Raleigh spins away, lifts his arms, and whoops. “It’s going to be like a Gol D. Roger treasure this weekend!”
“I don’t know what that is,” says Petra. She begins to pull Sal towards the front of the kitchen, where plates of steaming food are waiting for their customers.
She looks at an order slip.
“Do you see those three people sitting by the window over there?” she asks, pointing. Three teenagers sit near a window, two chatting and one on their phone. She takes three plates and three milkshakes and puts them on a tray.
“Take this to those customers. Set these in front of them. And don’t eat any of it. Got it?”
“Got it.”
He takes the tray in two hands, and three Hook burgers, accompanying fries and three different kinds of milkshakes, one lactose-free, are like beacons under his nose. He walks slow and careful, doing his best to keep things balanced.
But his sway has milkshakes looking like pendulums by the time he reaches the table, and the fear-tart that arises he can’t tell if it’s from him or the swinging milkshakes.
“Woah, grab ‘em while they’re upright!” says the closest.
Three hands grab their milkshakes, and Big Sal sets the tray on the table.
It doesn’t seem right though, and he takes the plates off. Each person raises a hand when theirs is touched, and he figures it out quickly. When the last plate is placed, he lifts the tray again.
“You’re like the hottest thing in Ankerton right now, croc-dude,” says one kid. “Don’t listen to the haters. Just be yourself.”
“I dunno Joey,” says a girl, whose milkshake smells like mango. “You sure this croc isn’t real? I mean, he’s got drool forming.”
“Nah Jane, don’t be a hater.”
“That’s a hype costume. Where’d you get it?” asks the other.
“Oh, leave him alone, Peter.”
His proximity wristband starts to vibrate, and he looks at it. A moment later, the sound of breaking waves and a little human roar comes over restaurant speakers.
“This croc can dance! Watch him floss!” says a deep baritone of a pirate voice.
“Oh wow! We’re the first to hear the croc stinger in like, years!” says Joey.
Big Sal has no idea what is happening, just that the way everyone is looking at him, they clearly expect something.
Uhh. Gotta do something…
So, he tosses the tray he is holding up in the air in a spin, opens his jaws, and…
SNAP
A moment later, he spits the tray out with a pa-tooey.
The table erupts in laughter.
“That isn’t the floss!” says Peter. “This is the floss!”
The kid jumps up and does the floss, his arms swinging like the milkshakes were. Big Sal watches for a moment, then tries to mimic. His arms don’t have the same mobility, and he ends up looking more like a stuffed crocodile that bangs chairs with his tail.
Two phones snap, and one kid holds his screen up, recording. Again, Big Sal isn’t sure what’s happening, but the scents from the table explode outwards in a fruity potpourri of banana, mango, honey, water-return, and others.
On their faces is pure hilarity, smiles, laughter and mirth.
“Peter, you’re going to go viral! Dancing with the Hooks crocodile! First one too! Oh my god!” says Jane. “That was hi-lar-ious!”
Those Hook burgers smell amazing.
After a moment, It’s kind of like the Zit & Grit, only without the wheaty smell. These small humans aren’t afraid of me, and they’re laughing.
The scent of bison stew steeps out from between his scales.
“Alright, big guy,” whispers Petra, appearing at his elbow. “That was only the first emote. Just wait for the others.”
Then, to the table, she says, “Ahoy shipmates! Don’t feed the animals! They might just get a hankerin’ for you landlubbers!”
She leads him away from a still-laughing table and back to the kitchen.
For the next few hours, Petra tells him which plates go where, slowly explaining how the marks correspond to each table. He doesn’t get it at first. He makes a few mistakes. But the proximity band goes off every several tables, and every time it’s the floss dance. Every time he feels like a stuffed crocodile with arms that just won’t do what they’re supposed to.
I wish I had human arms for this. Flossing would be easier.
“You should go for break,” says Petra. “See the two hands on the clock?”
He looks at his hands, his claws. “How do these make a clock?”
Petra gives him a steady look. “You’re really from the back woods, aren’t you?”
“Stinkwater. Stinkwater…marsh.”
“Ok buddy. See that round thing up there?” Petra points at a wall clock in the kitchen.
“Yeah.”
“See how the two black lines are straight across the round part right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Take a break, a rest, go have a bath up in your room if you want…doesn’t matter what you do. Just be back when the lines look like this.” She holds her finger and thumb in an ‘L’ shape. “Hold yours up too.”
He does, and she makes sure he isn’t mirroring, only mimicking.
“Thanks.” Water-return arises from between his scales.
“Where do I find the cinnamon buns?”
Chapter 19 – Windows
As he walks up to his room, many different scents hiss from between his scales, the caustic of shame, mostly the fear-tart. The small hallway compresses. As much as he wants to get to his room, he’s also afraid of what he’s going to find.
Stopping to look closer at the hand-drawn, spot-lit crocodile on the wall, he wonders why it looks more ferocious than he feels right now. The eyebrow slants tight, eyes squint, and the tongue hangs out behind the extra tooth. An eternal smile smirks at him.
That crocodile looks like it’s trying to be a crocodile, but knows it isn’t.
With a sigh, he opens the door to ‘The Croc’s’ room. He pushes through billowing clouds of something that’s a soft, creamy butter scent, a hint of beehive and another sweetish nut.
Tears begin to form as he looks at the cream spread out across the table. The broken screw-top lid clings to the edge of the table.
“Oh no. What did I do?” he says aloud this time.
He tips it right-side up and touches the broken edge. The sharp edge leaves a mark on his scale, and…for the first time, his claws feel like skin, not scales.
And as he looks at his claws, they seem a little narrower.
He closes his eyes. The scents scatter his concentration, and he sags against the table, shaking. When he opens his eyes, his concentration comes back, and he realizes he can’t disappear into the dark like he used to.
The water in the bathtub calls like memory, like mud and herons and sand. Then, forcing himself, he stands up, moves to the tub, and turns on the water.
He lies down as the tub fills, the water murmuring toward his eyes while his own runs down to meet it. He turns the knob off and stares at the tiled wall.
I…I feel like that bottle. How am I supposed to put myself back together?
The recent memory of the laughing kids comes to him like a heartbeat, and he breathes in.
Laughter is like swamp gas. There’s something alive inside its belly.
Breathing in again, he thinks about something Petra had said. Four chairs, right? Four things. One, two, three, four chairs.
Four plates.
Four milkshakes.
He breathes with each number, thinking about the laughter.
A yell from outside pulls him up to look out a dirty window pane. He places his wet hand on the glass and wipes. Dirty streaks remain. The river still courses by outside, and if he presses his eyes close to the pane, he can see the fountain off to the right in front of Hooks.
An adult is out front, yelling that whoever they got for the new croc is just a…frog? He can’t tell if that’s the right word or not, but the person is jumping around and waving his arms.
The clock looks like that ‘L’ Petra showed him. He doesn’t want to be late. So he gets out of the tub and walks, dripping wet, across the floor.
It doesn’t seem right to just leave this broken here.
Big Sal goes through the drawers. He finds a towel with the same ‘The Croc’ as on his front door. He uses the towel to clean up the moisturizer, carefully picks up the glass, and puts it in a trashcan.
Sighing, he says, “I hope that stays like bison. Only happens once.”
The stairway isn’t as claustrophobic this time around. The scent of Hook burgers drifts over him, and his stomach rumbles.
“Sal, glad to see you! Good job being on time,” says Petra. “So, there’s someone here that you should know about.”
“Is that the person yelling outside about a frog?”
“Uh. Yes. Not frog. Fraud. But don’t worry about him. He’s just the guy who used to play the old croc, and he’s the jealous type. We know all about him.”
New stick bundle, or word, I guess.
“What is…frau—d? Like frog, but slimier?” he says. The heat from the plates and the heat lamps dries him out, and he drinks from the dishwasher hose.
Petra gives him a steady look. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. Because sometimes you’re right. A fraud would be someone who’s pretending to be something they are not. Poser? Here, use this glass and fill it from the drink machine when you get thirsty.”
“Thanks.” Mango scents arise from his scales, and he finds himself wanting to know more.
“Don’t worry about him. We know him well. It’s already picking up from Don Maroon’s coverage of our viral bit. Tonight will be busy,” says Petra. “Here, keep doing what you were doing before. Match plates to tables. And I will tell Raleigh that he has got to change it from the floss.”
“Why’s that?” he says. He puts plates and glasses on a tray and takes it out. He does the floss, bangs some chairs with his tail, and returns.
“The floss was Henry’s signature dance, and it’s what stayed in the stinger when he left, four years ago.”
“Henry…is that guy waving his arms and yelling outside?” His taped on eyebrow gains an inch as his real one perks up.
“You got it. He is a little weird. But you know how we like weird here.”
The next tray he takes out, Henry stands at the helm, blue eyes glaring at him.
“You’re a fraud, mister.”
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Chapter 19 podcast drops April 4
Chapter 20 text drops April 11
