Short Story (Incomplete): Goodbye Ruby Tuesday

VI. Goodbye Ruby Tuesday
“all the world is
all I am
is the black of the blackest ocean
and that tear in your hand
all the world is danglin danglin danglin for me darlin
you don’t know the power that you have with that
tear in your hand”
-Tori Amos, “Tear in your Hand”

“What, are you shitting me?”
Rudy laughs his disbelief, his skinny Japanese eyes narrow and bright.
I repeat the statement that foments my co-worker’s reaction, repeat it like the plain truth that it is. “I’m not a Rolling Stones fan.”
Rudy shakes his head. “After all I’ve taught you, grasshoppah,” he mutters. He clicks his tongue. “Disappointed.”
I’m manning the outdoor register in the Waipahu Gems garden department. Rudy, my portly twenty-something year old co-worker, is just “hanging out” with me, so that he can escape the muzak that pumps through the speakers inside the department store. It’s only out here, in the roofed garden section, and its attached greenhouse and plant nursery, that one can listen to the radio. And when the managers aren’t around, Rudy makes sure that it is tuned to KPOI 97.5.
At the moment, the radio blares “Ruby Tuesday” by the Stones. I have half a mind to turn the radio off, or, what’s worse for Rudy, turn the dial to the dreaded 93's (93.1, 93.9, the Rick Dee’s weekly top 40 recyclers). But instead, I just wear an expression on my face like I’m about to hurl.
As I said, I’m not a Rolling Stones fan.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ll shout along with Mick, “I can’t get no!” when I’m driving alone in my car, and I’ll feel an almost cathartic release in giving voice to my own frustrations. And I vaguely like “Paint it Black,” or the choir enhanced, “You can’t always get what you want.” But there’s something about Mick’s voice, a kind of sloppiness, that I can’t really stomach in large quantities. And in certain songs, that sloppiness seems to concentrate. “Ruby Tuesday,” for example. I just can’t get beyond the way Mick tries to sound gentle and poetic in that song. It’s like an elephant trying to play adante on a toy piano.
Rudy, on the other hand, likes anything loud. What I call sloppiness, he appreciates as passion, as “being raw.” Rudy is more of an Aerosmith and Van Halen kind of guy himself. Sometimes when their songs comes on he actually starts singing (the guy can’t sing), all the while doing a little air guitar. This makes him look a bit like ZZ Top, only, without the long scraggly beard; since he is Japanese, the most facial hair he has to offer is this short Hitleresque mustache on his upper lip.
When I first started working the garden register, it was Rudy who trained me. It was he who introduced me to KPOI, and to hard rock in general (up until that point, all I’d listened to was saccharin pop, and an occasional spin of my parents’ old Beatles records). Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard, the Who, Lynard Skynard. And, oh yeah, the Stones. Rudy made sure my education was as complete as my eight hour shifts with him would allow.
Rudy also introduced me to a lot of other things. He adopted me as a disciple, and tried to give me a “real education,” what they couldn’t teach me in my classes. He would always begin his “lessons” with a question to catch a laugh off my unschooled reaction. Example: “So what, Randy, you ever been up the Hershey Highway?” When my eyes would blank, my lips curling in a painfully innocent half-smile, he’d always crack up, slapping his knee.
It’s perfect, in a way, that he would be working today. Circularity, symmetry, and all that. Although he doesn’t know it, although know one but my boss Rodney knows it, this is my last day, my last shift. Tomorrow afternoon, I’m off to college in Massachusetts.
Rudy clicks his tongue in disapproval again, as I support my heavy head upon my palms, elbows on the register counter in quiet toleration. I manage to survive to the third verse of the Stones song, the part about losing dreams or something, when Rudy slaps a hand on the chipped and stained surface of the counter top loudly. “I’m going to McDonald’s for lunch,” he says. “Want anything?”
“What, lunch break already?” I ask. The last time I’d called Time (“At the tone, the time will be...”) it was only 11:05.
Rudy raises his arms up and out, stretching, belly ballooning. “Yup,” he yawns. “Need to take a break from all this hardly working. Want anything?” I shake my head no. Just as he nods in acceptance, he happens to glance sidelong through the chain link, catching a glimpse of Virgie, the gardener, in her knee high rubber boots, watering the plants with the garden hose. His body instantly balls up like an armadillo’s, his face suddenly wearing a sneaky grin. “Hey, check this out,” he whispers conspiratorily. And he urges me to follow him.
“Eh, hooi!” he hoots. “Psst! Virgie!”
Virgie is the head gardener. She is a Filipino (from P. I.). I honestly don’t know how young or old she is. She has some crow’s feet near her temples when her face curls into a deeply-tanned grin, but her eyes are bright and almost childlike, her teeth a solid wall of white. She sometimes talks about her family, and once even mentioned that she had grandchildren. But then, many Filipino women like her have children early. My best guess is that she is somewhere in her mid 30's.
I like Virgie a lot. She’s a hard worker. Her small frame is deceptively strong; I once saw her carry a fully grown potted horsetail palm to a customer’s car all by herself. She is also always willing to answer any questions from customers about plants that I can’t field (and there are a lot). And she always compliments me, calling me “handsome boy” and intimating that I must have so many girlfriends. “Yeah, right,” I always answer sheepishly, my face on the verge of a blush.
Rudy walks up to Virgie. “I goin’ McDonald’s,” he reports loudly, as though he is talking to a deaf person. “You want some ting?” He gestures as though he is drinking from an imaginary cup. “Coke?”
Virgie grins broadly, allowing the garden hose to overflow the black pot of a ficus. She looks up at the sun peeking through the black netting of the greenhouse, swipes a hand across her forehead. She nods. “One cock.”
And then I realize why Rudy’s talking to Virgie. It’s not for generosity. It’s for a laugh, at the expense of Virgie’s heavy Filipino accent. Rudy’s lips purse, as though he is trying to hold back a guffaw. “What size you want?” he asks, his voice tight with restraint.
Virgie licks her lips, dry and parched. “I want de large one,” she says. And she reaches into her jeans pocket to get some money out.
“De large what?” Rudy asks, his voice nearly breaking.
“De large cock,” Virgie says, still wearing that same broad and child-like grin. “I want one large cock.” And she hands Rudy a couple of singles.
Rudy finally explodes. “Bwahahaha!” he practically screams. He pushes Virgie’s money away. “No need,” he gasps, red-faced. “My treat.”
I roll my eyes as he starts to walk out of the garden section, into the parking lot.
“Sorry Virgie,” I mutter.
“Por what?” she asks, blinking her bright eyes.
“Nothing.”
I trudge back through the rows of plants in the nursery, slowly winding my way back towards the register. Something newer drifts across the air from the radio, and I close my eyes momentarily to recall what it is. INXS’s “Never Tear us Apart.” I love this song! Eyes still closed, I saunter between the rows of plants, trying to forget the humidity and heat of the nursery, trying to pretend I am in a full length black overcoat, walking through graveyards and mist. At the dramatic chorus, right after its signature heartbeat of silence, I suddenly leap forwards, doing my best air guitar bass.
And when I open my eyes, she is there.
She is a petite girl, dressed in what at first appears to be a black dress with a short skirt, but upon closer inspection (or perhaps a shifting of the light), is revealed to be a deep shade of red. Her black hair is cut straight and short, too long to be boyish. There’s a certain playfulness and mischief in the lilt at the bottom of her bangs, matching her expression of amusement.
She looks Japanese, but then again, there are certain details that don’t seem to fit precisely, that seem to betray some other blood. Her eyes, for instance, or the firm set of the jaw. Still, although the trees might not seem to jive, the forest as a whole has an undeniable appeal. Hapa-something. Hapa has always intrigued me, like you’re getting the best of both worlds, or, if not, at least something different.
I freeze in the midst of a strum of my nonexistent guitar, grinning like an idiot. I allow my arms to fall slowly limp, straighten up, scratch the back of my head. “Sorry,” I murmur. Then I awkwardly creep past her towards the register.
The girl shakes her head, her short hair bobbing and waving like a flapper’s dress. “Finish the song,” she says, smiling. And with one outstretched hand, she holds a chord, while the other, grasping an invisible pick, plucks pretend strings in tight arcs.
“Yeah, haha,” I say nervously. I shrug my shoulders, and shuffle behind the register. Clearing my throat, eyes evasive, I place my palms on the counter, suddenly needing its solid, flat support. “Can I help you?”
The girl waits to look me straight in the eyes for a few awkward seconds, a mysterious smile on her lips. And I instantly have the distinct sensation of being drawn in by her dark pupils. It’s like gravity. Or like walking in a swimming pool, or, no, the ocean, and feeling the ground beneath you suddenly drop away. She looks down for a moment, allowing me a respite from her strange, not entirely unpleasant scrutiny. “I need a flower,” she says. “An orchid. For my father. And I need it by tonight.”
I nod my head, smile with some restoration of confidence. In the context of “helpful cashier/clerk,” all I have to do is fulfill acceptable requests, and this one is easy. “Right this way,” I say. And I guide her out into the plant nursery.
The orchids are right in the first row, about twenty or so varieties, combinations of purple and pink and white and yellow and brown blossoms hanging either singly or in rows from a stem. It’s a miracle that they’re all standing. I’ve always found orchids to be dreadfully unstable plants, growing white waxy roots in nothing but small square pots filled with rock or bark, shooting vertically up, with no real attempts to branch horizontally out, no tightrope walker limbs to grasp balance.
“Here you are,” I say courteously. And, as she quickly scans our selection over, I ask, “Any particular kind of orchid you’re looking for?”
The girl shakes her head in disappointment. “Is this all you’ve got?” she asks.
The edge of my lip folds. “I’m sorry, I think so.”
“No black orchids?”
A black orchid? I’d heard there was once a restaurant by that name, over in Restaurant Row. But a real black orchid? I’d never seen such a thing. The deepest color orchids got, as far as I knew, was a vibrant purple.
I shake my head no. “I’m- sorry,” I murmur. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
The girl’s brow furrows in deep disappointment. For some strange reason, her expression makes me feel immensely sorrowful and sympathetic. I feel a desperate need to help her, any way that I can. “Listen,” I say encouragingly. “Let me go ask Virgie. She’s the head gardener here. She’ll tell me for sure whether we have them or not. And if we don’t have them, she can tell you where you might go to get them.”
The girl smiles briefly, like the sun peeking through the clouds.
“Follow me.”
I guide the girl through the rows of the nursery, between stacked trays of grass and unstacked mondo, between ficuses and palms and the fresh scent of citrus trees, always following the sound of water, and the wet pavement. Eventually, I find Virgie near the back of the nursery. She is turning off the water at the faucet, and is just getting ready to wind up the hose.
“Hey Virgie,” I call. “I have a question.”
Virgie lays the hose aside, and smiles brightly at me. “Yes, handsome boy?” she says.
“Virgie, please,” I hiss, glancing askance towards the girl next to me.
Virgie looks a bit confused, but continues to smile.
“Do we have black orchids?” I ask.
Virgie strokes my arm. “For your girl-prend?” she asks warmly.
“Virgie, please!” I say, this time more emphatically, as my face flushes. “She’s a customer.” I look to the girl, bow my head, “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
The girl chuckles behind her hand. “It’s okay,” she whispers back.
Virgie looks momentarily confused again, then smiles brightly. “Why you want da black one? Not pretty, dat one. We hab dee ah, dee dendrobium, dee-“
The girl shakes her head no. “I’m looking for a black orchid. Nothing else.”
But Virgie continues unabated, as though she doesn’t hear. “Dee popcorn orchid, dee -“
”Virgie!” I blurt. “She said she wants a black orchid.”
Virgie’s lips purse shut. She looks me in the eye, squinting. Then, she smiles again. “Dat one is rare,” she says. “No more over hea, dat one.”
Just as I thought. “Thanks, Virgie. But do you know a nursery anywhere that might have one?”
I happen to glance at the girl. I see her staring down at the wet concrete floor, at faint trails of potting soil left from the overflows of the drainage holes of nearby pots.
Virgie thinks for a moment, placing her hands on her girlish hips. “De Waimanalo one,” she thinks mentally, then shakes her head. “No, Kaneohe side. No more dee number, but I hab dee address.” And she walks over to a small, nearly hidden shelf made out of cinder blocks and a single plank of wood. She picks up the only item upon it, a small spiral bound notebook, and flips through its weather worn, yellowing pages. Finally, she points to a single address, scrawled in her careful child-like script. “Dere,” she says. “Dat one. Maybe dey hab.”
“Thanks Virgie,” I say. “Can I copy it?”
She nods, and hands me a dirt-stained pen from her shirt pocket. I use it to jot down the address on one of the notebook’s blank sheets.
“Thanks Virgie,” the girl says brightly.
Virgie, oddly enough, doesn’t even acknowledge her. She only grins at me and says, “You’re welcome, handsome boy.” I shake my head, puzzled, and walk away with the girl, leaving Virgie to her task of winding up the garden hose.