jewfish by Andrew Furman

Author:Andrew Furman [Furman, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little Curlew Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Nathan grinned chimp-like before the tattered bathroom mirror, knowing that there were all sorts of things a fellow in his position was supposed to have done that he hadn’t done. These teeth, for example. They were straight enough, yet marred by a grayish pallor that had suddenly been deemed unacceptable. His teeth should be whiter, given current standards and expectations. He drew a copious dose of medicinal mouthwash, and winced from the sting as he gargled. You either felt one way or the other about mouthwash. Most believed that you could gargle and there would be no pain. Nathan didn’t understand such people. He spat into the basin and gazed again at his teeth, a mossy cast now to the gray. There were procedures at the dentist’s office, plus countless over-the-counter gels, pastes, and potions designed to make everyone’s teeth the whitest white white could be. Manny smoked, yet his teeth gleamed within his goatee, the canines unusually long and sharp for a human, it seemed to Nathan. Even fat Del’s teeth gleamed. Divorced Del, pushing sixty, but still very much in the sex game. Maybe sick Solomon too, given all his bluster. Shtupping was important. Nathan didn’t wholly disagree with his elder. Everything was in it. Or could be. Life whittled down to its concentrated fury. But who’d share a bed with Nathan looking the way he looked? He had visited the barber for his Jewfro, anyway, shaved the ginger bristle from his face, but his skinny ass, his bent-elbow nose, the crevasses across his brow, his copious thatch of dark-red hair about his groin, and these hands. What could be done about Nathan’s mottled paws, impervious to sunscreen or the lanolin-rich Bag Balm ointment his fellow captains swore by? In fairness, the brash mid-day light streaming into his bathroom wasn’t doing him any favors. It made sense that most people courted their lovers at night, under the kind cover of darkness.

We can take a walk. It seemed harmless enough for a first date. Hardly a date at all. Denuded, thankfully, from the specter of sex. We can take a walk, Kati had suggested. He liked that Kati had offered the suggestion rather than leave it for him to determine their plans. And that it was such a humble plan. That she didn’t expect anything from him. No fancy meal or entertainment. Just his company. They decided to walk the pier near the restaurant. Just after her shift. It was a good plan. Yet he found himself worrying about matters on the short drive down A1A. What would they talk about outside the realm of coffee, congris, napkins, forks, and como se dice?

He drove slowly, as if en route to an unpleasant medical procedure, one of his father’s colonoscopies, say. Nonetheless, he arrived early at the pier’s entrance. You didn’t keep a woman waiting. He shuffled his feet against the concrete floor and gazed up at the crude tackle festooned against the corkboard inside the pier’s open office. Thick wire leaders.

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