“How can I make you believe in a night out with your home dog here, little lady?” The “little lady” bit was ill-advised he instantly felt.
“D-d-don’t do that.” A stutter. He was about to comment when she continued, “[hurlp] — that was the cold ice that did that” her slurping recovery to her stutter and ever so slight drool, dribble, and laugh — was the greatest thing he had seen thus far that year. He had no doubt that this was the best moment of his life perhaps thus far. An audience with the Wild Witch of Green Lantern Lane. (Not just a wild business opportunity…)
His blood’s level of hashish made some thoughts overshadow his lady, but he snapped to and leapt forward.
… “I never seen one this beautiful. Seen some savages in my time if that’s what you mean.” He was vaguely aware she had asked about witches and had he seen one ever before. He could only hear so-so over the din of knives and oil splatter.
He looks to his right: a sunbeam of Fungzhou paved road. Marbled thinly. Veins of yellow sulfur crystal yellow not quite dirt…but the Ming Hui lanterns…the oil is seafood. The buzz of light heavenly glows around the friendliest stern faced mommas and uncles giving you garlic green beans and fermented crab. Like a … a movie. Sunwashing into a wanderlust of nostalgia and discovery all at once — pure ecstatic joy. (Joy-san)… This is someplace like home. Yet, no place at all. No, not really.
“No.” Her lips gathered his attention sub-concsiously as her mind hesitated on her commitment to this strange dalliance. “No, I mean a real. Deadly evil witch.” Then with the word “evil” came her PTSD and her alter-ego…
Hans looked out the window as if imagining for real a flying witch bursting through to reap revenge for all the wronged, kidnapped, murdered women across all time. So, she turned inside. Hans had to say something soon–
“You know, all these women wanna be bad — the baddest b’s I’ve ever known have all been humble ranch moms who squirted out more babies than they can do multiplication tables for but they can visualize any problem, any table, any construction, any dish, any plan is no hectic enough for these real…ah there I go, nostalgic about my home country.” Hans was surprised at his patriotic outburst himself.
“You’re different,” she looked to the left and right in a way — in a deadly serious yet playful way that assured Hans that she would back him. Back him up no questions — but that the flashy suit was right — this girl was accessories not included. “Come, we should really talk somewhere else,” Joy-san said.
Past dull yellow lights and stalls of honey vendors. (What’s with the most random vendors here in Shanghai, Hans always noted bemusedly). A cop turns his head as if he already knows the plot to come with The Witch of Green Lantern Lane running down around the corner of the Two Thithers pub and Oak Barrell Street into the Lower Parkway. Then to the left at the Prestige Liquor store and right at the adult learning center with the Roman columns and there was an abandoned communal gardening plot that the derelicts and dirtbags like Hans and apparently this icon of a beauty used well for absconding and smoking.
[…Astronomy and Metaphysics laid down…]
“I never would have seen it that way.”
With the vapors trailing into the heavens there went their doubts and electric tickles over each other. Their cool vibes and competing souls shining. A spreading warmth with every shared puff of sage herb and concurring thought.
“Yeah, I mean, with all the cruelty in the world, it only makes sense that God is inherently evil and that it is humanity’s job to learn evil. We must learn it to manage it. Because in all our millenia of religious fervor and instruction to do GOOD, we can only seem to keep hurting each other…”
Hans is naive so he goes “Oh.” And takes this unprompted theory at face value. But, “Wait, that’s not possible,” he chuckles, “there has to be an odd number sometimes.”
She smiled at him, not intending to understand his apparent non-sequitur. “Look, that pigeon has a big brown spot next to a little brown spot.” She thought of her grandma for some reason. And this let her know she was in safe company. Not that she ever judged this would-be snake wrangler as anything but a cherub in wolf’s clothing. “Did you know pigeons only fly in odd numbers? They always have one pigeon out to buddy up with a new pigeon.”
“No, not with pigeons. They always find an extra mate before taking off.”
“Well what about a single flying pigeon? You can’t deny you’ve seen a single flying pigeon. Huh?” He was already feeling his face getting red with embarrassment at committing to this tease. He would have to commit harder but it wasn’t in him and she lambasted him half a micron over it. Little things the hormones and hearts do of young lovers of little signs and irritations.
“One doesn’t count, one is not a real number. I mean –” Here she almost shouted, which startled Hans, “–I mean, it’s real, just doesn’t behave regularly.”
Hans knew some math and he felt instantly nerve-wrecked to not say the wrong thing and show that his knowledge was less than hers. The math wizard accountant of Boss Di she was. So he did what was natural, and clammed up while he rummaged through his mind, settling on images of his university school bullies who niggled him for not learning advanced math. So he said nothing and appeared noble.
Later they strolled through the touristy antique district with the store front banquet dim sum places. An arc’ d’triumph was there. An Eastern one. These antique stores. The two average height humans dazzled and marveled at the mythical pure red phoenix and stalwart jade dragon. So noble these divine creatures. Reminding us of the unforgiving stance of nature: fuck you, your time is up.
“If I bought this for you,” Joy said pointing at a metallic gray glistening mangled cliff and tree statuette, “you would owe me.”
He didn’t quite get the play, Joy looked left and right.
“Yeah? I could owe you some baloney.” When in doubt go sexual he felt all of a sudden. What didn’t work before…
Well luck be a lady tonight because before he knew it he was in her flat. He remembered later there were curtains draping over everything. An artist’s studio cliché. A nightstand with a lamp from Tajikistan. She invited him to sit by her side. She half expected she would have to give him a hand job before she could get rid of him but he didn’t press her. Just kept his finger hovering over her button. Talking small but tender in a way.
…”Oh, you didn’t want to see him bragging anymore.”
Little things that showed he was listening.
…
“You’re my White Knight.” She would say one night over the phone as he opened a new letter containing a drawing from Joy-san — a cartoon regal Knight sketched with bemused love. She meant it. Hans was her friend. And it meant the world to her.
Hans wanted more. She should know his body and his sex and manhood. She should know he is better than those other cockamamey briggands she’s been with before.
“The determinant of a 2×2 matrix is the major row multiplied through minus the minor row multiplied through. For a 3×3 matrix, you take any row or column’s items and multiply them in an alternating summation subtraction sequence with the determinants of the resulting 2×2 matrixes.” (And such it goes on for any size matrix like Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception, expect in this time it was Groundhog day and — the greatest American romance ever written).
He learned well from Joy, but also snuck constant peeks at the peaks of her perky bosom.
elquetienelaspatas 