Roumanian's in the attic

The espresso maker was malfunctioning and the strainer clogged with microscopic dots from coffee grounds and soapy suds. In the bed in the attic the sheets were stripped bare with laundry clinging to the sharp corners on the bed. There were three sleeping places on the dusty hardwood with mattresses at differing elevations on the plateau that bisected the octagon in the attic with comfort below the plotters desk clasped against the length, squaring a third of the width with magazine clippings and coke cans illustrate a birds perspective flying on the ceiling beneath the attic boards moaned with the scarred footprints, the ceilings pounded while the frothy white skies flash lightning.
“The espresso machine is not working properly,” Cob said with expressed interest to the Romanian house guests. “Here is coffee.”
Art slept soundly upstairs while Vera was listening silently. The coffee mugs put on the coffee table on a magazine stack with a plastic milk carton. There was a sugar ramekin with the design red and black triangles intersecting in circles. The sugar bowl was a souvenir purchased after the abolishment of serfdom in 1746 causing the stress spoken on U as awkward in place of the form O with the preference on the Romans.
“... because you want sweet,” Cob offered the sugar bowl, “sometimes.” He had a fresh brown glaze on his teeth enamel from sugary sweets.
“Yes, thank you.”
“The stereo is playing Blixa, he plays in Australia,” Cob said.
“We’ve heard Blixa,” she said.
“Really?” he asked.
“Small world,” she said.
The water pipes piped hot water in high pitches through the hole in the ceiling beneath the bathroom in the living room. In the suburban houses the maintenance upkeep to hold the ceilings plastered are universal in bourgeois cultures. The obtuse coffee waiter was glaring at the hole in the ceiling with the reckless abandon an insect honey bee buzzes in the beehive. He hurried up the stairs in the attic where Art slept wrapped in soft blankets. Slowly piercing the warm walls where a poster with a glamour snapshot with Groucho, Harpo and Chico Marx smirk with hands clasped on ears in black and white. She was not yet dressed warmly squirming underneath the sheets in the hot attic. Cob asked if she knew the record player because the needle was dusty. He wanted in which direction to brush without damaging the delicate point, and barely awake, she shook her head with frizzled hair. He fell down the stairs with loud, clomping horse steps and an awkward silence between Vera and Cob was broken with an anecdote.
Before leaving Brussels, her house threw a large party where the whole town was invited and she wondered if the same was held in Baltimore. There was a commotion at the bon voyage affair where a boy was thrown down stairs that was hosting the house. His nose was broken.
“I asked if he needed to go to the hospital. He said, no, and that was that. The last day hovering over the host worried, and he did go in the ambulance because he was hurt. The bus driver on the ride to the airport that morning stopped miles from the airport, drove no closer, so walked the rest.”
Cob nodded his head and the buzzing coffee echoed with loud, industrial clanging on the woofers. After performing routine maintenance checks on his white 1988 convertible, the tour guide had made an offer to drive the Romanians somewhere. He briefly considered the word usage “you” had in the American-English vernacular to the Romanian “you” or “thou” which had a stark contrasting meaning.
“Who wants to ride shotgun?” Cob asked.
“Here,” Vera rode in the backseat crowded with boxes and books, and Art rode passenger with Cob, her shades on and the window up blowing her wispy hair. The eight cylinder engine pumped oil with a cholesterol reading slightly worse than the chauffeur who wore an oatmeal tan cap and a brown checkered long-sleeve, button, wool on his person. The engine slowed nearing the docks and hacked with phlegm closer to the stores on Thames street.
They ate at a diner with hamburger and fries and cooled in the air conditioning while the slow, less-than-eager waitress was relaxing in her quiet servitude. The Romanians had a pocket with change to pay the costs, and Cob offered his credit card with the girls not yet having their social security papers.
“The houses in Baltimore are so diverse here when in Romania, everything was so close together and you can see houses in 1920 with those in 1950,” Cob said, “and what’s that?”
In the parking chalk line straights with parked cars was a reporter’s camera on a television tower filming. “There is a tattoo museum close-” Cob said and as he started the car, there was a click and a cough. The 1988 was dead.
The girls waited in the car while he got out and lifted the hood and pressed his hand on the radiator. He was gone in seconds inside the pizza parlor beside the stranded, parked clunker with a dollar in change in his hand, asked the flipper if he had a carton of water he could pour on his car. The flipper gave a pitcher with water for a purchase which Cob bought for the Baltimorean sitting outside the pizzeria. The water sizzled on the metal radiator with no steam and trailed a rainbow thread on the gutters.
Cob and the girls stared at the crossing waiting for a tow truck when an automobile came to a screeching halt skimming a pedestrian. “I’ll kill you,” the hood yelled, his muscles flaring and shaking in his purple sweats.
“I’m calling the Police!” the driver shouted, staring at the whitey standing by the benches.
“You hit me!” the hood yelled, and started walking away, and seeing he was walking, the car drove off.
The hood walked up to Art and whispered in his ear, seething mad, “you want to have his babies!” pointing at the whitey.
Cob looked over.
“You saw that!” the hood said.
Cob nodded his head.
The girls and Cob stared at the clunker with the hood staring up held in place with a metal pole, and the hood was on the curb on the pizzeria eating a slice and drinking.
“You can have a drink if you want?” he said, “any of you!”
The tow truck hooked the clunker and drove the 1988 to the shop. Him and the girls had a ride on the bus. In the evening eating in the backyard garden with the unripe figs hanging leaves canopied an umbrella on the table shading the moon. The girls stare in the darkness when a light flashes. The heavy heat in the hot summer nights, and the girls had never seen lightning bugs.
Stare at the darkness long enough and a lightning bug says hello. The attraction the bugs feel is mysterious. Lying stiff in bed at night with the windows open and the ceiling fan blowing hot air, there is a spark in the darkness before sleep comes. He feels falling staring in an airplane, and after the girls, his brother called on the telephone long distance on the globe with the endless congruent oceans asking, “where did you meet those girls?”
We met at the train station.