Plunk

I was cutting up nearly frozen chicken thighs with a pair of orange school scissors. They were crusted in permafrost, so my thumb started losing sensation as I padded around the tense marbled fat. Ran it under water. Snip, took off a colossal hunk. The graveyard of pink and white was growing on the board.

I had on a chess game in the background. Caruana vs. Kasparov, a classic. My phone sat on the toaster, the tiny screen almost impossible to watch. I couldn’t look up, lest I cut a finger. I just listened to the wooden “plunk” on the gameboard when they moved, a small cough, nose breathing in concentration. I squinted up, but couldn’t tell who was winning.

My mind wandered to a girl I used to work with. A southern beauty, deep blue eyes, curvy figure with ancestral hips. Little gap tooth that made me almost believe in a creator. She had that wild head-toss laugh, had to touch you when she did it. She got real serious about energies, alignments and moon signs. I imagined we were out at a get together, a bunch of people from work went to the lake one summer afternoon.

5 of us on an overgrown grass patch, blankets, phones, wilting strawberries, bodies splayed wide to hope for evaporation. The drone of the speedboats playing in the middle of the lake. By the shore the hot brown water is lapping at the rocks, squelching Tevas sneak through the mud. A fat man struggles to get in a deflating tube nearby, his daughter laughs. The sun is finally taking less of a beating on our little group.

She’d get up, ask me to help her with something in her car, flash the beer breath smile. I’d follow her to the parking lot. She’d lean on the frame of her corolla, door open, the alarm croaking softly in the humidity while we scanned each other. I’d peek in, see the starry roof liner, some rubber ducks on the dashboard. She’d ask me if I like her bathing suit.

Plunk. Kasparov goes g6.

In the fluorescent kitchen light, I can only see their hunched figures with the tiny gameboard overlay in front. Audience member whispers. Camera clicks. I lean over to get a view, chicken grease drips off my hands. Plunk.

She’d push up off the car, step closer. I do the lightest touch on her skin, testing. She gives the eyes, I put my hand on the wonderful little pouch of fat on her waist, feel the sweat, pull her in. I’d look towards the lake; nobody is paying attention. Grab a handful of ass. She gasps, smacks my stomach, tilts her head to the side.

Plunk, plunk. They’re onto the endgame; the pace is starting to pick up. I peak up for a moment, sense them breathing heavier, thinking harder. My pace quickens in turn. The scrap pile is now the carnage of Mongol horde, unceremonious, teetering, wasteful. Pink and white. Plunk, pause. Plunk, plunk. I squint my eyes, see if I can tell who’s up. My stomach grumbles.

After a moment I’d pull back from her, knees bent awkwardly to hide a half chub. Couldn’t look down, she’s a swirling mirage of smile, tan skin and bikini. I breathe in deep, hold her hips for stability. I’d suggest we just get a room somewhere close; we shouldn’t drive too far. She pulls my hat down over my eyes. Oh really? Where?

Plunkplunkplunkplunk. Plunk. Their chair shuffle, they stand up and shake hands. Game over. I can’t tell who won, they’re the types who look angry no matter the outcome. My eyes itch from the baseboard dust, I blink furiously to moisten them, holding t-rex arms above my plate of carnage.

I toss the cutlets in Tupperware and stir them with barbecue sauce, onions, peppers. A random winter draft creeps around the apartment, hits unexpectedly. I turtle my neck down. An ad automatically plays on my phone, colorectal screening. Loud acoustic music, mixed race doctor, happy looking old couple, Perspelimanga… I lost track of what it was called.

The image of her blue eyes come back. We’d sway for a few more minutes, then she’d go back to the group, I’d stay put. I’d let her walk first so I could see those bouncy castles reanimate under her little shawl dress, swishing across the pavement, flip flops clacking. Orange sun would start lighting the thicket, insects getting louder. She’d reach the group again, strewn about like bronze Muppets, didn’t even notice we’d left.

I’d lean against her car, feel the warmth, fish in my pocket for my vape, forgot I don’t do it anymore. Look down and inhale the patchouli beer lavender scent on my chest hair, send her a quick text.

The ad is over on my phone. Now it’s silent, with the two men’s side profiles staring at each other on the loading screen. I have garlic wedged between my fingers, I keep kneading the shloppy cold thighs, air pocket farts as I twist, I hope to not smell anything.

The apartment is still cold, or I’m anemic. My feet never defrost, unless I put on thick ass socks, which don’t fit in shoes, and make me feel house bound, like I’m forfeiting to winter. I can’t give up, yet. Another nose itch comes in from the hot air. I sneeze and accidentally touch chicken grease to my nose. Motherfucker.

I try to picture her again, the lazy heavy heat of ideas. It’s fading quick, her laugh blends in with crickets and humidity, floats over the lake with an exhale. The hot pavement cools into dead yellow tile. My tan skin is gone.

Look at my sickly white, cracked knuckles. I’m in a down jacket filled with little holes that puff out feathers around the apartment. If I cook too hard, move too emphatically, it looks like a pheasant was processed in here. Feathers on the floor, marbled fat stack, the orange scissors in the sink, slimy and ashamed.

I can’t get her back. The body odor, cackle, the flop of her sandals on the grass. I’m grateful for the small trance while it lasted.

Grateful for whatever machinery my brain needed to teleport away from my cold fluorescent dissection, to keep itself alive and awake. Anything but the present.

Quiet internal desperation to displace the external, in the form of mutilating a chicken in a tiny box room under a squeaky light, in winter. No snow. Bare everything.

I take that split moment of escape and run with it as far as I can.

I’ll put on another chess video, maybe a longer one this time, hope that rhythmic plunk conjures up another dream. Winter is long.