Faust

Samn old tune

        I left the narrow, scythe-shape neighborhood merging vaguely into the cold indifference of the lanes. Parral has nothing left for me now. Hell, not much to begin with.

3:21. A bus came to an empty stop at my left just when I was thinking if I'd run into any trouble again riding the metro. Skipping two steps up the slanted stairs. The driver keeps his eyes on his bloated fingers strangling the steering wheel covered by leather pad as it creaks. By the looks of it, he's either reminiscing something explicit or on the edge of a breakdown, though one does not exclude the other.

        I took my time counting the cents and nickels from all the pockets and sewing lines on my jacket only to end up a couple of numbers behind the digit. Reluctantly, I nib a perfectly unbent 10 buck between my ring finger and pinky before snapping it by the board between the driver seat and the bus door.

         The driver shoots his head back onto the padded seat out of reflexes before rotating his giant eyeballs to the bill. The bold top squints his eyes at the dollar before tilting his head to me through the swill glass, his face looking progressively akin to the stretch marks on some south continent whores in Little Italy. He flicked the green piece of paper while keeping the eyes of an empty boiling pot at me like I couldn't make out he's either mentally challenged or had a problem with me. He raises the southwest corner of the green paper at the reflection of the sun on side-view mirror to check the national emblem.

           After longer than anyone with eyes needed, he deliberately counted the change through the bucket under the gap on shield glass, licking his gray tongue on his thumbs at each coin he flipped. When he's done, the coins fall one by one off his glistening, fat fingers and into the blue plate under the board.
       
         I take the bills and leave the scattered coins and a smile to him. I'm not in a rush or a few years younger is the greatest blessing in his lifespan.

         The sound of rain on hot coals bursts as the door closes behind me. The bus is mostly empty, save for a girl in fur lying across three seats and using her hand-weaved bag as a pillow. I pick the last row by the window and lump under the emergency button.

        The ride goes on and off, stretching few miles drive into almost half an hour. But that's a realization coming much later, while I'm considering my options at disposal.

        The father of parral doesn't lie, that's an unbreakable rule of constant. But before today, I'd never heard he'd refuse an inquiry. I believe the story of the psychopath wench is the only thing he knew, faintly related to Xiao. What intrigues being there's something very wrong with Nan to the point even an information broker's unwilling to check.

        Call it morbid curiosity. Watching hundreds of faces pass by the window side like stamps on a long-winded letter printed on my pupils. The Friday night's gathering's starting to develop an appeal to me.
                                        ***

        At the heart of the lanes where a three-story high, humdrum bare compound could be Pulitzer Prize-worthy if she wears the neon strips right. But it's barely 4 in the afternoon. The lights are off and her bare, repellent features of years drowning in night shows. The office slugs haven't dig their way out of the concentration camp yet, and the crooks and freelancers are just your ordinary citizens window shopping the lottos across the street, waiting for the cigar bar with the railing half shut yet to open.

        It's the dead of hours around here. You won't find anything worth your while, not that it's a good idea for foreigners or folks from other districts to loiter around the block. The scarier things lurking in the alley are simply bored and looking for something to go off......and the pigs as well.