Grapefruit Sky

I’m kinda out of juice here he said. Pickles, wine, parmesan cheese, cigarette, searching for salt and sunshine in the snow.

I’m cooking a fish she said, throwing paint at the canvas and wrapping the scarf tighter around her neck. He was worried she might choke.

They were both trying to write, to little avail because the fish were jumping, flying actually, streaks of red and blue flying across the grapefruit sky while she read about tobacco.

It seems reasonable; she frowned, to smoke like the Shamans and the Indians and the Egyptians. I’m a little bit of all of those anyway.

Tango is free tomorrow. It’s chilling to read about poverty and homelessness and when the bathtub drains it makes this sound, like someone with a sinus infection. Mr. Bubbles went out of style with my year six. But I liked that smell, kind of like that bubble gum antibiotic they gave me for pneumonia when I was 11.

The Italian says COCKSOCKET is the word of the day. Your badge is too shiny! she yells at him over her shoulder, yellow hair flying into her face, tearing away wildly in her red mustang, leaving him gagging in exhaust. Later she calls and asks him to come over. To talk. About stuff.

Perhaps we should see someone.

Like a Shaman? She asks curiously, tilting her head to rest lightly on her left shoulder, considerations of paint in mind.

No, like a therapist.

No. She smiled kindly.

No?

No.

(No means no, he thought. She had said it before and it was a true story).

I’m taking the bus to Santa Fe tomorrow she announced tugging a large chartreuse suitcase from the narrow hall closet.

There was no arguing really, just some aimless looking about the room, windows steamed up with cooking.

The phone was an old one, with a receiver and a wind up dial and pipes that had giant cranks to turn them on, to turn them off. It smelled like incense, and candles and white salmon, of wine and pickles, and salt and sunshine and snow.