Macalaurë Fëanorion, who goes by Mark Lauer these days, pulls his slightly-beat-up grey Dodge Ram van into the parking lot of Phoenix Books, his heart beating a little faster.
It's eighty-five degrees today and it isn't even noon yet. That isn't too terrible - some parts of the country are over the hundreds today - but eighty-five is still a little too warm for Mark's liking. He lives in his van, and he has to be judicious about expenses, so sitting in his van with the AC on for hours isn't happening. On the other hand, he's learned from past experience that he can't just hang out in stores like Wal-Mart, and he's expected to buy something if he spends the day at a McDonald's or Starbucks.
He'd noticed a few armchairs scattered around the used bookstore, and he's hoping he can get away with reading in their air conditioned shop for a few hours, at least till 5 PM or so when it starts to cool off. The guy who works in the cafe - Sören, with the shoulder-length black curls and the brown eyes, tats and pierced ears - seems nice, so it's possible the guy who worked out front, Sören's partner, is also nice.
Here's hoping.
Mark came to Maine within the last two weeks in search of a cooler spot for summer - it seems like those are ever-dwindling, with climate change - after doing a stint as a migrant worker on a farm in Texas over June and July. Since coming to Maine, he goes into Portland and busks a couple times a week - people are more generous if he isn't there every single day, he's observed - and so long as he's careful his money will tide him over till around the end of September, beginning of October, when he'll have to find another under-the-table job where he can get away with not having identification, probably on some farm in New England during its harvest season, and hope he earns enough to make it through the winter.
It's increasingly hard to survive without those documents; it used to be that one could just build a shack out in the middle of nowhere, live on the land, and mind one's own business except for very occasional trading business, but people can't do that anymore. And Mark has to move at least once every fifteen to twenty years because he doesn't age and can't convincingly pretend to be younger than thirty, and getting identity documents forged that often is both prohibitively expensive and involved dangerous people - all the more dangerous because he's non-human and he doesn't want to risk being turned into the government or, possibly worse, a private buyer trying to "collect" him.
All the more dangerous because he has a vagina. He's learned from unfortunate past experience that secret needs to be guarded just as closely as being the last Noldo in Middle-Earth, if not moreso. He takes a risk out on the farms, where it's common for the guys to whip it out and pee in front of each other because "we have the same thing". It's bad enough he has to pretend to be human - not that he has anything against humans - but he draws the line at trying to live as female. That is a form of torture, as far as he's concerned. He will live free or die.
So here he is, wandering North America since he'd come to Boston, Massachusetts from England as one Mark Lawrence aboard the Planter in 1635; he's spent the last almost-fifty years in his Dodge van, up and down every highway in the lower forty-eight states and Canada, every couple years rotating plates that he'd picked off an abandoned vehicle, and hoping he didn't get pulled over. He moves around a lot more than he used to, and while that had been fun and adventurous for a time in the 1970s, especially when he was following the Grateful Dead around and would let Deadheads ride with him so long as they had weed and gave him money for gas and food and the like, around the 1980s it had stopped being fun and that was a good forty years ago. Mark is tired, and he wants to put down roots somewhere, but that's next to impossible without ID unless he wants to live someplace like California or Texas - too hot - and even then he risks being picked up by the police as an "illegal".
Mark turns off the engine and cautiously steps out of the van. He makes sure to lock it, even though Bentham is a sleepy college town, he's paranoid about having his van broken into, he can't afford to lose anything, and it's happened before in places he didn't expect. Then he makes sure his mask is up.
Mark smiles behind his mask at the sound of Nirvana when he walks in. He's not used to people listening to actual music anymore, which seemed to die out sometime in the 90s. The bells at the door chime and the man who works in the front waves as he walks in.
"Hi, nice to see you again," he says in a pleasant baritone with a trace of an English accent - London if Mark had to place it. The accent is fading a little, Mark guesses he's lived in the States for about a decade, but it's still there. Today the guy is wearing a navy blue T-shirt and a matching mask with light blue jeans, and black leather Doc Martens. His green eyes stand out over the mask.
"Hi," Mark says. "Hot day, eh?" It's easier for him to pretend to be from Canada than take his chances claiming to be from somewhere else in New England... or saying he's "from Texas", the last place he lived. At this point, though, Mark can claim to be from anywhere and it isn't really a lie.
"Nice and cool in here."
Mark decides it's better to ask rather than get booted out later. "Do you care if I beat the heat and read in here for a bit?" A pause, and then he adds, "Air conditioner is busted at my place." That isn't quite the truth, but it's close enough to the truth that he can't run it unless absolutely necessary.
"No, not at all, find a spot and make yourself comfortable."
Mark gives the thumbs up. "Great choice of music, by the way."
"Oh, thank you." A nervous laugh. "It's rare to find anyone nowadays who still likes grunge rock."
"Yeah, tell me about it." Mark is careful to say the "ah-boat" and keep his accent consistent. "Music isn't music anymore." The Song isn't the Song anymore. He doesn't want to think about that, it depresses him too much.
Mark has portioned out enough money to buy a cheap paperback and, when he gets hungry, another sandwich and lemonade. In the meantime he walks up and down the aisles, looking for something that catches his eye. He's going to be here awhile so he wants to go with a thick book rather than having to keep getting up to change out smaller books.
He decides to re-read The Stand by Stephen King, and it's not lost on him how meta that is - a story about a pandemic and societal collapse from a guy who made a career writing about weird things happening in Maine, being read by an ancient cryptid living in Maine for the time being, during a pandemic and what looks like a cold civil war. Nonetheless, he still manages to get lost in the world King has built, a reminder that as bad as things are here, they could be worse.
Every now and again he pauses and looks out - he tries to keep mindful of his surroundings - and after a few short breaks he finally notices the gallery he's sitting across, and he can't help but put the book down and walk over, drawn by the paintings and pottery on display. There's one in particular, a black sand beach with dramatic cliffs and basalt stacks, under a red-and-black stormy sky... something glinting in the choppy waves like a lamp. In the distance, two ravens circle.
A frisson goes down Mark's spine, gooseflesh breaks out over his arms. It's an awfully big coincidence that he came here and found a painting like this. Of course, he can't afford it, and even if he could, he has no place in his van to put it. He's not even sure what he would do with something like this other than stare awkwardly and think about his regrets. I threw away the last piece of my father I had. Even now, all these thousands of years later, he can still see Fëanor dying in his arms, when he thinks about it.
The other paintings are impressive, photorealistic and also surrealist, with hypersaturated colors like a dream, places that appear to be in Iceland - waterfalls, fjords, mountains - populated by trolls and gnomes. In almost all the paintings there are those same two ravens in the distance, and finally Mark notices a smaller one, where the ravens are the focal point, making a nest with collected random shiny objects, including a jewel that looks very, very like a Silmaril, which one of the ravens has in its beak.
Mark feels like he can't breathe. He reflexively takes a step back.
He notices that the art is all Sören's. He glances into the cafe, where Sören is waiting on a couple of customers. He fights the urge to go in there and ask Sören about the paintings, not wanting to cost Sören business and not wanting to come off like a madman.
So he goes back to The Stand, and tries to get reabsorbed in the story. But he keeps looking out at the paintings. The stormy beach with the shining light tossed about in the waves. The raven with the Silmaril in its beak. He looks at the page and it's almost like he's lost his ability to read. It feels like the world is taunting him. Even his own mind mocks him. M-O-O-N, that spells Silmaril. Laws, yes.
Mark looks into the storm clouds of the painting again and suddenly thunder rolls, like he's right there, magically transported. Except no - he glances over at the glass door and he sees the dark sky. Rain pelts just as thunder booms again, louder; a few seconds later there's a flash of blue.
Mark facepalms. It used to be even just a few years ago, he could predict the weather more accurately than The Weather Channel. Elves were deeply attuned to nature, he could feel the weather changing. But the last few years it had been harder to do, and he hadn't even known today there was a chance of thunderstorms; he doesn't watch television and he only uses the Internet rarely so he wouldn't have gotten information from a forecast, either.
Not knowing when the weather is changing like this is yet another sign that something is off, and Mark doesn't like it.
He continues to read, still compelled every now and again to look over at the paintings, and he takes another break to admire the pottery as well; Sören is particularly fond of kintsugi, the art of lining broken places in pottery with gold, and he likes to add Icelandic lava to his pieces as well.
The storm passes in a little over a half-hour, and when the rain stops and the sky clears Sören and his partner step outside. "WOW, DOUBLE RAINBOW!" Sören shouts so loudly Mark can hear it several meters away through the shop walls and windows, and he can't help but smile at Sören's exuberance, his simple joy and wonder at the world, a wonder that reflects in his paintings.
They come back in, and Sören's partner changes the music - Mark recognizes "Fly" by Sugar Ray and it makes him cringe; the British guy's taste isn't perfect, it seems - and then the two of them are dancing together to the song around the front of the store, a dorky sort of Running-Man-krumping-waltz-tango-Macarena hybrid, and towards the end of the song Sören is scooped up off the floor and his partner spins around with Sören in his arms as Sören giggles and shrieks. When the song is over and Sören is back on the floor, they finally notice Mark hasn't left yet.
"Er," Sören says, and gives a little Disney Princess wave. "Hi, Mark."
Mark waves back. "Don't let me stop you." He thinks they were adorable, and he feels a soft wistfulness, thinking about silly times with his brothers, or watching Fëanor horse around with his own brothers.
"You know his name?" his partner asks.
Sören nods. "Yeah, he introduced himself last time he was here."
"And you're Sören," Mark says. He cocks his head to one side, looking at the partner. "And you are..."
"I'm Anthony."
"Like the saint." Mark has no idea how to be properly social anymore.
A raised eyebrow. "More like a sinner."
Sören giggles. "A very bad one."
"Very, very bad." Anthony's cheeks turn pink over his mask and then he busts out laughing and pats Sören. "All right, we better get back to work."
"Jæja, this sudden flood of customers we have to deal with." Sören rolls his eyes; the only customer in the store right now is Mark.
Sören goes back to the cafe and Mark goes back to his book, once again fighting the urge to ask Sören about the paintings. Time passes and the bell at the door chimes and in walks a middle-aged woman with a pleasant, motherly face and bright fuchsia hair, wearing a strand of Akoya pearls with pastel tie-dye T-shirt and a gauzy broomstick shirt, neon blue painted toes showing in Birkenstocks. "Helloooooo," she croons in a voice that reminds Mark of Julia Child, from what little television he's seen.
"Good afternoon," Anthony says. "May I help you find anything?"
"Oh no, I'm just looking, and, well, I'm on my way to your cafe."
"Can you put your mask on, please?"
"Oh. Oh dear me, I forgot." The woman reaches into her purse and pulls out a tie-dye mask, which she puts on her face very slowly. "Although I must say, it doesn't make much sense to enforce a mask rule in the shop if you have a dining hall."
"Well, not everyone visits the cafe, and it's to prevent spreading germs all around the shop."
"Hmph." Her voice gets even fruitier as she gives a little lecture. "You do realize you're more likely to get sick when you wear a mask, by breathing all that stale air."
Anthony says nothing. Mark bites back a groan. She's one of those people. At least she isn't fighting about it too much.
Fuchsia Hair takes her time getting to the cafe, going through the fantasy section - glaring balefully at various titles - as well as classic literature, of which she seems far less disapproving. She skims through as if to inspect the condition of books, and Mark notices, takes down her mask and brings books to her nose to smell. Mark appreciates old-book smell, but he also appreciates having concern for the health of others, and it seems like a dick thing to do, taking down her mask when she was asked to wear it.
She still has her mask off as she walks by Mark, not even looking at him, and steps into the cafe. "Helloooooooooo," she croons again; the Julia Child voice is getting to be like nails on chalkboard. The bells at the door ring again and a couple more customers come in, wearing masks. Mark looks at them then back at the cafe, where Fuchsia Hair is standing in the doorway, blocking the new customers from getting in.
"Hi, what can I get for you?" Sören asks.
"Hmmm, I think I need a few moments to decide. I wasn't even planning on coming here. I was making my luncheon, you see, and suddenly the power went out during the storm, and my stove and oven is electric. I'm afraid that my meal was sitting out far too long, so I'm stopping here for my luncheon before I go to the store to buy more groceries. I would rather support a local, independent business than a corporation."
Mark isn't a fan of capitalism either, but the snobbishness in her tone is offputting - luncheon? seriously? what's next, reciting Shakespeare? - and she's still blocking the way of the new customers.
"Can you decide over here?" Sören asks. "Those two behind you are trying to get by."
"Oh." Fuchsia Hair - who Mark's brain is renaming Luncheon - tsks as she moves over, letting the new customers through.
It takes the new customers only a few seconds to start ordering, as if they were reading the menu over Luncheon's shoulder. Before the pair can finish making their order, Luncheon clears her throat very loudly and says, "Excuse me, I was here first." She glares daggers.
Sören folds his arms. "You said you needed a few minutes to decide, jæja? They were already ready, so they should get to go first while you're still deciding."
"I... WAS... HERE... FIRST," Luncheon says, slower and louder, as if the "jæja" finally tipped her off she was communicating with a non-native English speaker; Mark sees Americans do this all the time and it annoys him more and more each time.
Sören ignores her and turns back to the customers who were already ordering, but they shake their heads, wave their hands dismissively and walk off, as if they sense more trouble if they continue to order. Mark feels a tight lump in his throat - he knows every bit of lost business hurts, and he's rooting for these two to do well, not just because they seem kind enough to let him hang out here in their air conditioning, but already from what little bit he's seen - Sören's enthusiasm at the double rainbow outside, their goofy dancing - he likes them.
Luncheon smirks, as if she's been vindicated, and then she takes about ten minutes to decide what she wants, while Sören's eyes catch Mark's and Sören's eyebrows shoot up as if to say I can't fucking believe this.
Finally Luncheon decides on the chicken club on sourdough and asks if she can get bacon jam instead of bacon. "I don't have bacon jam, sorry," Sören says.
"Well, I suppose regular bacon will have to do." She's still speaking very slowly and loudly, as if Sören is an idiot, and she takes out her wallet to pay.
After the transaction is complete, Mark watches as Sören puts on fresh gloves and takes out mayo, oil and vinegar, a package of sourdough bread, a package of bacon, and a container of cut-up chicken, and unwraps cheese and veggies, and begins to assemble the sandwich. Right after he puts it in the toaster oven, Luncheon clears her throat again.
"I'm sorry, but is that... store-bought bread?"
Sören blinks slowly. "Yeah?"
"Please tell me that the vegetables are at least fresh from your garden."
"...What."
Mark comes in now, looking at the menu - glaring at Luncheon, who seems to be needlessly harassing him. Luncheon looks like she's swallowed a lemon. Luncheon goes on, clutching her pearls. "You know, I would expect an independently-owned cafe hoping to survive against its competitors to offer something different like artisanal baked bread, or veggies from one's own garden. This is pathetic. Not to mention extremely unhealthy. Did you know that medieval people were smarter because they baked their own bread?"
Anthony is approaching the cafe, and even though he still has his mask on, Mark can tell just from the eyes that he's been hearing everything all the way down the front of the shop - Luncheon's voice is ridiculously loud - and Anthony looks ready to kill.
Mark answers Luncheon before Anthony does, not able to help himself because now he's pissed off, too, both because he doesn't like bullies and he doesn't like whiny, privileged people like Luncheon romanticizing a brutal, nasty period of time; he inherited enough of the Finwion pedantic tendencies to not be able to abide when someone was so factually wrong. "Did you know that medieval bread tasted awful and it was all most common people ate, that or bland barley gruel, because meat was a luxury for the very rich? Did you know that medieval people were mostly illiterate and their hygiene was terrible and they believed nonsense like cats were demonic, and after they murdered the cats, the rat population gave them bubonic plague?" Mark closes his eyes and shudders as he remembers a mortal partner dying of plague, as he remembers surviving and working as a plague doctor in his coat and crow mask, to tend to mostly lost causes, to give them mercy in their final hours.
"Oh look, an expert." Luncheon sneers over her shoulder. "Were you there?"
"Yes," Mark says, and it isn't a lie, but Luncheon takes it as sarcasm.
"Well, I never!"
"You never what?" Anthony's mask is off, and it's the first time Mark sees his face. Wow, he's handsome. "Read a history book?"
"All I'm saying," Luncheon says with a sniff, "is that you're charging money to poison me with chemicals."
Now Sören puts down his own mask, showing his teeth. Mark doesn't watch TV and he doesn't use the Internet often, but even he notices Sören looks like Jon Snow from Game of Thrones with his beard and sensual, full lips and he's taken aback a little by how gorgeous Sören is. "You have pink hair and you're lecturing me about chemicals? Really?"
Anthony snorts. "Did you know you're breathing chemicals right now? Oxygen is a chemical. So is hydrogen. I went to Cambridge. I'm smart."
Mark smiles.
Sören turns to Anthony. "I got this, elskan."
"Well actually," Anthony said, "I didn't just come here to defend your honor -" Sören chuckles. "I came here for a drink."
"You're thirsty, huh?"
Anthony winks. "I'm always thirsty."
"Your usual?"
Anthony nods.
Sören goes into the fridge and takes out a 20-ounce bottle of Diet Pepsi and hands it to Anthony. Luncheon looks horrified and makes a high-pitched noise of distress. Mark half-expects her to shriek I'm mellllltinnnngggg...
"You're drinking DIET SODA?" Luncheon screams.
Anthony uncaps his Diet Pepsi and takes a long, smug sip.
Luncheon makes another high-pitched noise and walks off before the sandwich is even done in the toaster oven. "I'M LEAVING A BAD REVIEW ON YELP!" she hollers on her way out.
"OKAY, KAREN!" Sören yells back, raising his hands to flip both middle fingers.
The bells ring as the door slams, and then the toaster oven dings. Sören makes a disgruntled noise as he takes out the sandwich. "I already ate during the storm, do either of you want a free sandwich?"
"I'm good," Anthony says, and looks over at Mark.
As grateful as Mark is to not have to spend money on a sandwich, he's concerned. "Are you sure it's free? I don't want to hurt your business if she's going to leave you a bad review -"
"Jæja, she can leave a bad review on Yelp saying we don't have fancy-ass froo-froo bread and farm-fresh organic watered-by-virgin-piss whateverthefuck," Sören says with a shrug. "She's such a Karen, nobody's going to take that review seriously."
"I'll take a lemonade, at least," Mark says - he likes their lemonade - then he looks over at Anthony's Diet Pepsi. That woman was so up her own ass about diet soda that Mark can't help but want one now. "Actually I'll have what he's having."
"Sure thing," Sören says. He takes out a Diet Pepsi for Mark, and one for himself, and after he rings up Mark's soda he opens his bottle and raises it in a toast. "Skál."
It's been a long time since Mark has had soda - while elves don't have quite the same nutritional requirements as humans, he nonetheless tries to be as healthy as possible with what limited money he has for food and drinks. But the soda tastes good, not too disgustingly sweet. Then it hits him - Sören used Karen as a noun, not a name. "Wait, you said 'such a Karen'. Is that her name, or..."
Sören and Anthony bust out laughing. "I don't know what her name is. She's just, you know, a Karen."
"I don't know what that is." Mark feels like an idiot.
Anthony gives Mark a confused look, and so does Sören, but Anthony quickly explains, "It's a slang term for a white woman who doth protest too much."
"Ah, OK. Thanks. I kind of live under a rock," Mark says. "I'm not on, uh, the Tweeter or whatever people call it."
Sören has a gigglefit, but Mark laughs too, knowing how ridiculous he sounds. Anthony smiles. "That's refreshing," Anthony says, and Sören nods, and Mark feels a little less like an idiot.
Anthony puts his mask back on and walks out to the front, and Mark lingers, drinking his Diet Pepsi, eating his chicken club sandwich which is delicious, store-bought bread and veggies and all. Now that the ice has been broken, a little, Mark says, "I like your paintings out there."
"Takk."
"They're very... mythical. It's like seeing into other layers of reality."
Sören nods. "A lot of them are based on dreams I've had."
"I see."
"I take commissions," Sören says.
Mark laughs. "I can't afford you."
Sören nods. "I can't afford me either." He laughs too.
That answers Mark's question for him. So Sören has dreamed about the Silmaril, then. Interesting. He feels that frisson down his spine again, that sense of you were meant to come here but he hasn't felt the hand of fate in a very long time and he isn't about to let himself start believing in it again, therein lies disappointment.
But nonetheless, something feels comforting and familiar. He might only be in Maine another month, at most, before he moves on to try to find migrant work at a New England farm for the fall harvest, but for the next few weeks it feels like he has a safe place, here, where he can hang out during the day around friendly, decent people.
And it makes Mark's loneliness all the more bitter when he leaves the shop a few hours later, to get back in his van and find a place to park for the night where he won't get towed or bothered by the police. Another lonely night in a long, lonely life, and for the respite he found today, tonight he feels the most alone he's felt in years.
Tears unnumbered ye shall shed.
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