The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair Read Online Free

in a towel and leaning in the doorway. He pushed his fingers through his hair.
    “Nothing,” Evan Keeler said. “Nothing at all.” He got up and started out. “Sorry I bothered you.”
    “Why don’t you stay here tonight?”
    “Thanks, but no.”
    Evan Keeler left Karen’s house with one thing on his mind. He found his way back to De la Peña’s. He sat at the bar and nursed a club soda while looking around the room. There were many attractive women wearing sundresses of bright colors and bold floral prints and sandals, swishing across the floor on tanned legs. There was a woman on the stool beside him complaining to a friend about her weight.
    “Yes, I am,” the woman said. “I’m too heavy. I’ve got to drop at least twenty.”
    “You look fine,” her friend said, not looking at her, sipping a highly decorated and large drink, staring at herself in the mirror behind the bar.
    “I do not.” She turned to Evan Keeler. “What do you think?” she asked.
    “What do I think about what?”
    “Am I fat?”
    He looked at her, leaned back to take her all in. He tossed a quick glance to the bartender, at the friend, then said, without looking at the woman, “Yes, but it looks good on you.
    She said nothing, just sat staring at him.
    “On some people fat looks good,” Evan Keeler said, looking her in the eye. “You wouldn’t look good thin. I’m an artist, I know these things.”
    The woman turned to her friend and they huddled there as if in conference. He thought she might be crying; her back and fat sides heaved spasmodically. The women got up and left the bar. As he watched them pass through the door his eye caught the entrance of a dark-haired woman. Her eyes were big and brown and he was amazed at how clearly he could see them from his distance. She sat alone in a booth with a table which had not been cleared.
    He went to her, his club soda in hand, and fell into the seat opposite her. “I want to tell you something,” he said.
    She pushed back into the cushion of her seat.
    He stopped a passing waitress. “Would you clear this table and bring this young lady anything she likes?”
    “I’ll be with you in a second,” the waitress said and hurried away.
    He saw that the young woman was frightened. “You remind me of my daughter,” he said. “She’s seventeen.”
    “She looked around nervously.
    “Look at me,” he said. She did and he did not smile. “You think that I want to take you somewhere and do something to you.”
    She started to rise.
    “Stay!”
    She fell back, terrified.
    “I can’t do anything to you. A couple of doctors are, right now, flying to Portland, Oregon, with my cock.” Slowly, a smile came over his face.
    She tried to smile.
    “Do you want to know the really scary part about all of this? I’m cold sober.” He paused. “There are men in here that will want to take advantage of you. Don’t let them use you. Don’t give it up. I know what it feels like.”
    He stood and walked out, leaving her to think what she had to think, that he was crazy.

A Good Day for the Laughing Blow
     
    Jake is four years old.
    Cecile has no visitation privileges. I have sole custody of my son. Cecile told me once that she wanted very much to eat Jake, devour my son, and so the battle started. I instructed my attorney to get her on the stand and ask her if she thought babies were nutritious. After a puzzled look, he did ask her that question and she did supply an affirmative response; witches don’t lie, Cecile had informed me. I got the child and she got observation in the state mental facility. She has since been released and lives with another witch. Together, they are lesbians. Alone, I do not know. Though Cecile has no privileges, I allow her to come by once a month so that she may view Jake through a window. She drools.
    I am replaying messages on my answering machine. There is my agent, who says he cannot sell anything until I write it. I find this a reasonable utterance;