Where shall we eat, you and I? Alone. Together. At Pastis? They already took the trash out.
I lick your lips and mine at the thought.
First thing in the morning, last thing before I go to sleep.
Leaves go, leaves come.
Wind rises. Summer’s over.
So follow me now, share a bottle of wine. With me and make my heart boil.
Look at me.
Across the rickety table.
Warm for a September evening, don’t you think?
But why not simply smash your face in? Trailer trash for an evening, no problem. Red necks, white trash, black & blue girls, I’m all that.
I toss the paper in the trash can, wipe my mouth, good dog!, and tremble when you jump in through my stomach and we become one flesh, one concentrated killing machine, bad company in every possible way. We cross the road blindly, walk up the steps, and I open the door with these luminous black eyes I always get when someone crosses me, and there it is: laughter, loneliness, and sex and sex and sex, fucked all night and sucked all night and taste that pussy till it taste just right, look at me, I’m finished, I’m totalled, Look at me! I’m in tatters, and well suited for the absolute armpit of the city, the final cockroach left alive in the debris, and I notice that I sway while I search the place for you, and fumble in my pocket for my scrap of metal.
Almost no women, almost only men, but then again: there’s pussy at the bottom of every single beer glass, it’s just a matter of getting down in there. The poets sit over in the corner, shitting words without wiping their mouths afterward. I know them, some of them step on stage once in a while to speak words, as they call it, and they don’t know it’s just chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter ’bout shmat, shmat, shmat. The rest are old and dying, dried-up organisms, rustling folds of skin and toofull beards, and there you are, walking past the kidney-shaped table, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here comes my nineteenth nervous breakdown, my body stiffens, and only my hand has the good grace to close around the sharp edge of the ragged metal in my pocket.
You see me, you smile, my mouth falls open: confusion. You approach me. Smiling, sparkling eyes. What? Is it the sight of my elegantly wasted face that makes you so happy? And then you say it: Beautiful Delilah, sweet as apple pie, always gets a second look from fellas passin’ by… The better don’t allow me fool around with you, you are so tantalizing you just can’t be true, and you put your arm around me and kiss me, and you have no gut, no runny eyes, why? Was my memory that hazy? It really was very dark, black as night, black as coal, very dark in my head, and maybe I had visions or hallucinations, heard ghosts, I really imagined that you said I looked like Keith Richards, and I know I do, but honestly, I’m just a girl, and you shouldn’t say things like that. But all right then, come on, come, let us go out and watch the evening stretch out under the sky like an ethereal creature longing for light; let us go then, through half-empty streets, still cringing from ringing sounds and echoes of the day. Raise your glass to the good and the evil, let’s drink to the salt of the earth.
A FINE BOY
by Helle Helle
Vanløse
Every evening after work I wanted that French hot dog so damn badly. I took the last metro train home; the grill was wedged in under the viaduct. Until then I had controlled myself. I wore a green uniform with padded shoulders and a belt at the waist. I was the thinnest I’d been since Jørgen left. He was a vegetarian, we were into butterbeans. Then he found someone else, a red-haired singer; I threw his duvet out the window. Afterward I lay on the floor for over a day, this had been toward the end of March. When that one and only you want inside you is no longer there.
It was raining. I cut across the square. The sliding door stuck, I stood there tugging at it. The girl inside came over and picked up a clump of wet napkins in front of the door. Then she opened it for me, walked back to the counter.
“A French hot dog, regular dressing,” I said.
“On the way.”
She put the hot dog bun in the machine. Picked a cigarette up out of the ashtray and sucked on it. I had the exact amount ready. Her hand was pale and delicate, hair in a thin ponytail pinned up on her head. She might have been nineteen or twenty, her smile revealed a slightly crooked set of teeth: “Can you believe it, it’s the first French hot dog all evening.”
“Is that right?”
She nodded: “Mmm. Strange, with this weather. Usually people come in and stand around.”
We both gazed outside, she sucked on the cigarette again.
I wanted a cigarette too; I fished around in my net bag. The floor was covered with napkins. I found the pack and shook one out, she shoved her lighter across the counter.
“Those are really pretty earrings,” she said.
“Thanks. I like them too.”
“I have nickel allergy, I can’t handle anything at all,” she said. She blew smoke in the air, I did the same. By coincidence we had both held back a mouthful for a smoke ring; we blew one at each other simultaneously, the rings met over the counter. We broke out laughing, her laughter was what you would call sparkling, it trilled out of her. Smoke caught in her throat and she began to cough. The bun fell out of the machine, she kept coughing while she filled it with dressing. She smiled while she coughed and shook her head at herself. She held the back of her hand over her mouth, the hand holding the hot dog bun.
The ponytail wobbled on top of her head.
Then the telephone rang. She pounded her chest with the flat of her hand and lifted the receiver. The hot dog bun lay on the counter, some dressing ran out of it.
“This is Christina,” she said, her voice unsteady after the fit of coughing. “Sorry, but I can’t, I didn’t bring them with me. They’re over at Vibse’s. No.” Someone spoke to her. She cleared her throat, she pounded her chest again. “We don’t close until one-thirty. And Mathias is with me, I can’t go anywhere,” she said, and a moment later: “Can’t I bring them over tomorrow morning? Hello?”
She stood a bit longer with the phone in her hand, then she hung up. Turned around for the tongs, hovered over the hot dogs without picking one up.
“Toasted or plain?”
“Toasted, please.”
The hot dog entered the bun. She handed it to me, walked to the sink, bent over, took a sip of water. I had opened the sliding door halfway, about to leave, when she called after me: “Could I get you to do me a big favor? It’ll only take a minute.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll give you something for doing it. Just stay here for five minutes. My boy is out back asleep, I can’t leave him here alone.”
“How old is he?”
“Five months. But he’ll just sleep. I’m only asking because it’s an emergency. I have to go get something.”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” I said, and joined her behind the counter. She was really small, not much over five feet. She pulled a white raincoat off the hook and put it on, felt around in the pockets.
“I’m back in five minutes,” she said. “If anyone comes in, give them a free Cocio. But nobody will.”
After she closed the back door behind her, I threw my hot dog in the trash. I reconsidered and pulled it out, packed it in a napkin, and stuck it back in the trash. Covered it with several napkins. Then I opened the back door. The baby carriage was just outside under a porch roof, protected by a dark rain cover. I peeked down through the hood’s opening and could hear breathing. I opened the door all the way to get some light down there.