Poem Lover
Originally published in Quick Fiction — 13
After reading the latest draft of my book, my lawyer girlfriend informs me that all the principals in my life will definitely recognize themselves between the pages. So the rule I agree to is to avoid the use of proper names. She lists some alternatives: The King, The Jester, The Scumbag, The-One-Who-Calls-Every-Day-Offering-Unasked-For-Guidance, and Warden. She wants to be called The Thrice-Divorced-Lawyer, and I must admit I like the sound of that. Legalese turns me on, and she knows it. Eschewing names, she explains while shimmying out of her dress, narrows the prosecution’s case at the base, and it is onto this base that the facts are arranged in unflattering ways, stacked so high that no one will even recognize you. We fall into bed. Naked we are unappealing, keep our eyes shut, grunt, and when finished, blind now, we stagger to the bathroom.
Later on, while waiting for a bus, an elderly woman tells me my pants are inside out. Indeed, my pockets are tiny off-white beanbags weighed down by my keys, loose change, and cellphone. I ask the woman if she’s senile, and then I do my best to not feel the injury this may have caused. I learned this from The-Thrice-Divorced-Lawyer. She is a tiger. Her motto is: attack then run. But I’m too tired to run so instead I hail a cab. The driver it turns out is Ukrainian, made tender by war. Still, she requires a goodwill token before departing the curb. I pass her the emergency twenty kept in my jacket pocket. As we pull into a knotted snarl of traffic, the opening salvo of Beethoven’s Fifth explodes on my thigh. The driver, turning, passes me a pocketknife, and I cut open one of my beanbags, let everything tumble out onto the cab floor. I answer the phone and know before she even speaks it’s The-Love-of-My-Life. She has read the galleys of my book. I don’t exactly hate you, she says, but I’ll call back when I think of a word that fits. Of course you’ve neglected to mention the children, and it’s here that I have to ask, what children? The-Love-of-My-Life, I say, the cab rocketing forward to fill a car length gap magically exposed before us, we didn’t have any children! But she only laughs, and before she has time to name them, I recite a bit of that old Longfellow she used to like, the one that somewhere in the middle says: “Be still sad heart and cease,” but before I can finish she has gone.
After reading the latest draft of my book, my lawyer girlfriend informs me that all the principals in my life will definitely recognize themselves between the pages. So the rule I agree to is to avoid the use of proper names. She lists some alternatives: The King, The Jester, The Scumbag, The-One-Who-Calls-Every-Day-Offering-Unasked-For-Guidance, and Warden. She wants to be called The Thrice-Divorced-Lawyer, and I must admit I like the sound of that. Legalese turns me on, and she knows it. Eschewing names, she explains while shimmying out of her dress, narrows the prosecution’s case at the base, and it is onto this base that the facts are arranged in unflattering ways, stacked so high that no one will even recognize you. We fall into bed. Naked we are unappealing, keep our eyes shut, grunt, and when finished, blind now, we stagger to the bathroom.
Later on, while waiting for a bus, an elderly woman tells me my pants are inside out. Indeed, my pockets are tiny off-white beanbags weighed down by my keys, loose change, and cellphone. I ask the woman if she’s senile, and then I do my best to not feel the injury this may have caused. I learned this from The-Thrice-Divorced-Lawyer. She is a tiger. Her motto is: attack then run. But I’m too tired to run so instead I hail a cab. The driver it turns out is Ukrainian, made tender by war. Still, she requires a goodwill token before departing the curb. I pass her the emergency twenty kept in my jacket pocket. As we pull into a knotted snarl of traffic, the opening salvo of Beethoven’s Fifth explodes on my thigh. The driver, turning, passes me a pocketknife, and I cut open one of my beanbags, let everything tumble out onto the cab floor. I answer the phone and know before she even speaks it’s The-Love-of-My-Life. She has read the galleys of my book. I don’t exactly hate you, she says, but I’ll call back when I think of a word that fits. Of course you’ve neglected to mention the children, and it’s here that I have to ask, what children? The-Love-of-My-Life, I say, the cab rocketing forward to fill a car length gap magically exposed before us, we didn’t have any children! But she only laughs, and before she has time to name them, I recite a bit of that old Longfellow she used to like, the one that somewhere in the middle says: “Be still sad heart and cease,” but before I can finish she has gone.