Free Beneath the Neon Egg by Thomas E. Kennedy Page A

disparate experiences make him feel some manner of continuity.
    He wonders that he has been drinking all day and is not getting drunk. Unless he’s in that dangerous sort of drunkenness where he’s so drunk that he doesn’t think he’s drunk.
    The singer and her guitarist, Kelley and Tony, are setting up on the stage now, and people are drifting in. Kelley and Tony are joined by a visiting alto sax man from Russia, a Danish guy with an electric guitar, a bass man, a drummer. The music is mellow. It seems to be one of those days when no matter how much Bluett drinks, it just keeps him on Mellow Street. Kelley is singing “What Is This Thing Called Love?,” her voice cool and clear, and the Russian laces around her words with alto riffs, and the guitar notes glide so cool and so electric into the dim smoky light of the club.
    A dog is wandering around among the tables, one of the most beautiful dogs Bluett has ever seen, a mix of golden and collie and husky with a beautiful white coat, immaculately brushed. He makes welcoming lip noises to attract the dog, and it noses over, makes a polite perfunctory greeting, allows Bluett to scratch its neck for a minute then wanders off, and Kelley is singing bossa nova in Portuguese, and through some incalculable series of maneuvers, somehow Bluett finds himself speaking with the owner of the dog who is every bit as gorgeous as her dog—and sweet and friendly and nicely shaped. Her name is Lucia. Maybe she will be the light of Bluett’s life.
    He wonders if Lucia will decide she likes him. The woman always decides whether it is a possibility. Otherwise it’s rape. Tell you their decision with a smile—of rue or complicity or surrender. Rue means you get nada, with complicity you’re in for a good time, but with surrender you’re just in for it. He is looking at Lucia, and she smiles at him—what kind of smile? he wonders, but doesn’t really care; it is just so goddamn nice to be smiled at by a sweet woman. She touches his arm and asks if he would like to share a joint with her in the kitchen.
    Then they are in the kitchen, and she is sitting on the deep kitchen sideboard with her legs stretched out, and her toenails are polished plum blue, and he tokes the joint and studies her clean, beautiful feet. He wants to touch and to kiss them. Tentatively, he lays a fingertip on Lucia’s toes, and she does not protest. In fact, she touches his arm again and asks if he is married.
    “I haven’t had sex in a year,” she says.
    Out in the club Kelley is singing “How About You?” and then “Lovers and Friends.” He is wondering how old Lucia is, notices that her face is not exactly beautiful, as he had thought, but more attractive in an unusual way. She has an agreeable voice—a voice Bluett could definitely fall for. He keeps stealing glances at her face to determine what precisely constitutes its unusualness. By now his fingers are massaging her feet, and she is leaning back on her elbows and telling Bluett about her work as a cemetery tour guide.
    Bluett is confused. He thinks that he might have misheard, due to the tokes. He says, “What, like, you are some kind of real estate purveyor for people who want to be buried?”
    She laughs. She has a nice laugh. He could definitely fall for that laugh but is still confused at this business about a cemetery tour guide. From a dainty pink backpack, she removes a card that she extends to him. It shows the name of a tour guide bureau specializing in cemeteries and cemetery sculpture. She says that she shows groups around on walking tours of various cemeteries, gives talks on who is buried where. “You know,” she says. “The graves of the famous.”
    She lights another joint and passes it, and he tokes and finds himself staring into the shadows of the corner. Time has that strange quality dope sometimes gives it. Then Getz is on the sound system, blowing Billy Strayhorn’s “Blood Count,” and Lucia and Bluett go back into the