Two at the powerhouse, dukes up. We’re lapping up what lives we’ve wove twenty years in the future.
Acquired the boxer’s dose somewhere in the late huns and to this day still. Out for a drink after one bloodied the other and in come the bar dame with a sawed-off smile. You, on the other side, shouted Rodney’s punched up liver.
—Jake, I must say.
—Don’t.
—I must say.
—Don’t.
He shifted a ring in his pocket.
The two were no stranger and the pourer weren’t unaware of their stagger, but the box could argue it. Jake slugged Rodney’s shoulder with vigor though he held his beer, a sort of Irish decoction, level, unperturbed.
—How’s him, over that such and such?
—Aye, if by such you’re meanin the murmur.
—Aye then.
They sipped and watched as she poured. The ritual of sip, and the last of the dusk shown what dust on the tab through the blinds on the east side of The Dame’s Reflect, an oppy old drear our pals nightlied in since the reign.
—Story colon, bespat Jake at our hero, listening?
—Course.
—Was at the regular shitchu not. Think I isn’t.
—Nah.
—Nah ain’t wrong. Listen this ain’t some whimsy to set the record. The Old Coast, one the mad dog snuck in once, member that. Moi et toi, high school and the girls, the girls, member them, leaders of cheer. Anyway, saw a ghost, webs and the Chill of the Soul of the Sea or some such poem. Ever see one?
—Can’t say.
—Course you didn’t, know why here’s why. Weren’t any till now.
—Ghost at The Old Coast. The Old Coast Ghost.
—Picture this: out for a skip, been skippin duskly keeps the blood rivering, needed to clear the head again after another night if you know you know. Till I see a blinking sort of fire flicking in one of the dead gas lights, know those old lights no one uses, them. Look up and there he is.
—Okay.
—Mr. Claud Poplar.
—Think you saw Claud’s ghost at the Old? Hmm.
—Did saw him. Smoking a ghost-cigar. Old coot ‘cummbed.
—So Mr. Poplar’s joined the fray. How long you?
—Since that spiced rain turned acid, a day in May, yourself?
—Can’t say. Tried. Couldn’t.
