SKIRMISHER

Look at you. Aren’t you just all dolled up? How cool you’re standing there like that toothpaste TV ad. Sucking air through your teeth. Staring into the glass and wondering what you’re doing here, anyway. You’re thinking, This is how Elvis did it.

You gaze across the maddening hyperspace and still, she’s on the bar stool. She’s laughing like a schoolgirl with a honeybee up her underwear. She’s laughing like a horny Madonna of the Rocks. Because, indeed, she might be horny. And everybody knows it.

And in the back of your mind, you’re asking, What the fuck am I doing here?

More…

At the far end of the room,

Staring into my empty glass?

In your head, you say it’s because of the music. Kruder and Dorfmeister are so 1990s, that tiny boy in your head says, but who cares?

You’ll get laid tonight, the tiny boy in your head says.

Tonight.

You look across the space. There’re all the lasers, the neons criss-crossing like deathrays. There are all the zombie-teenagers flopping their arms around like scarecrows in a nasty twister. Their eyes staring at nothing. Their faces all sweat and emptiness.

You gaze across the space and for a millisecond, she looks in your direction. And your heart bursts.

And you tell yourself, It’s time.

Yeah, it’s time.

It’s time to name your testicles.

How about, Little Boy and Fat Man?

Alright. Little Boy and Fat Man.

Go ahead. Glide over there and tell her exactly that. Serve her the best pick-up line a guy on this side of town could ever invent.

Say to her exactly what’s in your heart. Say to her, “I call my balls ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man.’”

Then show her the hole on your socks. And your tangerine boxers. Give her a whiff of your minty fresh breath. Because with all things being equal, you’re just a cut above the rest, aren’t you, cowboy?

Circa 2006. Remember this year. The year you’re kissing the Darwin Awards.

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