Monday, September 02, 2002

I think she said her

I think she said her name was Athena.  She sat down and introduced herself, friendly and buxom and tanned, and she told us she was freaked out - on account of her boyfriend, who’d just gone into General - he had shaved his armpits and used new antiperspirant and got a zit - it grew and worsened until it was a festering carbuncle - finally it burst, but inside his armpit, spilling poisons all through his system; he turned red and swelled up, was incapacitated - she took him to the hospital and they thought he had the plague or something -

her brother-in-law showed up about then, asked what we were talking about - I answered “boils” - he said cool, his wife was into cutting her arms with razors - always horizontal, for the appearance of it, she had lots of scars, he wasn’t into telling her how to behave, he’s cool like that, his smile was cold; I’d met him earlier that night in the men’s room, he’d been checking my equipment, very thoroughly I thought, and then he struck up a little conversation, there at the adjacent wall-mounts, how are you (big smile), I’m fine, That’s great (big smile, wink?), I was not in a chatty mood, I felt his eyes play over me, and now he stood here talking to me, told me this was his wife’s sister, they exchanged a knowing glance, he retreated up the stairs but fell halfway - he made a depricating jibe and went on in - I left not long after that, it felt like I had had enough…