This is a frivolous attempt at writing a nonsense spoof of a 1930's style hardboiled text |
The ice cubes were sparkling like sweaty diamonds, as they tumbled over in the glass, when I wagged it back and forth. The dame had not appeared yet, and the one thing I did not like was to to be kept waiting or even worse, be stood up! Adding to the insult, I was probably going to be pretty smashed when she finally arrived. My table was close to the round shaped dance floor, and whiffs of perfume teased my nostrils, as the couples whirled by. I did not pay much attention to those jackasses pacing the dance floor. I never did understand the purpose of dancing. The alcohol and the irritation of all this waiting was clouding up my brain anyway and the people on the dance floor were rapidly becoming a hazy blur of colour, scent and the sound of chiffon, moving on women’s bodies… The orchestra was playing "Don’t be that way!" and I thought about the woman who kept me waiting like this. In my usual paranoid manner, I surreptitiously allowed my right hand to move close to the left of my chest, soothing my perpetual anxiety by feeling the grooved handle of Baretta, my 8 slug insurance policy. "Hey you!" I heard her voice, distancing itself very close to me. I lowered my drink and I tried to focus in the direction of the voice. The all too familiar perfume was already doing a better job than the booze of spinning my head into orbit. There she was! Wearing a dress poured on her voluptuous body as New England maple syrup poured on a stack on breakfast pancakes! Her nipples threatened to poke holes in the diaphanous material of her dress. The perfect contour of her thighs sweeping over into the drama of the curvature of her naughty hips only to lunge back to a waist slim enough to clasp my hands around. Watching the movement of the dress on her body made me feel slightly nauseatic. I had not felt like this, since I was a kid and my dad had to stop the car to avoid me puking all over the new upholstery of the backseat. I still remember his cursing voice. "Did you miss me?" she asked in her misty voice, a voice sounding like the fog of Kerry as it sweeps up from Bantry Bay and over the grassy slopes, dotted with milky shapes of sheep. Still reminiscing of Ireland, I answered "Aye" and realized my mistake when she raised a thin, well trimmed eye brow, smiling a disapproving, slightly perplexed smile at me. "Are you gonna let me stand here all night, and not even speak english to me?", she asked with a rebuking show off of her hands, left one on her hip, right one turning the palm upwards, index finger pointing straight at me, with remaining fingers gradually folding into the palm. The sharp front end of the nail on her pointed index finger cut an invisible passage through space, aiming straight for the pulsating veins in my neck, in wanton desire to add the colour of blood onto the perfect smoothness of it’s ivory surface. I swollowed thickly and tried to untangle my tongue from my vocal cords as Jimmie Lunceford was playing "Organ grinder’s swing"… |