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It’s Two-Minute Date night at this bar you hate,
where you’re shoved with someone of the opposite sex
for two minutes and then forced to move on. The idea
is that if one of your two-minute prospects seems to
be worthwhile, you get their name and number before
time is up and then you call them later.
Your dead father is laughing.
There are televisions in every dark corner of the
bar, hanging from the walls and ceiling like
radioactive cobwebs.
You want to tell her why you hate this bar so much,
but you don’t have time.
On television is a rerun of Cheers.
“My father,” you tell the flat-faced girl who is
your current girlfriend, “he used to be a professional
laugh track recorder. He had this amazing laugh.”
You want to describe his laughter to her, but you
don’t have time.
The girl looks at you with lifeless eyes.
“He was a laugher for Cheers,” you clarify,
pointing up at the television.
“Really,” the girl says, gnawing on the straw of
her bloody mary and looking past you, at somebody else
who isn’t you. Her flat, skinny body is trapped
tightly in this long pink sequined dress that makes
her look like cow tongue.
You try to think of a compliment for this dress, a
nicer description, but you don’t have time.
“Yeah,” you say. “But that was just something he
did in his free time. He was otherwise a novelist.”
“A what?”
“A novelist. He wrote big long books about places
and people.”
The girl jiggles her bony arm and then looks down
at her twine-sized wristwatch. “I’d rather be a
laugher.”
“That’s funny,” you say, and the girl looks at you
blankly.
You say tomato and she says tomato.
“Does he still laugh?” She asks.
“No, he’s dead now.”
“How’d he die?” she says.
You take a swig of your beer and shake your head.
You notice she has a scar on her face — your mind whirls
between possible causes — but before you can ask her
about it, the bell rings and she moves on to her next
boyfriend.
Above you, your dead father is laughing.
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