Alex Skovron
Ullage
Rotating invisibly, Evans delivers a waltz. Kezelco uncorks another cab shiraz. Debby always reminds him of Josepha, and she of Inge, und so weiter. With all those ersatz romances, it was never the perfect pound. He tried too hard: ‘Yes,’ none of them said. And just as well, given the rate of exchange. Kezelco sniffs. The wine seems shaky, it has made him morose, and whimsical. Does a holey dollar retain a hundred cents? Is a negative mathematician nonplussed? This is no good. Red in hand, he staggers to the lectern beyond the baby grand, where his Third New International (Unabridged) slumps open like the Bible that it is. He caresses the print, shuddering at those windy afternoons when, riddled at school again, he’d belt back home to Webster, his one dependable friend. The wine tastes watery. On days like this he still feels crucified. Kezelco reaches the Tasman oak bureau along the window-bay, skols the dregs, doodles on a dying pad. ‘KMKJ’ comes out; he sniggers, skips to the loo; his glassy doppelgänger snatches at his eye. Even in this poor light, look at the new lines! Will he end up crosshatched, an unlettered Auden?—or maybe mapped with corridors and crosses, like a circuit-board? ‘I sing the face electronic,’ he decides; wonders if he should finally compose that overdue cheque. ‘I was about to procrastinate,’ he cackles, ‘but I think I might leave it for a while.’ Discreetly, as if on cue: ‘Some Other Time,’ says Bill.