The Grind

Grum had farted so terribly in the compact car it had melted the upholstery off Gabe’s seats. When they arrived at work, the stench of back-alley dumpster adjacent to the employee entrance was pleasant upgrade. When they’d finally entered the cafe it had smelled of coffee, bold Tarbean blend, the darkest, strongest, most expensive coffee on planet Earth and Gabe took it in deeply, gasping for it like the first desperate gulp of air after almost drowning.

Eli must have already started things up, and had most likely saved Gabe’s life. “That sure beats your rotten ass,” he said when he could finally breathe. Grum stomped past to one of the coffee machines.

The dress-pant destroyer, that button-up berserker, snatched the largest paper cup out of the holder, tiny in his monstrous paw, poured himself black coffee to the brim and dropped it down his gullet at 200 degrees.

“Ahhhhhhhh…” He moaned, and started pouring himself another.

“Mornin’ bossman,” Gabe said, moving into the locker room.

“Morning, you two!” Eli chirped from the back office, his voice drifting over the sputtering and whirrring of the machines. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Gabe said. “Sorry about being late. Thanks for getting things started.” He tied his blue Tarbean apron around the back and moved behind the counter.

“No worries. Just glad there were no problems.”

“Nah, we’re good. You’re the man, E.” But there was a problem. An Eight-foot, near five-hundred pound problem. A problem that was downing another black coffee like he was getting a fix. Probably best Eli had started things up. Some days Grum had to wait and it always reminded Gabe of his dog Jackie waiting to go outside, the little terrier whimpering as he paced round in circles, waiting for divine assistance.

Gabe watched as Grum removed the second filled cup and dropped it back. The barbarian blinked a few times; tapped his foot impatiently; glanced around; glanced at the clock. Finally, he smiled and nodded.

“Quest complete,” he said, and tossed the cup towards the garbage. It hit the rim and bounced across the terra-cotta floor tile.

Gabe picked up the cup, faded back and tossed it into the can. “You can’t just drink coffee to enjoy it anymore, can you?”

“I enjoy it, greatly.”

“Come on, man.”

“I do. It is delicious. It completes a morning quest. And I enjoy completing quests, Gabriel. From question mark to exclamation point. That is the path through one’s life.”

“What about commas?” Gabe asked, smirking. “Or navigating headfirst into a colon?”

The brute moved into the locker room, and continued on, his voice echoing from the other room. “Question marks grant quests. Exclamation points complete them. Without quests, we have chaos.” He returned, sliding his apron over his head. “The absence of quests is the absence of purpose.”

“Wow. Super profound. Also… vanilla as fuck.” Gabe raised his voice. “Eli, how you feel about punctuation?”

Eli stepped into the doorway between his office and the cafe and leaned against the doorframe. The sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled to his elbows, a thin mustache drew a line above his casual smile. He scratched at his bald head. “Hmm?”

Gabe thumbed towards Grum. “G thinks his purpose in life is to brush his four teeth and bust ass in my car.”

“Busting ass was not a quest.”

“Surprised your tight-ass let it squeeze out then. Whatever, man. I’m just saying…” Gabe leaned back on the counter. “Doing the same thing, day-in and day-out is a recipe for taking a bath with your toaster.”

Eli scrunched his mouth in thought, making the hairs on his thin mustache poke straight out. “Well... Rituals can give us direction. But, variety, experience… those are—and mind my language— the kitties titties. And life has a way of peeing in our loafers sometimes, so it’s nice to be flexible.”

“Ah,” Grum proclaimed, pointing at Gabe. “See? You mocked me for the Erotic Yoga.”

“G, that’s not wha—“

“Oh,” Eli smiled, clapping his hands together. “You found my stash of old tapes?”

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“I did,” Grum proclaimed. “Some have been useful in my daily quests.”

“Well, it’s great to know the old things still work. What have you watched so far?”

“He ain’t watching any of the movies.” Gabe said. “But it’s like a 1990s blockbuster up in there. Ladyhawke? Pale Rider?” Even at a glance, Gabe had spied dozens of movies that brought him back to sleepovers at his cousins, to his dad bringing home movies. His brain couldn’t blurt them out fast enough. “Brewster’s Millions!”

“My door was always open for libations and cinema.”

“VHS and chill,” Gabe said.

Eli smiled. “Very much so.”

At first, Gabe had been surprised it wasn’t just an entire pile of porn, most of it home-made. In fact, the dirtiest videos had been the Erotic Yoga, the Whole Body Aerobics. Tame, by the stories Eli told of his youth. But one thing was needling Gabe. “What’s up with the old wrestling videos? There’s gotta be like 50 of them.”

Eli’s eyes were alight behind his thick glasses. “Ahhhhhh,” he purred. “Wrrrrrrrestling.” He removed his glasses and cleaned them with bottom of his shirt. “I was a big fan.” Putting his glasses back on, he said, “I was a competitor.”

Gabe allowed the words to absorb, process them, make sure he heard correctly. “You?”

“Yuppers. For awhile at least. Late 80s wrestling was… wild. The fame. The parties. A rather muscular acquaintance of mine introduced me and I stuck with it a few months. Found I was too prickly for it. Too petit. So, I kept partying with those gents, but went back to Rollerskate Disco competitively.”

“E, that’s pretty slick. Your boy ever make it big time? WWE, WCW?”

“No. The poor soul…” Eli put his hand near his mouth and faux whispered. “Jack—who used the name ‘Jack Hammer’—Did so many drugs his testicles imploded. True story, heart to God.”

Gabe grimaced and wiggled his legs together.

“No. No big time for Jack. He loved the sport enough that he opened a gym on Broward Street a lifetime ago.” He stared up at the ceiling. “Haven’t thought about him in ages.”

When he was eight or nine, Gabe used to tiptoe downstairs after his parents had fallen asleep, nestle himself in the couch and watch wrestling on mute. He’d sometimes find himself back in the bed, not knowing how he got there. And for his birthday that year, dad got him a giant plushy he could practice his moves on. “Man, wrestling was my shit when I was a kid. Me and my cousins, launching ourselves off couches. Coming up with crazy names—my cousin Marcus was Violent M. I was Razor Thin.”

Gabe looked down at his thin arms. They were the things that probably forced him to have the razor whit. Name probably fit him better now than it did then. “Great memories. But man… my dream was like, hype man, or ringside announcer, or manager. Something like that.” Gabe grabbed a caramel syrup bottle and used it as mic. He faced Grum, who was busy standing in the middle of the cafe, a pastry in his hand. “And in this corner, weighing in at 500 pounds… Stank Ass! Any words for the audience, Stank Ass?”

Grum ignored him and shoved the pastry into his mouth.

Eli sighed. “Gabriel…”

Gabe spoke into the syrup bottle. “Seems Stank Ass is carb loading.” He put the caramel back, and turned to Eli. “Sorry…”

“He still in a slump?”

“Yeah… Bad. He don’t wanna do shit. He can’t pay attention to movies. Photography just frustrated him, and he insisted it was pointless without having to fill up a compendium of monsters. Music? He got drunk and ate my Thriller vinyl. Even tried setting him up some dates and they went terrible. Holy shit, E, did I tell you about the mishap at the zoo?”

Eli stared at Gabe, thoughtful. Then, he looked past Gabe’s shoulder. “Grum, did you watch any of the wrestling tapes? Half-naked men, battling for supremacy? Seems like something you’d like.”

Grum dusted powered sugar from his pronounced stomach, and grabbed another pastry. “Only once. I assumed it would be intense gladiatorial combat. It was men in bright underwear, hugging.”

That described lot of Eli’s videos.

Gabe threw his hands up. “See? He’s impossible anymore, man. Most fun he’d have is choking on that Apple turnover.”

Grum swallowed down the pastry and sucked each finger. When he’d finished, he stuck one up in the air and proclaimed. “Another quest complete.”

Gabe gave him a dramatic thumbs up. “This world has stolen our barbarian, E. Turned him… into…”

“Into what?”

Gabe sighed. “…Into the rest of us. The last few years been rough on all of us, but on him? It’s different. Plus, losing June… her and Romy moving away. It’s killing him, E.” He waved a hand towards Grum. “Just look at him.”

Grum stood in the middle of the floor, unmoving for a few seconds. He looked above his head, the spot where Gabe realized the quest markers must appear, and seemed to come alive, like a robot powered on. He moved over near the display window, took his Helm of Siren song—a powerful relic that Gabe had witnessed brainwash people—and spun it in his hands. He examined it, licked a thumb and wiped some dust off before placing it back in its nook. Disappointed with the orientation, he adjusted it.

He backed up, looked. Was clearly disappointed, and adjusted it again.

Then, he did it again.

Finally, he stepped back, placed his hands on his hips and nodded, satisfied. “Quest complete,” he whispered, adjusting his shirt cuffs as he moved back to the counter.

Turning back towards Eli, Gabe asked. “Let’s say Jack’s gym is still over on Broward. Think he remembers you?”

“Very likely. If not by my real name, absolutely by my stage name.” Eli took his glasses off, moved his elbows close to his ribs and pointed with finger-guns. “…Falcon Poundtown.”

A smile spread its way across Gabe’s face. A laugh bubbled up from his gut, exploded out of his mouth. He laughed until his cheeks ached while Eli put his glasses back on, letting loose a small laugh of his own. Grum glanced at them briefly, standing in the middle of the floor again, staring at the days first customer waiting outside the glass doors.

Eli gave a wave to customer. “You can let them in a few minutes early.”

Grum did as instructed, like a giant meat puppet.

“Why, Gabriel? You thinking of dragging Grum there?”

“I’ve gotta try, E. Running out of ideas.”

Grum had moved behind the counter, and mechanically smoothed down his apron. Gabe swore he saw him mouth the words quest complete, before putting on an obligatory smile and greeting the customer.

Eli leaned against the doorframe, watching Grum work. He pushed himself off and stood straight.”I’ll see if Jack is still in the business. For Grum, blue and yellow.”

“Huh?” Gabe asked, looking between Eli and Grum.

“For his bright underwear.” Eli, said, returning to his office. “Give him a powerful name, and I think he’d look magnificent in blue and yellow.”