Part 9
The Previous Night.
Behind Eva is a face, a familiar face. I can’t put a name in that matches those eyes and nose and mouth, but I recognize that set. He’s tall, slim, good-looking with short blonde hair and one of the finest suits I’ve ever seen. He recognizes me as well, or at least briefly seems to agree that we might have spoken in some loud bar or club, meeting beneath the watchful gaze of some band in some stage in some city. I weave my way through the crowd to him, leading with my left hand, keeping my beer bottle raised high in my right, reaching between the people and row my way through.
Past her.
On the downstroke of my pull, she brings her hand up, our fingers meet in the middle. Each digit touches its counterpart in ordered turn, just the tip, only a fraction of a second before pulling away and letting the next fingers meet.
The wild guitar player steps forward and beats an unearthly solo out of his axe. His body is wracked by the music, head thrown back, eyes lolled, mouth a gaping hole. With a great cheer, every hand in the room goes up, affording me the cover to face the band and do the same, letting the knuckles of my left hand slide delicately up the middle of Eva’s back.
I sink back into the cheering, waving crowd and start pushing back to my newfound best friend. Where did I meet him? What was the pretext? What was the outcome? I don’t even know, and it doesn’t matter either, greeting him is the single most important thing in the world to me, and then, maybe, I can risk a trip back past her again.
He smiles broadly when I reach him. We must have parted on good terms. This is important to him.“Dr. Filth,” he says, shaking my hand, skin mixing with hers, knocking her sacred particles off my fingers. I already feel lost without them. “I haven’t seen you in a while, how are you doing?”
“I’ve been hiding out and all,”
He raises his eyebrows and nods in concession. “Oh really,” he says, not stopping his spastic shake that reaches out past his hand, his upper arms and all the way to his neck, so a good third of his body is involved. The motion is awkward and over-practiced, like he’s never shaken hands with a live partner. “Considering a return to superheroing?”
“That’s never been confirmed,” I say, nodding as I take a swig off my beer bottle. Mine is no massive operation with coordinated body parts. Mine is a quick bob of the head, down, up, done. “Did you know that human beings are the only animals that bare their teeth to signify friendship?”
“Oh really?” he says, trying to keep his eyebrows from furling up in confusion, but I catch the barest flutter of discontent. “I didn’t know that.”
“All other animals do it when they are about to attack,” I say.
He knows I’m testing him now, trying to find his buttons, see what he’s about. His brain is racing, tracing over facts and tidbits, trying to find that coded answer sheet. “Is that something from your show?” He studies me, trying to detect the tiniest motions of my body, nerves triggering the trembling of skin, looking for some clue of how I’m responding.
“Do you watch ‘The Unnatural?’” I ask with a sway and a grin.
Dickweed grins stupidly. “Dude, I love it!” He’s had maybe one, maybe twelve too many beers. “I can’t wait to see where you go next!” he slurs sloppily, slapping the front of my shoulder, but only to lean in and catch his balance on me, drooling down the front of my jacket. I push him back and he says, “Man, that last one was great, with that drunk hillbilly stomping around the woods.”
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