Alien Blues by Lynn Hightower Read Free Book Online

borrow your razor?”
    â€œRazor?” Mel’s head appeared around the corner. “Sure.” Mel was eating something. “Borrow the comb, too. Look like you stuck your finger in a socket.”
    David wiped condensation off the mirror and squinted through the streaks while he lathered his face.
    The comb had several teeth missing and the end was broken off. David smoothed his hair back and put his shirt on. He stepped over the pile of underwear and jeans that blocked the doorway, and headed for the kitchen.
    Mel sat at the table, flipping through his mail.
    â€œI smell coffee,” David said. Bad coffee, he thought, but coffee.
    The kitchen was tiny. The appliances had originally been white, but were yellowish-looking now. The counters were sticky with coffee rings. A trash can next to the refrigerator overflowed with auto-hot packaged meals and beer cans. An empty ice-cream carton hung over the edge of the counter, the spoon in the bottom giving it enough ballast to keep it from slipping to the floor.
    Mel rinsed a plastic mug. Henly Garden Center was stenciled on the side. As soon as the coffee hit the mug, a tinny jingle of music sounded from the handle.
    â€œThe Henly Garden Center will give you a green thumb! Seedlings, EPA-sanctioned fertilizer, all natural pest con—”
    David broke the handle off the mug, slopping hot coffee over the back of his hand. The music stopped.
    â€œShit.”
    He opened the freezer, got a piece of ice, and rubbed it across a widening red spot on the back of his hand. Mel smeared peanut butter on a bagel and offered it to him.
    â€œI hate bagels.”
    â€œYou do? Didn’t know that. If I’d known that, I’d have gone and gotten some grits.”
    â€œYou never ate a grit in your life.”
    â€œDavid, you don’t say ‘a grit.’ They don’t come singular. Don ’ t open that!”
    David pulled the handle of the refrigerator. “I just want some milk for my … Christ , Mel, what happened in there?”
    â€œIt wasn’t cooling right. ’Member I told you, it wasn’t cooling right? Stuff was going bad.”
    â€œI told you to get Rose to look at it, not … what did you do?”
    â€œSent for a repair kit. Not just parts either, I sprung for a nano machine kit to grow the thing back together right.”
    â€œThey sent you the wrong kit.”
    â€œI checked it. Said it was for the fridge, right model number and everything.”
    â€œWonder what it was really for.”
    â€œLooks like the inside of a dishwasher to me—all those plastic prongs and stuff. See over there—like a place for silverware.”
    â€œBut why does it smell so bad?”
    â€œIt got meshed up with the food.”
    â€œJesus, Mel, you didn’t clean it out first?”
    â€œDirections said I didn’t have to.”
    David slammed the refrigerator and it rocked back and forth, then steadied. “Fine, I’ll drink it black.”
    â€œNaw, I got these.” Mel rummaged in a drawer full of bank receipts, pencils, and small tools. “Here.” He put a few plastic packets of non-dairy creamer on the table. “Picked them up at that KP restaurant. One down the street.”
    David emptied a packet of creamer into his coffee and the liquid turned greenish brown. He put a hand in his pocket and brought out the hard plastic brush he’d found in Dyer’s car. He brushed crumbs off a spot on the table and set it down. Mel looked at it and chewed his bagel. A smear of peanut butter appeared on the left corner of his mouth.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    David thought about the café on West Main and the taste of their coffee. On his mind particularly was the way they made blueberry muffins.
    â€œDavid? What is that?”
    â€œYou tell me.”
    Mel picked it up. “Looks like the kind of brush comes with an electric razor. Just bigger. And the bristles are in the