catfish 26

 I think the exact ruling by the CDC is that you can walk around maskless indoors if you have been vaccinated because chances of you getting it and passing it are very slim.  But if you are not vaccinated you should not do this because you could be getting it or passing it, but nobody is checking and who expects that idiots who don't vax, are going to admit it?  Seems a bit rash to me.

The condo rules have not changed, but it is not a hassle, because how much time do I spend going down the elevator to go outside or to the little store? And it is not much of a hassle to pull the mask up for like fifteen minutes and it just seems neighborly, likewise when shopping at the Jewel, Walgreens and Target.  

Very savvy Beagles, you have put your finger on the two developments that will drive this story right to the end, which we are a little more than halfway from.  And here we see Gina trying to uplift Catfish's living style.

  And Sunday night there was my lovely Gina sitting at our end of the bar, our little cove I liked to think of it, and I slid in next to her comfortable as sliding my foot into an old shoe all full of telling her how nice she looked and how swell it was to see her and all that stuff which I did and which she usually liked like a cat being stroked around the ears, but she wasn’t purring, something was on her mind.

 It was against my better instincts, usually I wouldn’t ask a question like that because you never know where it is going to go and lots of times it leads to trouble, but I was feeling pretty good about things in general.

 “So what are you thinking about?” I asked.

 She crinkled her face up a little which was always so cute on her and said, “It’s Itch.”

 Fuck.  “What about him?”

 “Well, he doesn’t seem to like me anymore.”

 I have to say that sounded pretty good to me, a good time to commiserate over this sad fact, “Well you know how he is,” I answered, shaking my head a little.

 “How is he?” she asked with more interest than I would have liked.

 “I don’t know,” I answered, exasperated that we should be talking about him at all.  “He’s just kind of his own person, thinks a lot of himself, doesn’t think that much about other people, can be kind of cold sometimes.”

 “Cold?” she asked.

 “Well sometimes he’s just a little,” and I was groping with where to go with this when she interrupted.

 “Because that’s just what he said.”

 “Huh?”

 “He was mixing me up some drinks to take to a big party of mine and when I came to pick them up they looked a little skimpy and you know the customer always wants to have a full glass and I asked him if maybe he could put a few more ice cubes in them, just to fill them up, and he said, ‘What they don’t look cold enough to you?  A cold guy like me, I thought that anything I made would be plenty cold.’ And I thought it was some kind of joke, like we always make, but I didn’t get it, but he put in the extra cubes and shoved the drinks at me.  ‘There you go my dear, freezing cold, just like me,’ and I still thought it was some kind of joke, and I was waiting for the punchline, but then he was off to the next waitress, and not a word to me.”

 Damn, she was getting weepy, “Well I told you he’s just cold.”

 “See,” she said, “There’s that word again.  I’m just wondering if you said something to him, maybe about something I might’ve said.”

 And she left it hanging there, and that was nothing but trouble, and I reached for something that would change the subject and the first thing that popped into my head was, “I’ve been thinking about getting my own apartment.”

 “Really?” she asked, and that whole subject of the conversation just went away like the morning dew.  Her hand went immediately on top of mine. Her weepy eyes seemed to suck up the moisture and were wide and bright.  “Where are you thinking of?”

 “Where?” I answered.

 “Where are you thinking about finding an apartment?”

 “Well uh, I guess somewhere around here, someplace on campus, someplace near the Great Wall.”

 She made that face like when I mentioned the Ramada last week.

 “You don’t think so?” I asked.

 “It’s your apartment.  It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said, but clearly did.

 “Where do you think?”

 “I’ve heard that there are some lovely lofts going in downtown.”

 “Downtown, don’t you think that’s far away.”

 “Not that far,” she said.  “All the busses go right there, and if the weather isn’t bad, I could walk right out there.”

 Walk right out there.  I could see myself opening the door and there she’d be, maybe a cloudy day, looking like rain, and in the fridge those eggs all lined up in their carton, just waiting for her pink hands to crack their shells and send them spattering into the frying pan in the morning.  Oh yes.  I turned to her and she was gone.

 But before I could puzzle on that she was back with a newspaper.  In no time she was into the classifieds and her pink egg-cracking fingers were tracing over the Apartments for Rent section.  “Here’s one,” she circled with her waitress pen, “And another,” another circle, “Oh and look at this one.”

 This One was kind of wordy, steps from a vibrant neighborhood, excellent views, hardwood floors.

 Aren’t all floors made out of wood, and you would think it had to be hard, who wants a soft floor?  Well maybe if you dropped an egg it would be nice if the floor was soft, but really.

 But as I was putting my finger down by hers to point at that ad her fingers enlaced mine and her right breast came down firmly to rest on the back of my hand.  “That looks like a good one,” I said.

 She circled maybe three more, kind of dragging my hand down the newspaper while all the time that breast never left the back of my hand.  And then the newspaper was folded up and stashed securely into her purse and we walked hand in hand to her apartment, and I think I’m sliding right into home plate.  The catcher is staring forlornly into the outfield and the crowd is going wild, and then at the crucial moment she is whispering, “Wait.”

 “Huh?”

 Her hand is on my chest, she is extricating herself from underneath me.

 “Huh?”

 “I think we should wait.”

 “Wait?”

 “For your new apartment.”

 “Huh?”

 “Wouldn’t that be fantastic?”

 “What?”

 “To make love, for our first time, in your new apartment.  It would be so special, so romantic.  Don’t you think Darling?”

 That ‘Darling’ kind of got to me, nice to hear, didn’t think I’d heard it before.  All those women before, and they had all been great, every one of them, and I’d loved them all, but I don’t think that word had ever come up, it was just so dramatic, a little old fashioned maybe, but still.

 But still there we were in those tangled sheets, I mean what the hell?  “Well sure Honey, that would be fantastic, that would be great, but as long as we’re well, here and all, you know, we might as well,” and I kind of trailed off because I could see that I was being a heel.

 “You know you’re right.  You’re absolutely right.  That would be fantastic.  That’s what we should do.”

 And then she asked, “Are you sure?”

 And fuck no, I wasn’t, slowly putting my clothes back on, my underwear, my pants and shirt, my shoes, every piece of clothes taking me further away from that sweet bed, her thighs, her breasts, her dark hair splayed across the pillow.  How had this all happened?  But there it was.  “I’m sure,” I answered.

 And there were a lot of hugs and kisses on the way out to the door, and then there was an “I’m so glad you understand Darling,” and then I was out into the dark.

 Darling, you know who used to call me that I remembered stepping out onto the sidewalk and not feeling like walking back to the bunkhouse right then and maybe I would just take a little walk, Claudette.  That very first night when she took me back to her apartment she had said it kind of to be funny, “Would you like another beer Darling?” that kind of way she had of acting like she didn’t take anything seriously, but even then, inexperienced young guy that I was, I could tell that she was serious.  “Darling, Darling,” she called out at that night’s fucking in her fussy bedroom.  It had been nice to hear.  Darling. I had been somebody’s darling.

 But it had gotten old, so I had hardly noticed it after awhile.  “Darling, do you really need to go out to the bar again tonight?”  Oh shit, I know I didn’t treat her right.  You know things happen.  Just the way the world is.  Turned around and walked back to the bunkhouse.  I could use a few beers.