Baby Geisha by Trinie Dalton Page A

up?
    To: Why do you assume that because we both like skunks we should have sex?
    From: Well, yeah. What’s your criteria? Skunks are specific I admit…
    To: I just thought we should grab a salad bar together first, to develop a rapport.
    From: I like nostalgia too. But what’s the difference between skunks and a salad bar? Right?
    To: There is a man crouched in front of my house, speaking Spanish into his walkie talkie. I will ask him.

The Phenomenology of Psychedelia
    I ask for something and I definitely get something but I get something that I didn’t expect.

Treehouses
    Only because I, as a kid, got locked out of treehouses, am I the type of adult who snitches on secret treehouse builders.

The Albuquerque Savers
    I flip through the most miraculous skirt rack I’ve ever seen in a thrift store. It starts with red skirts and ends on violet. To be exact, the aisle’s left rack covers red through yellow-green, and its right rack begins with hunter green at the far end and arrives to me with purple. It is so exquisitely color-coordinated that I don’t care about the clothes. I have the urge to walk slowly back and forth through this rainbow tunnel of textiles, huffing color. Lining the tops of the racks are extended rectangular shelves of baskets and purses, but wicker and pleather, today, don’t hold my attention. The women next to me are hunting maternity pants.

Puppy Text
    There are cute puppies, ugly puppies, aromatic puppies, puppies with dynamic hairstyles, puppies whose paws feel like flannel, puppies who are assholes and puppies who are as delightful as red velvet cupcakes. I am texting this story to you from my cell phone.

Jim’s Rasta Vibe
    Jim is a nickname for three longer names, each shorter than the last. Jim is Jim-Ben cut in half, which is a shortened version of Jimjamin , which is curtailed from Jim’s full name, Jimson Benjamin . Jim to Jimson Benjamin is like Teddy Bear to Theodore Roosevelt, while Jimjamin sounds alluringly botanical, like Jimsonweed. Jimjamin belies Jim’s Jamaican ancestry; Jimjamin sounds like We be jammin’ . This is the story of Jim’s Rasta Vibe.
    We pull the car over on the two-lane mountain road, to an iron railing installed to prevent humans from falling into a rushing river at the bottom of this treacherous gorge. Jim steps out, pulls his t-shirt halfway off so it covers his head like an Egyptian pharaoh’s headdress, walks over to the railing, and hops over. My job, for the rest of this jazz, will be to hunt the riverbanks for Jim’s remains. Not fun, not cool, negativo.
    Jim’s cliff-jump is Rasta, because I suspect Jim will eddy out of the river to say, I was only cliff-jumping , chill. Jim is a producer of situations that come out of nowhere. My variable reaction is the erotic charge for him. Years ago, when we worked in the same office, he cornered me in the lunchroom.
    â€œWant to do it in a bathroom stall?”
    I didn’t, but it was nice of him to ask. I like how he thinks. Why not make love on your lunch break?
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    WORD SALAD: a mixture of random words that, while arranged in phrases that appear to give them meaning, actually carry no significance.

HAIRPIN SCORPION
    â€¦ThE wOrDs lOOkeD LiKe tHiS As I sPoKe tHem. MoSt wOrDs sEEmEd bAcKwArDs, bUt iF I tYpEd tHat to yOu iT wOuLd bE tOo diFFiCuLt (T-L-U-C-I-F-F-I-D) tO rEaD. The words hung in the air like metallic smoke. We exhaled sneaky, silvery-scented, smoldering puffs. (Crack smoke has two qualities: the opacity to hide you from others and an eye-burning aroma to act as a distracting agent.) I smiled, watching a pot of mushroom tea boil on the hot plate. Everything was under control in our army tent, but it was about to get martial. We sat inside expecting desert winds to kick us around as the sandstorm twirled in its infant stage. The small rocks blazing in Zane’s glass pipe were fear erasers. If I blew F-E-A-R