The Friar’s Gazette

Maracaibo and Zulia live under the bridge under the sky that falls. On Sundays and every second Thursday they come into town to buy lard and biscuit flour. Maracaibo and Zulia like soft crust biscuits and lambskin gloves at cut rate prices. They like to read the horoscopes in the Friar’s Gazette, laying the newspaper out flat to keep it from slipping from their laps. His granddad wore a ox-cap with the brim turned inside out to keep the sun from splicing his eyes. He toiled for the Lattelekom Bakery for 27 years, delivering spice cake and rye bread. He drove the bakery truck from daylight to nightfall, referring to a ledger with the addresses and names of his customers on the empty seat beside him. His good leg, the one without the wooden peg buckled to the stump, worked the gas peddle and clutch, the wooden one swinging beneath his trouser leg like a wayward child.

The Friar’s Gazette ran an advert for the Lattelekom Bakery on the backmost page, Lattelekom Rye and Spicy Spice Cake at Cut Rate Prices, God’s Bakery in the Middle of Nowhere, Prices Subject to Change, Refunds Wednesday and Sunday Afternoons From One to Four, Damaged Boxes and Cake Pans Will Not Be Accepted. Maracaibo and Zulia were fond of rye toast and cut rate prices. Zulia preferred hard salted butter, Maracaibo soft margarine from a tin. His da’s da drove the Lattelekom Bakery truck with his good leg, his peg leg swinging, the buckle pinging off the door panel. His da slept in the back, swinging in a hammock rigged from flour sacs and chicken string.