Spirits of the Earth and Air

by Jeff Baker

(A Billy Gonzalez Story)

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the December Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were: A Fantasy, set in a Parking Lot, involving a Stack of Pizza Pans. So we look back a couple of decades to find Billy Gonzalez, much younger at one of his first jobs. —-jeff

It was back when I was in High School. I was sixteen years old and the Pizza Playce was my first job. Part-time during school and full-time on the weekends. Not a bad job and the people were nice and the owner, Mr. Montovanni, stayed out of our way and was in the office a lot.

I’d heard a crazy story that he’d paid to buy the building there on the edge of town in gold coins which he said he’d “got from somewhere else.” I didn’t ask him where he got them, but I should have.

We had a couple of fights in the parking lot that summer but nothing like what happened towards the end of June. There was a Full Moon that night and looking back that was probably what did it. I wasn’t as savvy back then but I’d already had a couple of weird things happen to me.

Mr. Montovanni had left earlier in the day telling me and Mark and the girls to close up. He did that a lot on the slow middle-of-the-week nights so that wasn’t unusual. But I overheard him on the phone saying he’d “pissed off” what he called “his backers.”

I was working there with Mark and a couple of girls. I was just starting to realize I liked girls and guys but I was still stuffed in the closet. This was the late 1990s. It was just after sunset that I noticed the first of the fairies. I thought it was just a big moth. It flew past the front window as I was bussing the table at one of the back booths. I happened to be looking up.

It passed by a couple of times and I thought about the Hummingbird Moths my folks saw in their garden sometimes. Then I noticed this one had arms, legs and a very angry expression. Then I noticed a whole swarm of the things hovering and swirling over the parking lot; luckily the only cars were the employees’ in the back. No customers then.

“Billy!” Mark hollered from the kitchen. I ran over. He looked sick.

“There’s, there’s THINGS flying around outside.”

We could see them through the windows, naked human-like winged men and women. A man-sized fairy landed in front of the glass front door, wings bristling. It was pale pink with green hair. The wings were like a giant dragonfly. I stared; he had nice abs. I stepped over to the door.

“We have come to collect,” the fairy said in an echoing voice. “Where is Montovanni?”

I glanced out at the parking lot again; the fairies were everywhere, except in the back where the cars were.

“Cars…” I murmured.

I’d done some reading about weird stuff. I hoped I was right. Something I remembered…

I quickly pulled down the big old pizza pans from the wall by the door, labeled with the sizes of pizzas, praying I was right. They felt different, heavier than the ones we made pizzas on. I stacked them and hollered for Mark to help me. He looked scared, but bless him he did what I asked.

Together we carried the stack of old pans out to the parking lot as the fairies swarmed around us. I held up one of the smaller pans; Mark grabbed a larger one and held it like a shield.

“In the name of all that’s holy, I command you to be gone!” I yelled. I was imitating Chris Wiggins on a TV show I’d seen. Mark waved his pan and yelled too.

The big fairy started looking as terrified as Mark did. It rose into the air with a scream. Mark and I walked around the lot with the metal pans shooing the other fairies away. And even though it worked, I was at least as scared as Mark was.

As I thought there had been no sign of the fairies in the back parking lot near the dumpster and the employees cars and I knew why.

“I used to come in here with my folks when I was little,” I explained in side. “The guy who ran the place had worked at the old foundry. He was proud of having made these himself.” I rapped my knuckles on the biggest pizza pan. “Pure iron. Lots of iron in the cars and probably the dumpster too. And I read somewhere that fairies are repelled by iron, just like garlic does to vampires.”

I smiled to myself. We had plenty of garlic. We had vampire swarm covered too.

Just in case.

—end—