Earie was walking past the red, blue and yellow chairs positioned in front of the art trailer when he heard Pretty Man snoring. At first he couldn’t tell what the sound was, but then a loud, pig-like grunt firmly indicated to him the presence of another human being. He moved toward the trailer’s dark interior and watched the folded body on the dirty mattress and rugs within heave up and down a minute, sometimes with a twitch. This guy was obviously in deep dreamland. Shame to wake him, Earie thinks, and decides to move onward through Central Park to the Joint Joint, where Jacob I. and Broken Heart Jackie were most likely waiting. But with an even louder grunt, Pretty Man then rolls over on his other side and opens his eyes. “Don’t pull a knife on me, friend. I ain’t dangerous.”
“Sit up, then, and let’s take a look at you,” the pink haired punk commanded. He didn’t have a knife on him currently, but two pistols were tucked in the back of his belt. Pretty Man sat up and started looking all around, as if in a haze. “Art is everywhere,” he then said. “In the sky, in my hands.” He looked at his hands. “In your hair.” He gazed at Earie’s mohawk. “*Especially* in your hair. Where you from, fellow dude?”
Earie had concluded this person was obviously stoned on something. He definitely *wasn’t* going to tell him where he lived in town. So he made up a place. “Butcher shop,” he said. “Upstairs.”
“Ah, Wanesa the Slasher. And I didn’t know her shop had an upstairs… thought they cut that off back in the 30’s.” Pretty Man stared at Earie’s head again. “Your mohawk thinks you’re lying,” he said, and then laid back down on the old mattress in the trailer and started to laugh, face upwards and arms spread. Earie wondered if he could tell just by the tone of his voice or if he’s one of those true psychics. Their services are more expensive than the whores. Sometimes you can get a two for one deal at a discount, but he’s only heard about such things; Earie doesn’t engage with Gaston’s Berry imports if he can help it. And, gandering at Pretty Man’s current pose, this led to the another thought: that this *man* in front of him could be a woman in disguise. He’s never heard of a male psychic. Or a male prostitute, at least around these parts.
“What’s your business, here, partner?” Earie inserted amidst the continued chuckles. He voiced some of his suspicions. “Man whore? Man *psychic*?”
Pretty Man’s laughter petered away, and he dismissed Earie’s guesses with a wave of his hand. He sat up again. He stood up out of the trailer, looking in the direction of Earie’s Yellow House. Does he know already? Earie pondered. He briefly goes around the trailer’s corner and comes back with a cup of coffee, steaming hot somehow. He sits down in the red chair. Earie just stares at him, wondering if he should take a seat as well.
But then Pretty Man pops back up and states, “this isn’t the right chair,” and then looks at his coffee. “And this is not the right drink, pheh.” He spits the beverage he just partook of out on the road beside him. Pretty Man goes around the corner of the trailer again, returning with a beer bottle this time and hops back up in the trailer, leaning against the wall. “The red one is not mine,” he reinforces. “That’s… what’s his name?” Earie gets tingles. He *must* know.
Pretty Man moved to the edge of the trailer again and looked directly into Earie’s face. “Chro-ma,” he pronounced distinctly. “Sit down in your *yellow* chair, and let’s have a talk Earie,” he then said to the stunned punk. “And of course I’ll take my blue one.”
Improvio.
