10 The Rat Queen
I was at work when the bomb at the auto shop went off. At the time, everybody was focused on a different drama. That morning Mirror had come in, thrown her bag down on the counter, and said, “They’ve totally sold the restaurant.”
The cook, Mitch, came out of the kitchen. She was wearing a t-shirt of a pregnant woman carrying an assault rifle and her face was red from working the grill.
“No way. Franklin would never sell without giving us chance to buy it.”
“I am so f*cking serious it’s not even funny,” said Mirror. “It’s a done deal. Everyone in the neighborhood already knows. That’s what that stupid work meeting’s about.”
Mitch shook her head. “It’s a rumor.”
“Actually,” said Mr. Tofu Scramble with his mouth full of potatoes, “I heard about it last week. A real shame. Well,” he swallowed, “I guess things have to change. One less thing to miss about this country, right? Hey Mitch, tell Franklin thanks for getting the spelt. Can I get another order when you have a chance?”
Mitch’s cheeks ticked. A pancake started to smoke on the grill.
“I just don’t think he would.”
“The new owners have been in here twice,” said Mirror. “Kelly waited on them. They’re from California. They’re not even vegetarian.”
Mitch stared at the toast crumbs on Mr. Tofu Scramble’s plate. Then she went to the walk-in, pulled out a bottle of wine, and stomped back into the kitchen. Seconds later a two-pound whisk hit the corkboard with the minimum wage standards.
Word of the sale spread and took over the New Land Trust bombing as the favored topic. Everyone had an opinion:
Ed, Logic’s Only Son: You’re all going to get fired.
Mr. Tofu Scramble: Change often leads to transformation. Who would have thought I’d end up on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world?
Ed, Logic’s Only Son: None of you are getting welfare either.
Mr. Tofu Scramble: You know the Balinese women are so graceful because they balance things on their heads.
It turned out Coworker Franklin had already put most of the kitchen equipment and all the decorative art pieces up on eBay. Half the neighborhood had been bidding on the Indonesian garden lattices for a week. Every time the outrage died out and Mitch calmed down, someone new walked through the door.
“Did Franklin really sell the restaurant?”
A loud crash in the kitchen as a heavy colander hit a row of hanging pots.
“Hey, can I see the Javanese batik screens? They look small on the computer.”
Glasses smashing against the metal rim of a trashcan.
“You know, I always thought this place would make a nice tapas bar.”
Mitch pours a bottle of wine into a pan and a huge fireball engulfs the stove.
As the shift progressed Mitch got more and more liberal with the portions until she was slicing a whole salmon or vegan chocolate cake into quarters and dropping them randomly on tables as gifts. Mirror made everyone free mimosas. By 4 PM we were all drunk and Mirror was raiding the lost and found box for clothes. She pocketed a couple of cell phones and put on a sparkly, red mesh top. Mitch asked her to get some things out of the shed but she refused, “I’m sick of burying rats.” She walked over to a table of her friends and sat down. They were talking about the upcoming sex party and Mirror started to draw plans, “We’ll put the stage over here, the DJ over there and upstairs…” But Mitch needed rice to plug the drains and cups for the free wine so I said I’d get them.
The shed has a padlock but no one ever uses it. That’s how the animals get in. I opened the doors and stepped back to give them a chance. Nothing happened so I went in. Franklin orders rice from an Indonesian catalog and they come in these forty-pound canvas bags with red script and third eyes all over them. I grabbed one for Mitch. Everything had been eaten into. Egg noodles, salt crackers and buckwheat pancake mix. I found a bag of marshmallows cut open lengthwise. I pulled down a sack of paper cups. Behind it was a folded red bandana.
Carrying the trash to the dumpster, I passed the Rat Graveyard. Most of the twig crosses had been stepped on and what was left leaned sharply and dipped towards ground. Someone tied the Buzz Lightyear doll to a new cross, the cross of the pregnant rat. Under Buzz Lightyear’s dangling feet were blue marbles and around the mound a circle of pennies. I stopped and sat on the half-tilled soil. The sun was low and across Buzz Lightyear’s helmet tawny light fell. Water soaked into my underwear. On the grave itself someone had pressed beads into the dirt. Hundreds of them sprinkled, set and flashing like pyrite in a creek. It must be a Rat Queen, I thought, what else? A Rat Queen, the natural symbol of New Honduras. Basta! I saw flags. Basta! On a field of red and yellow she towered over the computer-generated superhero, her belly full with the earth and at her feet pennies, marbles and beads like a thousand broken necklaces thrown in her path. Basta! I took the red bandana I found in the shed and tied it around Buzz Lightyear’s plastic feet. Then I opened the front of his space helmet and left him there to die. A final act before the Black Ocean. I brought the bag of rice and the cups back to the kitchen.
Seconds later a large blast shook the building.
“What the f*ck was that?” shouted Mitch.
Another blast came and I heard breaking glass. Everyone got down. The street filled with black smoke and people were running out of shops. We ran too. The guy who owned the vintage clothing store next to us was dialing frantically on his cell phone and there was a dog freaking out and barking at everyone.
The explosions came from the auto shop on the corner. It was on fire. We ran towards the end of the block where people were gathering. The blast had come from a truck in the center of the auto shop lot. By the time we got there it was nothing but a charred skeleton. A huge, bright tongue of flame had swallowed it. Reaching up into the sky it bellowed and snapped.
“That garage is going to go,” said a woman next to us.
She worked at the salon across the street and still had hair clips in her hand. The orange light from the blaze reflected faintly on her cheeks and sweat cut fine pathways in her foundation.
“It’s going to hit the kiosk first,” said another man. “See how the wind’s blowing?”
He was right. The paint on the side of the kiosk was bubbling and the blaze mirrored in the windows splashed like lava. A large gust of wind came up and blew it all back the other way and the sky opened before us. Stars pricked the approaching night, clear and cloudless over our heads. Then it all went black and the fire roared to new life devouring the kiosk. It exploded and pieces of the flaming roof rained down like comets. They landed on cars and sidewalks. A piece landed right in front of me, burning and vivid. I could hear the tar cracking.
“That auto shop was the last black-owned business on the street,” said the man.
Everyone watched like they had somehow done it. More pieces fell hissing to the ground. People moved back as the great blaze shot sparks and embers into the sky. I saw the Rat Queen rise behind the gutted kiosk, her fur glistening with beads, and wearing a crown of broken marbles. Before me Old Honduras burned and New Honduras rose. Where once an old auto shop stood, now was raised a Popsicle stick palace, barely visible but there all the same. From one angle it was a bistro, from another a high-end knit shop. When I stood back it was a multi-use facility with a tattoo parlor above and a naturopathic clinic below. The sirens came at last but they were far too late.