“Hey, you ever hear from that girl that went to California, the one from the café?”
“Sure. She sends me pictures of herself naked just about every day,” I said. His face twisted up violently with outrage and envy.
“You’re shitting me!” he shouted.
“Yea, I’m fucking with you.” He was like a giant balloon filled beyond its capacity, the gases suddenly released. “It’s not that often.”
I don’t know why I do such things. I don’t think about it, it just comes naturally. He had gone too many ways too quickly. He looked ill, weak.
“Huh?”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. No, I haven’t heard from her but once since she moved. Why do you think about it?”
“I don’t know. I need to get something going in my life. The summers always get to me. First I get frustrated, then down.”
“Buy an ice cream maker,” I said. “That will cheer you up.”
There is a big hurricane in the Atlantic right now. Summer's weather has arrived. I should be nicer. He is right about some things.
"Buy an ice cream maker."
ReplyDeleteI snorted coffee through my nose onto my keyboard.
That line is the primary evidence in this piece that you are an incorrigible troublemaker.
You know, I was thinking of some of the exchanges with Robert Cohn in "The Sun Also Rises" when I wrote that.
ReplyDeleteHopefully your Cohn is not as good a boxer.
ReplyDeleteIt is great dialogue, and I am extremely judgmental about dialogue.
Flatterer. Now I won't be able to write it.
ReplyDelete