Chapter Six: Tabooli Mouth
When Sylvie Castro wasn't at school and wasn't stalking people or hatching diabolical plans to cause the world to spin in the opposite direction for her own benefit -- she was at work, as a cashier girl for a local Costco. There, she would ring up insane quantities of toilet bowl cleaner, and box-sets of Q-tips containing four individual boxes with 750 cotton-sticks each. There was a lot of griping from her customers which often led to tension after a hard night's work of scanning and rescanning barrels of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. Sometimes Sylvie thought of working in a bank -- air-conditioned and quiet, calm ... but then she would remind herself that this was Southern California, making a bank a very unsafe environment with all the robbers and hold-ups. Constantly having policemen rap on her sickly lime-green door to question her whilst drawing sketches of the perpetrator through her words and descriptions -- not to mention reporters, though this was a rather thrilling concept: the possibility of being on the local news! Instead, she stashed these daydreams away, as a woman dressed in a muumuu shuffled towards her: cart filled to the brim with boxes of shampoo, Fruit Loops, and six containers of laundry detergent shrink wrapped together."Did you find everything okay?"
"No! This place is too big! Why did I have to buy eight boxes of cereal?! I only wanted one! I have enough shampoo to cleanse the hair of every homeless person in Los Angeles!"
After a moment of the woman growling and foaming at the mouth; Sylvie noticed a man come up behind her. He wore a large black coat, a Mexican sombrero, and sunglasses that covered half his face -- in an instant she had pressed a button beneath the cash register for security, and as she looked closer began to regret it: it was Elijah incognito. However, her sudden realization provoked her hand to push the button yet again -- in an attempt to turn it off, or signal a false alarm. This was not clear to the men sitting in a back room watching security screens intently, as three muscley men resembling bouncers headed towards lane six.
"Do we have a problem M'am?" Buff-Guy Number One asked her as Number Two told the "slinking predator" to hold his arms out as he patted him down for weapons, the grumpy customer dropped her credit card on the floor, grabbed the counter top and began hyper-ventilating.
After the initial shock of the woman gasping for air like an ancient dust-buster, Sylvie glanced towards Elijah, locking with eyes amused with curiosity. "Hi Sylvie, I was wondering if you'd like to grab something to eat ... um," Number Three was turning over in his hands a boxed set of the Star Wars trilogy that he'd confiscated, "I was gonna buy that ..." The man snorted causing Elijah to rant about how long he'd been wanting the special edition version with cut scenes.
"There are more in the stock room," she assured him, her mind drifting to the rooms stacked with enormous boxes of peanut M&Ms, the containers and boxes everywhere reminded her of Legos. Stack, stack, stack. Building towers of cardboard; helicopters made of Neutrogena face wipes --
"Well ... I want that one," he said stubbornly.
She raised an eyebrow, "Why?"
"Because. It now holds special meaning," he explained patiently. "What other mementos can I have to remember the day I was caught for ... um ... what did I do?"
"You were looking suspicious," she explained motioning to the hat and sunglasses adorning his gaping face, she giggled, "You look like a Goth on your way to a fiesta."
"Why thank you, mixing cultures is one of my favorite pastimes."
She frowned, "I'm surprised you're not dead from heat-stroke wearing that hideous jacket."
"Yeah," he agreed, "my body's ability to withstand varying temperatures is quite unique."
Sylvie rolled her eyes, "I'll say ..."
Number Two mumbled, "He's clean." Elijah began to fidget, staring longingly at the movies being clutched tightly within Three's large paws; Sylvie watched his tormented face with great interest, the way his blue eyes went wide and his eyebrows formed together to create the illusion of a unibro, he chewed his lip worriedly, his tongue poking out at various moments to brush over the cracks. Like a puppy being teased with a biscuit, she mused.
The woman behind her had regained breath and poignantly coughed for attention. She was ignored. "Hey!" Sylvie broke the almost-silence, Elijah's concentration crumbled and he peered over his shoulder at her. "Two questions: one, what are you doing here? And two, I believe there's a misinterpretation of who's stalking who going on, care to explain?"
"Oh!" He smiled, a bit embarrassed. "Well, I called your apartment to see if you wanted to go out for something to eat -- but your room mate said you were at work, and when I asked for the number she said you worked at Costco and gave me directions, so, does that take the mystery out of it?"
She groaned, "If I had taken those swimming lessons like mom wanted me to, I could be a life guard. But no I just had to train to be a figure skater, and then quit abruptly, leaving me with the only aspirations being flipping burgers or Costco."
"I'm sorry ... let's go out for lunch."
"Can't," she stated simply, ignoring the jump from their previous topic. "I'm not off work for another hour. You could be a dear and go pick up some Chinese food, though." Within this option, he would have found himself in the very restaurant Sylvie had visited only days before, in which antique-monkeys ornamented the walls in the dimly-lit rooms, where the food tasted of the incense that hung in the air, cinnamon spruced fortune cookies which his would read, "Take A Chance," baring his lucky numbers on the back in green ink: "5, 17, 98, 40."
Elijah twisted his face momentarily in thought, "Naw, I had Chinese last night -- how about Thai food?"
"Okay ... um, get me a tofu Pad Thai."
"Pad Thai?" he scoffed,"How BORING! I'll get you some curry."
"No ... I want Pad Thai."
He put his hands on his hips indignantly, "I'm getting you curry."
"Fuck you, I want Pad Thai, damnit!" he grinned at her, how unnerving.
"Spicy or mild?"
"Mild."
Pulling his sombrero down over his face, Elijah smiled at Sylvie childishly, and waved goodbye. Trudging out into the blazing parking lot, where he found his car being drooled over by some irresponsible looking teenagers, who spoke in fragmented sentences that was apparently "the hip thing to do", though it was probable that none of these particular teens had ever read the backside of a John Irving novel, let alone anything other than Play Boy and car magazines. They all glanced away from him, afraid of staring at this obvious trend-less-being.
"Hey, man," one shouted at him, "phat wheels."
Elijah smiled appreciatively, "Thanks." He climbed inside and sped out of the parking lot, (just as Sylvie wrapped up with the deranged customer), palm trees shot out of the ground on the strips of fading grass beside the sidewalk, the sun glared through the windshield heating his clothing and causing sweat to dribble down his stomach. Elijah pulled at his shirt unhappily before turning on the air-conditioning; blowing sheets of icy-loveliness against his body. Eventually, Elijah was forced to leave, parking in the pathetic shade of a palm tree before stepping into a hellish inferno, heating his clothing, that clung limply to his body. Inside the restaurant was another safe-zone, he sighed and walked to the counter to order their food when a girl approached him from one of the tables.
Her grin spread over her perfectly even teeth, "Are you Elijah Wood?"
"Um, yes." It was too hot for this. Lousy Hollywood ...
"I'm Catherine," she stuck out her hand to shake, "Catherine Jean Halls. I'm your biggest fan!" His hand was sweaty and slipped over hers ungracefully, he caught her wincing slightly but it quickly was pushed aside by the cheesy and uninteresting words spilling out of her mouth. He pretended to sound interested as she yammered about all the posters of him covering her walls, the figurines of Frodo she placed on her bookshelf (at this he wondered, just where did she put the books?), she owned all his movies, she cried when Lord of the Rings didn't win Best Picture. All the things he'd heard countless times before. He nodded, that's nice. "I really can't wait until Try Seventeen is released! But you better not fall in love with Mandy Moore, I'd be heartbroken! I think you're a better actor than Alfred Hitchcock."
Whoa. What? "He was a director," he corrected her.
"No he wasn't. He was an actor. I saw him in a movie. Or maybe it was that Rubin Redwall, or whatever his name is."
"Robert Redford?"
"That's him. You're better than him."
Elijah doubted the girl had seen any of Robert Redford's movies, and at that, was too young to appreciate the content therein. "Thanks," he said instead, feeling rather degraded. He checked his watch. It'd been thirty minutes. Shit. The food would probably take a while, it seemed a better idea to head back and hang around until Sylvie was done with work, then they could go out to eat. "Hey, I've gotta meet a friend. Nice talking with you."
"Wait! Do you want my number?" She asked hopefully, after all, this was her one chance for her fantasy to become reality of their desperate love being uncovered, romantic dinners at posh little bayside restaurants, games of Truth or Dare daring to be true, paparazzi following them constantly and then it would be her face kissing his in National Enquirer. Their wedding being broadcasted live from the Bahamas ... all the things every “biggest fan” dreamt of. Elijah knew this, found it flattering, but was struck by the stigma of a relationship with a fan being artificial. Almost like he could never open up to them, because they knew too much -- or thought they did and refused to allow him to alter his image, unless it was to plaster themselves onto it.
"Um ... no, I've got a girlfriend." The girl looked fifteen. "Besides, that's jail-bait." Catherine looked confused, and was about to ask what jail-bait was, when he smiled and waved goodbye before jumping out the door and into his car, which he was sure was the same temperature as Death Valley. Air-conditioning: great invention.
Arriving back at Costco, he saw Sylvie sitting on a stone wall outside, kicking her legs in an attempt to cause any sort of movement within the air. He sighed; traffic. Disgusting. Elijah discarded the jacket, hat, and sunglasses and sprinted up to her, "Hey, do you just wanna go out for food? Not Thai."
"Um," a question bubbled on her brain but she popped it uneasily, "Sure, I guess. Mediterranean sound okay?"
"Never had it."
"WHAT?! Oh, hun, we're gonna expand that pitiful pallet of yours." She promised him, he shook the front of his Beatles shirt and smiled, accepting the option on the condition that there was ventilation when they got to the restaurant.
As they pushed the door open a little bell dinged, Sylvie realized how hungry she must have been as the tantalizing aroma of various dishes from the other side of the world drifted through her nostrils and kissed her senses. Red tiles adorned the floor, matching the table cloths and napkins. A sign read: "Please Seat Yourselves" Elijah and Sylvie chose a table by an open window where they had a nice view of a museum courtyard across the street. A waiter walked up to them and smiled, handing them their menus, before asking if either of them would like something to drink and leaving to fetch Elijah's Dr. Pepper and Sylvie's Persian tea. Paintings of the Mediterranean, desert sunsets, and people with varying skin tones wearing plain to exotic clothing hung upon the walls. Lacey curtains faltered with the breeze as they framed the busy street and milling people of Long Beach. Neither Elijah nor Sylvie were very sure of what to order, for that matter, they could hardly pronounce half of the items listed; as the waiter returned with their drinks, they asked what he suggested, "The Mazeh is a little bit of everything," he told them and they decided to share one of those.Within fifteen minutes, the waiter brought a large platter filled with various dips, spreads, and the like along with a basket of pita bread. Elijah grabbed a piece from the basket and poked at a purple-ish-grey mushy looking substance, uncertainly he asked, "Erm, what's that?"
Sylvie glanced up from scooping humus onto her bread and a delighted glow radiated from her smile, "Mmm ... I think that's eggplant!"
His nose curled, "Yuck!" Sylvie shrugged and used her fork to scoop some of the eggplant onto her already occupied piece of bread. "What's that you're eating? Aside from the eggplant."
"Humus," he gave her a quizzical look and she elaborated, "it's garbanzo beans and spices ... good stuff."
"Oh."
After tasting the various choices, Elijah discovered, at last, tabooli: crisp with freshness, it was parsley and tomato diced and mixed together along with onions; but the simplicity was ignored by the ferocious teeth that chopped and grinded them, the salivating tongue that coiled around like a rope, guiding it down the dark tunnels of a throat that separated the entrance and fulfillment of hunger.Once the groans and quivers from their stomachs had ceased, they began to jabber as they picked at other choices and slowly consumed their drinks. Sylvie was struck by the way her tea smelled pungently of honey, and yet, to taste it was to be left dismayed by the deceit of the senses. "Smell this," she told Elijah, handing him the white china mug, he smiled at the sweetness that escaped from the steam. "Now taste it," he took a sip and was left confused as well. "Sketchy, huh?"
"Well ... I wouldn't say sketchy: deceptive, misleading."
Conversations about tea passed to friends, which passed to family, and Sylvie and Elijah shared stories about their mothers, fathers, and sibling rivalry. Sylvie confessed that most of the time she’d have rather been alone then have people bursting into her personal bubble and destroying what little peace she was offered; as this slipped passed her lips Elijah jumped excitedly."'Ere's a 'ong 'ike 'at by 'ah," (little swallow) "Smashing Poompkins."
She gaped at him as he took a swallow and downed the rest of the food he'd shoveled into his pie-hole. "Smashing Poompkins? Is this a sample of your brilliant articulacy or a completely different band? Maybe your Iowan accent coming back to haunt you?"
"Erm ..." he giggled which caused a break-out at their table. "Sorry, I had food in my mouth."
"I see that."
Flustered, Elijah felt the need to defend himself, "Oh like you never use dialect with your mouth compact? I find that extremely arduous to perceive."
Sylvie shook her head, hiding her face in her hands -- it took Elijah a moment to realize she wasn't doing it out of embarrassment, but to hide her laughter. Opening her fingers she stared at him in great amusement, "Firstly it's no good trying to prove your vocabulary isn't grotesque; you're a bright kid. However, to have a COMPACT mouth seems only to be fit for a mute -- try 'a mouth brimming with tabooli and pita-bread.'"
"But that's not broad enough," he argued. "Though you're right about a 'compact mouth' ... except a mute's isn't compact either, with them, they avoid the simplified transfer of information and instead choose to find other means of communication. That doesn't make their mouths compact." Sylvie planned to add her own input but was cut short. "Anyway, as I was originally saying: I -- and you -- we, the world, no one eats ONLY tabooli and pita-bread, that is too compact, it should be 'edibles' if we're going for smarty-pants-ness."
"Edibles eh? Oh boy ..." she laughed, "you are so nerdy!"
"And you're not?"
"Not as nerdy as you!"
"I resent that!" He pouted, "I can't be shoved into bleak solitude," his eyes bugged and Sylvie burst out laughing at his bad acting "skills" ("No, Liz, for the world's sake, I would pray to that ethereal God above us that he never won an Academy Award, and if he keeps it up, I'd bribe the Academy myself so he'd never win."). "I'll bring you down into that discriminatory world with me."
She shifted, "You're scaring me ..."
A giggle sprinted out of his mouth, "Sorry -- er," evil eyes that were rather pitiful glistened amongst the blue orbs that were attached to his face. "My grave apologize."
"Ok, now that's just weird."
He smiled, amused, "Weird how? Like, sci-fi weird?"
As another curl of the diaphragm jumped, she questioned when the last time she'd laughed so much had been, her sophomore year of high school Sylvie had a health teacher who'd told her that laughing burnt calories, so with that in mind it became a subject of interest for her subconscious to battle with as the rest of her conscious was spent laughing until she couldn't breath and was choking on tabooli particles lodged in her throat on their way down her esophagus. "Weird like this show I saw once called 'Sheena'; the blonde equivalent to Xena, only her breasts were much larger and the show was stupider."
"XENA?! My god! I love her!" He burst out laughing and took a sip of Dr Pepper, "I'm just shitting you ... Hey! Wait just a fucking minute!” His face beamed interest in all directions as he leaned his elbows on the table and leaned his face in his hands. “How did you know I was from Iowa?”
“Huh?” She stared at him dumbfounded, racking her brain for some sort of reference she’d made -- “OH! Boy, we sure are slow today ...” she coughed uncomfortably. “Kaylie told me.” Sylvie stirred her tea needlessly, shifting her feet below the table. "Speaking of which, I have a question: have you talked to Kaylie about ... stuff?"
"The 'you' stuff? No, I tried calling her last night but she had a friend over and couldn't chat."
"Right." Sylvie nodded, a grudge shining through. "That ... Rosa ... person."
Eyebrows shot up framing his marbleized eyes, "Oh, you called too?"
"Attempted ... failed."
“Yeah,” he slathered some humus on top of his pita bread (seeing as there wasn’t any tabooli left for him to feed off of), he bit into it thoughtfully, “’e con ’e ’ar’ ’oo ’eh a’o ah.”
Sylvie rolled her eyes, “What? I can’t understand such a thick accent. A‘oo ‘uh ‘e ‘i.” She mocked. He opened his mouth to spout more vowels but she stopped him, “Nope. Swallow.” Elijah rolled his eyes, chewing impatiently, staring at corners of the ceiling as he did so, he stopped for a moment to sigh through his nose and resumed. She leaned forward slightly, “Swallow ... There. Now was that so hard?”
“Immensely.”
“Y’know what I’d like to do?” The waiter came and slid the check onto the table, as though he were passing a secretive note on how to steal a diamond from a certain wealthy stitch. Elijah thanked him, and turned the check over, scowling horridly, “When you’re done making faces I’d like to go across the street and check out that museum.”
Elijah leaned across the table and whispered excitedly, “Let’s run for it!”
She raised an eyebrow, “For the museum?”
“No, no. The door. We won’t pay the check.”
“But that’s illicit!” She exclaimed incredulously.
A twinkle of sunlight reflected in the corner of his eyes, causing Sylvie to wonder just where his glasses were all this time, the grin widened. “It’s dangerous too.”
“Not really dangerous ...”
Elijah stood up from the table and stretched, and looked at her wide-eyed, feigning innocence, he said clearly, “I’m gonna go out for a smoke, real fast.”
“Oh yes, let’s fill our lungs with tobacco and nicotine. Sounds delicious. Goes perfectly with all the food we just stuffed ourselves with.”
“Ya wanna have yours first then? Go ahead.”
Sylvie didn’t like this idea at all. This was absurd. It was unlawful. It was deceitful. Her conscious would never forgive her -- but she never gave a fuck about it half the time, so why the hell not? A tingly joy that was partly scared tip-toed down her spine, causing her to smile, “Alright.” She in turn, stood up from the table, sipping the last drops of her tea before setting it on the table and walking, terrified, towards the door. The bell dinged, causing her to jump a little. Outside, she stood by a green lamp post and waited. Within a moment, Elijah was walking briskly through the door, fear painted on his face.
“So what’s in this museum?” he asked, as they jaywalked across the street.
“I’m not sure, are we gonna pay for our admission?” She asked curiously; he nodded, grinning.
They climbed the lime-stone steps, and grasped the gold metallic handle, pushing the glass doors open and stepping on the black and white marble floor. Glancing around, they found a small ticket booth with a sign hanging in front of the opening: “Today, Free Admission” they smiled happily, and walked passed the roped-entrance, before them stood a massive brontosaurus skeleton, though it was really just a plaster-cast replica; when Elijah asked about this she pointed at the bones and asked if he really believed paleontologists would allow such ancient artifacts to have bolts inserted into their kneecaps so that they could stand upright in a museum where snotty little children could throw their bubble gum at it in disgust. All he could muster was an, “Oh,” to break the silence Sylvie read off the sign:
“Brontosaurus was a huge plant-eating dinosaur that lived during the late Jurassic Period, about 150 million years ago. These five-toed, long-necked dinosaurs were the largest animals ever to live on land; the baby brontosaurus grew rapidly, reaching maturity within about ten years. The enormous size of the adults suggests that they grazed in an environment with abundant vegetation.“
“Hm,” he sounded disappointed, “That doesn’t tell us much.”
“If you’re only six it does,” she pointed out. They walked into a room and found themselves staring into glass eyes inserted into wolf heads, axes, picks, and shovels hung on the wall, cases on the sides of the room held gold dust, fools gold, real gold, and copper and silver. They soon realized that this room was dedicated to telling the tale of the California Gold Rush; after a moment of staring at brooches, Sylvie looked over at Elijah and saw distress pulling at his normally brilliant smile. Immediately she felt guilty, worried that he was still upset by the brontosaurus incident. She’d never really been very nice to him to begin with and began to silently blame herself, vowing to make it up to him without his knowing. Though, the thought of ’first impressions’ still lingered in her mind; however, their first meeting hadn’t been half bad, really; she kicked herself for thinking he was cute in the beginning, ‘How shallow ... plus he’s such a nerd, okay, okay, gotta lay-off those nerd jokes. Hell, people probably think I’m nerdy too! Just who I’m not sure, but people ...’ “Wanna go into the next room?” she asked him hopefully, dusty American relics really weren’t all that interesting to her.
“Sure,” he smiled quickly and they walked towards the doorway. The room contained more dead things, as most of the rooms did, only these were dried-out humans with holes cut in their sides. Egyptians. The walls had cartouches and hieroglyphs painted on them, depictions of gods and goddesses in various rituals and ceremonies; a small replica of the Giza pyramids stood in a glass case in one corner of the room, it’s sign explained about the architect Imhotep who designed the famous step pyramids for the current pharaoh. Sylvie patiently explained to Elijah about the embalming of the bodies, which he listened to quite interested, until the end when she told him of the hook that was stuck up one’s nose to pull the brain out. He squirmed unhappily, “Well ... I don’t think I wanna be mummified.”
“Lucky for you, that’s classified as human mutilation with the exception of scientific experiments.”
“Human mutilation,” he said it thoughtfully, “nice way to put it. I was just going to say barbaric.”
“Well,” she smiled in hopes to ease her karma, “that’s just as good.”
They continued through the museum, Sylvie ceased her smart-ass remarks and was pleased to find Elijah resumed his bouncy attitude. As they were leaving, he mused that on account of their being the only ones in the museum, either Long Beach didn’t appreciate it’s available resources, or the janitor had forgotten to lock the doors, in which case they should have paid their meal and stolen an artifact worth millions to sell in an auction.
“Full of people educated on the item’s value,” she added, the bottoms of her shoes stuck to the steps as they walked down them, causing an annoying resistance as she lifted her feet. “Stupid shoes, wish they had more grip to the--” Tumbling forward, Elijah attempted to grab her arm and steady her but was instead pulled down, feeling gravity at it’s cruelest. They landed with a thud, groaning and cursing at the sharp corners, Elijah landed on his buttocks, slightly askew; Sylvie managed to fall down completely, grasping the pavement with her fingers, feeling the bits of gravel slip inside her scraped skin. “Ow.” She moaned, and growled about the bruises she’d have, crawling up to seat herself properly she gasped and “ah-ah” ’ed at the pain of her delicate limbs being untwisted from ludicrous positions. “What a fucking croc ...”
“Of shit,” he added, and began to laugh. “What a cunty-fucking-croc-of-cunty-shit.”
Sylvie stared at him positively flabbergasted for a few moments, finally, she snapped her tongue on the roof of her mouth and ogled at him, “That was very disturbing, Elijah.” He laughed and it suddenly occurred to Sylvie, just how androgynous he was; with his long eyelashes, pale skin, pink curvy mouth, and eyes that seemed to belong on a child: bright and curious, round as snow-globes, the color of the sky when you open your eyes underwater and looked towards the surface. Suddenly she was reprimanding herself for thinking he’d make a convincing transvestite.
They got to their feet and began hobbling back across the street -- Elijah immediately realized that he’d left his car too long before the parking meter. “Fucking cunt!” he yelled unhappily as he found himself staring across at an empty space where his car had been. He turned to Sylvie, “I think I got towed.”
“And probably fined as well, can’t fool them Mediterranean’s. They’ll get ya.” Elijah sighed and gave her a look that said, ‘You’re not helping.’ Smiling at him she suggested they call the police to see if he’d actually been towed, otherwise, they could report a stolen car. To this he agreed, after cursing mildly, they walked down the semi-busy street until they reached a payphone. It smelled of urine and beer. Everything about it reminded them of a bathroom stall, but after hesitantly picking up the receiver, Elijah felt his guts kicking in and he dialed 911.
“Um, non-emergency please. Thank you ... Yes, hello, I’d like to check if my car was towed.” He described it and gave them the license plate number, “TOWED?! Bastard! Oh, no, sorry, not you ... um, how do I get it back? Precinct, huh? All right, uh-huh, ok, ok, hm. Ok, thank you, bye.” He hung up and looked worriedly at his hand, “Um, I guess we’ve gotta go down to the Central Precinct and pay a fine first.”
She raised an eyebrow, “We? Is it my car too?” She laughed and touched his shoulder in sympathy, “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t ditch you when you’re stuck out in the middle of a strange city, with no map, and no knowledge of bus routes and schedules.” Opening his mouth to ask she stated, “They come every fifteen minutes or so, there’s bus stop across the street, that’s the one we want.”
He smiled, “Boy am I lucky to have you around!”
At the bus stop, they attempted to amuse themselves, being in front of an Arby’s proved useful to supply them with ice water, which they childishly dumped on the others’ clothing. Screams and laughter rose and fell from this small eight yards of the planet. As Elijah raced inside to get another paper cup full of water so cold it froze his teeth, the bus halted before Sylvie. Though no one got off. Hostilely, the bus driver asked if Sylvie was getting on the bus or not, to which she replied “Uh ... I don‘t know?” The driver grumbled a bit and started off just as Elijah was returning with his water.
“SYLVIE! THE BUS!” He yelped, letting the cup splash onto the ground as he took off down the sidewalk in an attempt to acquire some attention. The bus stopped and they climbed on, Elijah depositing a dollar into the machine and Sylvie flashing her bus pass. The driver glared at both with equal censure, causing them to hurry to the back of the bus, where they plopped down and stared at the floor in utter humiliation, as the other passengers smiled smugly as though they knew something.
In time, they calmed down a bit, Sylvie glanced at the other people as Elijah stared out the window trusting that she would know when to get off -- she did, two stops too late (“I’m sorry! I wasn’t paying attention!”). Walking wasn’t bad, Elijah began doing a kind of half-skip, which he explained to be a “prance”, apparently Kaylie had taught him this after learning it from a modern dance class she’d taken. Daydreams began to flourish after learning this: standing on a slick hardwood floor, barefoot, moving, flowing, drifting to the music, colliding into lip-lock -- but then there was Elijah, prancing in front of her, twisting his body into little circles as he smiled happily, humming the tune to a familiar song. Forbidden love-interests were a lot more difficult than Sylvie had anticipated, she wiped her mind clear of Kaylie and joined Elijah as they jumped, hopped, and skipped down the street, a few people threw them odd glances but they didn’t seem to notice.
Elijah’s face burnt cerise as he approached the window at the precinct, the woman behind the glass looked tired and a bit bored, “Um ... my car was towed.”“Mm’k, may I see your drivers license?” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, he unfolded it and extracted the laminated card, Sylvie peeked over his shoulder to look at his picture, jealous at his obviously photogenic features. Meanwhile, the woman was checking computer files for his lonely Ferrari, finally she glanced up at him and said, “Alright, you have a fine of a hundred and twenty-five dollars and eighty-one cents.”
He closed his eyes for a moment before widening them to extravagant proportions, “You have got to be kidding me.” She stared at him lazy-eyed, obviously wishing she’d become a weather-girl instead. Elijah cried miserably, “Damnit! Fucking cunt!”
Sylvie winced unhappily and snapped, eyes ferocious like a demonic dragon, “Elijah, will you stop using that revolting word?!” She took a deep breath, as though she were about to spit flames at him. “It’s DIRTY!”
“Please, Miss, don’t yell, this is a precinct.” Then to Elijah she asked, “So are ya gonna pay it or not?”
“Yeah, yeah ...” opening his wallet once more, he pulled out a few twenties, a five and a one, “Keep the change.”
“Thank you, here’s your license back,” she slipped it back through the small opening and he fitted it back into his wallet. The woman began writing out a form, she brought out a stamp and imprinted a blue circle with letters swirled around. “This is a release form, you take it out the holding garage and show it to the gate-keeper. There will probably be another fine for holding charges.”
Elijah took the piece of paper and thanked her unhappily; Sylvie attempted to smile at him but he looked so down in the dumps it was hard to muster enough gaiety. “Well, at least it wasn’t stolen.”
“That’s true ...” he grinned, “but that would have been a bit of a long-shot anyhow.”
Once they had retrieved the car and paid the fifty dollar holding-charge, they climbed inside and sat for a moment, thinking where to go next -- or if they should go anywhere other than to their homes. However, the Central Precinct wasn’t a very good place to stay parked, and they were soon approached by an officer who warned them to clear out. Elijah drove slowly as they considered what to do; where to go; what to see -- finally, Elijah decided it would be all the merrier if Sylvie came over for dinner, arguing didn’t seem appealing and she wasn’t in the mood to stumble into depression back at the apartment over a cascading crush that felt like constant slips on ice, body frozen with sadness and loss of hope. The windows were rolled down and a warmth fell over her like a large comforter; Elijah played some music that was more subdued than previously, and until he started singing along quietly, Sylvie’s mind kept tearing apart the Kaylie situation, over and over, gluing it back piece by piece with Elmer’s, before it disintegrated all together as the crackle of the tires over leaves and litter and the concentrated voice of Elijah spun into her head and all else was lost.
~*~
