Kirk Jones - Aetherchrist

“The girl at the bar?”

“I fucked her in the porta-potty.”

“Seriously?”

He nods, but he’s so full of shit I can’t tell if he’s being honest or not. “She threw up.” He looks at me. “And told me to keep going.”

“Bullshit.”

He passes the bottle to me. “Don’t be hating.”

“I’m not hating.” I take a drink and hand the bottle back to him. “I question your judgment, but I’m not hating.”

“Why don’t you put that B.S. in Psychology to work then, Rey. It’s gotta be good for something. What’s your prognosis, Doc?”

I look up at the massive analog tower, then out at the horizon, where smaller towers flicker in the distance. I watch them strobe twice simultaneously before they start to split into their own rhythm again. That’s kind of what turning thirty feels like, like I’m expected to march to the beat of my own drum after years of following others. It’s not by choice, but by design. I won’t blink back into the pattern with the rest of the human race, either. It all gets slower and dimmer from here.

The radio tower on the far left is the last to catch up as the lights start to blink in a synchronized pattern again. I feel like it’s christening me for the worst third of my life.

At least I’m optimistic that old age will be better.

Jim passes me the bottle and reaches for his zipper. “Hey. I ever show you my dick?”

I take the bottle and drink. Heavily. “Yes. Every time you get drunk.”

“Oh.” He reaches for the bottle. “Want to see it again?”

I sigh. He won’t take no for an answer. “I guess.”

The next morning, I wake to the taste of stale champagne in my mouth. I don’t get headaches like I used to, which is nice. Hangover now just means I’m too slow to think, which suits me fine. Sometimes I think I drink more for the hangover than I do to get drunk.

I walk over the hill behind our motel, then down Harbor Road looking for house 34. White letters on a black box, just like Lana described. There’s nothing. Not a single fucking house on this road—if you can call them houses—has a number. There are only three places, so I go by process of elimination, starting with the brown mobile home. A water-damaged chipboard addition cradles the front of the house. Doilies hang at the top of the front window. The place looks like some sort of cyclopean insect standing on six concrete block legs. It’s dying a slow death too.

So is the guy that lumbers out of the neighboring garage. A husky follows along beside him. Its hair is so matted and dirty on one side that it’s walking at an angle. One thing’s for sure. This guy doesn’t need any knives. If he does, I don’t want to know what he’s planning to do with them.

“I help you?” he asks.

I hold up my briefcase. “I’m selling knives.”

He pulls a jackknife out of his pocket, opens it, and draws it against the grain of his hair. He brushes away the dead skin. The knife isn’t shaving like it ought to. “Got any sharpeners?”

“Reckon I do.”

“I might be interested in one of those. Taken to whittling again since the television doesn’t work anymore.”

“Those digital antennas don’t work worth a damn, do they?”

He heads for the house. “Haven’t tried ’em. Figure I’ll get more done just not worrying about it. Quit cold turkey. I have a VCR if I get desperate.” He turns at the door. “Come on in.”

The dog doesn’t follow. Too forlorn to deal with matters of territory, she ambles back into the garage. The garage lined with shelf after shelf of small, wooden figures.

“You coming?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

We walk down a dark hallway. The sound of white noise echoes through the walls. “I don’t spend a lot of time inside during the day,” he says. “Just a place to get my head out of the rain.” He pulls out a chair and sits. “Well, let’s see what you’ve got.”

I set the briefcase on the table and open it. “I have a basic sharpening stone.” I hand it off to him. “I have something a little more elaborate here.”

The old man helps himself to the sharpener in my case. “I like this one. How much?”

The white noise, louder now, distracts me. I shake it off. “Twenty-five?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He gets up and leaves the room. I don’t see him again for what feels like an hour. The hairs stand on the back of my neck like the guy is standing just behind me. When he doesn’t come back, I walk toward the noise. There’s an old black-and-white television on in the living room. You can see the silhouette of a woman slouching in a small… chair? I notice a belt buckle. It’s a bus seat.

“Anything good on?” I joke as I round the corner.

The woman stares into the screen. Spittle snails down her chin from the corner of her mouth. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t even blink. Only the slow, rhythmic heaving of her chest tells me she’s alive.

I turn to the screen ablaze with static. It cuts in and out and there we are: the woman, sitting in her bus seat, and me, standing beside her.

I look around the room for a hidden camera, and the image shorts out, transitioning between pops and electric stutters back to static.

The man throws a plastic grocery bag of pennies on the table. “There’s twenty.”

At this point, I just want to get the fuck out. So, I walk back into the kitchen and take the bag off the table.

“You have a security camera set up in here?” I ask.

“Can’t imagine why I’d need one. She never moves.”

He must be lying.

We walk to the front door.

“Is she okay?” I look back at the house.

He shakes his head. “I shift her every couple of days. She doesn’t talk much. Only to tell me not to change the channel.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says. “I said my goodbyes years ago. Just after her stroke.”

“Thank you for your time.”

The old man scratches the back of his head. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Reymond,” I say. “And you?”

“Wayne.” He pauses. “We don’t get a lot of visitors out this way. Stop by again if you get a chance. It’s nice to interact with the outside world a bit.”

“Will do.”

Fuck that. I think.

Fuck.

That.

Jim sucks down whatever exotic cocktail with a sexually suggestive name he’s hip to this week, then swishes it around in his mouth and swallows. “How’d you do today?”

“Sold a sharpener,” I say.

Jim smiles coyly. “I got a piece of ass,” he says.

I continue eating. “Big surprise there.”

“So, I come to the first house on my street. I knock on the door, expecting to be turned away. I see this petite figure walking up to the stained-glass window. She peers through a small part of the glass and opens the door. I see only two things: flesh and a panty line.”

“You really need to stop reading those pre-bagged porn mags from the D&L,” I say.

“I’m not shitting you.”

I put my knife down. “I’ve heard enough.”

He cocks his head dismissively, fluffs his mashed potatoes with his fork. “You should call Lana. Tell her you made a sale.”

“One sale isn’t worth calling her.”

“Tom calls every ten minutes.”

“Tom’s a douchebag.”

“He’s probably got her bent over in the Rutland Mall parking lot in front of the Toys “R” Us.”

“What the fuck? Why the Toys “R” Us?”

“Okay, Sears. I don’t know. But I bet he’s fucked her.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, he will if you don’t move on it.”

“She wouldn’t give him the time of day.”