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Crystal

Queenie and Crystal are conversing over coffee at the new Starbucks on 152, across from the new Hungry Howie’s pizza franchise, adjacent to the new Hy-Vee grocery store. Crystal is vaguely sipping a venti raspberry mocha. Queenie’s draining a venti chai tea latte as though there were no tomorrow—in great, which is to say grande, cup-compressing draughts.

“Leave some for the fish,” Crystal jokes meekly. She’s been saying pretty much everything meekly since becoming tormented with the memory of the snot bubble that billowed from her nostril and embarrassed her to death in front of her fifth-grade class.

“Fuck the fuckin’ fish,” Queenie quips mid-slurp, “and the sea horses they rode in on.”

Crystal laughs. No one can make her laugh like Queenie can.

Queenie sucks the cup to the point of collapse, slams it down on the table, leans back, says “Ahhhh,” wipes her mouth with her sleeve, then says, “Jesus! That was damn good. I’m gonna go grab me another—”

Crystal smiles, nods, and begins absently tearing an unbleached-paper napkin into more or less uniform strips. Across 152, a man in a blaring pink sweatshirt emerges from Hungry Howie’s with a large pizza box in his hands. Crystal notices the steam wafting from the box, but the sweatshirt does not register. She begins twisting the napkin strips into miniature ropes.

Queenie comes back in her usual flash and drops into her chair. “Doggone, I love these things,” she says, swigging a little less vigorously now on account of the piping hotness.

“Y’coulda fooled me,” Crystal responds meekly.

“So listen, girl,” Queenie begins, ready at last to get down to bidness. “You gotta get over this snot-bubble bullshit. You’re worse than that ‘other monk.’”

“Huh? What other monk?” Crystal asks, baffled. (No one can baffle her quite like Queenie can, either.)

“Good God, Crystal, gimme a break—don’t tell me you ain’t never read no Zen koans?”

“No,” Crystal answers with a flush of unwarranted shame. “I don’t even know what they are.”

“Ach du fuckin’ lieber, liebchen!” Queenie exclaims, amazing Crystal with her unexpected use of German. “I mean, mein Gott in Himmel, they’re little stories that teach you somethin’, only not in so many words.”

“Okay, and—?”

“And you’re just like the second monk in the one about the girl and two monks.”

Queenie pauses and lets Crystal’s curiosity build through two long pulls on her latte, then picks up an untwisted napkin strip and dabs her lips and continues.

“There’s these two monks, see. And they’re walkin’ through this woods. And they come to a river and there’s this beautiful young woman standin’ there, and she don’t know what to do ‘cause she’s afraid she’ll ruin her kimono and her pretty little flip-flops and white split-toe socks if she tries crossin’ that river. And the first monk goes, ‘Hey, what’s up, girl? You afraid you gonna get all wet if you try crossin’ that river?’ And the girl’s all, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ And he just picks her up and carries her across, just like that. And she’s all, ‘Hey, thanks a million, monk,’ and they all go their separate ways. “But the other monk starts stewin’ over what happened, ‘cause in their thing, you understand, monks ain’t s’posed to touch no women. And finally, after like four or five miles, or whatever, he just can’t hold it in any longer, and he goes, ‘Hey, man, what was up with carryin’ that fine young thing across the river? You wasn’t s’posed to touch her, man.’ And the first monk turns and looks the other monk straight in the eye and says, ‘Listen, Chuck, I put her down back at the river—you been carryin’ her all the way here!’”

Crystal looks up from her rope-making and Queenie leans forward till their noses nearly touch.

“Crystal,” Queenie says, letting her stentorian voice slip to a loud whisper, “It’s time to stop carryin’ your fuckass bubble around. You need to go ahead and put that bitch down, girl. Ain’t nobody else give a scheisse.”

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