Hrcas...

He snorted, and shook his head.  Small dead things fell out of his dirty hair, and littered the table between his greasy hands.  He was just intimidated.  And why shouldn’t he be?  His crooked yellow teeth, fucked-up haircut, stupid Rush T-shirt.  He oughta’ be intimidated, the way she was staring at me. 

I rose confidently, and walked over to their table.  Looking down at him, I took a risk -- to knock him down some more.  “I think you want to fuck her… that’s what you’re saying, you know.”

Chickenshit.

“Hey man, it’s cool.  I don’t want it to be that way.  Come on, sit down.”

I slid into a chair beside her.  I looked at her; this was the girl in my dedications.  She asked me my name.  She couldn’t understand my English, so I wrote my name on her palm.  I asked her friend for a pen; he reluctantly handed me a fat, black Sharpie.

She told me her name, but I missed it.  So she said it again; so proud.  A film school student, rich kid from Venezuela.  She smiled, and wrote it on my arm, all twelve syllables worth.  He asked her to write it on his arm too, but instead she drew a three-leaf clover on the back of his hand.