Page 126 - Sweet Embraceable You: Coffee-House Stories

114 Jack Fritscher

worked the only logic he knew in situations like this. “What if I
pay you?”
“For what?”
He thought to say for sex, but he said, “To take the picture.
I’ll give you money to take the picture,” Floyd said, “and then you
can leave.”
“Don’t go inverting everything.”
Invert? Invert. Floyd had psychology books from twenty years
before when invert meant only one thing.
“Then take the picture for godsake and get a move on.”
“I told you, man! I can’t take it for nothing.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you can,” Floyd said. “This is getting
old. I want to close up shop.”
“Wait,” Robert said. “I got it.” He pulled out his wallet and
reached inside. He handed the folded-up paper to Floyd.
“What’s this?” Floyd asked. “The number of your Swiss bank
account?”
“No, you asshole,” Robert said. “It’s the combination to my
gym locker.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Go on. Read it!”
Floyd unfolded the smudged slip of paper. “I need my reading
glasses.”
Robert stared down at the picture of the blond athlete, but he
barked his order at Floyd, “Read it.”
Floyd hooked his half-lens bifocals over his ears and read the
word “Post mark.”
“That’s the title,” Robert said. “It’s a poem. A short poem.”
“Good,” Floyd said. “Short and sweet.” The afternoon had
not gone the seductive way he had hoped and he regretted miss-
ing lunch as much as he missed lunching on Robert. “I have low
blood sugar.”
“Read it, please. No one else has ever seen it. I wrote it on my
way out here. To send back home. To everyone back home.”

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