(10)
— Originally published in the Antietam Review (Spring, 1999)
Continued from page (9)
On the last night of the restriction, the EM club was jammed. But the
beer was good and cold, a lot better than ba-muoi-ba, and cheaper too.
Kerney sprawled in the sand with the usual crowd out back by the movie
screen and drank all he wanted. Griffin sat close by, gazing toward the river,
watching in his head some scene that turned his eyes sad in the moonlight.
The stack of empty beer cans in front of him rose as fast as Kerney’s. The
hint of a breeze brushed the hair at Griffin’s temples, and he turned his face
full to the moon as if listening.
“Hey, kid," Diver said, “got any more pictures of your wife?”
“Let us see ’em, man.” Riley, on crutches, gimped across the sand
toward them.
Griffin eyed the group, then pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. A
string of photos in plastic fell out. Kerney snatched them. The others
crowded around.
“These are neat,” Diver said. “Sweet little brunette round-eye, you lucky
bastard.”
“Looks Italian,” Riley said.
“Puerto Rican.” Griffin turned toward the river again.
“How ’bout that?” Kerney said, warming to the task. “They say them spic
girls just love a good fuck.” He lowered his voice and leaned close to Griffin’s
ear. “You fuck her good enough to keep her home nights?”
Instantly Kerney was flat on his back in the warm sand, his jaw stinging.
Griffin’s silhouette loomed above him against the night sky. His bared teeth
glinted.
“Animal,” the form said with a voice that made Kerney’s hair stand on
end. “You shit-eating pig. You prick—”
Kerney got to his knees with Riley’s help. “Cocksucker . . . you ever
touch me again—”
“Filth, filth, filth!” the figure barked. In the moonlight, it looked like a
rabid animal, hunched forward, nostrils flared. “You make love dirty. How
would you, how would any of you know—”
Griffin covered his face. He was weeping. Like a little kid. No, like the
girls in the bar cry sometimes.
“Stop it!” Kerney got to his feet. “Jesus, I’m sorry. Christ, kid, please
stop that.”
But Griffin was lurching away from them.
“My God, my God,” Kerney said.
“You’re bleedin’, man,” Diver said.
“Why did he say that to me? Can’t stand him to be like that.”
TOM'S TALES