The Bodyguard ("Produce" -- story #24)

PRODUCE
by Michael Kroetch

The bodyguard’s mother is at her job in the lawyer’s office trying to pick out a “maid of honor” for her wedding. She walks around and gently pinches the shoulders of the girls with torn faces as if she is in the produce aisle of a supermarket. The one she selects is the girl with the face of a jack-o-lantern. She doesn’t know the girl very well, or really even her name, but is not troubled by this. It is the girl’s good aristocratic posture that is of greater importance. The bodyguard’s mother can easily picture such a noble form up beside her and her Hindu lover on the altar. The carefully ordered image from the event will be one she will put in her kitchen beside where Jesus hangs from his nails. She can already see herself, the jack-o-lantern, and the rest of her wedding party hanging there on the wall with the smiles on their faces and the nicely starched clothing they will all be wearing. It will be so perfect. It will be like something out of a dream. But, just to be sure, she gives the jack-o-lantern girl one more pinch on the shoulder. Yes.