the gun.”
”The gun parts.”
”Parts, then, for four hundred bucks.” He counted out the twenties and fives he’d gotten for fixing the widow Perkins’s pump. The tens for hauling off deadwood for ol’ Edsel. The fifty from the caulking job—post-painting—for Mrs. Brown. He pushed the bills across the countertop. “Here.”
”Pawn ticket?”
Art could have come across the display case. “You just hold on a damned minute. You’re going to hassle me for a receiver and buttstock and the foregrip after I already got the barrels?”
Mr. Stone chewed the Swisher Sweet. Slowly. “I get meth tweaks in here a good bit. Construction workers who pawn their own toolbelts. Fella come in to pawn a gun just yesterday, probably for cash to cover bad checks—had the look about him. All kinds. You, though. You come in with a two thousand dollar custom twelve gauge. Family heirloom. Get a clean thousand for it. Go on a bender for two weeks and come up dry as a bone on what you owed that lawyer Marten”—he raised a hand to stifle Art’s interjection—”and you need some-damned-body to not give you what you want. Plus, it’s my prerogative to hassle as I see fit.”
Art blinked. So, he was at a disadvantage in this study of small town mercantilism and market influences. He tapped a fingertip on the money spread out on the countertop. “I’ve got the money. And gas ain’t no cheaper for you than for me.”
”Still, I’ve got the rest of your gun.” Mr. Stone took the old blunt out of his mouth and pointed it at Art. “Got what Luther had. Got what your granddaddy Heath had. And although I saw them come in here—and rare, that—they turned it to something ’cause they was something. Now, you cogitate that, my friend.”
Art had a dozen invectives swirling and percolating in his mind, but they stuck in his throat as Mr. Stone fixed him for the longest minute Art had felt since—well, since now.
Plunk.
”Foregrip.”
Plunk.
”Receiver and buttstock.”
Mr. Stone put both hands on the gun parts and slid them forward. he then re-lit the old cigar with the most banged-up Zippo ever and drew deeply as Art said, “Thank you” in no more a whisper from a contrite boy.
A cloud of smoke enveloped them with Stone’s exhale. “Come here.”
”Sir?”
Another cloud of smoke.
”Closer.”
The pawn broker seemed fifty feet away. Then came the sound in Art’s ear: “Go home. You’ve been waiting long enough.”
And . . .
Art put the two pieces of gun in the truck on the seat, cranked the truck, put it in gear, pulled out of the parking lot, and caught Mr. Stone’s waving as he locked up the pawn shop, then . . .
proceeded to turn off the store’s lights.
Back in the inventory room, Stone stopped and stared at the man slumped in the corner. A half-smoked yet snuffed cigar lay on his chest. He dozed with something of a smile on his face as he dreamed of himself standing there.
Then the person standing shivered—watery illusion evaporating to nothing as the slender form of Eva the witch materialized via her whispered sortilege.
”Thanks.” The witch leaned close to whisper in his ear. “And no hard feelings.”
She straightened, turned, and stepped through a misty portal in the wall and into the growing dusk over Fogle County. She sent herself into a passing raven and made straight for home.
family » Blog Archive » EX CALCE LIBERATUS REDUX OR SETTLING UP IS HARD TO DO said,
April 22, 2008 at 10:19 am
[…] Guest Author wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptYou come in with a two thousand dollar custom twelve gauge. Family heirloom. Get a clean thousand for it. Go on a bender for two weeks and come up dry as a bone on what you owed that lawyer Marten”—he raised a hand to stifle Art’s … […]