Mihai and Leonard argue near Family Dollar
Warning: Some salty language to suit the fictional characters
Read the first story here.
Mihai blinked bewildered as Leonard stomped up to the van.
“Back so fast? Did you even eat?”
“Nah,” Leonard said. He closed the door of the idling Pacifica so hard it popped Mihai’s ears.
Mihai’s face flashed anger and he white-knuckled the steering wheel.
“Sonovabeeeetch… I drove you an hour across town for meal and you don’t eat? Why not?”
“I spent too much time with this one chick and she wasn’t right.”
“Right? What do you mean, ‘right?’ Mihai waved his right hand in his tell-me-now motion. “Since when do you have discriminating tastes in women?”
“She had a fish around her neck.”
Leonard watched Mihai’s jaw jitter and clamp as Romanian thoughts were ground into little English spittle-sparks in the dashboard lighting. Maybe he should have lied about not eating.
Mihai began a blue rage but stopped himself. His cyan faded as he cooled his mind.
“Ok, I know you are dumb redneck sometimes, so please explain to me what you mean by “fish around neck?”
“You know, one of those religious fish, a gold one.”
Mihai lowered his gaze, “You mean an Ichthus?”
“I mean that cartoon fish you see on bumper stickers and shit. She had one on a necklace.”
“Oh, lord of the world!” Mihai put his hands on this temples. “That was an Ichthus, my friend. How do you not know this? It is Christianity’s most ancient symbol.”
“I know what it means, dude, I just didn’t know what it was called. We only had crosses around when I was kid, no fuggin’ ‘ickies’ or whatever.”
“Ichthus! It is Greek for ‘fish’ and the very letters stand for the Nazarene. It is both acronym and word.”
Leonard sneered back at the condescension, “Well, Mihai, little Luther Elementary school in El Feo, Texas was kinda short on Greek professors back in the ‘80’s.”
“But you went to church, yes?”
Leonard sighed, exasperated. “You already know I went to church as a kid, Mihai.”
“Yes, HA HA, crazy snake-dancing Pentecostal Church!” Mihai’s giggle rolled into a belly laugh.
“I didn’t have a choice in that. I was a kid.”
Leonard the felt a hunger pang, his first in weeks. It hurt. He felt grouchy.
“Cut the crap man! You’re not better than me!”
Mihai stopped laughing, swallowing the last chuckle with a gulping sound.
“Ok, Ok… I was born into Orthodox church. I didn’t have choice either.”
“Not until later,” Leonard whispered.
“Yes. Choices always come and pass,” Mihai said, dropping the Pacifica into drive and heading across the parking lot of a Family Dollar. He tapped the brake for people walking past; it was closing soon. His eyes narrowed on a chubby woman in yoga pants returning a grocery cart. “What about her?”
“That one? No way. That’s a cougar.”
“You are kidding me? You need to lower expectations, my friend. She has probably lowered hers.”
“I am not THAT hungry!
But he was.
Mihai turned into the neighborhood behind the Family Dollar strip mall. Leonard knew this meant he was going to be lectured about something. Mihai hated talking in heavy traffic.
“My friend, how can you face eternity ignorant like you are? You should know your history, your culture. Have you not read the Bible? Do you not know what you are facing?”
“No, I sorta goofed off in Sunday school.”
“Rattlesnake dancing is not goofing off?” Mihai chuckled again.
“Muther fuh...” Leonard wanted to punch him in his flabby white neck, but Mihai was driving. He was too chicken anyway.
“That only happened once a year, asshole, and only the pastor did it. The kids were off in a different room most of the time.”
Leonard inhaled. Then let it out slow. “And, no, honestly I do not remember anything from the Bible.”
“Not even John 15:13?” Mihai asked.
“No, which one is that?”
“Famous passage: Nu este mai mare dragoste decît să-şi dea cineva viaţa pentru prietenii săi.”
“Sorry, dude, I don’t speak gypsy.”
Mihai mashed the brakes sending Leonard’s head into the dash and his ass off the seat; he hadn’t buckled-in. Stunned, Leonard was amazed the air-bags didn’t pop.
“Mihai, what the hell?”
“Don’t you ever call me gypsy! They are filthy tricksters and liars from Asia. I can trace my blood back to Emperor Trajan in Dacia, you rootless American redneck!”
Leonard kept to his knees, dumb. Speechless, he grasped for a word, any word. He felt old fear and saw the mist.
Mihai glared back at him in the hazy blue light, his teeth gave their cobalt glow. He shifted the Pacifica into park and waited.
“I, uh, um, I’m sorry man, I just thought, y’know, with the whole werewolf movie, crystal ball shit and…”
“You just thought Romanians are all gypsies, that is what you thought, because you never read, never learn, only watch stupid Youtube.”
“I think you mean Tik-Tok…”
“Shut the fug up! Youtok, shit-tube, it doesn't matter. We are not Slavs, we are not Turks, we are not Magyars and we are not FILTHY GYPSIES!”
The mist hung in time, unearthly untime. Then faded. Leonard heard the idling motor again.
“I get it. I am sorry. I just didn’t understand what you said, ok?” Leonard pulled himself back onto the seat and reached for the safety belt. “So what is John 15:13 in English?”
“Forget it,” Mihai answered and popped the van into drive. “It’s nothing we believe in anyway.”
They drove in silence through the neighborhood and back to the expressway toward Fort Worth. Leonard felt the tension easing. He thought he should say something nice. He was still hungry and Mihai was his only ride, after all.
“Emperor Trajan. Wow. An emperor for a great grandfather! That’s amazing.”
Leonard watched Mihai puff up in his seat. It was working.
“Trajan, Trajen, Trajenz… Oh hey! That’s the guy on the condoms, right?”
But of course. The guy on the condoms
Really enjoying these two. What characters (in both senses of the word!).