In the City of Shy Hunters by Tom Spanbauer

Author:Tom Spanbauer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books

THAT’S THE WAY the evening started. It was always that way with Rose. Sit your butt down on the stoop, crack a beer open, break the ice by saying something nice like I saw your face on a poster, and before you know it Jack Flash is under the stoop, there’s a quick fuss, then Jack Flash comes walking up the steps with a dead rat half his size in his mouth, and you look over at Rose, at the gap between Rose’s two front teeth, at Rose’s lips, and Rose is talking talking, and you’re up to your eyeballs in Theology, Shakespeare, and Greek Mythology.

Wasn’t long and the beers were gone and there wasn’t any more beer in the ‘53 DeSoto, so I went to the deli and bought another six-pack. When I got back, on the stoop next to Rose was a bottle of mescal, cutup fresh limes on a white linen napkin, and a shaker of salt.

Power 95 on my boom box: Madonna, “Like a Virgin.”

Rose unscrewed the cap on the mescal, tipped the bottle up, drank, handed the bottle to me.

Forgot I had this, Rose said.

The mescal was the color of piss after B vitamins. A dead worm floated on the bottom.

A big smile on Rose, nostrils flaring. The black pieces of coal that were his eyes direct into my eyes. The gap between his two front teeth. The black snake.

Whoever gets the worm, Rose said, bracelets clack-clack, Gets his wish.

In my forearms first, the fear, then up to my shoulders, splash down through heart, cattle prod to my cock.

Rose. His breath, the sunset color of the inside of his lips, his open mouth, his Sahara Desert open palms, Rose’s heartbeat, Rose’s black skin. Africa.

And me, just me, my broken language, my broken dick, my broken heart.

The worm in the mescal floated at the bottom of the bottle.

All that mescal between me and the worm.

Then: All daring and courage, I said, All iron endurance of misfortune, I said, Make for a finer, nobler type of manhood.

I took a swig and handed the bottle back to Rose.

You’re on, I said.

So Rose and I passed the bottle back and forth, back and forth between us, on the stoop, surrounded by garbage, photographs of people smiling and drinking beer staring up at us, mercury-vapor light, flies, garbage stink, three dogs and a dead rat, traffic, cars and vans and trucks and taxis hitting the pothole, Power 95 “What’s Love Got to Do with It” on the boom box.

Rose tipped the bottle up, Rose’s chin up up, poured the mescal down his throat, his Adam’s apple up and down, up and down.

I’m going to plant a cherry tree right there, Rose said, and pointed to the rectangle of earth where I’d plant the cherry tree.

I tipped the bottle up, took a long drink, sloshed the mescal inside my mouth. Through my heart. Splash down into the stomach.

There should be a cherry tree in front of Two-oh-five East Fifth Street, don’t you think? Rose said.

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