Mercy Mercy me

drunk drawers

Photo by henry perks on Unsplash

Mercy’s Monday starts on Tuesday and her Friday will be on Saturday. It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s a new ME!

But wait! It’s quarter to three. Work starts at three.

She’s almost late for work and one thing about Mercy is that she’s never late for work and she never calls out.

Her silicone toe protector box is empty. Amazon will deliver it today–a day late along with three boxes of TP. You can never have too much TP. And what good does a delivery after 8 pm do?

Tuesdays are usually slow days. Kit works at the Vault on Tuesdays so Mercy closes early on Tuesdays because she can. Kit with his 80’s poodle perm and his baby face, his guitar strapped hips. His girlfriend who is pretty but also mean. Are they engaged? She’ll have to ask.

Kit who one hundred percent listens to her one hundred percent of the time because she one hundred percent tips him one hundred percent of the time.

Kit reminds her of that Pammy Anderson girls-girls-girls summer. Baby oil tans—flat belly bottoms. Skinny jeans. Lip lined lips. Sprayed hair—hair.

She can’t WAIT to tell him how she met Poison that summer before they even got super famous. She wasn’t always a mom. She wasn’t always old. She was once a groupie.

What fucking good? IS! A! LAAAATE DELIVERY. She whisper screams so she doesn’t scare Vincent (Vinnie) Gamboni, her ancient Maine Coon. He’s a half blind lion pacing the water bowl area shedding dandelion fluff and tail tufts.

Mercy pulls out one of her drunk drawers and paws through the band aids kiddie scissors nail clippers one dollar bills Rosemary Green Tea shampoo Wells Fargo Master Card gift cards to Chestnuts Ukiah Maguro hundreds fifties twenties bandaids mini bottles of Hornitos and Jamesons WAKE massage parlor gift certificates. Tickets to Atomic Saloon. Vegas shit. MGM wrist bands.

That was a bad summer. Last summer. Stupid so stupid. She slams the drunk drawer. Stubs her good big toe on a bar stool. Can’t find her vape pen. Goes to the bathroom. Sits. Thinks. Pees.

Deep breathe wheezes. Pheee. Pheee. Blow dryer hair gel curling wand.

But.

NO TOE PROTECTORs. Without it her baby and next-to-baby toe will somehow meld together into a soft tissue callus. A crease will form so that she’s walking on the edge of her hooves all night. And the pain will slow her down. And it will take her too long to close and she will miss telling Kit about meeting Poison in the back of the bus. C.C. DeVille. Bret (before the doo-rag) Michaels.

Her vape is in the half opened toilet paper twelve pack—double ply. Weird. She sucks but no nicotene pops her lungs. The red charge light blinks. She smells piss. A dribble of pee on her Dickies.

Fuuuuuucccckk! An actual scream from the diaphragm—from the belly–from the windows on the walls.

Vinnie is yowling. Mercy is trying to cry. She wants to cry. Can’t—but—needs—wants.

And for the first time in her whole damn life Mercy calls out for no good reason. Not because she has COVID. Not because Grammy died. Not because appendix. Not because broken wrist.

Because because because. She calls out because she has a story to tell Kit.