Big Sal has settled up with Stacy and left Raven’s Mirage. crossed the street towards Phone Nerds, only to run into Henry. Chapter 25 opens here.
“Smells like you,” says Big Sal. The cinnamon scent he had been following is background to the sweaty scent that comes from the bag and the human that stands before him. But the toast costume is throwing Big Sal off. He vaguely recalls eating toast in a dumpster once. It smelled nothing like the toasted human that stands before him.
“I don’t smell like butter and toast,” says Henry, misinterpreting Big Sal, thinking the croc was getting a dig in at him. “I smell…” He sniffs his armpits.
“…like Eau de Croco. It’s expensive!”
“No. The bag. It smells like you.”
Henry blinks. Once, twice, three times.
“What in the bag smells like me?”
“I think it’s your old skin. I don’t know why I’m carrying it. Do you want it?”
“You’ll have to show me. This big butter knife is glued to the gloves and I can only rub it around. I can’t get my hands out of here.”
Big Sal doesn’t know how to undo the knot the bag was tied with.
If only I had fingers…
“Is it okay if I tear it open?”
“Sure. No skin off my back.”
Big Sal sets the bag down, tears it open, and pulls out an arm. It flops against the ground and makes a hissing sound as it rubs against the bag.
The smell that snaps out of Henry is like a wet twig breaking. Another adds to it. And then his beaver dam breaks open, a flood washing over broken branches.
“Why did you bring this here?” asks Henry. “You aren’t from around here so you don’t know what this was to me.”
“I don’t know,” says Big Sal, wondering where this is going for Henry. Henry’s actions are different from the last time Big Sal smelled broken beaver dam on a grieving trucker.
“Man, can you only use simple sentences?” says Henry. “Why did you bring this here?”
Big Sal’s nostrils flare. Henry’s scent says something familiar, while his actions are very different.
No skin off this croc’s back. This human is…conflicted.
“Petra said not to lose it.”
Henry’s scents change again, and they are honey and mango mixed with mud and woody brokenness.
“Ah, Petra.”
And tears run out of the face nestled inside a pat of butter, darker streaks tracing over the yellow and into the corrugated toast.
“Those were the best days of my life,” he says quietly, with a singsong rhythm.
Big Sal’s own eyes begin to leak, tears running over his fading crocodile skin.
Henry blinks at him.
“Your eyes, they looked human for a moment there.”
Big Sal shrugs and grunts. “I’m just me.”
Henry looks at the bag. “I think this costume found me. What I’m going to do with it, I don’t know. But thanks.”
Why are humans so confusing? The way this one smells, he’s trying to rebuild old dams that have broken but never moved them upstream.
Big Sal glances towards the bakery, where fresh baked cinnamon buns steam in racks just behind the front window.
“Can I…”
“They won’t let you in,” says Henry.
“What do you mean?”
“They don’t like crocodiles. Trust me. Their sign…”
“Croc that, I’m gonna try.”
And with that, Big Sal leaves the crocodile skin in the bag by the toasted human and approaches the Cinnamon State bakery.
“You really don’t want…”
Big Sal waves his front paw the way he did to Security at the Zit & Grit and approaches the door.
Three customers stand in line inside the bakery, two people behind the counter. At the till, a wide man with a nose that sticks out and up gives a sniff and looks out the window, his eyes narrowing at Big Sal. He might be looking at a piece of carrion too bad to eat.
“Can’t you read?” he yells, and slams his hand onto the counter, startling his customers.
“Read what?” says Big Sal, opening the door.
“Get out! Crocodiles are not allowed! Never have been and never will! We do not serve crocodiles, whether from Hooks, the zoo or Egypt! Get out!”
One of the customers, a teenaged boy, gives the shopkeeper with the tilted-up nose a snort. “That’s the new Hooks croc dude. He’s famous. You’re making a bad decision.”
Turning red with anger, the shopkeeper takes the cinnamon bun from the boy.
“You do not know what you are talking about,” he yells, shaking the cinnamon bun in the boy’s face, frosting going everywhere.
“This kind sunk family bakeries over many years. WE. DO. NOT. SERVE. CROCODILES. Read the sign!”
“Nuts to this,” says the boy, walking out. “I’ll take my business to Zenbucks.”
“Go!”
“I just want a cinnamon…” says Big Sal.
“Get out you scaley freak! I will call security! I will call the police! I will call everyone!”
The other customers scurry out another door, one eating the cinnamon bun on the way out, the other leaving it behind.
“Hey Boondaggle,” says Henry from behind Big Sal.
“Yes, patsy?” says the baker, Boondaggle.
“I would not know…” Henry moves a hand, and the large butter knife waves in one direction. “What might happen if I were to, oh accidentally trip, oh whoopsie!”
Henry leans on one leg, teeters…
“Oh you…” starts Boondaggle.
Henry goes down face first onto the sidewalk, unable to stop himself with hands glued to the butter knife.
Big Sal whirls around, his tail sending a garbage can flying. Reaching down he pushes Henry face up, the side of the toast costume folding over.
A scent that Big Sal hasn’t smelled in a long time tickles his nose.
Blood.
A trickle runs down from Henry’s forehead.
“This costume never passed safety,” whispers Henry. “Remember, my hands are stuck in here and I can’t catch myself. He’s liable. Get out of here.”
Big Sal’s nose flares, but then he decides to do exactly that.
Cinnamon buns are harder to get than anything else. Maybe one day I’ll have one. And maybe I’ll bring one to Henry.
So, with a chagrined grumble, Big Sal rumbles down the sidewalk, while Boondaggle’s voice chews out the toast on the sidewalk.
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Chapter 23 podcast drops May 30
Chapter 24 text drops June 7
