Writing Excuses 10.5 — Part 3

As in the two previous posts, a character I created is walking through a marketplace to perform a dead drop. This character is different from the characters in the last 2 posts. See if you can figure out the job, hobby, and emotional state.

Angela stepped off the bus and held her hand up to her forehead, surveying the French market through watery eyes. She blinked to clear her vision. A gray-haired woman jostled her as she exited the bus and  strode to the far end of the stalls. Angela would have shrugged had she possessed the energy. She could do worse than to follow.

Throngs filled the aisle that ran between the market stalls. In the noon sunlight the patrons’ casual clothing, the piles of produce, the stands of flowers—everything seemed too bright. Amid the murmur and chatter of voices she could make out the amplified sound of a man singing and strumming a guitar. She suffered the sweaty mass of cheery humans until she located him.

Past a display of leather goods, a blond walrus of a man sat on a tall stool. His guitar rested against his great belly, held in place by a diamond-patterned strap in neon yellow and green. He played some insipid old song which she’d heard before but couldn’t quite place, then swung into a patter about his CDs. The crowd started drifting off. He cut his spiel short and began to pluck the syncopated introduction to “Bésame Mucho.”

His playing was nearly as good as some she’d heard in the clubs. Despite herself, Angela felt her hips want to sway and her dragging steps to morph into the moves of a dance. She stopped, really looking at him for the first time, noting his faded jeans and ancient Eagles t-shirt. He was already watching her; his wink was barely discernible through the pouches of flesh sagging below his blue-green eyes. If she’d felt more like herself she would have either laughed at the man’s impudence, or glared. Had he thought it funny to launch into a Spanish song just because he’d noticed her deeply tanned skin, her dark eyes and hair? And Bésame Mucho? Kiss him a lot? No lo creo!

He half-closed his eyes and began singing. His accent was better than she would have expected. She looked at the CD racks on either side of his open guitar case, its deeper side scattered with bills and coins. Karen had said to leave her packet where “pájaro herido” played. The musicians in this market changed every couple of hours. Karen said she couldn’t confirm their exact schedule, so Angela didn’t even know if this man was the one she needed to find. Nothing about him suggested a broken bird. With his eyes closed, though, he seemed less threatening.

She moved closer. The muscles of the musician’s right forearm bunched and loosened as he played. A dark discoloration moved along with his muscles, and Angela tried to make sense of it. It was too dark and thin-edged to be a bruise. As she studied it, it resolved itself into a kind of design, and she realized what it must be. It looked like most of a bird, its wings spread.

Someone had inked this man, but done a poor job of it. What had they used, a sewing needle? There was a gap in the tail section, as if the artist—if the tattooer deserved that title—had pulled the skin taut rather than letting it lie naturally as he inked. Idiot. But it told Angela one thing. She had found her broken bird. She felt inside her purse for a folded, taped dollar bill. Inside this dollar was a post-it note with a combination of letters and numbers which meant nothing to Angela. She dropped the taped bill into the player’s open guitar case and looked for the quickest way out of the market.