OUR LIVES, CHAPTER 24 "THE COFFEE ALWAYS SUCKS AFTER 6:45 A.M."
By The Binary Alchemist, 2013
At five-fifteen in the morning, the steam rising up from the manhole covers in the back alleys of Central City makes the pre-dawn world hazy and soft edged. It is a good time of day not to be noticed if you hunch your shoulders, fan up the collar of your overcoat and don't hold anyone else's gaze for more than a few seconds..
Taking the pulse of the city. That was what Alphonse called it. Havoc had always referred to it as doing a recce. If you asked Ed what the hell he was doing out in the predawn chill, he'd have told you he was finding shit out—blunt, but no less effective.
Roy knew his lover was 'out and about', as the President called it. The day before had been harrowing, what with the issue of Selim Bradley and the release of Kelly Winchell's book on the Ishballan Massacre and the exhibit of Donal Samuelson's battlefield photos. The First Family had turned off the radio, laid the evening papers aside and spent the evening at home together, having a quiet supper and then a lively game of Screw Your Neighbor, a card game the Elric brothers had learned from Havoc when they were in their teens. It involved cheating, lying, a great deal of noise and playful squabbling and the leveling of dire penalties, since it was always played for forfeits. After a couple of glasses of wine even Gracia got into the spirit, and after winning the evening's first round Roy ended up with Krimson Kiss polish on his toenails, even though he offered her all the cash in his pockets to get out of his forfeit. Davy Collins had been given the evening off after the nerve-wracking day at the Bradley estate, and Edward did not miss the way Elycia's eyes lingered on the young butler's face, darting away swiftly whenever Maes threw his arm around his lover's shoulder.
Damn it, Ed thought, I am not gonna stick my nose in the kid's business. Got enough on my plate as it is.
After a night of much grumbling and little sleep, Roy had suggested Ed hit the street and walk out his irritation. "Not pissed at you," Ed mumbled in protest.
"Naturally," Roy agreed. "I am the soul of amiability this morning—"
"—says the man with the flaming red toenails—"
"—and besides, doesn't Maes have to get Collins back to the Bradley estate before breakfast?" Ed hesitated, but then heard the voices of the young men down the hall.
"Yeah. Okay. Whatever. Need anything while I'm out?"
"I'm good," Roy's voice dropped an octave into low purr. "Perfect, actually."
"Fuck you."
"I'll have Sheska check my schedule. I believe I'm free around 2pm before the meeting with the finance committee. We'll have to make it fast, but with you on top that shouldn't be a problem."
Ed contemplated the trajectory of a thrown pillow from where he was standing and was disappointed. He might smack Roy upside the head but not without risking the bedside lamp. "Remind me," he grumbled, "why the hell I'm marrying and asshole like you?"
"Ah…" Roy scratched at a sleep-stubbled cheek. "Good insurance benefits and a tolerance of you farting in your sleep?"
The last thing Ed expected to see in the alley at 5:15 am was his daughter.
Like her stepfather, she had always been obsessively neat about her person. Ed hadn't seen a crescent of dirt under his daughter's nails since she stopped making mud pies. She didn't mind getting grubby when working in the stable or the garden or the lab, but as soon as she was done she tidied herself up, every dark hair smoothed neatly in place. The fact that she was caught in the back alleys of Central before dawn in greasy coveralls and her hair pinned up and shoved under a floppy workman's cap made him instantly certain that she was Up To No Good.
Alphonse rounded the corner to join her. This removed any doubt. The kid was up to something. "What the hell are you two doing out here?" Ed barked, grabbing Nina by the shoulders.
Alphonse and Nina glanced at each other. Nina looked doubtful. Alphonse looked confident and reassuring in spite of the black smears on his face and the disconcerting brown wig that didn't fit him particularly well. "Ed!" Alphonse's tone was entirely too cheerful for 5:15 in the morning in an area of town more suited to purse-snatchings and muggings than family reunions. "You're up early! Want to go down to Il Gattina with us? There's a two for one breakfast special this morning, and they've got banana pancakes back on the menu-"
"Pancakes my ass!"" Ed's arms began to windmill in frustration. "You two trying to get robbed or something? Damn it, what are you up to?"
"Daddy, we're alchemists. Elric alchemists. It's not like we can't defend ourselves—"
"—and you wouldn't HAVE to worry about defending yourselves if you weren't sneaking around in some back alley. I wanna know what the fuck you're up to and I wanna know now. You're not too big to spank—"
"I believe I am." The voice behind him was low, cool and instantly recognizable.
Instinctively, Ed raised his arms over his head. It was a common reaction, even among people who had known Riza Hawkeye most of their lives. "Colonel?"
There was an exasperated sigh. "You can put your arms down, Edward. Alphonse and Nina," she clarified, "were assisting me."
"Oh yeah? Doing what?"
"I needed the assistance of trained alchemists. A matter of presidential…" she broke off and seemed to mumble slightly before clearing her throat. "….security. They were in no danger. The mission is completed. I have the information I need and I appreciate their assistance. That is why I offered to take them to breakfast."
Ed stared frankly at his daughter's grubby condition. "Like that?" he snorted.
"We were planning to wash up at Elycia's flat."
That was logical, Ed conceded. Nina had the key and it was right upstairs above Il Gattina. His eyes narrowed. "Makes sense. But if I hear anything from anybody that you got into any trouble, kiddo, I'll tell your mother—AND Nana Izumi—and they'll-"
"Oh,Daddy!" Nina rolled her eyes in a manner so out of character—and so like her mother—that Ed instantly decided he would be better off never knowing what the kid had gotten herself into, especially if she needed Alphonse and Colonel Hawkeye to get her out of it.
"Okay. I won't ask. You're grown up. Just don't ask me to make bail for you." The young woman pressed a swift kiss on her father's cheek. Hawkeye nodded. Al waved and grinned, and the trio disappeared down a side alley that would lead them to the delivery entrance to Elycia's bakery. Ed jammed his chilly hands into his coat pockets, shaking his head. "Damn kids…."
Cockburn's C-Town Grill had a nightmarish rooster painted on its plate glass windows and advertised "electrically cooked waffles to order". The grill was run by d a surly old war veteran called Big Cock who was famous for feeding the down and outers and kept a watch chain studded with the back molars he'd punched out of drunks who tried to make trouble. He was on Chris Mustang's short list of go-to guys if shit was about to go down in the capital. The waffles were crisp, the sausage was fresh and as long as you got there before 6:45 am the coffee didn't taste like ass. Big Cock Cockburn's leftovers kept hungry street kids like Davy Collins alive for the past thirty years, each greasy bag of biscuits or sausage shoved into grateful hands with a hearty, "go'wan—get the hell out of here! What—you think this is—a charity kitchen er sumpin?"
Sniffing hot donuts on the breeze, Ed gave the squeaky front door a shove with one shoulder and made his way across the wet, greasy floor to a counter stool. The joint was packed with soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, plowing into great plates of fried country ham and scrambled eggs. Ed snagged a menu and signaled for black coffee "in a clean cup!" he specified. Big Cock scowled at him and rumbled something to the waitress about 'getting a booster seat for Short Stack' which Ed thankfully chose to ignore. "And get me a couple donuts to go with it," Ed added.
"Here." To Ed's surprise, a coffee-stained saucer appeared at his elbow with two glazed donuts. "I can't eat more than four when I'm mad."
Ed swiveled around and was startled to find himself staring into the face of…Riza Hawkeye?
Couldn't be. He'd just seen her head off with Al and Nina, and closer inspection proved he was right. The eyes were blue, not brown, and makeup had been troweled on, and the baby pick lipstick was a shade Hawkeye wouldn't have worn even under direct presidential order. "Gladys Turlough?"
She wiggled her fingers at him. "Yoo-hoo." She wasn't smiling. Her eye make up, come to notice it, was slightly smeared.
"Kinda early for you to be out, huh? What are you doing in a dive like this?" It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her if she'd gone back to her 'old profession', as Aunt Chris insisted but it was too early in the day to get slapped off a diner stool.
She took a dainty bite of a cake donut, delicately licking the drifts of powdered sugar off her fingers. "We were doin' a night shoot. I got in a fight with that asswipe director and told him to shove it. I walked out—an' since I'm the star, they can't shoot without me." She nodded in the direction of the soldiers that filled the joint and at second glance Ed recognized that they weren't enlisted men—they were actors in costume. "I cam in here for coffee and a half-dozen donuts."
"Half a dozen…?" Damn. She was mad. "So…? What the problem?"
She jammed her hand into a pink leather satchel on the stool beside her, yanked out a script and shoved it under Ed's nose. A polished nail pointed, indicating where he should begin reading.
By the time he finished, his coffee had gone cold. "That's total bullshit!"
"Right." She took a swallow of coffee, blotted her lips and began to touch up her lipstick. "Love duet for Mustang and Hawkeye. It ain't right. "
"That wasn't in the stage version."
"It wasn't in real life. Lookit, I know this is just a musical but this…this would make Colonel Hawkeye look really stupid. I told him I wouldn't do it."
Coming from the woman who had broken up Hawkeye and Havoc, this was a surprise. "That's important to you?"
"Yeah. "Cause she might have been sweet on him, but we all know he was sweet on Mister Hughes-and Jean was sweet on her. I don't like her," she shrugged, " but I'm still not gonna do this."
"Whose bright idea was this?" Ed wanted to know.
"Give ya two guesses. Mister Sherman 'let's sing penis jokes at the President's birthday' Lehrer. He's writing new songs for the Fullmetal Alchemist movie. Now," she put away her lipstick and began to check the effect in her compact mirror, "I know it's Open Season on Roy Mustang right now because of that book that just came out, but I ain't playin'. The director said we couldn't just cut a musical number from the movie. I said I know, dipshit, and I told him I wrote somethin' nice that we could use. A song about Mister Hughes and Roy."
"You wrote a song?"
"Well," she dimpled, "Me and Alphonse. He's got a way with words. What was it one of the girls at the bakery called him? A cunning linguist?"
Ed turned several interesting shades of crimson as he choked on a sugared cruller. Gladys patted him on the back until he caught his breath back. "You wanna see what I got-the song, I mean?"
For politeness' sake, Ed began to scan quickly over the typewritten page. As the words began to sink in, he stopped and began at the beginning:
We wanted to be soldiers—we were hardly more than kidsWe believed in Fuhrer Bradley—we believed in what we did
Then that cursed war in Ishbal opened up our dreaming eyes
In that senseless, mindless carnage, far more than our dreams died.
From wounds within and wounds without, I've watched you break and bleed
I know what you want to do, Roy—and I know what you need.
The lies they told our people have poisoned heart and soul
And evil's never justified—no matter what the goal
Someone's got to stop it—someone who understands
Someone who doesn't want to see more blood upon his hands
There has to be and end to this—on that we are agreed
If you've got the guts to change the world
I'll get you what you need….
It was a very long time before Edward found his voice. "You wrote this?"
"Hey," she scolded softly. "I'm not as dumb as I act, ya know. But brains and ten cens will get you a cup of coffee and damn little else if you're a working girl—at least, used to be like that. Mustang gave jobs to women. Got us equal pay. Let us vote. If things had been different my ma coulda gotten an education, 'stead of havin' to scrub floors for a living. He's a good guy. I came up with the ideas and what I thought Hughes might have said to him after I talked with Miss Gracia. I kinda acted out to Alphonse what I thought they would say to each other and he set it to rhyme. I think he even talked to Miss Elycia some. Didn't he do a good job?"
In four verses, Gladys and Al and Nina and Elycia had summed up the heart of the profound friendship between Ed's lover and Hughes. It was not sentimental. It pulled no punches. And for the man who had known them both and the terrible sacrifice Hughes had made that cost the young officer and father his life, it made Ed's eyes sting and his throat tighten with emotion….
…I'll work within the system—I'll make sure that you succeed
Just give it all you've got, Roy—I'll get you what you need…
"Is there a tune to that?"
"Yeah. Alphonse said it was an old folk song from up north. He used that to kinda get the rhyme. I wanted Sherman to write a new tune but he said it 'put that back on the bathroom roll where it's useful, doll.' Boy, what a creep!"
"You got another copy?" Ed looked down at the typed pages. "Can I have this?"
"For what?"
"I got an idea. Hey, Big Cock?"
The cook glared over his shoulder. "Whatdyawant, Short Stack?"
Ed flipped him a twenty-cens piece. "Miss Turlough doesn't pay her tab—ever. It's on me."
###
Kelly Winchell ripped off her sleep mask and flung it across the bedroom. Her lap dog, well familiar with his mistress' ugly moods, dove for safety under the bed. "This better be damn good or-" She snatched her gold filigree alarm clock off the antique nightstand. "It's not even seven o'clock!"
"It's Mr. Howe from Dewey, Dickon, Howe and Sons, Miss," the housekeeper informed her nervously. "Said it was very important. Something about Fire and Vice."
###
"Perfect. Absolutely perfect. And I'll be damned if I know how or why." Cameron Howe shook his head, staring down at the layouts of Fire and Vice. He'd inked the print roll and run some galley tests and tie imprint was crystal clean and absolutely legible.
Mr Dewey looked surprised. "Did you call Miss Winchell to tell her we can run the first printing now?"
Cameron Howe made a face like a cat licking something particularly nasty out of its fur. "I did. After which she informed me what I might do with the print rolls. Something distasteful and biologically impractical, to say the least." He didn't mention the comments suggesting that Mr. Howe's parents had not been married, let alone of the same species or the sounds of hurled objects smashing out the windows of her penthouse apartment. "The good news, however, is that we have the print rolls, we have made a formal offer to run the printing –and increased her royalties on the first print to a full fifteen percent—"
"FIFTEEN PERCENT?"
"—which she immediately rejected. Now," a chilly smile lit the young man's keen features, "according to our contract with Miss Winchell, we have now met all the legal terms regarding our responsibilities in the event of failure to meet a printing deadline. There was an unavoidable delay in printing Fire and Vice, " he ticked off the items on his fingers, "we have offered equitable compensation with a five percent increase to her royalties, we have offered to rush the first edition out and she has informed us—"
"—that we are a fat lot of diseased donkey's testicles and that she's taken her loathsome talents elsewhere," Mr. Dewey finished. "If she takes us to court as she's threatened, she doesn't have a leg to stand on. Furthermore, my boy, we still own the rights of her previously published books for the next ten years, since there's been no breach of contract."
"Which includes those charming children's stories we found." Cameron Howe rubbed his hands together in utterly understandable glee. "Oh, and it was just my luck that I found one last Buckety Buckety manuscript. It was laying in a dusty old box not far from where we located the print rolls of Fire and Vice."
Mr. Dewey adjusted his glasses and flipped through the yellowed manuscript, badly typed and splashed with exclamation points and misspelled words.
"Hmmm….Buckety-Buckety And Wibbles The Wolf: The Love That Dares Not Speak Its Name. Well…yes…this-OHHH MY!"
"You'll note the illustrations."
Mr. Dewey dropped the manuscript as if burned his fingers. "What has been seen, can't be unseen, more's the pity."
Cameron retrieved it, grinning openly now. "Not one for the juvenile shelves."
"Gad, no!"
"Think it will sell?"
"Like choc ice in the desert. Ring up the typesetters, will you, my boy?"
###
She would flay them alive. She would wrong Cameron Howe's skinny neck and feed him to her dog. She would sue them into penury, buy the company with her royalties off the new book and then burn the place to the ground and then stomp on the ashes. She would beggar those sons of whores, take them to the cleaners and destroy every last copy of that god-damned Buckety-Buckety book. She would-
"OWWWSHIIIT! What the fuck?"
She had been marching through the back alleys to the DD&H&Sons' press and warehouse, purse whipping through the air, warming up her swatting arm for her meeting with Cameron Howe and Mr. God-Damned Dewey. She hadn't been watching where she was going and one arc of her handbag had collided with-
Sweet Fucking Ishballa On Whole Wheat Toast.
She'd just clobbered Edward Elric. His nose was bleeding and his broken glasses lay in the alley between her signature pink Aerugoan leather pumps.
If their roles had been reversed, she would have screamed for the cops, sobbing that she'd been brutally battered with full malice and forethought. She'd have pressed assault charges and sent him dragged off to jail.
That is what Kelly Winchell would have done.
Edward Elric was a hell of a lot more vindictive than that.
Bending down, he retrieved his battered frames from between her plump little feet. Blood dripping from both nostrils, his grin was most unpleasant indeed.
"Miss…Kelly….Winchell." His voice was a low purr—the kind that large carnivores make when they are gnawing on bones in the Big Cats exhibit at the Central Park Zoo. He held out his arm. "Let's have coffee, shall we?"
…TO BE CONTINUED….
AUTHOR'S NOTE: the lyrics from "What You Need" were written for me by Barbara Bowen,, 2007 with original music by Theresa Wachowiak. I was honored to have this written for me and have had the pleasure of performing it many, many times over the years. Lyrics shared with permission of author.