Baby Geisha Read Free Page A

coolers. Hey! they hollered, Float this way!
    Iggy wafted down. Welcome! They yelled like cheerleaders at a varsity game. Whoo hoo! High fives! The likely homecoming queen was not Iggy’s type but was gorgeous in that wholesome midwestern way with long chestnut hair streaked blond. As she tossed him a can, Iggy caught it then dunked his head in the river, flipping his hair while forgetting that he had none.
    â€œWhere you headed, Wet Look?” she asked.
    â€œDown to Minks Pass,” Iggy said. He made small talk with the girl, holding their tubes together to stay connected. People were mostly amicable in these parts, at least, but he didn’t know what it all added up to yet.
    The tube crew snaked along, catching currents, hitting occasional rocks and diversifying, only to reconvene around the next bend. Twice, people flipped and everyone scrambled to get the man down back on board, a wobbly affair. Iggy rolled off his tube periodically to swim, and in shallower water he let his tube buttress his buns against boulder collisions. It was nice, this living in the present, listening to kids talk about their latest dramas without having to think back to being dumped by Finnegan, or of his parents, who he hadn’t called back in six months. Iggy was the youngest in his family to have declared bankruptcy after having maxed out seven credit cards. He was avoiding a permanent address to evade creditors, really, and badly wanted a second chance but didn’t know how he’d ever pay down the bills, though reduced from bankruptcy, without a decent job as opposed to the odd jobs he’d taken in recent years due to his meandering, itinerant schedule. If he stayed in one place, he’d be
paying the government back into his forties. Then again, moving made it nearly impossible to meet another woman, not that he’d have the confidence to date with so much debt. He felt he had nothing to offer; he’d shaved his head to start anew but it actually made him feel even more denuded. The Wet Look nickname, ouch. All of this crossed his mind as the kids high fived and hollered, carousing until they swirled into the Minks Pass River Company’s eddy spot.
    â€œNice floating with you!” the girl said to Iggy, releasing their tubes for independent floats to the beach. Iggy accidentally spun into some shore grasses, but pretended he was checking for river life.
    Snap . Iggy yanked his foot out of the water to find the whole tip of his big toe mangled. Blood dribbled down his throbbing foot. A snapping turtle got him after all. Fucking Meramec , he cursed under his breath, limping ashore, dragging his raft behind him. He was often verging on lithe, soulful summer days, literally bumping up against them, but never could quite pull off a single day of carefree tranquility. I’m out of this deadbeat place first thing tomorrow morning , Iggy told himself. The horror of enlightenment was too painful, and all Iggy immediately craved was a beach towel and a band-aid.

MILLENIUM CHILL
    Sweaters dangled from every surface. I had three maxed-out dressers, but sweaters still cascaded down everything. Sleeves were falling off my bookshelf ledges, and a sweater pile in the corner collapsed silently to the floor like a dead knitted octopus. Sweaters were shoved under the bed’s covers, and they lined the bathroom towel rack. I found a sweater wedged behind the wok in the kitchen cabinet, and two were plopped on the entryway table. There were three sweaters slung over my desk chair, if I needed one while seated. Four sweaters hung on the coat rack, and one was stuffed between some couch cushions.
    From any location in my house I could reach a sweater just in case . In case of what? I asked myself. How many sweaters does one woman need? I looked around my apartment and decided I’d gone crazy owning so many sweaters. There are only so many sweaters a body can pile onto itself. Am I really that cold? Grabbing and