Porcelain Promise By Eldon (Craig) Reishus

What we clearly needed were some proper reverse PR responses to the ocean-curdling questions the environmentalists zinged at our outfit. We trudged out into the global-warming cold for a very long lunch at our favorite watering hole, Wong’s.

Myron, our chief discounter, needed not four full hours to entirely update our table: “Plan B? Forget Plan B! For Plan C it’s already too late!”

Sally — considerably looped — suggested that we turn our long lunch into Plan D: a liquid dinner. Pete seconded. Tuesday thirded. I allowed the rings beneath my eyes to do my talking: at 3 AM the night prior I had been up with my daughter, Kelly, who stays with me whenever she and her mother agree that such would be a good idea for all sides involved. Kelly is clairvoyant and she couldn’t fall back to sleep because in her dream she had picked through my college porno collection. She found it disgusting — my collection had compromised her idea, beginning with me, of all dads everywhere. From my side, I found her act of going through my bachelor fantasy stowage equally reproachable, so I encouraged her to be fair and let go of the dream and then read to her from the sports section of The International Business Times. As Kelly finally drifted off towards sleep, she mumbled the upcoming Sunday’s football scores. I listened closely, memorizing the Vikings versus the Steelers (44-12), the Jets versus the Saints (39-12), and the Giants against the Seahawks (63-12) — final results enough to secure a lifetime fortune. With a tired wink, I explained to Sally, “I regret that I have but one long afternoon to give to my company.”

“Heyyyyyy, stick with us Dracula.”

I shook my head. “Family issues — I’m the dad on-duty this week.” I arose, splashed down a wad of bills, and before returning to the cold, squeezed one last time into the men’s. Kelly’s clairvoyance comes from her mother who got it from her father who got it from his mother who was orphaned by a burst of internecine strife that no one awaited. I pulled up behind the lone working urinal, and through Wong’s one-way restroom mirror — like some heavy-set detective with a problem prostate — I monitored the scene before me. Sally, shaking her thick mane of curls, re-counted the bills I had left behind — enough to take care of everyone for the rest of the night and then imagine. Myron and Tuesday and Pete, doing that imagining, tore up napkins and tossed confetti. I felt like some mealy gift horse who had actually come through on the long-odds quinella. I shivered, then buckled my barn-door, hit the sink, and bent more closely forward to renew some parting familiarity with my twin gold fangs. To have the gold replaced by ceramic caps, I had scheduled that morning two dental appointments — a small one for the following week, and a larger one for the following following.

© 2014 Eldon (Craig) Reishus

Eldon (Craig) Reishus entertains a growing, less intimate circle under the Alps outside Munich (Landkreis Bad Tölz – Wolfratshausen). He is an old-school Exquisite Corpse contributor and his recent work is featured or forthcoming at Word Riot, Lunch Ticket, B O D Y, MadHatLit, New World Writing, theNewerYork, No Tokens, and the magazines decomP, Corium, Black Heart, and Pulp Metal. All-around print and web media pro, and the German-English translator of numerous films and books, he originates from Fort Smith, Arkansas. Visit him: http://www.reishus.de

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