Ragnarök

Thirteen: The Cyclist

Christmas Eve. Mason drowns out the passing cars blaring holiday standards, the tolling bell of Salvation Army carolers outside the drugstore, with an assault of death metal pouring through his earbuds. He pops them out only when he arrives at Joe Eggert's Citgo station.

Eggert sits behind the counter on his usual three-legged stool, reading the local Free Press. Saying hello is not his style; that gives potential interlocutors too much power to weasel out of a conversation. Instead, his jaws snap open like a Venus flytrap, and he picks up as though dialogue is already several minutes underway. Woe to the customer who's running on a fixed schedule.

"Says here it's the 160th anniversary of the rebuilding. You know about that, son?" The door hasn't even fully swung shut behind Mason. "Anybody ever pause to teach you 'bout that? If you're living in Grillow Rock, you ought to know the whole blinkin town was burned to the ground back in Civil War days. Not on account of the War, but of some uppity Sioux who didn't much take to being hornswoggled."

Mason slaps his (the widow's) hundred dollars on the counter. "These the same ones who scalped the Protestants?" he asks.

"Haven't heard that one," Eggert admits, peering at the money like it's some abstruse legal contract. "Tell you what I do know. Milly Moynihan sure seems dead-set on giving herself a black lung since you came around. What's she up to, a pack a day?"

Mason shrugs. "I'm just the errand boy. I don't ask questions."

"Uh-huh." Eggert dons a cock-eyed smile, one that makes it look like he's grimacing due to digestive discomforts. "And I suppose you'd prefer I didn't ask none either." Mason shrugs again, offering no retort, only inching the money closer across the Plexiglas. A sign over Eggert's shoulder reads: Absolutely NO Cigarettes Sold To Minors. "It's shameful when a man gets to feeling his goodwill is being taken advantage of."

The proprietor folds his newspaper, pinching the crease so sharp and exact it could be the first step in an origami project. All the while he never takes his eyes off Mason, who, in an effort to look casual, peruses the racks of magazines and chewing gum. What breaks the spell is the entrance of another patron, a loud man in a Stormy Kromer whose cheeks are flushed like a cartoon Santa's. "Most wonderful time of the year, Joe!" he hollers, slapping his mittens together. "Gotta keep reminding myself that every time my damn toes go numb."

Eggert snatches the money off the counter, rings up the cigarettes, and fishes change out of the register all in one balletic gesture, as his new priority becomes getting Mason out of here. "Day after tomorrow, Glen," he says. "That's when winter loses its charm and people start grumbling again." He thrusts the carton forward, expressing with an eloquent leer that Mason would be wise to find a new sucker once these run out.

"Merry Christmas," Mason says, sidestepping the newcomer in order to flee.

The remainder of his walk brings him to Liza's driveway. Kelly's hatchback is in the driveway parked behind Patty's LeSabre, the one she bought for a song from her old foreman in Massachusetts. It was in the back of this sprawling sedan that she and Liza lugged their pared-down belongings halfway across America, to the land where "Abigail" of Patty's favorite soap opera was born. "Eating too much ice cream and listening to just enough Patti Smith along the way," as Liza described it.

The matriarch herself answers Mason's knock at the back door, smoking a cigarette, wearing a too-small black concert T that looks like it's been through a war. Siouxsie and the Banshees Seven Year Itch Tour. "What's new, kid? Merry Christmas."

She invites him into the kitchen, where a pile of dirty dishes marinates in brown sudsy water. A collage of paperwork is spread on the tablecloth. A can of MGD and a heaping ashtray sit within reach, smoke curling before the slitted blinds.