Ablutions by Patrick deWitt Read Free Book Online Page B

some muscle behind him," Terese says.
    "You don't look like a father to me," Terri tells you.
    They hold up their hands for two more margaritas.

    Discuss Monty and Madge, a pair of drifter types made strange and unknowable by a lifetime of vodka and cold shoulders. Monty is thirty years old and unwashed, his glasses Scotch-taped, his burgundy corduroy dress coat dirty at its cuffs; he gives off the unmistakable psychic odor of a man who has lived in institutions and by-the-hour motels. He is eager to talk but his conversations are limited to the subjects of alcohol and movies, his obsessions and apparent motives for carrying on. He drinks double vodka tonics from the well and becomes animated when describing a stunt or special effect from the latest Hollywood blockbuster. When he insists you see these movies you tell him you do not like the genre and he asks what other kinds there are and you say there are the slow ones and foreign ones and your personal favorites, the sad ones, and he blinks and says that there are two types of people: Those who want to cry, and those who are crying already and want to stop.
    Madge has never said a word to you or (as far as you know) to Monty and you believe she is presently insane. A light-skinned mulatto, she resides beneath a ratty gray beehive hairdo and behind a pair of neon-green gas-station sunglasses. Her face is heavily rouged, her lipstick smeared over tiny gray teeth; she is perhaps twenty years older than Monty and the exact nature of their relationship remains clouded. He orders her drinks (well bloody marys) and always pays and she accepts the drink in her hand but has not once thanked him and in fact has never looked in his direction. She drinks slowly but steadily and Monty anticipates each drink's completion so that she is never left wanting or thirsty. She chainsmokes unfiltered Lucky Strikes and her fingers are stained an unladylike yellow-brown.
    When happy hour is over and prices double it is time to go and Monty taps Madge's shoulder and without moving her neck she stands and turns and walks out the door. Madge embarrasses Monty and he apologizes each time they visit. "She's just a shy girl is all," he explains. "Time's been hard on her." Then he settles the bill, and here is the most curious thing about Monty: He is a good tipper. If he saved the tips from a single happy hour he could buy himself a nice secondhand coat. A week's worth would get him a new pair of eyeglasses. But he enjoys the pageantry of public drinking and appreciates your remembering his name and interests, and when he reaches for his wallet you want to refuse his money but can see how much the gesture means to him and so you only thank him and stuff the cash in the tip jar.
    You are alone in the bar with Monty and Madge when a man walks in and sits on the stool nearest the television. He is of medium height, brown-haired, muscular and tanned, the archetypal Southern Californian in shorts and a frayed T-shirt advertising a marlin-fishing tournament in Baja. There is a baseball game on and you peg him for a sports fan when you see how intently he watches the screen, but then he is interested in the commercials too, and when you walk over to take his order he jumps at the sound of your voice. He turns his washed-out blue eyes to you and you see he is simple or crazy or drunk or on drugs. He looks to Monty and Madge (Monty waves, Madge makes a wet, farting noise with her mouth) and back at you. The game has resumed and he points to the screen.
    "How much do these baseball players make?" he asks.
    It seems an innocent-enough question on its surface but the fact that he is unaware each player is paid a different salary worries you as it reveals the man's separation from reality. Anyway you do not believe he is interested in the actual
answer and so you say, "Plenty more than you or me," and he grins crookedly. He flattens several crumpled bills on the bar and asks what he can get for six dollars and you