The Mercury Fish truck caromed round the corner, the monger driven to madness. He counted to 100 backwards, then forwards, the tyres spinning in circles. ‘…for the love of God hit the brakes…’ hollered the monger’s assistant. His body stiffened to meet the oncoming collision, the man in the hat sat on the curbside, the neon sign over the L'Hospitalet de Llobregat blinking on and on and off. The truck veered to the left then the right then continued down the blacktop fishtailing this way and that. The monger reached across the cab, and grabbing hold of his assistant’s arm said, ‘…it’ll be a cold day in de Llobregat when I give into simple calculus…’. The assistant pulled out his Tyack pin harp and began to play, his eyes filled with terror.
The night before the monger lay awake in his bed thinking of ways he would die: syphilis, mouth cankers, violent whooping, coronary distress, virulence, aphasia, crabs, louts, solar winds that would carry him away to outer space where he would die a lonely cold death, arrhythmia, fainting, gonorrhea, tripping over the curbside and careening into oncoming traffic, some form of plague, glue sniffing and drowning. He had been under the employ of the Mercury Fish Co. for the past 27 ½ years, 4 of those as a monger’s assistant, 3 as a driver’s assistant, and 20 ½ as a driver first class, a job he took with him to the grave, and then some. His father worked for the Co. until he was driven to the edge of madness, fell off, and found satisfaction in less complicated things, mending socks, pinochle, trump the King and long pining afternoon naps.
The day before the man in the hat found a cadet’s cap in a furrow of leaves and dead things, the brim turned inside out. Holding the cap in his hand he eyeballed the insignia on the front, San Carlos de Bariloche Cadets, the smell from the felt liner smarting his eyes. He buried the cap under a swell of wet rotting leaves and dead things and went onward into the day, his thoughts on other things, things that occupied his mind when he wasn’t thinking about other people’s caps and malodorous things.
The night before the monger lay awake in his bed thinking of ways he would die: syphilis, mouth cankers, violent whooping, coronary distress, virulence, aphasia, crabs, louts, solar winds that would carry him away to outer space where he would die a lonely cold death, arrhythmia, fainting, gonorrhea, tripping over the curbside and careening into oncoming traffic, some form of plague, glue sniffing and drowning. He had been under the employ of the Mercury Fish Co. for the past 27 ½ years, 4 of those as a monger’s assistant, 3 as a driver’s assistant, and 20 ½ as a driver first class, a job he took with him to the grave, and then some. His father worked for the Co. until he was driven to the edge of madness, fell off, and found satisfaction in less complicated things, mending socks, pinochle, trump the King and long pining afternoon naps.
The day before the man in the hat found a cadet’s cap in a furrow of leaves and dead things, the brim turned inside out. Holding the cap in his hand he eyeballed the insignia on the front, San Carlos de Bariloche Cadets, the smell from the felt liner smarting his eyes. He buried the cap under a swell of wet rotting leaves and dead things and went onward into the day, his thoughts on other things, things that occupied his mind when he wasn’t thinking about other people’s caps and malodorous things.
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