Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,26

be doing this. Because if I make it to the Red Edge and Sasha’s there, I’m gonna tell her everything. I’m not going to hold back, because it’s all right here, pulsing through my veins with a languid thump, tickling the edge of my tongue like a fireball I need to spit. I have truths to tell, and this alcohol-soaked frenzy provides a perfect excuse to shun reason and hurl it all out into the night.

I wonder where I should start. How do you begin to tell such a ghastly tale? I hang a left off Flatbush Avenue and wander into the Slope. It’s late, and only a few night cabs and barhopping stragglers flit back and forth through the streets like exiled angels. After a couple wrong turns, I stumble into the Red Edge.

She’s not here.

Fuck.

It’s probably good though. I station myself at her table and order a beer. I’ve arrived, after all. Might as well celebrate. When I close my eyes, the blobs of light spin circles around me. It’s time to go. The hipsters glance at me like I stepped out of one of their nightmares. Maybe I did. Or maybe we dreamed each other up, and the Red Edge is just where everyone’s nightmares come to drink together. Surely, once Sasha figures out who I really am, I will be the stuff of sleepless nights and sudden wake-ups for her too.

It’s definitely time to go.

I close my eyes to ready my body for motion again, and when I open them there’s a white girl sitting in front of me. It takes me a second to break through my delirium and realize she is in fact really there. Then I realize it’s one of the Amandas. I open my mouth to say something and then close it again. I have no reason to know her name. As far as she is concerned, I have never seen her before in my life. Then why is she sitting there staring intently at me?

“Hello,” she finally says, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Hey.”

“I’ve never seen you in here before.”

“I’ve never seen you in here before either.”

She laughs and does a pretty good job of making it sound real too. “Well, I come here all the time.” This conversation is going nowhere. “You, sir, are the stranger.”

I’m not even sure what I say back, something mostly unintelligible that makes her laugh again, and that’s when it finally kicks in: Amanda wants to bone. Or at least get my phone number. I squint at her and allow the tiniest sliver of her thoughts to materialize in the air. Yes, she definitely wants penis. The hunger lurks around her in unmistakable torrents. And me? I’m a new face. A dapper, tall fellow in a room full of mostly scrawny unkempt dudes.

It’s just never happened to me before. I don’t really go out besides to the Burgundy. I have no idea how any of this works.

“What’s your name?”

“Carlos.”

She smiles. For a grim moment, I can see it all play out—the frenzied taxi ride home, the scurry of clothing being peeled off, the magnificent entrance and then the untold wonders of a night of passion—and I want it. I can even taste the chance of total mediocrity and still: I want it. If nothing else, because it would cap off a terrifying day with a dash of ruckus pleasure. But even through my drunkenness, I know better.

“What do you do, Carlos?”

“I’m a contracts analyst.”

“Ooh, sexy!” She says it mockingly, but it rings true anyhow. Half of me is about to leap across the table and take her right here and now. She’s not bad looking, a little odd perhaps, but the sheer sex radiating from her body is working its magic on me. All those crude fantasies heavy up the air between us.

“Why don’t we get out of here?” I say, even though I’m pretty sure that’s not such a good idea.

She looks down at the table, then raises her eyes to meet mine. It’s a little forced, but still cute. Or maybe I’m just drunk. There’s a sadness around her that I can’t put my finger on. Once I notice it, it becomes even more intense, and I wonder how I could’ve missed it. She’s devastated. “Yes,” Amanda says with a crooked smile. “Let me just tell my friends.”

I wait for her to get up, but instead she just pulls a little calculator-looking thing out of her purse and