Blue - 7. Chapter 7

1313 Buford Road was the address of Friday’s Pawn and Junk It. Believe it or not, this was the same address I had written down a few hours before at my desk while I was thinking or obsessing over recent events for the hundredth time… kind of lost in the past. Ty had suggested trying the phone number. I agreed, it was time to put aside assessments and do something, even follow up a mysterious address. The phone did ring, but there was no answer… not even an answering service. Ty then suggested a road trip, he is so helpful.

 

Before we left I put on my ugly cap. I don’t know if that is the best way to deal with the issue of my changed appearance but it is a device often used by my people.

 

It was late afternoon. Long shadows broke up the cityscape. Bright sun, low in the sky, almost blinding us from the west, intermingled with the spreading darkness. Approaching sunset cast the real in the role of momentary illusion. The place we where looking for turned out to be a graffiti covered, concrete block building with a brick front and an overhanging awning above the entrance. Not the best place in town obviously, kind of a deserted stretch on the road of abandoned buildings and parking lots. The sides of the building were piled with, I suppose, scrap metal of various sorts. A homeless person with his shopping cart of aluminum cans was loitering at the corner of the building near the gate into the metal yard.

 

I parked Pacey in the empty parking lot directly in front of the entrance and turned to look at Ty in the passenger seat. He looked really big sitting inside Pacey. “Well, this looks more like a mistake than an important clue finding mission to me.” He shrugged and got out of the car. We had discussed the meaning of the card and my oblivious lack of awareness concerning writing down the address for some time before we agreed to pay a visit. It could be anything… yeah sure. But the only way to fine out anything was to go find out. So here I am in junk yard heaven, except it looks more like hell, still thinking things over. Ty was more a man of action.

 

When I got out of the car I heard a muttered voice say. “I wouldn’t park my car there, if I had a car.” It was the homeless person and I glanced at him/her. It was hard to tell gender with the way the guy was dressed in layers of… rags really. But some of them looked like male rags and some looked like female rags. I dismissed the comment because the guy wasn’t looking at Ty and me. I made a step toward the entrance and heard “Suit yourself.” I gave the homeless figure, studiously ignoring me, a longer look and then joined Ty at the store entrance.

 

Plastered to the door was a cardboard sign that read… “Ring Bell for Service.” I reached out my hand and again heard the muttered voice of the street guy, “I wouldn’t ring that bell.” I don’t know why but I almost laughed, and I stopped reaching for the doorbell. I looked at Ty, who just shrugged and rang the bell only to end up yapping outrageously… pulling his hand back and hopping a little. Okay he hopped a lot. “Motherfucker!“ It was cute if it obviously hadn’t hurt a bunch. A blue electric spark had jumped from the bell to Ty’s finger. I think I saw smoke too. “Are you okay? Let me see.”

 

“Bloody hell no.” Ty said with his finger in his mouth. “I’ll be fine.“ Why at that moment I thought about taking his finger and putting it in my mouth is just one of the many mysterious of life.

 

“Maybe you will learn to listen one day.” The homeless guy again. Said just barely loud enough to be heard.

 

We both had stepped back from the door then to turn toward the source of the chastising commentary. And good thing too… because the door suddenly banged open and the first thing to exit was a big wad of brown something flying high and at high speed that smacked Pacey in the wind shield with a big splat. “I thought I told you fags, I don’t sell antiques.” The gesticulating and flailing mouth of tobacco spewed.

 

Several things happened at once.

 

While.

 

Pacey’s headlights were flashing, his horn was screeching and his wipers were flapping non stop as sprays of windshield liquid were gushing everywhere. His hatchback door popped open and Blue jumped out already barking and circling around and around Pacey.

 

And while.

 

Ty punched the guy, who doesn’t sale antiques, square in the face. The guy fell backwards into the pawn shop and farted, loudly.

 

I stood gaping like a dollar store goldfish.

 

And.

 

The homeless guy was having hysterics… laughing and pointing. No one should giggle in public like that. It was just wrong the sounds he made.

 

I don‘t know why I was out of breath. But… I was.

 

“Do you think this guy is Piper? He doesn’t really look like a Piper. He looks more like a Grunt, if Grunt was a first name.” The name included with the address on the card I did/didn’t write had been, Piper. “Piper is a girl’s name right, I was expecting a girl.”

 

“You guys are late but it was worth the wait.” It was the homeless guy again. “I’m Piper.”

 

“You’re Piper?”

 

“That’s what I said”

 

“So you did” I stepped aside to look at Piper from my other perspective and boy was I shocked. Piper was a hole. A hole in the woven fabric of time. All those connections intermingling made a whole and here was a hole in it. A hole!

 

“Listen I don’t have much time now, I got a performance in four hours and it can take an hour to get into my body girdle.”

 

“Be at the Sweet Potato at 9:00, tell the doorman you are Piper’s guests and don’t be late this time and watch your back.” With that, Piper pulled something loose and removed his rags in one piece like a robe, depositing them in the shopping cart. Now it was obvious he was male because the black leotard he was wearing hid nothing. He gave me a smile, then became pushing his cart across the parking lot fading away with each step into nothing and the hole closed and he was gone.

 

I stepped back into normal to find Ty smirking, Blue urinating on the Tobacco guy and Pacey demanding a car wash immediately.

 

 

 

 

~*~

 

 

April 26, 2012