Flavored
flames
“I’ll
take two carcass dogs.”
“Nope.”
“Jesus,
its noon an you ain’t got no carcass dogs yet? You run a piss-poor hot dog
cart.”
“No
dragons, no carcass dogs. You want a regular hot dog.”
“You
see this guy? This is my brother from Wisconsin, and 10 years I been tellin’
him to come to Denver for carcass dogs. He can get a hot dog in Wisconsin. You
need to get us a carcass dog.”
“Until
a dragon decides to fly in, I got nothing and nothin’ I can do. Unless you got a
friggin’ magic duck-call that will bring them in, I only got hot dogs.”
“Well
for Christ's sake, they are always here by now.”
“Maybe
they got clouded in up there,” he jerked his thumb at the hazy mountains. “Or
wherever they come from.”
“So
what’s the difference?” The brother from Wisconsin says.
“First
you have to understand,” his brother says, “This ain’t no Milwaukee or Chicago.
This is Denver where we got mountains. And that means we got dragons like you
got geese. Only dangerous.”
“Like
what kind of dangerous.”
“Never
mind that. Shut up and listen. Nobody knows why we got dragons, except we got
mountains, that’s all you need to know…”
The
sun flickered as a shadow swooped over the hot dog cart. They followed the
shadow as it circled the plaza. The dragon flapped leathery
wings, shaking the sun umbrellas that were randomly scattered
across the mammoth brick lined patio. The occupants quickly gripping their
coffee cups on the tables to keep the wind from blowing them over. The dragon
cracked like broken glass as its scales slipped across each other as it flexed
to land. Its claws clattering like drum beats as it skidded across the bricks.
Black
and green at the same time depending on where the light reflected, it smelled
of mountain air when it shook out its scales. But that was quickly replaced by
the stink of burnt carcass, which may come from eating virgins and slow
children. That may be a legend as no one has ever seen a dragon harm a child,
or even sniff for virgins.
The
hot dog cart man opened the bottom of his cart where the charcoal glowed red.
Hot dogs grilled above on cast iron grates. He backed away, untied a burlap bag
and put his hand inside. The dragon flicked its tongue in the air, snapped at a
nearby pigeon. The pigeon slipped away easily. The hot dog man kicked at the
open door of the cart and it clanged. The dragon spun at once toward the noise.
He growled, low and coarse like gravel falling out of a truck. He stepped
forward, his spiked tail trailed across the bricks, the points covered in old
blood and hair of something impaled. The scales sang like a bucksaw as he
walked, sawing back and forth with the motion of his legs. The eyes flicked
with color, red then black, red then black. The people by the fountain dressed
in flip flops and little tops got up and started forward. The business people
in suits tucked their ties out of the way, or flipped them across their backs
so as not to have mustard stains announce them when they returned to work. They
too followed the dragon.
The
dragon moved to the hot dog cart and put his nose inside. He inhaled and it echoed
out of the cart. He inhaled again and then he opened that long mandible and
flicked his tongue across his flint tooth. Flame crackled like a match slid on
jeans and he blew flames intense as nuclear fire, and the drumbeat of a
thousand cylinders banked off the tall glass buildings and thundered across the
plaza. The charcoal turned green and the flames blue as old ice. He puffed and
smoke replaced the flames emitting from the dragon.
The
dragon backed up and turned his head toward the hot dog man. The hot dog man
pulled a pigeon from the bag, but it caught in the burlap. The dragon
growled. The hot dog man unhooked the claw of the pigeon from the burlap and tossed
it toward the dragon. The dragon snapped it out of the air. He flipped it up,
up into the sky and the flint tooth sizzled and flame engulfed the pigeon as
the breath of the dragon suspended it in air. The dragon puffed and the pigeon
fell. His teeth caught it and he raised the leather wings, beat against the air
and pumped skyward.
The
hot dog man closed the door of the cart; soot hung in the air. He took out a whole-wheat
bun and loaded it with a slightly yellow hot dog from the grill. “Carcass dogs,
Carcass dogs, get ‘um while they’re hot!”