Earwax
by Mike
Krumboltz
Why do we have
earwax? Why do dogs love to sniff ass? Why do
baseball players spit so fuckin much? Why did
Lucinda leave me for a 56-year-old magician with
albino eyes?
As I sat cross-legged
on the floor of my favorite whorehouse, those
questions poured out of my soggy brain and into
the back of my mouth. I decided to give voice to
the only question I could hope to answer. I stood
up, fell back down, and then crawled to the
madam’s office where the phone was.
“Hello,”
said Lucinda.
“Why’d
you end it, why’d you drop me? What’s
the problem,” I yelled into the receiver.
“Who is
this,” she said. “Is that you? Jesus,
stop calling me, you turkey. You stupid, goddamn
dumbbell.”
“What did
I do, huh? What did I do? I did it all,
didn’t I? You bet I did. I did it all, but
nobody was looking.”
“Where
are you? Are you in jail? Call your lawyer,
don’t call me. I don’t have to listen
to you anymore, the law made that point clear as
day.”
“Where’s
Marty? I want to talk to Marty. Put that phony of
a half-fagg magic man on the horn.”
“Marty’s
sleeping, and you’re a dumbbell if you think
I’d wake him up to listen to you.”
I took a
breath. The room was spinning, and I was sweating.
“Remember how we used to talk,” I said.
“Remember how we used to ask each other
questions, and then we’d try to figure
‘em out. Remember that?”
“Sure I
remember,” she said. “It wasn’t
all bad.”
“Right,
right. So I got one for you – why do we have
earwax?”
Just then the
madam walked in. She was drunk like usual.
“Hank,” she slurred. “Hank the
stank!” She laughed.
Lucinda heard
her. “Who is that? Are you with another
woman?”
I told her I
had to go but we’d talk more about earwax,
maybe next week.
“What are
you doing in my office? That better not have been
long distance.” She stretched out the last
word interminably.
I told her I
was calling my ex-wife. She laughed again and
said that sort of thing was common. Men are
stupid, she said. They like to confess before
they commit the crime, she said.
I told her I
wasn’t a criminal, I was just drunk, and I
needed another shot of something before I fell
down like a dumbass huckleberry.
She poured me
a scotch with just a sliver of ice. I drank it
all at once, closed my eyes, opened them again,
and looked at her false eyelashes, which appeared
to be falling off her face, fluttering toward the
ground like skanky snowflakes. And then I was,
too. I dropped face first onto the velvet love
seat where we’d first fucked, seven years
ago, a week after I got back from my honeymoon.
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