CHAPTER II. THE DUMP
Your hero bares the truth
I spoke too soon. Heraclitus, we hear you, the world is in flux, the weather will change.
And how! Feral winds had risen, tipping over the garbage, fogging out the sun. But the gales of laughter died, the dropping temperature driving drinkers inside, a remnant shivering in a silent vigil. The flight had one return, the fortune a reversal. The missing person was back.
Invitation? The lips were black. The scowl withdrew all welcome. Your painter must now drain the canvas, dull the plumage, cloud the eyes to gray. And I will turn her wine to water, the minuet to a dirge, the dance floor to a dump—like sailors fleeing a sinking ship, the waiters had abandoned the deck to the debris. The sliver of flesh was still in evidence, but no longer licking a glass in mischief, she stuck out the tongue in contempt.
The party was over? The house might still be hopping, for all I knew. But the sliding door, through which boozing butterflies had flit, was now a shutter of prohibition, the discolored panes a shield of dimly glowing stain. I might also remark the rebuff of a cold metal chair, the distress of an empty glass, the trespass of the litter. A wasteland? Well, it was April, the cruelest month of poem. But the destination was not an outright desert. You might see a penal colony, the remaining bodies under guard. The sentry was stationed in a corner, alone on her feet, her black lips serving notice. Her lighthouse beam swept past my mooring, discovering my witness . . . exposing my guilt? I could not avert my gaze, pulled to her rocks over a forsaken table where shabby starlings were stabbing a plate of pastry shards. The stony edifice scorned my stillborn greeting, as attainable as an Olympic medal to a bedridden invalid.
The deck was dead. And buried were the blessings. A wreath of smoke was conspiring with the fog. A funeral pyre? Well, no bonfire warmed the campers, no grill whet the appetite. The culprit stood downwind. But though her eyes were empty, her stained fingers held the evidence, her black lips proved the vice. I disapprove the habit? I did have a fit—a fit of coughing. A cowboy reclaims his cool, needless to say.
You might presume a provocation. My fellow sufferers pretended not to care. Our scourge took a last drag, tossed the butt, tended to the business. With her foot. We could pretend no more. Some trash! So what, you say? I will tell you what: You profess a love of books? A good lover pays attention!
A foot trod on the glare. A foot trampled out the fire. A foot twisted on the smolder. And the foot was bare . . . a fact I fully exposed, already! I caught the eye of a neighbor, his cocktail in suspension, his arm around his date. The well-heeled executive had ignored my casual insurrection, now we had a bond. What is a man to do?
Merrywood! . . . Some advice? . . . You are beyond help.