Flyboy by Paul Lally

Author:Paul Lally [Lally, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-22T22:00:00+00:00

It’s bright and early, just past 6 o’clock the following morning, but as usual, Kourou’s weekly market is already packed with people eager to lay in their weekly supplies. Time for Saporito to do so too. But more importantly to share the latest news with Gasçon Boulet. And not just any news this time.

BIG news.

Flyboy yawns as he pushes a small hand cart filled to the brim with produce, meats, cornmeal, and flour while dodging market-goers. “This place is nuts.”

“I don’t see any nuts,” Chef Saporito says. “And hold those chickens by their feet a bit longer. I want their blood to be gone for good.”

Flyboy stops, takes the just-butchered chickens out the cart and swings them back and forth.

“What do you think, eh?” Saporito says.

“Of what?”

“Of all this!”

Saporito sweeps his hand out to take in the chattering crowds, the hawkers, the music players, the kids running barefoot, the laughter, the wild mixture of smells ranging from fresh blood to fried yucca cakes the size of garbage can lids sizzling away in a skillet

Saporito makes a beeline for the Yucca stand. “Andiamo, ragazzo.”

When he gets there, he holds up two fingers to the vendor. “Deux s’il vous plait.”

The man scoops up two hot yucca cakes, drizzles a ribbon of red sauce over the top.

Saporito reaches into his pocket. “Cambien?”

A gap-tooth smile as the vendor waves off the offer to pay. “Non, non, mon ami.” He tucks the cakes into paper sleeves and hands them over.

“Merci.”

Saporito gives one to Flyboy. “Mangia piccola, take little bites. Hot pepper sauce like you’ve never tasted in your life. Nothing like it in America, this I promise.”

“We have some pretty hot Mexican stuff back home.”

“This is not Mexico and that—”

His warning comes too late. When you’re a teenager, you don’t get hungry, you get HANGRY. The fried yucca cake disappears in two giant chomps, while Saporito nibbles with pleasure, staring at the teenager, his eyebrows raised in anticipation.

A long pause.

“Well?” Saporito finally says.

It’s like a cartoon but painfully real. Flyboy’s eyes bug out, his mouth opens wide as a five-alarm fire explodes in his mouth, races down his esophagus and lands in his stomach with a BANG. Tears stream unbidden as he waves his hand in front of his mouth in a futile attempt to stave off the surface of the sun taking place deep inside his body.

Saporito exchanges a knowing glance with the vendor, who smiles and says, “Je pense qu’il aime ça.” (I think he likes it).

Saporito steers the suffering young man to a nearby beverage booth, where he gulps down two glasses of soothing coconut milk without stopping to breathe.

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