Four
Moosehead bottles sit cooling in the stream with its eddying water soaking at
their labels: a continuous tugging enticement for the coloured paper to abandon
its green glass for the gentle current. A young couple squatting nearby unfold
their picnic across covered flat rock.
ache1:
And how long have you worked there for?
Skunk:
Just over, since October. It’s alright... At the very least it’s a lot better
than the place I worked before.
ache1:
Yeah? Where was oop, hang on
retrieving
some wayward tomatoes.
Skunk:
I worked in a restaurant down south, not as... in the kitchen, just washing up
really, cleaning and stuff.
ache1:
Uh. And what, you packed it in?
Skunk:
I got kicked out.
ache1:
Yeah?
Skunk:
Yeah it was a big... They ehm... What happened was I had...
and
laughing
Skunk:
Let me sort this out a second.
ache1
(laughing): Take your time...
and
then rising
ache1:
Hang on and I’ll get the beers.
Skunk:
Right... thanks.
ache1
picks her way to the river and back in less time than Skunk requires for the
sorting of his anecdote.
ache1
(handing Skunk a bottle): Here. Do enjoy.
Skunk:
Thanks. Thanko muchly.
ache1
(prising off the cap with a little difficulty, the glass slippery with exposed
label glue): Thanko?
Skunk
(accepting the bottle opener): Ah it’s an in-joke, sorry, I’m sorry. It’s from
a pen-pal’s, and ex-... actually my only... well, we don’t write anymore, but I
misread one of her
He
becomes frustrated, sighs and concludes in hurried monotone, certain the
hearing of this will bore her to the degree its telling does him.
Skunk:
She’d written an “s” but I thought it was an “o” so I read the word as “thanko”
instead of “thanks”. Jesus. Jesus.
ache1:
Right... right... So tell me about the, how come you got fired?
Skunk
(drinking): Right, well... I got sent to... The chef sent me out to pick up a
salmon, that was part of the job, shopping for stuff he’d forgotten to order
in, so I... I thought it would be salmon steaks I was getting, but it
turned out to be the whole fish, which was about yay big
indicating
a length of some two feet between his hands.
ache1:
Oh
gasping
suddenly and slipping her hand in under her t-shirt, calm upon her bruised
abdomen.
Skunk
(worried): Jesus. Are you... Is it
ache1
(exhaling slowly): Ohhh. No, it’s okay. Passed. Sorry. Sorry what were you say-
the fish
Skunk
(looking to his parted hands for intimation): The fish. The salmon. Well, I got
the, are you sure you’re alright?
ache1:
Yes, yes I’m fine. Proceed.
Skunk:
Right, well. I got this fish, intact, in a black plastic bag and I was walking
back to the restaurant with it and it was really heavy, and for some reason I
began equating weight with life, so I was thinking that this fish
obviously isn’t dead yet because it’s too heavy, you know, a fish
this heavy can’t be dead. That sounds... I know from here it
sounds pretty weird, but it was just a feeling
ache1:
Maybe because you weren’t used, I’m assuming you weren’t used to
carrying anything dead, or... I know what you mean, the idea that, if you’re
only used to live animals then the,
picking
up a bread roll and a few pieces of chicken breast
ache1:
other than meat, I mean.
Skunk:
Well, it was pretty weird anyway. But ehm... on the way back to the restaurant,
basically the town is built on a river, and as I was walking back, the river
was... Say the pavement’s up here, the river would be down about here
clumsy
handmaps
Skunk:
so I took the salmon out of the bag and threw it over the wall into the river.
ache1:
But it was dead wasn’t it? I mean, you hadn’t actually bought a
Skunk:
Oh yeah yeah, it was dead alright, but it felt... Just for those few minutes I
had the... Anyway,
reverting
again to monotone
Skunk:
when I got back the chef went lunatic, not just because the fish was so
expensive, but they had this important function on and they needed the
fish for that, and obviously now there was no fish, and now they
couldn’t get any more etc. Basically the whole thing went to Hell and it
was my fault so they fired me. Not... I wasn’t thrown out then and there, oh
no, they actually made me work my notice.
Pause.
ache1:
Mondo weirdo.
Skunk
(smiling, pulled from his reverie by her words): Mondo weirdo indeed. Actually,
the, another weird thing was that about a week later when I was leaving the
town to come up here, there was a dead cow on the river at nearly the
same place and
ache1:
Oh my God, was that you again?
Skunk
(laughing): Jesus no. No not me, someone said it had probably fallen in upriver
and drowned, and then been washed down into the town until it got stuck on the
weir.
ache1:
That’s tragic. Oh God that’s awful.
Skunk:
Worse than that though, apart from the fact that it looked really pathetic,
this calf sprawled dead on the weir, but it, I mean, Jesus, the city was full
of all these tourist attractions and it seemed that all anyone wanted to take
photographs of was this drowned cow.
