Fri., Jun 22, 8:36 p.m., Dos Jefe’s
Now that both Art and Lush Muffin are on their third Red Snapper, Art figures this is a good time to casually place his hand on Lush Muffin’s exposed knee. She doesn’t seem to notice. Art makes a mental note to use this method to make inroads later on this evening.
“Art?”
“Yes, Lush Muffin.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t shave your head, you know, just to see what it would look like?”
“Couldn’t I just put a stocking on it or something?”
“Well, yes, I’m sure you could, but it wouldn’t be the same.”
“It would allow me to see what it would look like.”
Lush Muffin furls her brow. “I suppose it would, but it’s not the same.”
“How?”
“It’s just not.”
“Is that woman logic?”
“Kind of.” Lush Muffin knocks back the last of her latest red snapper and slides the empty glass to the edge of the bar. The trained Jackson knows this means Arthur Cole is buying her another one of these.
Art empties his glass and places his glass adjacent to hers.
“I think people who try new things, well, to me, that means they’re not scared.”
“Now all of a sudden I am a pussy because I just don’t feel like shaving my head?”
“Well,” Lush Muffin says, smirking, “I doesn’t mean you’re not a pussy.”
Art lifts his hand off her knee and grabs his crotch. “This is one hundred percent man sausage, that I can guarantee.”
“Vulgar,” she hisses.
“Sorry, but you’re challenging my manhood over here, an affront that, I believe, demands vulgarity in response.”
Jackson brings them their red snapper refills.
“You’re scared.”
“I’m not scared of anything. I simply don’t want to shave my head.”
“Believe what you want,” she says, smiling, slowly sipping her cocktail, her eyes glancing over the rim of the glass at Art’s frustrated face, his jawbone throbbing outward as he clinches his teeth.
“You are a real pain in the ass.”
“I know, but I’m beautiful and I can get away with it.”
Fri., Jun 22, 8:42 p.m., Dos Jefe’s
“Hey Karl,” Sunshine says, an empty glass of Chartreuse and a full Cosmo in front of her.
“Yes?”
Sunshine extends her arm towards the group of law enforcement types, “Do you see that guy over there, the kind of burly one with the tattoo of a school bus on his forearm?”
Karl Cerullo cranes his neck backward. “Sure, I see him.”
“I’m going to marry him.”
Karl chuckles. “The one with the faint moustache? Sunshine, you hate men with facial hair.”
“He will have shaved that off by the time we get married.”
“I see.”
“We’re going to live in Dallas.”
“Again, I didn’t think you liked anything about Texas.”
“Well, it is like a whole other country and we’ve proven recently that I’m rather xenophobic, but I’ll be a fugitive when we get married.”
“A fugitive, married to some kind of lawman, in Texas.”
“Dallas.”
“Right.” Karl Cerullo absent-mindedly twists the hair on his beard at the jaw line. “Well, so you should probably go meet this future husband of yours, I mean, if you want your Texan dream to come true, it might be a good first step.”
“No need.”
“No need to meet your husband? Is this some kind of immaculate nuptial?”
“He will come looking for me when the time is right, and then we’ll play musical orgasms for the rest of our lives.”
Sat, Jun 23, 1:56 a.m., Abidjan, Cote d’Ivorie, Home of Didier Drogba
Asleep, Didier is dreaming of a faraway place, a city in America. He is constantly aware of this city because of a person who is forever unsuccessfully trying to outbid him on e-bay. New Orleans, a place he has never been, is haunting him this evening.
In the dream, Didier is walking through a pile of huge leaves, dead banana leaves, he’s pretty sure. The aforementioned leaves are lying in a shallow pile on the side of a street. High above, a blimp circles slowly and he can hear the hum of the blimp’s engines. There is a man in the blimp who has a public address system. “Have you all seen the rock, paper, scissors party? It’s on the radio,” he broadcasts in English from his circling blimp.
Up ahead, standing on the street, is a creature, human-sized, with the head of a hamster and the body of a Lake Victoria perch. The creature is beckoning Didier forward with his fin, curling it like a person would curl his index finger.
Didier walks straight ahead towards the hamster-fish, all the while the hamster-fish is walking backwards until the fish creature has turned a corner. Didier rounds the corner and sees, there on a billboard in front of him, a giant picture of Roman Abramovich, the owner of Didier’s football club and beneath the picture, written in his native French, is the phrase, “Soyez célèbre, soyez important, vivez pour toujours!” Be famous, be important, live forever!
Fri., Jun 22, 8:58 p.m., 725 Constantinople
Luigi Lucriccio bolts sitting straight up from his dream, covered with sweat. This nightmare had been just as bad as most he has had in recent days. He looks over at the clock and realizes it’s nearly nine p.m. and he has been sleeping since just after noon, after his cocaine finally ran out.
The dream is hazy in memory, but it had something to do with him becoming some kind of half rodent, half fish-like creature and he was painting a giant mural with text in French, after which a huge, dreadlocked black man approached to come see his work.
This is exactly the reason he doesn’t like to go out with Lush Muffin. God only knows what kinds of chemicals they ingested last night, but he does know that the eight-ball helped him make it to Camellia Grill for a nine a.m., ahem, dinner. He’s pretty sure he was no longer with Lush Muffin, but remembers something about the San Diego Chicken. No, that can’t be right. Was there a costume party? Everything is vague, as it is most nights he hits the town with her.
He does remember making out with Muffin in one of those photo booth stalls at F & M’s, but that was around ten, before the F & M’s crowd, known for their late till sunrise schedule, had even arrived. That was after the cheese fries, an early dinner of sorts, and before they had scored the giant rock of Columbia’s finest. There was a cab to D.B.A. on Frenchman, during which they were doing lines on a mirror in front of the driver, or in back of the driver, as logistics would have it, but definitely well within view from his rear view mirror.
He can’t shake the image of eating at Camellia Grill with a chicken. A woman, yes, but a chicken. Cluck. A costume, to be sure, but still. How did all of that come about, and how did the chicken eat without removing her head piece?
There’s a definite gap between arrival at D.B.A. and Camellia Grill. There were shots, he does remember, but doesn’t remember exactly what was consumed. Lush Muffin wore a red sundress. She was, as always, rubbing her concave belly in an effort to keep it where it was, the opposite of convex. She smelled nice, he remembers, a combination of floral shampoo and booze, an odor he could still ascertain even after the large quantities of excess cocaine in his nostrils.
Getting out of bed is necessary, he realizes. Getting out of the house, while seeming to be a daunting task, is also required. He does not need to keep living like this.
When Elizabeth was hit by the bus in January, Luigi made a vow never to let himself fall in love with anyone. Loss is far too painful. Self medication, the only answer, must be moderated, he is sure, but for now, he needs the numbness, the absence of feeling, the ritualistic cleansing of his heart, so broken in so very many pieces. Lush Muffin, with her own pathetic self medicated tendencies, provides the perfect companion on his quest to quell the memories of Liz. With her, he can be both medicated and connected. With Lush Muffin, he has found a counterpoint.
The vomit will spill from his lips momentarily, after which, he will rinse and continue.
In a year or so, he will be wealthy beyond his dreams, so now is the perfect time to not reflect and just live. Venezuela is where he will begin anew.
