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By Elaine Barnard
“Marco,” he called into the desert darkness.
“Polo,” his brother sang back as they shifted the mattress between them. It was a new mattress for the new residents in the new condo surrounding the new swimming pool. It was night but Marco and Polo were still drenched from an afternoon of hauling. Sweat ran in rivulets down their shiny black hair and into their torn T-shirts, finally soaking their flip-flops until their toes squeaked.
“We should get real shoes for this job,” Marco laughed as he shifted the bulky end of the mattress.
“On whose pay check?”
“The one we missed, Polo.”
Palms drooped beneath the desert moon as they tramped the gravel leading to the condos.
“We could sure use that flashlight, Polo.”
“It’s in the truck.”
“Just the place for it. Something wrong with your head? ”
“Nothing wrong with my head, Marco that a cool swim couldn’t cure.”
“You don’t know how to swim so how could a swim cure anything?”
“I’m going back to the truck. Get the light.”
“Don’t be stupid. We’re almost at the condo.”
“We’re far away from their door and you know it.” Polo dropped his end of the mattress.
“Okay-okay bro but be back in a flash. Those people want to go to bed. No mattress, no bed and no pay.”
“Now you see me, now you don’t.”
Marco heard his brother skid up the path. He wiped his brow, fanned himself with his grimy baseball cap. He hated this job. Hated this work, this night, this desert, this moon. He wanted to go to the big city where electric lights blazed everywhere and horns honked and taco trucks lined the streets selling enchiladas and beef burritos, guacamole and beer, lots of beer. When they finish this job, get all the mattresses in all the condos they’ll take off for LA. They’ll board the bus and sing to the pretty ladies.
By the time they reach LA, they’ll each have one on their arm. They’ll buy them a rose at the station, stroll them over the freeway, waving to the blinking autos below. The sound of the traffic will be a lullaby. They’ll lead their ladies under the overpass, nestling with them for the night. In the morning they’ll buy coffee from the cart on the corner and send them on their way or maybe ask them to stay and help make a home beneath the freeway from newspapers and old magazines, cardboard boxes and plastic bags for when it rains. It would be a good life, a nice life until– Then it might be back where they came from, those long hungry journeys beneath the stars. His stomach rumbled. They hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Once they get their money they’ll–
“Marco…Marco…”
From somewhere he heard him. His brother was somewhere. “Where are you?” he yelled. “Polo I’m coming. Where are you?”
He let the mattress fall beneath the palms and started back along the path to the truck. Polo must be there by now.
Then, as he neared the swimming pool, he saw the ripples. A white baseball cap floated beneath a tired moon. There would be no pay tonight.
Elaine Barnard‘s collection of stories. The Emperor of Nuts: Intersections Across Cultures was recently published by New Meridian Arts and noted as a unique book on the Snowflakes in a Blizzard website. In 2019, she won first place in Strands International Flash Fiction competition. Her work has been published in numerous literary journals. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fiction. She was a finalist for Best of Net. She received her MFA from the University of California, Irvine.