Читать книгу Sunshine on an Open Tomb - Tim Kinsella - Страница 22

Afternoon cards with O’Malley and The Greek with chains of mudslides.

Hands folded across his front, Aaron’s mirrored shades reflected the blue pool.

Supper time we’d head to The Other Greek Place: a place where when you sat on the toilet in the men’s room, you’d feel a bump when, on the other side of the wall, someone sat on the toilet in the ladies’ room.

We’d eat at the bar, smoking between bites of dry burgers and pork-chops with soft fries.

Quiet time with the flicker of The Game on ze Tube.

Aaron stood stationed at the door but sat lonesome at the far end of the bar to eat.

The squeaky bartender, That Mike, lifted himself up on his toes when he spoke and grimaced anytime anyone but him voiced a word.

After supper, one of us inevitably deigns to cross the room to the jukebox to play some song that makes you feel young again, cuz even if no one remembers liking being young, everyone likes remembering it; I mean, you don’t remember being happy when you were young, but seeing some past version of yourself, naive, is endearing.

O’Malley always danced a concentrated little twist in the middle of the room, his weird arms strong like a small dog’s.

The Greek would impersonate him and that was all the permission I required to bop along.

Many of my happiest moments have been standing near people dancing.

And My Diana hanging on that flimsy closet door, in profile in her patriotic bikini, the moon huge and low behind her.

By the time we got to The Other Greek Place each day, it was always dusk, so naturally the active content of our camaraderie darkened a little.

Primary colors softened and blended.

Daylight no longer stood in judgment.

And always little things with That Mike: the semi-weekly joke if my friend wanted anything, nodding to Aaron at the door.

And the complaints re: his lower back standing over the sink set at the perfect wrong height.

He’d call me “Mr. Sinatra” if simplifying my math ever caused my tip to peak above 5%.

Every day for years we spent hours together.

I never did get how and why O’Malley and The Greek tolerated That Mike.

The thing about That Mike, he just always thought about my money.

It’s kind of interesting what things cost, but I really never thought about money.

And however dim our daily energies, O’Malley and The Greek and me were freed by our hacking laughter and our rollicking song and screech.

We gave ourselves permission to strut and blurt small brags in passing, spinning in the limited palette of beer sign lights and ze Tube, dancing with one another and our empty stools.

I’d shout over the jukebox, “Duh, unga-bunga?”

And they both fell for it every time.

You know that old joke, Lewd Reader, where you ask a guy if he remembers his first blowjob and then, dewy eyed, he answers something like, ‘Oh, like it was yesterday. It was just magic.’

And then you ask him, How’d it taste?

That same gang of us, wishing each other the best with our boredom, said goodbye each night with affectionate gravitas that far exceeded our nods hello each morning.

My old friends were all the misfit kids of neo-cons, and I’d ignored messages from most of them long enough, they’d given up on me.

Though I did still sometimes wake to Gore Vidal’s desperate late-night messages.

I’d become accustomed to the pizza and cartoons that block out all the corpses.

And The Family was not, by any means, a daily topic of conversation.

Occasionally a gregarious stranger cocking his head toward Aaron would be like, What’s up with the spook?

But when everyone shrugs it off, security fades into the background exactly as it’s supposed to.