So Special in Dayville by D. Clark Gill

Author:D. Clark Gill [Gill, D. Clark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palmetto Publishing Group
Published: 2017-07-04T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Late the next afternoon, Ruiz watches as a political motorcade crawls down Tenth. The mayor and his wife are sitting, smiling and waving to both sides of the street, all from the back seat of a tacky pink Cadillac. Surrounded by limousines filled with bodyguards and sharpshooters, the Caddy coasts across asphalt while portable speakers play “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

Nearby, over on Hoskins Avenue, Sally Howie claps her hands over her ears as she slips down a brick wall as if she’s been shot. Even her nearby shopping cart gives her little comfort as her arms fall to hug herself tightly. The sound’s getting louder and louder: “. . . for he’s a jolly good fellow . . .”

Sound, any kind of sound, frightens her. But music in particular grates on her brain like nails on a chalkboard. She becomes uncomfortable even if she hears someone whistling too loudly. Not that many people whistle in Dayville.

“Go away soon,” she whispers to herself. “Go away soon. Then gone. No sound. All good then.” Panic, fluttering in her gut, threatens a scream of terror.

“For he’s a jolly good felloooow—that nobody can DENY!”

The woman, encased in soft, doughy arms, grits her teeth. Normality is safe. Quiet is safe.

A loudspeaker screeches. The mayor’s voice booms forth: “Good Dayvillians, I am here to serve you!”

Trembling, she presses her hands over her ears. Noise invites chaos. Low noise begets medium noise, which begets loudness, which begets thunderous . . . deafening . . . obliteration!

Ignoring the loudspeaker, Ruiz starts to step through the diner’s front door when he points his aquiline nose at the horizon. There, a massive pale moon lifts above the skyline. He almost gasps. It’s enormous! He thinks of his fantasy of it growing larger than the earth. Transfixed, he stares.

The moon is one of his favorite celestial bodies. Not just because he thinks of it as La Puerta, The Door, but because it’s the one he sees most clearly. The one who sees him, its light ruffling his hair. The one who, on dark nights when it’s absent or hidden behind ashes of clouds, calls to him from the void. During the moon’s full phase, Ruiz often stays awake three days straight, fiercely staring, gulping its light like mezcal.

The week before he’d even made the trek down to the still pools beneath the massive concrete dam feeding the falls. There, he’d spent hours, mesmerized by the lunar glitter path, tempted—always tempted—to test the water’s skin, hoping one day to walk its road, lifting his arms at the end to be . . .

“Ruiz, you got tonight’s shift, don’tcha?”

The tall man drops his eyes, hiding them from Jones. “Yes, I work tonight.”

“Then what the hell you doing out here—daydreaming?”

“I wait for the delivery of . . . meat from the slaughterhouse.”

“Oh,” Jones looks taken aback, “well that’s okay then.” He nods at the dirt-streaked glass door. “But if they’re not here in five minutes, you can wait for ’em inside at the register.

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