f (foundling) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-04-18 14:30:00 |
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It was Saturday. The babysitter was arranged. Teresa and Joy were at Cris' place with her, and they got everything squared away for a couplea hours. It was a pretty nice day out, sun a high yolk, the temperature middling—but after a long winter, everyone was out showing skin. Sundresses showed legs, guys had tanks on and boomboxes like it wasn't 2015, kids were swinging like monkeys on brittle, old metal in the park near Cris' apartment. The guy himself, he went for a polo and jeans, simple, black over darker blue, and old Chucks, his sneakers stained with age and Bronx grime. His new sunglasses were folded, arm first, into the 'v' of his shirt, and he'd left his cap at home with his jacket. It was spring feigning at summer, birds chattering where they found branches not yet green, brown bones under that cracked sun, and the mood was light, like it always was when the snow stopped and people remembered what it was like when it wasn't freezing and miserable. Cris was as susceptible as anyone, and under the dark barroom ceiling that felt low, he was in good spirits. Showers and salt was still stuck to his skin in some places, but he pretended not to notice. In that hole-in-the-wall in the South Bronx, they were practically alone, place empty midday save for a couple pillars of the community leaning against the dull bar, slumped over warm beer, mumbling in Spanish with the sympathetic bartender, getting too loose with their tips. It was some otherworldly reflection of a place he and Penny used to go in their New York, where there was no Stark Tower, none of this locust stuff. But, it didn't seem changed, not like Manhattan. Nah, it was slow, black wood booths with cushions gouged by fingers, teeth of keys over years, and Cris slid into one in the back with the frothy head of his Hatuey sloshing over the side. He took out a pocket-worn dime, ridges ground to nothing, and he put it between him and Penny, sideways grin on his face, all familiar slink of shadows and playful lift of eyebrows. An old tradition resurrected in scrape of silver on tabletop, a thing that took a little longer than Christ himself, not three days, but months behind them, isolated, and a whole world too. Yeah. No helping hand from Dios here. But they'd come back together, hm? Eventually. Old partners with heads bent together in blonde and black. Cris was glad for it. He was happy to see Penny. He lifted his chin at her as he sprawled back. "Flip it. I'll call it. Loser buys the drinks." |