Bad Hemingway

That’s what we say in Idaho. We all say it, now that we all know it to be true. They know it and I know it too, though we don’t talk about it, not ever. Not once even.

I go to the window and push the ferns aside. They’re big and their size reminds me of other ferns of the same size that I must have seen before in other places much like this one where I am now, but located in other areas, other regions, indeed other locations, by which I mean to say not here, in this place. Where I am. I can’t get over these damn ferns sometimes.

With the ferns safely strewn all over the floor I whistle and Marianne comes running to the kitchen with my binoculars.

“Mushrooms al dente,” I say.

She licks my eye socket. “Quite.”

She’s a damned trollop. I leer at her queer face. Taking my binoculars in hand, I turn back toward the window. It’s then I realize Marianne is my cat. Unperturbed, I shrug and look through the binoculars to Harry’s Bar & Grill in my back yard. I have a little sign over the door and everything.

I built it myself, if you can call that damned piece of horseshit a building. It’s been built and it’ll stay built, especially when Marianne gets her whiskers wet in the brandy just before she looks over her snifter at me to ask, 'que pasa?'. That’s when I usually roll over and toss the lamp across the damn room. She’s a damned trollop and I can’t do a thing about it.

The creatures are there, at Harry’s. I named the damn place Harry’s because I thought it would make a swell name for a place to have as a requirement in a writing contest much later, after I’m dead. And gone. The creatures meet at Harry’s to catch the musky odors and drink the warm cider. Cider is for sissies. I’m sure M. would like some. I’d like some too.

I went out back with my shotgun. The creatures are still there, all of them, the ferrets, weasels, deer and birds drunk on cider and sex, species of no consequence as they let their inhibitions flop and flap and fly to roost out of the way, patiently roosting and stationary.

I chase them all away in a drunken fury and get an erection as I realize the cider is now mine to keep for myself. I drink a lot of the cider and exclaim to M. how grand it all is, but she hasn’t bothered to show up yet. Once again I am diluted, diffuse, nonplussed, astringent and tedious.

I have another handful of the cider then wipe my damn mouth as I sing an old war song and go back to the house. I sit around the rickety old house and have another glass of grappa with M. She is freezing now. I want to go back to Harry’s.

So I go back there and now she’s with me. We both have a bunch of the cider and M. tells me it tastes like apples in autumn after they’ve been squished. When our two brains lock that way, sometimes it gives me the shivers.

“Mine too,” I reply.

“Your damn what?” she says.

“Goddammit woman.” I’m snarly beyond belief. “For chrissake...”

She climbs inside my nose and I make myself sneeze just to get her out of there. It’s then I realize I’m standing in the kitchen at the window and I don’t have a cat at all, not a single damn one. Perhaps I have a goldfish.

“Screw you, Marianne, I’m going back to Harry’s,” I said.

“You mean Harry’s Bar and Grill?”

“What the hell do you think I’ve been saying for the past three days? Can’t you keep a straight face?” I said.

I went back to Harry’s like I said I would, and had some more of that damned cider. “Oh Christ,” I thought, as I cartwheeled back to the house. I had some more drinks there. Then I went back to Harry’s, and finally some other joint and finally ended up back here before returning to Harry’s for more cider. I must have drank all the goddamn cider there ever was.

When I finally got back to the house at last, there was M., gone. “Screw you, bitch,” I said to an empty wall. The painting that had once hung there christ-like had long since ceased to do so, but the nail that had held it was still stuck in the wall and this I addressed, taking comfort in the fact that I now had something to focus on since the room was about to start spinning anyway, I figured. “Dammit,” I said to the nail.

“Screw you,” the nail replied, “I’m going to Harry’s - Harry’s Bar & Grill that is, don’tcha’ know.” Nonplussed and rickety, I agreed. You can’t argue with a nail anyway. It’s just too damned impossible. I’m sure they’ll start saying that in Idaho soon. All of those bastards.

I click my rubber boots together and am shortly back at Harry’s among the creatures and the cider. It’s a damned crazy way to live but I’ll stay here at least until Marianne comes back if she ever does, if I even care.

And I don’t. But if she wants me I’ll be out back I tell her as she heaves me out into the yard. Soon I’ll be back at Harry’s. Where the hell else can I go?