Short Story | Coyote Pretty

By Eddlynn Jennifer Mangaoang

Please do not repost or copy to another site. Thank you. Enjoy reading.

Trigger Warning! <Implied Murder>

    I slammed the beer mug on the counter gulping the whole contents and burped loudly, "Boss! Another mug!"

    The bartender shook his head at me but quietly took my mug and refilled it with a foamy, urine-colored beverage.

    "That certainly hit it after a long day, ne?" I asked bespectacled Andrew who nervously sipped at his own mug. "Hey, hey, hey. Watchu dune?" You have to take a swig! Take a swig! Gotta flush the tiredness of the day with it, yeah? Com'on!"

    "Someone's gotta be sober," Andrew looked around wildly at the busy pub where several women in skimpy low-waisted jeans and bikini two-piece managed to carry a tray of several used plates and glasses with their one arm and flirt with the other. men in leather jackets or camouflage guffawed and boisterously cheered the playing soccer teams on the hush television hanging up there on the left wall. "D'you always come here?"

    "Me? Naw!" I felt liquid burned the back of my throat. "Discovered it a while back with Jessie. Man, that girl was wild!"

    "Pink skirt, pink bow, pink all Jessie?"

    "Yea-h! Girl be having Violet Sanford's moves up there on the counter!" I remembered a fortnight ago when my girl Jessie and I walked through this particular pub on the corner of McFord Street between 7-Eleven and a Vietnamese restaurant called Mu Vien Tong. We've gone to our regular club post-work and were walking down the street laughing hysterically at the man we've just passed peeing at the alley between the fashion house and parlor shop when music blared out from the pub's door. A coyote on loose, they said. So we did what girls our age do, went in and had fun!

    Oh, how much fun we had that night!

    "Just a fortnight ago..." I murmured while looking glassily at my beer mug. "Just a fortnight..." I didn't know when the first teardrop washed my face, but I felt Andrew's warm hands on my shoulders. "She was a sweet girl. She was."

    "Tell me about her," Andrew encircled his arms around me and pulled me closer to his skinny chest. I sobbed louder.

    "She came in pink all over, it totally hurted my bloodshot eyes. Smiles prettily at the jerk and asked for a cashier job without any resume with her, just went up to him and caressed his hands a few times. Girl knows how to get a job..." Jessie and the manager went to his office at the back while I was doing the inventory in aisle sodium, my previous workmate, Leto, wide-eyed at the scene she just witnessed. Paulo, Cesar, and Mavirick huddled together like those mamas near Hudson Avenue waiting for money to roll by and whispered about the new girl. 

    Jessie didn't get the cashier job. No. But she did get to be the manager's secretary, whatever he needed a secretary for. "She only comes out from his office during breaks and stays immaculate in whatever pink she wore that day. No strand of hair out of pace nor disheveled anywhere. We always suspected Jessie was the real boss, y'know?"

    "Uh-huh."

    "Well... in that relationship. If y'could call that relationship, eh. I think she was wearing a limited, pink Yves Saint Laurent eyeglasses when she came in that first day, but I was never too sure."

    I sat up straighter, took my mug, and had another chug, then wiped my mouth with the sleeves of my black cardigan.

    "When you get close?" Andrew cupped his jaw with his right hand as he scanned me. 

    "Learned she could drink, yeah. We ass-tired as mules and less pay so we go clubbing after a shift ends, never separated since. I like how she could dance, y'know. I dance, too. Well. I did. Ballet and some shit. Boss, another mug!"

    It would be my fourth one tonight.

    Andrew took the mug and pour half on his mug. "What happened?"

    "To Jessie?"

    "No, ballet."

    "Aaahh... that. Well, there was this girl who transferred to a ballet house. Poor shit. Well, she talented as hell, but no money to pay bucks for a better dance school. Floor boards gave in and she no longer able to tippy toes. Stuf like that. Jessie said kinky men would love to bend me since I'm flexible as a Slinky..."

    "Slinky?" Andrew asked in a voice full of confusion. His face reflected this.

    "Y-you don't know Slinky?' I choked while laughing. "Spring thingy toy? No? You ---  hahahaha... You really don't know?" When he shook his head, "Oh, god. Oh, god. I'm wheezing! I'm wheeze --- hahahaha."

    "Stop that," he said, annoyed. I still couldn't stop laughing.. This was hilarious. This was the first time since--, the first time since Jessie told me her last knock, knock joke.

    "Knock, knock."

    "Who's there?"

    "Freedom"

    "Freedom who?"

    "Dum dum freedom dum freedom dum~"

    But freedom eluded Jessie. "Jessie told me she be outta here soon. Something 'bout landlord coming after her, like bullshit I believe her. She be paying for those branded items west 'n east. How come landlord be going after her? Never thought... never thought... it was a land lord. It was a land lord..."

    I shook my head. Defeated. And Andrew sat next to me quietly right after.