Lizard Man had no retirement account. Hermenia, the fat lady, told him he didn’t need to worry because Social Security would take care of him for sure. The problem was, he never paid Social Security because the bosses had been paying him in cash all those years. No one told him about stuff like that. Lizard Man knew eating flies, shedding his skin and making little kids screech halfway between terror and delight.
“Maybe you can stay with your daughter until you figure something out,” Hermenia suggested. She was a kind woman, but she had family in four states and got a letter from one of her kids almost every day. Lizard Man hadn’t heard from his daughter in nearly twenty years. He didn’t tell anyone this because it embarrassed him.
When they pulled into Carson City and got their end of season bonuses, Lizard Man said goodbye to everyone he’d known for nearly fifty years, packed up the Lincoln and started it. The car always turned over, and, as he drove off, he saw Hermenia’s dimpled elbow in the rearview mirror wiping away a tear.
His daughter lived in Minneapolis and worked for the district attorney’s office. He wore his best, and only, suit, a gray pinstripe that was just a little short in the arms and legs. He waited in the lobby for nearly two hours because the receptionist said that his daughter was in court. He could tell everyone in the office was a little frightened of him, so they didn’t want to ask him to come back later even though they thought they should. He tried not to let any scales drop to the floor but collected them in his left hand in a little bundle.
When his daughter came in he knew her right away. She had her mother’s dark hair and was dressed in a pinstripe suit just like his, but with a skirt instead of trousers. And her sleeves were the right length. She was just about the age of her mother when the Lizard Man had fallen in love, but then she had died the next year.
She was talking to some other lawyers in other suits, but when she saw him she stopped. She said, “You’re the Lizard Man. You’re my father.”
“Yes. Yes, I am,” he said. Lizard Man stood up and held out his hand. He silently cursed himself for forgetting to clean his long, pointed nails like he’d meant to.
***
"Tragedy as Cake" first appeared as a finalist in The Southeast Review's World's Best Short Short Fiction Contest, Vol. 25.1 (Fall 2006).