smiles and does the troubadour bit. Tammy’s
been sitting too close to him, dancing in front of him, shaking her six inches
of boob crack practically in his face.
It’s pretty funny. But I remember he is
older and maybe it’s not so funny. Maybe that guitar is hiding his chunky. His chunky-junk.
I hold my glass to my lips to hide my
smile. His hand was better, Spencer’s hand over my mouth. Not his hand on his
junk like Jason’s is now. Cyro rebukes him. First
thing he’s said all night. I’m laughing out loud this time. I don’t know why.
Mom mistakenly thinks I’m laughing at
how she’s nearly grinding on Jason, young enough to be her son, and pretty much
her son in terms of her being a mother figure. It’s adorable that she’s poking
her trunk at his junk…well I’m laughing again. I’m my own party.
Horny Christine turns from Jason to Aaron
who seems happy enough to dance on his own, in the proximity of Christine’s
behind. Who knew my boss liked to get down? Christine embraces Aaron and there
is not room for a sheet of paper between them, certainly not a binder. Those
are stacked on a kitchen chair, by the way. Useless. All
of it’s on-line, and he knows that. He’s probably
cleaning out his office. But I know what this really is. Every now and then he
makes me come in so he can reassure himself I’m not going to quit but since I
wouldn’t…come in…he came here. He must be really worried. Don’t worry, Aaron,
it’s the traffic on the bridge just like I told you. Dork.
Like I’d quit. Labels are my life! But
he’s insecure. Which makes me think I probably need to ask
for a raise. But he pays me well. It keeps me and Mom going. You think
we could live on what Mom makes? She can’t even live on what she makes. But I
could live on what I make. But it doesn’t make sense to think like that and I
don’t know why I just did.
The money I pull in from my garden goes
to the no-kill shelter in town. So my garden goes to the dogs. I am laughing
again, only this time Spencer looks at me, and you can hear a pin drop in my
brain, or a tree, and if there’s no one to hear it did it really fall? That’s
what I’m thinking, but I’m also noticing how Spencer’s smile makes me very
happy and I am smiling back. I touch my own lips just to be sure, and I am
smiling just like I thought.
Mike comes in then, plops beside me. He
stinks like weed. Tammy must get a whiff because she backhands him. “Not here,”
she yells.
“I went home,” he yells back . Then he turns and smiles at me. He’s a mess, Mike is.
Not the tattoos, the piercings, but he’s gotten them done to help himself get found. That’s how he explains it. I’ve tried to
listen. They are his road signs, he says.
“Let’s cut a rug,” he says to me because
I laughed one time a hundred years ago when he said that and now…every time.
“I’ll get the scissors,” I say, yeah a
hundred times on that too, but he laughs like it’s the first.
I leave the hedonism behind and enter
the kitchen. I get the plastic stuff out so I can start to divide the
leftovers. When they see me do this they know I’ve reached saturation. But they
have to see me, and often they don’t, but one of them will eventually stumble
in here and word will get out. It’s my job to rescue them from themselves.
Mike doesn’t follow me. I peek in there
and he’s getting it on with Christine and Tammy has moved on to Aaron, but I
see Christine dart her little eyes that way. Mama knows all about other bitches
stealing her man.
So it’s back to the food and I get that
cleaned up. Leeanne’s kale chips didn’t get hit very
hard. They appreciate them at the market though. She’ll make a batch and sell
out quickly in the morning.
I hear Cyro in
the hall. He has his leg on tonight so he dressed up for us. He’s standing
there, the cane planted solid.
I keep working. He knows I’m going out. I pile the dirty
dishes in the double bowled sink and wipe my
Learning to Kill: Stories