A comfort item, the hat goes back on and gets adjusted carefully.
The dancer smiles, looks him over. “You’ve got quite the first impression. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were the real thing. You’re an incredible method actor.”
Big Al doesn’t know what this means, but he smiles, nods, and winks. It felt like the right thing to do.
Back to the restaurant they walk. The dancer is quiet, the scent of cilantro mostly faded, more mango, banana, and citrus.
Big Al isn’t entirely sure what this means. Cilantro has always been the closest to nature, to flow. And it seems to come and go with the dancer, which is entirely unexpected. It disorients him.
The crowd has mostly scattered upon return, but a couple families are still milling around. Light applause greets the two as they re-enter the sidewalk stage. Big Al isn’t sure why, but the water-return scent arises from his own skin, and he smiles and takes a small bow.
The food aromas spill out from Hooks in a wave of cooked meat, fried food and other delicious scents. The doors slide open as they get close, and Big Al stops for a moment, again confused.
No knobs? Why can’t every door be like this? And food! How do I get some of this?
“Ah, my friend!” It’s Raleigh, or at least it smells like Raleigh. There’s a little bit of trick to him and a lot of leather. He looks like what’s stuck to the outside of the building.
“Thank you, Petra, for bringing this tick-tick-tickety boom of an actor back from the depths!” he says. “Hoo boy. You smell like you spent the night in a dumpster! Come below deck and we shall get you ship-shape!”
“See you later, dancer,” says Petra to Big Al, who smiles and gives Big Al a little wave.
“How did you find us? All the way from Zit & Grit? You’ve had an adventure, I can tell. It’s written all over your face. It’s Rick, right?”
“Uh, yes. I think,” says Big Al.
Raleigh shakes his head slowly. “You’re here for the job, right? I’ve got some paperwork for you to fill out, and there’s even a changing room just for the croc!”
Big Al allows himself to be led towards a door that is marked ‘Shipmates Only’, up some stairs and into a tight, claustrophobic hallway with doors on both sides.
His tail scrapes the wooden floor with a THSH, THSH as he follows.
A door marked ‘The Croc’ stands closed. Raleigh fishes out a set of keys to open it. Across the hallway, a door is marked ‘The Cap’n’.
Hmm. Some of the same sticks from Kitchen Closed.
Raleigh notices Big Al looking at the signs.
“I can’t use direct references or I might be sued, and I really can’t afford liability lawyers,” says Raleigh. “But here’s where you can get changed when you want. It’s even got a private shower and tub!”
“Grrrreat,” rumbles Big Al as he looks into the room. There is one small window in the far wall, and the river is visible.
“Before you get too settled, let’s get your paperwork filled out,” says Raleigh, hand on his own door. “Let’s see what we can do for you.”
The Cap’n’s room is twice the size of The Croc’s, and plusher. Instead of thin, stick-like furniture in The Croc’s, this has a big, shiny desk that smells like the varnish from Ms. Fasts’s handrail. Raleigh sits down behind the desk in a swiveling chair that smells like him.
Raleigh waves to a big, stuffed chair before the desk, smells of many different humans, sweat emanating from it like a stewpot with meat. The man ruffles through the drawers of his desk, looking for something.
Something hangs on the wall to Big Al’s left, and glancing up he sees a large stuffed crocodile on a shelf, its jaws held open by a round clock that goes TICK TOCK TICK TOCK.
It’s not a real crocodile, and never was, his nose tells him that. But it looks like it could have been from Stinkwater, or somewhere else. The plush chair Big Al was waved into suddenly feels like the hallway, closing in on him.
Is this croc going to end up like that croc? he wonders. Does this human world mean to hang me on a wall holding something I don’t know?
“Ah! Here it is! Employment Form 101. Now, are you able to break form for a minute and fill this out yourself?”
“Uhh. I’m just learning to read and write. I’m not great,” he says, then after a moment, “Yet.”
Raleigh nods as if he knew this was coming.
“Alright. Well, I can’t fill this out myself, buuut…I may be able to have someone that knows you help you fill it out. Do you have anyone like that?”
“Uhh.”
The tip of Big Al’s tail twitches nervously. It catches Raleigh’s attention.
“I swear, that suit is seamless. Wherever you got it, that person’s a real craftsman.” He twirls a pen between his fingers, makes it dance, thinks.
Holding a button on his desk, “Can someone please send Petra up to the Cap’ns Office?” Then he gives his attention back to Big Al, studies him like he’s counting scales.
“I’m going to guess that you don’t have a fixed address, being the wanderer you are. I’m going to ask you the first question straight. Are you still wandering?”
Big Al thinks for a moment.
Food. I left because swamp pickin’s were getting thin.
The aromas of all the cooked food here in Hooks are an undercurrent that is everywhere.
So Big Al looks Raleigh in the eyes.
“Nope.”
Raleigh breathes out as if he had been holding his breath, smiles with as many teeth as Big Al has.
“Wonderful to hear. That’s really great.”
The door creaks open, the dancer easing in with a tart, nervous scent changing to citrus as she steps in.
“You asked to see me?”
There is little cilantro to the dancer, but rather smells more like hamburgers, fries and something with a lot of fried onion.
“Petra! Great timing. Have you taken your lunch break yet?”
“Not yet. I was thinking of taking it a little later and running to the pharmacy after the noon rush.”
Raleigh pauses. “Is it anything I could pick up for you?”
Now it’s Petra’s turn to pause. “Uh, sure. I was just picking up a prescription. I’d have to call and let them….”
A double cilantro scent arises, and a cell phone lands in Petra’s hands, the two humans coordinated before either could blink.
“When you take your break, if you could help our esteemed reptilian friend fill out our oh-so-very-important-information for the taxman, I’d be forever indebted to you. And yes, I can grab that and won’t ask any questions. Shall I put it in your jolly roger locker when I get back?”
Petra seems genuinely surprised. Mango, banana, and a sharper citrus scent arises. The fried onion smell makes Big Al’s stomach rumble.
“Yes. Sure, I can do that.” She looks at the time held by the eternally fake crocodile on the wall. “Lunch is in ten minutes?”
“Take a longer lunch. It’s on me.”
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Chapter 13 podcast drops January 10
Chapter 14 text drops January 17
