Dispatches from Suburbia

If I played an instrument, I would have a band called "The Simon Thomsen Sex Tape"; and other musings, rants, and disconnected ramblings.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Bathroom Pixie

Quote of the Day: "We've been waiting here an hour. He's peed three times already."
-Fargo

If David were to reveal to Boomer that he had some kind of pixie—a small, glowing woman with silvery wings, a creature no bigger than his palm—living in his apartment, sharing his food, and sleeping in a birdcage hanging from his bedroom ceiling, he’d never hear the end of it. Boomer might laugh. Or Boomer might be concerned about David’s mental health. Either way, David wants none of it.
“Where’s your head at?” Boomer asks as the wrench slips and David smashes his hand on the edge of a keg. They still have six refrigerated beer boxes in three more bars encircling the venue that must be ready to pour beer in the next hour, before the doors open and crowds swarm the hall.
“I’m just tired,” David says. He reapplies the wrench to the nut and twists, attaching the hose to the air tank. He releases the air from the tank and watches the gauge. He stands and pulls the tap handle. Beer flows into the stainless steel drain beneath the tap.
“Done,” he says. “Next bar.”
Boomer pushes the dolly carrying a keg while David frantically wipes the black gunk from his hand with a blue bar towel. “You’re wasting your time,” he says. “We have more kegs to hook up. You’re only going to get dirty again.” But David can’t stand the gunk.
As he scrubs between his fingers, he listens to the keys hanging from Boomer’s belt. It reminds him of the faint jingle he hears from the pixie, or fairy, or whatever it is back at home. He thinks her wings make the sound. In a tinny, confident voice, she’d told him to call her Lucia. “It’s a pretty name,” she’d chimed, “I like the way it sounds.”
“Hey, space cadet, we’re here,” Boomer calls from behind. David had continued to walk while Boomer had stopped at the door of the next bar. Boomer unhooks the set of keys from his belt and searches for the right one. He shakes his head. “Seriously, wake up. Is Rachel on your mind, or what?”
“I’m just tired,” David says.

Lucia had appeared one morning in his apartment’s small bathroom. David was following his normal routine:
8:00 a.m.—Wake up, start coffee.
8:05 a.m.—Take piss, brush teeth.
It was here that David had heard the jingling. At first he didn’t hear anything, the sound of his urine hitting the water overcoming the sound of Lucia’s wings. But when he was done he grew confused—his mind in that his early-morning, groggy daze—because he’d finished pissing, and yet he still heard some jingling that, at first, he’d assumed was still piss hitting water, though he wasn’t even pissing, but then he sensed the glow somewhere to his left. He turned his head and there she was, floating above the sink, a tiny pixie, a glowing figure of a woman suspended by such fragile looking wings, similar to those of a dragonfly. She seemed nude, but she had no distinguishing features, not even nipples or a navel, just the shape of a perfectly-formed woman floating above the sink, two bright white pinpoints for eyes, peering from her yellow glow.
Embarrassed, David pulled himself back into his boxers and flushed the toilet.
“Excuse me,” he said, slowing moving towards the faucet handle. As he washed his hands, Lucia said, “My, for a bachelor you sure keep a clean home.”
“Thanks,” David said apprehensively, turning off the faucet. He dried his hands. Suddenly, he felt a tightness in his stomach. He checked the clock above the toilet: 8:10. “Shit,” he said. He’d fallen two minutes behind schedule.

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