What’s a moment without friends?

If by harlot you mean a bourbon swigging Thai ladyboy just in to the big city after years tending his father’s soybean crop, then yes, yes, she is a harlot.

But you don’t mean that, do you? You don’t mean much at all. You’re just watching. You are just sitting there eating your squid, watching a bus drive past with a giant ad for some sumo wrestler.

Our ladyboy friend is standing nearly-dressed in something akin to spandex. She looks at the sky and knows It’s about to rain. It’s about to rain, and you watch her for another second, hoping something will slip and prove your pointless point. She’s gone after a garbage truck drives by. You don’t see where she went.

Now you see a fat girl say, “toodles” to her mule-faced anyone as you push a sprig of parsley around your plate. He is dressed in filthy clothes and has just enough teeth to give the effect of silent braying.

She’s so fucking fat. He’s going to go on a bender, you can almost smell the alcohol and crack on his breath. You can see the glint in his eye. He will, steal cash from the tin over his mother’s fridge. He’ll be so high that maple syrup will be good enough for a meal.

The fat girl has gotten on a bus. He smiles as it pulls away.

You finish the last of your food and wonder if it is time for you to step out from the audience, and up to the platform. Instead you order another bourbon, perhaps it can lance, the soul-wound, and save you?

You slam it down, and feel the joy as it subtracts enough braincells to make the world a considerable deal less sticky. Now you are ready for the valley of the shadow of dish. The after-dinner nonsense of a man walking home. Becoming part of a world he only watches.

It is a thousand steps from the hole in the wall to the 8th floor of the building where he feigns a life. He can not think through the bourbon, so he feels pretty good. Pretty good.

She lives across the street.

Yes, she is a harlot. Yes, she hates you. Yes, you will find your binoculars and agonize as she yelps in the nearness of orgasmic bliss, while you masturbate in dark room full of molk and nothing more.

The fat girl walks by, looks up, and sees you with your binoculars. For a moment, she hates you too.

She shakes her head, and walks away, sad for you. Wiggling and jiggling and knowing you watch because that is your world.

The harlot lets out her secret, and another customer is happier than he ever imagined.

The ground approaches.

The bourbon is wearing off.

Adrenaline is like that.

A few minutes later a thin young cop with a crooked badge asks everyone he can find. Why?

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