Storm Clouds Gather
We are all young and tan.
‘We never really slept together,’ says Sam as she reaches for another french fry. ‘Not really.’
I gather there is a tone in there somewhere, something I am supposed to pick up on but I simply respond, ‘Right, that's the way it is.’
Sam and Charles are kind of exes.
We are all young and tan.
‘Tutti-Frutti’ sounds from the jukebox, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean peer from photos on the wall, the whole joint is devoted to a recreation of the fifties and we sit and we eat and we stare the day away.
‘James Dean was gay,’ I say. ‘Not many people know that. Dead at such a young age, if only he’d made a few more films he could have become quite the gay icon. It’s sad that he had to keep it a secret.’
‘Marilyn was addicted to codeine,’ says Sam as rejoinder. Everyone it seems has a face they dare not show the world.
Sam steps off to the bathroom and while she is away I make designs in sauce with a french fry. Elvis rips into ‘Jailhouse Rock’ as Charlie takes a seat.
Charlie eats a burger and I let him know that Sam has arrived but is in the bathroom for the minute. Charlie nods in agreement as I speak and looks lean and hungry. Charlie’s girlfriend is a vegan and they meet in an apartment that has a giant poster of Audrey Hepburn which watches over them as they make love.
Sam exits the bathroom rubbing her index finger along her gums as she sits. Charlie steals a french fry and mentions a great download of a remix of the Beach Boy’s ‘Smile’. We both agree that it would be worth a listen. Brian Wilson was a troubled man. He’s still alive but for some reason his talent is best spoken of in the past tense.
Sam’s hair is shorter now and she no longer smokes cigarettes.
There is something to this I think, as Charlie steals another fry.
Michael writes from a shack overlooking the ocean just south of the edge of the world. He has been published in several literary magazines and plans a short story collection sometime before the Andromeda Galaxy collides with ours and …
