Tiny
The News. Ilium, New York. Early July 1995.
Door opens, bell rings.
“Jerk, where the hell have you been?” barks the enormous man behind the counter. He has the brow of a caveman hosting two bushy caterpillars and deep-set eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. A mass of flesh, tall as a bookcase, and probably twice as heavy.
“Screw you, Tiny, you know where I’ve been.” Jerk barks back, waving a bag of used cassettes at him.
“Hey! Is that any way to talk to your father?” Tiny bellows.
Jerk sees a scrawny kid at the comic rack wincing, bracing for a hit. The kid has heard that tone before.
“Father? The only time your fat ass ever ran was from the paternity test.”
This routine again. Jerk hears the kid laugh and looks back. They’d put the comic rack between themselves and the counter.
“Ha! Good one, Jerk.” Tiny’s laugh has the mirthless bass of the passing trucks on Vonnegut.
He puts a key ring on the glass counter. “Welby quit.”
Tiny picked at something in his teeth with a thumbnail.
“Your mother needs me. Can’t stay, need you to watch The News until Late gets here.”
Welby didn’t pull his weight, no big loss, but that left him at the mercy of…
“Late? He took the car, probably lost, and won’t show back up until 3am!” Jerk groaned.
“I told Late to be early,” Tiny says solemnly, a ward against ill fortune.
“3am at the earliest, Tiny.” Jerk begins to chew on the side of his thumb. “Don’t expect me to pay for my cokes.”
“You pay for them?” Tiny knows the score.
“Go, Tiny.” Jerk takes the key ring off the counter. “I’ll watch The News until Late gets here, whenever it is.”
It was a vow.
With a grunt of approval, Tiny extracts his mass from behind the counter, making his way to the exit. He looks back as he holds the door open to the corner and the threatening clouds. “Don’t burn the place down, OK?”
“No promises.”