NICKELS THE BAKER

A true story

Part one

1.

Nickels says to the Fool: I know what you did, everybody does and we all know why. Teach me how to punch a man in the face. Action.

The Fool obliges: turn your whole torso, hold the elbow like so. Imagine you’re hitting something behind my face, hit all the way through. 

Like this? 

Yes. 

Nickels, subconsciously: this is complicated, important, a way of expressing emotions and resolving conflict. Motivation.

In reality, Nickels is merely punching a man again and again, then shaving his head, and thinking, this is a good way to live I guess. This is me doing a good job.

She calls him plainly, almost friendly: idiot cur. Hopes to feel catharsis, cleansing, anger even, but is mostly only nervous to punch right and impress. I want to be thought of as the kind of person who punches good. And Nickels does know that a different angle would hammer and split him bloody, a real punch, but is obliged to punch polite. Stunt. Do it calmly, methodically, only leave a bit of swelling. Don’t break Fool’s nose. 

Get down, she says, and with clippers shaves his head clean of hair, long, vain, ridiculous. But Nickels herself is shaved bald anyway so who cares? Twin fools then. Casting.

The Fool, without compunction, sorry only to have been caught, is at least now marked with her dignity when he walks out the door, she tells herself. And almost believes it, until the Fool says: I respect you so much right now. Script.

Just get out of here, man. Cut.

She is falling asleep on the mattress on the floor as the sun rises, rag tied over eyes, body smell wafting upward and she sinks once more into those daily dark and oily dreams of vomiting a river of poison. Awash in hot black blood and bile coming up and out, slick and then sticky between the lips. The sun rises high and covers her tossing body, stretched sheet smelling of old skin and damp with sweat. A fitful sleep in a summer apartment, that stinking box, as the yellow sun touches and colors everything, the broken white plastic coffee maker, the orange dish soap, the beige strip of laminate that claims to be a “kitchen,” the tall black leather boots burning, wagging tongues and tangled heaps of laces, heavy canvas pants stiffly crumpled on the floor, shining like leather with a patina of filth. Sun reaches everything but her eyes, sockets stuffed with ink-soaked cotton. A festering sleep, dreams bursting with hot black blood-grease pouring from her mouth and nose. And just beyond this nest the straight-world wakes and begin to churn. All Of That, Out There. She sleeps right through it every day.

This spell is broken when she is awakened by the evening breeze. Another day, which is the night. Hauls a rickety bicycle down the apartment stairs. This particular prize was found in a lot of broken up asphalt and stringy weeds then stalked for three days to confirm its neglect (because bike thieves burn in hell, but this is fair game). The tires needed patching and maybe it isn’t the ten-speed it claims to be but the brakes mostly work and it gets (to where) the job (needs to be) done. Heads downhill to an ostensibly Irish bar where the Thursday night crowd is coasting too, locks up the crunchy thing and orders a coffee. There’s always coffee, because an “Irish bar” has to serve “Irish coffee”. Of course. 

She’s at the counter, a stolid lighthouse surrounded by the battering winds of blowhard drunks, barely lighting up but feeling stronger as the coffee slurry brewed while she was deep asleep makes its way through her walls and workings. Silt from the coffee sinks to the bottom of  the cup (you know that cup. It’s the same mug every single diner in America uses, not-white, ceramic, smooth, mass-produced and thick enough to split a skull) and the silt isn’t even brown, it’s truly and sincerely gray, more like something from a gutter or ashtray than a riverbed. 

Just like every time she can afford it, she finishes the second cup, considers the whisky, decides against it, and leaves an oversized tip. It’s the same big tip that circulates among every service worker in the city. I got a good tip, paycheck, a twenty from my grandma for my birthday so I’ll leave you something good because I-know-how-it-is. That tip makes it’s way across counters across the city passing across across across, left under the empty pint glass or coffee mug over and over and over, and a bigger tip than the better-off ever leave. It isn’t even cash anymore, it’s a solemn nod.

Throws her leg over the bike out front, deep breath. Night traffic isn’t made of individual cars so much as one long angry glittering snake occasionally turning its head (go) and other times tries to strike (careful). Make a move, pumps her legs, the alley is good, back streets are good, pedal through the pitch-black park, all the places that would be red-flag maybe-deadly on foot she sails through feeling powerful and free. Muscle, power, dumb youth, Nickels never learned to drive and doesn’t know the traffic rules other than what she’s gleaned by trial and blessed error, and hides her ignorance and fear behind a mask of haughty indifference. It’s easy to disdain every single driver in the city when you despise “the city” and cannot see their faces in the dark. Even when she shoots dirty looks at drivers, it’s at the headlights, not the windshield. 

Full-speed crazy coast down Roanoke- can I do it without brakes? Let’s see. Careening lunatic in the dark with no helmet. Then when the road levels out before the bridge, a series of crunching sensations. Nickels pulls over on the bridge, flips the bike upside down. Sets it there on handlebars and seat as drunks headlight past her in the night. She imagines them catching a glimpse of her out here, imagines they’re impressed, yeah, cool. Nape of neck. Shaved head. Sweat. Capable. Delicately places the chain back where she thinks it probably? maybe? belongs and nods like some kind of bike sage instead of what she is: an idiot groping in the dark. 

Part two

2.

Away from the nest of lights, the clutch, the hive, and all the weird dark arteries running
through, the streets get quieter and cleaner and the bus pulls up to the coffeeshop in the
silence of a sleeping neighborhood. The head baker, Speda, is going to teach her how to
bake. Well. I know how to bake, Nickels thinks. I’ve worked baking. I just don’t know how to
bake here.

She locks up the trash bike that nobody would steal anyway and approaches the door. Cups
her hands to the glass and peers inside. Darkness. And past the long wooden counter with
polished espresso machine, wooden tables and chairs and black leather sofa, around a far
corner, the soft glow of a light. Strains of terrible pop music. Nickels knocks on the glass,
suddenly uncertain.

A head pops around the corner. A woman’s round face, pink cheeks, in a round white hat.
Nods smartly at Nickels, hurries through the dark cafe to let her in. Speda is short, solidly
built, wrapped in a clean white apron to match a white brimless cap. Nickels is painfully
aware of how clean everything is. The very concrete under her boots seems tidy. She is
bathed and her clothes are washed, clean black Carharrts, her head is cleanly shaven.
When she’d punched the Fool in the face, she’d been wearing a joke shirt, the sort that
bikers and frat boys wore, with the sleeves torn off, the front reading:

FUCK YOU I HAVE ENOUGH FRIENDS.

Now, her shirt is black and plain and clean. But suddenly she is absolutely filthy and
overwhelmed- and resents something, or someone, without knowing what, or whom.
Summons a weak smile as Speda opens the door.

“Well! Ok!” Speda says cheerfully. “You’re Nickels then! Come in!”

There is the small and tidy kitchen, the oven and long high table where they will work side
by side until morning. A single half-rack for cooling the pastries made from scratch. “…and
He will lift us!…” from the radio. That very first night Speda makes it clear that this is her
kitchen and they will listen to her radio station because it is positive. This is a statement of
fact. It is a Christian radio station of the dreadful soft rock sort. Nickels keeps her mouth
shut and gives a chipper nod. There is a lot of chipper nodding and obeying, because Speda
is kind but firm, and anyway her knowledge of the kitchen commands it. What else is
Nickels going to do?

A real, live Christian lady; like, a real one. Speda’s husband is even a pastor. For Nickels to
discover that someone is a Christian, of all things, means the reassessment of any initial
positive impression. Who do you work with? Some Christian lady. Nickels, with her shaved
head and her tattoos and her No Gods, No Masters anarchist slogans. How funny. How
novel! She snorts.

“What’s that?” Speda blinks at her.

“Oh nothing, sorry!” Nickels answers. She is supposed to be paying attention to the lesson
on mixing crepe batter.

As the nights outside the little shop grew darker and colder and Christmas drew near, she
learned how to keep the scones light and golden, when to keep the butter chilled, how to
watch the rhythm of the week and anticipate the needs of the bake case. If one did not
carefully observe and follow instruction, baking soda vs powder, how many chocolate
zucchini cakes were needed for Thursday, and so on, the consequences were apparent, the
responsibility her own.

Working at the long table all night, greasing pans and pouring bowls of batter. And in the
morning as she left, the people came in, she could greet them as they came for coffee and the
fruits of her labor. Five loaves of pumpkin bread, every night, and they bought a little slice
and went on their way. She did well, learned quickly, and learned to move with purpose.
She learned about Speda, too. Speda needed to hire an assistant, and eventually a
replacement, because she she was pregnant with her first child. Their child. Her and the
pastor. They spoke of all manner of things, but both knew there were some they simply
could not, in order to keep the peace. She must vote republican. She probably even wants
abortion to be illegal. And me and my friends want to blow up SUV dealerships and burn
down the financial district. The sheer taboo of it all was almost a thrill. Where did Speda
and her family figure into the anarchist assessment? Was she one of the people who needed
to be liberated from her chains, or one of the people who needed to be hung from a
streetlamp? Nickels found she could summon neither pity nor scorn for Speda, who was
too capable and kind to inspire either one.

To her own confusion, she found she wanted very much to be understood by this strange
Christian, even if they would never be close. Not like her friends. The ones who knew her.
They knew where she came from, and what was real. They sat cool and bored,
chain-smoking in front of the cafe known for its Catholic kitsch: COFFEE MESSIAH.
The logo was simply Jesus, with his eyes downcast, wearing His crown of thorns. It was
located in-between a hair salon and tattoo parlor.

“My friends, we’re like, a family…”

They all said so. She could not think of a single one that fit that description, but there was
this idea. The ideal. They all wanted it, they knew what was good and true, right?

What does that mean, good and true.
Oh, come on, you know what I mean.
Nothing is real, everything is permitted!
Oh shut UP, though. Some things are good and true and real. Love is real, betrayal is real. You
have to have some sense of…
I don’t have to do anything! Live as if each day is your last!
Right, but…
Who are you to say what is good for another?
Gnawing. Gnawing.
Creation from destruction!
Create WHAT? What have you created? Where is the creation?
When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun.
Oh, do shut UP.

In truth, Nickels could no longer tell if her friends were anarchists, or hedonists and
nihilists. It turned out they had known everything about the Fool, what he’d been up to,
what he’d done, before Nickels ever did. That was all far worse to her than his predictable
philandering. They saw him right there in front of the cafe with that girl sitting on his lap
and then told her to her face nothing was going on. Barely eighteen, perfectly ridiculous,
the girl who threw herself at anyone, gushing about how sweet and hot and cool they were,
fishing for attention of any kind. She began to dress like Nickels, and made artworks so
much like her own that people misattributed them. Showed up everywhere she went. Then
tried to move into her building. And the graffiti: Nickels couldn’t even walk down the
street without seeing evidence of her presence. She would go into the bathroom stall of
some cafe, sit down, and there it was, spraypainted stencils just like her own, references to
Nickels’ own writings and work. It sounded paranoid and outlandish, she knew. Are you
sure the graffiti is about you? Her friends would ask, as though regarding a schizophrenic
rambling about the radio signals coming from her teeth. When they witnessed it
themselves, and couldn’t deny it: Are you sure she doesn’t just admire you? As if Nickels
ought to be flattered. Grateful, even! It had been going on for months. Under her window,
a line from her own writing spraypainted on the street. I don’t know if she wants to be me, or
kill me, she told them. The Fool, nodding sympathetically, as if he hadn’t spent the
previous night at the girl’s house. Her friends all knew even then, they had known all along
about the Fool running around with the ridiculous girl, had seen them together, they’d all
known even as they watched Nickels driven mad, they nodded and feigned surprise and
sympathy.

When Nickels discovered they had all known, she went out and got terribly drunk, of
course. Staggering down the alley behind her apartment, reeling, just as devastated as
vindicated. Clutching her chunky plastic cellphone without a person in the world to call for
consolation or commiseration.

“…They’re good people. We share ideals. It’s like a community.”

“Hmm.” was all that Speda would say. She knew a bit about these friends, and about the
Fool, by then. Not about The Thing That Happened, but enough. Speda listened closely.
“Oh, dear.” she would say, when a story was sad. “Oh, good for you!” when Nickels had
done something right. And when she described a bad choice, or someone getting hurt, a
stern frown. Maybe she’d shake her head while shaping the pastry dough. Nickels watched
her reactions. They were muted, but certain. Yes, that was wrong! I knew it was wrong.
Speda does too. Surely anyone would. Even when the villain in the story was Nickels herself,
as she laughed and described trespassing and shoplifting. It didn’t bother her so much if
Speda shook her head and scoffed a bit. “Oh, dear.” Was that judgment so harsh? Simply
being near someone who thought “right” and “wrong” meant something other than
“pleasure” and “pain,” it filled her with an odd kind of relief and a frightening sort of hope.
And not just the “hope” of burning things down.

When the morning came, Nickels would catch the bus back to the pit of the city. It was far
too cold now to bike home. So cold that, walking to her apartment, nobody stood cool and
aloof smoking underneath Jesus in His Passion in front of the COFFEE MESSIAH. She
considered going inside. They were In There. She watched her puffs of frozen breath and
bounced gently to keep warm. It was cold, bitterly cold. But some germinal thing waited
inside of her, latent. Waiting for the sunlight. A new sense of how to put things in an
order, connected to her days and nights and to the life in front of her face. If she could find
one other person who knew right from wrong, maybe there were more.

Inside the COFFEE MESSIAH she faced away from the tables in case any friends sat there
and glanced up. She looked instead at the crucifix collection behind the barista. And took
her coffee to go as the fog swathed the streets, the cup warming her hands. Fuck you, I have
enough friends.