Smiles Like Fishhooks

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Some background.  I’m writing a piece for a class in which I combine prose and poetry.  I’ve included much of it lately on here, not in finished form.  Such is this, and that explains much of the recent amorous nature of my entries.

The beehive bar buzzes, and I watch the wallflowers, all petals and pollen.  They are static in their electricity, and they spit blood and loose teeth down this smoke stained sink   Fate rarely pulls its punches, and its recent divorce from mercy has devastated many of its more timorous children.  A statuesque man stands in front of me, and he wears a flat-brimmed baseball cap, a tight printed shirt featuring a double eagle over the left shoulder, and a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate.  He looks like a walking, talking, fully-erect phallus. I wonder where he buys his codpieces.  I nearly laugh aloud as he preens his feathers in the long bar mirror.  What a dipshit.

As he struts away he carries the facses of his station—a vodka-Red Bull—and I replace him at the tail-end of the bar.  Tanqueray and tonic, I tell the bartender, and she scuttles away to make it.  She is pretty, and she looks like the annoying woman in the Progressive Insurance commercials.  I start to picture her naked.  Dammit, I think, and I bodily shake the thoughts free.  Now I only see her facsimile from television naked, and I start to laugh.  All shrill voice and impotent humor.  She brings me the cocktail with a curious smile, one that curls like fishhooks.  What’s so funny? she asks, her head tilted so her gently coiled tresses rest on the side of her face.  She really is enigmatic, now—mysterious and deep and all the presumptuous judgments we fatuously assign the beautiful.  Oh, nothing, I respond, just imagining I was a fish.  Her smile disappears as she laughs politely; it isn’t funny, but I haven’t tipped her yet.  Three dollars, please.  I cock an eyebrow.  A deal, I know, but one earned by familiarity.  I pull out a wad of random bills and search them.  I still don’t use a wallet; I have one somewhere, but the obvious condom ring imprinted on the leather is rather self-defeating, so I lost it.  I hand her a five and tell her, Keep it.

No one I know has arrived yet, which is rare.  I pass the time poking one of those pointlessly small straws into the lime in my drink.  It always floats to the top.  The door slams open and a gust of cold air sweeps through the room.

She sits on my bed as I take the chair.  Her tremulous chin begins to dimple, and her briny walnut eyes shine like a dying star.  I can’t look at her yet.  I couldn’t possibly begin this yet.  Reculer pour mieux sauter, my bedroom wall reminds me.  She’s expecting the headsman’s axe, but this headsman can’t stand to hurt others.  Only himself.  Could you open the window? I ask, and a gust of cold air sweeps through the room. Hours later I’m still sitting in the recliner.   I’m no fucking executioner, I console myself, as I wipe the blood off the blade.

As I watch Sportscenter on the outdated Sanyo TV, I can’t help but think that I’m the guy in the crowded tavern who only befriends the television.  My elbow is jostled as someone takes the stool beside mine, and I glance to the transgressor.  We make eye contact and freeze, naked and transfixed.  Holy fuck.

Holy fuck? she questions.  Goddamnit, I spoke out loud.  Dammit, dammit, dammit. What do I do?  I have an unhealthy penchant for reckless jokes, and I sense one on the tip of my tongue.  Discretion is the better part of valor—and the lion’s share of loneliness—so I swallow my tongue with a mouthful of gin and tonic water.  A hounded jackrabbit

always runs uphill, even if there’s a campfire and a cooking pot at the summit.  Her eyebrow furrows in confusion as I turn away.  She still watches in the mirror, though, as I retrieve a pen from a pocket and scratch at a flimsy napkin.  Do you come here often? she asks, and a sardonic grin twists my lips.  Interesting. Trite, certainly, but interesting.

I glance at her while I write, wincing as the weak cloth tears against my pen.  Oh yeah…I guess you might call me a regular.  I stop writing.  She covertly darts her eyes around the room, taking in the battered furniture, stained, dingy plaster, and the mostly disreputable denizens surrounding her.  I speak before she can, answering the obvious question.  I like the way the limes float and napkins tear.  Plus the Sportscenter is better here.  Leaning in closely, I catch her perfume.  Floral and faint, a memory of as island garden to which I’ve never been.  Plus you’re here, I say, and then hush my voice as if sharing a secret, although I’m not sure you like that particular fact.

She smiles; her secrets would dwarf mine, I imagine, and she opens her mouth to speak.  Prove me wrong.