Cliché Guevara

by Eric Ullerich

Redskins on Monday Night Football, my team, Theismann, Riggins, Monk, mini-bar beer resting on my cummerbund, makes we want to skip the ceremony, show up for the reception once the game is over.

Lynn leans out the bathroom door, wearing only a strapless bra.

“You ready, babe?”

“Been ready,” I respond. “Who has a wedding on Monday night?”

“Venues are cheap and available.”

“Reminds me of this girl. . . .”

“That’s never funny. Call time is 5:30.”

“It’s 5:20.”

“We can’t be late.”

I bump up the volume two clicks on the remote.

Second and ten, blitz is on . . .

“Waitin’ on you!” I shout over the game.

“I have a pimple on my ass. Want to pop it?” she asks.

“I’ll drown it.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll drown it!”

“What does that mean?”

“Really?  You don’t get it?”

“Not in the least.”

“I will smother it in so much semen, it will no longer be able to receive oxygen and ultimately suffocate.”

“Yuck! That was hilarious!”

A flea-flicker . . .

“No, it’s not. Ask anyone.”

“Beth would love it!”

“No girl would find that funny.”

“Not even Beth?”

“Her husband sticks his dick in her face when she’s reading. She says it’s gross!”

“That’s the trouble with women, you make us think you like dick and really you just tolerate it.”

“I like dick!”

“Not really. You’re not always thinking about the next time you can get it. It’s not like shoes.”

“Have you seen my shoes?”

“No, dear, I haven’t.”

“Can you find them for me, please?”

“I don’t know where they are.”

“Please just be helpful. I’m trying to look nice for your employee’s wedding.”

Theismann’s in a lot of trouble and it’s Taylor who slams him down. . . .

I fold from the couch, snag the backstraps of two blue high heels, walk into the bathroom, letting them drop behind her, appreciating the clatter they make on the marble floor.

“Thank you for being helpful, dear,” she says, her eyes rolled to the ceiling, tiptoeing to jackknife her face closer to the mirror, applying mascara, her ass unintentionally presenting. She points to the offending pimple and gives me a come-hither look. I depart the bathroom.

You see the right ankle . . . and you know something is really bad. . . .

I sink back down into the couch, coastering a new beer on my cummerbund.

“How do these shoes look on me?” she yells from the bathroom.

“They look great.”

“You can’t even see.”

“I just brought them in. I can imagine them at the bottom of your legs.”

And we’ll look at it again one more time. . . .

I get up, walk back into the bathroom, and stare at her feet.

“Those look great.”

“But you haven’t seen the black ones.”

She slips the black ones on.

“I like the first ones.”

“Why?”

“Why?” I repeat.

“Yes, why?”

I stare at the ceiling, holding the words that I know are coming out, knowing the dual-silent treatment I’m about to start.

“This conversation is so fucking cliché.”

“Clichés exist for a reason,” she says.

“All right, but let’s go catch a Mets game first at Cliché Stadium."

No one likes to see this happen.

She glares at me, openmouthed. I can see her tongue swirling amongst her teeth.

“What time is it?” she finally asks.

“Hey, my hands could use some lotion. Did you bring the cliché butter?”

She puts her hands on her hips, eye daggers, heels and lingerie matching.

I look down at my watch.

“5:30.”

His season is likely over.

Eric Ullerich is a retired attorney, living in Northridge, California, with three boys, one wife, and a minivan. He has been published in the Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles (Episode 8) and has had another piece accepted at Page & Spine.