Previously: Instead, Matt sat back in his seat and practiced regarding Stephanie with indifference.
Matt Lang Talks to Stephanie Taylor for the First Time in Many Years
Looking at Stephanie on the barstool, he did not feel indifferent. He wanted to talk to her. He walked to the bar and stood next to her left shoulder. She didn’t look at him. He ordered another beer and pretended he’d just noticed her.
Is that Stephanie Taylor?
She turned, her face went long with surprise, Well if it isn’t Matt Lang.
He took a seat on the barstool next to her. It is, it is. How the hell are you?
I’m good. How are you? Still in Chicago?
Still in Chicago.
They were there, obvious, hovering at the bottom of his field of vision, and he didn’t want to be that guy, that guy that just ogled breasts, so he stared at the shine on her teeth. But he was curious, and he looked when she leaned back to introduce him to Reevus. Ridiculous snow globes in a teal, v-neck, sweater. Reevus ashed his cigarette, and took Matt’s outstretched hand, which felt the gravitational pull of the oversized tits. Reevus gave a wordless nod, pumped Matt’s hand once, and then resumed smoking and staring straight ahead.
How long are you around for?
As Stephanie spoke her face aged to match the skin of her neck. It looked twenty years older than her tits and was colored with the unearthly darkness of too many trips to the tanning salon. The discrepancy intrigued Matt. In the instant between when she finished her question and he gave his reply, he calculated that if he slept with her it would be like sleeping with a woman who was older than, younger than, and the same age as him.
A few days. I fly back Sunday morning. I’ve been here since Wednesday.
Are you by yourself? Don’t you have a kid?
The kid is with her mom and her folks in Ohio.
They paused for beer drinking. She looked over the top of the glass and let her eyes drift down Matt’s body, the shoulders and chest that filled out his shirt, the stomach that, unlike the stomachs of other men at the bar, didn’t drape over his belt buckle.
Sorry I don’t get to meet her.
My ex? I don’t think you’d get along.
She gave him a little backhand slap on his shoulder.
I meant your kid, silly.
Oh, yeah. Next time.
It was time to take a long drink of his beer. It was getting warm because the glass was unnecessarily close to his chest.
You have kids, too, right?
Her glass empty, she stretched her arms out in front of her, over the bar, and rounded her back like a cat.
Yeah, a son and a daughter.
How old are they?
She straightened up.
He’s twelve and she’s ten.
So, what, seventh grade and fifth grade?
Yep. Can you believe it?
Matt Lang shook his head and laughed through his nose and took another drink.
Reevus left the bar and went to play pool with a group of guys Matt assumed were his friends. Stephanie turned her head back and forth as if working out a krick in her neck. They were silent. The jukebox played More Human Than Human and Wayne replaced Reevus.
Hey, told ya she had some big ol titties. You gonna let him touch em?
I’d let him before I let you, pervert.
Deep down in a hidden and shameful corner of his soul, Matt became excited.
Ya hear that, Lang?
But he wouldn’t because he’s a gentleman, unlike some people.
Bullshit. Tell her, Lang. Tell her you would. Tell her that’s bullshit.
Deep down in that same hidden and shameful corner, he knew that it was bullshit.
Wayne, you’re interrupting.
Hey, I’m just tryin to help out here. You know he’s a writer, right? He’ll be all sensitive and insightful and shit.
You wanna help? Buy the next round.
Okay, but promise me you’ll at least try to touch em.
Stephanie turned to face Matt, removing Wayne from the remainder of the conversation.
You’re a writer?
Kind of. Not really. I’m trying. When I get a chance.
I remember you wrote some really good stuff in high school.
Matt scratched his forehead and wondered why that statement made his stomach drop so.
Thanks, I — Thanks.
They ordered two more beers. They talked more as they drank them. She looked at him with a tilted head. He matched her tilt. She smiled.
I think you should do something with me.
He looked over her ear toward the pool table.
What about —
He has to work tomorrow night. Come get me any time after three.
He chewed a bit on his bottom lip.
Okay. After three.
She left with Reevus after that round of beers. Wayne had left with the first willing female, a woman Matt did not recognize, possibly because she’d graduated in the 70’s. That left Matt alone at the bar. He did not want even one night of his singular life on this earth to end with him sitting at the Eagle until closing time, so he paid his bill and walked out the door. He crossed a set of train tracks and walked to a small park and found a bench. He was too drunk to drive home, drunk enough to not mind the cold. He sat with his back to the tracks and looked over the park. It was quiet and dark in ways that Chicago never could be. He slouched and closed his eyes, thought maybe he could feel the stars twinkle against his face. The bench was hard and the air was cold, and the combination made him shiver. It also made him have to piss.
There was a sturdy maple waiting for him in a stand of trees that separated the park from the Allegheny River. He opened his zipper and extracted his shriveled dick. He watched his piss splatter and steam, and considered the nature of the breast job: Was it fact or fiction? On which shelf should it be shelved? Was Stephanie writing a memoir or a novel? The implants were fake, yes, but they were under her skin, and therefore part of her body, and her body was real, was true, so were they now part of the truth of her body? Do embedded lies become part of that whole truth? Or was the whole truth now spoiled, and every part with it? Was her hair a lie? Were her eyes lies? Was that smile now a lie? Or did the fiction point to a truth that was even more true?
He shook off, told himself to remember this; it would make for a fine piece of writing. He had piss on his hand. He wiped it on the side of his jeans.
Matt walked back toward the bench and saw someone lurching along the tracks, looking like they might fall over at any moment. Someone else, he thought, too drunk and too far from home.
Thank you for reading. Up next:
He turned and saw Wayne, clawing at the handle, trying to open the door, wearing the same clothes as the night before, and missing half his face.