Dante approached because he liked her pink hair and the little tattoo of a yellow star. Elegant. He hooked a sneaker into a stool rail and ordered a beer. And then he tapped her on the shoulder, gently, next to the star. But not on the star.
“Here with anyone?”
She turned to do a sneak-a-peek glance over the shoulder yet didn’t make eye contact. “No.”
“So you’re alone?”
“Correct.” Her drink of choice was a Bloody Mary. She tipped her head back and swallowed until an olive came close to her lips, but she didn’t let it slide in. When she put the glass back onto the counter, the olive slowly sunk down into a cloud of tawny red.
“I’m alone too,” he said, more to himself. The bartender, a rail-thin tattoo canvas himself with a scraggly beard and nose piercing, slid a beer across the counter. The bartender’s fingers read, Love Sucks, but when Dante rearranged them the letters read, Luck and then two s’s and the ove. Dante wished the extra letters made a real word. It probably did, but he was dyslexic and currently brain frazzled. Life would do that. “I like the star,” he said.
The girl rubbed a casual hand over it, like it would brush away. “Thanks.”
Voses.
Not a word.
“Hey,” Dante said, planting his ass on the stool, “what’s wrong? You always this way?”
“Not always. Just tonight.”
“How come?” He nudged her thigh with a his knee. “What’d the world do to you?”
When she looked at him, he saw that her eyes were green like sea glass. Maybe it was the pink hair in contrast, but at that moment they were the greenest green he’d ever seen.
She sighed. “Have you ever heard about cephalopods?”
“Uh, maybe.” He’d heard the word but couldn’t recall any details. Cephalopods, cephalopods.
“Cuddlle-fish,” she said.
Dante pictured two trout hugging each other and then cleared his head.
“Yeah, no. I don’t remember. Sound friendly though.”
The bartender ran a hand through a frizzy beard. Sucks.
“It sounds like cuddle-fish, but it’s cuttlefish. Common mistake. They live in the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia, and also Indonesia,” she said. “A class of squid.”
She waited for him to look excited, but he couldn’t muster it.
“Sorry, don’t know anything about them.”
“A lot of people don’t,” she said.
Dante took a sip of beer. A long one. Half of it was already gone. He’d just been to his uncle’s wake. And now he was lonely. Lonelier than ever.
Uncle Rev Gone.
How gone was gone?
He eyed the chick again and wondered if he had the drive to ask her home. Sometimes he felt so wiped.
In the hospital, Uncle Rev would tell him he was tired, but not too tired to talk. His face had been bone and yellow, jaundice chicken skin. He’d say, Come sit by my bed, Dante, and we’ll shoot the shit. Needle in his arm and nurses coming and going.
Weeks and weeks of chemo, and he’d see something on TV about a dog getting abused by some asshole, and say, Poor thing.
Evoss.
Dante drained that beer like it was an IV hooked to his mouth.
“Tell me more. Tell me about the cuttlefish.”
“Okay.”
He motioned to the bartender.
Another.
“They survive by using chromatic aberration,” she said. “That means they’re electric chameleons.”
“Oh really?”
Sometimes he felt like a chameleon.
The last three months had been a dry spell. A desert. Uncle Rev. The breakup. Regina hadn’t liked Dante’s new job. Didn’t have the nerve to say she just didn’t like him. Trouble was, she liked someone else.
Maybe this chick would do the same. Did anyone know how to stick to one person? God, all he ever wanted was a commitment that lasted past two years. Was it too much to ask? He’d head down the street to another bar.
They were all the same, the bars and the women.
There was nowhere to go but here.
“Well anyway, my name’s Dante. What’s yours?”
“Lola.”
“Nice to meet you, Lola.” He thought of the Kinks’ song. La, la, la, la.
Lola.
“Why do you like these cuttlefish so much?”
“Because they’re beautiful.”
“Beautiful, like you . . . Lola?”
She didn’t look at him after he said it. And then he wished he hadn’t said it.
“Tell me more about them. I really want to know. Honest.”
She twisted on the stool. “Okay. The cuttlefish are a direct symbolic representation of everything in our life. Once I found that out, it was as if I knew what God was, or Jesus, or Santa Claus. I just knew.”
There were shadows under the sea glass.
“Knew what?”
“That life is short.”
And blue veins showing through pale skin.
She smelled familiar.
What was it?
What did she smell like?
Vesos.
“Well, yeah,” Dante said. “It is for some folks, I guess. Me? I’m going for a hundred.”
“They live only two years, tops. That’s not very long.”
“It’s better than a fly.” Gone.
“To them it feels like forever.”
Another dude walked up and hovered next to Lola on her opposite side. When he whispered something, Dante cleared his throat. “Hey, Lola, can I buy you a drink?” He didn’t like the look of the guy. Scrawny. Strange.
“But I haven’t finished this.” She still had the olive.
“I know, but it’s almost gone. Last chance before I revoke the offer.”
“All right, then. A beer this time.”
Dante signaled for the bartender to bring two, yet another one for him and one for her. The other dude got the hint and headed to some other chick. Some chick with normal hair and no star.
“So, they don’t live long,” he said. “That’s how nature works. You can’t be sad about that.”
“But I am. It’s July and July is mating season. They’re all dying now.” Lola rubbed the star and it played peek-a-boo between her long fingers, like an old nickelodeon. He’d seen one once in Seattle. “First, they mate.”
“Oh, really?” Dante asked. “Tell me about that.”
“Well, you see, the procreation field is composed primarily of the male cuttlefish. When a rare female approaches, the men go crazy, flashing their lights and patterns, all in an act to impress her. If she isn’t impressed, she won’t mate. Typically the largest male wins out. But once the female signals an invitation, there’s trouble.
“The males go into battle, grabbing onto each other, pulling and twisting until the weaker one gives up. Then, the winner takes his prize, the female, and off they go.”
Her fingers came together to demonstrate. “The male wraps his tentacles around the female, forcing her to face him, then he inserts a sperm sack into an opening near her mouth. It doesn’t sound romantic, but it is. Sometimes a smaller male cuttlefish who’s disguised his body to look effeminate will come along, and while the larger male is tricked, the smaller one mates with the female too. It’s done to ensure both large and small specie propagate. I figure the larger male understands, or he wouldn’t allow it to happen.”
Lola swished her old drink and stared at the floating olive.
“Cephalopods die after procreation. Slowly at first, then at lighting speed. A mere matter of days. The colors fade, the eyes go cloudy. It’s as if all their life force is gone, just because of that one mating session. But it’s the most beautiful thing to them. A moment of completion; of purpose. Without it, their entire existence means nothing.”
Their beers were set down and she reluctantly slid the Bloody Mary across the counter to the bartender.
“Dante? They do it willingly. The female knows. The male knows too. Like they are psychic. Cephalopods have a very short life cycle and I guess they know it’s their fate to die like that, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. Do you see what I mean that we’re all like the cephalopods? Do you see what I mean, Dante?”
Dante slumped on his stool.
“So, Lola, thanks for teaching me about the cuttlefish. Now when someone asks me, I’ll know. I have to get going.”
Goodbye, pink hair. You’re beautiful but I can’t handle this. I need to be around someone who doesn’t talk about death. Someone who’s here.
The vibrant tresses slid to her back and the little star shifted. It almost appeared to twinkle. “But aren’t you going to ask me to go home with you?” she asked.
Vosse.
“Gee, I don’t know.”
He didn’t know.
But what was it that Uncle Rev always said? If luck comes around, don’t ask why.
Because, sometimes luck runs out.
She touched him on the shoulder. “My answer is yes, if you’re asking.”
And it’s not like they had to talk.
“Then, I’m asking,” he said.
Her hand was as soft as her eyes were green.
Dante paid the bill and led Lola out to his car. A piece of crap Camry. Oil slicks shimmered along the wet pavement. Two Jap cars away, hipsters and college boys hung out and Dante wished they weren’t there. One had a skirt on.
A boy in a skirt. Holy shit.
“I like the tattoo,” he said while fishing keys from his front right pocket. “What’s it for?”
“It’s from . . . have you ever heard of a gamma ray? One big explosion of radioactive decay and the star fades into nothing.”
“Sure I’ve heard of it.”
The neon sign from the bar flashed and burnt out above them in a big flash. An omen? It was too late to duck if they wanted too–sparks rained down onto their heads. What was it his Uncle said about shooting stars? Make a wish. Make it count.
“The truth is, Dante, we’re all just one big gamma ray. One big explosion.”
Saying nothing, Dante held open the passenger side door of his Camry and watched her slide in.
“Baby, I’d love to hear all about it, but why don’t you tell me later? Like, a few hours from now.”
He’d be a luckier man then. A guy could listen to anything when his luck was up a notch. Shooting stars, gamma ray explosions.
“Okay, later,” she said, getting in. “We can talk about it . . . later.”
That’s when he saw the medical tape residue. And the patient id bracelet she’d shoved into her purse. Then he figured out the smell: medical soap.
Dante said nothing.
He just got in with her and drove.
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