Kansas Avenue
by Ankur Razdan
In my pigpen, waiting for the news to break. In my poverty suite, where the rent’s worth it. Fondling my two jeweled treasures, always. They’re red like shiny blood, their shape mundane, they’re off the pedestal. I wait for two days. Two days? Two days before the alarms. Two days before the news slots.
I was meticulous, but not that. Cased the museum. Learned what the guards loved. Astonished to be bribed, never been before, like other uniforms. Asked for outrages. The Spear of Destiny. John’s Cabaret Device (who is John? What is that? It took years to uncover). The world’s first railroad tie. One of them asked for the most outrageous thing: the, you know, themselves. Then what am I doing here, I asked over coffee, bleeding myself for you? White as? So I slipped her, and only her, ten thousand dollars cash. Took a minute.
My camouflage like cans of beers over the decades. Hogging my one room-minute. Thank God for masks. Snuck in my funny-monies—cowboy boots made from rusty nuts—and grabbed the “exhibit” with two curled fingers and the opposition, same as an eagle’s would in bunny’s skull or sneakers.
Easy. Harder: walking out onto the hot city streets not laughing, not dancing, not waving red around. Not kicking my feet off bare.
Went home crazy. Put the slippers on, watched the movie, stabbed around in circles while Jack Haley sang about a heart condition. The shoes were too small, they hurt my feet, it made me cry. Don’t put them on anymore. Did anybody ever did?
The height of the heels makes me dizzy as. Now I just sit and rub them, usually with my fingers.
The quiet quiet like a boulder sitting on top of you. Went back to Smiths, Son &. Already installed a display about the, ahem, role of legwarmers in the national public imagination. As if waiting on me to. The curator is as ahem as.
I stood there staring at a warm-leg nude on the pedestal where my slippers used to stood, slack-jawed at the unworthiness, until people coughed and I left, sweating and huffing. I’m so so poor but called a car anyways. Had to get back home fast as, back to my underbed friends.
It’s gone wrong, with people. Just a shruggy half a minute spent the anchor. No reward, no a million, no, not nothing. People don’t care? About a priceless treasure? A deathless art? A witless performance? A lifeless footwear? An immortal immortal? An American American? A classic classic? A crime of skullduggery and cultural significance deserving retribution and comeuppance? Well. I didn’t do anybody anything but a favor, I guess. Now the only article on the whole wide web says—it’s fine. Don’t worry. What’s the big deal? Everything’s going to be alright.
If it didn’t make me angry I’d be happy, happy in my trinity. Not happy as. Just happy. See? Sgone wrong.
Ankur Razdan is a writer based in the Washington, DC area. A regular fiction contributor at Sterling Clack Clack, he has also appeared in The Westchester Review, The Tiny Journal, The Chestnut Review, and many more. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mukkuthani and visit ankurrazdan.com for his professional editing services.