Monday Night Man by Grant Buday

it’s six o’clock. He did well. He has a hundred and seventeen dollars on him. He heads up Hastings to Princess, where the whores stand. Skinny hasn’t been this far from the Empress in a year, since that time Shack chased him for saying paraplegics couldn’t do it. Skinny has a plan.
    â€œHey daddy, I’ll make you young again.”
    Skinny looks her over. She’s wearing a black cowboy hat, black leather bra and panties, and is barefoot. “I want someone who looks like me,” he says.
    She loses her smile. “Go on over to boy’s town, you old fag.”
    â€œNo. A girl looks like me.”
    â€œTrannies’re that way.”
    Skinny studies his reflection in a car window to keep in mind exactly what he’s looking for. He walks two hours, until the sun’s behind the buildings and whole blocks are in shadow. He figures a redhead, or rusty blonde, with freckles. Skinny had freckles once. But he can’t find any whore with freckles. He goes into the Sub Stop for a coffee. Marie would be thirty-one. Born two days after JFK got shot. Six or seven years back, Skinny had called Louise to find out how Marie was doing, but Louise’d said it was none of his bees wax.
    â€œMy daughter, she’s my bees wax.”
    â€œLorne, you should’ve made us both your business thirty years ago.”
    â€œBetter late than never.”
    He heard her drag on her cigarette. “Not in this case.”
    â€œShe married?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHow come?”
    â€œShe’s a stewardess.”
    â€œStewardesses don’t get married?”
    â€œShe lives with someone.”
    â€œHow’re your feet?”
    â€œJust fine.”
    Louise had had thirty-three plantars warts on the bottoms of her feet. Skinny’s real name is Lorne. He sits in the Sub Stop, watching the hookers out front pretend to use the pay phones. Kids. The world keeps getting younger on him. He goes out again. The downtown air scrapes like asbestos in his throat. He looks up and down Hastings Street. Glenhaven Funeral Home, Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant, and, farther up, the Astoria Hotel sign blinking in the summer night. He considers saying fuck it, but then he thinks of old lady Livver laughing at him.
    Skinny finds a woman who looks right. She stands by a dumpster, though looks like she belongs in a bank.
    â€œBirthday party?” She raises one eyebrow.
    â€œAll the food’n beer you can put back.”
    â€œHow long?”
    Skinny hadn’t thought about that. “Say, three hours.”
    She considers it. “Two hundred.”
    â€œJesus! It’ll be a holiday!”
    â€œYou know how much I make here in three hours?”
    Skinny looks around. The alley stinks of meat, pee, and burnt plastic. “Darlin’, you’re on shit row as far as I can figure.”
    â€œAnd you’re an old asshole.”
    â€œHow ’bout one-fifty?” He decides he’ll give her half of what old lady Livver will owe him.
    She sniffs and looks away, thinking.
    Skinny studies her. She’s the right age and not too slutty. “Tomorrow. Six o’clock.”
    â€œSix! I don’t get out of bed until six!”
    â€œOne-fifty. All’s you got to remember is to call me daddy.”
    â€œDaddy!” She shuts her eyes and shakes her head, like it never ends.
    â€œAll the beer you want.”
    â€œI don’t drink beer.”
    â€œWine then. There’ll be wine.”
    When Skinny and “Marie” walk in, everyone looks. She’s done a good job on herself, wearing a pleated grey skirt, plain white blouse, and only a touch of lipstick.
    â€œJesus Osberg!” says Shack. “How’d such an ugly bugger like you have such a good-lookin’ daughter?”
    Skinny grins. He inhales the respect in the air.
    Joy introduces herself. Jules, the bartender, wipes his hand on the cloth slung over his shoulder and shakes her