A Dark Stain Spreading Across a Chest In Space

Don’t worry, the barista says slowly to the cowboy. There is not much difference between decaf and caf.

I am standing behind the cowboy and looking into his back pockets. They are open, like doors and Sadie’s legs always. They look deep and inviting, but I don’t want to give the cowboy the wrong impression. I knot my hands behind my back and hum a long tune.

But shouldn’t there be a difference between the decaf and the caf?

The cowboy’s voice is an opera. I swoon privately and grab the back of my knees for support. It goes unseen. I am lurking behind the cowboy, and no one else is around us.

This café was fumigated last week. Today I ripped through the yellow hazard tape and demanded to be served. This was the closest I had ever come to revolt. I thought I was the only one who could look at the word CAUTION! and still feel safe. But the cowboy could, too, it seemed. We are the only two customers. I hope we never leave.

The barista speaks as though every outgoing word creates an ulcer deep inside his body. We are old friends, so I know that he prefers to engage customers in elaborate body language. This cowboy is new, and has no idea what people prefer.

There is a power outage for a moment, and the coffee grinders all hush silent before blazing on again.

Hey! Lady! Why are your hands in my pocket?

I have forgotten. I apologize profusely. There is too much to say, but I say sorry, I became nervous, I’ve been sleeping on an air mattress lately. He is confused and I have to explain to him how mattress air is toxic.

Isn’t it just normal air? The cowboy turns to me fully now and looks at my face. The barista leans on the register, sighing, relieved temporarily of this companion. He occupies himself with arranging the alka seltzer tablets I know he keeps inside the change drawer.

Not always, I reply to the cowboy. Some mattresses release volatile organic compounds. The fumes can cause hysteria. You have to pay extra for the kind that won’t make you crazy. Or that won’t kill you.

Perhaps I have charmed him because then he calls to the barista and says, actually never mind about that latte. I am more certain of this when he turns to me and says, would you like to take a walk?

A walk with a cowboy is on horseback. I expect this to be the case and say nothing while mounting the animal. Because it is dark outside, and I have not had my evening dose of espresso, I worry about falling asleep. The cowboy’s back is rugged and shapely, meant only for sweat and sex scratches. Not for a slumped, lethargic me. To use someone as a pillow is a tragedy.

He is an interesting man. I can tell by the way he does not say anything for ten minutes. When we ride through the town, the men and women wave. They call him Currer. The name has many Rs. He begins to speak and his voice is an opera. He speaks of his mother and father and how horses like his are expensive, but the right kind of expensive.

We go to the aquarium. It is closing time, but we sneak in with enough time to look at the stingrays. They mill around like lost kites. The cowboy holds my hand, and seems moved. He follows the creatures with his eyes. They receive his stare patiently, like flat planets. I want him to stop touching me with this faraway sadness so I shake his hand off mine and ask to leave.

Now we are close to my house. I have not spoken a single word since the aquarium. Put me down now! I say, as the horse reaches a lone fork in the town road. A single lamppost looms just ahead. To the ants on the hot summer asphalt, the lamppost must loom like a stolen moon.

He is appalled. But why?

There is not much to say. He is not the cowboy I thought he was. I approximate this in a few heartbroken sentences, with one gasp and one wounded sentence trail-off. There is a drama to me. I am a performance. I am many stylized movements, points, vibrating lines.

He looks at me coldly and turns his horse around. I begin to walk home in a violent mood. It evaporates just minutes later, yet my mouth smarts and smarts.