I once handed my ass down in one of those jobs you asininely sign a contract with so they could formally tax you without question. I didn’t mind then, as long as someone rubs your back in a day’s work you could just persist like any other fresh employee. Not very healthy though, I’ve compulsively fired myself from the job.
Glen was one of those friends who would latch themselves for a partner in crime. His leverage was women, while I fit the profile as one of those taciturn, enigmatic types women love. I wouldn’t despise him for it. In fact I needed it. At most instances I needed the flesh-peddling for a short while, despite how shitty it feels now to think I could be one of those men Sin would be after.
Glen, in an evening, gave me one of those fleeting calls where I could clearly discern the shrill giggling of women in the background despite the blare of substandard pub pop music. “Head to Bistro Bar at P,” he said, “there’s someone who loves to meet you.”
I didn’t speak much when I came in. The way one of Glen’s female acquaintances leered at me like one of those brooding tortured artists made me think I should keep it that way. Glen had his own gist in selling himself with chivalrous fashion, despite how crass and inferior he treats them the next morning. His selection of women would always be something effortlessly malleable against his intellect: pretty but stupid, the intellectually challenged measured in contrast to the effort to slip on a tight dress and flawless makeup.
It never occurred to me how my own standards would tether more in a way Shirley Manson would be proud. I’ve always appreciated the pretty and dense, as long as I wasn’t opposed to or derided. The thought that Sin could whittle on my ego like a waste shredder always intimidated me.
The girl, eyeing me in her fake lashes and purple eyeshadow, peered coyly whenever I checked my phone. The pub began playing every familiar 90’s alternative music that made me nod my head subtly to its beat. The girl, much to my disappointment, took effort in naming each one of them. But never has my stomach been churned upon hearing Billy Corgan grunge-croon the lyrics “The world is a vampire.”
I chuckled, indiscriminately. The girl pointed out how the song sounded familiar.
“Smashing Pumpkins,” I replied, “it’s Bullet with Butterfly Wings.”
She asked curiously if the song reminded me of something. To which I bluntly replied, “Yeah, a girl.”
The conversation proceeded to her asking if the girl I was pertaining to was pretty. I curtly replied, “No, she’s not.” Then excused myself with gracious subtlety.
I shouldn’t be dialing her number outside the boisterous rubble of the pub, but I’m this half-assed, inebriated piece of shit who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. So there I stood, listening impatiently to the pending call monotone weaving some trifling pep talk in my thoughts. I couldn’t even tell if Sin’s equally lackluster ‘hello’ sounded worse than the monotone.
“I’m drunk.” I said.
I heard Sin’s gust of a sigh on the receiver. “Of course you are.”
“Why do you have to call me, Sin?” I went on, “you can just take it in like you always do or relate your life story to the next asshole you’ll have for dinner, but it always has to be me. Because deep inside that cold dead body of yours you feel so fucking lonely, and I’m the only one who understands.”
“Are you done?” Sin retorted.
“No, fuck I’m not done.”
“Then where the hell are you?” Sin’s voice was grim.
“Why the fuck should I tell you?”
“Because I can tell you’re in a fucking pub and you won’t shut up.”
“So I’m expendable now, you’re threatening me because I know a lot about you?” I said, then paused for a moment, trying to anticipate an uproar at the end of the line, but instead heard nothing from her.
I went on, “Let me tell you something. You’re invading me, invading every corner of my thought and I don’t know if I’m unintentionally trying to meddle into your life, or afterlife in your case, but I can’t fucking help it and it’s killing me. I killed you and it’s killing me.”
My voice faded. On the other end it was silent, then a soft utter, “Then you know what it feels like,” Sin replied, “I love this city, Cal. I want to bask in it, to relish it, too bad I can only slink around it and watch it from afar.”
I couldn’t tell how long I’ve been placated, standing in the dark while people passed. There was a long period of silence between both of us, one deliberately composed in her reveal while the other in utter numbness. I drew the phone away, composed myself in a single breath and placed it back against my cheek. “Is that what this is,” I said, “the only reason why you haven’t killed me yet. You wanted me to feel that misery?”
A period of silence from the other end. I jeered. “So this is about you after all.”
A hand tapped me in the shoulder, more like a lunge and a slap to meet my own height. Purple Eyeshadow from before looked at me with a wide, mischievous grin and cried out, “Is that the girl you were talking about? Tell her we’re at the Bistro Bar here at C Street. We’d love to meet her. Oh wait, never mind,” she trailed her fingers down my arm with a salacious glint in her eyes, “tell that girlfriend of yours to leave you to me.” Her fingers trailed down my hand, grabbed my phone, and held my wrist with the other as she led me back in the pub to join the others.
I grinned. Girls like her, vague on other things, yet subtle in harvesting pure, undivided attention, it was nothing to be contrite about.
I sat down with them, lit a cigarette while Glen handed another bottle of strong beer, something to compensate with those few minutes of tottering back into sobriety. The girl, propping an elbow on the table, leaned towards me with less transparent titillation, and handed back my phone. She had to eye my hand invidiously until it had my phone slipped securely in my pocket. Her gaze then returned to me, taking a chug from her own bottle before she spoke.
“Didn’t you say your girlfriend’s ugly?”
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