Photo by Juan Camilo Guarin P on Unsplash
Cajun Spice came to a dead stop, which, he kinda sorta had to, if we are being totally honest, what with the road coming to that Dead End like it did, which also, though, surprised him because he’d missed the yellow, diamond, Dead End sign, but also because of the Panther just there, stalking back and forth, in front of the fall-down tree which once probably stood proud in front of Mac-O-Lac’s house there, at the end of the Dead End, which Cajun Spice had had no intention on visiting, but he’d gotten lost, and then there was the panther, so here we are.
The Panther had no business impeding Cajun Spice’s movement the way it did because it had no business being exactly where it was (in front of Mac-O-Lac’s shack and fall-down tree), but it was and Cajun Spice had to deal with that fact of his own personal reality, which he did by setting himself down there in the dust and the gravel of that dirt road to nowhere, pebbles and larger rocks poking at his backside, and crossing his legs grade school style in that crisscross applesauce way, and starting to hum lowly a tune from is youth in hopes that that would calm the Panther what whom did not belong in the day’s events, not even a little bit.
Mac-O-Lac stepped out onto a porch that had seen better days before Mac-O-Lac and Cajun Spice had even thought of being born into this world of God’s Great Creation and pulled a pipe from the pocket of his bibbed overalls, which he wore over nothing, and packed there within a plug of tobacco which was wet and uncured and smoked hazy green and said to Cajun Spice (our imperiled hero what whom got stopped on his journey to somewheres important enough to hear tell of it) “She’s been there all week, that one, and a real pain in the ass too… you ain’t gonna get nowhere with her stalking right there, that’s for sure,” and he set himself down on the collapsing steps of his shack’s collapsing porch and he too begun to hum the tune, but that was only because the tune itself was catching and Cajun Spice hummed it so well.
The Panther stalked one way and then the other, eyes ever forward on Cajun Spice and paying absolutely no mind whatsoever to Mac-O-Lac, who’d been trapped in his shack out of fear of the Panther, paralyzed and unable to leave because of his belief that the Panther was sent there by forces outside of his own control to impede his personal movements and keep him right where he was, but was now waking up to the fact that the Panther was not there for him in any specific way, but was there just because, or possibly there to impede the movement of another (Cajun Spice) but that was probably just happenstance too, as all three of them existed before they knew of the circumstance they would all eventually find themselves in, each one keeping the other right where they were.
Cajun Spice stood himself up and adjusted his pants and tightened his belt and too lit himself some tobacco (his in the form of a long and thin cigarette of the kind a lady would smoke when ladies smoked long and thin cigarettes) and noticed then the rabbit in the Panther’s mouth, which she was holding by the scruff but not biting to kill, and Cajun Spice then moved in on the Panther, believing it to be not unfriendly, which he was only about half right about, and extended his hand to the Panther in kinship and understanding and hope of communicating that he’d meant no harm and didn’t even want to be on this Dead End street in front of this simple man’s simple shack, and only wanted to move froward and around the Panther, into the swamp behind the shack, because there was something he needed to do Out There, in the world, but he didn’t know what that was either, just that he could not go back, not now, and the Panther would just have to understand.
“Tried that, four days ago,” said Mac-O-Lac, “Got bit for my troubles.”
Cajun Spice balled his fist and presented it to her angled down so the back of his hand was forward and not the boney knuckles what had knocked out so many teeth in his youth of malice and maladjustment, and the Panther sniffed at the air around the hand’s knuckles, which to her smelled of earth and blood at which her whiskers bristled, and as the hand came and showed no signs of retreat she opened her mouth with its hot breath and teeth and dropped the rabbit which hopped quickly away and she did not retreat, not one inch, but sat down in her place and waited for contact, for connection, for something she’d been needing and waiting on on Mac-O-Lac’s Dead End street in front of Mac-O-Lac’s fall-down tree, and then it happened, the first atoms of Cajun Spice’s hand touched the first atoms of the Panther’s tongue and the world stopped there and watched and waited on what was to happen next, and then after that, and then after that and then after that.
Scott Mitchel May has been (at one point or another and in no particular order) a dropout, a carwash attendant, a (suspected) taxi thief, a pony-wheel operator, a line cook, and, eventually, a legislative staffer for three Democratic State Senators. Though primarily a novelist, he has had his short fiction and poetry featured in many publications. You can follow him on Twitter @smitchelmay or find a selection of his published works at scottmitchelmay.com.