moon makes Mac
Moon stirred the pot and stared at the naked noodles stupefied. How was she supposed to make mac and cheese if the cheese packet was missing? She sniffed around in the fridge and came across an opened package of rancid cream cheese. She nuked the cheese for a minute while she drained the noodles into a plastic bowl. She took a can of Crisco out of the fridge and dropped a couple of fingers of it into the bowl. After lubing up the noodles with the Crisco she added the cream cheese.
Most of the cheese was black with mold so she kept blending until the entire dish had an even neutral gray tone. It looked gross. She got an idea and started rifling through the kitchen drawers and cupboards till she found what she needed, food coloring. She dumped in some yellow and a little bit of red till it somewhat resembled real Mac. She didn’t want to taste it, it didn’t really matter it was for the neighbor, whom she’d never even seen.
She knew her neighbor was some housebound type and that this guy named morey would bring him/her food once in awhile, but that’s all she knew. She talked to morey occasionally but he was tight lipped about the neighbor so she’d quit asking. She liked morey and that’s why she was making the Mac. He’d asked if she’d put food just inside her neighbor’s door for the next few days, and she’d said sure without thinking. Morey had called her a good egg and punched her lightly on the shoulder. Even this minimal physical contact had made her blush, and her penis thicken. She went into her small bathroom and masturbated into the toilet.
She’d first met morey right after the neighbor moved in, almost a year previous. She’d opened her door and walked right into him, he was standing in the hall holding a plastic storage bin. He said hello to her and then pushed the neighbor’s door open with his foot. He was about her height, his head was shaved and he was wearing sunglasses. She also noticed he was wearing dark corduroys that sagged a bit around his butt.
Later that day at work she found herself describing him to another maid, Sconia. Sconia was Croatian and in her broken English tried to find out if moon was going to make fuck with morey. She was using crude hand gestures to get her point across. Moon pretended that she didn’t understand, and shrugged her shoulders. From what she’d seen of him morey was attractive, in a bland sort of way. It’d been quite awhile since she’d had anything even resembling sex, she couldn’t imagine it, with anyone.
Moon and morey developed a limited sort of relationship, based solely on accidental meetings in the hall. One day he told her she had been in his dream, and she had been wearing a big white Afro wig. He asked if she had one, and she laughed nervously, because she did. She didn’t tell him that though. She wondered how he knew and had he been snooping around in her apartment? She thought about wearing the wig one day, surprising him, as a joke. She feared he wouldn’t laugh though and it would turn into an awkward moment.
She had been feeding the neighbor for two days when she slipped the Mac and Cheese into the apartment. The temptation to explore had been strong but she resisted it, thinking it would be creepy of her. There was a subtle odor in the air that at first, although familiar, she couldn’t place. Later while bundling dirty sheets at work she realized what the smell reminded her of, fecal matter and musk cologne.
The day after she’d dropped off the Mac, there was a knock at the door. Five quiet raps in quick succession. She stopped stirring the grits she was cooking and removed the pan from the stove. The knocks came again.
It was morey, his sunglasses were on his head, and his eyes were read with tears. He was holding a large tortoise, belly out. He pushed it into her hands, and said, “You killed Frank.” That’d been the last time she saw him.
end