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…

faced down gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And a nose pokes

say if you gaze long enough into an

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come

*****

know what Stockholm syndrome

eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox,

kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms

“You saying you're getting

“… But there's a reverse condition. It's called

“So?”

your only

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

do you keep

her chewing, mouth hanging a little

do you keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot,

have to feed you. I assume you do want me to

I do. But if that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or

regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that

giggling. “So,

you're worth saving? That there's anyone 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 with

her seat,

not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise

“Solana…” she hisses.

tumbling from her lap. 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

heel, she

the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in

the camera. It hardly matters. My

almost untouched, only a single bite taken from

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

sense of time is out of

had a

another, I

Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and

I barf it up, where it

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