by Thomas L. Traband III
His whole seed making apparatus spewed out on the sand of the bull ring, after the bull's horn punctured the protective sack. The matador winced and grimaced but let out not a peep. By the time his brother came to wrestle the bull away, the sand had been drenched with crimson.
Art woke with a start and looked around his room, disappointed to find his feet in a sand box. He reached down, picked up the spilled bottle of ketchup, and tossed the sand-encrusted hot dog into the trash.
It was a cold and cloudy day. Well, no, actually it was not particularly cold, nor especially cloudy. In fact, the sky was a fine cerrulean blue, the sun shone strongly, and the thermometer boasted a robust 86° in the shade. All of this was lost, however, on Jake. The only thing to capture his attention was a tall willowy blond in a very, very microscopic bathing suit. Actually, it was not particularly microscopic, nor was it especially a bathing suit. The young lady in question actually wore a tight pink Spandex body suit, which may or may not have been more revealing than a microscopic bikini.
Jake shook his head, sipped his Baker Street scotch whisky, and thought to himself that perhaps looking out the window at the folks walking along the deck was not quite appropriate.
“Hey, Jake! Let's go get in the hot tub!” Craig called from the bedroom.
“Go ahead, dude. You have my permission to do so,” Jake responded.
“Well, you're coming with me, aren't you?”
“What are you, nuts? You know what two men in a hot tub suggests, don't you?” Jake admonished.
“It suggests that they want to enjoy a hot tub?”
Jake shook his head and slapped an imaginary mosquito that was crawl-ing on his forehead. He sighed. “Don't be silly,” he said in an annoyed tone. “One either sits in a hot tub with half a dozen sexy babes or by one's self. Although, I'm not sure I condone Onanism.”
“But I want to sit in the hot tub!”
“So, sit in the hot tub! I'm going fishing.”
“Ugh…”
Craig went out to climb into the hot tub, and Jake walked up to the beach.
The beach was a soft tan; the water, green as jade. The ocean lapped at the shore in its eternal effort to move the beach south a few more inches. A large, brown pelican landed delicately just behind the crest of a large wave. A surfer tumbled headlong from that wave; definitely not in fear of the peli-can, however. Jake was not sure why he tumbled, but suspected that it had something to do with the two bikini-clad young ladies who stood out on the beach a few yards from him.
Jake decided to demonstrate his fishing prowess, but, like the surfer, did not do so out of deference to the pelican. He got out his rod, and the girls ‘Oooh’ed. He cast his bait out into the sea, and the girls turned away in dis-gust and fled from the beach.
Art's stomach reminded him that the reason he had had the hot dog in the first place was to eat it. Since this was no longer possible, he picked up the phone and gave Domino's a call. Then he realized that perhaps the Domino's delivery person did not need to see his sand box in the middle of the living room of the condo he was renting, which was not designed to come equipped with a sandbox. He cradled the phone and treated his hunger with a short can of cheap beer. Art waxed philosophical, briefly wondering why he needed to move the beach into his living room, when he could eas-ily go out on the beach like everybody else. ‘Cause I'm a gutless little coward who's afraid to go anywhere by himself,’ he said aloud, and downed the rest of his beer. He crushed the can, and tossed it like a basketball into the trash; missing by as much space as he could without hitting a wall or counter in the kitchen. He abashedly picked up the can, placed it in the trash, and went into the living room to watch the Peggy Sue Hickok show.
Jake woke with a start, to discover he had crabs. Two little sand crabs were engaged in some sort of mating routine (he supposed) on his outstretched arm. He brushed the crabs away and the sand from his buttocks as he stood. He looked around, and noticed that the girls had left and the surfer, probably with them. The loyal pelican caught a fish and flew off on some pelicany kind of business, which Jake was not sure he wanted to know about or ob-serve.
Having wasted the day in dreamy slumber on the beach, and having picked up quite a cooked lobster kind of sunburn; decided discretion was the better part of valor and made his way back to the condo. He flung the door open and found Craig nursing a glass of cream sherry while flipping aim-lessly among the dozen television stations.
“ ‘Sup, dude?” Craig greeted Jake.
“Like, what time is it, Ace?”
“Like, four o‘clock, Spike.”
“The it must be about time for that football game. Hit channel three.”
“You want to sit here and watch football all day, Spike? There are numer-ous babes out there dying to make our acquaintance; and a hot tub just wait-ing to suck us in.”
“I thought you spent the day in the hot tub.”
“No, I got out there and chickened out. I didn't want to sit in it by myself.”
“Ah. I see. Hey, look! The game's starting! Yea! Go Skins!”
Art read the starting line-up which was displayed on the screen. He heard some variety of banging sound, got up and opened the door to take a look. A tall, willowy blonde in a tight pink spandex body suit banged the sand from her shoes. She stood on the second floor deck of the building across the pool. She noticed Art's gaze, smiled slightly and went back into her unit. Art ex-pelled some bad air that had failed his lungs' Advanced Respiratory class. His shoulders dropped, having lost the air that had held them up in the first place. He turned back to the game, but left the door open, just in case.
The Skins took a big early lead. Art heard a knock at the door, and got up to answer it. It occurred to him that he had left the door open, but obviously not, as someone was knocking on it and it was closed. He opened the door and froze in mid- inhalation. ‘But, what to his wondering eyes should ap-pear,’ he thought, ‘but the blonde in the pink Spandex with no tiny rein-deer.’
“Hi,” he said, rather anxiously.
“Can I borrow a cup of coffee?” she asked.
“Certainly. Come on in. Have a seat. Make yourself at home. I'll go put that coffee on.” Art went into the kitchen and put a kettle of water on to boil. He got a couple of cups down from the cupboard and started looking for the jar of coffee. The girl's voice drifted in through the trellis which sepa-rated the living room from the kitchen.
“We just got in on Saturday. We went up to the grocery store, but the lines were so long that we decided not to wait and went next door to the drug store and just picked up some beer and chips. They didn't sell coffee, so we've been roughing it since yesterday. You know what I mean? I just can't get going without my coffee.”
“Yea, I have a tough time without my coffee, too,” Art said from the kitchen, where he still hadn't found the coffee.
“Switching gears a little bit, do you always keep it so hot in here?”
“Well…”
“I mean, it's just so warm in here. Why don't you turn the air condi-tioner on? Well, it'll still take a long time to cool this place off. Either way, you said I should make myself comfortable, so you won't mind if I take my clothes off, will you? I mean, we're all enlightened adults here, aren't we? By the way, my name's Teri.”
“This is great, man! The Redskins are up 39-12 over those accursed Giants. This calls for a drink.”
“Everything calls for a drink, Spike. Sometimes I wonder what you would do in the world if there were no alcohol.”
“I'd probably resort to my other love in life.”
“You mean sex?”
“What else?”
“You?” Craig rolled on the &Mac223;oor, convulsed in laughter.
“You're drunk,” Jake observed.
“ ‘But of course,’ ” Craig said, and collapsed again at the wit of his para-phrase.
Jake favored Craig with a gaze that, could it speak, might have said some-thing to the effect of ‘if you're quite through, perhaps we could be serious for a minute?’ He used his mouth, however, to say: “Awright, perhaps I need to go out and get a babe and bring her back here?”
Craig responded as if he had been kicked under the chin in a low budget movie, and did a back flip. He landed on his stomach, tears running down his face and peals of laughter causing his body to quiver and shake.
“Fine,” Jake said, and left.
Soon, he was sitting alone at a table at the Dare Devil Inn. He placed his order, and sat back to watch the hockey game on the large screen TV. The waitress brought over his bottle of Guinness Extra Stout and he swallowed half of that. Jake noticed a young blonde lady, two tables over, with an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth. She searched frantically through her purse, apparently for something with which she could light her cigarette. A light bulb winked on over Jake's head, but no one was looking.
Jake confirmed the bulge in his pants, reached into his pocket and whipped out his Old Bookbinder's lighter.
“Light?” Jake offered, flicking his Bic.
“Thank you very much,” she said after he lit her cigarette. “I haven't seen you around here before, are you new?”
“I haven't been new for a long time now. However, I haven't been here before. My name is Jake. Jake Phillips. I'm staying across the street at the Outer Banks Beach Club,” Jake informed her.
“Why don't you sit down and tell me about it? I don't see too many young guys here this late in the season…”
“Well, that's why we're here. To enjoy some peace and quiet, and not get caught up in all this tourist rigamarole.”
“Rigama-what?”
“It's like… hassle, or whatever.”
“Oh.”
“What about you? Apparently you live here. Shall I try some of my Sherlock Holmesian powers and tell you all about yourself?”
“Sure.” She sat and looked at him curiously, took a drag on her cigarette and finished off her drink.
“Tell me your name, and I'll take it from there. Can I buy you another drink? Waitress, another over here. Make that two.”
“My name is Beth Powell.”
“OK, here goes. You are a descendant through the Lumbee Indians of the Powells of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island. You are approximately 25 years old and have smoked since the age of sixteen. You listen to contempo-rary music; work at a decent paying job; and live at home with your parents. You drive a blue 1980 Camaro- I could go into details about the engine and the compression ratio, but I won't; you drive it very sparingly and make about $18,000 a year. How am I doing so far?”
She looked stunned, awed, a trifle frightened and then, as the waitress served drinks, a little bit relieved.
“Well, I only drive my car on weekends, since the bank is only a block from my house. I just got a raise at the bank, so I'm making $17,000 a year; and I have absolutely no idea what a compression ratio is. How do you know all this?”
“To start with, you have a dark complexion and dark hair, which, I can tell by the roots, has been bleached. Your features are remarkably like those of the Lumbee Indians, and your name is Welsh. I know these facts, because, while I was at the library earlier today, I read a book about the lost colony, and noted a reference to the Powells of that colony, who, coincidentally enough, happened to be Welsh.” Jake paused for some air and a drink.
“I can tell your age by your hands and the length of time you have smoked by the facility with which you handle your cigarette, give or take a year or two. The U2 Tour t-shirt you're wearing makes it very clear what type of music you listen to. Going back to you hands, if I may…” Jake reached out and took one of her hands in his. “Judging by the softness, the dry skin and the short nails here on your right hand, but not on your left hand, sug-gest you run some sort of adding machine or cash register. Besides, I saw you in the bank while I was at the ATM earlier today.”
“What have you been doing, spying on me? Following me around?”
“No, it was pure chance; but I did recognize you.”
“Oh,” she said, and smiled shyly. They both looked down at their drinks. There followed an uncomfortable silence between them before Jake realized that he was still holding her hand.
“Wait a minute, how did you know about the car?” she asked.
“Well, I just happened to notice the license plate on one that said ‘BETH 80’. I guessed that it was a graduation present, and that also told me about how old you were. After you told me what your name was, I remembered the license plate I saw in the parking lot. I figured that despite the fact that this area is very proud of its Elizabethan heritage, there still probably aren't that many people named Elizabeth.”
“You made an awful lot of guesses here, didn't you?”
“It was a chance worth taking for the opportunity to buy a pretty girl a drink.”
“Aw, that's sweet.”
“So, anyway…”
“Stop a second,” she interrupted. “Now that you know all about me, what about you?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Where are you from? What do you do for a living?”
“Let's see… I'm from the Washington DC area; I write books for a living; I work in a grocery store; I have lots of fun, I do just about whatever I want to do, and end up just enjoying life. So, how do you feel about champagne breakfasts?”
“I've never actually had champagne for breakfast before,” she said, and glanced nervously around the restaurant.
“Well, perhaps we'll have to get together some time. Here's my card. Let me just write my current phone number on the back…” Jake handed Beth his card, reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of one dollar bills, and tossed several onto the table. “Give it some thought. Good night.” Jake turned and left.
The waitress came over with Jake's sandwich and looked askance at Beth. Beth merely shrugged and slipped the card into her purse.
Art woke midway through the fourth quarter. He looked for Teri, but he was alone. He could find no trace of her presence, such as half-empty glasses, cigarettes in the ash tray, et cetera; and realized he had dreamt it all again. He noticed a wet spot in a very inconvenient location on his jeans and went to take a nice cold shower.
Art got dressed, and realized he was hungry. He also realized he didn't feel like going all over Manteo to find something to eat, so he decided to walk across the street to the Dare Devil Inn. He walked out of his condo, 10A, and noticed just how windy it had gotten. ‘Being a terribly intelligent publisher,’ Art thought, ‘I should be smart enough to go get a jacket on,’ which he did.
Across the street, Art passed by a blue Camaro and read the vanity plate, which said, originally enough, ‘BETH 80’. He went inside and saw a hockey game on the big screen TV. He selected a seat near the TV at such an angle that he could see nothing on it. Instead, he ordered a beer and observed the clientele.