From: al677@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jerry Cosyn)
Subject: Dames
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 19:33:15 GMT


     The sky was dark and her teeth shone like Spanish gold in the
moonlight.  I think maybe it was the mustard from the ham and swiss on
rye she'd eaten in the gazebo.  Boy, could that gal pack it away.  She
stood staring at the stars like a child, her mouth open with delight.
Take me, I seemed to hear in the rustling of her origami wraparound.
Take her, dummy, whispered the gibbous moon shimmering through the
elms by the lake.  Keep your distance, snapped the onion and jalepeno
peppers she'd piled on the sandwich.  My mind was a whirl of confusion
and conflicting passions.  Warring electro-chemical impulses coursed
through my veins like Vandals sacking Rome.  In some sort of hazy
emotional defense, my mind split two for one, and while half stood
paralyzed with indecision, gazing into the pores of her forehead as it
glistened with bug spray, the other half took refuge in the memory of
meeting her earlier that evening.
 
     The reptile house at the zoo is usually empty while I read the
obituaries and wait for the snakes to move.  But this time, right in
the middle of my first Cuban cigar, I felt a cool breeze slither past,
and caught a flash of fuchsia in the corner of my eye.  When her
perfume caught up, it snapped my head back like a barroom uppercut,
and there she was.  Tapping the glass and making Mickey Rooney faces
at Zeppo the iguana.
 
     I lit a match and she held my wrist with a hand that said money
and a grip that said Johnny Bench.  I think I caught her by surprise,
because she didn't smoke.  She recovered nicely, purring like a fine
Swiss army knife, and offered to light my cigar.
 
     I've had so many dames walk through that I've covered my heart
with linoleum and put a revolving door at the entrance but one look in
her eyes and I knew she was different.  In two seconds she had me
thinking of doing something I'd never done for a woman before.  Well,
two things, actually.  But the scary thing was that she made me think
of hanging up my gun, for good.  I knew if there was a dame on this
Earth that could get me to do it, this was the one.
 
     I heard bells.  They were alarm bells, and they were telling me
to get out, move fast and don't look back.  I wanted to ignore them,
and I did.  When the sprinkling system came on it was like a splash of
cold water, and I realized the building was on fire.  Five minutes
later we were walking uptown to get a cup of coffee.  I felt my pulse
hammering through me in time with the squishing of her shoes as she
walked, and the touch of her hand on my arm made me want to take her
to Burger King and ravage her at the condiments bar.
 
     Coffee led to pie, and pie to a nightcap at my place on the
shore.  As I hung her Dodger's cap in the closet, I glanced at the gun
hanging beside it, but even giving it all up seemed a small price to
pay for even one night with her.
 
     The next hour was timeless, as we talked and laughed and cleaned
out the kitchen pantry.  It seems the pie had only whetted her
appetite.  When she announced she was going to get another bottle of
wine and walked out under the stars toward the gazebo, I knew she had
no idea where wine is kept.  Her glowing innocence only made me want
her more, to tickle her and wash her back and read Captain America
comics to her under the covers with a flashlight.  I followed her out
onto the damp grass.
 
     Standing there beside the gazebo with the waves nuzzling the
shore and her face turned to mine, eyes half closed, mouth half open,
I suddenly saw myself packing it in, giving up my gun for good and
settling down, and I knew it could never work.  As the mosquitos came
down on us like Red Cross nurses on speed, I tried to explain it to
her.
 
     "Look, doll," I said.  "I know this won't make much sense to you
but I have to say it or I won't be able to look myself in the eye
tomorrow to shave."  She looked at me with a puzzled expression and
gave a gentle tug on my beard.  "That's not important right now," I
said.  "What is important is who I am, and what I do, and how I do it.
And how I do it is with a gun.  Without that I couldn't do what I do.
If I can't do what I do, I can't be who I am, because who I am is what
I do.  If there was a woman in the world who could make me give it up,
doll, it would be you.  But there isn't."
 
     She cried through two choruses of "I Gotta Be Me", but her tears
had no effect on me.  The linoleum was back in place.  She left as the
sun was coming up and the whippoorwills were starting to sing.  As I
watched her climb into the cab of a northbound produce truck, the
whippoorwills faded into silence and all I heard was a mourning dove.
 
     I poured myself three fingers of Old Buffalo Sweat and told
myself to forget her.  It wasn't that easy, but I knew the memories
would fade.  Over the years even the fragrance of her perfume would
disappear.  I wasn't so sure about the sandwich.
 
     Last I heard, she was selling rocks at a flea market in the
Poconos.  They say she never married.
 
     A woman just can't understand that in my line of work, a man
without a gun is at a tremendous disadvantage from the competition.
The gun makes the job easier.  If I had to go back to a roller and
brush, I'd be out of business in a week.  But they can't understand
that.
 
     Dames.