Spitting.
Hoby rolled his head past deep auburn hair towards iris’ hazel. Head finished right angling after eyes caught Bernadice’s look first. Finished their roll after, his pupils registered matched mock indignation.
Yes, I said spitting. Not normal spitting either. Not like some Platinum-spoon kid’s butterscotch phlegm ball caught in his throat. When he hocks up, the lung butter half dribbles it out between his lips, most of it landing on his sweater.
Butterscotch?
The color, not flavor. Still not it. Nope. This is high-class professional spitting. Rodeo bull rider spitting. One of those with cheek full of chaw making side money on tobacco spitting distance and accuracy. The best kind of spitting.
Wouldn’t that be brown?
photo by Daniel Agee. all rights reserved.
Hoby, color isn’t the issue here. It’s streak… length of streak and arc. Hell, those are probably straight lines, you know? Only from here the curvature of the earth makes them arc… a long bridge in a fish-eye lens.
Aren’t you just Miss Science.
Miss Sweet Science to you – and all men – mister.
Bernadice thought about it, putting her fists up ready for battle. Once she took out a seemingly nice college boy who turned real aggressive after their Cheesy Bread and Meat Lover’s Special date. Perhaps diced pepperoni had angered him or cold cheese breadsticks. He was demanding, but out of shape. A couple well-placed punches, one to the right side of his nose, the other to the jaw, spread unconsciousness and ripe red arterial blood all over his tan upholstery. Here it wouldn’t be necessary. Not with Hoby.
Want a dip?
You got chaw? Guess a tough beauty like you would.
Hoby? Really? Never. The lake.
It is hot as all get out. Damn sun’s fallen away and it still’s gotta be what? 90?
Plus where we’re lying.
Can’t go ground. Too much glass. And glass is bad…
For the ass, Hoby. Yeah. Can’t harm the skin. Kill my future career.
Bernadice sat up. Stretching, she quickly thought of her fight night, pretending to pop Hoby with the back of her right fist. Legs swung to the left. She hopped down, hitting a perfect landing, raising her arms up for a crowd neither paying attention to her or in attendance at all.
Didn’t know you had your career all set.
Oh yeah. Make smaller bucks being a fitness instructor but get big paydays as a double.
Hoby slid off the front of his Charger. He still loved the sporty bitch, despite her whining. The Midnight Blue baby suffered from a list of ailments chief amongst them fast-worn clutches and a persistent low-rated hacking MPG cough.
Double what? Trouble?
Nope. Ass double. Tits double. Back double. Whatever double. Body double. Got to use this body to my best advantage you know.
You have been blessed.
Work damn hard to keep it looking blessed, but you know that.
Often over the course of their childhood, Bernadice waited. Not as if Hoby was a slowpoke, but his motor, at best a B-plus, could never keep up with her A-plus engine.
It can be a curse too, but I’ll take it.
Now you’re spitting something. Bullshit.
Watch me Hoby Pinder. Watch me. To the lake before the show really starts.
Bernadice knifed through the lake so the water wouldn’t sting her like so many fire ants. Arching her back, she floated, putting her hands behind her head watching color arcs disappear behind the stand of Swamp Oak pushed to the water’s edge by a marauding forest of Douglas Fir on the far end of the lake.
Not a great lake by any standard, Lake Minooka’s depth reached no more than fifteen feet in the high mark of spring. As a subdivision child, she knew nothing about the actual size of an acre. Retired farmers talked about the lake as if she was their consummate lover, saying the female spread over 600 acres. It didn’t mean much to her. With all the lakes dotting the county, Bernadice felt this to be a lake in name only as it was far closer to a pond overstepping its bounds.
She saw no more than five more arcs light up the northern sky when she heard cannonball “kerploosh” bomb the surface. Popping up like a bobber dunked by a smallmouth bass, Hoby’s voice shook out pine cones
Holy shit!
It’s not cold, Hoby. Jesus.
No! My ass and back. Goddamn it stings!
What’s it been? Two hours?
No. Must have hit different last time. Jesus Mother it feels like…
Fire ants?
No, like when your foot is numb and the blood rushes back in all prickly, only with more sting.
Fire ants.
Don’t know about them.
Fall onto one of their anthills. You’ll find out.
Canadian Geese, half-asleep floating aimlessly in the lake, had been startled by his cannonball. Hoby’s bombastic yell sent a few of them airborne to make what V was left after hunting season as they flew to the dark side.
Hoby chuckled quietly about Bernadice’s fire ants before settling with a low-ebbed sigh. A few Australian Crawl strokes moved him beside her. Water lapped over her cheek, a tide in miniature. She gurgled before getting after him.
Dammit Hoby. You’re making waves!
It’s my job.
More than usual.
Hoby stood. Current depth had his 6 foot-two frame nine inches or so above water. Bernadice would drown if she tried it so she stayed floating as Hoby put his left hand onto her sternum. She brushed it off.
Look now, Hoby. The shower. She’s intensified.
Must be close to 11.
I think it’s just started really.
Bernadice turned over. Tops of both feet split water, gathering it onto her soles. Working rapidly, her arms fell in line with her legs as she sprayed Hoby’s face.
Hey! Where are you…?
Back. Better sightline before the show really starts.
Fingers clawing onto the edge of the pier her father had labored so hard to put together and maintain, she pulled her body out of the lake. Water, beading, gravitated to the deck, pulling itself together before re-beading on the clean golden tan varnish eclipsed by night. Her feet took over, getting her more than halfway back before she heard the unmistakable watery swoosh as Hoby shot out.
Towel down, she went prone again. Hoby, head down looking for errant glass, prickly weeds or Garter snakes, walked back up the hill. As he crested he looked. Starlight, brilliant this far away from Spokane, bathed Bernadice. Arms to her side, eyes wide open, she was nearly catatonic. As pale as she was, from a distance you could say she was dead and no one would dare argue.
Umm…
Umm… ummm… what, Hoby. What.
No suit. No… no… cover-up, wrap. Nothing?
No. I want to feel this. Really feel it. Climb up.
Should I…
Do what you want, Hoby. You act like you’ve never seen…
It’s just… well, just… you’re so…
Oh. Come on. Hoby. Seriously. It’s me. Nothing’s new.
Reaching up, she squeezed her breasts.
Parts are all the same. Now, Mr. Pinder, make a decision and get up here. Show’s going to really gear up soon.
Water made the material stick like sweaty spandex on a large woman’s thighs. He struggled, shimmying more than a freshly landed Muskie on her father’s bass boat.
You’re missing some good ones. Need help?
Perhaps I do.
Too bad.
His skin snapped trunks off, allowing them to gravitate to the ground, going as if the water was on the windshield, gathering steam as it clumped back together to reach the bottom before a wiper took out the whole watery gang. Hoby hopped on, laying his body down next to her. He turned on his side to face her.
Turn back.
I want to watch you instead.
Not the intention of being here. This could be your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
So is this.
Turn over on your back before I punch you in the face.
Back to Miss Sweet Science.
How soon we forget.
After a few minutes, they settled. Universe frequented its spitting, running flashes. Every sky layer accommodated viewing, tossing blankets of spectral splendor across their horizon. Bernadice stretched, created an arched vee, running her fingertips across her hips, to the right and left of her belly button as crisp blue and green slashed the night, closing the vee between her breasts.
What’s it like over there?
California?
I don’t think that’s California. We’re pointing north.
Thought you were talking about my…
Current abode? No. We mustn’t.
Mustn’t?
No. No more talk about it.
Just the word. Mustn’t. It’s so…
Unlike me. No fucking kidding. College. Seeps into my brain on occasion. Not by my design either.
Naturally.
Bernadice folded her hands into each other, placing them under her head. Elbows confidently akimbo, she stared straight ahead.
Straight, Hoby.
I’m staring at stars.
Unless the stars are located near my boobs, I think not.
Can’t help it.
Hoby…
Bernadice…
What’s it like over there?
You’ll have to give me more to work with.
Calf drew up into its muscular elongated ball as her right foot pointed to the best of her collegiate track & field and martial arts ability perfectly forward.
Can’t believe you don’t cramp up doing that.
Deep auburn locks, waves drenched in starlight, glinted towards him as Bernadice turned her head.
Hoby, honey… the 400 isn’t for the flabby.
She pulled her glance off him, gazing back north.
Do you think they’re hitting?
Muskie?
No one’s fishing.
Well…
Despite the show, she had to turn. Eyebrows fell to stern, as stern as she could ever make them. Hoby grinned.
Answer, Cheshire.
No. Meteor showers dissipate upon entering the atmosphere.
Not all of them.
You’re right. Not all.
Or dinosaurs would still roam.
Hoby thought of being right underneath the epicenter of this atmospheric avalanche. Sounds of muted fireworks enveloped his ears, bouncing from one hemisphere to another. He desired sonar hearing, Superman’s, to detect sizzling rock burning like dried hardwood, crackling going through each layer, breaking up before impact.
What if they were hitting, Hoby? What would they hit? Seals? Are seals ducking for cover right now somewhere off the Alaskan coast?
Maybe.
Hey, Mr. Happy. Work with me here. Where’s my funny guy?
California.
Told you. Stay here, this moment.
This moment. This moment. Hoby knew moments with Bernadice could be as raucous as a Hell’s Angels convention or more fragile than a hollowed hand-painted egg. Watering his embers, he met Bernadice at her desired spot.
Seals. Poor blubbery fat souls. Swimming like hell avoiding the razor sharp claws of their nemesis Polar Bear only to be clubbed by a meteorite.
Clubbed? Hilarious.
And what of the Inuit, Bernadice? Think of them going on in their Inuitian…
Inuitian?
Yes, with an “a.”
That’s their language?
Your turn to work with me.
Her quick laugh punctuated darkness before Hoby went on.
Coming out of their igloo for a leisurely late night pee, seeing the colors, smiling at what – in their half-sleep walking daze – they assume to be Aurora Borealis only to remember it is the wrong time of the year for that. All of a sudden…
WHAM! Space rocks making new fish holes, turning their landscape to Swiss cheese as they struggle to pull their Caribou leather pants back up and slide into their hovel.
Both fell into their comedy naturally as they had for years since the day in 7th grade they ran into each other in the cafeteria, each one’s spaghetti with ruddy brown mystery meat sauce sliding off their teal trays onto the floor, blending with salad bleached to disguise brown splotches over lettuce leaves. It was a foodtuitous meeting, as Bernadice had called it. Time stopped there. High school saw both separating Sophomore year only to recapture mutual fondness the summer before Junior year until graduation. College, currently concluded, had yet to begin. Summer rolled back five years.
Poor Mrs. Ingridson.
What of the fictitious Mrs. Ingridson. Mr. Pinder?
Struggling to finish a fabulous seven-course anniversary dinner for her hard-working husband.
Hard-working? I hear he cheats.
Yes, he does. But only on his taxes.
Oh, thank goodness for that. Now what of her?
It’s their eighth anniversary as you know.
Who doesn’t?
Quite a celebration when, childless reaching their mid 40s, they renewed their torrid passionate affair.
Talk of the village square.
And squire.
Why of course.
She has worked all day to make it special. She’s in the kitchen. He’s on a stranger’s roof re-shingling, saving certain collapse due to last week’s grapefruit-size hailstorm.
Ouch.
Ouch indeed. He still has a black and blue circle on his left glute.
Bernadice started in a fit of giggles.
Shall I go on or will you cease breathing?
She choked out while breathing in.
Plow forward.
Caesar salad with anchovies…
His favorite.
Lobster bisque.
Hers.
Crab cakes, the fatty kind with whole egg-based tartar sauce.
And two whole lemons sliced in eighths.
Naturally. It’s a subtle salute suitable for the cakes and the crab legs.
King?
Alaskan King he pulled working part-time for his Uncle Rudolpho.
Rudy, as I like to call him.
So where was I? Caesar Salad, the bisque, cakes, legs. 1. 2. 3. 4. Number five. Cioppino.
With all of that, still more seafood?
They live in Alaska.
Ah, right.
Number six – a light lemon chiffon sponge cake.
Dessert?
No, merely to cleanse the palate before the grand double concoction –
Baked Alaska?
And chocolate mousse.
And that adds up to eight.
Hoby thought of his moose as the grand spectacle roared to as climax. A grand specimen of nature, the moose was as tall as the hill Bernadice and he sledded as children; dumb as a rock.
Not exactly. Baked Alaska for dessert fired up atop of a real moose’s palmated antlers.
Back to the story?
That’s part of it.
So sorry.
Think nothing of it. The oven is all set. King crab is broiling. Crab cakes, two oversized ones, sit in a creamy butter sea frying on the stove. Northern lights color panes of the kitchen window as if a Higher Power designed a night rainbow just for them. She is pleased.
But wait…
What?
It’s the wrong time of year for northern lights, as we have learned.
Yes. And she has just realized it.
Shocked?
No. Rocked. Meteorited to be exact. A large one, size of a Chicago clincher…
A what?
Chicago softball. Sixteen inches in diameter.
Damn!
Oh yeah. Took out the stove. Dinner is ruined.
As for Mrs. Ingridson?
Alive, but very… very… crabby.
Bernadice rolled over, clutching her side.
OK. Enough. I’m laughing so hard I ache!
Hobie watched the shower. Colors turned black and white. No grey area at all, he worked his way back to color. Through watery eyes, streaks turned fat, running into on another.
Reminds me of post-impressionism.
Oh, I can see that. Who more than others? Manet? Monet?
CW.
He’d be from…?
Michigan. CW Post. Reminds me of an array of color Grape-Nuts pock-marking the sky.
Bernadice, her laugh so lilting small forest creatures fell on their backs jiggling their little bellies with their own chortles, echoed down to water’s edge. Hoby rolled along, working louder laughter out of Bernadice until she pillbugged.
Pity Kellogg’s and General Mills. I am sure heads rolled in the creative departments when they failed to get out their versions of Impressionism.
God I miss you. I don’t laugh as much without you around.
Hoby reached out. His left grazed her right breast as he slid his hand between her and the Charger.
Not here. Not now. Orion.
Dating an Irish boy?
Not one cavity. She never had one. Teeth like rocks, brilliant polished white quartz. All teeth showed whenever she laughed like that, rocking her head back until her top ten vertebrae displayed her small Eve’s Apple.
Not “O’Ryan” silly boy. Orion… the Hunter. He’s got his bow ready to fire.
I fear not Orion.
Messing with the gods?
He aims, but never fires. Even if he did shoot off, it would have to circle the earth before hitting me.
Would his arrow dissipate in the atmosphere dissipate?
Absolutely.
Allowing saliva to gather, Bernadice watched the meteorite display peter out. She felt like spitting, turning her locks to her left and shooting one off the Charger. She’d get it out, release it to erase. It wouldn’t work. She opted to swallow. Hard.
Never dissipated Cupid’s.
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