Shirts and Skins by Jeffrey Luscombe

Author:Jeffrey Luscombe [Luscombe, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lethe Press
Published: 2022-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

*

Josh sat alone drinking at The Peach, where he spent most of his days. His hand, still wrapped in bandages and a cast, hung in a navy-blue sling over his chest. He had been off work for almost two months. There was no way that the doctors could have saved the entire finger on his right hand, since most of it had been crushed into mush, but they were able to save it just below the knuckle.

“You’ve broken a few bones and lost most of your pinky finger, but it could have been much worse,” one of the doctors had told Josh. “And you were really lucky that it wasn’t your dominant hand.”

The only time Steve called Josh was to tell him that the company had installed safety guards on the machines to ensure that no one else could accidently lean on the button again. Now the index finger had to slip through the safety guards to push the buttons. “That’s fucking swell, Steve” Josh had said. Later that month, Gary called to tell Josh that Steve had been named the new backup supervisor. “Can you believe Steve becoming a shirt?” Gary had said. Dominion Metal Stamping had given Josh a small settlement, and since they had found a bag of amphetamines in his locker, they thought it best that Josh accept the settlement and leave quietly—even the union had cut Josh loose and told him to just take the money he was offered and go.

But now Josh was running out of cash.

In Perverts Row, Josh waved off a fat stripper asking to sit at his table. I’m no mark, he thought as he stretched his legs out under the table. Josh had recently heard from a few of the dancers that The Peach was in trouble. It would probably close soon, they had told him. To top it off, the vice squad had been nosing around the VIP room. It would be the last nail in the coffin for The Peach, Josh thought. He would not be sad to see the Peach close, but Josh did wonder what would open next in the old Bank of Nova Scotia building. Maybe it will be something really great again, like Le Papillion. On stage, a woman with a tattoo of a tiger crawling down her back danced away on stage to an empty bar.

Josh looked around. “Where is that fucking waitress?”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.