She wore juxtaposition the way a cubist wears a turtle-neck sweater.
The bar was nearly empty that night. I ordered a double, and sat a few stools away. The room dimmed when she smiled. The light bulbs didn’t have a chance.
I wasn’t looking for her. No one had come to this private dick weeping over a long lost daughter or a cheating wife. It was just a chance meeting. The kind of thing that happens round midnight, about when Tuesday night starts humping Wednesday morning — Tuesday into Wednesday, that’s the loneliest goddam midnight of them all.
I had a trick I did with a Zippo. Most guys have a trick like that. One to compensate for their awkward misery and lack of manners. I clicked the lid back and lit the lighter with a single snap of my fingers. She watched me do it the way a dame watches a monkey rattle a nickel in a tin cup.
“I’m not from around here,” she said, holding her cigarette for me to light.
“I get it, baby,” I said. “You’re from some kooky outer galaxy, aren’t you.”
“A million light years away, mister.”
“Some planet where the years drip down the walls and pool in the corners,” I said.
“Where the minutes have knives and anxious eyes.”
“Sounds like you’ve been there.”
“I booked passage once. For me and someone else.”
“…and …?” she said.
“And she never showed. The only way outta Buttville left the station as I stood there on the platform, like a chump. When I looked for her later, all there was was an empty closet and a note that said it was better this way.”
“We don’t do a man like that where I come from,” she said.
I reached across and lit her cigarette.
“Where I come from,” she said, “a girl don’t break a fella’s heart by leaving him. She just shoots him in the back, like a dog.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess that’s why I want you to take me home.”
“Fine by me,” she said, “but it’s a week ’til pay-day. You gotta bring the bullets.”
Header photograph: By David J. Fred (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
literally stories 
This is quite simply great fun to read. it’s small but beautifully formed and I loved it from the very first read through. The atmosphere is excellent and yes I suppose you could if you wanted to call it a cliche but sometimes things become cliches just because they are so good and we want to see them again and again I think. I really enjoyed this.
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Thanks, Diane.
I’ve always taught beginning writers to avoid cliche, but not at all costs. To lampoon cliche is to sleep with the gods.
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They met their match by I don’t get to watch them sizzle in Chapter Two? June
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Chapter Two: It ended badly for the Zippo dude.
the end
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Of course I like this. It’s well-written and atmospheric. And since I like all of your other stories, I was fairly certain I’d like this too. Just like June says, I want a Chapter Two. No pressure!
ATVB my friend
Tobias
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darn, there’s that prohibition against serialized stories.
but thanks for your kind words.
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Prohibition times are tough. Let’s organize in Chicago!
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