Savage Tales

while it lasted.
    "Cover one of those dogs with a bun and condiments," I said.
    The man hardly gave me a once over and set the dog on the counter, blistery and beautiful, bloodied with ketchup, yellowed with mustard.
    "Yum," I said, reaching.
    "You pay first," he said, striking my hand with a bendy straw.
    "Ow."
    I reached for my wallet and found that it was gone. That loony old man! Just a common mugger after all. I sighed and started to leave.
    "This one's on me," the hot dog man said.
    "Are you sure?" I said. "That seems bad business."
    "You're right. Get out of here, freak. Don't look back."
    But I did look back. I was hungry.
    The hot dog had already disappeared.

    Went back to my apartment room cubicle. A note pinned to the door, to be ignored by me. Pushed in and turned on a shower, stripped off my clothes and took a look in the mirror. The water rained onto the shower floor as I saw the horror of my newly melded wings.
    I stood in the shower for what must have been an hour, and that smell never seemed to go away. A ringing bell is what finally brought me out of the water. I shimmied off quickly and went for the door.
    "Yes?"
    "Your rent. Overdue. I left a note."
    "Oh, that was for me? "
    "How could you doubt it?"
    "Nobody ever calls for me."
    "I'm calling. The rent."
    "You catch me at an inopportune moment. I'm dripping. Fresh out the shower."
    "What's that smell?"
    "That's nothing."
    "Get your wallet. I'll wait. Or cut me a check."
    "I need to change. A towel is not enough for action. For money dealing."
    "What's on your back?"
    "You. Get off me back. Get it?"
    "What the... what the hell is that?"
    I could see he'd discovered my wings and my secret identity was a goner.
    "Come in," I said.
    Now he wasn't interested. His eyes were bulging eggs and he backed away, keeping them fixed on me.
    "Or don't," I said, slamming the door.
    I got out of the house as soon as I could. The wings were gonna be a problem. I slapped a backpack on and tried to make it look part of the structure. What was I supposed to do with all this raw power? And how would I be compensated? The old man had not mentioned a salary. That's what I should have asked about.
    I knew what I had to do. I would join the circus. They always need freaks.
    I went to the library and got on the internet. I looked for a circus. There was too much information and I didn't know where to begin. And I'm such a slow reader. It got me down, and I went for a bubble tea in the Asian neighborhood. The Asians didn't give one look at my wings. They just liked my money.
    I drank my tea in a corner while Asian teenagers flirted and laughed. I would never be like them. Normal. Asian. Smelling so nice. And it was all that old man's fault (except for the Asian part). By the time I got to the tapioca balls at the bottom of the drink I was ready to throw in the towel.
    I trudged back to my living quarters. The sky was colorless. I tried my key in the door and it wouldn't turn. Of all the times for a lock malfunction! This was the sort of thing that only happened to me. I fudged with it for a while, kicked it, but it didn't want to turn.
    "Your key won't work," said a voice over my shoulder.
    I looked and saw my landlord. He held a baseball bat and his hyperactive teenage nephew was with him, carrying a police club.
    "You'd better leave," my landlord said. "You don't pay, you don't live here. And we don't want freaks like you."
    "Everyone is different," I said. "You can't make fun of others. You're different too. We all have our aberrations."
    "Do you want trouble?"
    Did I? I was no match for them as I was, but what if I called on that ancient god's name? What might happen? What change might take place within me? I had to try. I owed the septic old man that much.
    "Noobargoose," I said. Nothing happened.
    "What?"
    "Hold on," I said. "I'm trying to remember something."
    "Well, remember it somewhere else."
    "Just give me a second, guys. Nugunsaroobo."
    "Just cut it out and go."
    "Nobarskono."
    They came at me with their weapons, the cowards. The club hit my wings and even though they hadn't properly bonded to my nervous system, it still hurt. The baseball bat hit my kneecaps. Bones cracked. There was a great deal of pain.
    "Booncaroono –"
    Thwap.
    "Groobongunsura –"
    Thwap. Whack!
    "Nunbarsegunu –"
    A lightning bolt rain through every cell in my body, hopped through the bodies of my landlord and his nephew. Instead of turning me into a super being, it ended my being