Any Other Monday Night
By Gabe Gott
...Click clack, clickity clack, clack, clack...
"What doya' wanna do?"
"I dunno." He continued staring ahead at the screen, fingers moving ceaselessly in a careful rhythm.
My hands followed the beat of his clicking as I scribbled furiously away in my notebook, which lay on the floor in front of me, as I hunched over my acoustic guitar, its cheaply laminated wood substitute of a body digging into my chest.
I lean back against the foot of the couch behind me, laying my head on the seat. The coffee table separated us; the glow of the TV, flash, flash, flashing along to his gameplay, the music to our motion.
I played a riff out on my guitar, fingers digging into the frets on one hand, gripping the pick and hitting the strings like a mallet with the other, the notes thudding out, the clicking of his fingers on the controller keeping my note-timing consistent.
"Let's at least go buy some beers or something."
"'Kay...Let me get through this level, first."
"Cool."
His eyes glassed over as he drove along, headlights flashing on the highway as we drove along, seemingly cutting our own path through the forest, which clung just at the edge of our trail, which had become so entrenched nothing would ever grow there again.
Around, around, around a curve, the road appearing in front of us, the horizon suddenly becoming visible like navy blue on black as a car came at us from a distance.
It seemed hundreds of miles away but came upon us almost instantly, blinding me and causing him to swerve a little. Blink, the light flashed from Heavenly to tolerable, and he was able to correct the wheel so we didn't drift over and collide with the oncoming blazing chariot.
He flipped his own brights off just as the oncoming vehicle passed us, flipping its brights back on almost as quickly as ours flashed off.
It faded in the rearview mirror.
He flipped his brights back on as we puttered along, the oceans once again calm. He pushed down on the car's cigarette lighter and rolled down his window, and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pants pockets, lifting it up to his face and pulling a cigarette out with his lips, tossing me the pack, and I grabbed one.
The lighter clicked and he lit his and then I lit my and put it back in its port. I rolled my own window down and smoke from my stack started to suck out.
"ID puleeze."
I stared across the counter at her, 30-pack of High Life, a carton of Marlboro Menthols, standing in the part of the Red Sea between us.
I rolled my eyes.
"I have to make it look good." She points up to the camera, cocked and pointing down at us from a perch over her shoulder so Big Brother had the vantage to see right down her shirt as she stood there, hunching over, looking up at me from slits, eyelids like blinds so I couldn't see the nakedness inside her.
I smile, pull my wallet out, handing me my ID with my debit card.
She takes my ID, carefully inspecting it like a legally blind pervert trying to see a naked Polaroid.
"Okay." She hands it back and takes my card, swiping it three or four times, waiting a second, and handing it back to me.
"Wanna hang out later."
She looks at me and our eyes meet, she flutters her eyelids and looks down at the screen. The receipt printer starts screeching and spewing out paper, and I continue staring at her.
She tears the receipt off and hands it to me, pulling to hand out to me a chewed on Bic from a cup that also contained a golf pencil and a black permanent market and sat on the far side of the register.
I sign the receipt and hand it back to her wrapped up in the pen. She hesitates and takes it from me, putting the pen back in the cup and the receipt in a fold that she had pulled from somewhere below her, underneath the counter.
"Can I bring some friends?"
"Who?"
"Tina and Lisa."
"Oh yea, of course."
"Okay, cool. I get off in a half hour."
"Cool."
He was talking on his phone as I walked over, sat the beer and the cigs on the roof and opened my door, picking up the beer and the cigs and sitting down. I pulled the door closed and he turned on the ignition, pulled himself around to look out the back window as he back, and then we pulled out of the gas station.
His lighter clicked and we both lit our cigarettes and rolled down our windows.
"Okay, see you in a bit." He folded his phone and threw it in the backseat. "Jimmy'll be there pro'lly by the time we get back."
"Cool." I lit another cigarette from the butt of the last one.
We pulled into the driveway and some rusty dump sat parked blocking his garage door. The owner of the car sat Indian-style on the roof of the jalopy, smoking on a peace pipe.
"HEEEEYYYYY." I rolled down my window and stuck my head out. "Wait for us!"
We pulled up behind him and got out of the car as he climbed down from his. The three of us stood in a circle. He re-packed his pipe and sent it around.
"Girls'r comin' over t'night."
"Cool." He blew a smoke ring which slowly dissipated into the night sky.
Ra-RRINNGGGGG!!!!!
I run down the hall and throw open the door.
"HEEYyyy!" They all roll in, each carrying some kind of drinkable tasty treat.
"How was work?" She kisses me and wraps her arms around me and I pull her into my grip.
"Fuck you..." She says as she pushes me away. "Come on, Let's get our drink on GIRLLZ!"
They dash past me and I continue to walk out to the front porch, closing the door behind me and lighting a cigarette.
I smoked my cigarette and came inside, threw my empty pack on the floor, just as Jimmy switched the music. The Black Keys blasted out of the speakers on the TV, which glowed and pulsated with Winamps Visulization, his computer screen rolling around with the same patterns in miniture from where his HP sat on the counter next to the Plasma.
"Fuck yeah, better'n that last shi' you played." I walked back down the hall past where Jimmy stood talking to one of the other girls down to the kitchen where the other three made company.
Each holds a drink as I come in. He seems happy. They are all smiling, she beams as I enter. I down the last of my beer and sit the empty on the counter among the dozens of other empties and two gutted pizza boxes.
"Miss me much?"
"I miss your cock."
"That makes you." Her other friend walks past her and around behind him and jerks on his arm and pulls him out the room.
She and I stand on opposite sides of the island, she is nursing a Mike's Hard Lemonade and I turn around a grab a High Life from the fridge behind me.
The music is blasting behind us and we seem to be floating in the air, positive and negative ions floating about, crashing into each other and us, making my arm hair stand on end.
"Wanna do it on the counter?"
I heard a faint moan coming from somewhere beyond the music.
Next thing I know beer cans and pizza boxes are raining to the ground all around us and she is sitting on the counter. She tips her beer back and throws her bottle behind her head and it crashes and shatters against the sink.
Last time I left body fluids on this counter, I realize, it was vomit.
She smiles and wraps her legs around me.
Definitely an improvement over last week.
No comments:
Post a Comment