Taking a seat, Nathan resembles a drug-addled beast of prey down to its last square meal: Gaunt, sinewy muscles, and a tightly-cropped haircut, like Armando. I train my gaze at the table, overawed at the Pink Floyd Wall of emptied drink glasses surrounding him. "Damn."
Nathan inspects all the dead soldiers and smiles, "Yeah, standard mid-life crisis of romantic atheism I'm afraid. I fell head over heels for my psychologist."
He rips a page out of his yellow notebook and starts doodling manic pencil strokes. "Faked every mental disease on the goddamn dark web just to see her: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alien Hand syndrome … " Nathan sketches out every malady in a raw, art brut type of style. " ... Uncombable Hair Syndrome, Clinical lycanthropy, hell even Munchausen syndrome. Two-hundred-fifty bucks an hour six hours a week for six straight months. Donkey shit! That was my retirement. And to top it off, listening to all my bullshit maladies day after day depressed the living shit out of her, too." He scowls as if he's reliving some baleful horror that's been sucked out of a repressed memory wormhole. I scan down at his notepad. Even dangling from her penciled hangman's noose, she was quite the looker, with a sad oval for a face and a hypotenuse triangle for a dress. "She hanged herself after our last visit. I think it was my Koro syndrome that did her in."
Stunning. Even with a lifetime of painfully weird, liver-killing bar conversations under my belt.
"Fuck!" The pencil lead snaps in half like a graphite-infused twig between his fingers. He lifts his backpack to the table and reaches in. A sleek, black polymer handgun falls to the floor.
Hell's Bells. Act casual. "Nice drawings. Uh, isn't … that … illegal ... here?"
"Only for self-defense. You're not some stupid rat, are you?"
"No. I'm no rat and I'd like to think of myself as thoroughly average, not stupid. Although, after looking at my SAT scores my high school guidance counselor recommended digging ditches for a career."
"Sounds like an asshole." Nathan scoops up the weapon and nonchalantly plops it back in the backpack. "And we both know the best self-defense is a good offense."
True. Maybe I should go over to Traci's table and let the chips fall where they may?
The waitress comes over and resupplies Nathan with two more White Russians. He lifts the lapel of his Hard Rock military shirt. "How about a military discount?"
She rolls her eyes and walks away. Nathan admires every stride of her gait as he lights a new cig off his old one. "Oh, by the way, don't waste your time getting happy endings at the massage parlors. I tried."
More flirtatious joviality from Traci's table.
"But thank God the prostitution is still alive and well, especially around D'Mall. One thousand Pesos. Negotiable, of course." He tilts his head and creases a smile. "Course, if you're into ladyboys, they hang out on north White Beach near the holy Maria statue."
Maybe if I was taller with six, no eight-pack abs?
Nathan snaps his fingers. "Forget about Lady Shikasta and her Beach Boy bogen boytoy."
"Brogen?"
"Bogen. Ozzie redneck. He's been a boffing machine since he got here. Hell, he's shtooping Jon's wife."
My God, I'm losing out to a Bogen. I glance over at Anna and Jon, an apparently happy couple. "What a world. I guess that's why I write. To get away."
"Anything I've heard of?"
"Nah. My computer's a prison cell with spell check."
"Ah, don't be so hard on yourself. It takes gobs of hours and a shitload of luck to be great at something. Take free climbing."
"Free climbing?"
"Shit yeah. Hundreds of feet up. No rope. If you're really, really damn good, it's a sport. But if you don't know what you're doing, it's just getting in one last workout before committing suicide."
Nathan takes a puff off his cig, then cackles. "Romance!"
"Uhhhhh, what?"
"Get with the times. Romantic friction pays. More than sci-fi, fantasy, lit fic, travel. All that literary horseshit."
"Me?"
"Yes, sorry you. And quantity has its own quality, so just churn 'em and burn 'em, one after the other. Same plot. Different Greek island. All nice and cheap and tawdry."
"Jesus. Sounds like Traci's favorite author. Check this out. A U.S. submarine captain gets engaged in a life-exchanging extramarital affair with a--"
"Trisexual Soviet midget nuclear engineer set during a nuclear apocalypse in an alternate reality Cuban Missile Crisis. Submerged Desires. A steamy classic."
"You read it?"
"Read it? I wrote it!"
"Wait. You? You're Cleo Hathaway?"
"Damn right. The king hell bitch of transcendental erotica himself." Nathan leers over at Traci. "Oh, my goodness." He raises his glass in a toast. "Maybe I'll give that Bogen Bastard a run for his money. Alea iacta est."
Clink.
"Uhhh, the new K-pop band?"
"Don't play stupid. The sheep's been shorn baring its ass for all to see."
"Uh, I think this second round of breakfast giving me brain fog."