Her tied hair pulls her face taut while she makes proprietorial comments about him.
You know she says addressing him you only drink because of the pressure they put you under.
He is removing piece by piece his clothes and soon presents with the baleen look of a former athlete.
The sympathetic mate takes one last filched beer away in the dark while she follows slyly. He advances steadily toward catalepsy with only myself – the stranger in the room – remaining.
Sit down he says.
He tells of swimming race across the heads he won for his father who could not walk, and of the woman whose life he heroically saved.
I am thinking his stories are like the touch up of paintings on his psyche.
He tells of the award they gave and says to me his jaw as wide and still as bronze, “I don’t like your words young man just listen”.
I had not spoken once but he was right, words were thoughts yes, I was trying to figure was there any word gesture I could make to try to save his life.