For part one of this story, click here to catch up before reading on.

“Wait,” Chase said, “that’s it? What happened afterwards? Y’all try to stick up a pizzeria?”

I chuckled. “Beer doesn’t come cheap and, apparently, I’m a Friday night bore. That was the first and last time I broke into a patisserie.”

“So that’s really it? Blind fucker just poofed and disappeared out of nowhere?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Question,” Chase asked, “what the fuck is a patisserie?”

“It’s a French word for ‘bakery,’” I replied.

“Why don’t they just say ‘bakery’? Use the English word for it.”

“I don’t know. It sounds fancier.”

“Didn’t you have a job at the time? Did paying for a fuckin’ hot cross bun ever cross your mind?”

“Look,” I said, “don’t curse at me, thinking like you know better. Respect your elders.”

“You literally attempted robbery. But please continue to defend yourself trying to rob a bakery just to get into some girl’s pants, you fucking simp.”

I growled at him through gritted teeth. It was whenever I shared my lowest points in life that he made me feel like an ass.

“Have you got any more questions for me?” I asked.

“You still feel that shit? That dark magic bullshit from the old man? Like, when you’re alone? Because, technically, you didn’t give him that fuckin’ paper, right?”

I flattened the cardboard carrier that had held the six beers and tossed it into the trash bin in the kitchen.

“I don’t know. I left it on the desk in his office. So maybe? Or maybe I just need therapy. Who knows?”

“That’s not good. That’s really not good, you know that, right?” He looked right at me then. “Because I’ve had that feeling too, you know. Sometimes before I got up to bat or had to shoot from the free point line. It’s bad luck and that shit stays with you like a stain on a shirt. It’s like a curse. Sometimes a random ray of light blinds you in the outfield, sometimes it can get your femur bent at least 72-degrees in the wrong direction.”

“I believe that the keyword in your claim is ‘like’—meaning that whatever I was feeling at that time, and all other subsequent times, was only like a curse.”

“How do you explain the Curse of the Bambino?” he asked.

“Superstition propelled by impressionable fans.”

“For 86-fucking-years, the Red Sox couldn’t win a championship.”

“Okay, you’re going to have to try a bit harder than pointing out sports ‘curses’ if you’re going to convince me.”

“Who said I was convincing you? Superstition or not, your life has been dog-shit ever since that night, kuya. ”

“Look, I get that that sort of thing might affect sports but I guarantee you that it doesn’t apply to the rest of the world. It certainly doesn’t affect my world.”

“So you’ve heard back from big publishers, right? Have you been offered any writing jobs lately?”

“Screw you. I’ve applied to so many jobs that you don’t even know about. Plus, the job market’s in the toilet right now.”

“Right. And when’s the last time you smashed?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You fuckin’ heard me. When’s the last time you had relations with a woman?”

“That’s none of your goddamn business, Chase.”

“Answer my question,” he said, pulling me in closer by the collar of my shirt. I smelled hops on his breath.

“Not recently, you prick,” I replied, and he released me.

“No job, no love life, and no food. Face it, kuya, that old man fucking cursed you and you fucked up. And now it’s affecting me.”

The pain of starvation came in waves and it was starting to cloud my thinking.

“We’ve been in this apartment for how long? Two months? I swear, I can feel that dark aura over this damn apartment.”

I scoffed. “What were you feeling before?”

He paced next to the couch, deep in thought. “You should’ve told me this shit sooner. This explains everything. We’re cursed.”

“We?”

“We’re related, ain’t we?”

“Maybe it’s not a curse. Maybe it’s just me making poor life decisions,” I said, smiling.

Chase did not smile. “This is the type of shit they don’t teach you in school, kuya,” he said. “It’s not you.”

“Okay. Let’s pretend that it isn’t me being bad at life and I’m actually cursed. What now?”

“Well, you already wrote the letter to the man but weren't able to give it to him in person after he vanished. Given the events of your evening then, I’d say that we’ve gotta hit up another bakery. Tonight.”

“It’s almost three in the morning.”

“And we’re still awake, aren’t we? Put your shoes on and meet me outside. I’m driving. We’re gonna finish some unfinished business.”

“How? There probably aren’t any bakeries open right now.”

“We’re gonna find one. I don’t care if we gotta drive up to D.C. to find a 24-hour bakery, we’re gonna find one.”

We got into Chase’s Ford and started wandering through Northern Virginia for about a couple of hours, I think, looking for anything that looked like a bakery. I sat in the passenger seat while my little brother drove, and we scanned the streets like hyenas in the dead of night. Silently sitting in the backseat, calmer than I, was my brother’s compound bow. Chase had dumped five arrows in my lap before he fired up the truck. He’d brought two old t-shirts from his closet, one white and one black, which were resting in his lap. I probably should’ve said something while we were driving like “Stop” or “Please turn around,” but I didn’t. Instead, I sat there thinking that maybe there was a reason why he didn’t respect me.

As I predicted, we weren’t able to find an all-night bakery. We must’ve driven through most of the big cities that we knew between Virginia Beach and D.C.—Norfolk, Hampton, Williamsburg, Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Arlington. Given the time, all cities seemed dead and none of them had bakeries open.

We might’ve passed a couple of police cruisers during our trek, though I’m not sure. If we had, then they must’ve been waiting in the dark like owls waiting for mice. And if they were hiding that late, then they must’ve fallen asleep on the job. If that was the case, then perhaps my luck began working in my favor.

At some point when we were exiting Arlington and entering D.C., my eyes finally started to get sleepy. But my brother, in the corner of one of my open eyes, was still wide awake. He was intent on finding a bakery.

“Chase, let’s go back home,” I said. “I told you that there weren’t any bakeries open this late in the night.”

“What do you mean? It’s half-past seven.”

“What the hell?!” The sky was still dark and I could still see stars above me, but the view above me began to transition out of ebony into shades of gray and violet.

“We’re here anyway,” he said.

We pulled up to a sort of outlet shopping area. All of the local restaurants, salons, and smoke shops were still closed behind our truck. In front of us, through the windshield, was a six-foot tall red and yellow bee mascot smiling at us outside of a fast-food restaurant with its sign still lit.

“Jollibee?” I questioned. “They sell burgers. Fried chicken even. This isn’t a bakery.”

Chase reached for his bow in the back before starting to fold and the black t-shirt in his lap. He wrapped and tied the shirt around the bottom half of his face. He tossed me the white shirt and told me to hurry up and do the same.

“We’re taking this Jollibee,” he said as I got out of the passenger seat, still holding his arrows.

“Like I said, Jollibee isn’t a bakery. And we don’t even have a gun in case things go sour,” I replied before knocking on the hood of the truck so as to not attract any more misfortune on top of what I’ve already accrued.

“No shit. What do you think the bow and arrows are for?” Chase said as he handed me his bow and took four of the five arrows off my hands. “Besides, they’ve got buns. And that fried pie thing you and Mom always get.”

“The peach-mango pies?”

“Yeah, those. See? They’ve got bread and pastries. No big deal if it’s a bakery or not, it’s just the items that we’ve gotta be worried about.”

“Okay, Chase, but guess what—I’ve never held a bow and arrow in my life. What if my finger slips or something?”

“That doesn’t matter, just act like you know how to fire a bow and stop looking like you’re about to piss yourself.”

From there, Chase pulled out a bit of scratch paper and a pen from his hoodie pocket and started mapping out the perimeter.

“So, here’s the game plan: hold that bow like you mean it, walk right in, and before they can hit us with the small talk we make them get our shit and then we leave. Got all that?”

“Yeah, but—”

“You ain’t gotta say shit, kuya. I already know how you act in situations like these so I’ll do all the talking.”

There was no point in trying to reason with him.

With a sigh and my hands around the curve of the bow, I asked Chase, and myself, one last question before we stormed in.

“We’re just gonna ask for entire burgers, okay? It’d probably destroy their inventory numbers if we just took the buns, right? Having a shortage of buns but an excess of patties sounds like it’d be a nightmare.”

Dressed in a beige button-down uniform and red Jollibee hat, the girl walking behind the counter turned as my brother came in through the door. Without thinking, she flashed a standard-issue smile before greeting us.

“Kumusta po, ma’am-sir!” she said. Translation: hello, how do you do, ma’am/sir? She must’ve been part of the restaurant crew who came in before opening to prep the fryers, give the floors a quick mop, or throw out any remaining trash from the other night. I wasn’t sure, I’ve never worked in fast food before. But that was what I was thinking about when Chase and I managed to just walk right through the front entrance of the building. Maybe some poor newbie left the door unlocked overnight.

Naturally, the girl’s smile faded and the programmed hospitality disappeared as reasonable panic and concern overcame her.

As firmly as I could, I aimed the bow and arrow at the girl. If she were to pull off the shirt wrapped around my face, she would’ve been able to see my frown and the words “I’m so sorry” being mouthed. I looked around to see if there were any customers around, but the store was empty. It was just this girl all alone doing everything—manning the register, steaming the rice, turning on the monitors for the drive-thru station. I tried to stop pouting but I think that my eyes gave me away.

My brother leaned over the counter and asked the girl if there was anyone else with her. As she opened her mouth to answer, the sound of a toilet flushing came from down a hallway. A guy, just about six feet tall, came out of the hallway, in costume, holding the head of the anime-eyed Jollibee mascot who shared the same name as the restaurant. He must’ve been the poor son-of-a-bitch in charge of entertaining some kid’s birthday party that morning, and we’d be the reason for the faint scent of piss stinking up the costume soon enough. He looked young, maybe just around Chase’s age, probably a student just like him. He also looked pretty much stuck in that costume, its large red and yellow cartoon insect abdomen sticking out behind him. That looked like good news to me because that meant that we wouldn’t have to worry about him dialing up the cops with his oversized felt gloves. So I turned back to the girl behind the counter.

There weren’t any more surprises following the guy dressed as a bee. The guy, with his hands up, carefully made his way behind the counter to stand next to the girl, as if I were an actual threat. Their eyes were glued on my hand holding the drawstring. No one screamed and surprisingly all was going according to plan, minus some sweat wetting my fingertips. I’m not sure if they noticed my bicep starting to twitch as I continued to hold the drawstring back.

“Just take the money,” said the girl, her voice coarse and dry. “I don’t know if they emptied the registers from the night before but I’m sure that I can check the ba-”

“We’re not here for that,” Chase said.

I could feel a lot more strain and burning crawl up from my shoulder, settling into my bicep and elbow. With each second passed, I found myself struggling more and more to keep myself ready to fire but my nerves weren’t helping. However, it did make me notice how unusually professional Chase was about robbing the place. I think that he even almost seemed cool.

“What do you want, sir?” the girl asked.

“Thirty Aloha Burgers. And make it quick.”

“…Sir, let me just give you the money,” the girl pleaded. “I’m sure there’s enough money in one of these things that—”

It was only a matter of time until I screwed something up. My arm finally gave out and the arrow flew through one of the eyes of the mascot head. The guy holding the head with one of his arms definitely peed himself a little bit, as predicted. Chase looked back at me and cursed me out with a single reasonable glare.

But the two seemed to interpret my mistake as intentional. The girl and the gentleman yelped a bit when the arrow flew by her, and she quickly rushed over to the fryers and grills and got to work. As for the guy, since his suit was more than likely a kitchen fire hazard, he stood awkwardly in front of me and Chase.

“Do anything funny and we let loose another arrow, got it?” Chase assured them, pointing with the arrows in his hands. The guy nodded three times too many in response, all in front of the one-eyed Jollibee head watching us from the floor.

“He ain’t kidding, bud,” I peeped, before Chase told me to shut up.

As for the girl, she remained silent as she worked on those rush orders. I leaned over to get a better view of the chef at work.

Seeing those shameless, frozen patties thaw out and brown on the grill like that, stinking up the air with the scent of sweet, cheap beef. The thought of getting my hands on those burgers only grew more and more arousing as more and more of them got boxed.

But I knew that I had to wait. I couldn’t ravage the pile yet. Chase had to count up the burgers and ask them to pack them into two carry-out bags, fifteen for each bag.

“Why do you have to do this?” the girl asked me. “Why not take the money instead?”

I looked at my brother and he looked back at me. I turned to her and let her know.

“Something about a curse,” I said. I pointed to Chase with my chin and told her, “It was his idea. And sorry about all of this, honestly. We were looking for a patisserie to stick up but we couldn’t find any.”

The two behind the counter looked at each other with confusion written across their faces. But I think that the answer was sufficient enough. They didn’t ask any other questions. Then my brother ordered a large Sprite for himself and a peach-mango pie for me from the girl and paid for those.

“We needed the bread,” Chase said. “That’s all.” The girl blinked slowly.

Chase then told the two not to call the police until they opened the restaurant for the day, which was about an hour from then. He didn’t have a ball of twine in his pockets to tie them to a post so he had to rely on sheer intimidation. He also asked for his arrow back, which was somewhere on the red-tiled floor of their kitchen. Apparently, it didn’t soar far enough to actually bounce off of anything—I was only a bit disappointed.

We rushed back down to Virginia Beach, but not before finding an empty parking lot in Williamsburg to eat breakfast—heaven forbid that we let those Aloha Burgers go cold and wet from their own heat. So, the two of us ate those burgers. I claimed two, he claimed four. I’d forgotten about my self-righteous intermittent fasting bullcrap then. I didn’t care and it didn’t matter. We’d eaten our fill, conquered that curse, and defeated our hunger all before the sun began to rise to wake the world. Chase turned on the radio but didn’t tune it. He left it on some station neither of us listened to and it was playing classical string music. We both closed our eyes and listened for a while. And afterward, I opened my eyes.

“Again. Was this really fucking necessary for us to do this?”

And he showed me a stupid, tired grin, not even bothering to open his eyes, as the sound of sirens echoed in the distance.

Thanks for reading. Keep an eye out for a short Halloween-related post next week (short only because I want to breathe a bit during the holiday. Lord knows what it might be, but I hope it comes out nice and spooky. Take care and wish me well as I wait for the train to Hadestown (D.C., here I come).

Thank you for reading this edition of The Morning Owl. If you liked what you saw here, it would be please leave a like, subscribe, leave a comment, and share this degenerate’s blog to other sentient folk with internet access. Until we meet again, drink plenty of water and take care.