MANA: A is for Asking

Shown: "Twitch"


The Mana Farms story line frequently contains mature language, topics, and situations. The characters within are fictional beings with weaknesses and faults, and I cannot promise you that you will like them for what they believe, say and do.

The first book in the MANA series will be published with a tentative release date of December 1 2011. Join the community of MANA readers! Start from the beginning. (New readers, it is strongly recommended you begin this series from the very first story...which can be found here: [link] ) Thanks!


PREVIOUSLY ON:



Brett North carried his saddle and reins and sportcoat out to his truck and looked up into the sky as he did so. The sky was unusually bright and clear and dry for being so near to an ocean. It was simultaneously as optimistic as an ice cream and as a pessimistic as finding it mostly dripping onto your sandals. There was not one solitary cloud to be found, not even behind him in the San Gabriel mountains. Seven in the evening and still red hot, with the sun exploding into the most beautiful cherry sunset through Los Angeles’s blanket of smog; red as a firetruck bursting through a cloud of smoke.

What if this was it, Brett imagined to himself, if today, right now, were the End of the World and that was the sky they were presented with? Not at all like anyone had imagined. No storms. No earthquakes. No Britney Spears. Just Elmo the fuzzy red little monster descending out of the sky over Los Angeles in a blazing robe of exhaust fumes declaring in a nasally high-pitched voice: “Today’s End of the World has been brought to you by the letter ‘A’.” Brett could already visualize the world gathering beneath him, their childhood memories kicking in reflexively as had been planned by Sesame Street all these decades, all of humanity cross-legged on the ground and repeating together: “ ‘A’ is for Armageddon. ‘A’ is for Annihilation. ‘A’ is for Atomic warfare. ‘A’ is for all those answers to the meaning of life you’ve been looking for. ‘A’ is for asking.”

Brett dropped his head and muttered, “ ‘A’ is for asshole, which is what I am.”

He looked over and saw her right then, twirling her silver keys around her fingers, the little spongebob keychain swinging cheerily from side to side below her hand.

“Goodnight, Brett, see you when you get back from New York,” she said over the row of cars between them.

Brett stopped and thought quickly.

“Hey wait up!” he called out.

Santa paused and turned around to look at him through a space in the row of cars between them.

“You heading out somewhere?” he asked.

“To the grocery store, yes, why?” She was blinking at him, slightly bewildered.

“Can I come along?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you catching a plane in the morning? I mean I’ll take you if you need something, but whatever you buy is going to spoil.”

Brett stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I need to talk.”

Santa look at him, skepticism burning a little in her eyes as they traced him up and down. He gave her the most innocent look he could muster from a few yards away. Brett figured she knew him too well to surrender, but she did anyway. “Alright, white boy,” she finally sighed, nodding in the direction of her car, “but this isn’t a Piggly Wiggly.”

“I’m from Philly, Santa, I’ll be fine.”

She shrugged and grinned a little to herself. Brett glanced at her. The life of a jockey wasn’t kind of any of them, but somehow she still managed to be beautiful. Thin, a little gaunt in places, knobby and bony and more angles than curves. At the end of the card, she’d showered and dried so her skin glowed with an almost powdery finish, but her hair was wet and it still clung to her, framed her, lit up by the setting sun like a golden thread had been spun into the edges.

“You should change,” she warned as they walked over to her car.

Brett looked down at himself. His jeans. His button down linen shirt. His sport coat still hanging over his arm. This was what all jockeys wore when they left the locker room for home. He dropped the saddle from his shoulders and stuffed it temporarily into the trunk of her blue mustang. “Why?”

“Just give me your coat and take off your shirt,” she muttered. She reached out and yanked his shirt from his pants and lifted it up, getting a good look at his belt and jeans.

“Santa, darling, really,” he murmured and she slapped him on the chest.

“Just shut up, and remove that godawful linen.” Then she shrugged, opened one of the doors and reached into the backseat.

“Linen?”

“Your shirt, jack ass.”

“What? Why? This is expensive!”

“A North brother in an expensive shirt? I don’t believe it. You rich ass cheapskates.”

“We’re frugal,” he countered.

“Where did you buy it really? Walmart?”

“No,” he sniffed, “It was JC Penny.”

“HA!” she snorted, “I’m sorry but you can’t wear JC Penny into the La Guera latin market. They will shoot you in the face.”

“What’s wrong with my shirt?”

Santa shook her head at him with a hopeless sigh and tossed a wad of white cotton at him. He unrolled it and stared. Then he turned and shook it at her, his expression simultaneously agape in disbelief, horror, and amusement. “This is a wife beater, Santa.”

She nodded at him, biting her lower lip.

“I’m not wearing a wife beater.”

“Give me the JC Penny, Brett.”

“No.”

“Hand it over!”

“No, god, it cost me sixty bucks, what are you going to do with it?”

“I’m going to hide it. Burn it. Cholos can smell linen.” She made the gimme motion with her hands and Brett looked everywhere but at her for a few seconds. She was grinning like a little she-devil. She was the devil. He was certain of it, but sometimes the Devil had more answers than God.

“Think of this as the price of admission,” she teased, “Besides, you said you wanted to talk to me.”

“I do. I do want to talk to you,” he murmured.

“Well, are you going to give it to me or not?”

He made the mistake of looking at her as she was standing there with that blazing red sunset behind her and he could almost hear her saying, “ ‘A’ is for asking. ‘A’ is for answers.” “ “A’ is for assholes,” he muttered again, low and to himself.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” Brett dropped his head for a second. “Dammit, Santa,” he finally muttered, unbuttoning his shirt fiercely and sliding his arms out. He handed it over to her, and replaced it with the white tank.

“Good,” she smiled, “now you can get in the car.”

She kept looking at him the entire drive. Trying to figure me out, he guessed. As for him, he made sure to avoid eye contact for most of it, staring out at that chili pepper red sunset as it mellowed into a field of lavender spread out over the Pacific, cool and comforting and as sweet as a woman’s hand brushing its fingertips over his forehead, calming the fever, kissing it away.

For herself, Santa was one of those women who knew men better than she knew women and it seemed as though she already perceived that Brett would say something when he felt like it. He was grateful to her for that. Grateful he was friends with this particular lady jockey, rather than whatever it was Ellie Campbell and Eddie Ne had. Santa was quieter, more thoughtful and patient. She was a good friend. Friend. Dammit.

She looked at him then, again, probably worried that he might open the car door and throw himself onto the freeway from the expression on his face, and she proved this when midway through a lane change she decided to lock the doors. Brett smiled at that and ran his hands through his hair.

“Your car is old,” he suddenly piped when he realized she’d locked the doors by slamming her hand down on the little knob on her own door.

“I like vintage.”

“And blue. This is a very blue car.”

“I like blue.”

“But the engine is good though, is it original?”

“I like good engines. And yes, Brett, it’s original. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He turned and scowled at her as she laughed softly at him and pet the dashboard of her car.

“And Laurence Leclerc goes for this?”

She shrugged, “He seems to like it.” Brett was staring down now at his hands, at the sheen of sweat on them and he could feel her eyes settling, warm and brown and smiling, on them as well. “And what about you?” she asked, tossing her drying head of brown hair to the side out of her eyes, “What about you and Therese?”

“Huh?”

“You like her?”

Brett shrugged and focused on the traffic to their right as Santa worked her way over, both of them glancing at the street signs as they warned of the impending exit. One and a half miles. A half mile. Exit now. “She’s a nice girl.”

Santa was giving him a knowing grin, flicking her turn signal back on as they decelerated down the ramp and arrived at the stoplight glaring bright and red down onto the blue contours of Santa’s vintage mustang. “Nice, huh?” Santa prompted as they sat there, “She’s nice.”

“I was an asshole though,” Brett caved. He was staring at the red light, as mesmerized by its commanding presence as he had been by the earlier sunset. “I’ve been one. A lot. Around her.”

“Uh huh,” Santa prompted.

“You’re really into Laurence Leclerc? Laurence,” Brett repeated.

“How were you an asshole to Therese?”

“Laurence is so...mediocre. It’s hard for me to accept. The Saint of Santa Anita, the darling of the media, is dating a mediocrity who got his ass kicked at Woodbine.”

“Did you say something to her last time you were there that I didn’t hear about?”

“And white. That is the whitest boy in whiteville. You realize this? You laugh at me for wearing JC Penny and you would probably be willing to marry the poster child for the Liberation party of Quebec.”

“Did you apologize to her?”

“Did I apologize to her for what?”

“For being a jackass,” Santa insisted. Brett breathed for a moment and realized they were stopped. The mustang was idling noisily in the parking lot of a latin market. Greens and reds and whites were splashed across dusty windows, an old freezer hummed outside the swinging glass doors, and a herd of pinatas swayed like dead feathery carcasses from the overhang of market’s facade. A group of brown men with dark hair, greased back in luxurious waves were smoking hand rolled cigarettes and sucking at glass bottles with ice cold beer dribbling down their chins, staring at them.

“No.”

“Huh,” Santa said. She opened her car door and got out. Brett swore quietly to himself in the car before he followed.

“You know,” Brett started again as soon as they were inside and alone walking down an aisle of plastic baggies with dried chilies and corn husks and spices hanging from hooks. She was pushing the cart along quietly, stopping to look at a few packages, even turning a few around to read their labels. “Laurence’s wardrobe is as gringo as mine. Sometimes so much more the grooms vomit when he’s not looking. The guy owns a fucking Aston Martin. I have to wonder if you’d have made him change for you.”

“I wouldn’t have even brought him here to begin with,” she replied without looking at him.

Brett felt impending victory approaching. “But you brought me?”

“I have more faith in your ability to survive this neighborhood, yes.”

“But you’re dating him.”

Santa stopped the cart and turned and looked him. “What is this really about, Brett?”

Brett took a deep breath and grabbed a can of mama’s hot chocolate mix and handed it to her. “Why him? Why not me?”


“How did you know I drink this?”

“Because I know you. I know you better than he does. Obviously.”

“No, you’ve been in LA longer.”

“Maybe, but don’t you think that says something?”

Santa turned around again with her hands on her hips. “No, I don’t.”

“Why?”

“Brett, what I have with Laurence is serious. It’s serious.”

“I’m getting that.”

“...and it’s not as irrational as you want to make it out to be.”

“Seems pretty fucking irrational to me.”

“No, what’s irrational is that you feel a need to be a jackass around every woman with the patience to tolerate you longterm.”

“Starting with you, Santa.”

“No, starting with girls like Therese.”

“Okay, Santa, I get it,” Brett counted, “but I wasn’t a jackass to her, Santa, I was an asshole. There’s a difference.”

“Damn right there’s a difference and don’t I know it,” Santa fumed as she turned and pushed the cart up to the register, a few of the patrons turned and stared. “An asshole,” she started, with Brett following awkwardly behind her and ignoring the sympathetic look the cashier was giving him, “is a man who makes the wrong choice knowing it isn’t right. A jackass is a person who makes the wrong choice thinking what he’s doing is right.”

“And this is bad?” Brett snapped at her accusation.

Santa shrugged, “That kind of thinking nearly ruined Laurence.”

“Don’t compare me to him. Please don’t.”

“Why not? You are both good men. It stands to reason I could want either one of you, right? That’s what this is about? This is the point you wanted to make, no?”

Brett felt himself getting angry. The frustration was mounting in him. Elmo, that fuzzy little red monster was descending out of the clouds proclaiming, “‘A’ is asking, ask her you ‘A’sshole.” He needed to hear it from her. Oh, he knew it. He already knew it. But his ears were pleading with him for the most painful tortuous sound of all. He glared at her, and asked, “Why do you want Laurence Leclerc?”

Santa stared back at him. “Because I love him.”

“You love Laurence Leclerc.”

“I do. And who do you love?” she replied, her voice low and calm.

Brett stared at her. He realized his expression was blank.

Santa reached over and plucked a small grey marble cut donkey from a stand by the register and she tossed it at him. He caught it mid air and rolled it around in the palm of his hand. “I stand by my earlier assessment,” she muttered, “You’re a jackass.”



NEXT ON: