Austin Nights

by Herocious

and sixteen-ounce cans. The last 24-ounce can I imbibed was in Ocean Beach, out there on the west coast, where the sun sets last and the airplanes deafen.

  Back there, back then, I got 24 ounces for 100 cents.

  Today, here, it costs 194 cents.

  Oh well, I think, it’s worth the extra 94 cents.

  And it really is. From the inaugural sip, the taste of the high-gravity lager cooling my gullet and setting my mind abuzz: there’s no lubricant quite like the Reserve.

  While even the most intoxicated, urine-smelling street urchin maintain the Reserve is a headache in a can, I can’t agree.

  The Reserve is a font of creativity and progress.

  This country’s forefathers drank The Reserve.

  I’ve done some of my best thinking on Reserve nights, and tonight, with the waxing moon high in the Austin sky, things are on the up and up.

  3

  The leprechaun is trying to explain he’s in the process of doing something neat on the internet to the man who has five minutes left on the terminal.

  The five-minute man doesn’t pay him much mind. He’s busy doing his own thing on the internet.

  “I can get access to 200 Smart cars here in Austin,” says the leprechaun, frothing at the mouth and staring directly at Bridget while he addresses the five-minute man. “But I can’t do any of my work on those computers over there because they won’t let me edit my site. I have some important work to do. It’ll only take a few minutes. Are you almost done there?”

  “Five minutes,” says the man, “like I said.”

  The leprechaun jots something down in his notebook and then stares at Bridget. I let him know I’m aware of his ogling, but the leprechaun knows nothing about acceptable behavior.

  Social mores: negative.

  The five-minute man takes his sweet time. Even with the analog clock ticking behind him, he finishes his business online at his leisure. When he stands, he makes certain his collared shirt is significantly tucked in underneath his gut, checks his Casio, plugs his yellow umbrella underneath his arm, and saunters away without bidding so much as a fare thee well to the eager leprechaun.

  I remember there’s a 30 percent chance of rain today. Outside, the white skies are cloudy but hardly pregnant with rain. A 70 percent chance the umbrella won’t be used, and still the five-minute man thinks it’s worth carrying around all day. This is a clear case of overprotecting yourself.

  The leprechaun sits in front of the computer, which happens to offer a prime view of Bridget. I hear him make some keystrokes, pause, and then stare at Bridget.

  He stares for no less than a minute, burning into her with his psychotic eyes.

  Bridget is oblivious to his impropriety. She wears earphones and is watching one of her TV shows she can’t watch at home because we don’t have a digital receiver.

  Nor do we have the internet.

  At home, we’re an island, disconnected and even estranged from the current of life that never stops flowing. At home, we do a lot of reading and talking, a lot of eating and cooking, a lot of naked loving and sleeping, a lot of playing with Honeyed Cat, a lot of Scrabble, a lot of watching movies on our projector. At home, we pay no mind to the bouncy ADHD world of the internet and TV.

  Bridget also plays piano. She’s thinking about taking lessons.

  But the leprechaun, for some reason, inspires worry in me, like if he somehow found out the whereabouts of our home, what would he do?

  He seems capable of anything, there at the computer with his sooty bare feet and his bold ogling.

  And now his equally sooty hands are underneath the desktop, probably playing with himself as he stares at my lover.

  I make a mental note: keep an eye on this pervert. When he finishes jerking off, he wipes his hands on his shorts. I shake my head and reprovingly close my eyes. Is he serious, I think, did he really just do that?

  The next thing I know, he’s sitting right next to me with a grungy notebook and pen ready for note taking. It takes every bit of my self-restraint to keep from springing on him and wringing his neck. He seems breakable. He’s weaker than me. His shoulders are gaunt and narrow. I could easily take him. I could.

  But then, from out of nowhere, he surprises me when he projects his mousy voice across my lap toward Bridget, who doesn’t hear him at first because of her earphones and the TV show playing on her laptop.

  He waves his icky hands at her and repeats, “How old are you?”

  Bridget removes her earphones and casts an impersonal gaze at the leprechaun.

  He asks for the third time, “How old are you? Are you like fifteen?”

  “No,” says Bridget, “I’m actually 22.”

  “22!” he ejaculates. “Seriously? You look like you’re fifteen.” His words are derogatory. He isn’t paying her a compliment. It’s shameful for her to be a day older than fifteen. It’s inconsistent with his fantasy.

  He engages his pen and intrudes further, “Where do you hang out? What bars do you go to at night?”

  “Um,” says Bridget, hesitating to answer, “we haven’t been to any bars in Austin yet. We don’t really go out much.”

  The leprechaun rolls his eyes and says, “Sure you don’t.” He ignores that she said we: we haven’t been to any bars yet. Even though I’m right here in between them, I don’t exist. If there is any way I can make this any easier for you, I think, please let me know. You can call me milksop. Milksop’s my name.

  He says, “You’ve never been to a bar here? What do you do for entertainment then?”

  Bridget shakes her head. She has given him enough time. “I don’t know,” she says curtly. “We stay home a lot.” She brings her earphones close to her ears. She’s trying to tell him she doesn’t want to talk anymore.

  I should hop in and interrupt, but I’ve become pointless, a dumb duck in the middle. I’m only here to watch. Don’t mind me, the name’s Milksop. Milksop’s my name.

  Idiot!

  “Stay home a lot?” persists the leprechaun. “That sounds like fun. You don’t go out?”

  “Not really,” says Bridget.

  Is he going to ask her for a date? I think, worried. Stop being such a coward, Michael! Lay down the law before it’s too late.

  My armpits drip a bead of sweat.

  The leprechaun doesn’t want to stop at Bridget’s answer. He won’t stop. He says, “I can get access to 200 Smart cars in Austin, but I need to find out where people hang out. That’s all I’m trying to get out of you, some information for my business.”

  His business?

  At this, Bridget shifts her eyes to her laptop screen and scrolls to the bottom of the site with her touchpad. When she’s about to put her earphones back in place, the leprechaun mutters nonsense, scratches angrily on his notebook, and disengages his ballpoint pen. He zips his massive backpack, turns his elfish nose away from us, and surprises me again when he side-talks to no one in particular. But it sounds like he’s threatening to murder us.

  8

  Bridget is the first to dive in. She’s in her black bikini with blue goggles in her hand.

  “It’s cold,” she says, “I don’t know if I can stand this for long.”

  She giggles.

  “Is it colder than the ocean?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” she says, teeth chattering.

  “Really?”

  She nods, her reddish gold hair silvery wet under the Austin sun.

  “You’d think it would’ve warmed up already,” I say. I say, “I guess I’ll stay dry then.”

  I uncross my legs and spread them wide on the chaise lounge. At least it’s pretty out, I think. I’m glad to be here rather than inside.

  Bridget slips underwater, opens her legs, scissor kicks them in, and propels toward the other side with her arms. I want to take a picture of her, so I blink my eyes.

  Bridget’s beautiful, I think. My hands clasp and smugly settle on my stomach.

  Abe opens his sliding screen and steps outside onto his s
ucculent-filled patio, which is adjacent to the community pool here at The Oaks.

  To make conversation, I ask him where he comes from.

  “I was born in the San Bernardino Valley,” says Abe.

  “Oh yeah,” I say, “I lived in Ocean Beach a little.”

  “It’s beautiful there,” says Abe. “Beautiful part of the country.”

  “Yes,” I say, “it is beautiful there, but the airplanes are a problem. They call it the OB Pause, every time a plane flies over and conversations stop. How’s the valley?”

  “Back when I lived there, it was a serious place. Lots of guns, lots of hellions and real bluegrass. I played gigs in watering holes that seem like folklore now. I moved to LA, from there to Houston.”

  “Oh yeah,” I say, “I lived in Houston, too.”

  “Whereabouts?” asks Abe.

  “Memorial area,” I say.

  “Okay,” says Abe, nodding largely. “I lived in Montrose.”

  “I like that area,” I say. I say, “I think it’s the neatest part of Houston.”

  “It really is,” says Abe, “at least I think so. You can walk pretty much everywhere, and the art museums are first-rate. But I only lived there three years. After that, I moved here to Austin. I love it here.” Abe pulls on his cancer stick. He has sucked down three since our conversation started. Abe is a chain smoker. “From California to Texas,” says Abe, “from an extremely liberal state to extremely conservative, but you want to know one thing I find surprising?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Texans are more supportive of people’s loony ideas. Here in Texas, when someone wants to get a new business going, no matter how out there it is, Texans welcome the idea and encourage the