Fine Lines

Chapter Two

It's been a long time since I've updated Fine Lines. 

Trust me, I know. 

I've been so busy and out of all my projects this is the one book I really didn't want to rush because I love it so much and I feel like it's got so much to offer.  

Sorry if there are very many grammatical/spelling mistakes. The whole story is a working progress so I will keep editing any mistakes I make to make the whole thing more readable.                                                                           

So here is the next chapter in the tall tale I like to call Fine Lines....                                                                           

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I woke up the next day with one thing on my mind:

Waffles.

Anyone that knew me well enough or was around me a few times and able to see me salivate at the word waffle, knew that the only way to get me to either do drugs, kill a man or hide a dead body was to produce the golden, crispy, type-2 diabetes ridden confectionery. Preferably in a large quantity enough for a McDonalds man child or a heart attack ready to happen.

Waffles.

The thought of the devil's food was enough to distract my senses, even my masterfully acute ones, when leaving the cheap hotel room and dancing down the street. The morning air was rather dense and sodden, as it normally is in southern states of the damned US of A. Luckily, it only slightly hindered the greasy claws of my monster tummy; awaiting the sight of its waffle prey. Usually I wasn't so hungry, I've gone days without food and water and sometimes it would be by choice rather than by the fact that I couldn't get anything to eat. Not that I was by any means anorexic or against the consumption of nutritional goods! In fact, I'm probably one of its biggest supporters. But sometimes, especially after days of robbing and pick pocketing, I didn't feel like I deserved to eat, not after what I'd done.

Anyway enough of that sobbing! Waffle hunting seems to be a more joyful way to pass the time opposed to poverty rattling tales.

And so I enter a tall crumbling building, one that had somehow managed to withstand the rapid scrapes of the hurricane weather; like that one grandparent that just wouldn't bloody die. It was rickety and sinking into the concrete somehow, it's life had obviously been outlived and the grim reaper just couldn't be bothered to knock its ass down. Kind of a glory story, it's weathered murals of dancing women and devil toothed husbands painting the vast colour of New Orleans as well as the devil's details that always creeps in through the underbrush. A deadly statement of the life lived by bewitched wives while their men would rot away under the holy ground of the river bayou. It was almost a testimony to the powerful caresses of witchcraft amongst the heaven's mortal men of saint-like lineage; ready to be seduced into the waiting arms of death and demons.

That and it was a building that read 'waffles sold here'.

Probably more there for that than a wall reading...

The sound of a rusted bell rung out unceasingly in my ear when opening the door which beheld tiny holes running along it's deep caverns of sweetly decaying carvings: indicating the residency of fellow maggots that too lived in many of the doors along the street as well as this one. The bells silenced once more as the wild wind slapped the door into place, my eyes jabbing the room in doubtful and longing gazes. The floor was very much a reminiscent clone of those grubby diners locating on the buzzing highways of the open road, the chequered pattern waxy and sickly pink wearing away into foul and pungent browns and yellows. The walls weren't much better off with curling and dampened wallpaper featuring  happy daisies and rather creepy, hitman-ish butterflies. Damn I wouldn't even try to piss them off or whatever was eating the damn ceiling. It looked as if it was simply corroding away into a place where memories settled among the dust of the past, but the fact that the plastic ceiling fan had the same markings made me beg to differ. It looked like freaking Mufasa came back from the dead and had a go at knawing the living daylights out of the whole upper part of the building. That or the rats had been specially trained into parkour ninjas for the occasion. Either way I was certainly starting to feel an ocean of acidic whirl pools at the pit of my stomach. I was currently a very unhappy camper and those waffles better be damn heavenly with a chorus of angelic trumpets and buddy Jesus on a unicorn to change my bowel and stomach movement. 

"I've not seen your pretty face before, honey." 

The sound of a middle-aged voice rang out through the death trap of a café, almost knocking down the very thin and aged foundations of the building. My attention was drawn to the voice of the intruder of my thoughts; a 40-year-old blonde with wisdom in her crow's feet and humor in her irises. It was funny how you could almost sketch out her younger face, trace the years previous to the wake of strong curves and cuts in her tanned skin and rub out the greying curls atop of her dainty, regal head. She had matured purely and untamed, a wildly holy form of the ageing woman in her plain silken dress and lavender cardigan. I felt that I could trust her with my secrets, whisper the words and chants of the past into her small yet listening ears to rap-a-tap-tap on her slightly diminished ear drums. She was the essence of womanly beauty in a golden halo of morning light and her smile only sweetened the deal with the mischievous giggles of a girl who wasn't quite so innocent as God made her look. I seemed to like this woman already and yet her nose, so droopy and praying down, down, down to the mesh of the earth and fire and brimstone below, seemed to blow the cover of her own magnificently dark secrets. I still liked her and she was still beautiful yet a nose, so straight, so long, seemed to give a rugged edge to the credibility of  her being a seemingly celestial lady. 

"That's because It's my first time in New Orleans miss." I stepped out of the corner of the room to her stationed form behind a glowing and shiny bar with cash register and menus in abundance. I left a good deal of room between myself, the bar and her bright face out of fear or another nagging feeling in my chest, I don't know. I just knew that I liked the comfort of the bar between us almost like a side kick at a rodeo bar fight except that my side kick was an intimate object and my opponent was a sweet lady simply asking a menial question and I was an uptight prick.

Don't repeat that last word to your parents, kids.

"Well sit yourself down kid and tell me what your wandering little tum would like for brunch." Her wrinkles moved back with her face to reveal bright, white teeth that dangerously glint with pride like the gently wrapped knife and fork awaiting me. Though I felt slightly uneasy I knew this was not the smile of a predator, more like a very smart dog that knows that once many eons ago he might've been a wolf ready to pounce on it's owner like a leech latches and sucks blood. The main point here is the use of the word might've. The lady obviously knew she had power but she wasn't going use it here or now. But she might've. And she knew she could. 

Smart lady right here, ladies and gentlemen.

"You do waffles here?" I asked politely which was pretty good going for someone with my calibre of etiquette.

"We sure do kiddo! What'll you have? Cream? Maple? Strawberry? Chocolate? Bana-"

"CREAM!" I excitedly interrupted her which I quickly recovered by following with, "Cream would be real SWELL hahaha, thanks..." well, sorta saved.

"Sure petal, by the way are you by any chance Alva Winters?" She raised one black inky eyebrow as her lips curved around my name.

"Yes I a- wait. How'd you know?" I stopped myself, her words a cosmic question between the synapses in my electrified brain.

"No reason kiddo. No r-e-ason at allllllll." And with the lick of the top set of razor sharp daggers in her mouth and the glint of shifting shadows in her pupils, she gracefully strode to a set of  dusty pink swinging door and disappeared rather triumphantly like she just caught a prized meal. 

Geez this aged pageant queen was giving me the heebie jeebies

And so I watched the erratic ticks of the jacked up wall clock above the bar and awaited the return of the middle aged Barbie shark, my fingers restless and my mind wandering to a time which wasn't much better than the mouldy bar stools   . . .