Preterition

With apologies to Dr. H.S.T.

Just like every year, I’m at the bar. I’ve finished my Piper-Heidsieck cocktail, and I’m working on a Bombay Sapphire martini, rocks and olives, since it’ll probably be a while before I have the chance again. There’s the screech of tires out front and then the concussive glass-and-metal whump. Silence for a few seconds, and then a dim hubbub until I hear her braying: “I don’t care if you were parking, asshole; this is a one-way street! Do you see this? Do you know what this is? This is a Colt .50 caliber Desert Eagle — now move your vehicle, citizen!”

I look straight ahead when she storms in. She takes the stool next to mine, asks for a 30-year Laphroaig, straight up, and puts down a twenty. “So you’ve still got the license,” I venture.

“Course I do,” she says. She waves off the change.

“Did you actually brandish it?”

She takes a swallow of the scotch. “He’s the only one who saw it. So?”

“And the wreck?”

“Fucking sonofabitch is dumb enough to back up on a one-way street, course I’m gonna rearend him.” She sighs. “At least it was just the Mercedes.”

I don’t push it.

She checks me out in the bar mirror. My attorney is an intimidating woman: young, physically striking in that particularly Sicilian way, and petite, but she moves her shoulders like a hockey center. She’s wearing a suit, mostly because she favors a full-harness shoulder rig for the Eagle. She checks out the scalp, the jacket, the shirt. “Jesus,” she says. “Look at that head. Did you just give in, or what?”

“Don’t start,” I say, but I know that just gets her going.

“No, really: did you just decide that you started going bald five years ago, so you might as well try and disguise it by shaving it all off now?”

Well, yeah. I mean, she’s right, right?

“And let’s see: black chinos, untucked DKNY dress shirt — hey, I like the fabric there — and a sport coat — do you actually think you look cool?”

Well, no. I gave that up a few years back. I was mostly just hoping for looking not-stodgy.

The maître-d’ approaches. “Madame?” he asks.

She whirls on him and has the barrel of the Eagle at his chin before anyone sees it. “Call me that again, Henri, and I’ll have them serving your thyroid as sweetmeats.”

Henri smiles and nods and backs off, hands pressed together, beaming. “Mademoiselle, M’seiu: your table is ready.” My attorney holsters her gun. I follow her following him, and my knees wobble some.

“Hey,” she whispers back at me. “What’s the matter with you? You act like you’re getting old or something.”

We’re seated. The maître-d’ does something I don’t register with the napkins, and beckons urgently for the sommelier, who — from my view over my attorney’s right shoulder — I can see go pale and shake his head. He knows her, apparently.

My attorney beams at me. “Listen,” she says. “You look like a sad sack, all down in the mouth. I’ve got some crystal meth, some ketamine, some of the fun twisted-molecule MDMA variants that are too new to be outlawed. Let’s have some dinner, go out, have some fun.”

I put my hands up, palms towards her, and smile. “C’mon,” I say. “It’s OK. Let’s just have dinner.”

She raises her eyebrows, doing the face-tilted-down-eyes-looking-up thing. She smiles the smile with the dimples. “I’ve got an H&K MP5 in the trunk,” she sing-songs. “Full auto. I’ll let you play.”

“Look,” I stammer. “I couldn’t.”

Like I knew it would, her expression clears suddenly to stern. There’s a space of several seconds. “Of course you couldn’t,” she says. “You can’t have fun anymore.” Another pause.

“As your attorney, I’m obligated to advise you that, well, you’re thirty-five years old, babe.”

She picks up the check.

(Much gratitude to my attorney for dinner tonight. You so rule — and you know I’m working on getting those legal bills paid down as fast as I can.)