Mediocrity, Chapter 2

Despite adamant mental protesting and vaulting his eyelids shut, Dahj was rudely roused from his slumber by a cacophony of sounds echoing down the hallway from the kitchen. He lay silent and immobile for a few seconds longer, resisting the urge to smother himself with his pillows to get in those much needed extra few minutes of sleep.

Finally, unable to disregard the sunbeams searing a hole into his corneas with the same intensity and focus as a lightsaber, he gave a grunt of defeat and rolled himself out of bed. He began his morning rituals with a fond, salutatory scratch to his crotch. Five minutes later, he stepped out of the bathroom and wandered into the closet-sized kitchen.

It was all in the kitchen now, Dahj noted humorlessly, spotting Tajaki sitting on a stool at the counter. She didn’t acknowledge him at first, concentrating fixedly on trying to eat her bowl of cereal with two butter knives in each hand.

“No clean spoons?” Dahj inquired, eyes roaming over the disheveled and ransacked state of the kitchen. There was a distracted grunt of conformation, Tajaki eyeing her cereal despondently before setting both knives down and looking up at Dahj for the first time. She smiled cheekily at him, her face radiating with smug amusement.

“I see joo be cleanshaven dis morn.”

Dahj’s hands and eyes swept across the counter, rummaging around for a loaf of bread. Excavating a bag with only two end pieces left, he frowned, shrugged and threw them into a toaster that looked as if it had been unmercifully beaten with a large rock tied to a sledgehammer tied to a shovel.

“Yeah, but ya’ know, even after shaving off all that hair, I still left less hair in the bathtub than you do when you shave those woolly mammoth pits and Afghan rug legs of yours.”

He casually leaned forward to check on his toast, narrowly avoiding a milk stained knife from becoming embedded in his jugular. The blade buried itself into the cheap drywall amongst several other knives and forks jutting out from the wall. He studied the makeshift kitchen knife rack on the wall before settling on one where half the hilt wasn’t stuck in the wall and wretched it free.

“So, that person who called last night has a job for us,” began Dahj, as if nothing happened and opening the fridge to forage for a tub of butter. “He thinks his wife is cheating on him, but doesn’t have enough cash to hire a real P. I. He wants us to tail her, take a few pics and report to him what we find. Easy money.”

Taji’s eyes crested over the bowl she was of cereal she was guzzling down. Swallowing a few more mouthfuls, she removed the bowl from her lips and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, replying, “Soun’s good. Simple an’ easy, ja?”

Dahj paused in mid-chew, rolling the soggy ball of mush around his tongue musingly. An entire catalog of insulting one liners including the words ‘simple and easy’ lay open in his mind like a box of expensive chocolates; a pricey decision but oh so sweet. However, though his spoiled palate protested in a toddler level tantrum, he hesitated. Tajaki still had one knife left.

And, while dodging it was an option, he risked actual impalement by causing her to throw one a second time. The first knife was a warning. The second would be a very painful prelude to an awkward rectal examination. While he was weighing the consequences, Taji stole a glance at him, wondering why he hadn’t replied yet.

An entire sequence of emotions played on her face like a silent movie, which Dahj happened to be an expert at deciphering. At first, her face was twisted up in confusion, which was quickly replaced with realization, figuring out that Dahj was contemplating insulting her yet again. Then, her expression hardened into a testy, dangerous half-smirk, as if daring him to bring his worst.

Taji was the first to break the silence, only saying one word.

“Well?”

Dahj quit ruminating and resumed chewing. “Not worth it.”

Tongue flicking to one of her lip rings, she grinned, impishly. “Didn’t think so.”

It was quiet for a second or two, before Tajaki said, randomly, “Hey, joo eva’ get da feelin’ dat—“

“—we know each other too well?” Dahj finished, slowly.

The duo shared a simultaneous shudder, disgusted in ways inexpressible by words, dry heaves or satanic curses.

“Ja, that. Now, when our periods start syncing up is when I’m gonna’ get worried,” said Tajaki.

“You and me both,” the other muttered, dusting bread crumbs off his hands. “Anyway, we have an appointment this morning to meet up with that guy I mentioned to discuss the details and payment. We should get rea—”

The front door slamming shut cut Dahj off, leaving his sentence hanging, unfinished. The pair quietly peeked around the corner of the kitchen wall. An unknown woman was loitering in the foyer, and two pairs of hidden eyes gave her a good once over. The woman seemed to be somewhere in her mid-twenties, fairly tall with her four and a half inch stilettos giving her an added height boost.

She had legs for days, smooth and shapely, her toenails trimmed and painted. Strawberry blonde hair framed her face in curly ringlets, sweeping just past her shoulders. Supermodel thin, her sundress hugged her curves snug and tight, outlining her entire profile. Her face was small and round, like a glass doll’s, complimented by her fair and flawlessly delicate complexion. Dahj and Tajaki exchanged looks.

A second of unspoken conversation transpired, communicated completely by facial expressions and pantomime.

“How do you want to handle this?” Taji signed.

“Rock, paper, scissors,” gestured Dahj.

They faced one another and went through three quick rounds of extremely intense Rock, Paper, Scissors. Dahj won two out of three. He smirked and raised his arms mockingly in a triumphant fist pump. Tajaki glanced down at the ‘rock’ which had lost to Dahj’s ‘paper’, looked back at Dahj and decked him in the stomach mid-victory pose.

He immediately doubled over, the air expelled from his lungs with a loud oof mingled with a grunted, “Anyone ever tell you you punch like a heterosexual girl?”

Ignoring the comment, Taji flung a sloppy salute in his direction, nodded her head once jeeringly as a sign of ‘good sportsmanship’ and strolled out of the kitchen.

“Hello dere, beu'tiful,” she greeted, approaching the woman with a warm smile and a flash of her lip rings. “How c’in Taji help joo?”

The woman blinked a few times before hesitantly responding.

“Am I in the right place? You do miscellaneous jobs, right?”

Tajaki nodded.

“Any and everything, luv,” she assured, tossing her a playful wink. 

This said, the woman’s grip on her purse in her hand tightened, her aquamarine eyes scanning the shop fretfully before she said, a decibel above a whisper, “I… I need your help.”

Nothing the slightly frightened expression seizing hold of the woman’s face, Tajaki gently placed an arm over her shoulder and drew her in close.

“Donna’ joo worreh. Come sit down ova’ here an’ tell Taji what be vexin’ ja’.”

As she began to lead the woman to a threadbare couch near the far wall, Dahj entered the room, half-way surprised that Taji hadn’t already talked her way into the woman’s panties. He snatched his car keys off the counter and paused before the two women.

“Taj, I’m going to meet that guy now, since you seem to be preoccupied all of a sudden. I’ll be back soon.”

For a split second, Dahj gave her a look she had seen countless times before.

“Remember: Paid before laid.”

Taji merely stared back blankly, wearing the stolen face of a saint-like nun.

Sighing, Dahj brushed past the pair and opened the door. However, he did not leave before getting in one last dig.

“Try not to have too much fun wirelessly connecting your periods or planning menstruation parties or whatever females do when a man leaves the room.”

And, with a hand thrown up into the air in farewell as an afterthought, Dahj stepped out the door and left the shop, all the while trying to ignore the funny (and painful) feeling in his gut.