She is beautiful on a space sofa, that cushioned ass.

The ambient drive of a midnight cockatoo tail.

A tale of breathlessness, a tale of wind in the face on a warm summer day.

Vanishing, all vanishing like liquid ghost meat…

The librarian brushes his hair at the checkout counter when he thinks no one is looking. It’s a big bush of rust-colored wire, tangerine-flavored spun sugar really, and he must force the black apparatus through. His eyes shift at a glide to the side to forever abide… Asking “I wonder if anyone is watching me?”

His name is Troy and he used to be a mannequin but now he’s a real living boy. There’s a female librarian clerk on the other side of the round counter. She sits at a computer and inputs information. She makes him nervous because he is the beast, and she is the beauty. “I wonder if she likes my hair?” he asks himself in inner monologue speak.

At lunch in the park, the female librarian clerk, her name being Beth Combs, snickers in unison with her friend. “What do you think of his hair? Isn’t it weird.”

“It’s like he’s never done a single thing with it since the day he was born,” the friend answers. How does he not realize he looks ridiculous?” They both laugh out loud.

Troy doesn’t know how they talk about him behind his back. He eats a Launchable Luncheable in the breakroom all by himself… Crackers, meat, cheese. He wonders if he himself is cracking, if he were to be snapped in half would the crumbs of himself scatter on the wind of the chilly library air conditioning.

A hurried woman sneezes. Troy shelves books with a raging erection. He looks like a younger, orange-speckled version of Gene Simmons from KISS. He wants to Detroit Rock City his member across the entire void of the world. He enjoys the musty smell of books left long untouched. Voices bellow throughout the place and he just wants to scream: “Shut up! It’s a fucking library!” Bruzz, bruzz, bruzz… the noise is like a chainsaw on a chalkboard. “Shut up!!”

He sneaks off to a hidden corner of the library and talks to his grandmother on his phone and smiles. He whispers into the receiver, “I think she really likes my hair. I think I’m going to ask her out, but I think I’ll bring her a dozen roses first. That will for sure knock her socks off.”

---

The next day before his shift, Troy stopped off at the florist shop. “I’d like your finest dozen roses,” he told the big man behind the counter.

“Oh, my my. Someone must be in love,” the florist said.

Troy shifted nervously. He never really thought about love and now he was most likely in the midst of it. “Well… I need to ask her out first,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

The florist presented him with a full bouquet of plump red roses. “She’ll drop dead over these,” he said.

Troy looked at him funny. “I hope not.”

“Okay,” and he figured in his head as he looked toward the ceiling. “That will be 112 dollars.”

Troy’s head nearly exploded. “One-hundred and twelve dollars!?”

“That’s what I said… Flowers aren’t cheap, and having a lady friend is costly. In more ways than one.” The big florist winked at him. “Everything has gone up, I’m afraid.”

Troy grumbled as he dug his wallet out and reluctantly handed over the money. “Here you go.”

“Good luck, young man. Come back and tell me how it went. I own this place. Name’s Ralph.”

“Ralph Furley?”

“No. Does this look like Santa Monica to you?”

Troy laughed to himself. “Guess not. Thanks, Ralph.”

---

Troy sat in the parking lot of the library and did some deep breathing exercises to try and calm himself. “This is crazy, this is crazy,” he repeated. For a moment he thought that he might chicken out and throw the flowers in the restroom trash can. He glanced at himself in the rear-view mirror. He practiced smiling. He petted his head. “At least my hair looks good,” he said to himself. He took one last deep breath and got out of the car. He forced himself to march straight to the front doors and into the library. He proudly held the bouquet of roses out in front of him.      

Her eyes widened when she saw him coming in her direction. She looked first at his hair, then the bunch of roses. “Oh, no,” she muttered to herself.

“Hi, Beth,” Troy nervously said, and he thrust the bouquet in her direction. “These are for you.”

She nearly fell forward when she got up to take them from him. “Thanks,” is all she could muster.

“Would you be interested in falling in love?”

“Troy?” she said, and she looked around and people were staring, people like patrons and co-workers, small children, mocking teens. “Can we talk about this in private?” She was mortified.

That’s when Troy got down on both knees, clasped his hands together as if in prayer, and looked up at her. “Please go out with me. Please. I’m begging you. I’ll die without your love.”

“Get up, Troy.” She tried to laugh but started to cry, and then she hurried off to the breakroom in milk utter embarrassment.

When Troy moped into the breakroom, Beth’s face was sour, her arms folded, her jaw clenched so tightly she thought her teeth would be ground to dust. “Hey,” he said.

“Was that some sort of prank?” Beth wanted to know. “Because if it was, it was a horrible thing to do.”

Troy managed to raise his head and look at her. “No… I just wanted to go out with you.”

She pushed the bouquet of roses in his direction. “I’m sorry, but I can’t accept these… And I don’t want to go out with you.”

He ached inside as he took the flowers from her. “Why?”

Her eyes went to the top of his head. “It’s your hair. It’s just so… It grosses me out. I just imagine things living up in there. You really need a haircut, a good haircut. I can’t be seen out in public with someone with hair like that.”

“So, if I get a haircut, then you’ll go out with me?”

“No, Troy. I’m not interested in you like that. I have much higher standards.”

“Okay,” he mumbled, and he turned away from her and walked out of the breakroom. He rushed by his conveniently positioned boss and blurted out, “I quit!” and he kept on walking until he was all the way out in the parking lot. He slammed the bouquet of roses down onto the grimy asphalt, red petals splintered, thorns scraped against Troy’s broken world.

He fell to his knees and looked up at the roaring blue sky and its ship of clouds. He screamed like an animal. “Oh, heartbreak has me now!” he bellowed. “I’ve been slain by the arrow of love, the bowman a she-devil!”

Several people stopped and looked at him. “I’m all right,” he said to the gathering crowd. “I’m just in a great deal of emotional pain.” Troy stood up and brushed off his dirty knees. He turned and started to walk away. A car pulled into the space where the roses were gasping toward their final breath, a black tire pressing down and forever sealing them into the scrapbook of bad memories.  

END

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