The Chimera of Prague by Rick Pryll

Author:Rick Pryll
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Foolishness Press via Indie Author Project

JUNE

Consideration, 1.6.1998

Karen and I hit Molly Malone’s last night. It was fun. Sexual tension (that’s what it was?) got us through. I thought about taking her to the Thirsty Dog, but that would mean I might run into Ingrid or her crew. I heard Ingrid moved in with Lars so she must dig him which is fine with me, I predicted it, I said it might be better this way. I was right.

Karen didn’t love the place. For a second after we walked in, she was enamored by the wide old floorboards, the wooden beam sectioning off the bar from the rest of the place, by the fireplace. The walls are yellow, and above the bar, there are assorted antiques, an old spinning wheel, and a wagon wheel. They say in the old days journalists and writers would hang out here, but now it’s the expats - a group of regulars at the far end of the bar, and a couple of others by the fireplace. Karen coughs a couple of times to remind me how different this place is from the bars she frequents in the Garment District in New York City. It’s smoky; not all of it is cigarette smoke. I wonder when the last time a chimney sweep has been through here. She feigned interest in my stories of Liam Neeson sightings here from the past winter when the film version of Les Miserables was shot in Prague. She’s less impressed when I tell her that if we stay until closing, this place will allow us to stay and drink with them after hours until the fire dies out. She yawns, the jet lag getting the best of her. We don’t have the stamina to test it out, which is probably just as well — I also heard they lock you in, which doesn’t sound all that cozy to me. Was the yawn a way of testing me out, to see if I would try and bed her? Probably.

I slept on the kitchen floor last night. It started out as a bluff. I gave Karen my bed, freshly made up with clean sheets. I moved the futon into the kitchen, wondering if she would invite me to sleep with her. Half hoping she wouldn’t because I didn’t know what to do.

I went over it in my mind, as I lay there, trying to see if I could hear her sleeping in the next room. I’ve known Karen since winter. On my visit to New York City, I was flipping through the Village Voice, half-heartedly looking for some extra work and found her ad. It was plain, for some help with graphics, log analysis, the basics any entrepreneur would want. I called the number cold.

At the time I was staying with Dinah. Ironic. Dinah is a short skater chick who refuses to care how she looks. She cut off all her hair, doesn’t own a dress, and built her company up from a floppy zine she created as a high schooler out in LA.

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