Read Online Beneath the Neon Egg by Thomas E. Kennedy - Free Book Online
Authors: Thomas E. Kennedy
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presumes, something like: The shower does not always function optimally. If it doesn’t work, try again . No, not quite. He’s not certain the Danish sentence is valid. Maybe written by a foreigner, translated from a bad translation from the Japanese. His temples throb.
No translation today. Take your Saturday as a day of rest, of play.
He considers calling Benthe. He’s horny. Got the hangover horns. She’s so goddamn sexy. But that’s a can of worms, and he finally got the toothpaste back in the tube by lying to her, telling her he had a girlfriend, so why try to open it again. He thinks of calling the woman with the white lace garter belt, but he can remember neither her name nor precisely where she lives. Simplest thing is to have a honeymoon of the hand. Up like a skyrocket, down like a stick .
The sky is now a paler blue but the moon is still visible, and the sun has not yet reddened the tops of the trees or the upper windows across the lake. He thinks of crawling back into bed, does sit-ups, staring up at the white ceiling, until he can do no more, and lies back breathing heavily, his forehead and back clammy with sweat.
This is good for you , he thinks. To suffer .
Something makes him think of Sam Finglas, that door, the Satin Club, that woman. He remembers Birgitte’s light eyes, her mouth. He gets up and looks for his coat, finds it slung across the armchair, and in the pocket the coaster with her number on it. The moon is just over the tops of the buildings across the lake now. There is an icing of white frost on the street and roadway, on parked cars and on the frozen lake.
The moon has grown paler in the sky. He drinks a glass of tomato juice and imagines another night in the bars listening to a jowly Scot trying to imitate Roger Whittaker singing the bloody streets of bloody fucking London.
Hour be damned. He picks up the phone and keys in Birgitte’s number. It rings eight times before it clicks off, unanswered. He taps out the number again, carefully. No answer.
He feels stupid, wonders if she gave him a phoney number. But why? He didn’t ask for it. It was her idea. He tries again, gets a sleepy woman’s voice, asks for Birgitte and is told she is spending the weekend with her mother in Odense. Which makes no sense, but he hangs up and looks out the window to see the red tint of sunlight on the treetops and roofs. He does another set of push-ups, needs something, music. Aura is still in the CD player. He punches the button to start it and makes a cup of Nescafé, which he drinks at the window, allowing the strange compelling swells of sound from Miles’s horn to sweep over his body. He watches a rook walk along a benchtop on the lake bank below, a jogger moving swiftly along the opposite side, a flash of gulls lift from the ice.
His gaze fixes on the tilted monolith, the Peace Gate, frozen in its fall. Now there are two rooks, facing each other with bowed heads. A blonde girl passes, walking a black-and-white cocker, and the sunlight has made its way to the red brick on the other side. A couple jogs past in fuchsia sweats.
He wants to get out. Get showered, get dressed, get out! Thinking of a place to go, he gathers some copies of old New Yorker s, one of his self-indulgences, and finds a plastic bag to carry them in.
Grateful for his legs, his feet, which carry him briskly along Webersgade, beside the many-colored faces of its narrow row houses, across Silver Square, past the Café Under the Clock, into the open gate of the Botanical Garden, diagonally across through the barren winter trees and bushes, each labeled neatly in Danish and Latin. Bluett cannot retain the names. He is aware that he sees trees and bushes, even flowers, generically mostly.
No, he can remember every tree and bush and flower in the garden that he shared with his ex and his children for all those years in the Brønshøj house, by the moor, until he became invisible in his own house. Not to the kids. Never to the
No translation today. Take your Saturday as a day of rest, of play.
He considers calling Benthe. He’s horny. Got the hangover horns. She’s so goddamn sexy. But that’s a can of worms, and he finally got the toothpaste back in the tube by lying to her, telling her he had a girlfriend, so why try to open it again. He thinks of calling the woman with the white lace garter belt, but he can remember neither her name nor precisely where she lives. Simplest thing is to have a honeymoon of the hand. Up like a skyrocket, down like a stick .
The sky is now a paler blue but the moon is still visible, and the sun has not yet reddened the tops of the trees or the upper windows across the lake. He thinks of crawling back into bed, does sit-ups, staring up at the white ceiling, until he can do no more, and lies back breathing heavily, his forehead and back clammy with sweat.
This is good for you , he thinks. To suffer .
Something makes him think of Sam Finglas, that door, the Satin Club, that woman. He remembers Birgitte’s light eyes, her mouth. He gets up and looks for his coat, finds it slung across the armchair, and in the pocket the coaster with her number on it. The moon is just over the tops of the buildings across the lake now. There is an icing of white frost on the street and roadway, on parked cars and on the frozen lake.
The moon has grown paler in the sky. He drinks a glass of tomato juice and imagines another night in the bars listening to a jowly Scot trying to imitate Roger Whittaker singing the bloody streets of bloody fucking London.
Hour be damned. He picks up the phone and keys in Birgitte’s number. It rings eight times before it clicks off, unanswered. He taps out the number again, carefully. No answer.
He feels stupid, wonders if she gave him a phoney number. But why? He didn’t ask for it. It was her idea. He tries again, gets a sleepy woman’s voice, asks for Birgitte and is told she is spending the weekend with her mother in Odense. Which makes no sense, but he hangs up and looks out the window to see the red tint of sunlight on the treetops and roofs. He does another set of push-ups, needs something, music. Aura is still in the CD player. He punches the button to start it and makes a cup of Nescafé, which he drinks at the window, allowing the strange compelling swells of sound from Miles’s horn to sweep over his body. He watches a rook walk along a benchtop on the lake bank below, a jogger moving swiftly along the opposite side, a flash of gulls lift from the ice.
His gaze fixes on the tilted monolith, the Peace Gate, frozen in its fall. Now there are two rooks, facing each other with bowed heads. A blonde girl passes, walking a black-and-white cocker, and the sunlight has made its way to the red brick on the other side. A couple jogs past in fuchsia sweats.
He wants to get out. Get showered, get dressed, get out! Thinking of a place to go, he gathers some copies of old New Yorker s, one of his self-indulgences, and finds a plastic bag to carry them in.
Grateful for his legs, his feet, which carry him briskly along Webersgade, beside the many-colored faces of its narrow row houses, across Silver Square, past the Café Under the Clock, into the open gate of the Botanical Garden, diagonally across through the barren winter trees and bushes, each labeled neatly in Danish and Latin. Bluett cannot retain the names. He is aware that he sees trees and bushes, even flowers, generically mostly.
No, he can remember every tree and bush and flower in the garden that he shared with his ex and his children for all those years in the Brønshøj house, by the moor, until he became invisible in his own house. Not to the kids. Never to the
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