the disappearing blonde

Strange morning. I woke up with the intention of trying to work on a story I had abandoned almost a year ago. Instead, I found myself reading all of the letters I sent to people while I was in Seattle. Odd, it all seems so far away, I can't remember much of it. Was it really that bad? Or was I just really that drunk? I wonder which came first, my decision to dislike Seattle, or Seattle's decision to dislike me? Then I remembered the disappearing blonde…

I was at the Cha-Cha Lounge. It was a great dive, and it was one block away from my hole-in-the-wall apartment. Not that I minded the apartment, it was much better than the crack hotel I first moved into. Besides, it had a great dive one block away.

So I was sitting at the Cha-Cha Lounge, staring at the bartender. She was my favorite at the time, before I had gotten to know too many bartenders. She had the look of an old pulp fiction novel. Raven-haired and busty, with catlike eyes. I was drunk, and every time she poured me a new drink, she flashed me a broken-toothed smile. I loved that smile. I gave her an extra dollar every time I saw it.

I guess I had noticed the blonde, but I tried not to let myself dwell on her. She fit the scene, cute, petite, wearing a “Bjorn Again” T-shirt and baggy jeans. She stumbled a bit as she walked around the bar, which I somehow found endearing, but like I said, I wasn't going to let myself dwell on her.

Two black queens were sitting beside me at the bar, chatting me up.

“And what about you, honey?” one of them asked.

“ What about me?”

“Well, look at you, in your suit all dapper and shit like you looking for something special.”

“No,” I mumbled, “Nothing special.”

But there I was, watching her walk past coming back from the bathroom. She walked past me at first, then came back. “How are you?” she asked.

“ I guess I'm fine.”

She looked at me. She was drunk. “Are you fine, or are you good?”

“Well, hell,” I said, “I guess I'm great.” I don't know why I said that.

“ Give me a number,” she said.

“ What kind of number are you looking for?” I asked.

She shrugged and smiled at me drunkenly.

“ Thirty-seven,” I offered.

She tilted her head back and looked down her nose at me. “Interesting,” she surmised, “I like that.” She shook my hand. And then she was gone.

A few drinks and a few broken-toothed smiles later, I spotted the blonde sitting at a booth with several other people as I was stumbling out of the men's room. She beckoned at me to join them. I was hesitant, but I did. “I'm being beckoned,” I informed the two queens.

As soon as I sat down, everyone else left the booth. I thought it was odd, but reasoned that she wanted to be alone with me. She was a socialist from Austin who had only been in town a month. “You shouldn't smoke Marlboro's,” she told me. She had a voice like sand, and it was now combined with a delightful drunken slur.

I asked her why.

“Because they're sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan.”

“I didn't know,” I explained.

We drank in silence for a moment. She was out of cigarettes. I offered her a Marlboro. She smoked it.

I asked her why she moved here.

“I broke up with my boyfriend,” she told me.

“Why did you break up with your boyfriend?” I asked.

“ Because I moved here,” she explained.

“I guess that settles it.”

She pointed out a young man in a Pepsi jacket. “My friend and I tried to start a fight with that guy, you know,” she revealed.

“ Why?” I asked, “Is Pepsi sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan?”

“No,” she explained, “But I drink Coke.”

I decided that I liked this girl. She was pointless and unintriguing, and everything I had been looking for. I admired her body, and when I looked in her eyes they were very far away. Her voice was a soothingly sandy scratch against the back of her throat. We talked about absolutely nothing for the rest of our drinks.

A man I vaguely knew showed up and sat down with us. His name was Tom. Tom looked at the girl and then back at me, awaiting an introduction. “She's a socialist,” I explained. She nodded.

Tom and I looked at the girl. She looked at something very far away. I excused myself, and went to the bathroom. When I got back, she was gone. Tom shrugged and said, “She's gone.”

“I know,” I said. I never even got her name.
I settled back at the bar to order one last drink. I even got an extra dollar ready in case the bartender flashed me one of those broken-toothed smiles.

She did, then she said, “Did your little bird fly away home?”

I took my dollar back.

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