daisy chains

what the fig (12)

mr. johnson calls me a protégé over a cup of warm coffee and a snowy mustache. he looks as battered as a well loved, $2 paperback. i watch his trembling fingers as they brush his graying curls away from his face.

they age so quickly, you can hardly blink before they start comin' at ya with those walking sticks.

"how's Hollywood treatin' ya, huh?"

i nibble on the end of a hard biscuit. "like shit."

he laughs that grumbling laugh that bubbles and boils from deep within his belly. "yes, yes."

"i feel like shit," i say again. my fingers twitch and I realize it's right around cigarette hour. but fuck if I'll pull a stick out in the middle of this. "ever since Paris fucked me over..."

"how's your girl anyway?" there's creases where his eyes used to smile.

"not mine anymore," i make a face.

there's a kid watching me from inside the cafe. i promise myself that if he pulls out his flashy phone I'll punch a hole through his face.

he tsks. "unfortunate. she woulda made a great keep, that one."

i remember our apartment. the pink and bubble gum that popped between her teeth. sometimes I'll get a whiff of her Chanel perfume and feel as though someone's wrenched my heart out through my teeth. and my stomach flips. and i look for the closest trashcan just in case.

"she had to go."

he looks over his cup at me like he sees right through me. "you let her go."

"you can't keep a fish from slipping through your fingers."

"she was no fish, baby," he says. "she was a fox. green eyes and all."

I choose to ignore him. It's easier to turn my head when i catch her on headlines. Especially when she's got someone new hanging on her arm, some new basket case she picked up from lord knows which corner of the city.

cause she's awfully pretty, and, "daddy will just love you. we'll make a star out of you, won't we?"

i sigh, and the symptoms of a raging headache bud from my temple. "i don't have the privilege to cry over her, sir."

He snorts. "Sir."

"Mr. Johnson, you sure do love ta downplay your position," and the words don't come from me but from a scraggly dark colored man in a fancy suit.

"Fig," Mr. Johnson sighs deeply the way only old men do, clutching at his chest as though preparing to chase after his heart case it leaps through his chest. "Jesus. Stop doing that."

The man, Fig, pulls out one of the cafe chairs and twists it around and gets both of his long legs on either side, folding his arms over the back of the chair. He winks in my direction, and stretches out a hand.

"That's Figaro to you, miss."

"Figaro," I echo, taking his hand, the silver and cold rings that tightly hug his bony fingers are a painful reminder of Paris. "I'm Daisy."

"Dizzy Daisy," he laughs.

I look to Mr. Johnson. "Is he intoxicated?"

"I wish," Figaro says, with another laugh that's got his unruly hair bouncing all around his face. It's a thin, sharp face. There's no evident trace of a hormonal adolescence,  just clear, smooth skin and thick pink lips. A scar that splits across the bridge of his nose is the only distraction.

"Fig's one of my writers," Johnson explains. "For that show I was tellin' you 'bout."

"Nice to meet you, Figaro."

"You haven't pulled the guns out, have you?" Fig's arms sure are long and awfully intrusive as they reach across the round table, and flip over the jar of sugar so a trickle of the white stuff trails from the metal lip. He scoops up the mess with his finger, and sucks it dry with a smack of his lips.

"What guns?"

Johnson pushes the sugar away. "You've got enough of that stuff multiplying in your own system, son."

Fig pulls out a notebook, clearly uninterested in a chastening.

"What guns?" I repeat, curious now.

"Well, there's my show," mr. Johnson clears his throat.

"And a kickass female lead written by yours truly," Fig pipes up, but eyes still glued to his tattered notebook. "She got daisies in her hair and eyes just like yours."

"Mr. Johnson," I begin.

"You're not obligated to jack," he interrupts me, holding his hands up. "You just sort of came up. That's it. Our first option and the perfect match. But we understand completely if you turn us down."

I don't know what to say.

Fig tears a page from his notebook and tucks his stubbed pencil into his hair.

It's a picture of me, a messy sketch but it's clearly of me. Unruly hair crowned with a string of daisies, and large, round eyes.

I look at him, lost for words. "You barely glanced up from that book."

"What can I say," he spreads his arms, looking like a mighty black pastor about to deliver a sermon. "I am a man of many talents."

Nobody has the dignity to disagree.