"Marla was small and pale and unremarkable. Her bones felt like Q-tips beneath her skin. That was something Jackson had said to her once. A moment of poetry. Or so he thought."
He Died by Myfanwy Collins
On the day Charles Bukowski died, Marla was working the register. Jackson, furious in his grief, rapidly piled the front table with all the Bukowski the store had in stock. Then he made a sign in big black letters that said, "Charles Bukowski: He died. So we're having a sale."
He faced the sign out to the street.
Some people got it and others were offended by the sign.
It was funny. It was Bukowski.
"How could you?" One woman came off the street to say. "The man died." She was quite angry.
Jackson gave her the blank stare, kept his hands in his pockets.
"Well?" the woman pushed.
"He's dead all right," Jackson said. "Dead." The woman waited for a few seconds longer and turned to leave, saying she would not shop there again as she pushed out the door.
As if she ever had.
Marla felt a bit sorry for the woman and also sorry for Charles Bukowski because he had died. And after what kind of life? His enormous, purple-veined nose was gone, decomposing.
She had read enough Bukowski, sure, but not nearly as much as Jackson had. Like most young men she knew, Jackson felt a kinship to Bukowski. There was a brotherhood. Jackson felt like he could act the way he really wanted to act because of Bukowski. He didn't have to love her.
"You can go on break now," Jackson said when three girls on their way home from high school entered the store.
She heard them asking him about Bukowski. Who was he and which of his books were good. They'd been in the store before. She knew the tall, black-haired one was the reason. She wanted Jackson.
Marla was small and pale and unremarkable. Her bones felt like Q-tips beneath her skin. That was something Jackson had said to her once. A moment of poetry. Or so he thought.
Her nails were bitten, but Jackson didn't notice that. He noticed the blue veins on her temples. The veins of a toddler, he said. A young, young child.
They had been lying on her futon mattress when Jackson said this to her about her veins. Marla had squashed the mattress beneath the one window in her studio, so that she could read with the light of the streetlamp and not waste money on electricity. She was proud that her electric bill was so low, her needs so few.
Jackson always came to her place instead of going back to his because he had roommates and she lived closer to the store. He often came over after he'd gone out without her even. "Mind if I crash?" he'd ask as he took off his boots, already assuming the answer.
She sat on one of the plastic chairs in the book closet which doubled as their break room. In her cubby, was the papersack lunch she'd prepared for herself earlier in the day. She pulled out a can of peaches and unstuck the lid. She used a plastic spoon to feed herself the peaches. They were soft and sugary in her mouth. A new tongue lying upon her old tongue.
She heard the hyper vibration of Jackson's voice. He was excited, wowing them with his knowledge of Bukowski, making them laugh.
She bit through the slice of peach in her mouth, chewed and swallowed it. Took in another and let it lie there. The tongue would speak for her. She would keep it there until she saw Jackson again.
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Originally from Montreal, Myfanwy Collins now lives and writes near Boston in the US.
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Thursday, 21 April, 2011
In New voices
- He Died by Myfanwy Collins
- Water by Jennifer Thompson
- Before Sleep by Charlotte Beeston
- Fish by Claire Powell
- Lazarus in the Backyard by Blake Kimzey
- The Packed Lunch by Alistair Daniel
- The Contortionist by Jemma Foster
- The Regime of Private Affairs by Orlando Whitfield
- A Passionate Affair by Katri Skala
- Never Better by A. C. Goodwin
- The Spy by Connor Caddigan
- (1) by Dorothy Feaver
- The Coat Room by Orlando Whitfield
- Christmas Eve, 1982 by Philip Langeskov
- Prelude by Katri Skala
- Checkpoint by Zoe Green
- Nervous Pig, Dreaming Pig by Michael Kissinger
- Menzies Meat by Evie Wyld
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