chain. He had decided it was the stupidest, gayest, piece-of-shit gold chain he had ever seen and, furthermore, he wanted it.
“Gimme that fuckin thing,” he said, blearily swiping a flaccid hand toward Ivor’s lack of neck.
Rank was about to lay a hand on his shoulder when Ivor grabbed the tweedle by his jacket and wrenched him forward, about a centimetre from his own glaring nose.
“Buh,” remarked Tweedledee, twisting away, likely being baked by the heat pouring from Ivor’s boiling face.
“You do not put your hands on me.” Ivor spoke these words directly into Tweedledee’s mouth. He was sweating and panting to an extent that made his usual, workaday sweating and panting seem almost temperate — more typical of a senior’s cardio class. “You do not put your hands on me because you will lose those hands, and you will lose the arms attached to those hands and that is when I fucking kill you, do you understand.”
This was something of a new side to Ivor. Ivor had never been much of an orator when it came to bouncing drunks. He did not typically veer off into rhetorical flights of fancy beyond: “I said get the hell out,” punctuated with an inarguable shove.
“Ivor,” said Rank. “Need help?”
Ivor responded by shoving the tweedle hard into Rank’s chest.
“Whoa,” said Rank, stumbling.
“You can help this scumbag by getting him the shit away from me.”
But Tweedledee had already writhed away from Rank and was staggering off to find his bilious brother. Likely it was the nearness of Ivor’s breath that had finally wrung the fight out of him.
“Jesus Christ,” said Ivor, wiping his face on the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Just a onslaught of dicks tonight, Rank. You shoulda seen them going after each other on the dance floor. Broke a whole tray of glasses.”
“They were fighting each other?” said Rank.
“Well until I stepped in they were. Then I had the two little dirtbags all over me.”
Rank sighed. “You want me on the floor?” he asked at last. And didn’t bother to look over at the groan this offer provoked from Kyle.
Ivor did look over, however — then looked around himself as if in surprise, like Kyle’s groan had had the effect of an alarm clock. Then he wiped his face on his sleeve some more and smiled a slick, twitchy smile up at Rank. “No, no, no,” he hollered. He reached inside the coat check booth and took a long haul from a beer he’d been keeping on the counter. “No, no, no, it’s your night off. You have fun, Rank. It’s Christmas. You go on inside and have some fun.” Ivor was speaking so loud it made Rank flinch.
“Well — just . . . give a shout if you need me, okay?”
“I will,” Ivor yelled, bouncing his head around by way of agreement. His nose had begun to run a bit dramatically, so he put his T-shirt sleeve to use again. “I will, son,” he hollered as Rank was moving toward his friends.
“We thought you guys would never get here,” Emily tells them with unmistakable relief. Rank can only imagine the calibre of sexual invitation the girls have been fending off for however long they’ve been sitting here. At the same time, he is thinking what a complete and total pussy Wade is. Wade has obviously made it clear to his beloved in advance that she and her friends would be both welcome and expected. Kyle will never forgive him.
Neither Rank nor Adam, however, particularly gives a shit. On the other side of the table, Adam is busy shaking the hands of the other two girls, so Rank turns his attention to Emily.
“Hey you’ve got some kind of sparkly crap in your hair,” he observes by way of opening gambit.
“Yes,” says Emily. “It’s on my face too.” She gives him a three quarter profile and her face shimmers like fish scales.
“Nice!” enthuses Rank.
“Thank you,” says Emily, smiling her this-is-the-smile-I-give-everyone-whether-I-like-them-or-not smile.
Rank sets himself a task then. Rank decides to see if he can make her smile for real.
He asks Emily what she is studying, and Emily says art history.
“Really?” says Rank. “That’s awesome. I love art.”
“You do?” says Emily.
“Yep. The Impressionists. I like the Impressionists best.” Rank has recently rented a movie that had to do with the Impressionists. Adam recommended it to him kind of as a joke because it was an actual film about Paris in the twenties. Consider it a primer, said Adam.