Edward Lee - The Minotauress

"How... macabre... "

Now the old man seemed to give the Writer a disapproving once-over. "What's a city boy like you doin' here? "

"I'm following my Muse, I guess you could say."

"The hail?"

"I'm a speculative novelist," the Writer said. "I infuse relatable modern fiction scenarios with charactorial demonstrations of the existential condition. Allegorical symbology, it's called, rooted in various philosophical systems."

The old man smirked. "Fuck." Next, the rheumy eyes shot down to the Writer's sneakered feet. "Where'd ya git them shitty shoes, boy? K-Mart?"

The Writer was surprised. "Actually, yes."

"Well, they look like shit, son, and if you're a writer then you must have money—"

The Writer laughed.

"—so's you just come ta see me. I'm a mile off County Road One, take a left at the deadfall, the big ‘un. Jake Martin's the name, and I'se the best shoemaker in the county just as sure as rabbits can fuck. Just you come to see me fer some real shoes'n I'll give ya a deal."

The Writer was waylaid by the stunning irony. A shoemaker... soon to have no feet... "I'll be sure to look you up."

"You do that," and then the oldster began hobbling away.

"But if you could spare a minute, sir. Where might I find some suitable lodgings?"

A big black vein beat beneath the purple ankle. The bony hand pointed somewhere unfixed. "Ya might try Annie's bed ‘n' breakfast couple miles yonder, and then there's the Gilman House, but a fella with money like you—a writer —ain't gonna wanna stay there 'cos it's a shit-hole full'a dirty cunts." The bony hand pointed down the street. "Alls they charge is ten bucks a night so's how good kin the rooms be?"

That's my kind of price... "Thank you very much for your time, sir."

"Shee-it," the old man hobbled away, waving his arm.

My first significant verbal exchange with the local populace, the Writer realized. A block down he noticed a row of stores, most showing CLOSED signs, but one—PIP BROTHERS LAUNDROMAT—looked open for business because a young fat man with a buzzcut was dragging large plastic bags inside. The man didn't look happy yet the Writer couldn't have felt more relieved. Three days on a Greyhound, or three minutes—it didn't matter. An obligatory sanitizing was mandatory, and all the clothes he wore right now would have to be washed. Twice. More closed shops stood across the street from the laundry but one establishment (whose sign read merely RELAX AT JUNES) appeared to be open, for a man in a plaid shirt and cowboy hat exited the front door wearing quite a grin. A moment later, a woman in cutoffs and large breasts straining a halter came out the same door, then sat down on a bench to smoke. Did she inadvertently sniff her finger? Peculiar, thought the Writer. But what he noticed first was the misspelling on the sign. I should tell them, he considered. It needs to be possessive.

At the next intersection stood a Wendy's fast food restaurant, with only a few customers observable in the windows. He'd never been to a Wendy's. Someone had told him once that this chain served square hamburgers. Why not rhombuses? the Writer questioned the prejudice. Why not cordiforms and dodecagons?

Down the street in the opposite direction he spotted a rundown tavern. Thank God, a bar... No writer worth his ink didn't drink. Hemingway, Sartre and Beauvoir, Poe... Then he noted the tavern's wooden sign: THE CROSSROADS.

How curious...

The Writer couldn't count how many taverns he'd happened upon which bore the same name. It was a name rich with allegorical promise, and he liked that. He needed to be surrounded or even besieged by it...

But profound allegories can wait a moment or two, he prioritized. He needed some cigarettes and some food. Then, contemplating what the first word of his new novel would be, he grabbed his bags and trudged into the Qwik-Mart.

"We're closed," snapped the old crank of a proprietor behind the counter.

The Writer rechecked his 8-year-battery Timex. "Really? What kind of convenience store closes at 6 p.m.?"

"This one!"

The old crank had the face of an elderly Heinrich Himmler but wore overalls and a long sleeve shirt, and one of those visors like bankers wore in days of old. The Writer thought: Mr. Drucker, in Green Acres... There was a cane with a dog's head propped behind the counter.

"I don't mean to be an imposition, sir," the Writer began, "but I've just traveled a considerable distance in... less than savory conditions, and I really need some cigarettes and food. It would only take a minute of your time."

The old crank made a psst! sound, flapped a hand, and belted "Fuck! Go ahead! Ever-one else's shittin' on me today! Why not you too?"

An amiable old chap, I'll give him that. The Writer grabbed some instant coffee, sugar, and Saltines. The dinner of champions... Besides, he'd read somewhere that these three ingredients were primarily all that academic horror writer H. P. Lovecraft consumed for the majority of his career. (And what he hadn't read was that these same three ingredients had probably been the cause of the colon cancer that had killed him in 1937.) Back at the counter he asked for a carton of cigarettes as well, then withdrew his credit card from the velcro pouch he wore around his ankle whenever he traveled.

"You gotta be shittin' me!" the old crank wailed. "Does this look like New York City?"

What could I expect? He stooped again to retrieve cash from the pouch.

The register bell dinged as the proprietor rang up the sale. He looked as though he'd sipped straight lemon juice. "You must be the Writer I keep hearin' about."

The Writer stared, disbelieving.

"Word gits around. And I seed you just got into town, but if you got a sliver'a brain in yer head, boy, next thing on yer to-do list should be gittin' out of town."

The Writer was astonished. "You recommend the place that much ... "

"Ain't nothin' but white trash'n immer-grints here, son. Meth-heads, drunks, fat cows on welfare, and enough dirty little kids that if ya put 'em all in the same place at once, the stink'd open a crack in the earth bigger'n the Grand Fuckin' Canyon. I got more crackers comin' in and out'a here tryin' to shoplift than to buy anything."

"So business has been better, I presume."

"Fuck. Today I got this one trailer cow named Sadie Fuller givin' me a ration of shit 'cos I won't sell her dog food on her food stamps, then I'se said ‘Sadie, you ain't even got a fuckin' dog,' and she said ‘I know, but I'se got eleven kids, and the money I'se save feedin' 'em dog food leaves me with more to buy steaks, then I'se trade the steaks fer moonshine.' Can ya believe it?"

The Writer struggled for response. "How... tragic."

"Aw, fuck, that ain't what I mean, ya moe-ron! Half the fuckin' population's on welfare! ‘N by the time a little girl's got some hair on her slit, her daddy knocks her up so's they kin git more food stamps! Only folks who buy anything in my store're the fuckin' wetbacks 'cos they'se the only ones who work! I sell more cans'a refried beans'n haller-peener peppers than I sell fuckin' Three Musketeers! What ever happened to America! "

This guy's more racist than the shoemaker, the Writer figured. "Paradise... lost, I'd say. The proverbial American Dream is just an illusion behind a prevarication."

The proprietor cracked! his cane on the floor. "Don't know what the fuck you're talkin' about but at this rate, it'll take me ten fuckin' years ta pay this place off! I'll be fuckin' eighty! What I fight the war for?"