Dangerous Type

[Steven Hunley]

Dangerous Type

I’m going to admit I have mixed feeling about seeing Barb again after these four days. I’ve passed the day time thinking about her. During the night I dream about her. Of course, I’m ravenous for her love. I notice that hungry look on my mug while I’m shaving. Seems like the mirror is hip to my shenanigans. Seems like it has thoughts of its own and if that isn’t enough, it has a voice too.

“It’s a hungry-man look you’ve been wearing on your mug, Steve, and you’ve been wearing it for some time. You don’t want to scare her. What are you going to do about it?”

I laid the towel down onto her fashionable glass jar with its chromium top stuffed with Egyptian cotton balls. I can’t see anything, only a fabulous fog. Where’s it coming from?

“I don’t want to seem needy, you have a point,” I say back to the mirror like a very disturbed fellow. Too many Twilight Zones are under my belt, they’ve been there for years. Next thing you know I’ll be seeing Yetis on the wing of a jet like Shatner.

'"No self-respecting man should ever appear needy...if he knows what's good for him,” said a disembodied voice, while I was rinsing the razor.

It sounded exactly like it was down the drain coming up through the pipe like on the Titanic. It was a voice that sounded like it came ‘from down below, a groan from the bowels of the ship,’ and according to Joe Conrad that couldn’t be good. I listened anyway and ignored the foreshadowing.

“Understand this, and follow my instructions to the letter. Don’t let her get to you. If she appeals to you too much, try to ignore her. Get stoic on her. Under no circumstances allow her to see you’re as needy as you are. You’re pathetic. I mean, no offence, but I’m your doppelganger and I ought to know. I was watching while you were longing these few days away, imagining you were a sad character in a fat Russian novel.”

“Was it that obvious?”

“Couldn’t have been more. Every time you’d go to bed you wouldn’t be satisfied until you crawled over to her side and fell sleep clutching her ‘pillbow” as you call them, breathing the scent of her perfume.”

“We called them pillbow because Melissa called them that when she was a toddler.”

“Well, baby talk is excusable, but nobody needs to smell what’s left of their woman when they’re out of town.”

"She smells better than any woman I’ve ever met! It’s a proprietary fragrance worn by Barbara and no other woman. It’s not her perfume alone. It’s nature, it’s magic.”

“Don’t be so defensive! I like the woman myself. No kiddin’! But I’m just saying to watch out and not appear so hungry. Cool down. Be your own man. Watch out for her and take note. She’s what I call one of those, “Dangerous Types.”

“Dangerous Types? What kind of crack is that? What are you? One of the Cars or something?”

“No,” laughed the voice in the sink with a guttural growl. “But I am going to drive you crazy.”

©StevenHunley2014

http://youtu.be/85lRPbb_FWk Dangerous Type

[omferas]

I liked the story and simplicity.

[108 fountains]

I also enjoyed the story, Steve. I liked the concept of the guy having a conversation with the reflection in the mirror, showing two sides of his personality. Have you ever thought about writing one of these vignettes in the third person? I know that much of what you write is based on real life events. I just wonder what kind of experience it would be for you as a writer to try to do one in the third person.

[AuntShecky]

A characteristic of your unique writing style is the wealth of cultural references, such as the one about Shatner in the Twilight Zone ep entitled "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet." But I seem to recall that the creature he saw (or thought he saw) looked more like a gremlin than a Yeti. BTW, did you catch The Brothers K movie on tv the other night? Who would have pictured Captain Kirk as Alexi?

The other question I ask: How does "Barb's" real-life counterpart feel about your immortalizing her in prose.? She's flattered I hope. If not, tell her how Frank Bascombe's first wife in Richard Ford's Independence Day was so deeply hurt that Frank had never written about her in his writing days.

Keep these comin', Steverino. Your stuff is different from that of everybody else.

Auntie

[Steven Hunley]

A characteristic of your unique writing style is the wealth of cultural references, such as the one about Shatner in the Twilight Zone ep entitled "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet." But I seem to recall that the creature he saw (or thought he saw) looked more like a gremlin than a Yeti. BTW, did you catch The Brothers K movie on tv the other night? Who would have pictured Captain Kirk as Alexi?

The other question I ask: How does "Barb's" real-life counterpart feel about your immortalizing her in prose.? She's flattered I hope. If not, tell her how Frank Bascombe's first wife in Richard Ford's Independence Day was so deeply hurt that Frank had never written about her in his writing days.

Keep these comin', Steverino. Your stuff is different from that of everybody else.

Auntie

Haven't seen Brothers K but have a coffee cup with The Brothers K on it. Barb got it when we were planning a tour which included Minsk. When terrorists bombed Brussels (one of transfer points) we changed our minds and made it NYC instead. Hence- 'Where's Scorsese When You Need Him'.