Vineyard Vines, Leningrad
- Grayham Fackelsnizz
- Sep 30, 2015
- 5 min read
Thomas was already feeling low when he looked down at the fork that he had used to harass a small pile of quinoa into his mouth and saw that it was a salad fork, which was unspeakably irritating and borderline unacceptable.
-Ugly dwarf fork.
The salad fork had a thicker left tine, and all four were shorter and fatter than the ones on the normal forks, and they curved out and to a point, giving the whole thing something of a floral shape.
-Fucking fork. Goddamn worse fork.
The quinoa was cold. The breeze from the open refrigerator was cold, the light butter-yellow. The cold made the grains more distinct units and the consistency of every forkful was like sand on a riverbank—coarse, clammy, hardly smaller than pebbles.
Thomas was through with the quinoa.
-Disgusting.
He put it back in the refrigerator.
-“Ancient grain.” Who said ancient was better? Tastes like tomb rubble. Got an Incan curse on it.
Thomas was still hungry but knew he would have something good to scoff at when Melinda came home. He would say the thing about tomb rubble, and the curse. He would be bringing up the salad forks, of course. New and unnecessary cutlery was a Melinda innovation.
-Melind-ovation. Heh heh heh.
Melinda would laugh. Had to take so much about Thomas in stride. Had to just let him speak his mind. Ha ha ha, ha ha.
There was only baking soda and an ovular brick of Craisins in the pantry. Thomas huffed angrily as he retrieved the burnished silver cigarette case from the pocket of his robe and clicked it open, selecting a yellow one. He turned the knob of the burner but it only made a clicking sound and he could smell gasoline.
-Goddamnit.
Thomas could go outside anyway. It was cloudy, but the air was cool and empty. Clouds rolling over the treetops made Thomas think of the jungle. His street ended deeper in the woods than the rest of the neighborhood; the house two doors down had a view of the creek at the bottom of the ravine. When Thomas saw the clouds over the trees the squat, modular houses looked like outposts in the wilderness. He took his lighter from the mailbox.
The second smoke, a pink one, made him wall-eyed and a little light-headed so he sat on the metal railing to gather himself, looking out at the street, running his tongue over his teeth which were partly slick with plaque and pulverized by black Russian tobacco.
Two tall boys walked out from behind a parked SUV and started up the path to Thomas’ house, one of them giving him a wave.
-Hello?
-Hey, man.
Both boys were clean-cut and solidly built. Family-seaside-getaway types. Firmly in pastels and tight Bermudas. Lacrosse players, whose mothers had ponytails poking out of pink baseball caps, whose fathers were doughier than their mothers but wealthy, and they got their looks from their mothers anyway.
-Why talk to anyone? They show enough without saying anything.
-Thomas, man.
-Yeah, that’s me.
-We’re here, dude. Here to talk.
- Oh Jesus. Were the books in the crawlspace or the furnace room?
-Oh, right right right. I remember. Ok, well, great. Cool. Good to see you both. Sorry, you are?
-James.
-Ethan.
-Linen closet?
-Yeah, ha ha ha.
-Fucking shit.
Thomas did up his robe and shuffled them inside. A galaxy of dust motes shifted in a column of light coming through the window. The cat stirred somewhere in the garage. The boys cut a dense, imposing presence in the shabby home, and Thomas felt shabby next to them. They had wide, naïve faces and playfully untidy coifs of hair.
-Very Prom King. Very resentable.
-Just sit down anywhere. The couch is comfortable but it’s all covered in fur. Sorry. Oh, ha, and you might sink a little. It’s an old thing.
-Ha ha.
-No problem, ha ha.
-Can you believe the weather out there?
-Oh, yes.
-Books where?
-Finally getting cooler.
-Yeah.
-Books in office, under desk. Obviously, obviously.
-You boys want water, anything?
-We’re fine, I think.
-All right. Let me run to my office, I’ll be right back.
Thomas knelt under his desk and pulled out the box of books, still three-quarters full. Slim little things, cheap, with plastic rings for a spine instead of actual binding. He felt damp, somehow. In spirit, sort of.
-“Dismantling Global Capitalism in Five Easy Steps.” Here’s the vanguard, I guess. Nantucket faction.
Thomas had stood on the sidewalk outside the high school holding a sign that said “Take Action Now!” The more conspicuous art fags and feminist types stopped to talk to him, and he managed to unload a few of the books. More importantly, the casually socialist set were more open-minded, substance-wise, than most of their peers, and he was able to unload his entire supply of Symodrin within three weeks.
No thinking person would ever take Symodrin—it was a drug for schizophrenics, causing an obliquely pleasant sense of confusion, dulled motor skills, and not much else.
-What a blessing it is for the leaders of the world that the people don’t think. Something like that. Winner of a Hitler quote.
-All right guys. Whew. So, what is it exactly that you want to discuss?
-What do you mean?
-It could be anything, really. Policy in the Middle East, healthcare, um, globalization.
-Hm.
-Sort of the downside to all of the globalizing of late, you know. A little boy in Ecuador has to die so we can eat chocolate, right? Absurd. Ha ha.
-Yeah.
-We don’t want to talk about any of that stuff.
-Oh. Well did you just want the books, then?
-We don’t want the books.
-We want to know if you remember anyone named Brendan Moraes.
In silhouette, sitting with dusty gossamer light behind them, the pair suddenly had an air of quiet malice. They hulked against the sagging couch, suddenly severe.
-Shut the fuck up, Thomas.
-Don’t fucking speak.
-Don’t open your mouth, all right? You know Brendan. We know you know Brendan.
-Motherfucker.
-Oh shit, oh Christ.
-Yeah, ha ha ha. A little different than you thought, right?
The one with darker hair was on his feet, face in shadow, voice high and truculent, superior.
-I don’t—
-You don’t what, Thomas?
His hand came down on Thomas’ thigh. The knife blade extended with a muffled shik against the fabric of the robe, and he pressed the blade flat against Thomas’ thigh underneath.
-You don’t what? Kill kids? You don’t kill fucking innocent—fucking kids, Thomas? You don’t do that?
Both hands were gripping Thomas’ thighs. A rustle outside. A key turned in the lock.
-Melinda—
-What the fuck?
-Melinda—
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