Klempner

What's the obsession with potatoes?

I called her Potato Face when she was a kid.

What does she look like now?

Jenny was no looker at that age…

… But she matured. Bloomed.

Juliana... Never the same twice.

I scratch at my beard. I’ve never liked facial hair in hot climates, but I don’t have a choice right now. Even so, the flourishing colony of lice that has stowed aboard adds an extra edge of irritation.

Lice…

Where the fuck did they come from?

Can rat lice live on humans?

Having a fucking good go at it…

I catch one, squeezing the revolting thing between my fingernails. It bursts with a Pop!

Only another 999 to go…

*****

The boredom’s the worst. Endless hours. Endless days and nights. I’ve no idea how long.

The only breaks in the monotony are Juliana’s visits: just long enough to sit, eat something at me, toss a potato at me.

No, not Juliana: Solana.

Why's she so obsessed with the name?

How many names have I used over the years? Worn like a suit of clothes to be discarded when the weather changes and something different is needed.

I’ve never been defined by my name.

But she sees it differently…

Something skritches and I jerk a look sidelong

It’s a rat…

Just a rat…

down gunmen, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And a nose pokes

long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us,

*****

know what Stockholm syndrome

over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her

psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms

sniggers. “You saying you're getting

pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But

“So?”

your only friend,

you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up with a fingertip then

do you

chewing, mouth

me rot, you

you do want me to feed you? We can always change that

reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can reckon, you're

swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it?

giggling. “So, you're my friend are

out there who thinks you're worth it? The daughter you had slated as a sex-slave when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The same heartless bastard that shipped me out to dig up potatoes for the rest of my life. Along

back in her seat, arches her

changed.

“Solana…” she hisses.

The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even under the heavy make-up, her colour

her heel,

chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to

the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth

from the corner. And I have half of a

anything like this

For how long?

sense of time is

had a

empanada, then another, I ram the food into

much. Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and

it up, where it

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