Freak City Read online

  Chapter Two

  "That's just some crazy stuff,” Mikael commented when he heard the story. "And believe me I know my crazy"

  "I believe you,” Argus replied.

  They were taking a break from their shipping and receiving duties in the back room at the Pay'n'Save convenience store. Surrounded by an endless mountain of incoming and outgoing boxes, the two men huddled around a snot green card table where Argus had laid out the full contents of the mystery package. He had only barely saved it from the mischievous hands of the little neighborhood brats Karly and Kansas, who seemed to think it was their job to greet Argus with some petty thievery and make him chase them around the building practically every morning. Argus had made it a habit to carry something he didn't mind losing, some random object off the street for instance, as a decoy to protect anything else more valuable. It was Kansas who had snatched the box and pulled the usual disappearing act around the corner.

  Argus could never guess where the kids would get to. They seemed to have a new vanishing act every day. This time it was Karly who reappeared just as Argus was starting to get steamed. The child was suddenly at his side in the back parking lot, holding out the box with a blank expression in her big brown eyes. As soon as he touched it, she lifted herself on her toes and dashed away. He'd stashed the package in his cubby and spent the rest of the morning opening other boxes, counting items, checking off invoices, typing and filing away records of the items as they arrived: candy bars, Kotex, chips, frozen burritos, laundry detergent, anything and everything that filled the shelves of the local branch of the national chain of mom and pop replacement shops.

  It was a stupid job. Not the thing he had in mind exactly when he'd ditched his home and family and left to start a new and different life. It was different all right, sharing a small house with five other people, none of whom he'd known when he'd moved in, working away for peanuts, coming home dead tired just to drag his ass to the bus again in the morning. What really got him was the lack of a future. Here he was only twenty two years old and he couldn't see a day beyond tomorrow.

  "I like the little robots,” Mikael said, picking up one of the red and black plastic toys and examining it closely. The robot was all one piece and had a smooth head, a grimace for a mouth, and peculiar round spectacles for eyes.

  "It looks like a bad guy,” he declared.

  "No way,” Argus said, "he's totally harmless"

  "Bad guy,” Mikael repeated, putting that one down and picking up the other, nearly identical to the first except for its yellow and blue coloring, and square spectacles instead of round.

  "Good guy,” Mikael pronounced.

  "It's just the colors you like,” Argus told him and Mikael beamed.

  "Why not? What could be more natural? You see a thing you like you call it good. You see a think you don't you call it bad. So what? Who cares? You could change your mind tomorrow, call the good thing bad and the bad thing good. You could like the Lakers all of a sudden."

  "I don't know about that,” Argus murmured, "really, the Lakers?"

  "Anything,” Mikael continued. "What is like and not like? It's just made up stuff. You see something, you decide what you think of it. This is all"

  "So what do you think of these?,” Argus asked, holding up a couple of Bite Size Shredded Wheat cereal box box-tops. At that moment, Celestina walked by and practically shouted,

  "That is not food!"

  "Try it you'll like it,” Mikael dared her, turning to yell after her as she brushed past him on her way to the rest room.

  "I like shredded wheat,” Argus said.

  "So what? Who cares?,” replied Mikael. "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

  "What is all this?,” Argus asked himself again.

  Each of the items from the box were now before him. Seven old photographs, a handwritten note that was barely legible and made no sense, two toy robots, the box tops, a house key, and the newspaper wrappings themselves, which once he looked closely at noticed they were clippings, complete articles from different newspapers from different cities, different dates.

  "It's either garbage or clues,” Mikael suggested, picking up the photos and flipping through them briefly before tossing them back on the table.

  "I would say it's most likely garbage"

  "What's all this?" somebody said, and Argus and Mikael looked up to see their boss, Ahmed Atta, towering over them.

  "A long story,” Argus said.

  "Curious,” Ahmed, leaning his tall slender body over the table to get a closer look. "I'd like to hear about it"

  "Some old man stuck a box in my hands while I was getting on the bus this morning,” Argus told him. "This is what was in it?"

  "Where is the box now?" Ahmed asked, and Argus gestured towards the carton which was still sitting in his cubby.

  "You will want to save every bit of it,” Ahmed told him. "Such things do not occur in the normal flow of events"

  "Tell me about it,” Mikael scoffed, shaking his head. He was used to his boss's superstitious ways. Mikael had been working for Ahmed for several years by now, always sticking with his back room job and evading every possible promotion. Mikael was probably in his mid to late thirties but was very guarded about his personal life. No one at the store could tell if he was married, had a family, or even where he came from, although they all assumed it was Russia and he didn't bother to correct them. He was from the Ukraine, actually. He liked his situation now, and didn't mind putting up with nonsense like this from Ahmed. He even enjoyed it.

  "You will want to see Madam Sylvia,” Ahmed continued. "You will want to take her the contents exactly as they were as far as possible. Madam Sylvia will have something interesting to say about all this, I am sure"

  "Madam Sylvia,” Mikael laughed, "will tell you anything you want to hear as long as money is green and there is some of it to give her."

  "Don't be like that, Mikael,” Ahmed scolded, wagging his finger in the air. "This is something here. This isn't every day."

  "Okay,” Argus agreed. "I will take it to Madam Sylvia"

  "Go now,” Ahmed said, "or any time this afternoon. I don't mind."

  "Thanks, boss,” said Argus, but as Ahmed walked back into the main store room, he and Mikael exchanged glances and tried not to laugh too loudly.

  "Oh Madam Sylvia,” Mikael joked, imitating the boss, "look at all this crap I have. I am so very full of it am I not?"

  "You don't even know,” Argus snorted.

  Celestina came wading back and with her wide and swinging hips again managed to nearly topple Mikael from his rickety chair and not by accident. She tossed her hair, gestured with her hand at the mountain of work surrounding them, and taunted,

  "Tell me when you're all done processing these boxes"

  "One of these days I will process your big fat ass,” Mikael called after her but not too loudly as the door was swinging open again, and Mr. Fontanel himself could be seen just outside it.

  "Oops,” Mikael muttered and hastily got up and busied himself with a box cutter. Argus wrapped the strange assorted items back up in their newspaper bundles, and stashed them away in their package, and then also got back to work. There was another hour and a half until lunch time. The trip to Madam Sylvia would have to wait. With Fontanel lurking around, it was all heads down and fingers moving.