CHICKEN AND WAFFLES
Baby names and bath salts. NEW FICTION by Kelby Losack.
They got this deal at Waffle King where if you get their logo permanently inked in your skin, you can go in and cop a free combo meal as much as once a week. The tattoo can be any size, on any part of your body. You ain’t gotta go putting that shit on your temple, too big for a band-aid or the brim of a hat to cover, you know, in the event you chew your homie’s face off and gotta keep it lowkey for a minute.
You ain’t gotta go all Kennedy Wilder for the free meals, is what I’m saying. All you gotta do is show that fool’s mugshot to a tattoo artist or your tweaker cousin–the one who’s got that eBay rig and just got laid off from the plant–and you can point to the dripping waffle-patterned crown cocked sideways over Kennedy’s right eyebrow and say, “That’s what I want. But smaller. And not on my damn head, you feel me. Maybe on my ankle or something.”
Then you’d have to do some stretching while making your way up to the register, ’cause once it’s your turn to order, you’ll have to swing your leg up onto the counter to redeem the branded flesh, still swollen and crusty and shimmering in A&D ointment, it’s so fresh. Or you could get it on your wrist, I mean, yeah. Some folks do that, so it’s small enough to cover with a watch or bracelet. Or, shit, if you really want to keep it lowkey outside of these transactions, there’s no fine print that says flashing or mooning the clerk would nullify the value of the tattoo, you feel me.
They’ve seen it all at Waffle King.
Since Kennedy Wilder first showed up with the right side of his head all puffy and red, all the way up until he got arrested in the parking lot, they’d seen old boy in that joint once a week for his free chicken and waffles. He ain’t ever switched it up, either; it’s chicken and waffles every time. He’d stroll up to the counter with his shoulders arched back, hands drumming on his flat stomach, and whoever was working register would see that grayscale waffle crown etched behind a curtain of bleached blond curls and they’d already know what to punch into the queue: a number three combo with a pink lemonade.
Then Kennedy would stand there and wait, entranced by the glowing specter of those syrup-smothered, Cajun-battered breasts atop a buttermilk stack orbiting his head. This last time he popped in to redeem the tattoo was no different, except for the crimson butterfly wings painted across his lips, Shiloh’s blood still dripping from his chin and eyelashes. That and the fact he was naked down to his Jordans. But the only thing on old boy’s mind in that moment—besides the number three combo—was the chick working register’s nameplate. He said her name three times to himself while imagining holding his own daughter, who was due to drop any day now.
Chloe, Chloe, Chloe.
The name was a solid maybe.
Chloe had punched in the order without even thinking bout it. Pure force of habit. Maybe one of the slack-jawed fry cooks would snap out of it enough to call the cops. Or maybe one of the patrons who’d fled screaming had already beaten them to it.
Meantime, old boy stands there waiting on his last free meal, his eyes all pupils as he absently sucks the blood off his bottom lip, his mind somewhere between his daughter’s name and the blend of sweet and spicy that’s got him salivating with that dumb, distant grin on his mug, the rest of his mind long gone.
Zombie.
Layla had told him the shit was going to rot his brain. “It says right there on the package,” what she told him, pointing at the holographic blue foil amidst the Big Swig fountain drinks and the loose change being counted out. “Do not eat,” she said, reading off the label.
The label also said it was plant food, but everybody—Layla, too—knew better than that. The shit in the shiny foil wrapper looking like Pokémon cards was called ZOOM, all caps. Kennedy had pointed it out at random behind the glass at the Texaco station. What he could tell, there didn’t seem to be a difference between the brands. Cloud 9, Ocean Wave, White Lightning—it all hit the same.
Kennedy’s devil-horned clone appeared on his shoulder to remind him why he fucked with the shit. “You can fly through a week in a day off this shit right here,” the imp said. “Feel the rhythm of your heart as it pumps blood through your dick and everything in the world slows down except for you. You can witness the kaleidoscopic dance of chemical compounds within grains of sugar. You can feel the electric currents that emanate off every living being.” The imp leaned against Kennedy’s neck and whispered up into his ear, “Lowkey, you just walking around with your eyes open. This shit will make you feel alive.”
Layla’s voice was coming in muffled as if underwater. Kennedy’s shoulder devil went on, “And I know how you be dozing behind the wheel coming off of them shutdowns at the plant. Shit ain’t safe, big dawg. You need something to wake your ass up and make it home in one piece. It ain’t like you ever gonna sleep during the day. Hell nah, you got music to make.” The imp who looked just like old boy leaned back on his palms and kicked his feet off the edge of Kennedy’s shoulder. “Plus,” he said, “the shit is synthetic. A drug test will ding you on amphetamines, but cathinone? Fuck you know bout the Ugandan euphoria plant? Nothing. Don’t nobody know bout that shit. So you straight.”
The clerk wore a red hijab and an oversized Rockets jersey. She said, “Is this going to be all?”
The devil in his ear threw Kennedy off his count. He palmed the pile of coins and crumpled bills across the chipped laminate countertop and nodded at the ‘94 Taurus parked out at the pump. Said, “Lemme get whatever’s left on three.”
The clerk rang up the Big Swigs and the designer speed dressed as plant food. Kennedy asked her name. She said, “Fatima.”
Kennedy glanced at Layla. She stood with her arms crossed over the bump stretching her shirt tight. She shook her head slowly.
Fatima said, “You have $3.37 on pump three.”
It was enough to make it down to Surfside. They could worry bout how to make it home once they got there.
It was 2012 and the world was finna end and Kennedy and Layla were heading down to the beach, tryna come up with a name for the baby girl in Layla’s belly.
They passed by a priest throwing up a new message on his church’s marquee.
Kennedy said, “What about Grace?”
They passed by a sex shop advertising a new porn star-modeled pocket pussy.
Layla said, “What about Alexis?”
Palm trees and miles of labyrinthine steel stole the scenery for the rest of the ride down to the gulf. The chemical plant was seven thousand acres of pipes that snaked between burning towers and tanks the size of skyscrapers. In a ditch off the side of the highway, a flock of gulls cawed and pecked at a gutted gar that’d been tossed from a fisherman’s truck.
Kennedy drove onto the crowded free beach, where one long stretch of tents and tailgates faced the choppy mud-colored waves. He found a gap between a couple F-150s to park the Taurus. Said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t have to beg for a tow when it came time to leave.
Kennedy and Layla kicked their shoes off in the floorboard and walked hand-in-hand into the tide, ankles deep, just to where they could feel the sand steady slipping away beneath their feet. Kennedy pulled out his phone to take pictures of Layla caressing her swollen belly and gazing off into the distance, at barges and offshore oil rigs just outside of frame. He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and held the phone up against the sun to snap a selfie of them both smiling down at her belly.
Waves crashed and gulls cawed overhead while a chaotic clash of tejano, chopped-and-screwed, and pop country blasted from pill-shaped speakers. The couple walked up and down the beach plucking shells from the sand. They filled their pockets with sundials and cowries and those spiky drill-shaped conches, whatever you call those. They’d been looking for a place to move in together, some place with a room for the baby. Layla would incorporate the shells somehow in decorating the nursery.
They kicked at crushed beer cans and stepped over pulsating man-o’-wars. Kennedy found a sand dollar next to a hollow .223 cartridge. He pocketed both.
The inside of the car and the clothes they wore would have that coconut and sulfur beach smell for days. Back on the road, Layla said, “So you’re not even kinda nervous?”
And Kennedy grinned, said, “Fuck I gotta be nervous for? I’m finna have two reasons to keep on living.”
Part two, Kennedy had been splitting rent on a shotgun duplex with this juggalo named Shiloh. That was old boy’s gummer name, at least. Whenever he was wearing the clown paint and rapping bout unrequited love for dead hoes, he was Hatchet Samurai.
They’d fucked with each other since middle school and shared dreams of leaving the Third Coast since before they had jobs. Spent most their off time tryna get the music shit to pop off. Kennedy used to fuck around on guitar all through high school, but got into making beats when he and Shiloh moved in together.
Now Kennedy was moving out. He went through the house with a box on his hip, filling it up with manga, lighters, shuriken he’d ordered off the internet, dinner plates he’d inherited from grandma. When the box became too stuffed to close, he carried it out to the Taurus and shoved it in the backseat along with the MIDIs, drum machines, and mixing boards, then he grabbed another box from next to the trash cans and repeated the process. Ended up with three overflowing boxes and a backpack full of clothes.
Shiloh sat on the stoop during all this, hissing and groaning while Fingers twisted his hair into box braids. Fingers was their neighbor from the other side of the duplex. She kept telling Shiloh to sit still and quit being a baby, laughing bout his tender white boy scalp.
They called her Fingers ‘cause she had one arm. Her real name was Gertrude. Kennedy wasn’t sure which was worse, but neither went on the list of potential names for his daughter.
In the men’s room at Club VIP, at two in the afternoon on a Thursday, Kennedy ripped the foil off a pack of Vanilla Sky and sniffed that shit off the stainless steel rim of the sink. The bath salts hotwired his brain and lit his insides on fire and after a minute, he felt invincible. He sent a text to Layla: what about Sky?
He and Shiloh would be playing a set there at the club the following night. They were meeting the owner to go over the sound system and shit, but mostly, Shiloh just wanted to get day drunk and fuck the bartender in the handicap stall.
Kennedy shadowboxed himself in the mirror and bled from his nose. Louder than necessary, he said, “Aye, what’s your name?”
The bartender told him one syllable at a time, in sync with getting her cheeks clapped.
“Is-a-bell-a.”
Shiloh said, “Bro, shut the fuck up.”
Kennedy left them in the bathroom to finish doing their thing. He sent another text to Layla.
Night before the show, Kennedy was part of a shutdown crew in block D. The night’s objective was to get a scaffold erected so they could start breaking down a benzene pipeline that’d been tagged and killed. This the kinda job that if it wasn’t for the auditors and his foreman on his dick bout doing overhead work without a harness, Kennedy could have it done all by himself in thirty minutes.
It’s just poles sliding into other poles.
Lock pins and ladders.
Toe boards and cross bracing.
Only leftovers he’d get flagged for would be the guard rails, but come on, how much protection you need to unbolt a couple pipes from each other? By the time the whole thing’s up, you’re lying flat beneath the pipes you’re working with, the little grip teeth of the metal planks digging into your back. Couldn’t fall off if you wanted to, probably. But you also shouldn’t be building the scaffold that tall because you shouldn’t be lying underneath the pipes you’re uncoupling, so Kennedy was put on fire watch duty down on the ground.
He’d snorted some bath salts off the dash of the work truck and now his insides were burning up. He leaned against an I-beam and rode out the shift with his heart beating in his teeth, eyeballs rattling in his skull, knowing full well he could throw that fucking scaffold up in thirty seconds, tops.
Kennedy spent that night in bed with Layla in their new apartment. She told him when he woke drenched in sweat that he’d been growling in his sleep.
“You were scaring me,” is what she said, and he pouted his lips and bulged his eyes like a mangy mongrel puppy, and he said, “You ain’t gotta be scared, babe,” and he kissed her neck until she shoved him off for biting too hard.
This was the last day they spent together without ballistic glass between them. They ate gas station tacos and shifted the baby crib around the nursery. Decided it fit best caddy-corner against the wall opposite the window. They kept the TV on some game show channel, listening for a name to jump out at them, but none did. They rolled down to Club VIP with the windows down ’cause the A/C was busted. Something had baby girl bouncing around in her momma’s belly. Maybe Lil Ugly Mane’s “Throw Dem Gunz” bumping on max to drown out the wind. Kennedy drove with one hand on the wheel and one hand against his daughter’s kicks.
Emma, Jasmine, Brooke.
Somewhere in the back of Kennedy’s mind, the part of his brain that hadn’t gone zombie yet, he considered the names of the chicks staring at him with trembling hands cupped over their mouths.
Crowds at these local shows were always people you’d known since grade school. If Kennedy and Layla were having a boy, there’d be four different names to consider between the dudes tugging at old boy’s arms and hair—anywhere they could grab tryna yank him off of Shiloh.
Last time he did bath salts, instead of snorting the shit, Kennedy took a fistful of the ivory crystals and funneled them into his mouth like they were sunflower seeds. This was during sound check, while old boy was uncoiling cables to run from the drum machine through the interface, from his laptop to the mixing board, from there to the house speakers. Whole time, Shiloh paced the short plywood stage shouting whoop, whoop in different octaves into the mic.
“Whoop, whoop—cut that echo—whoop, whoop—turn me up, dawg—whoop, whoop—what’s going on with this other speaker—WHOOP, WHOOP—okay, okay, turn it down, yo.”
He was in full Hatchet Samurai mode. Box braids looking tight, grease-painted clown face, cubic zirconia Cuban links glistening against his stick-and-poke tatted chest, oversize camo jacket swallowing his shirtless skinny frame.
Last remnants of golden daylight still spilled through the windows on the face of the club. Dust motes sparkling like a galaxy of filth above the sticky concrete dance floor. There might have been a dozen people including them and the bartenders, but the whoop, whoop shouted back at him from the bar got Shiloh hyped to jump in. He smooched Kennedy on the forehead, right between old boy’s black hole pupils, and said, “Lesgo, baby boy.”
Layla was kicked back sipping on a virgin daquiri in the booth beside the stage. Little momma smiled at old boy and he winked at her and felt his heart punch his ribcage.
He blacked out sometime between the beat drop on “Cadaver Ho” and the hook on “Sippin’ Bleach.”
If you were one of the handful of sweaty bodies spilling plastic cups of Hennessy in the world’s smallest mosh pit, the way you’d say it went down is all of a sudden, the DJ with the Waffle King logo tatted on his forehead started fanning himself with his shirt and growling like maybe he was dry retching, or like he was possessed by a demon or some shit, then he peeled his shirt off and slipped out of his basketball shorts and his boxers before knocking all his equipment to the ground and tackling the juggalo from behind. And it’d take a minute to register what was going down with the screaming and the gurgling and the red spilling across the floor, flowing towards your sneakers, like is this really happening?
Pregnant chick in the booth near the stage had gone catatonic and pale and at some point you snapped out of the dream and you were either screaming now yourself or taking your phone out, struggling between pressing the camera icon and dialing 911. Or you were one of the dudes tryna yank the naked psycho off the juggalo, whose gurgling screams had gone silent, and when the psycho was finally ripped away from the body on the ground, you could see why.
From his paint-flecked scalp to his lower jaw, Shiloh’s face was a crater of glistening meat.
The zombie spit a wad of chewed flesh on the dance floor and broke out of the four-man armbar and made a mad dash toward the door. If you were the bartender with the crew cut and gorilla arms, you probably felt pretty brave there for the couple seconds you stood in the charging zombie’s way, but locking eyes with him, seeing all that blood dripping from his nose to his chin, from his chest to his dick—nobody thinks less of you for crouching out the way like you did and letting old boy go.
And if you were Kennedy Wilder, at some point in your naked sprint down Skinner Street onto Gulf Boulevard, your breathing slowed and your pupils shrank and some part of your consciousness crawled up out the pit it’d been tossed in and all you could think about as you stood in the neon yellow glow of the Waffle King sign was how you’d yet to redeem your free combo meal this week.
Chloe’s hands shook as she carried the paper-lined basket of chicken and waffles to the vinyl booth you’d claimed by the window. You were sipping a pink lemonade, watching the red and blue lights grow brighter out in the parking lot. You thanked Chloe when she nearly dropped your food all over the table. Another drop of red collected in your eyelashes and you squinted, took another napkin from the silver casket on the table. Wiped your face. You wadded up the bloody napkin and tossed it in a pile that was already stacked higher than your waffles.
You were unwrapping your silverware when the cops came in with their hands on their hips, yelling at you to get on the ground.
“On the fucking ground, now!”
You’re not sure why you complied so easily. You did nothing wrong. You were just tryna enjoy the sweet and spicy combo of some Cajun fried chicken and some syrup-drenched waffles. Maybe it was how all this still felt like a dream you’d wake up from any moment now. Yeah, you were floating too far outside your body for this to be real. And how come you’re buck-ass naked? The fuck? Whose blood is that?
The cold steel wrapping around your wrists brought you halfway back. Your head smacking the roof of the squad car brought you the rest of the way. Hands stuck between your back and the hot leather seats, you couldn’t wipe the red dripping from your eyelashes. You mumbled something and the cops up front said you ain’t gotta say a word. They said please, for the love of god, don’t. They told you to shut the fuck up.
But you finally had it. Couldn’t stop saying it.
The blood had pooled in your eyes and you couldn’t blink it away. Vision gone completely red.
“Ruby, Ruby, Ruby.”
You said it over and over again until the cop who said to shut the fuck up punched the ceiling and screamed.
“The fuck are you saying?!”
And you said it again, would go on saying it forever, while airplaning spoonfuls of mashed avocado into her toothless mouth, while holding onto the seat of her bike as she pedaled for the first time without training wheels, while walking her down the aisle tryna swallow the knot in your throat.
“Ruby,” you said. “That’s my daughter’s name.”
“Go home, folks, the king of hoodrat noir is here and the game is over.”
—PANK
A hallucinatory oral history of a dead viral rapper. A lovers’ stroll through the apocalypse. A trailer trash ghost story in the middle of a hurricane. Werewolves meet sharks and face tattoos become currency around the corner from where vengeful cartel members are reincarnated as feral dogs. God Is Wearing Black is a schizophrenic stroll through the gutter, a genre-bending collection of hoodrat noir penned by the author of Mercy and Letting Out the Devils.
“…niche, artful writing that is meant for the thrill seekers, the existentially lonely and the emotionally violent.”
Holy fuck this was an amazing read!
Great piece. Funny, empathetic, and razor-sharp. Wish we had Waffle King in the UK...