Short: One Small Truffle of a Matter in Regards to Drowning in a Minor Ocean of Debt
Truly only the slightest hinderance in an otherwise immaculate record of business
This is my submission for LegendFiction’s “Cocoa Café Chronicles Contest.” Decided to go in the comedy direction (or at least charmingly lighthearted) since it’s been way too long since I’ve let myself have fun in that arena.
“Look.” Said a tall and suave young man with an exotic accent. “It is the same shaving knife he’s had since we were in diapers, yes?” He lifted it into the light to admire an engraving of the family crest at the base of the blade.
A broad and muscled man at the other side of the bar glanced over and smirked as he pulled down a jar of cinnamon sticks from a shelf. His accent was similar in origin but cut with a touch of practical grit. “The one with teeth marks on the handle, no?”
The taller one looked again, puzzled. “I see no teeth marks, just the grip texture.”
“Huh. So that is why Mamie kept giving it to me.” He dropped a stick into the pot of milk on the stove then started the flame with a quick flick.
As the broad built man stirred, melding milk and cinnamon, vanilla and a bit of sugar, the taller got to work whittling off a pile of shavings from a big block of chocolate, dark as a gem of stolen midnight. The otherwise deserted café let each knock and tap of their preparations roam around its dusty tables and bounce between its smooth, carved wood walls. Vanilla and cinnamon danced across the draft rising from the warm cream as the pile of shavings was submerged and blending began.
They let the minutes of mixing pass slowly… From a nearly forgotten hiding place in the storage room, they found their favorite mugs from way back when. Thusly equipped, they poured, garnished, and relocated to the back deck overlooking the ocean to enjoy.
On that side of the steep, mountainous island of Port Calloway, the more daring residents—such as the brothers’ late grandfather—had built their homes and shops to overhang the cliff, up and down it’s sloping ridge. A touch of motley “making-it-fit” was characteristic of every structure on the island, but for the West Ridge, this was taken to a celebrated extreme, and the residents lavished the ocean facing sides of their buildings with all manner of playful decorations.
Crisp and windless that early morning, it was cold enough for the brothers to appreciate the heat of their beverage but not so nippy as to pierce their brown-and-white checkered overcoats and blue scarves. They looked out to the rolling sea five-hundred meters below. And above, great ornate airships like winged metal whales floated to and fro in the brightly overcast sky.
“Which ones are returning to their homes, you think?” The taller and slightly older one asked. “The ones disappearing up into the clouds or the ones sinking down out of them.”
“They can’t fly forever.” The broader and slightly younger one said. “They have to return to port eventually, no?”
“Yet they were made to fly, yes?” The older gestured dramatically up to the clouds. “That is where they become what they are made to be.”
“Oh hoh…” The younger nodded slowly.
The two brothers took the first sips of their cocoa.
Then in tandem, the two poured the rest out onto the cliffs below.
“I think that was the same block of chocolate he’s had since we were in diapers.” The younger said.
“Lucky that there was no milk in the fridge when we got here.”
Otherwise unperturbed, the stood relaxed for a few moments longer before the faint chime of the front doorbell rang and a lively voice called out. “Welcome home, boyos!”
The two brothers’ eyes shot open. They looked at each other, then the other way to look for an escape route. There was nothing but open cliffs above the brine on all sides of the overhanging deck. There was, however, a sturdy-ish rope of decorations connected to the next building over, and they hoped to sneak out to the street that way. And so, they scrambled across as quick and quiet as they could and prayed their “customer” hadn’t spotted them.
The rope drooped and swayed as they dangled, inching their way over with great fervor and pushing through the baubles and lights. The taller was in the lead, and when he reached the railing at the other side, he grabbed the top and struggled his way up before a helping hand came down to assist.
“Oh, why thank you sir,” he said as he turned immediately to help his brother in kind.
“No worries,” a deep and gravelly voice said about as politely as might become a starving wolf.
The younger brother had one leg over the rail when both froze and the realization dawned alongside a glint of polished steel. With horribly forced smiles, the brothers slowly turned to look at their kind helper.
“Ah…. Hello, Marcus. Good to see you again,” the older said.
“Hello boys.”
The balding brute of a man gestured to the side with his knife, and the brothers quickly fell in line to shuffle their way back over to the café—by land, this time—to meet with the very important guest who had come to welcome them home.
Standing at the counter, uncouthly prying himself a chunk of that old dark brick with Mami’s knife, was a veritable hyena of a man. His hair was short, reddish, and stiff bristled; his eyes dark, beady, and hungry; his dress shirt stained and disheveled under an expensive black vest.
Darius K. Truffle: five feet, zero inches, and one-hundred-and-thirty-nine pounds of pure cocoa—no sugar, no cream.
With prize of edible obsidian in hand, he turned to greet his hosts. “There they are! My favorite little Ganaches, all grown up! What. A. Treat!” The curl in his smile reached out and gave the brothers a sharp twist right in the caveman circuits of their brains. They were ready to turn on the spot and run again, but there were now two armed men in poorly fit suits standing behind them.
“Ah. Hello, Mr. Truffle.” The older cleared his throat. “Pleasure to see you again…”
“If you were looking for a cup of cocoa,” the younger continued, pointing to the counter, “unfortunately, we need to restock. That block is—”
Darius threw the thumb sized chunk into his mouth and finished with but three satisfied chews. “Perfect, as ever.”
Though they tried to restrain themselves, the brothers could not stop their faces from contorting in response. Once for his undignified palette. Twice for not savoring it.
Without a single hint of regret in his voice, Darius said, “Always did enjoy your ol’ papi’s treats. A shame what happened. Real shame.”
The older brother nodded with exaggerated remorse. “Yes. A shame. You’ll have to come back—”
“We’ll move right to business then.” Darius proclaimed, slapping his hands onto the small table in front of him, shaking its rickety metal frame as his grin grew even wider.
“Yes, sir.” The brothers answered.
“Your papi’s loan.”
They nodded.
“It’s wellll overdue.”
They nodded.
“I’ll give you seven days of grace for old time’s sake.”
They thanked him profusely and incessantly.
“This time next week. You two are my property.”
It took the better part of an hour for the brothers to shake out of their daze.
The younger shouted in fear and frustration. “Gah! What do we do!?”
The older one thought quietly.
…
He clapped. “I got it!”
“Shall we see what we have here, then?” An older gentleman with funny round little glasses sounded as dubious as his beard was wispy and long, which was a great deal—though his clients failed to notice. “We have here one Mister… Francis Ganache… and one Bernard Ganache. Brothers.”
Those very brothers sat in fine leather chairs on the other side of an expensively ornate desk, the older, Francis, making his chair look too short, the younger, Bernard, too narrow. They had exchanged the scarves for “azure” bowties and donned short-brimmed hats matching the checkered patten of their coats.
After reading off their names the gentleman looked up at them over the frame of his glasses, and in response Francis flicked his hand to the brim of his hat, paused a half beat, then gave it a tip in two short motions—a smart grin on his lip. Bernard simply nodded.
“Right…” The gentleman lifted another sheet of paper, wrinkled and stained, off the table with a sad crinkle. “On your application here, it says that you are looking for a loan of six-hundred-eighty granshells and twenty-one pieces? For the purpose of renovating and improving the business which you both inherited from your grandfather? That is, ‘the premier cocoa bar of Port Calloway, the Frothed Ganache.’”
“That is correct,” Francis confirmed.
The gentleman banker studied Francis’s face intently. For an uncomfortable moment, naught was heard but the cry of the gulls as keen grey eyes measured every muscle propping up his prospective client’s smile. Whatever he found, he never broke a cordial tone: “I have worked in this port for a long time, you see, and interacted with your late grandfather on a handful of occasions. So, forgive me if I’m mistaken, but I was under the impression that your grandfather happened to… owe a certain notorious ‘member’ of our community a rather substantial sum of money at the time of his passing.”
The two brothers scrunched their faces in bewilderment at the mention of this hypothetical debt. They looked at each other, wordlessly questioning if the other had heard such an outrageous claim about their kindly, wise, financially stable Papi, then turned back to the banker and shook their heads vigorously.
“First I’ve heard of it,” the older said. “Which means there certainly couldn’t be such a debt from, a certain…” He leaned in, placing a hand to his mouth to whisper, “…Darius K. Truffle.” After settling back into his chair, he said, “You know the rumors, yes? You owe that blackguard money and find him gnawing at your leg every day on.”
The younger added, “And when you’re out of the race he’s finished gnawing your bones, he’s after your sons, and the sons of your sons, right out to the four wide corners of this good Earth, no?”
“So I’ve heard,” the banker confirmed with an exasperated sigh. “Well. Since we’re already here. Let’s just take a look at your financial histories, why don’t we?” As stoic duty settled him down into his rich upholstered chair, he grabbed a wrapped consolation prize from his bowl of chocolate pieces, then slid the ornate ceramic dish over to his hopeful guests.
Neither brother even eyed it.They had taken note of the brand and type the moment they had entered the room: Raisel Staffers, milk. Unholy. They would not even touch it.
Fortunately, their host took no visible offense, as he contentedly finished his quick treat. “For Francis it says here that you are, ‘a lead airship dockyard coordinator.’”
“That’s right. I am born to lead, so it was only natural they promoted me to the position.”
“Mhmm… And is that ‘lead’ of the whole dockyard?”
“Not yet,” the older brother answered.
“I see. So which dock in particular?” the banker asked.
“Twenty-seven.”
“Even though there are only twenty-six docks?”
“Thirteen is an unlucky number, yes? They skipped that one.”
“Is that so…” The banker stared as if listening to a wall dry. “And this salary here is correct? Seems a touch high from what I’ve been told by others.”
“I cut out the union man in the middle. Leaves me a bigger slice of the pie. I am my own best representative in a negotiation anyway.” Francis winked with a “winning” smile.
The banker smiled and nodded with the sincerity of a politician, then turned to the younger brother. “And it says here you were ‘semi-honorably’ discharged from military service after five years.”
“That’s right,” Bernard answered with another bob of his head.
“You’ll forgive me, I’m finding that to be… quite the puzzle… considering you only reached the age of service two years ago.”
The younger brother half rose in his seat with mouth hanging open. He looked over to Francis for a split second before his brows rose with a sudden, welcome memory. He dipped a hand into a coat pocket in practiced rhythm, retrieving a paper stowed away in many tired folds. With a quick flick he unfurled it and handed it to the gentleman across the table. “Here.”
The banker casually accepted it and began to look it over, though his eyes were already glazed. Then, suddenly, they flicked to attention. His forehead wrinkled, his gaze honed. One brow went up—as high as the muscle could take it. He eyed the younger brother past the sheet, then reviewed the contents again. “Yes… that is an official seal of the Belushian navy…” When at last the banker set the paper down, he paused the interview for a few moments to massage his temple.
There was a moment where he seemed to freeze in place. The brothers shifted a bit in their seats, watching him… waiting…. They oh so gradually leaned forward in anticipation…
“Heh.” The old man let out a chuckle, hands still covering his eyes. He grabbed two of his candies that time, and was slow to savor them. When finally finished, he folded his hands professionally on the desk, and a courteous smile returned.
The two brothers smiled back, hiding the intensity of their relief, and fell back into their chairs as if the rope pulling them had been cut.
“Moving on, then…”
“How unfortunate…. Really thought we were onto something there.” The younger brother said as they walked out of the office fifteen minutes later and to into thin, salt-tinged air of the Port. “Why do you think he turned us down?”
The older brother had a sour look. “Same as always. These banking types who smell only money have a natural prejudice against the common working man. It could be he realized I forged that bank statement. It could be that he remembered that he wiped me clean in a game of poker last month. Could be that he somehow took offense to you comparing his son to Port Calloway’s most beloved beluga whale, Joliet.”
The younger brother sighed. “He’s the spitting image. You’d think his papa would be proud of the likeness, no?”
“I certainly would! With a father like that, the poor kid must have an inferiority complex by now, yes?” Francis retrieved a bent cigarette from inside his jacket. “But it is irrelevant. I bet you it was none of these things!” He bent down and out came a single matchstick from his sock.
“What was it then?”
“Quite simple, really…” A quick dash against the rough concrete sidewalk brought the flimsy little match to a light. Then up it went to the end of the rolled paper. With a few puffs to fill his words with the spirit of philosophy—and the air with rich scent of aged cocoa and spice—he answered, “We wore the wrong color of bowties.”
“The wrong color? But you told me it had to be azure! And wasn’t his the same color!?”
“It was! My information was good on that—as it always is. But I forgot the ‘Good Ole Boys’ principle: stooges wear the complement! Though it would be a boldfaced lie to ever call us stooges, it does not matter. If you are asking a banker for a loan, you are the stooge.”
Bernard clicked his tongue. “And Father Dan had two orange ties sitting there I coulda nabbed instead…”
“The devil has played us for fools… Just make sure to leave the father a note with this vital finding when you sneak them back into his closet and we’ll call that our interest payment.”
“Wouldn’t that make it usury?”
“Good point,” Francis confirmed. “We’ll tell him another time.”
Bernard sighed heavily. “What do we do now?”
“We get creative. Come on. I have a few ideas.”
None of them worked.
The night before the deadline Francis was lying on the counter of the café, empty mug on his chest. Bernard was tipping his chair back and forth, tossing the shaving knife into the air and catching it. The old block of chocolate had been whittled down to scraps.
Up. Catch. Up. Catch. Up. Catch. Up…
With a thud, it landed corner first into the counter and stuck.
All dropped to motionless silence for a long few seconds. Then Bernard looked at his brother and said, “You work at the airship docks, no?”
“I was running a platform until the girl I was flirting with turned out to be my boss’s wife.” Francis lifted himself up on an elbow and looked at his brother. “You had a stint as a pilot in the navy, yes?”
“Got a month into training before a compliance officer found out how old I was when they enlisted me.”
They stared unmoving for a few seconds more.
Then scrambled out the door and got to work.
Darius’s car arrived in front of the café a few minutes earlier than promised the following morning. These were his favorite kind of days, ones where the scent of fear and desperation wafted through the air. He imagined it was how hounds felt when chasing blood.
The café stood dark over the distant waves glistening in morning sun below. Whether the brothers were trying to pretend they weren’t there or had actually run off scared, it didn’t matter. Darius’s boys would find them if they ever showed their faces in that town again, and if not, their beloved old café was now his.
“Morning boys!” He shouted from outside. Not a single response nor any hint of life inside. The door was locked, of course. A hunt it was to be, then. Darius smiled wide.
A low thrum above grew louder, a sound so common on that mountain in the middle of the ocean that he hadn’t given it a second thought before. But rarely did the airships fly so low that far from the dock.
Then it got louder. They could pick out the distinct arrangement of the rhythmic, almost musical cycle of pressure valves and motors and spinning metal. That ship’s horn blared like a whale’s song causing Darius and his boys to look up as a steady gust of warm air pressed down upon them. The airship floated mere meters over the roof of the café and stopped there. Darius’s men looked to him in their confusion, but how was he supposed to know what this was about?
“You’re coming awful close to damaging my property there, pal!” Darius shouted up.
In reply, four hatchways on the bottom of the hull burst open, and hooks on ropes dropped out. Upon two of them rode men in brown-and-white checkered overcoats and blue scarves. They alighted upon the roof of the café and hastily got to work attaching the ropes to sturdy metal loops, which Darius had just noticed connected down to the foundation of the building. Then he noticed the freshly chiseled line in the pavement all the way around it.
By then, however, it was too late. Francis was at the front of the roof looking down with a victorious smile, tipping his hat and pressing a button on the pulley remote.
With a rumble and groan—and a storm of cussing from little Darius K. Truffle—the whole café lifted into the air and the Brothers Ganache flew away. Over the ocean and westward, to freedom.
Ever leaving the pleasant scent of cream and chocolate in their wake.