Synesthesia: Chapter Fifteen

serial fiction

Image: Carl Tronders, Unsplash

Amber leaned in close to the stove’s gargantuan, spluttering head. She reeked of that fish-market stink that confidence and courage share.

I gagged, covering my nose and mouth with my hand. This is why I avoid confident people in my own life and prefer the company of cowards.

“Where’s my fucking son, you piece of shit?” Amber’s voice was a whispered growl, the sound of a mother bear about to rip someone’s face off.

Gas Stove paused, his face a bitter scowl. Then he opened his mouth and let out a terrifying noise that must have been laughter, because it hit my nostrils with a eucalyptus scent at the same time that it smashed into my eardrums.

“HAAH HAAH HAAH HAAH!” the stove bellowed, its belly jiggling disconcertingly.

Amber switched from fish to hotel soap in an instant. Her hand flew out and slapped one fleshy jowl, which only made the stove laugh harder.

“You ain’t no mom!” Gas Stove thundered between belly laughs. I glanced toward the door, wondering if anyone at the motel might be likely to go and complain to the management about the noise.

Schwap. Amber slapped him again, furious. My nose burned with the scents of lye and cheap, generic fragrance.

She turned her eyes to me, pleading, and I realized I had backed up almost into a corner of the room. Do something, she mouthed, and I scented the faintest flicker of watermelon and cut grass.

I rubbed at my nose with the back of my hand. The stink of three people on three different emotional journeys in one cheap motel room was overwhelming and really starting to hurt.

I nodded at Amber. Then I took a breath and stepped forward.

“Answer the lady!” I commanded in my best I’m-in-charge-here voice.

Shockingly, Gas Stove stopped laughing and looked up like he was seeing me for the first time. His mouth hung open, a hot wet-dog breath of confusion curling out of it.

“Who the fuck are you?” he gaped, slowly regaining his composure. His eyes flicked up and down, sizing me up, assessing me.

Trying hard to stay in character, I stared at him the way my father used to look at me when I’d fucked up something big. “I’m the son of a bitch who kidnapped your ass,” I said, my voice low and controlled.

For a fraction of a second, I caught a weak half-blossom of fear traveling on the air from Gas Stove to me. The self-assuredness in his eyes wavered ever so slightly.

Then before I could stop her, Amber raised one silver-heeled foot and stomped down hard on Gas Stove’s crotch.

He exploded into a mango-soaked howl of pain. I glared at Amber and let out a sigh of frustration.

She only shrugged, grinning, as Gas Stove continued to howl. Reverting back to some primal pattern of follow-the-leader, Hoka guy started up too, yowling along with the stove, not from pain but from fear.

“Oh, shut up!” I shouted, hurling a half-empty water bottle across the room. The plastic bottle crashed into the metal grate of the cage and Hoka guy did as I had ordered, giving off an extra whiff of that lovely orange-blossom fear scent.

Good.

But Gas Stove either didn’t hear or didn’t care. He was still yowling like an enormous injured puppy, rolling around on the floor, his arms jerking forward in a reflexive attempt to cradle his injured organs.

This was all too much. All I’d wanted was peace, quiet, and the aroma of someone else’s fear. Instead, I had a bellowing giant rolling around on the floor, a paleo jogger in a cage, and an angry hooker poised to stomp down once again on the giant’s genitalia.

I grabbed Amber’s arm and pulled her back, shaking my head. “Let me handle this,” I half-growled, half-whispered.

“The lady asked you a question,” I yelled, directing my attention back to Gas Stove. “She wants to know where her son is.”

Gas Stove’s eyes registered something other than pain. Surprise, perhaps, and possibly the glimmerings of respect. Slowly, he fixed my gaze with his. The eye that Amber had punched bloomed blood-red in one half. I suppressed a shudder of disgust.

“He ain’t in Phoenix,” the stove boomed, grinning. His crooked teeth were splayed out across his gums like old piano keys in shades of beige and brown.

“Well, where is he?” Amber cried, dusty patchouli and fresh-cut watermelon flowing out of her.

The stove started to laugh again, but after only one “HAAH” he stopped short, his bloodshot eye on my clenched fist.

I shifted my weight, signaling my intent to move toward him.

He actually flinched.

“Tucson!” the stove boomed, one orange-blossom drop of sweat rolling slowly down the width of his forehead. “He’s in Tucson.”

I glanced at Amber, but I couldn’t read her expression. Gas Stove’s tiny whiff of fear was all I could smell. I thought Amber might say something, so I waited, but she stood frozen, her face blank, her eyes on the face of the huge man tied up on the floor.

My brain scrambled for something to say next.

“Where in Tucson?” I asked.

Gas Stove looked briefly like he wanted to laugh, but he closed his lips over his stained piano teeth and leered at me with his half-bloodied eye.

“Where. In. Tucson?” I repeated slowly, looking down at him from my full height, hoping it felt imposing.

The eye rolled left, focused on Amber, then rolled back to me.

“I’ll take you there,” the stove said.