Disappearer

short fiction

There's no greater high than strolling into a cafe, business as usual, wearing clothing privy to my stomach.

Take my shirt, for instance. Just your average eggshell button-down any schmuck can snag at a Nordstrom. It's extraordinary—dare I say divine—only because I had the wherewithal to chop the sorry thing into 597 2 "x 2" squares and cure them in my putrid kiln.

Every morning, I pop a square flat against my tongue and swish with tea. I sit jaybird naked at the window, watching the neighbors scramble to work.

I'll close my eyes and shape-shift.

I'm a middle-aged, front-of-the-bus middle schooler peacocking my good-kisser bona fides with the ol' cherry stem schtick. 

I catch a whiff of diesel and leather as I tongue-poke froufrou gobstoppers into panicky cotton pill bugs. I swallow and give chase with a breakfast of "champions." 

A few hours later, nature comes calling, and I live to serve. I leap from the bowl with Christmas eagerness, slacks around ankles, peering down—so swept up in merriment I forget to wipe. 

I can only drop to my knees, revering the morning's Square. 

Resurrection stupefies me into a humble wonder. Look at this thing—this little, fragile, thin, wimpy, mundane, dumb thing witnessed the hell of my most potent biology, only to reemerge resplendent with the screaming pigments of eensy anatomies. 

Sometimes, in my reverence, I'll get erect—tickled by the Square's flagrant indifference. An hour may pass before I extract it from the scatological ore, rinse it, and store it in a sterile Folgers can. Once all 597 have been cured, it's only a matter of sewing them back together. 

This shirt is my current favorite. It offers a collaborative checkering of myriad white hues: Alabaster for Kelsie, Beige for Aaron, Pearl for Serena, Moonlight for Kaolin, Coconut for Seth—

As I was saying—it's quite the romp to wear such garb in public. Take this blockhead in front of me, ordering his latte. The poor guy hasn't a clue he's inches from a garment that has withstood forces capable of turning his flesh to mush. 

I can't help but smirk.

You would, too. Don't lie.

He's all dressed up in his big-working-man outfit, Bluetooth slug burrowed in his ear, gesticulating his manicured hands with white-collar confidence. It's cute, really. He's a big, powerful man, in a rush back to his big boy job, pshh!—no better than a toddler with a stethoscope.

"Hey, hey! You're wearing my favorite shirt again! Love it! The usual for ya, hon?" 

That's the barista. I only come in when she's working. I've taken quite the shine to her and suspect she is Ivory.

"Only the best for the best! You've got me all figured out, don't ya?"

We shoot the shit for a few—weather, weekend, "y'all been busy?", all that jazz. She's a sweet girl, really—in her early twenties, I suppose. She's a bit meaty and always smells of tiramisu. Erica's her name. 

I'm a sucker for those who sense the shirt's gastro-mystique—those who honor its indifferent renewal with coos of compliment. It will be bittersweet to leave—it always is—but it's important to keep moving.

I tap my Visa as she gathers my coffee and sandwich. 

"You better not spill on that shirt!"

I chuckle. "Wouldn't dream of it!"

I thank her with a head bow and take my table.

I watch her as I eat my sandwich, thinking of the shirt I bought yesterday. 

I was up all night cutting it into 2" x 2" squares. There's an empty hanger in the closet, ready and hungry.

I take a square from my pocket and wash it down with coffee, tongue-poking my way back to middle school. The sandwich is bland as hell, but it doesn't matter; a light lunch is best. Erica's off in an hour; it will be poetic for her to be in my gut beside what she served, dying the fibers of my newest garment.

This story was influenced by Charles LaBelle’s artwork of the same name, pictured above.

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