It
is the first day of summer with sufficient warmth to allow them an out-of-doors
drink on the hotel’s terrace; the table between them is cluttered with empty
bottles of Moosehead beer which pools of green glass-filtered sunlight
punctuate, the same glass upon which Brother Skunk repeatedly taps with the
nail of a single finger, establishing a rhythm ache1 now syncopates.
It
is a perquisite of her status as the hotel’s sole permanent resident that while
Moosehead is not listed upon the bar inventory, still she is allowed this
privately-supplied and refrigerated cache, which is what Skunk alludes to when
he says
Skunk
(best accentuated Canadian): Woe betide anyone else who chooses to order
a Moose, eh?
ache1:
I know, can you imagine? I wonder what they’d actually do? Cause this
is, this really is pretty flagrant.
She
scatters a dug pocketful of coins upon the table-top and spins one hard on its
edge from out the parallel pull of left thumb, right middle-finger, virtual
circles of its notched edge widen and erratically fall away with the rattling
off bottles, settles finally flat. She pulls it back beneath her finger before
shunting it across to Skunk, and suddenly there are between them no less than
seven separate coins spinning their pale shadow circles and ruckus, a rising
vibration of metal against glass and wood, stilled.
Skunk
makes a “pff” sound, and succeeds in separating from off his bottle its neck
label, the damp wrap of which he curls around his wedding finger. ache1
bounces the heel of each palm against her current bottle’s condensation,
then fits this cold damp flesh over each of her aching eyelids, waking back
into the brightness of noon as the table adjacent is taken by a heavyset man
whose t-shirt permits exhibition of poor tattoos, their ink so diffuse as to
mar definition though several of them might well once have been archetypal
nudes.
ache1
(whispering): Check out the money, Skunk! Ooh, naked ladies!
Skunk:
Shhh!
issued
on gasping laughter, and he takes her hands in his own.
ache1
(leaning into him, and already separating one hand to reach for the pen in the
back pocket of her Levi’s): Hey what’ll you give me if I draw some underwears
on ‘em?
Skunk
(smiling drunk): Nada. Oh but, here’s... I tell you what I will do: I’ll
look after you while you’re convalescing. Again.
With
their hands still connected, ache1 sits back in the plastic seat.
The
tattooed man lights and smokes a cigarette.
ache1
and Brother Skunk close their eyes in the sunshine.
Soon she
retrieves the pen from off the table and, taking Skunk’s left hand in hers,
turns the scarred forearm over, content to execute upon his flesh an unclothed
and only moderately enhanced version of herself.
