WWoody confessed to Hatchet his fall from grace. He couldn’t bring himself to believe in a god that allowed things like genocide, intolerance, and hate to permeate the world. Hatchet pressed him on this. There’s a difference, he told Woody, between not wanting to believe in a god that allows bad things and actually rejecting the idea that he even exists. Woody verified that he did not believe in God’s existence. Hatchet wanted to believe him but there still seemed a mystical mass, a smoky blob lurking in his bent shape like a clue on an X-ray, a symptom of something that might need treatment.
During one of these chance interrogations, a young woman accompanied Woody who carried herself with a determination unbalanced with her five foot stature. She was creamed coffee in a tank top and cut-offs with a sneering smile that invited controversy in its perfection. She and Woody were working on lab research at the Tech Science Center that involved beheading white rats and freezing their brains.
Her name was Delilah.
Of course it is. You’re not very original are you? she said. Not at eight in the morning, no. She plopped into the nearest cushioned chair and grabbed a magazine from the table. Aware of Hatchet’s reaction to her, Woody implied she and he might be spending more time together now with their research in the final stages. Hatchet couldn't wrest any meaningful intelligence out of Woody due to his own preoccupation with the stunning young woman amidst them. After realizing she had yet to look at him, Hatchet felt coerced to ask her to dinner. She asked Woody if he and Hatchet were having butt-sex and he had no choice but to press her for a date. She didn’t accept but she did provide him her phone number and told him that Thursdays were better for her. He wanted to gut himself right there in a gamble that she might bloody her hands to save him.
He had taken to calling Allison at 3am in an attempt to ambush her and it worked the first couple of tries. He would send her emails to an account he was unaware she had abandoned long ago. She refused any contact on Facebook. There were weird tales of her falling for a Russian construction magnate, presumably mob connected. He had always pictured her in time filling her pockets with some other man’s money.
Dreams of a far older far more mature and courageous Olivia hounded him. She would be passing him on the street somewhere with a group of peers who invariably had faces from the shop and he wouldn’t recognize this dauntless unattainable creature as his grown daughter until she had already sublimated into the unfocused distance with its hairy images and shapeless movement. He would wake old and unworthy.
He, Poole and Jane would get so drunk at the little bar down the street from the shop that before they left, the dyke bartendress would only half-jokingly write down their addresses from their driver licenses and tape them on their backs. They had a reputation for being wild and unpredictable. They’re artists, the bar owners would say, let ‘em run. They usually came to rest on the patio of the shop with hard dry apple ciders and conversations about Che Guevara and Judge Holden. He would ask Jane, the registered nurse, how fast she thought a specific tranquilizer could knock an average man unconscious to which she would shake her head as if to say, I’m not joining your stupid club, Hatchet.
They would wreck the corner table of another bar further still down the street, this one filled in the smaller hours with edgy clientele who saw disaster on a daily basis. Every face a familiar face telling serialized tales in continuing installments if one chose to subscribe. Oscar, the coffee shop owner, and his young boyfriend would join them in drinking games and knock-knock jokes. They would race the clocks with whiskey shots and try to straighten themselves enough to get laid or at least find themselves holding warm bodies in strange beds by morning. Hatchet’s photos had gained him fans, many of whom he could whisper under a sheet. He wondered at what age he would no longer suffer the pretty boy jokes and the slut references from his friends.
Like assassins under cover and on task, Jane and Poole would talk about him while he was across the bar buying drinks for some aggressive pair of legs. They were still obsessing over his financial standing and his mounting bills and the child support for his daughter garnished from his state unemployment benefits. They would fume over his refusal to take Allison to court and over the visitation she denied him. Poole would describe Hatchet’s continued criminal interest in Calvary Fellowship Church and Jane would usually doubt Hatchet’s veracity. As much of an anarchist as Hatchet claimed to be, she felt there were lines of self preservation he just wouldn’t cross.
During one of these chance interrogations, a young woman accompanied Woody who carried herself with a determination unbalanced with her five foot stature. She was creamed coffee in a tank top and cut-offs with a sneering smile that invited controversy in its perfection. She and Woody were working on lab research at the Tech Science Center that involved beheading white rats and freezing their brains.
Her name was Delilah.
Of course it is. You’re not very original are you? she said. Not at eight in the morning, no. She plopped into the nearest cushioned chair and grabbed a magazine from the table. Aware of Hatchet’s reaction to her, Woody implied she and he might be spending more time together now with their research in the final stages. Hatchet couldn't wrest any meaningful intelligence out of Woody due to his own preoccupation with the stunning young woman amidst them. After realizing she had yet to look at him, Hatchet felt coerced to ask her to dinner. She asked Woody if he and Hatchet were having butt-sex and he had no choice but to press her for a date. She didn’t accept but she did provide him her phone number and told him that Thursdays were better for her. He wanted to gut himself right there in a gamble that she might bloody her hands to save him.
He had taken to calling Allison at 3am in an attempt to ambush her and it worked the first couple of tries. He would send her emails to an account he was unaware she had abandoned long ago. She refused any contact on Facebook. There were weird tales of her falling for a Russian construction magnate, presumably mob connected. He had always pictured her in time filling her pockets with some other man’s money.
Dreams of a far older far more mature and courageous Olivia hounded him. She would be passing him on the street somewhere with a group of peers who invariably had faces from the shop and he wouldn’t recognize this dauntless unattainable creature as his grown daughter until she had already sublimated into the unfocused distance with its hairy images and shapeless movement. He would wake old and unworthy.
He, Poole and Jane would get so drunk at the little bar down the street from the shop that before they left, the dyke bartendress would only half-jokingly write down their addresses from their driver licenses and tape them on their backs. They had a reputation for being wild and unpredictable. They’re artists, the bar owners would say, let ‘em run. They usually came to rest on the patio of the shop with hard dry apple ciders and conversations about Che Guevara and Judge Holden. He would ask Jane, the registered nurse, how fast she thought a specific tranquilizer could knock an average man unconscious to which she would shake her head as if to say, I’m not joining your stupid club, Hatchet.
They would wreck the corner table of another bar further still down the street, this one filled in the smaller hours with edgy clientele who saw disaster on a daily basis. Every face a familiar face telling serialized tales in continuing installments if one chose to subscribe. Oscar, the coffee shop owner, and his young boyfriend would join them in drinking games and knock-knock jokes. They would race the clocks with whiskey shots and try to straighten themselves enough to get laid or at least find themselves holding warm bodies in strange beds by morning. Hatchet’s photos had gained him fans, many of whom he could whisper under a sheet. He wondered at what age he would no longer suffer the pretty boy jokes and the slut references from his friends.
Like assassins under cover and on task, Jane and Poole would talk about him while he was across the bar buying drinks for some aggressive pair of legs. They were still obsessing over his financial standing and his mounting bills and the child support for his daughter garnished from his state unemployment benefits. They would fume over his refusal to take Allison to court and over the visitation she denied him. Poole would describe Hatchet’s continued criminal interest in Calvary Fellowship Church and Jane would usually doubt Hatchet’s veracity. As much of an anarchist as Hatchet claimed to be, she felt there were lines of self preservation he just wouldn’t cross.
Edit 11.7.2018