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Sunday, March 15, 2015

Xavier and Anton

I realize that I have a bad habit of leaving things unfinished for which I apologize profusely, dear readers. But I had a new idea. In my mind, I pictured a guy in a fedora pulled down over his eyes smoking a cigarette as he leaned up against a wall. The feeling with the picture wasn't that the guy was sinister but he was a bit shady, "working on the side of the angels but not one of them" to quote a certain BBC show. At first, I thought I would need to create a whole framework and story into which he fit and played but then it dawned on me that I could just start writing a scene with him in it and see where it went from there. And so here is the scene. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

Xavier and Anton

“Thanks for the ride,” Xavier said to the cabbie. “Keep the change.”

“Sure this is the right place? Rather a lonely spot,” commented the cabbie.

“Yeah, I'm sure. I'm probably just early is all.”

“If you say so.”

As the cab drove away, Xavier looked around the street. At the end were the cab's taillights fading around the corner. The stores on the street were closed for the day and looking as if no one cared whether they opened again or not. Along the street were a couple of vehicles as forlorn looking as the buildings in front of which they were parked. A few streets over, a siren sounded. Xavier peered into several of the dusty, empty windows before confirming the suspicion that there was no one else around. Hearing a crash and a scream nearby, he jumped and looked towards the source of the noise. Two cats chased each other out of an alley, across the street, and into another byway. Xavier exhaled slowly and leaned up against the wall.

“You spook easy. That's good to know.”

The young man whirled around to see another person in the street with him. Seemingly out of nowhere and making no more noise than a ghost, the speaker had appeared leaning up against the same wall.

“Are … are you Anton?”

“I go by that name … sometimes,” answered Anton, taking a pull on a lighted cigarette.

Xavier stuck his hands in his pockets and shifted from foot to foot, waiting for Anton to continue. The stranger let out his cigarette smoke slowly. An awkward silence had fallen on the two people, one that Xavier did not feel it was his place to break. He didn't want to scare the guy off by acting too eager, by being overly hasty. But Anton continued to lean there smoking his cigarette as if he had eternity ahead of him. The young man began playing with the insides of his pockets to give his fingers something to do.

“So … you wanted something from me.” Anton finally spoke through an expulsion of smoke.

“Yes, yes I did,” Xavier confirmed with more eagerness than he had wanted to show. “Franny said that you could do just about anything.”

“Well, you know sisters. They'll say just about anything about their big brothers.”

“Then … was she … was she wrong?”

“No, she wasn't,” assured Anton, holding his cigarette between two fingers. He turned to directly face Xavier and looked straight into his eyes. “But you really shouldn't believe everything everyone tells you.”

Xavier took his meaning and nodded.

“I know.”

Turning his back on Xavier and returning his cigarette to his mouth, Anton started walking down the street. Xavier remained where he was and then began following Anton, at a distance. Anton stopped beside a '74 Plymouth Roadrunner that Xavier had noticed but had assumed abandoned by the state of disrepair. Rust lined the edges of the plate joints. The bumpers were dull and looked as if they'd been covered by years of dust. The rear window was so cracked it looked as if a spider had made its home within the glass.

“Well, introductions and preliminaries now aside, how about we step into my office.” Anton waved his cigarette at the front passenger seat as he disappeared inside the car.

Pausing with his hand on the door handle, Xavier looked back around the street. At the far end from which he himself had entered, another cab was passing on its way to another destination. A call jumped to his throat but never passed his lips and the cab continued on its way. He watched it disappear from sight, even waiting till he could no longer hear the tires on the asphalt. A tap on the window brought Xavier back to the fact that he had still not entered the Roadrunner. Pulling the door open and sitting down, Anton began driving away.

“Since you are coming to me on recommendation from Franny, it can only mean that you are in desperate need of something that is otherwise unattainable,” Anton stated, breathing his cigarette smoke out the window.

“Y-yes,” answered Xavier looking down at his hands, his fingers interlocking and then separating repeatedly.

Anton took lazy pulls on his cigarette waiting for his passenger to continue. Xavier kept his gaze fixed on his hands, the color slowly draining from his face. He licked his lips.

“I … I need to find someone.”

“A lot of people do.”

“Yeah … well … I don't think a lot of people are looking for someone like I am.”

“Obviously. Most people go to the police rather than come to me.”

“I tried the police,” Xavier explained through gritted teeth. “They said that I was crazy.”

“I knew that the moment you came to me. Most people, well more like everyone who comes to me is crazy in one way or another.”

Xavier gave Anton a sideways glance. For his part, Anton flicked ash from the end of his cigarette onto the swiftly passing street.

“So, why is it that our city's public servants believe you bereft of your sanity?”

Xavier leaned back in his seat and rested his head and arm against the window.

“They said … the person I'm looking for … is dead.”

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