| june - july 2007 Issue 12 |
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FICTION - 2007 Contest 2nd Place Winner
Sitting on Saguaro
by Philip Rivard
1
When the slot machines at his first casino began spewing twigs and leaves and dirt instead of coin, Joe Clemento
packed up, fled, and decided not to include gambling in his next real estate venture. Dripping ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs
across the Sonoran desert, using the crowbar he always carried in case of emergency for walking stick, Clemento
drifted toward a swirling parade of multi-colored lights wondering whether giant fireflies were dangerous during
mating season. He approached the glowing sight and saw gold: a motocross derby next to a lagoon. The racers
hadn’t even thought to pitch a tent.
Clemento’s Motor-Inn opened within a month.
The No Vacancy sign lit on opening day and soon the popular lagoon had to share its name with a small town
burgeoning below. To honor the establishment of Suenos Crack, Jorgee, resident mechanic, presented Joe
Clemento with a light bulb-shaped trophy.
“I call it Clemento’s Bulb,” Jorgee praised. “I welded and engraved it myself. You are Entrepreneur of the Year.”
One year later, observing steady growth, Clemento named Jorgee Entrepreneur of the Year for inventing the
Entrepreneur of the Year award. Clemento’s Bulb has been passed on 27 times since the motel opened, always from
the hands of the reigning EOTY to the hands of the next crowned EOTY.
2
A dragonfly the size of a hawk crashed on his forehead and exploded. Chet Malletos was walking head down,
marching, and the dragonfly must have been doing the same, only in the exact opposite direction. Chet heard it
coming, electric, but only after the collision knocked him to his ass.
The dragonfly got the worst of it.
Guts and insect wings splattered his face. Gelled his hair. He spat blood. Dug what ricocheted at impact out of his
ears. Was this a sign to turn back? Back to the awards ceremony to accept EOTY #31? Where the entire town waited
to honor the unmanageable success of his Dream Service? He’d have to wash his face off anyways. So, slight detour
to the lagoon.
The explosive collision definitely was a sign that last year’s EOTY #30, awarded for ridding the town of bird-sized
dragonflies, concocted a temporary solution before disappearing behind a cloud of rumor, just as previous EOTYs had
after erecting waterslides at the lagoon, opening an all-night Diner, or digging a trench to join the lagoon to the All-
American Canal. EOTY #28, Lola, the Luscious, had been determined to pass the dimming light of Clemento’s Bulb
on. She’d been stood up twice.
3
“Bullshit. I had 27 before that catch. That throw gives me 30.”
“Just ‘cuz I’m kicking your ass doesn’t mean you get free points.”
“39 – 30 is hardly an ass-kicking if we’re playing to a hundred.”
“That’s ‘cuz it’s really 43 – 28.”
On a slow night at the Diner, two cooks developed a sport in which they stood 15 feet apart, facing each other,
wound up, and pitched a lemon as hard as they possibly could.
A lemon caught earned five points.
A lemon exploding on the wall merited three points for the pitcher.
A lemon that wasn’t caught, but remained intact, merited a single point. Chet Malletos, bussing tables, entered the
kitchen to scrape half-eaten enchilada off a plate.
“Hey Mallet,” a cook called Chet. “You wanna be scorekeeper?”
“Hell no,” he dumped rice and beans.
“Well you should get in on this. You used to backcatch for the Crackers, didn’t you?”
“96 Champs.”
Chet hadn’t touched a glove in years but the competitive proposition burned his ears. He took stance.
Exploded lemon dripped down the walls.
The cook picked a lime from the nearest bucket and, without realizing that it was rotted and had turned rock hard,
pitched with a warmed-up arm. The solidified lime blasted Chet’s template before he could even clap his hands.
4
Tip-toeing to the microphone as if she was too angry to plant the soles of her feet, Lola coughed and eliminated any
doubt in the crowd’s collective conscious that something bad may have happened to their local hero on his way to the
party.
“I guess, ah, Chet Malletos cannot be with us tonight, so I’ll take the goddamn trophy and smash it over his head.”
No one opposed Lola calling Clemento’s Bulb a “goddamn trophy,” or the idea of smashing it over Chet’s head.
Absent, he was assumed to be another ungrateful, advantageous businessman in a long line of ignorance. Waves of
insulted sigh and curious murmur gushed the Town Hall auditorium. Burdened by the Bulb three years past her due,
Lola crumpled to the stage floor and sat cross-legged, marking the first time anyone in Suenos Crack felt sympathy for
the beautiful nanny.
5
“Sexually,” she said, “I’m 300 years ahead of humanity.”
Chet coughed on an enchilada, replacing whatever inadequate response he might have otherwise forced. 300
years. Meaning Lola came from the future. Meaning she transcended four lifetimes of research, experimentation, and
liberation only to end up waiting tables at a sub-par restaurant in the Sonoran Desert. Chet wondered how one could
measure the number of years someone could surpass in the vast field of sexual progress.
“My astrologer,” she answered without his asking, “and she’s never been wrong.”
Telepathic, too, this super sexual Lola from the future. There was no doubt of telepathy in the busboy’s mind – Lola’
s smile thought for him all the time. During a polite hug after their first shift together an accidental brush of cheek sent
Chet reeling into such a dizzying spell of flesh-filled visions that he spent the next day wandering town with a big
blessed-out grin. If the quick, cool contact of cheek could make him feel like he just got laid, 300 years seemed
miscalculated. 500? That’s six lifetimes (allowing for increase in life expectancy rates), and considering common
fact: that the world revolved around sex, Lola would be approximately 1500 revolutions of the earth ahead of any
astronomical, geological phenomena. As preposterous as these super-human speculations would sound to anyone
who hadn’t visited Suenos Crack, they will be affirmed not only by the following report, but also by the look in every teen-
aged, male eye upon seeing the most unique, luscious beauty since discovering the soaring taste for genuine,
unattainable infatuation.
On top of causing jealous desire among men, Lola also sparked feelings of inadequacy among local mothers.
Before blessing the diner with her cool presence she was nanny for several families and had inadvertently became
Suenos Crack’s ultimate babysitter. After weeks or months with a family, service no longer needed, she moved on to
other parents too busy to parent.
Kids were devastated.
Mothers returned to children screaming and begging for Lola. Demanding that Lola tuck them in. Slapping books
out their mothers’ hand and pouting: “That’s not how Lola tells it.” Demanding that Lola take them to the lagoon. Make
grilled cheese sandwiches. Hold their hand. Parents called, desperate.
“I’m begging you. Robbie won’t even eat.”
“Please just come say Hi.”
“The crying won’t stop.”
At school kids who’d never even seen Lola insisted that their parents hire her. Others bragged if their parents could
get her. Or lied.
“Lola sat me last night.”
“Yeah right! Timmy said she sat him.”
“Timmy! Liar! ... Did you get a picture?”
“I don’t know how to work a camera.”
“Your folks probably didn’t even go out.”
“Sure they did.”
“I’ll get a picture. Lola’s sitting me tonight.”
“I heard Paulie say his parents got her.”
“Paulie’s got three older brothers.”
The babysitting service Lola established was more an answer to the call of civic duty than entrepreneurial endeavor,
but it earned her the 28th EOTY. Booked some nights by four families at a time, months in advance, phone still
ringing, Lola had to hire more girls. But her clients shut the door on any sitter that wasn’t Lola, cancelled reservations,
and stayed in. So if they wanted to work, Sunshine Sitters had to cut, dye, and curl their hair, adopt Lola’s
mannerisms, and dress in velour jumpsuits no matter the heat.
By the time EOTY #27, who opened a barber shop, handed her Clemento’s Bulb, there were over a dozen Lola look-
alikes roaming Suenos Crack. Employees were advised to avoid being seen together in public but they so enjoyed
the attention received under impersonation that they stayed in costume during days off. When three of them were
spotted waiting in the same bank line-up an insurgence of parents initiated a hunt for the real Lola, who by this time no
longer sat but kept busy teaching classes on how to be more like Lola. Cheated clients tricked the service into
sending multiple sitters to the same address. Heated debates between impersonators ensued, all of them declaring
authenticity without proof. A meeting, which resembled more a trial than assembly, was called at Town Hall to identify
Lola among some 20 other Lolas. The Sunshine Sitters lined up on stage. After weeding out a few girls who hadn’t
kept up on dyeing their roots, the girls confessed that Lola wasn’t there. The concerned committee, including Mayor
Chantale Clemento, granddaughter of EOTY #1, left with increased uncertainty.
“Maybe Lola was there.”
“That might have been her.”
“Yes, but no.”
“No, but maybe.”
The next morning, while prying a sign off her front porch, a sign in which a bright smiling sun promised ultimate
child care, two kids halted their bike ride to shout:
“Hey phoney! If you see the real Lola tell her Timmy used to pee the bed on purpose.”
Lola brought a hand to her forehead to block the sun, and didn’t recognize either child. The kids spat on her front
walk then rode off. She ripped the last nail out then retreated inside. Without planning to do so, she shaved her head,
then waited for dark to torch the sign, along with all the Sunshine Sitter files, in a desert bonfire.
6
Lola was working the midnight shift when Chet Malletos was struck in the temple by a rotten lime. She immediately
had the cooks carry Chet to the back seat of her car so she could speed him to the care of Dr. Giroux.
Crinkly medical bed paper.
A framed photograph of the waiting room hung on the treatment room wall, where Chet woke, staring into the bright
light of Dr. Giroux’s tiny flashlight.
“O good. You’re awake. Say ‘aaahhh’.”
The doctor stuck a wooden stick down Chet’s throat.
“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh.”
“Now sit up son,” he flipped Chet off his back, into sitting position, unveiling a tiny hammer, and tapped the top of
his knee. Having spent his adolescence as backcatcher for the local minor baseball team, the patient’s knees no
longer responded to much of any reflex, confusing the doctor’s observations. EOTY #6, Dr. Giroux’s local practice
specialized in the treatment of scorpion bites, sunstroke, and the occasional childbirth. And concussion. Second
opinions weren’t far, but rarely considered.
Chet kicked.
“You’ll need pills for the headache,” Giroux prescribed. “And keep ice on the swelling.”
“Any brain damage?” Chet asked, massaging his head.
“Get some rest is all.”
“Feels like my brain got damaged. Shouldn’t you X-Ray me or something?”
“Rest,” Giroux yawned. “And you must get someone to wake you every couple of hours to make – (yawn), to make
sure… (yawn), to – “
“To make sure of what?”
“That you don’t die,” Giroux diagnosed. “Alarm clocks won’t do. You’ll sleep through and not wake up in the
morning. Not ever.”
“I’m a DS.”
“Day Sleeper,” Giroux sighed, exhaling the weariness he felt in his battler against Suenos Crackers’ preference to
invert their innate biological rhythms. He could treat most of the ailments that came in with heavy doses of Vitamin D.
“Do you have someone to take you home?”
“Buckle up,” Lola advised, then ripped through town. Until coming to an abrupt halt back at the Diner that would
have bashed Chet’s already based head into the dash had the melting bag of ice not cushioned the blow. It exploded,
drenching him with cold water.
“Figure I earned a night off,” he pointed to his headache.
“Someone’s gotta bus my tables.”
“I could name 20 people, easy, who’d fight to bus your tables.”
“That’s very sweet, but they’re not on payroll.”
7
The Lola replicates eventually let their natural roots grow in, or moved away. Lola, with her shaved head, began
waiting tables and introducing herself as Moe. One morning, just as she was becoming accustomed to serving
breakfast, a baby was upsetting a lunch rush with constant wailing squeals. As every other patron vowed not to bring
their baby to a restaurant, Moe-Lola approached the despised table to clear plates, offer dessert, and the tiny 4-month
old stopped crying, reached up with both chubby arms, and clearly spoke: “Lola.”
The bustling restaurant, so relieved by the newborn’s silence, looked to the baby boy, still reaching, repeating “Lola.
Lola.” Moe-Lola held a finger out for the baby to clutch.
“His first word!” the mother declared, and when the waitress turned to serve the next table, the baby’s piercing siren
scream erupted louder than before. So Moe-Lola stood there, as though plugging a massive dam with a piece of
gum, for the duration of their patronage. Within an hour, every family Lola ever babysat came for lunch, waiting up to an
hour to get a table. There were more babies in the place than adults. Childless customers wiped mouths, paid bills,
and took flight. The short-staffed kitchen was still fixing screw-ups as Lola took new orders.
It wasn’t enough for the kids to see Lola only when she graced a table between sweeping up broken dishes, swearing
at a lazy busboy, making milkshakes, running out of pens – No. The Suenos Crack babies had to bang spoons, throw
food, piss their pants, just to get her attention. The kitchen’s rushed food wouldn’t do. These kids wanted Lola’s
homemade grilled cheese. These kids wanted her to feed them. Burp them. When a crowd of young teenagers
showed up, cameras flashing, she kicked everyone out and locked the doors.
Socorro Atlas, EOTY #16, owner of the Diner on vacation, was located by phone. Atlas didn’t fire Lola, but said she’
d have to work the midnight shift. Chet Malletos, who preferred working at night so he could sleep through the
scorching days, was bussing her tables the next night.
8
Accepting Lola’s offer to wake him every hour, so he didn’t die, Chet naively expected her to wake him with phone calls,
but due to constant calls from past nanny jobs, she threw her phone in the garbage. She tried to change her number,
to de-list herself, but Suenos Crack phone operators are parents. Information leaked. She would have to wake Chet
in person. And not by splashing cold water on his face. The only way to be safe was to sleep next to him. So it was
Lola, listening to the mumbled details of Chet’s sleep, who initiated the Dream Service.
“You just dream’t that you got fired from an office job for making out with a co-worker, then the boss forced everyone
to sit in alphabetical order so you took a smoke break on a gold-plated roof, but your cigarette turned into licorice then
an elevator cord snapped but you escaped death by falling asleep.”
“Really?” Chet rubbed his eyes open. “I remember the making out. And the licorice.”
“How’s your head?”
Chet’s head felt fine, but he liked having Lola in his bed.
“Hurts,” he lied. “Throbbing.”
“Write that dream down, or you’ll forget.”
“Too late,” he rolled over.
“Write it down, yutz!” she squeezed his nipple, hard.
Saving his life on an hourly basis, Lola began taking notes. She filled a notebook scribbling Chet’s sleep talk while he
filled her in on some images he hadn’t unconsciously narrated. As he read through his book of dreams, written by
someone else, Chet mentioned an idea to start a call-in service that tracks its customers’ dreams then sends a
monthly package with no analysis, no interpretation, just raw sleep-talk. He was used to spouting his big ideas with
impossible actualization. Making elaborate plans without the funds or ambition to follow through.
“That could work,” Lola considered. “There’s a lot of people at the phone company who owe me.”
A week later Lola’s sleeping face appeared on a billboard along the road to the lagoon. A thought bubble asked:
FRUSTRATED FOR THE FADING IMAGES OF YOUR SLEEP?
NOT GETTING ENOUGH OUT OF YOUR IMAGINATION?
CALL THE SUENOS CRACK DREAM SERVICE TODAY!
WE SEND YOUR DREAMS TO YOU!
Philip Rivard is from Calgary, Alberta.
Sitting on Saguaro
by Philip Rivard
1
When the slot machines at his first casino began spewing twigs and leaves and dirt instead of coin, Joe Clemento
packed up, fled, and decided not to include gambling in his next real estate venture. Dripping ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs
across the Sonoran desert, using the crowbar he always carried in case of emergency for walking stick, Clemento
drifted toward a swirling parade of multi-colored lights wondering whether giant fireflies were dangerous during
mating season. He approached the glowing sight and saw gold: a motocross derby next to a lagoon. The racers
hadn’t even thought to pitch a tent.
Clemento’s Motor-Inn opened within a month.
The No Vacancy sign lit on opening day and soon the popular lagoon had to share its name with a small town
burgeoning below. To honor the establishment of Suenos Crack, Jorgee, resident mechanic, presented Joe
Clemento with a light bulb-shaped trophy.
“I call it Clemento’s Bulb,” Jorgee praised. “I welded and engraved it myself. You are Entrepreneur of the Year.”
One year later, observing steady growth, Clemento named Jorgee Entrepreneur of the Year for inventing the
Entrepreneur of the Year award. Clemento’s Bulb has been passed on 27 times since the motel opened, always from
the hands of the reigning EOTY to the hands of the next crowned EOTY.
2
A dragonfly the size of a hawk crashed on his forehead and exploded. Chet Malletos was walking head down,
marching, and the dragonfly must have been doing the same, only in the exact opposite direction. Chet heard it
coming, electric, but only after the collision knocked him to his ass.
The dragonfly got the worst of it.
Guts and insect wings splattered his face. Gelled his hair. He spat blood. Dug what ricocheted at impact out of his
ears. Was this a sign to turn back? Back to the awards ceremony to accept EOTY #31? Where the entire town waited
to honor the unmanageable success of his Dream Service? He’d have to wash his face off anyways. So, slight detour
to the lagoon.
The explosive collision definitely was a sign that last year’s EOTY #30, awarded for ridding the town of bird-sized
dragonflies, concocted a temporary solution before disappearing behind a cloud of rumor, just as previous EOTYs had
after erecting waterslides at the lagoon, opening an all-night Diner, or digging a trench to join the lagoon to the All-
American Canal. EOTY #28, Lola, the Luscious, had been determined to pass the dimming light of Clemento’s Bulb
on. She’d been stood up twice.
3
“Bullshit. I had 27 before that catch. That throw gives me 30.”
“Just ‘cuz I’m kicking your ass doesn’t mean you get free points.”
“39 – 30 is hardly an ass-kicking if we’re playing to a hundred.”
“That’s ‘cuz it’s really 43 – 28.”
On a slow night at the Diner, two cooks developed a sport in which they stood 15 feet apart, facing each other,
wound up, and pitched a lemon as hard as they possibly could.
A lemon caught earned five points.
A lemon exploding on the wall merited three points for the pitcher.
A lemon that wasn’t caught, but remained intact, merited a single point. Chet Malletos, bussing tables, entered the
kitchen to scrape half-eaten enchilada off a plate.
“Hey Mallet,” a cook called Chet. “You wanna be scorekeeper?”
“Hell no,” he dumped rice and beans.
“Well you should get in on this. You used to backcatch for the Crackers, didn’t you?”
“96 Champs.”
Chet hadn’t touched a glove in years but the competitive proposition burned his ears. He took stance.
Exploded lemon dripped down the walls.
The cook picked a lime from the nearest bucket and, without realizing that it was rotted and had turned rock hard,
pitched with a warmed-up arm. The solidified lime blasted Chet’s template before he could even clap his hands.
4
Tip-toeing to the microphone as if she was too angry to plant the soles of her feet, Lola coughed and eliminated any
doubt in the crowd’s collective conscious that something bad may have happened to their local hero on his way to the
party.
“I guess, ah, Chet Malletos cannot be with us tonight, so I’ll take the goddamn trophy and smash it over his head.”
No one opposed Lola calling Clemento’s Bulb a “goddamn trophy,” or the idea of smashing it over Chet’s head.
Absent, he was assumed to be another ungrateful, advantageous businessman in a long line of ignorance. Waves of
insulted sigh and curious murmur gushed the Town Hall auditorium. Burdened by the Bulb three years past her due,
Lola crumpled to the stage floor and sat cross-legged, marking the first time anyone in Suenos Crack felt sympathy for
the beautiful nanny.
5
“Sexually,” she said, “I’m 300 years ahead of humanity.”
Chet coughed on an enchilada, replacing whatever inadequate response he might have otherwise forced. 300
years. Meaning Lola came from the future. Meaning she transcended four lifetimes of research, experimentation, and
liberation only to end up waiting tables at a sub-par restaurant in the Sonoran Desert. Chet wondered how one could
measure the number of years someone could surpass in the vast field of sexual progress.
“My astrologer,” she answered without his asking, “and she’s never been wrong.”
Telepathic, too, this super sexual Lola from the future. There was no doubt of telepathy in the busboy’s mind – Lola’
s smile thought for him all the time. During a polite hug after their first shift together an accidental brush of cheek sent
Chet reeling into such a dizzying spell of flesh-filled visions that he spent the next day wandering town with a big
blessed-out grin. If the quick, cool contact of cheek could make him feel like he just got laid, 300 years seemed
miscalculated. 500? That’s six lifetimes (allowing for increase in life expectancy rates), and considering common
fact: that the world revolved around sex, Lola would be approximately 1500 revolutions of the earth ahead of any
astronomical, geological phenomena. As preposterous as these super-human speculations would sound to anyone
who hadn’t visited Suenos Crack, they will be affirmed not only by the following report, but also by the look in every teen-
aged, male eye upon seeing the most unique, luscious beauty since discovering the soaring taste for genuine,
unattainable infatuation.
On top of causing jealous desire among men, Lola also sparked feelings of inadequacy among local mothers.
Before blessing the diner with her cool presence she was nanny for several families and had inadvertently became
Suenos Crack’s ultimate babysitter. After weeks or months with a family, service no longer needed, she moved on to
other parents too busy to parent.
Kids were devastated.
Mothers returned to children screaming and begging for Lola. Demanding that Lola tuck them in. Slapping books
out their mothers’ hand and pouting: “That’s not how Lola tells it.” Demanding that Lola take them to the lagoon. Make
grilled cheese sandwiches. Hold their hand. Parents called, desperate.
“I’m begging you. Robbie won’t even eat.”
“Please just come say Hi.”
“The crying won’t stop.”
At school kids who’d never even seen Lola insisted that their parents hire her. Others bragged if their parents could
get her. Or lied.
“Lola sat me last night.”
“Yeah right! Timmy said she sat him.”
“Timmy! Liar! ... Did you get a picture?”
“I don’t know how to work a camera.”
“Your folks probably didn’t even go out.”
“Sure they did.”
“I’ll get a picture. Lola’s sitting me tonight.”
“I heard Paulie say his parents got her.”
“Paulie’s got three older brothers.”
The babysitting service Lola established was more an answer to the call of civic duty than entrepreneurial endeavor,
but it earned her the 28th EOTY. Booked some nights by four families at a time, months in advance, phone still
ringing, Lola had to hire more girls. But her clients shut the door on any sitter that wasn’t Lola, cancelled reservations,
and stayed in. So if they wanted to work, Sunshine Sitters had to cut, dye, and curl their hair, adopt Lola’s
mannerisms, and dress in velour jumpsuits no matter the heat.
By the time EOTY #27, who opened a barber shop, handed her Clemento’s Bulb, there were over a dozen Lola look-
alikes roaming Suenos Crack. Employees were advised to avoid being seen together in public but they so enjoyed
the attention received under impersonation that they stayed in costume during days off. When three of them were
spotted waiting in the same bank line-up an insurgence of parents initiated a hunt for the real Lola, who by this time no
longer sat but kept busy teaching classes on how to be more like Lola. Cheated clients tricked the service into
sending multiple sitters to the same address. Heated debates between impersonators ensued, all of them declaring
authenticity without proof. A meeting, which resembled more a trial than assembly, was called at Town Hall to identify
Lola among some 20 other Lolas. The Sunshine Sitters lined up on stage. After weeding out a few girls who hadn’t
kept up on dyeing their roots, the girls confessed that Lola wasn’t there. The concerned committee, including Mayor
Chantale Clemento, granddaughter of EOTY #1, left with increased uncertainty.
“Maybe Lola was there.”
“That might have been her.”
“Yes, but no.”
“No, but maybe.”
The next morning, while prying a sign off her front porch, a sign in which a bright smiling sun promised ultimate
child care, two kids halted their bike ride to shout:
“Hey phoney! If you see the real Lola tell her Timmy used to pee the bed on purpose.”
Lola brought a hand to her forehead to block the sun, and didn’t recognize either child. The kids spat on her front
walk then rode off. She ripped the last nail out then retreated inside. Without planning to do so, she shaved her head,
then waited for dark to torch the sign, along with all the Sunshine Sitter files, in a desert bonfire.
6
Lola was working the midnight shift when Chet Malletos was struck in the temple by a rotten lime. She immediately
had the cooks carry Chet to the back seat of her car so she could speed him to the care of Dr. Giroux.
Crinkly medical bed paper.
A framed photograph of the waiting room hung on the treatment room wall, where Chet woke, staring into the bright
light of Dr. Giroux’s tiny flashlight.
“O good. You’re awake. Say ‘aaahhh’.”
The doctor stuck a wooden stick down Chet’s throat.
“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh.”
“Now sit up son,” he flipped Chet off his back, into sitting position, unveiling a tiny hammer, and tapped the top of
his knee. Having spent his adolescence as backcatcher for the local minor baseball team, the patient’s knees no
longer responded to much of any reflex, confusing the doctor’s observations. EOTY #6, Dr. Giroux’s local practice
specialized in the treatment of scorpion bites, sunstroke, and the occasional childbirth. And concussion. Second
opinions weren’t far, but rarely considered.
Chet kicked.
“You’ll need pills for the headache,” Giroux prescribed. “And keep ice on the swelling.”
“Any brain damage?” Chet asked, massaging his head.
“Get some rest is all.”
“Feels like my brain got damaged. Shouldn’t you X-Ray me or something?”
“Rest,” Giroux yawned. “And you must get someone to wake you every couple of hours to make – (yawn), to make
sure… (yawn), to – “
“To make sure of what?”
“That you don’t die,” Giroux diagnosed. “Alarm clocks won’t do. You’ll sleep through and not wake up in the
morning. Not ever.”
“I’m a DS.”
“Day Sleeper,” Giroux sighed, exhaling the weariness he felt in his battler against Suenos Crackers’ preference to
invert their innate biological rhythms. He could treat most of the ailments that came in with heavy doses of Vitamin D.
“Do you have someone to take you home?”
“Buckle up,” Lola advised, then ripped through town. Until coming to an abrupt halt back at the Diner that would
have bashed Chet’s already based head into the dash had the melting bag of ice not cushioned the blow. It exploded,
drenching him with cold water.
“Figure I earned a night off,” he pointed to his headache.
“Someone’s gotta bus my tables.”
“I could name 20 people, easy, who’d fight to bus your tables.”
“That’s very sweet, but they’re not on payroll.”
7
The Lola replicates eventually let their natural roots grow in, or moved away. Lola, with her shaved head, began
waiting tables and introducing herself as Moe. One morning, just as she was becoming accustomed to serving
breakfast, a baby was upsetting a lunch rush with constant wailing squeals. As every other patron vowed not to bring
their baby to a restaurant, Moe-Lola approached the despised table to clear plates, offer dessert, and the tiny 4-month
old stopped crying, reached up with both chubby arms, and clearly spoke: “Lola.”
The bustling restaurant, so relieved by the newborn’s silence, looked to the baby boy, still reaching, repeating “Lola.
Lola.” Moe-Lola held a finger out for the baby to clutch.
“His first word!” the mother declared, and when the waitress turned to serve the next table, the baby’s piercing siren
scream erupted louder than before. So Moe-Lola stood there, as though plugging a massive dam with a piece of
gum, for the duration of their patronage. Within an hour, every family Lola ever babysat came for lunch, waiting up to an
hour to get a table. There were more babies in the place than adults. Childless customers wiped mouths, paid bills,
and took flight. The short-staffed kitchen was still fixing screw-ups as Lola took new orders.
It wasn’t enough for the kids to see Lola only when she graced a table between sweeping up broken dishes, swearing
at a lazy busboy, making milkshakes, running out of pens – No. The Suenos Crack babies had to bang spoons, throw
food, piss their pants, just to get her attention. The kitchen’s rushed food wouldn’t do. These kids wanted Lola’s
homemade grilled cheese. These kids wanted her to feed them. Burp them. When a crowd of young teenagers
showed up, cameras flashing, she kicked everyone out and locked the doors.
Socorro Atlas, EOTY #16, owner of the Diner on vacation, was located by phone. Atlas didn’t fire Lola, but said she’
d have to work the midnight shift. Chet Malletos, who preferred working at night so he could sleep through the
scorching days, was bussing her tables the next night.
8
Accepting Lola’s offer to wake him every hour, so he didn’t die, Chet naively expected her to wake him with phone calls,
but due to constant calls from past nanny jobs, she threw her phone in the garbage. She tried to change her number,
to de-list herself, but Suenos Crack phone operators are parents. Information leaked. She would have to wake Chet
in person. And not by splashing cold water on his face. The only way to be safe was to sleep next to him. So it was
Lola, listening to the mumbled details of Chet’s sleep, who initiated the Dream Service.
“You just dream’t that you got fired from an office job for making out with a co-worker, then the boss forced everyone
to sit in alphabetical order so you took a smoke break on a gold-plated roof, but your cigarette turned into licorice then
an elevator cord snapped but you escaped death by falling asleep.”
“Really?” Chet rubbed his eyes open. “I remember the making out. And the licorice.”
“How’s your head?”
Chet’s head felt fine, but he liked having Lola in his bed.
“Hurts,” he lied. “Throbbing.”
“Write that dream down, or you’ll forget.”
“Too late,” he rolled over.
“Write it down, yutz!” she squeezed his nipple, hard.
Saving his life on an hourly basis, Lola began taking notes. She filled a notebook scribbling Chet’s sleep talk while he
filled her in on some images he hadn’t unconsciously narrated. As he read through his book of dreams, written by
someone else, Chet mentioned an idea to start a call-in service that tracks its customers’ dreams then sends a
monthly package with no analysis, no interpretation, just raw sleep-talk. He was used to spouting his big ideas with
impossible actualization. Making elaborate plans without the funds or ambition to follow through.
“That could work,” Lola considered. “There’s a lot of people at the phone company who owe me.”
A week later Lola’s sleeping face appeared on a billboard along the road to the lagoon. A thought bubble asked:
FRUSTRATED FOR THE FADING IMAGES OF YOUR SLEEP?
NOT GETTING ENOUGH OUT OF YOUR IMAGINATION?
CALL THE SUENOS CRACK DREAM SERVICE TODAY!
WE SEND YOUR DREAMS TO YOU!
Philip Rivard is from Calgary, Alberta.