Hello and Happy Friday,

Less Than (continued)

Thank God? Thank Allah? I don’t know. I’ve never dug deeply into my ‘extreme sixth sense’ to consider if it’s a gift or a curse. I’ve prayed about it though, to whom? It didn’t matter, I just prayed for it to go away.
I finally understood what the numbered white actually meant two months later when Mr. Rodriguez died. He and his wife, both retired, lived two doors down from us. I mowed his lawn and after I was done his wife would give me fresh baked cookies and lemonade. Mr. Rodriguez was an avid fisherman, he and his buddy would drive over to Bugg’s Island lake a couple of times a week to catch whatever they could and bring it home for his wife to clean. He’d always save two of his catch for my mother and me though she didn’t like fish but took it anyway because she liked the Rodriguez’s and was grateful for his thoughtfulness.
I had finished the lawn and was sitting on the stairs eating a plate of chocolate chip pecan cookies when Mr. Rodriguez pulled into the driveway. He’d been fishing of course and was wearing his life vest and fishing cap with all the feathered hooks on it. When he got out the car, his bright smile at me dimmed by the brightness of the numbered white that floated over his head, as clean and as fateful as one of those dialogue bubbles over the head of a newspaper cartoon.
“The grass looks good, Fletcher.”
I didn’t respond, just stared at the 8 that glimmered with a dark shine like a black sun. The cookies in my stomach roiled and I set aside the plate.
“What’s the matter?” Mr. Rodriguez asked. “The cookies gone bad?”
“No, they’re good as usual. I must’ve eaten too fast.”
He nodded, “Got a good catch. I’ll bring you and your mother a couple as soon as they’re cleaned.” I nod this time, unable to speak, to take my eyes off that savagely bright 8.
I found out Mr. Rodriguez was dead when I got home from school. A row of cars were parked in his driveway and along the street. My mother was in the kitchen frying fish and crying and I knew.
“Ma?”
“Mr. Rodriguez he—”
“When?” I cut her off and moved to the calendar on the fridge door.
“This morning. He was coming back from the lake with Mr. Marshall when a woman, going the wrong way, hit them head on; they were all killed.”
I was half listening to the how as I counted forward from the day I had seen the number: it was 8 days exactly it had appeared over Mr. Rodriguez’s unknowing head doing its slow, languid gyration that meant everything. 8 days for the dead but it could have been 8 minutes, 8 months, 8 years; I don’t have a clue which one it could mean, I only know that once it appears, it doesn’t change, its fated.
I’m 31 now and live in New York City, well in Brooklyn. I run a restaurant in Manhattan, a bistro on Old Slip called Capistrano started with my best friends, Charles McFarland who’s the chef and Janice Spiegel, the chief baker. We didn’t believe we’d stay open 1 year let alone 7 in a town saturated with restaurants, cafes, sandwich shops, diners, you name it that open and close as fast as time. Yet to our surprise and glee we’ve been able to make it and even take out a small profit.
I order the food and produce, work with the accountant, meet the distributors and try and manage the behind-the-scene catastrophes and machinations that are the business of any restaurant.

The end to come (scary).

If you have any comments or suggestions I have a new e-mail address at: mathewsla@hotmail.com

Until next time, God willing.