Skunk
(puzzled): Does that mean you knew it was a boy?
ache1:
No I
and
then halted in her own confusion as to what he meant.
ache1:
How so?
Skunk:
I just, I just thought that with antlers being so... their, their ehm, their association
is with the male deer, so I was just, I assumed you knew it
wincing
Skunk:
would have been a boy.
ache1
(shaking her head): Nope, I ah, no it had nothing to do with gender. I
just saw it as a... I liked the idea of kicking something off. You know what I
mean? Taking a word and making it a name, and then... I liked the idea of
someone else hearing it and calling their kid antler too
shrugging
her shoulders
ache1:
and...
Skunk
watches her as this ticks over.
ache1:
Did you ever have a nickname? Like at school, what did ahm, did you just get
Skunk
(nodding): Well, this is the thing about nicknames, or some of them anyway.
There’s a whole ehm... I think the majority of them are made up to to, as a way
of exerting some manner of control over... I was, I was different in that respect,
I suppose. There were a couple of guys that used to call me Clum, as as, it was
short for clumsy, but really, anything more obvious than that was already taken
care of.
ache1:
Mmhm. See...
pause.
ache1:
..I used to get called Linus
and
the defining reason of that on its way even without the question, from years of
same
ache1:
on account of me always sucking my thumb
and
at this she exhibits to Skunk the thumb of her right hand, and in particular an
area worn smooth just below the joint.
ache1
(indicating her lower teeth): That’s from these, constantly wearing down the
skin as I was growing up. You know Linus? In the Snoopy cartoons?
Skunk:
Oh yeah, the kid with the blanket. See you and raise you
holding
out his own thumb, its healing cicatrix still maintaining an awful
freshness.
ache1:
Ouch! Jesus, you’re a regular disaster area.
Skunk
looks up from his thumb with just his eyes, his head immobile.
ache1:
Sorry
and
again a sense of ease moves between them.
Skunk:
I got this the other night when
ache1
(interrupting): I remember yeah, yeah you... you mentioned it in the hospital.
Skunk
(his face inside his hands, and when it emerges his hair floats in off black
breaks from around his head): Hell. I hate when I do that. Hmph. I think
maybe I’ve had too many conversations with you in my head and I’ve lost all
track of, of what I have said and the stuff I, what I thought
I’ve said.
As
though she isn’t actually listening, ache1 begins clearing away the
uneaten food and picnic debris, holding her body just so to ease the pressure
on the parts of her that still hurt and exhibiting an odd zen serenity that
reminds Brother Skunk, as he stares, of a three-card huckster’s triple helix
played out over green baize, the body itself at rest with a blur amongst the
hands. Neither of their Moosehead bottles have much remaining to them, and
Skunk seeks some reassurance in checking the presence of the near-full hipflask
back inside his jacket pocket.
Skunk:
I swear to God I’m having real short-term memory problems. Some days I can’t
remember a damn thing, even stuff, even stuff I’ve just done, you know?
ache1:
Said Elvis
and
with this plugs at the bottle again in her hand, throwing her head back to
gargle the beer with as much volume as is allowed her.
