The Weirdness by Jeremy P. Bushnell Page B

tosses hers back.
    “To thoughtlessness,” Billy answers, and he does the same.
    “You want to know the worst thing
I
ever did?” she says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
    “Sure.”
    “Don’t give me that
sure
. Either you want to know or you don’t. I’ll tell you if you want to know. But you have to understand that this isn’t some hipster
game
for me.”
    “Okay,” Billy says. “I get it. I want to know.”
    Elisa regards him suspiciously.
    Billy puts on his most earnest face despite a sinking certainty that it actually makes him look totally goofy and insincere. “You can trust me,” he says.
    “No, I can’t. But I’m going to tell you anyway, as a gesture of my good faith.”
    “Okay,” Billy says.
    “I killed a man,” Elisa says.
    “What?”
    “I killed a man,” she says again. “It was an accident.” She takes a deep breath. “I killed a man,” she repeats, like it’s something she has to say to herself regularly, “and I was never caught.”
    Billy scans her face for some sign that she’s making a joke, or just fronting like a badass. But she’s wearing that same implacable calm.
Wow
, he thinks.
    “What were—what were the circumstances?”
    Elisa looks away sharply, glancing down at her watch, a heavy beveled thing that looks like you could crack open a nut with it. “It’s ten past six,” she says.
    “Yeah, so?”
    “So we should get back over there.”
    “What? You’re gonna just—leave me hanging? You can’t do that.”
    She gives him a look, one which adequately communicates
Don’t think you can start telling me what I can and can’t do
. “I’ll tell you what,” she says. “I’ll tell you the circumstances the next time we meet.”
    “Oh,” Billy says. He grins. “You think there’s going to be a second time?”
    “No,” Elisa says. “But one should always plan for the unexpected.”
    A lesser species of disappointment emerges within him, but he says, “I accept these terms.”
    “You say this,” Elisa says, “like you had a choice.”
    He settles the tab for both of them even though he still doesn’t know how he’s going to make rent. When he does this, as nonchalant as anything, he can detect her, out of the corner of his eye, watching him.
    This could be good
, Billy tells himself, as they cross the street.
Just don’t fuck it up. Let it be easy
. He doesn’t raise the question of whether it’s a good idea to get involved with someone who has killed a man.
    They reach Barometer’s heavy set of doors. He holds one of them open for her in a showy display of half-ironic gallantry, his motions a little broad from the buzz he has going.
    See?
he thinks.
You can be charming when the situation callsfor it
. He watches her enter, permitting himself a glance at the segment of black panty hose he can spot between the hem of her red tartan coat and the top of her boots. Maybe it’s more than a glance; maybe it borders on a leer. But he feels like it’s the quickest, most subtle leer he can possibly manage with three shots of bourbon floating around in his circulatory system. Still, a little embarrassing.
    Don’t worry about it
, he tells himself,
nobody noticed
, but even as he tells himself this he feels the prickling sensation of disapproving eyes on him, and he tracks over to the source of the sensation, and that’s when he sees her, alone at a table for two: Denver.

CHAPTER SIX
LISTEN, AUDIENCE
    IMMANENCE • AMBIGUOUS INTRODUCTIONS • I’M NOT SAYING
BUDDY
• TOTAL FAILURE OF CHARACTER • ABSOLUTE CORPOREALITY • KAFKA TELLS A JOKE • FAMOUS LITERARY BRAWLS • A STORY ABOUT SOME THINGS • SOULS • STOUT • RHETORIC

    There had been a night, at the tail end of summer, when Billy and Denver had gone out for drinks with Bingxin Ying, a petite gallery owner with violet lipstick, an asymmetrical haircut, and an intense manner of aggressively probing the air while she spoke. The outing was in celebration of the closing of a