The shop filled with the murmur of conversation and laughter and by 10pm, the largest of the rooms swelled over capacity with smoke and teeth and black and white attire. Hatchet made his best effort to maintain engagement with offerings and discussions but his mind kept sneaking through holes it chewed into his masquerade. He couldn’t stop thinking of Delilah. The fact that she would never consent to his grand plan only made him want even more for her to accept it. After tomorrow, the entire world would be a different world and he feared the notion that all he ever longed for would be forever and finally unattainable. Staring into a hanging frame of unknown shape and shadowy contrast, he tried to remember the last smile he had seen on his daughter’s face, failing to recall a single glimpse.
Poole arrived with his wife. Hatchet hadn’t seen this woman in over three years and found himself in the minority of people present who even knew he had a wife. She seemed rapt with anxiety, her eyes firing and focusing in erratic detection of some invisible enemy. Hatchet offered her a dismissible greeting that she dismissed. Poole surveyed the room and asked him about his photographs. Hatchet pointed toward the exit, adding that only one of the four would be new to him. Poole smiled, slugged him in the shoulder and told him one was more than he expected then he towed his ghost of a mate through the crowd to find a drink and a piece of cheese.
After Poole finally found the tallest glass of champagne and shook the appropriate hands, he allowed his wife to disappear into the restroom while he stood contemplating Hatchet’s youngest work, a bulbous black storm raining electric fire along a stark scission of prairie and grey-white cosmos. Poole forgot for a moment why he was looking at it and who had produced it and all the ingredients stirred behind the lens to create it. He felt the collision of his heart against the radiation of the image. He failed to find Hatchet across the rolling plain of human heads so he tilted his glass back and set it down empty, the trough of it sizzling with microscopic bubbles when his wife returned. What the hell is wrong with you, Dexter? I need more to drink. She shook her tiny head in frustration and gripped his hand a little tighter.
Hatchet sat in a threadbare recliner only a few feet from the entrance in semiserious discussion with several of the Dog Boys when Jane Arness strolled past him, her arm looped over the bent elbow of a young man he didn’t recognize. Hatchet missed her already. He could already imagine sitting in a faraway diner, sipping coffee, contemplating his next move and wanting her seated across from him, searching for her moment to strike down whatever the ill-conceived inclinations treading the turgid fluids of his conspiracy. She would be lost to him after this, just as she had warned him. Though he could employ the remedy for this doom at any moment—at his whim—Hatchet had already gone too far. Even now, any interaction with her would be as distant as if he had sprouted rockets from his shoulders and shot to the moon on a pillar of fire. His already understood longing for her ached in his hollow chest. His plastic champagne class clacked against the stained concrete floor.
Jane met Poole—whose wife had disappeared again—at a cluster of small images near the catering table. Have you seen him? she asked. Yeah, he’s back by the front door but you have to see this. He waved her up a step and around a corner. She left her companion scavenging among the crackers and sausages. And where has the asshole been hiding this? she asked. I don’t know but it’s—. It’s bizarre, she gave him. Yeah, but it’s also—. Beautiful, she finished his statement again. Yeah. I want it, she said. There’s no price here, Poole told her, pressing his thumb against the edge of a business card adhered to the bricks beneath the frame.
She found him near the restrooms listening to a pair of teen girls interrupting one another in a litany of curt phrases. Excuse me girls, I need to borrow the maestro, she told them and pulled him by the arm into a blank square of floor near a glass case full of jewelry, some of it made with real human bone. The new one, she said. The big panoramic. Yeah, why haven’t I seen that one before? It’s new, Jane, days in fact. I want it. It’s not for sale. You’re an idiot. I can’t sell it, Jane, not that one. I’ll give you three hundred dollars for it. No. Four hundred fucking dollars. No, Jane. She wound herself up to tell him what a complete stubborn jackass he was but she caught a glint of fear in the shape of his face. She reached for his shoulder. What’s going on, Marcus? I don’t want to sell the picture; that’s final, Jane.
Who’s the fella? Hatchet broke the tension, pointing with his chin. That’s Eric. He checked her greenish steel eyes. He’s from Austin, she told him, he’s just here for a friend's graduation. Graduation? From college, Hatchet. So what is he? He’s just a yuhknow. Yeah. You know. I gotcha; he’s the first in a while, he said watching the skinny man flicking his forefinger through a bowl of party mix. Yeah, she said, it’s been a while. So he’s not... No, he’s not. Okay; could he be? No, I don’t think so. You don’t think so. No, she leveled her eyes on Hatchet, I don’t think so. She caught that thin lace of fear shimmer across the shadows of his face again and a sadness she hadn't felt for a long time draped over her but she didn’t know what to say and didn’t know why she felt the need to say it.
I have to talk to someone, Jane, I’ll let you get back to him. He walked straight out the rear exit and snaked through the cars to the bed of his truck where he lowered his head into it and heaved a single massive sob. He stayed there leaning into the truck for longer than it seemed and then checked his watch. He pulled his phone from his pocket and rolled the list of contacts until he found Delilah. He would tell her he was leaving and going so far away that he might not ever make it back. He would tell her that he wanted her to go with him and stay with him. He would tell her he needed her to keep him from going insane from the loneliness. He would tell her that only she could protect him from the tightening noose of gravity, beg her to bulwark the almighty forces of nature.
He didn’t call her. He put the phone back in his pocket and wiped the tears from his eyes, searching the stars for the cause of his changed valence. The poles of his being had shifted and the pain forged in this shift had torn parts of him, a minor internal collapse. He had thought of every single physical possibility and contingency and prepared for each of them with an engineer’s eye. While not exactly fool proof, the plan was solid but he had neglected to appreciate the power of his emotions, the vehicles which had placed him at this specific point in time and space. The unpredictable parts of his interior elected to foretell total failure but he had no choice but to follow through with it. Courage awoke red-eyed and fierce, rising from his ocean of doubt, once a single cell but now standing fully evolved, staring into a new level of existence.
Poole arrived with his wife. Hatchet hadn’t seen this woman in over three years and found himself in the minority of people present who even knew he had a wife. She seemed rapt with anxiety, her eyes firing and focusing in erratic detection of some invisible enemy. Hatchet offered her a dismissible greeting that she dismissed. Poole surveyed the room and asked him about his photographs. Hatchet pointed toward the exit, adding that only one of the four would be new to him. Poole smiled, slugged him in the shoulder and told him one was more than he expected then he towed his ghost of a mate through the crowd to find a drink and a piece of cheese.
After Poole finally found the tallest glass of champagne and shook the appropriate hands, he allowed his wife to disappear into the restroom while he stood contemplating Hatchet’s youngest work, a bulbous black storm raining electric fire along a stark scission of prairie and grey-white cosmos. Poole forgot for a moment why he was looking at it and who had produced it and all the ingredients stirred behind the lens to create it. He felt the collision of his heart against the radiation of the image. He failed to find Hatchet across the rolling plain of human heads so he tilted his glass back and set it down empty, the trough of it sizzling with microscopic bubbles when his wife returned. What the hell is wrong with you, Dexter? I need more to drink. She shook her tiny head in frustration and gripped his hand a little tighter.
Hatchet sat in a threadbare recliner only a few feet from the entrance in semiserious discussion with several of the Dog Boys when Jane Arness strolled past him, her arm looped over the bent elbow of a young man he didn’t recognize. Hatchet missed her already. He could already imagine sitting in a faraway diner, sipping coffee, contemplating his next move and wanting her seated across from him, searching for her moment to strike down whatever the ill-conceived inclinations treading the turgid fluids of his conspiracy. She would be lost to him after this, just as she had warned him. Though he could employ the remedy for this doom at any moment—at his whim—Hatchet had already gone too far. Even now, any interaction with her would be as distant as if he had sprouted rockets from his shoulders and shot to the moon on a pillar of fire. His already understood longing for her ached in his hollow chest. His plastic champagne class clacked against the stained concrete floor.
Jane met Poole—whose wife had disappeared again—at a cluster of small images near the catering table. Have you seen him? she asked. Yeah, he’s back by the front door but you have to see this. He waved her up a step and around a corner. She left her companion scavenging among the crackers and sausages. And where has the asshole been hiding this? she asked. I don’t know but it’s—. It’s bizarre, she gave him. Yeah, but it’s also—. Beautiful, she finished his statement again. Yeah. I want it, she said. There’s no price here, Poole told her, pressing his thumb against the edge of a business card adhered to the bricks beneath the frame.
She found him near the restrooms listening to a pair of teen girls interrupting one another in a litany of curt phrases. Excuse me girls, I need to borrow the maestro, she told them and pulled him by the arm into a blank square of floor near a glass case full of jewelry, some of it made with real human bone. The new one, she said. The big panoramic. Yeah, why haven’t I seen that one before? It’s new, Jane, days in fact. I want it. It’s not for sale. You’re an idiot. I can’t sell it, Jane, not that one. I’ll give you three hundred dollars for it. No. Four hundred fucking dollars. No, Jane. She wound herself up to tell him what a complete stubborn jackass he was but she caught a glint of fear in the shape of his face. She reached for his shoulder. What’s going on, Marcus? I don’t want to sell the picture; that’s final, Jane.
Who’s the fella? Hatchet broke the tension, pointing with his chin. That’s Eric. He checked her greenish steel eyes. He’s from Austin, she told him, he’s just here for a friend's graduation. Graduation? From college, Hatchet. So what is he? He’s just a yuhknow. Yeah. You know. I gotcha; he’s the first in a while, he said watching the skinny man flicking his forefinger through a bowl of party mix. Yeah, she said, it’s been a while. So he’s not... No, he’s not. Okay; could he be? No, I don’t think so. You don’t think so. No, she leveled her eyes on Hatchet, I don’t think so. She caught that thin lace of fear shimmer across the shadows of his face again and a sadness she hadn't felt for a long time draped over her but she didn’t know what to say and didn’t know why she felt the need to say it.
I have to talk to someone, Jane, I’ll let you get back to him. He walked straight out the rear exit and snaked through the cars to the bed of his truck where he lowered his head into it and heaved a single massive sob. He stayed there leaning into the truck for longer than it seemed and then checked his watch. He pulled his phone from his pocket and rolled the list of contacts until he found Delilah. He would tell her he was leaving and going so far away that he might not ever make it back. He would tell her that he wanted her to go with him and stay with him. He would tell her he needed her to keep him from going insane from the loneliness. He would tell her that only she could protect him from the tightening noose of gravity, beg her to bulwark the almighty forces of nature.
He didn’t call her. He put the phone back in his pocket and wiped the tears from his eyes, searching the stars for the cause of his changed valence. The poles of his being had shifted and the pain forged in this shift had torn parts of him, a minor internal collapse. He had thought of every single physical possibility and contingency and prepared for each of them with an engineer’s eye. While not exactly fool proof, the plan was solid but he had neglected to appreciate the power of his emotions, the vehicles which had placed him at this specific point in time and space. The unpredictable parts of his interior elected to foretell total failure but he had no choice but to follow through with it. Courage awoke red-eyed and fierce, rising from his ocean of doubt, once a single cell but now standing fully evolved, staring into a new level of existence.
Edit 11.10.2018