Beneath the Neon Egg Read Online Free

a slob, Sam.”
    â€œThere is order in my slop. As it is, I can find anything. Impose some artificial order on it and I wouldn’t be able to find thing one.”
    Parched, Bluett empties half the glass onto his dry tongue, sighs, listens slit-eyed to Getz wailing elegance. Then he remembers the Estonian who stopped him earlier and tells the story, leaving out the fact that he was scared, telling it for a laugh. “You my Danish friend. Last offer: my body, fifty crowns!”
    Sam’s laughter is hearty, although Bluett sometimes wonders how genuine it is. Sam is his best buddy in the world, also divorced, also with grown kids, but Bluett sometimes feels he’s never got beneath his friend’s surface to where Sam really lives. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the one who’s all surface and cheap laughter . He thinks about telling the story of Benthe and Dorte, but the desire to do so makes him feel cheap; instead he says, “So whas happenin’, dude?”
    Sam’s lips go owlish in his delicate-featured black-Irish face.
    â€œWhat’s that look supposed to mean?” Bluett asks.
    â€œ Look ?”
    â€œThat look on your Irish kisser. I know a look when I see it, and you got a look on. Written all over your . . .”
    The smile spreads. “Met someone, you know? Of the female persuasion.”
    â€œYou met someone of the female persuasion? Well, come on. Tell Uncle Pat. She got a sister?”
    Sam’s eyes go distant for an instant, and whatever they are seeing in that distance translates into purse-lipped pleasure.
    The pleased lips tighten. He sighs. “I don’t want to jinx it, Blue. It’s too . . . tentative.”
    â€œWell, does she got a friend or not for crissakes?”
    â€œAll in good time, Blue. All in the fullness of time.”
    Â 
    Across the hall again, with difficulty, he works his key into the lock of his door, lets himself in and realizes he is still wearing his coat, hadn’t even taken it off at Sam’s. He pees in the little water closet. Then is standing in the living room, staring out the windows to the frozen lake, thinks about Sam, the lucky dog. You got to meet someone, too, fall in love . He thinks of Benthe, Dorte, but doesn’t want to go there—Benthe is married, and her arthritic sister-in-law wants some, too, and it’s too much. Dancing to “Zorba the Greek” with a bunch of naked people! He thinks about another drink, a nightcap, some music on the CD player, a little night food: dark rye with salami and raw onion rings maybe, use the scissors to make confetti out of those chives on the kitchen windowsill . . . But suddenly the mere thought that he could make food, the mere thought that he has food and hunger, that he has shelter from the cold, the mere thought that he exists is acknowledgement, and it is enough.
    Pitching his coat on the sofa arm, he moves to the bedroom, drops his pants on the hardwood floor, and is grateful to realize that by the time—by the fullness of time—his head touches the pillow he will be asleep.
    Â 
    He wakes in the dark, the incidents of the night slowly reassembling themselves in his consciousness, the pointless incidents. He reaches for his watch, presses the illumination button. Just past eight. Then he remembers it is Saturday and sighs with relief. He doesn’t feel bad. Still drunk maybe, but in a good way. Horny way. In the dark, alone, meat in hand, he can go anywhere, do anything. Benthe is there with him then. And Dorte. The heat of their flesh, wetness of their mouths, their cunts, yes, the heat and hardness of his prick, yes, he will go to the sauna, dance naked, go down on Benthe in front of them all, she wanted me to lick my own come off her thigh—I wouldn’t now—I would while her eyes blaze her lips full of lust, teeth glinting . . .
    As his breath stills and his eyelids