Straight Man

June 12 , 2018

Shaneen’s

6:30 pm

“I lean back and study her. What’s in the bag is a 🍑 . “I just ran into your old man,” I say. “He didn’t look so hot.”

“Since I’ve been a good boy and not started an argument, Meg offers me a bite of her 🍑 .

“In the center of my blotter sit five 🍑 pits, a dark, wet spot radiating outward.”

“I can almost picture it, but not quite, probably because I’m still staring at the 🍑 pits soaking my blotter. Can Meg Quigley have eaten all these 🍑 es? And what is she trying to say? Is she extending Eliot’s metaphor by suggesting that, unlike timid Prufrock, she dares to eat a half a dozen 🍑 es? What would that mean, in purely sexual terms? Or does she just want me to understand I’m the pits?”

“Meg has apparently paid me another visit, because in the middle of my ruined blotter sits a single ripe 🍑 .”

“See what you can do about getting me a new blotter,” I say, slipping the new 🍑 into my jacket pocket.”

“I shove my hands in my jacket pockets, find in one of them a tender 🍑 , quickly remove them again. The spasm of guilt I feel suggests that my father was right. You may as well eat the 🍑 if you’re going to feel guilty anyway.”

“I’ve got a perfectly good 🍑 in my pocket, so I take a seat on the sofa and see how close to the ceiling I can toss it without its actually touching the acoustic tiles. I’m doing pretty well until I have to lunge for one and brush a lamp. The door to Dickie’s office opens just as I grab the lamp by its shade and the 🍑 plops onto the rug. Three men emerge, and they all stare first at the lamp, then at me, then finally at the 🍑 . What’s wrong with this picture?”

“I pick up the 🍑 from the carpet and say, “Hello, girls.”

“I offer to shake Lou’s first, and when he grudgingly extends his hand I put the 🍑 in it.”

“The lawyer’s hand is cool and dry, my own slightly sticky from the 🍑 , which appears to have ruptured when it fell.”

“Billy Quigley would regret that I’m a peckerwood, his daughter Meg that I lack the courage to eat a🍑 .”

“Now, instead of being offered a bite of juicy 🍑 , I’m being accused.”

Rating: 🍑🍑🍑.5