Weatherhead by J.M. Hushour

Author:J.M. Hushour [Hushour, J.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2014-09-20T22:00:00+00:00

The train through Weatherhead stunned him by running even if off of rumor only. The wound in its track had finally been filled in with loose earth and rocks and her bridge of dresses had been replaced with proper metal ties and spikes. Where the dresses had gone, he did not know. Some said Up. Others had other ideas.

She takes them on campaigns, methinks, a curious fellow crouched on the train platform told him. He had puppets on each fat hand, and a fig leaf obscuring the genital fury of his forehead. He recognized this obese fellow, recognized him from a faraway room that was a day, a single day.

He’d thought he might find Love, or at least pieces of it, at the train station where people always seemed to leave it. He was right. Frank was there, out of the rain, under an awning, miming reading a newspaper and smoking gently into the morning, his Genghis-khan eyes moving from right to left over the air between his outstretched hands. When he approached, Frank made a good show of folding up the nothing and stowing it into his pocket. He nodded and tipped him a lit cigarette out of his sleeve, an old Maggie Mechaine trick.

Thanks, Frank.

He studied Frank. Frank was what he’d call nigger-shy back when he’d hated, that is, one who never looked one in the eye, shifty, ever-suspicious. Maggie hated this phrase, hated all his hatreds, dared him to give her a reason for them, but he couldn’t or didn’t want to. Here where everyone was hated by the one woman who ruled them, his former prejudices seemed pale, pathetic and regrettable.

But Frank was Asian or a Mongol or something, not black. A Mongol Sinatra, he was. He smiled. Maggie would’ve liked Frank best. Frank’s turn-o’-the-eye was different, innocent, it really was shy like he knew that you really wouldn’t want him staring you down with the full force of his steppe-brother gaze. Were there hoofmarks on them, around the pupils or—

Frank nodded to him again, ducking his head down into the collar of his yellowish great-coat, What’s the rumpus?

They spoke for a while about nothings, few though they were in that place. They watched the fat puppeteer re-enacting scenes from films he vaguely recognized and Frank showed him a trick, a devachanic songster’s trick: he called over the fatman and with a good-natured grin, asked him to remove his puppets; once his chubby hands were exposed, Frank unfolded them for him, palm up, fingers out in fives and crooned in a lovely baritone,

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