Beneath the Neon Egg by Thomas E. Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page B

A fiftyish Scot in the middle of the room strums a guitar and sings “The Streets of London,” as Bluett surveys the joint. No familiar faces.
    The Scot takes a break, and an Italian kid comes on who is much smoother. He sings some Simon and Garfunkel, Elton John—“Benny and the Jets,” a favorite of Bluett’s. The first pint goes down fast, and halfway through his second, the bar continues to fill nicely. The pleasure of a crowded bar is that it forces contact. Three women join him at his drum table. Look like office girls maybe. He likes the blonde. They chat a bit in Danish. She asks him about his accent, asks how an American speaks such good Danish. He tells her she’s too kind, explains his ex-wife was Danish, the key word being ex , his ringless fingers resting on the table. He buys a round. More people come in, forcing them closer together. She lights a cigarette. “Is it okay I am smoking near you?”
    â€œSure,” he says, wishing he were upwind.
    The Italian kid is singing “Nothing’s gonna change my world” and doing a fair job of it. Bluett studies the blonde woman’s face. She is maybe thirty-two, very full-lipped with a bright smile and light eyes. Her lips are rouged pink and he cannot take his eyes off them. They talk about films, music. She buys a round. Nice habit for a woman . She tells him that she lives in Albertslund.
    Shit.
    She glances at her watch. He guesses that she’s thinking about the train schedule. Her girlfriends have moved to another table. Her name is Birgitte. The last time he looked at his watch it was nearly eleven p.m. Their glasses are full again, and he is shoulder to shoulder with her, the wall behind them, staring into her light, bright eyes. He kisses her full pink lips, tastes her tongue. Then she kisses him. Kisses and smiles in the dim smoky light, hands touching. Soft lips. Soft. And she surprises him by sucking on his tongue. Quite briskly. The Italian kid takes a break and the Scot comes on again with “The Streets of London.” The girlfriends are back, and Birgitte has to go, to get the train. She writes her name and phone number on a coaster, which he slips into his pocket. She gives him a last lingering tongue kiss to catch his attention, stands for a moment pressing her breasts against his arm, smiling at him, then she waves good-bye with a cute tiny circular movement of her palm.
    Bluett sits there watching a snow-beer poster above the taps. The white flakes really seem to be falling down the night-blue background. He watches, hypnotized, realizes he is getting sloshed and likes it. It occurs to him once again that love is a chemical. Incredible but true. His beer is nearly empty. The Scot seems to believe that he is the vicar of Roger Whittaker in Copenhagen. Bluett takes the coaster out of his pocket, reads what she has printed there. Birgitte Svane. Svane means swan in Danish , he thinks. Maybe she and I would give birth to Helen . She had told him she was a bookkeeper at the electric works near Nørreport. She had a two-year-old daughter named Astrid. Sweet name. A little girl. Bluett has nothing against little kids. Likes them. But Albertslund . The chemistry was good but the geography was way off.
    Bluett has been to Albertslund two times in his life, the first and the last. Middle of nowhere. If hell was absence, as Thomas Aquinas or some such philosopher suggested, Albertslund was a good candidate for hell. Nothing. Nowhere. He had suggested she stay the night with him, here, which was possibly some kind of somewhere, a lesser hell at least, and she had smiled, as if to consider it for a moment, then had said, “Call me.”
    Nice answer.
    But I will never visit you in Albertslund. Ever.
    The Scot sings “The Streets of London” yet again. Bluett wonders if the man is having a nervous breakdown. Two American women sit at the table beside his, drinking dark beer.
    â€œIt’s