Ambrosia Waffles
from Nova Range
Elbow deep in the Warlock, Erke’s fingernail only just scraped against the ambrosia. The Warlock’s sphincter tightened on her bicep as she pushed deeper, past the crusted edge and into the gooey nectar. Ambrosia. She scooped as much as she could in her hand and pulled her arm out of the Warlock. Covered in slime but with a handful of ambrosia, she tossed the precious gunk into the empty bucket at her feet.
The Warlock moaned and shifted his dozen legs. She stroked his shoulder-high scaled back, lifted his tail, and slowly pushed her other hand back inside the Warlock. “It’s all right, Sam.” The Warlock turned back towards Erke with his normal impassivity.
Like all Warlocks, Sam had a human face. Big wet egg-shaped eyes the color of yolk, thick lips like sausages—Erke was hungry. And she missed breakfast. She missed animal products. But this was Renaissance. There were only Warlocks, with their twelve legs, scaled armadillo body, and faces that were almost human. Rectum full of ambrosia. The reason they were all on Renaissance.
As she pushed deeper into his body, reaching for ambrosia, Sam chewed the dust that was everywhere. The dust that somehow sustained the enormous beast. The dust stuck in her teeth, in her ears, in her hair, in her ass—it was everywhere. And she put up with it so that she could shove her hand up a monster’s asshole to pull out the only substance that could sustain human life, that was meant to make them all rich.
Erke continued to fill up her bucket, staring out into the dusty haze. The reddish-brown wasteland. The weather was comfortable, as it often was in autumn. Dry and cool without much breeze. No duststorms, anyway. Rellet’s truck emerged from the haze, returning from the Co-op. She sighed, shoved her hand back into Sam. His sphincter gripped her wrist so tight that she was stuck. Momentary panic, then she spoke to him soothingly, “Come on, buddy.” Stroking his tale, Sam turned to face her once more. No expression but she had come to know Sam over the last three years. He was usually good for half a bucket of ambrosia before he intimated that he was done for the day. “I’ll hurry up, little man. You know how it goes. If I don’t get my bucket…we’re fucked.”
Sam chewed the dust. His jaws working, his lips smacking, and his wet eyes staring vacantly at her. Erke moved her hand from his tail to his soft underside and began rubbing his groin. “That better, my boy?” Sam’s sphincter remained tight, so she moved her hand into his vagina and rubbed his penis. After a moment, his sphincter relaxed and Erke reached for the ambrosia.
Rellet arrived when she was finishing up. Slight. That was the best way to describe her father. Grand ambitions but cowed easily. Upon seeing Erke pull her arm out of Sam, sweat seemed to coat him and his breathing became shallow. His lip trembled as he watched Erke scrape the remaining ambrosia from beneath her fingernails, from the cracks in her skin into the bucket now perilously full. He struggled to contain his gagging as she rubbed the dust onto the slimy mixture of fecal matter and lubricant covering her arm. Once fully coated, she scraped it all from her skin. A laborious process, one Rellet tried his best to avoid witnessing. But he was there so he did his best to weather it.
Erke found his discomfort more grating than the process of collecting ambrosia from the Warlock. She patted Sam’s back, “You did good, mister man. Real good.” She turned to her father, Rellet. “What’s the word?”
Rellet wiped the sweat from his face and winced as a shard of dust scraped a white line into his forehead. He flicked his hand out, then studied the palm. He spat into his hand and rubbed it over his forehead, then looked at his hand again. “Bleeding?”
“You’re good.”
Rellet nodded then sighed heavily. “Word’s no good. Harrik said the Co-op’s not responsible for Warlocks once they leave the pasture.”
“Fucking bitch.”
“Don’t swear, please.”
“Tell me she’s not.”
“She just doing her job. Same as us all.”
“Still. She got the ear of the Co-op back home, yeah?”
Rellet smiled sheepishly. “They don’t care, Eky. They invested what they thought we were worth. Won’t invest more without a return.”
“Blight wasn’t our fault.”
Rellet shrugged. She hated how he just shrugged. How he just let people push him over. “Not their fault neither.”
“Can’t make a profit off just Sam.”
“That’s been true for two years. Harrik told me not to petition again. Says it’s on us. Says to try and work a deal with Boullie.”
“Fuck Boullie.” Erke spat.
Rellet winced at the curse. “Come on, Eky.”
She snorted, lifted the bucket of ambrosia, and carried it past her father.
Their shack would have been big enough for four, but the three of them filled the space admirably. It kept warm year-round, constructed from adobe bricks made from the dust and ambrosia back when they had unimaginable surplus. Back when promises of wealth and immortality felt like something they’d earned. After the blight, after watching a thousand Warlocks die, it seemed something they were owed.
She pushed the door open to the kitchen. Yaro sat with a foot on the table, using their butcher knife to pare his toenails. He smiled when he saw her. “Yall want waffles?”
Erke set the ambrosia on the counter and kicked Yaro off his chair.
Falling gracelessly, he landed sprawled on the floor, the chair clattering into the counter. “Fuck!” He dropped the knife and put a hand over his bleeding foot. “You could’ve cut my fucking foot off!”
“We eat here,” she pointed at the table.
His expression was one of disbelief, “So?”
“It’s fucking disgusting.”
His eyes went wide, the vein at the middle of his forehead pulsed, then his expression softened, and he laughed. “We eat alien shit on a waffle iron every day!”
Erke snorted. “Not shit. It’s a byproduct of his digestion. A thimble’s worth more than your goddamn life.”
He barked laughter. “Yet we’re poor as shit out here!” He rolled back, laughing harder.
Rellet shuffled into the kitchen. “What’s so funny?”
Yaro said, “Eky almost cut my fucking foot off.” He cackled.
“Don’t swear, Yaya.”
Erke crouched beside her brother. “You okay?”
Yaro wiped a tear from his eye and shrugged. “What good’s a foot out here?”
“If you ever left the house—”
Yaro snorted a laugh. “That fucking dust, man.”
Rellet winced, clenched his fists, unclenched them, and sighed heavily.
Yaro pulled himself up, dipped his finger into the ambrosia, and rubbed it over the cut on his foot. It would seal the wound, keep it from infection. He took out the waffle iron he brought from earth and plugged it into their single outlet.
Rellet slumped into a chair. “You ever going to make something besides waffles?”
“Fuck off.”
Rellet somehow slumped deeper. “Please don’t swear.”
“Eky,” Yaro said, “you ever hear of Jesus coming to Renaissance?”
“Just Bishop Topper.”
“Don’t call him that.” Rellet said.
Yaro ladled ambrosia onto the hot waffle iron. “Think god gives a fuck if we swear or not out here?”
Rellet’s jaw clenched and his body seemed to tighten with every curse, as if they physically assaulted him.
“Nope,” Erke responded to Yaro’s question, ignoring their father.
The ambrosia sizzled, and the smell of rotting algae filled the kitchen. Erke breathed deep, salivating. She smiled. “Ro, you ever think you’d get used to ambrosia?”
“You ever see how Gaillet prepares it?”
“Who’s Gaillet?”
Yaro shrugged. “Boullie’s son, I think. Or lover. Don’t know. Don’t matter. Maybe just hired on help. What he told me he does with it is make it into macaroni and cheese.”
“The fuck?”
Rellet winced. His lips tight and pale, the vein in his neck bulging.
“He said they trade for noodles at the Co-op. Guess someone somewhere built a greenhouse and started growing wheat or some shit. So he makes the noodles, then adds the Warlock shit and stirs it up. Said it tastes and smells like ass but it reminds him of home.”
“Yaya, stop.”
Yaro yawned, opened the waffle iron, and put the ambrosia waffle onto a plate. Shoving it towards their father, “Eat it while it’s hot, daddy.”
Rellet sighed. “I wish your mother were here.”
“So do we.” Erke said.
Yaro laughed. “She wouldn’t’ve stayed a minute on this shithole planet.”
“It was her dream,” Rellet spoke softly, “to see the stars. She wanted to see life under a different sun.”
Yaro ladled more ambrosia into the waffle iron.
“When’d you talk to Gaillet?”
“What?”
“You never leave the house.” Erke said. “When’d you talk to Gaillet?”
“Oh,” Yaro scratched at his crotch, “sometimes he comes by here. He and some of Boullie’s ranchers come through with a whole mess of Warlocks to graze on the dust. They said their Warlocks like the dust growing here.”
“Dust don’t grow.” Rellet said.
Yaro shrugged. “What he said.”
“Wait,” Rellet frowned, “they come through our land?”
Yaro shrugged. “We’re not using it.”
“What about Sam?”
“Sam don’t mind. Why would he?”
Rellet shook his head. “It’s our land. It must take them a whole day to get here from Boullie’s. They’re doing it on purpose. It’s rude. They do it again, tell them to get off our land or start paying us for the dust they consume.”
Yaro laughed. “Sure.”
“I’m serious, Yaya. It’s illegal.”
“You want to charge them for dust? Listen to that again. You want them to pay us money for dust. The shit that blows—”
Rellet slapped the table, “Jesus Christ, boy! Stop swearing!”
Yaro recoiled, took a step back.
Rellet stared at his waffle intensely, forcing himself not to be sick. “It’s our land. It’s our dust. We got a license and a deed on the land.”
“Gaillet said we’re wasting it.”
Erke said, “Wasting a wasteland.”
Their father sputtered, “That’s not the point! This is our land. It’s not right. Boullie’s gone too far here. How often do they come?”
Yaro shrugged. “Whenever he’s horny.”
Rellet shook his head. “Yaya, you let him into our house?”
“Sure as shit not going out there.”
“Lord, forgive us. Forgive me. Sweet Jesus, what have I done?”
“You’d like him. He’s handsome, knows how to deal with the Warlocks. He don’t get attached like Eky—no offense. He’s a real cowboy. Big and muscled with a thick dick. The waffle that bad? You look like shit.”
Rellet put his face into his hands. “Lord, lord, lord.” He muttered some prayers while Yaro gave the next waffle to Erke.
The ambrosia waffle was tacky and gelatinous. She took a bite. Though it tasted like wet grass, she had come to enjoy it. Even the process of harvesting ambrosia became pleasant to her. Almost meditative. It was a spartan life. A spartan world. She missed a thousand different amenities from earth, but after three years, Renaissance was home.
“Gaillet got any cute friends?”
Rellet stood up. “You will not whore yourself to Boullie’s boys.”
“Jesus Christ. Sit down.” Yaro said.
“I just masturbated Sam so we could eat today.” Erke took a bite of the waffle. “I’ll take any bit of human affection I can get.”
Yaro burst out laughing, and their father left the kitchen, slamming the door behind him, leaving his waffle untouched.
“Think he’s going to want his waffle later?”
Erke shrugged.
Rellet left in the morning. Erke gave little thought to what her father spent his days doing. He was either at the church or the Co-op. Neither did much good.
Her life had become dislodged from time since the blight. Those first months on the ranch were a busy time. Days filled with building their home, harvesting ambrosia, and caring for the Warlocks. And then so many died, leaving only Sam. Sam had been depressed since then. Survivor’s guilt or something. Since the herd had died, Sam rarely ventured far from the shack. She assumed it was a bad sign, but no one knew much about the Warlocks. How they bred, why they had human faces, how they survived on dust, or why ambrosia developed inside them.
She didn’t envy the first settlers on Renaissance. What desperation drove them to reach inside a Warlock and eat the yellowgreen gunk in their rectums?
Erke laughed to herself. Perverted or resourceful, those first settlers. And now rich beyond belief.
Rolling out of bed, she made her way to the kitchen and ate one of the waffles. She liked them cold. They reminded her of Jell-O. Of childhood.
Stepping outside, the dust immediately blew into her face. She pulled her scarf up over her mouth and put on goggles to keep the dust from scratching her corneas.
She walked to the otherside of their shack where the enormous herd of Warlocks once dwelt to find Sam. And then another Sam. She blinked. Wiped at her goggles. There was Sam, chewing the blowing dust. And there was another Sam, staring vacuously at her. Walking closer, she studied the two Warlocks. They had the same face, but she couldn’t remember if all Warlocks had the same face or if, like humans or cattle, each Warlock had its own face. She checked their twelve legs and even reached inside their vaginas to grab hold of their penises, pulled them out, and scrutinized them.
“Jesus.”
She jogged back inside to Yaro’s room.
“You got to see something.”
Yaro didn’t look up from his paperback. “No, I fucking don’t.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you do.”
“Get out and close the damn door, Eky.”
She stepped closer, and he flinched. “All right. Shit. Hold on.”
He followed her to the kitchen door and stopped. “Not going out there.”
“There’s something wrong with Sam.”
“So?”
She took a breath and reached a hand towards him. “Ro.”
He shook his head, but he put on goggles and a scarf and a leather jacket. “Don’t know nothing about the aliens.”
“We’re the aliens.”
“Still.”
She led him to the Warlocks and stopped a few paces away. Yaro stopped beside her.
“What?”
“I know.”
“No,” Yaro said, “what am I looking at?”
“You serious?”
“What?” He flinched when she turned to him. When had he become afraid of her?
“There’s two.”
“So?”
“Yesterday there was just Sam.”
“Okay.”
“Seriously?”
“What?”
“Don’t strike you as odd?”
Yaro shrugged. “Maybe that’s how they reproduce.”
She snorted.
“Shit, I don’t know, Eky. It’s not like we know why they all died. Maybe this just happens.”
“Don’t this, like, freak you out?”
He coughed. “You worried?” His voice quavered, and he folded his arms, clutching himself.
Erke shrugged.
“That’s the problem here. This whole fucking expedition. We don’t know nothing about the planet. What kind of planet only has one species on it?”
“Why settle here at all?”
Yaro laughed bitterly. “Ask dad.”
“You know why.”
“You think mom would forgive him?”
Erke shrugged. “She dead. Don’t matter.”
“It’s fucking stupid.”
Erke shrugged again. Like her father. Always shrugging. Shuffling through life indifferently, even a solar system or five away. “No point complaining. Can’t go back.”
They stood there for a time. The dusty wind and Sam’s wet lips smacking the only sound.
“What now?”
Erke shrugged. Useless as her father. “He’s heartbroken.”
“Can we go back inside?”
“Go ahead.”
He rocked back and forth on his feet for a moment. “Play chess?”
“I suck at chess.”
“Everyone sucks at chess. That’s the point.”
“I’m good right here.”
Yaro looked into the distance. Nothing but dust. “Are you?”
“Hm?”
“It’s okay to be pissed, Eky. You can hate your life here. It’s a stupid place to live, especially if we live forever. Stupider place to die. But we’re here, and you’re right. We’re stuck. Because of him. Because he—” He shook his head. “Even with this scarf, there’s dust in my mouth. How can you stand it?”
Erke shrugged and hated herself for a moment. “Waffles tonight?”
“I know yall love them.”
When she reached inside the new Sam, she found no ambrosia. She sighed. “Sam, how long does it take one of you to grow ambrosia?”
Sam’s sphincter opened and dropped shit onto the ground.
“Fuck’s sake, Sam. I need to reach in there!”
Sam took a few steps away from his shit. The new Sam turned to stare at Erke. Then he began chewing dust. His lips smacking just like the original Sam.
“Yeah, well, fuck you, too. You need a name. How’s James?”
James kept chewing.
“James it is.” She picked up her bucket and brought it to Sam. “All right, buddy. Open up.”
Yaro climbed into bed with Erke after dinner. “He didn’t even notice.”
“I know.”
“Why’d he bring us here, Eky? He don’t even like it. Don’t even pay attention to the Warlocks. Hates the ambrosia. Shit, I hate it too. But—”
“I like it.”
Yaro blinked. “Nah uh.”
“I been thinking about that.” Erke laughed. “We’ll get used to anything. Even eating shit.”
“Digestive byproduct.” Yaro smiled.
“Just so.”
“Well, at least you’ll enjoy immortality here.”
“I been thinking about that, too.” Erke yawned. “I’m two ways about it. Seems like bullshit, yeah? We harvest ambrosia here, send most of it back to earth, and they use it for all kinds of stuff, including immortality. But, like, why would that even happen? Why would ambrosia keep us alive longer?”
Yaro shrugged. Just like their father. All shrugging into an indifferent mortality. “They wouldn’t fund settlements without big payoffs. We can live off it and nothing else. When’s the last time you were sick?”
“Ah. Okay. Maybe.”
“Right. Maybe they’re curing cancer and shit back on earth.”
“Why not just take a few Warlocks back instead of ship people out here?”
Yaro smiled. “Probably ambrosia’s not the only reason we out here.”
“Nothing else here.”
Yaro made his fingers into a gun and made a popping noise. “Just so. There’s the Warlocks, and there’s us. It’s like way back in colonial times. England shipped its criminals and the dregs of society out to the ass end of nowhere. They got to reap the rewards of the colonist’s work, but they also got rid of the undesirables.”
“We’re not criminals, Ro.”
“No, just fucking idiots. Who better to get rid of then the self-selecting idiots of the world?”
“Hate him that much?”
Yaro took a moment before responding. “Don’t ever even think about him, really. Don’t think I’m even mad at him, but every time I see him shuffle his feet into the house and slump around like some goddamn martyr—it makes me crazy.”
“He’s doing his best.”
“No,” Yaro snorted. “He was. Before the blight. Now he’s just slouching through life. Got religious because he gave up on everything else. But, shit, religion’s not a personality, Eky.”
“He’s depressed.”
“Boo-fucking-hoo. He should’ve killed himself instead of dragging us out here to this stupid fucking planet.”
They lay there in the dark for a while. Yaro leaned into her, and she wrapped an arm round his shoulders. “It’s not so bad.” Her voice just a whisper.
“I know. But also, it is.”
“What did you want to be? Like, if we never left earth?”
“I was twelve.”
“I was sixteen.”
“What did you want to be?”
“Don’t laugh.”
“What?”
“You’re already laughing.”
“No—I’m sorry. I’ll be cool. I’m serious.”
“Remember those cooking shows?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t fucking laugh.”
“I’m not.”
“Fuck off, Ro.”
“Okay, okay. Give me a second. I’m cool. I’m cool. I remember.”
“I wanted to be a baker. Oh, fuck you. Fuck right off.” She pushed him out of bed and he sprawled on the floor, laughing.
“Sorry,” he said from the floor, laughing. “It’s not even funny. It’s just—you shouldn’t’ve told me not to laugh.”
“Fuck off.”
“Whose Warlock is that?”
Erke turned to her father, one eyebrow raised. Her hand was just entering James, ready to fill her second bucket of ambrosia. It had been a month since James appeared.
“Who does that Warlock belong to?”
Erke shrugged. “Us.”
“You stole it?”
She shook her head. “You seriously only just noticed that we have a second Warlock?”
His mouth tightened. “Is that Boullie’s? Did you—if you’re whoring yourself for ambrosia, it’s not worth it.”
Erke gaped at him. “You serious?”
“Had I known coming here would turn my own children into…into…oh Lord.” He covered his face with his hands.
She pushed her hand deeper into James, past the elbow, nearly to the shoulder. It was strange, how James seemed to produce less ambrosia than Sam. But James was only a month old and had been harvested almost immediately. Sam had been developing ambrosia possibly for decades before his first harvest.
“Will you stop that for a moment. It’s disgusting.”
Erke scowled. “You so tired of waffles you ready to starve?”
“We’re already damned,” Rellet said. “What does it matter?”
“I like waffles.” She scooped up the ambrosia and pulled her arm out of James and tossed it into the bucket. Seeing the discomfort on her father’s face, she stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked it clean of ambrosia.
He gagged. “How have I failed you two?”
“Want to know?”
Rellet’s lip quivered. He swallowed, took a breath, then turned around and walked to the truck. Drove off into the dusty horizon.
“You’re all right, buddy.” She stroked James’ back, entering him again.
“Where’s dad?” Yaro served her an ambrosia waffle.
Erke shrugged.
“He didn’t come home yesterday.”
“Dead maybe.” She took a bite of the waffle and closed her eyes. “I really do love these.”
Yaro frowned. “You probably forgot what food tastes like.”
Erke shrugged. “You worried?”
Yaro shrugged, sat down to eat.
“You think we inherited that from him?”
“What?”
“Never noticed how we always shrugging?”
Yaro shrugged, then laughed. “Guess not.”
“Think other people do shit like that? Like, a whole family has the same mannerisms and shit?”
Yaro shrugged and laughed again. “It’s weird when you notice it. Seems hard to not shrug.”
“I almost just shrugged.” Erke laughed. “Feels like holding in a sneeze.”
Yaro snorted and took a bite of his ambrosia waffle. “You really like this?”
Erke shrugged, snorted, and laughed. “Jesus. It’s hard not to. But, yeah, if we got some syrup it’d be even better. Just like earth.”
“Bet he’s becoming a monk.”
“He’d be good at that.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” They both laughed. Yaro said, “Gaillet said Boullie’d buy us out.”
“For real?”
Yaro shrugged. A smile cracked over his face. “It’s what he said.”
“Enough to go back to earth?”
Yaro didn’t shrug but his smile widened. “It really is like holding in a sneeze. Fuck.” He laughed softly. “Yeah, maybe. Don’t know how much it costs to get back to earth.”
“Harrik knows, probably.”
“Fucking Harrik.”
“You ever met her?”
“Heard enough. Even Boullie hates her. Gaillet said she’s like a thousand years old.”
“Think dad would sell?”
Yaro shrugged. “We just do it and not tell him.”
Gaillet came by himself. Wide shoulders and narrow hips with a strong jaw—Erke understood why her brother fell for this big rancher. He waved to Erke as he got out of his truck.
“How old are you?”
He smiled. “Old enough.”
“Yaro’s fifteen.”
His smile shattered.
Erke shrugged. “It’s all right. No laws out here, yeah? But you’re—what?—twice his age?”
He ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. “He doesn’t look fifteen.”
Erke shrugged. “Don’t act fifteen neither. It’s all right, Gal. You look like you got caught fucking a duck. Like I said, no one’s coming to arrest you for diddling a minor. My brother said Boullie wants to buy us out.”
Back on familiar ground, Gaillet recovered his composure. He nodded. “He’s buying deeds all over. Besides,” he made a show of looking at all the empty wasteland, “not like you’re using the land.”
“How much?”
“He’s fair.”
“Enough to leave?”
“Can go wherever you want. That’s up to you and—”
“Leaving the planet, Gal. Enough to get to earth?”
“That your price?”
“Yaro’s price, yeah.”
“Ah,” he scratched at his jaw again. “You’re like me then. You like it here.”
Erke shrugged, smiled at the uncontrollable habit of it. “Don’t want to leave Sam and James alone.”
“How many of you here?”
“Sam and James are the Warlocks.”
He frowned, looked her up and down as if she were something new. Some horror. “You named them?”
Erke shrugged and stared back at him. Uncomfortable under her gaze, he turned to the wasteland. He coughed. He shifted his weight. He coughed again, then scratched at his jaw. “Yaro inside?”
“Be nice to him.”
“He got any of those waffles?”
Erke laughed and nodded.
He tipped his hat to her as he walked past, like a real goddamn cowboy.
After a time, she heard them fucking so she walked into the wasteland, remembering those early days. When she hated this planet. When it seemed so empty. Three years with only her father, brother, and Sam—she didn’t want to return to earth. No. But she couldn’t let Yaro go alone.
She wandered off, out of view of their home. Aimless. It had been so long since she just walked away. Without the truck, they couldn’t go anywhere anymore. Her father maybe hadn’t thought of that when he left. That his children were now stranded. Had been for over a month. Unable to trade at the Co-op without taking a weeklong hike through the dust. Not that they had anything to trade. Not yet. Just waffles. But every week they were able to save a gallon of ambrosia. That they could sell. Get some money flowing again.
She returned at night. Their home glowing yellowgreen. When she reached the door, she heard Rellet’s truck. She waited for him.
He got out, nodded at her sheepishly. Trying to make this casual but filled with shame. Gaunt and deep-eyed, like he had lived through a horror.
“You find Jesus out there?”
Rellet sighed, leaned against the fence. Six weeks of growth on his beard gave him a mangy look. “Please, Eky, let me rest.”
She shrugged and entered their home. Gaillet and Yaro were sitting at the table eating ambrosia waffles, naked. “Jesus, Ro. We fucking eat here.”
Gaillet blushed. “Sorry.”
Yaro stretched. Satisfied, like a cat.
Erke missed cats.
“We built up a hunger from the afternoon’s work.” He clapped Gaillet on his well-muscled shoulder, then stroked him tenderly.
Rellet burst into the room, pushing Erke out of the way. His face bestial, his hands clenched into fists. He lunged for the butcher knife, but Gaillet kicked the table into Rellet’s hip, knocking him back towards the door.
Gaillet, naked and tall, stood between Rellet and Yaro. “Don’t do nothing stupid, sir.”
Rellet fumbled with the table and managed to get around it. Breathing heavy, he looked from Gaillet to Yaro, then back to Gaillet. “Rapist!” He stomped his foot, then looked around for another weapon. Settled again on the butcher knife on the counter and lunged for it.
Gaillet intercepted, pushed him back towards the door. “We can talk this out, sir. What’s between me and your boy—that weren’t planned or nothing. Truth is, it’s got naught to do with you.”
Veins bulged in Rellet’s neck and his jaw trembled. But his eyes were fixed, steady, full of hate. “Lord, be with me as I strike this beast down.” He threw himself at Gaillet.
Gaillet was fifty pounds heavier, five inches taller, and built like a mountain. Rellet was even stringier than Erke remembered. It almost made her laugh, her tiny father trying to take down this bull of a man. But instead it withered something inside her. A sob scraped at the back of her throat.
Gaillet didn’t move out of the way. Didn’t look angry or ready to fight. He looked depressed as he cocked back a fist and struck their father down. Rellet fell backwards, the back of his head hitting the kitchen table.
Erke and Yaro stood as if this happened far away, to someone else. They watched their father struggle back to his feet and try Gaillet again.
Gaillet struck him down, stood over him. “It don’t got to be like this, sir. Stay down and we can talk. I got a proposition for you.” He took a breath, then turned to Yaro. “Grab my pants, please.”
While Gaillet was pulling his pants up, Rellet kicked at him. Gaillet took it in the shin. “Goddamn it, man. You’re pissing me off.” He took a step towards Rellet, who cowered beneath the table. Gaillet’s fisted unclenched and he sighed. He offered their father a hand.
Rellet didn’t move. Just heaving breaths and feral eyes.
Gaillet cleared his throat. “Boullie’s offering to—”
“Not selling nothing to Boullie, that evil snake.” Rellet’s voice was a labored hiss.
Gaillet blinked. “He’s generous, sir. Enough to make you rich.”
“You want my land you got to kill me!” Rellet screeched, raspy and horrible.
Gaillet took a step back. Bewildered, he turned to Erke, who shrugged. Turning to Yaro, he scratched at his stubble. “I tried.”
Yaro stared at their father.
Gaillet coughed, reached a hand to Yaro. Only then did Yaro seem to remember his lover. Their eyes met, and then Yaro looked away. Gaillet sighed. Walked past Yaro to collect his shirt, scarf, boots, and hat. As he finished dressing himself, no one moved. The only sound was Rellet’s rasping breath.
Gaillet held his hat in his hands as he made his way back to the kitchen. He offered Rellet a hand again, but Rellet spat in it. Gaillet’s face screwed up in anger, but he just wiped the spit on his jeans, then stepped over their father. Pushing the table out of the way, he put a hand on the doorknob, and turned back to Yaro.
Yaro swallowed, shook his head.
Gaillet sighed, nodded, tipped his hat towards Yaro. Like a goddamn cowboy. When the door closed, a sob broke from Yaro.
He went to his father, offered a hand. Rellet took it, and Yaro pulled him to his feet.
Erke pushed the table back where it belonged.
Yaro’s voice was raw as he said, “Yall want waffles?”
Rellet and Erke both shrugged.