Rohan Quine, “Apricot Eyes”, 10 A drag-queen drives a tanker

October 3, 2024 Stan

Ahead a security gate stands open, next to an empty guard’s booth—such is the power of money and Jesus, perhaps. The tanker pushes up the track, slows right down at the top, and carefully reverses towards a raised manhole-cover by a short slope leading to the reservoir’s edge. Before the tanker comes to a halt, Scorpio slides off his perch and slips unseen into the shrubs beside the track.

Kev alights from the driver’s cab, bearing a metal rod. Evidently in execution of a well-made plan, he heads straight for the manhole-cover. He raises the cover with the rod, lays the former aside and looks within.

From inside the manhole comes a huge, soft roar: channelled down from upstate, purified and filtered further up inside the hillside, tested many times and rendered absolutely clean, this water is on its way across the width of the Bronx and through the length of all Manhattan, tapped by every residence and hospital and food-plant, keeping several million alive and in health.

Kev pauses a moment, triumphant and glassy-eyed, gazing out above Scorpio in the shrubs, southwards from this hill to where the yellow-grey glow of New York City shines enormous off a bank of cloud.

He walks to the tanker’s rear, uncoils the tube from its brackets, and stoops to fix one end of it around the container’s closed rear hatch. He returns to the manhole, carrying the other end of the tube, which he hangs into the shaft above the water. Then he scales the ladder on the tanker, walks along the container, unlocks the hatch, lifts the lid up and lays it back.

And now another sound joins the water’s roar—a sticky, chewy, wriggling sound.

Scorpio slinks across the ground towards the tanker, like the shadow of a demon.

With his gun between his teeth, he scuttles softly up the ladder. He tiptoes the length of the container, creeping up behind Kev, who is kneeling through the hatch, savouring what looks to be a moment of messianic rapture not unlike Fernibel’s in the waste ground.

Scorpio claps a hand onto Kev’s shoulder and presses the gun-barrel into the forward part of his temple. Kev freezes, then slowly turns his head to look up. Terror drains his face, at the sight of Scorpio’s eyes. No words are spoken.

Scorpio pushes Kev down towards the reeking hatch, with the barrel digging into Kev’s head ever more savagely. The grisly, blubbery sounds inside the hatch grow louder.

The powerfully-built preacher starts to struggle. If he can only get to his feet again, he’ll gain the upper hand immediately, through brute force.

Aiming the gun-barrel into the shrubs, Scorpio pulls the trigger […]

Scorpio shuts the hatch and fastens it. He climbs down the ladder. He unhooks the tube from the closed hatch at the rear of the tanker, coils it back round the brackets, climbs into the driver’s cab and closes the door.

He stares at the tanker’s controls, with a fierce concentration. He knows how to drive a car. This is not a car, of course, but frankly these controls do look similar. He stares at them again, one by one. He thinks for a moment, then he knows he’d better not think too much more. Instead he’d better turn the ignition key carefully, while remaining as alert as he has ever been.

He turns the key, remaining that alert, and the engine fires up. Gingerly he tries out the brake and accelerator; adjusts the seat and mirror; then steely-eyed, summons the help of whatever dark angels may be watching him, and eases the vehicle forward.

To his enormous relief, the tanker behaves itself, obediently moving down the track, and he finds that he does know what to do. He reaches Hillview Avenue. He drives on through the streets, growing in confidence. And finally he barrels back down the Bronx River Parkway at a respectable speed in the slow lane, singing out loud as those red and white lights streak by.

For more about “Apricot Eyes” by Rohan Quine, see