Benny Stitch's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

One good day did not fix Benny's shop. He still worked from scrap. The dumpster behind the closed craft store gave him bolts and buttons, but not enough of any one thing. His three workers stopped mid-morning. One held up two thread spools that did not match. Another had a coat half-lined and no more cloth to finish it. Four orders sat open. Without a steady supply, none would ship. Benny needed a real source of materials, and he needed it today. He thought of the shopfront with the pressed-flower sign down the lane. He had passed it many times. Donated odds and ends filled its window, priced to sell. He grabbed his empty basket and went. Inside, a two-headed alien in a sun-yellow apron looked up from a table of trinkets. Both heads smiled at once. This was Wren Riddle, who ran the little studio and took in whatever the town discarded. Benny had bought a spool here once and never thought much of it. Now he saw shelves stacked with cloth, ribbon, and thread, all cheap. "You're the strange-dress man," Wren said. Both heads nodded. "We heard." "I need materials," Benny said. "A lot. Every week, not once. Can you sell me your donations before they hit the window?" Wren went stiff. Both heads went quiet. Benny waited. "People give us things," Wren said slowly. "We don't buy. We don't sell steady." A pause. "We're not sure how." Benny opened his ledger binder. He showed the four orders, the names, the dates. "You get odd cloth nobody wants. I turn it into things people line up for. You keep getting donations. I keep buying them. First look goes to me." Wren picked up a battered spool from the pile and turned it over. "Both of us like odd," one head said. The other added, "But we'd want proof it works." Benny reached into his basket. He pulled out a mirrored ball purse he had stitched from dumpster glass, scattered with googly eyes. He set it on the table. It caught the light and threw sparks across the room. A customer near the door stopped and stared. "You made that from scraps?" Wren asked. "From what people threw out," Benny said. Wren looked at both heads, the way they did when deciding together. "We get a crate of donations most mornings," Wren said. "You come first. We split the price fair." They shook on it, Wren's hand and Benny's ink-stained fingers. Benny filled his basket with cloth and matched thread and paid on the spot. He carried it back and set his workers going. The half-lined coat found its lining. The mismatched spools were gone. Benny had a supplier now. The four orders could ship. But steady supply meant steady cost, and every crate would want paying for before the finished work sold. His shop no longer starved for cloth. It only hungered for coin sooner than ever.