by Javy GWALTNEY

Look, this guy Doug, he was ask­ing for it. His eyes zigzag­ging along your date’s curves as the two of you stood at the gar­den bar dur­ing the re­cep­tion, the bulbs of string lights danc­ing in a gen­tle sway above the wed­ding par­ty. The nerve of this ass­hole: a grooms­man as­sault­ing a guest — a vul­ner­a­ble woman, mind you — with his eyes like that. It was an in­sult to her, re­al­ly and the sanc­ti­ty of the wed­ding as a whole. This is why your fist is speed­ing like a train to­ward Doug’s stu­pid, squashed face, des­tined to be­come even more squashed in a moment.

What a shame it’s come to this, be­cause you know you’re not that guy. You’re ed­u­cat­ed. You be­lieve in diplo­ma­cy. But some­times a moth­er­fuck­er needs to be punched.

Sure, she was say­ing “Michael, don’t,” but let’s be re­al: she want­ed you to. Even though you’ve on­ly been on two (and a half) dates, you have this deep, in­trin­sic con­nec­tion that gives you the abil­i­ty to peek deep in­to the re­cess­es of her mind. Such is the pow­er of a mod­ern, per­cep­tive man.

And yeah, okay, you’ve nev­er been in a scrap and your dad nev­er gave you the low­down on how to prop­er­ly use your ham hands for the sake of harm in spite of a tem­per sug­gest­ing he was an ex­pert on the sub­ject, but that’s be­side the point. You are right­eous, and maybe a lit­tle drunk, but most­ly right­eous and that’s its own kind of virtue. Your hand is get­ting clos­er now, by the way, al­ready tight­ened in­to a death-deal­ing ball of knuck­les — but some­thing is off.

You think you should feel like Ray Li­ot­ta pis­tol-whip­ping that one guy in Good­fel­las. You do not feel like Ray Li­ot­ta. Doug’s eye­brow is raised. Your fist is no longer sail­ing through the air but do­ing this weird kind of wob­bly mo­tion as you re­al­ize that oh shit oh god you did not plant your feet and now the en­tire world around you is be­ing pro­pelled along­side your fist.

Your whole body is mov­ing and, broth­er, it is not grace­ful. In fact, you’ve nev­er been more aware of how clum­sy and heavy and pale and frag­ile and out of con­trol your suit of meat is than in this mo­ment. Oh god, you’ve missed. Doug is look­ing at you, not re­al­ly an­gry but more awed and con­cerned as you start to un­in­ten­tion­al­ly per­form a tip­ping, flail­ing pirou­ette that sees you spin­ning down to­ward the cold ground. You close your eyes to pre­pare your­self for the thud and en­su­ing dark­ness, won­der­ing if your date will spend the rest of her life trag­i­cal­ly celi­bate and in mourn­ing af­ter Doug stomps in the head of the most ed­u­cat­ed, sweet­est man she’s ever laid her eyes on.

But con­scious­ness re­mains. There are sev­er­al gasps. You open those peep­ers to dis­cov­er you are float­ing, hav­ing nev­er touched the ground, now soar­ing above the bar, the gar­den, the wed­ding en­tire. As the screams spread, more and more peo­ple look up. The best man is point­ing at you. The brides­maids are shriek­ing and laugh­ing as they snap pic­tures on their phones. Doug’s stu­pid donut of a mouth is agape. The bar­tender, who has seen some shit in his time, sighs and starts spin­ning a las­so out of the un­used string lights be­neath the counter.

Your date sul­len­ly turns back to her drink as the wed­ding re­cep­tion screech­es to a halt, every­one scram­bling to try and fig­ure out how to bring this mod­ern man back down to earth.

Filed under Fiction on November 8th, 2024

—

Care to Share?

—§—

Previous Post

« Soft as a Feath­er, Light as a Rap-Rock Board

—

Next Post

Wal­ly »

Join our Irregular Mailing List