Stop.
Telephone lines buzzed while I waited for the crosswalk to turn. The street was empty. No cars. But I stood waiting at the corner anyway. A stack of newspapers pressed up against a vending box, and the headline was typed in large block words. Is This The End?
Pictured beneath the title was some old, angry lady shouting at the camera. It might have been about the heat, or maybe the earthquakes. I didn’t know. The children are our future. But they’re not going to have a future if these heat waves don’t stop. The old woman had cheeks that looked like a full kangaroo pouch, and the crosswalk still hadn’t changed. A bead of sweat rolled down my back.
Why did Spit want to meet me for breakfast? I don’t think I’d ever seen him eat. My stomach tightened as a city bus blew past out of nowhere. An advertisement for some realty company stretched across its entire side, and someone with a graffitied mustache gave me a thumbs up from the picture. Welcome to Your New Home. The walk signal finally switched.
Go.
Spit’s camouflaged shorts had faded to a single shade of green. He sat at a table outside the cafe, sipping some energy drink with the words Strawberry Fusion on its side. I bit the scar on my lip as he looked up at me. Dirt circled his sockets, and his pupils were the size of a paranoid owl.
“Hey, man,” he said, bouncing his leg up and down.
I pulled out the chair across from him and took a seat, reaching for the paper menu that lay open on the table. Two Eggs: Sunny Side Up. My stomach squeezed the bubbling acid inside of it. Extra Bacon. When was the last time I ate?
“Hear about Jimmy?” Spit asked, as I studied the breakfast options. He wouldn’t stop bouncing his leg. It shook the entire table, and I couldn’t focus on what I was reading. “Did you hear he got mugged?”
I looked up from the menu, raising an eyebrow. Mugged? Jimmy was the kind of person who would mug someone else, not the other way around. “Deal gone wrong?” I asked.
He shrugged, eyes sinking further into his skull. “Probably. He didn’t really want to talk about it when I asked.” The metal can of his drink clattered against his teeth as he took another sip.
I flipped the menu over and back again. Nothing looked appetizing. Fresh Strawberry Pancakes. Pork and Hash Scramble. Why did ground pork have to look so much like brain matter? My stomach deflated as I remembered the dead coyote crushed beneath that sign. Sneering. I needed a Xanax.
“What about Nathan?” I asked, trying to change the conversation. “Weren’t you and Clair looking for him or something?”.
Spit quit bouncing his leg and looked over the crowd with his owl eyes. “That’s the crazy thing,” he said, leaning over the table. His breath smelled like he swallowed a bonfire. “He was supposed to pick Amity up from the train station but never showed. I mean Nathan’s a lot of things, but I don’t think he’d abandon his girl.”
I tongued the mark on my lip, and Amity’s voice rang through my head. Promise you won’t tell Nathan. “Maybe he got picked up by the cops,” I offered. “He does like to make a scene.”
Spit’s giant pupils landed on the scar across my lip. It was more of a fault line than a scar. Nathan had swung so hard when he found out about me and Amity that it took a month before I could eat solid foods again. Sweat bled between my fingers and into the paper menu. Homefries. Extra Salt.
“Sorry,” Spit leaned back in his chair, and fresh air replaced the smell of stale smoke. “I know you guys have your differences or whatever.”
“It was a long time ago,” I shrugged, folding the menu back together. Welcome to the Sidewinder Cafe.
“It’s just crazy, ya know?” Spit continued. “Nate’s missing. People are getting mugged. The city’s basically on fire. Like, fuck. No one’s safe.” He paused to wipe the pink colored liquid from his lips. “I even went and got some nazars”.
“Some what?” I asked.
He reached into a giant pocket and pulled out a necklace. “Nazars. They’re like protection.”
The thing was an amulet consisting of concentric, black and blue circles that hung from a strip of leather. It looked like an eye. Sneering.
“You’re a good friend, ya know?” Spit said, placing the thing on the table. “I just want to make sure you’re safe.”
The A/C rattled above us. Me, Spit, and Amity. It was like a machine that blew all the noise from the room. Even the TV was muted. I don’t think anyone had touched it since I was last here because the man with perfect hair was forecasting the weather again. The pits of his shirt were soaked.
Amity’s eyes pierced the side of my face from the adjacent couch. They were puffed and strawberry red, and the white strap of her sports bra stretched over her shoulder. Promise you won’t tell Nathan. The scar on my lip kept stinging, but I couldn’t tell if I was imagining it or not. Maybe it was the heat. Steps echoed from the kitchen, and Clair came into the room.
“There you fuckin’ are,” she exclaimed, looking right at me. “You know, a response would have been nice.”
Shit. Her texts. I forgot.
I clutched the phone in my pocket as if it were weighted down by all the messages I’d been ignoring. “Sorry, I was—”
“Yeah, with Verona,” Clair interrupted, rubbing her fingers against her temples. “I know. Sorry. Just…do me the courtesy of responding next time. Ok?”
Spit plucked a piece of carpet free from the floor, oblivious to the conversation, and the man on the TV pointed to a picture of a giant, smiling sun. What was I even doing here? Amity breathed deeper and deeper from her couch, like a clogged vent. Her airways rattled louder and louder until she finally burst into tears. Again. Clair sighed, crossing the living room to sit on the couch next to her.
Spit pinched the piece of carpet he was holding at both ends before slowly pulling it apart. I needed a Xanax. The large cartoon sun on TV had grown to the size of the entire screen, and a pair of sunglasses covered its fake eyes.
“Hey, he’ll show up,” Clair whispered to Amity. “It hasn’t even been that long.”
The A/C wasn’t strong enough to muffle Amity’s sobbing. It cut through like a dying hyena’s. Clair kept trying to calm her down. “Hey, you know Nathan. He probably got himself lost looking for the train station. I mean honestly, there’s no reason for any of us to be worried.”
The giant, televised sun started to sweat.