Marin's Dale

IX

"Can I get a grape Dutch Master?"

This guy was acting strange. Tyler had talked to Dirby before. He was a standard townie, probly lived over on the west side where things could get real seedy real quick. The west side was where Tyler usually got his shit. He hated waiting for it, but such was the nature of the beast.

Dirby was staring off to the blank T.V. at the back of the Seven-Eleven. The snow on the screen was fizzing, but Tyler didn't want to look at it. He couldn't look at it. Instead, Tyler stared into the wide eyes of the gruff Dirby with his mossy teeth and scabby face. He was looking even more scabbed than usual. And veiny as all hell. The veins almost looked... black. Tyler could see that his pupils too were shrunken.

But there was something else. The color in his eyes—the iris—it was gone. Well, not gone—but disappearing. Instead of a normal circle of color, the iris had decreased in size dramatically. It looked like nothing but a ring of light green around the pinhead of the pupil. Tyler cleared his throat.

"Mr. Dirby, can I get a grape Dutch Master?"

Behind Tyler, rows and rows of items were arranged on the floor in zigzag patterns. More than half the shelves were empty. The Slurpee machines were dead and the delicious mixtures were completely lukewarm. The nasty looking hotdogs looked even nastier. None of the fridges were working.

Tyler rubbed his eyelids. There were no other customers in the convenience store.

The man snapped to. He looked at Tyler and then to Audrey, who stood subserviently behind Tyler like a young girl following her mommy. Mr. Dirby nodded, and the smile appeared; it revealed a smattering of crooked teeth and tobacco-stained enamel. He chuckled.

"Su' ma boy. Wha' cana git ya?"

Tyler stared at him.

"A Dutch Master. Grape."

Mr. Dirby chuckled. "Su' ma boy. Wha' cana git ya?"

Tyler merely stared.

               ###

Michael rubbed his eyes. It seemed to be getting better, just a little. He needed to get ahold of Kate. His cellphone wasn't getting any bars. And he hadn't bothered going back inside the station to try the phones.

Normally, Michael would have been doing something. After all, he was a goddamn public servant. What a joke. As if anybody gave a shit about the police—like anybody didn't despise the cops, aka "pigs," for their enforcing of the law.

They always complained that the police didn't serve the public when they were arresting citizens for stupid misdemeanors and handing out parking tickets. Michael didn't care. It was his job. If people wanted to complain, they could complain. But they had better respect the law—and if they didn't, they had better be reaaaal good at hiding their transgressions.

He had broken the law before too, he wasn't a hypocrite. But he was also smarter than the average Joe, and he couldn't spend his time worrying about the dimwits who fucked up. If they made a mistake in front of him, that was their loss. Michael slapped his face.

He had chugged two Mountain Dews since his dream, but they weren't doing shit. Everywhere he looked, the traffic lights were out. But what was he to do? There were people, just people...

People roaming everywhere. And there was liquid all over the streets and the manholes were everywhere and it smelled like spoiled chinese food and Michael wanted to vomit almost as much as he just wanted to fall asleep and forget about life in Marin's Dale altogether.