Cerpen : A Nasty Butcher

A Nasty Butcher

*Notice : This is my first experience w/ first person, so.. it doesn’t come up really great like the other stories I’ve made.

Lack of ideas -_-

It was cold and it was morning and I needed a haircut. I didn’t like it. When you need a haircut, it looks like you have no one to take care of you. In my case it was true. There was no one taking care of me at my home L, a terrible place which I found myself living, my parents had long gone, there was a car accident.. and.. No no no, Don’t force me to talk about it. So, I was living with a woman who was called LAKSMI R. MAJNUN, my sole aunty, although I did not know what the R stood for. My house was not a luxury and a deluxe one, and I tried not to spend too much time in it, except when I was sleeping, trying to sleep, pretending to sleep, or eating a meal. Laksmi cooked most of our meals herself, although “cooking” is too fancy a word for what she did. What she did was purchase groceries from a store a few blocks away and then warm them up on a small, heated plate that plugged into the wall.

That morning breakfast was a scramble egg, which Laksmi had served to me on a towel from the bathroom. She kept forgetting to buy “plates”, although she occasionally remembered to blame me for letting her forget. Most of the egg stuck to the towel, so I didn’t eat much of it, but I had managed to find an apple that wasn’t too bruised and now I sat in the porch of my house with its sticky core in my hand, watching as the cloud in the sky sauntering to the horizon.

“Coo.. Coo” a cooing sound of a bird startled and broke my daydreams.

“Morning Coco!” I said and tried to make my way toward it. Hanging there in the cellar, there was a parrot, its blue wings  shaked uncomfortably as if waiting for me to rub it. I stooped a little and released Coco from its cage.

“Coo..” I said while my right hand rub its feathers. If you want to know the truth, I was thinking about Yato-kun, a boy with strange, curved eyebrows like question marks, and black eyes, and a smile that might have meant anything. I had not seen that smile for some time. All I was worried about was encountering Yato-kun. I did not know where he was or when I might see him again.

“Oh! There you are!” Laksmi said to me. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. It’s a missing-persons case.”

“It’s not a missing-persons case,” I said patiently. “I told you I was going to be in the porch.”

“Be sensible,” Laksmi told me. “You know I don’t listen to you very well in the morning, and so you should make the proper adjustments. If you’re going to someplace in the morning, tell me in the afternoon. But where you are is neither here nor there.”

 “Come on, take my hand. We’re in a great hurry.”

I followed Laksmi out of the porch to where her dilapidated car was parked badly at the curb. She slid into the driver’s seat. “This is a very crucial matter,” Laksmi was saying. “What the deuce you’re talking about? Crucial matter?,” I said. “I think you’re just mooning over that boy Yeti,” Laksmi said. “Ckck.. Cupidity is not a sensible stuff.”

I was not sure what “cupidity” meant, but it began with the word “Cupid,” the winged god of love, and Laksmi was using the tone of voice everyone uses to tease girls who have friends who are boys. I felt myself blushing and did not want to say his name, which wasn’t Yeti. “He is in danger,” I said instead, “and I promised to help him.”

“You’re not concentrating on the right person,” Laksmi said, and tossed a large envelope into my lap. “Don’t you know? This morning, I’m going to Malibu to attend a conference. So, I will leave you in the hand of my friend, Qwerty Uiop, he was a librarian. Please be nice to him.” She said.

The envelope had a black seal on it that had been broken. “Oh, yes, it’s your money. You can use it to buy your stuff while I’m still out of town.” Laksmi said.

That morning, The streets were quiet and many buildings were empty, but here and there I could see signs of life. We passed McDonald, and I saw through the window the shapes of several people having breakfast. We passed Chandra, where we purchased our groceries, and I saw a shopper or two walking among the half-empty shelves.

So here I’m. Finally, I was spending a bad morning in a library, circled with a dozens of books. The library, with its calm and cooling silence, was the only comfortable place to spend the early hours of the day. I was reading a book when the librarian suddenly came out of nowhere. “I’m sorry to interrupt you” the librarian said, in his very deep voice. His name was Qwerty Uiop like I’ve said before. “That’s quite all right,” I said.

“I was just checking to see if you had found everything you need,” Qwerty said, either not noticing or pretending not to notice what I was reading. “There are some new Japan dictionaries that I thought you might find interesting.”

“Maybe another time,” I said. “Right now I have just the book I’m looking for.” He looked at me and I looked at him. As if we both wanted to know each other’s secrets. “Well, if you’re content,” Qwerty said, “I’ll excuse myself and let you alone. That young boy looks like he might need my help.”

I stood up too quickly. I had been thinking of something else entirely. The something else was a boy, shorter than I was or younger than I was or both. He had curious eyebrows, curved and coiled like question marks, and he had a smile that might have meant anything. His eyes were black like a coal and so did his hair. But I hadn’t seen the boy in quite some time. The boy, and the promise I’d made, hovered in my head no matter what I was reading, and his name hovered in my ears like the song he used to sing to me. I didn’t know what the song was, but I liked it.

Yato-kun. Yato-kun. Yato-kun.

It’s probably not him, I told myself, as I hurried to the entrance of the library, and it wasn’t. Unbearable, So, I decided to make my way toward the street and went to the Black Cat Coffee. (a place that gave customers coffee and bread, It was closed long enough. But the building still could be accessed, which had served as a good hiding place.) It was named black cat coffee because there was a myriad of black cat nestling in its building.

There was a boy who spent a lot of time there, drinking the strong, bitter coffee served up by the place’s enormous and elaborate machinery. The boy was yeah, like I’ve said before -_- and I thought Black Cat Coffee was my best chance of spotting him. But as soon as I hit the corner of Black Cat street, my path was largely blocked by a large woman sitting largely on the curb. I thought she was in the mid of her forty, as seen from the wrinkles in her face. She was reading a magazine and wearing an apron, although she was such a big woman that it looked like she was reading a matchbook and wearing a handkerchief not an apron. Normally, I don’t like to use the word “mountainous” about a person, but this woman was so large, and her shoulders so peaked, that she actually looked like a mountain. I didn’t have the proper equipment to climb him, so I tried a different approach.

“Excuse me,” I said, but the woman shook his mountainous head. “Sorry,” the woman said. “I can’t let anybody in. You shouldn’t drink coffee, anyway. It’s bad for you.”

“But I’m not here for coffee. I’m looking for someone.” I said. “Well, I’m looking for someone, too,” the woman said, “and until I find who I’m looking for, I can’t let you in.”

“Maybe I can help you,” I said. Her beady eyes glared toward me snidefully. I could feel for a moment the odor of foul meat lingered in the air.

“My job’s being a butcher,” the woman said. She pointed to her apron, which I now saw was quite stained, and held up his magazine, which I now saw was called Red Meat. “My name’s Tukiyem. I used to work at Chandra, but now I’m freelancing. I don’t know you. Usually I don’t like people I don’t know, so why don’t you go away? I can’t let anyone in until I find the kid I’m here to find.”

“Maybe we’re looking for the same person,” I said.

She looked interested, but not mountainously so. “Maybe,” she said. “Mine is a boy,” I said. “A little shorter than I am, with black hair, black eyes, and unusual eyebrows.”

“Wrong,” the woman said, with another gigantic shake of his head. “Mine’s a boy named Bagus Noto Boto Songo Tibo Sedoyo Margo Keno Bayu Ageng Saestu, and he’s extremely short, with curly red hair and extremely normal eyebrows. I don’t know what color his eyes are, because I never noticed. He’s my son and I need to find him.”

I was beginning to extremely dislike this butcher. “What makes you think your son is at Black Cat Coffee?”

“Because I saw him run right in there.”

“Why did he do that?”

“Because I was chasing him.”

“Why were you chasing him?”

“Because I would hit him with this magazine,” Tukiyem said. “Bagus Noto Boto Songo Tibo Sedoyo Margo Keno Bayu Ageng Saestu was a very bad boy today. I told him to stay in the house and not go outside, and then he kept getting in my way and leave. I yelled at him for around an hour, and then he told me he was going to take the train into the city to live with his father. He’s a butcher too. Bagus Noto Boto Songo Tibo Sedoyo Margo Keno Bayu Ageng Saestu took all the money from my purse and ran out the door. I chased him here.”

“Why did you stop at the door?” I asked.

“I got really tired, my feet was shaking” the woman said instead. “Now I’m just going to wait him. He can’t stay in there forever.”

“But..” I said. “There’s bread and coffee in there.”

“Say, I have an idea,” Tukiyem said, leaning in close to talk quietly. Her breath was warm and full of meat. I strained my muscle throat and held the urge to puke on that very moment. “Why don’t you go in with me? If I go in alone, I know he’ll slip away. He moves so quick. But two of us could corner him. If you help me, I’ll give you a special meat.” She whispered to my ear.

“No, thanks,” I said, thinking maybe went to black cat coffee is a bad choice. Maybe it was a good day to sit at the library by myself and fill my head with book.

“Nothing I can say to convince you?” Tukiyem asked.

“I’m afraid not.”

“You ever get hit with a magazine?” Tukiyem asked me. Her voice was friendly, but she was rolling Red Meat up into a mean-looking tube. “They say it stings something awful.”

I looked up and down the empty streets. Desperate. “Well well well...” I said, “you’ve convinced me.”

“Well down gurll,” Tukiyem said, and rose up from the street like a new volcanic island and slid through the door. Black Cat Coffee looked the same and empty as usual. The vast machine which produced coffees was completely still, and the piano which usually played melancholy tunes was closed and quiet. Then I walked up to the counter and looked at the three buttons. There were A, B, and C buttons. If you pressed the C button, the machinery would brew a single cup of coffee. The B button produced a small loaf of hot, fresh bread. The A button activated a folding staircase which linked to the attic, which was a good place to hide secrets. If I were Bagus Noto Boto Songo Tibo Sedoyo Margo Keno Bayu Ageng Saestu, I thought, I’d hide in the attic. I would also change my name.

Tukiyem headed to peer behind the counter, and I peered with him. There were cups and saucers stacked up on shelves, and a lot of mess on the floor. Someone had decorated a dented metal trash can, which lay on the dusty floor surrounded by bread crusts, glass bottles, a cracked flowerpot, and what looked like a clump of tissue paper. But there wasn’t a small boy with curly and red hair. “I saw a movie once where something important was hidden in a piano,” I said.

“I saw that one,” Tukiyem said. “Oh! Hold on and I’ll check.”

I held on and he checked. Bagus Noto Boto Songo Tibo Sedoyo Margo Keno Bayu Ageng Saestu was not inside the piano. I didn’t think he would be inside. Honestly, I did not want Tukiyem to find her son.

“There is another door to Black Cat Coffee,” I said hopefully. “Maybe Bagus Noto Boto Songo Tibo Sedoyo Margo Keno Bayu Ageng Saestu simply ran out of that door.”

Tukiyem neither grunted nor laughed. He walked to the door I’d pointed, his thick feet moving on the floor. Sadly, it was closed, and it was still closed when Tukiyem was rattling and pounding it. “Locked,” she said. “Locked tight. Bagus Noto Boto Songo Tibo Sedoyo Margo Keno Bayu Ageng Saestu didn’t leave. My son is hidden somewhere in here.”

I looked again at the machinery and looked again at the piano. I looked everywhere in this quiet room. I did not like Tukiyem. She wiped her hands on her apron and walked slowly toward the counter. “Bagus Noto Boto Songo Tibo Sedoyo Margo Keno Bayu Ageng Saestu!” she called. “Come out or I will punish you! I’m going to hit you over and over, and then we’ll go home and have some cow’s bone for supper!”

“Cow’s bone?” I said, trying my best to stand in his way. “What’s the best way to prepare that, in your opinion? Roasted?”

Tukiyem glared at me and looked over my shoulder. “Aha! I forgot about that staircase,” she said, and reached over me to press the A button. The staircase whirred and descended with great creakings and groanings. “That’s why he threw all that trash around,” the butcher said, raising his voice. “To cover up for this sound. Then he ran up and hid in the attic. Well, he’s caught now.” He waved his magazine back and forth for practice and began to thump up the stairs. I moved, too. By the time he was up the stairs, I was behind the counter. I waited and I kept waiting. I was listening closely, but it was hard to listen closely while Tukiyem kept calling “Bagus Noto Boto Songo Tibo Sedoyo Margo Keno Bayu Ageng Saestu!” in a fake friendly voice that made me shudder. When Tukiyem was up the stairs, I heard it, a small metallic sound that made me press the button, the one marked A. There were more metallic sounds as the staircase folded itself up again and Tukiyem started yelling.

Aha! I knew it. I hurriedly made my way toward the garbage can and extricate a boy with red hair.

“Hey, c’mon, hurry.. I will help you to run away from your disgusting mother.” I said.

The button in the attic was tricky to find, so it would take a lot of time for Tukiyem to lower the staircase and get down again.

I hoped it was enough to give a head start to a small boy with curly hair, normal eyebrows, and hazel eyes, fleeing toward safety to his father.

The End.

Lubna