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"My heart is more the atom than the atom," said the red-dressed man, which hardly seemed on the topic of football.
"So . . . why did the Packers win?"
"Bret Favre knows."
"I'm sure Bret Favre knows, but if you're gonna tell me it's not 'cuz a Desmond Howard, I'd like to hear what you know."
"Oh, well, Desmond Howard knew too, or at least he felt it when he was running back those kicks."
"So, what did they know?" I was beginning to regret starting the conversation, but there's something sad and sympathetic about a fella dressed in a red tuxedo and drinking by himself.
"Hm," he seemed irritated, too, but I was the one sticking to the subject, "I told you — the heart is more the atom than the atom."
"So they knew that, so they won?"
"Exactly," the guy seemed a little sad and flustered. He took the shining satin top hat off, set it on the bar and rubbed his pale, bald head. "That's why anybody wins."
"Okay . . ." and I let it drift, hoping the conversation would die. Two drunk lovelies had just come around to our side of the bar, abandoning the pool room to focus on drinking. If I could smoothly get away from Mr. Crimson, I had the perfect opportunity to cool buy some shots.
Just as I was about to slide off the stool and find one nearer the jiggling mid-riffs, old red busts out, "They're cutting the atom smaller and smaller — that ain't the atom, but if you make your will indivisible, you win."
I was already looking away, so I smiled, hmphed, "really'd," waved at Emerson the bartender, who knows how I tip, and called for four shots of Patrón. I had only meant to ask for three. I looked back at Red and he was smiling calm and confidant, "You see?" Knowing I was already pretty well on the way to the floor, I blew off what looked like red smoke swirling in his pupils.
The girls were giggling and glancing at him. He waved them over. "Come on, meet the silly old man and his generous young friend." When the girls laughed and bounced over instead of laughing and bouncing away, I looked back to this guy, looked him in those swirling eyes and understood what he was talking about; he smiled paternally and I, gratefully.
We lined up along the bar, the two young ladies between us and as Emerson handed out the shots and limes, the bald head scanned us. We looked at each other anxiously. A discomfiting energy had clouded the air. "Okay, no introductions; shoot up; sit down; and I'll tell you a story you won't interrupt." The discomfiture pulled tight into a trance, all four of us sucked the smooth burn, fought it down with the sour citrus and took our seats. As if we were woven into his words, we were bound to listen silently, accepting every syllable. They wove themselves so tightly in my mind that I can recall them now without need for pause except for cigarette, soda sip and record flip.
"Allright, ya piece-a'shit and honeys—Let me tell you why I get to screw the hot one tonight and this good-lookin' fella's gonna get second comins while the other thinks of me."
I tried to cut him off out of ego, but he held up a finger and somehow, it silenced me.
"I'm immortal . . ." and he eyed us. I've talked to a lot of crazies, let me tell ya; and you'd think the red tuxedo had blown his chances, but I guess we all thought he was the devil, so we let him go on. "Sh-sh-sh," he shushed, without needing to, "We all are—but I know it because I wasn't born a baby on this planet." He turned to a beer he never ordered and I never saw Emerson bring. "I floated in with a friend of mine on a bit of meteor dust. Funny," he looked off into nowhere in front of him and held the beer near his mouth with his elbow resting like my mother told me not to, "people used to always quibble on that one point — I never could get to the rest; it was always the meteor dust . . . so you'll understand if I just wipe this image away." He started drinking hard on the beer and the world faded until just his words remained.
"Eons and also a moment ago, I recall an amalgamation of general goodness — a feeling you would say. Then, someone or something beside me shifting in a dangerous direction — or so it seemed to my senses at the time, which weren't much. I begot myself in trying to stop him or her or it and once I was begotten, I couldn't be stopped. Unfortunately, neither could I find the thing I was trying to help. Rapidly, I found myself in a general badness.
"I am getting to the meteor dust.
"One cannot flail without arms, but I persisted in a wild effort until I noticed something not quite shaking as it should. I moved to approach it on my will and soon was stuck floating into a more or less neutral state. Noting the improvement, I started to relax. There, I met a friend. On that particle of mass, I heard a buzz or felt a buzz — not intoxication, but a type of talk. I buzzed back.
"Of course, with so little and so much within me — I couldn't relate completely to this other thing, so we chose to separate ourselves. We each took names. One of us would translate to Lotonym, the other to Somatotax. Unfortunately, I can't recall today, on the spinning of this sphere, which I am. So, here you are.
"I was separated from this, you'd say, my friend, when the speck of dust struck this monstrous spinning speck of mud with molten center. If I were bigger, I would call it chewy, but whatever.
"So here you are — listening while I search inside to see if you've seen or heard any trace of my compatriot; I've felt you out — you've hardly sensed him."
So abruptly did his story end that I didn't know to open my eyes for long moments. When empty darkness started looking normal and a little pink, I ripped my lids apart and was in a motel bed with the less attractive lady. I won't note the color of her hair; noting of either would offend my lady-sweet. In the other bed was the other girl, but the red penguin was gone. I can't say if it was beer goggles or the fella's magic, but I saw a deep need to get out quick, so before corroborating anything, I left.
Ryan David Undeen has wrestled with a dirty devil on several occasions and has yet to come out on top. Figuring the best way to beat a monkey is with a stick, he finds himself regularly in a pickle on account of his pacifism; thereby foiled, he refuses to take up fencing. He likes bars, seduction and long walks.