Long Tables, pt. 8

The girls went off to yak in the kitchen. I took Dumb and Dumber into the living room. I asked did they want anything to drink and they said water. I made it clear how we got beer and wine and all kinds of hard stuff for cocktails. I said anything you want.

Moose hooked a thumb over his shoulder. He said, no can do. He told me, he promised. Then he went on about how he’s still on probation for last time. Probation because he busted out a window at a bus stop. He made a point about how it was the biggest window.

In the living room he was doing the reenactment.

Moose got drunk off boilermakers. This was not last week but the one before. Coming back from wherever, he was at the bus stop, the kind where all around there’s glass windows, and he decided it was a good idea to put his head through one of them.

In the reenactment, Moose grabbed my shoulders and made like he was going to crack his head against my head. I was playing the part of the window.

The bitch of it, he said, was the cop didn’t have the first clue until after the light turned green. That’s when the girls drove by in the other direction. He was sitting there when it happened, the cop was, at a red light. Facing the opposite way. Moose did the head-butt thing right behind him, and the cop had no idea.

The light changed and the girls went by, and that’s when the cop turned, to look at the girls, and there was Moose, stooped over on the curb, holding his head, with blood dripping down his arms, crunching around on a sea of broken glass.

If the girls had gone left or right, or if they were ugly, or guys, no problem.

Moose shook his head and said tough break. He said, “The wife, she’s still pretty hot about it.”

So then, water.