Hipster Holocaust Chapter Five
Buffy Winship poured last of the water from her watering
can onto the Impatient in the front of the nursey. She had finally finished
watering and pruning and cosseting all of the flowers in the independent nursey
on Van Brunt Street down in Red Hook. Buffy loved flowers. She had always loved
them ever since she was growing up as a child of privilege in Connecticut. When
she was known as Elizabeth before she got the nickname of Buffy from the neighborhood
knuckleheads who worked with her in the hardware store. She wore their contempt
as a badge of honor.
As a young girl she would love to work in the gardens. In
fact her best friend as a child was the elderly Italian immigrant gardener who
tended the gardens on her family’s thirty acre estate. At least until her
mother found out and fired him because she was scandalized that she had become
friends with the help. That actually was one of the main factors in her leaving
her family and cutting off all contact with them.
She had moved down to Brooklyn with the then boyfriend to become an artist. They got a small apartment on Coffee Street in Red Hook and posed as Bohemian lovers. Sort of Scott Fucked Up Fitzgerald and Zelda. It didn’t last. Her boyfriend went back home to become a Wall Street drone and she replaced him with ever increasing cast of lovers both male and female and some who were somewhere in-between. After six tattoos, seven piercings, nine different hair colors and four bouts of chlamydia she decided to go it alone. She had sort of fallen into working in the nursery because of her love of flowers. She had a gift. Not for art but for agriculture.
It wasn’t so bad. She did four days at the nursey on Van
Brunt and three at the Hardware Store on First Place and Court. They had a side
business of selling flowers out of the sidewalk from the closed in courtyard of
the Ace Hardware store. She didn’t do so much of the grunt work of watering or
pruning. Instead she specialized in tutoring the dilettante wives of hedge fund
managers who came and had their maids pick up flowers and topiary shrubs that
their illegal Mexican gardeners would plant in their multi-million dollar brownstones.
She was very popular. Tall and whip thin with blond patrician features she was
the prototype of the suburban hipster who was slumming in Brooklyn. They
recognized one of their own and went to her for advice.
She pulled the gate closed and put the big rusted Master
Lock on the heavy chain that kept out the causal crack head thieves who might
have wanted to grab a few plants to make a couple of bucks by selling them in
front of the subway stop on Second Place. She picked up her PBS tote bag with
the dog eared copy of Simone de Beauvoir and her thermos that she brought her
chai tea to work. She walked along Van
Brunt deeper into the bowels of Red Hook. The neighborhood mooks were amazed
that she walked so causally through the streets because they remembered the
crack epidemic in the eighties that made Red Hook into a war zone. That never
concerned Buffy. She strolled through the streets as if it was her birthright.
Like a Queen.
As she turned right off of Van Brunt she heard foots
steps behind her and glanced over her shoulder. She saw a tall figure in a
black hoodie following behind her. She really couldn’t tell who it was but in
the dim light of the street light she could see that it was a white guy. She
relaxed a little. Then she got angry with herself. She didn’t want to be a
racist. Sure a black guy had raped her. Another one had stolen her bike by
pushing her off it and kicking her in the face. Still she couldn’t be racist.
So maybe she should be just afraid of a white guy. Or if not afraid than at
least cautious.
She thought about ducking into one of the hipster bars
that had sprung up in the last few years. She didn’t frequent them all that
often. The men in there were really boys after all. Posing as feminists when
they were just run of the mill misogynists with Amish beards and flannel
shirts. She walked into a pool of brighter light thrown off a relatively intact
street light. She decided to wait and see if the guy would walk into the light.
Surprisingly he did.
“Oh hi” she said. She knew him. He had bought flowers off
her several times. He was harmless. “Are you walking home? Don’t you live
around here?” she asked. He nodded. “Why don’t we walk together on the way
home?”
As they walked past the bar and out of light he fell
slightly behind her as he dodged the mountain of garbage bags on the sidewalk. When
they got to the head of the alley he reached up and grabbed her by the throat
and pulled her into the alley. She tried to scream and struggle but a diet of
kale and chai tea didn’t lend itself to upper body strength. All of sudden she
felt wet. He dropped her on the floor. She wanted to scream but noting came out
except a gurgle. The man leaned over her and smiled. He had a blade and he
leaned over and stabbed her. Over and over again. She wept quietly until she didn’t feel
anything anymore. He wiped his blade on her blouse. He rubbed himself while he
looked at her. He reached under her blouse and felt the small mound of her
breast. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She never did because she had the tits of
elementary school girl. He felt her up until his greasy fingers encountered her
distended nipple. It was engorged in the rain. He took his blade out and cut it
off and put it in his pocket. She deserved it the puta. He put his arms under
her and picked her up and carried her over to the dumpster and threw her in
amongst the refuse of the restaurant bar. He put his hand in his pockets and
looked at her one last time. He turned
and walked away.
Two.
3 comments:
Okay, you got me. I can't even read this one.
I lied - I finally figured out that "impatient" was not "inpatient" and that "nursey" was not the diminutive of nurse, and once I got to flowers I realized you were talking about "impatiens", which my wife used to grow. She grew impatient, too, but that's a story for another day.
There's no business like Shoah business.
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