Prisoner’s Dilemma, Forehead First
by Joel Van Noord
Boom boom boom between the cheeks and we drink hard. Kevin’s fizzing. It’s pompous and ridiculous. Fun if you can give it up. Absurd if you’re not a part. Stay young. Stay in.
The bartender is chiseled from stone. His eyes are glacial blue. It’s hard not to stare. he’s so pretty. Stubble is perfectly dense and trimmed at obtuse angles.
40 for entrance and drink. A swiping movement with the hand. I call and signal.
Outside and there is a dull pain. It’s comfortable. The temperature.
Beautiful girls have fallen from advertisements. I jaw but it’s foreign. I ask for a cigarette. They are disgusted.
“What happened?” Omar calls as he stumbles. “Did you get in a fight?”
“What do you want to do now?”
“I think I’m done.”
“What?”
“I was on call last night. I’m tired. I’m going home to watch Lord of the Rings.”
“Lord of the Rings? You’re such a Muslim.”
He shrugs and he was the one who said, ‘You’re such a Christian’.
Through transitions, the lights and people pick up again as I reach the water, bored and wanting of something like insight. Street musicians.
Families stroll and stop. Menus. On. Cold sand. Dark Ocean. The surf is white. It crashes and falls silent, sucks, retreats. I The moon is full to the left. Four stars out-compete the conditions that be. It is quiet and there are always pockets. The night sky has me…
Dolphin? There’s a dark object. I train my eyes. No. My heart drops…
Slapping the water. Sinking. A head gulps. No. The boardwalk is distant. The volleyball courts are far. I am the person I am.
A button flies. The belt whips, shoes off and I step. Freezing water with briefs. The body is lost in a wave. Paddle hard. Arctic. October. Sluggish.
Bodies are meat. I’m going to save a life.
“HOLD ON!” the lungs… needles, everything… weight. Head down, kick, stroke.
Remnant swell. Head up… heart sinks to stomach, nearly vomit. Gag.
Idiot. Almost dead for a bundle of planktonic trash. The mind is jittering.
Trouble paddling, a buoy. Strong drift, long beach, serious, the pier. My breath is distant. I don’t want to play. Cold burns.
I feel the sand and I am beyond cold. My clothes are… I can’t find them. A frigid breeze hurling south from Alaska. The teeth are going to shatter from this jawing. The briefs have been given to the sea.
Help, a nurse? Damn-it. I don’t think I can see straight. It’s blurry, someone is trying to push me off to the left. Rubber. Shaking like Muhammad Ali. A mind to match.
Pull up the collar. Rub hands. Hello normal.
“Sick brah. Sicky sick, yo. Ghost ride that water.” Serius? There is a laugh but nothing is funny. Dread-locks loose and tied back under an idiot felt hat with a feather, it’s pointed and green. Robin Hood.
“It’s easier with a wet-suit, brosef.” He smirks and I’m shaking but not violently. I begin to walk. To carry on as if.
“Yo, man. You cool. It’s legit in there. Absolute.” I move to pass and he’s on my arm. “You on acid or something? Swimming like a fiend in the cold cold bra.”
Too twisted. Straighten the arm from the cold. Eyes prevaricate. Swing. Tag him on the ear. Embarrassment.
The easy way out as he stumbles and curses. I am wrong. He is right. I blink to clear the eyes. I hit him again and twice more and then run. Abscond.
The beach is wide.
The city is reversed. The night is either over or not. The cold has blasted this experience into a page break. Girls now stare. I nod. They are plentiful. How far is rape. How far is murder. How far a graduate degree or a house in Phoenix? It’s a trick to find and dump the personality. Move faster. Warm up. It’s regrettable.