Page 13

DIESEL

M errick insists I open the bar Sunday afternoon since he was forced to close alone. It’s fair, and I’d do the same to him.

Sundays aren’t so bad anyway, and it’s not like I was out all night.

In fact, I should have shown up at the Leaky Skull to help after leaving the wedding, but I didn’t.

I drove to the coast and filled my lungs with salty ocean air. I needed a breather in a big way.

Most women want to be coddled. Showered in shit like jewelry and fancy dinners. Or love bombed. Told they’re pretty and shiny and cute.

They really don’t like it when I don’t let them play pillow princess.

Or worse, when I walk away.

Symphony wasn’t like that. She responded to everything I dished out like she was fucking made for me.

Then we laughed behind a goddamn screen like kids.

I can’t remember the last time I actually laughed.

I have to get her out of my head.

I park my bike out back and start unlocking the series of chains and deadbolts required to keep the riffraff out of my bar when nobody’s there. We covered every window with iron and put in a steel door. There’s some real desperation out here, especially where booze is concerned.

I kick the door open, then lock it behind me. I’ve been attacked more than once in the off hours. Every employee, cleaner, and barback knows to keep this fucker seriously shut tight.

Hell of a life.

But better than pushing pickles.

I flip on the lights. I need to inventory so we can put orders in first thing tomorrow. A couple of kegs were low before I left, and we busted out the last case of Jack.

I don’t generally drink at my own bar, but right now, I could use it to take the edge off my goddamn traitorous thoughts. They keep going back to a glorious patch of pink between Symphony’s legs, her soft thighs, and a soundtrack I replay in my mind like an emo teen listening to Weezer.

And there I am again.

I scribble out a list of supplies to restock and drop onto a stool. The cook won’t be here for an hour. The early shift a half-hour after that.

Maybe I can scrawl her out of my head.

I jerk an order pad out from under the counter. Drawing the scenes burned into my mind used to work in Afghanistan after we’d drag our sorry asses onto our cots after a long, stressful day on patrol.

Everyone hated us there. We got spat on. Shit thrown at us. They resented our presence as troops. They knew we weren’t allowed to do anything to them and pushed back.

The pen is crappy and cheap, but I use it anyway, drawing the most vulgar, pornographic image I can conjure. Her leg on my shoulder, all that pink exposed, open, dripping.

I fill in her breasts, those dark nipples. Her chin lifted. Eyes closed. Her hand is flat against the door.

Jesus, it’s hot. Goddamn.

I rip it off and shove it in my pocket and do another.

Her, hiding behind the screen, naked. She looks up at me, and the fading gold light of sunset caresses her curves.

My hand slows down. Her blonde hair is everywhere, her eyes bright. I can see what I’ve done to her in the rosy spots on her skin. Her breasts. Thighs. The curve of her waist.

I want to preserve every detail, remember every little piece of her.

My throat tightens. Symphony. I’ve captured her.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

Someone pounds on the back door.

Fuck. It’s Jose, no doubt, ready to prep the kitchen.

I tear off the image, but I fold this one carefully before sticking it in my pocket.

Nobody knows I draw. Like, no one on the planet.

I last took art in seventh grade. It bothered me how much energy it took. How I forgot where I was. How much time could pass. It didn’t fit my style. My rep. My attitude.

So, I quit.

Until the patrols. I did hundreds of sketches there, men’s angry faces, babies’ desperate cries. Hungry, cowed women.

I unlatch the back door. Jose takes one last drag off his cigarette and tosses it onto the gravel. “Hey, boss.”

“Hey.” I stand aside and let him by.

He heads straight for the big grill and starts oiling it.

I relock the bolts and turn toward the tiny office piled high with files and samples and broken beer signs. I kick the door shut and take out the pictures I drew.

There wasn’t enough paper for all the sketches I made late at night after patrols. Men on tanks. Dead bodies face down on the street or in the sand.

I used whatever was around, old files, receipts, abandoned book pages. And after finishing, I’d burn each one, having gotten the shitty memory out of my head.

Time to do the same to these. I doubt I’ll ever see her again. I have no way of getting to her even if I wanted to.

That isn’t totally true. My cousin just married her best friend. I could find her.

But I won’t.

I’ll get this one out of my system.

I drag a metal bowl full of change toward me and dump it. The pages catch in my pocket as I reach for them, but I yank them out.

“First you,” I say, dropping the X-rated one on the bottom. I have to sniff, looking at it, remember how she tasted, the feel of her shuddering against my mouth.

Fuck.

I snatch a lighter from my top drawer and set the corner on fire, watching the yellow flame eat its way across the page.

I unfold the other.

The window light. Her body. As the other sketch shrivels into nothing, I hold this one above the bowl.

Just drop it down. Let it go.

But I can’t.

Symphony stares out at me, drawn by my own hand. She’s daring me.

Find me again.

Push my boundaries.

Fuck me, I’m going to have to locate her.

I shove the goddamn drawing in my drawer under a pile of old folders.

Yeah. I’ll be seeing that one again.

No fucking choice.