In the Immortal Words of Monty Python...

And now for something completely different!

It's been a while since I've written any prose fiction here, so I thought I'd take a stab a some first-person noir.... Let me know your thoughts. Is it worth continuing?

Enjoy!

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I could hear my mother's voice in my head the second I pressed my thumb down and made the tiny blue flame dance.

"You're gonna give yourself cancer!"

Yea, I know ma, I thought to myself as I drew a breath in and pulled the flame to the cigarette dangling between my lips. The acrid smoke burned my lungs. I didn't care. How long had it been? A year? Maybe two. It didn't matter. After the week I'd had, I needed a smoke.

"Thanks," I said to the hipster kid who let me bum one from him as I handed him his lighter. He nodded and went back to his little group of hipster friends to, I don't know, talk about their beards or Bernie Sanders or something. Whatever. I got what I wanted. And I appreciated it.

Muscle memory kicked in and I held the Marlboro Light the hipster gave me in the same hand I always used to use to smoke; I put it at the same corner of my mouth, and blew the smoke out of the other corner without moving the cigarette from my lips. I think I saw James Dean do that in a movie once. Maybe I thought it was cool. I honestly don't remember; I just needed something to calm my nerves and the copious amounts of whisky I'd already consumed did nothing to smooth the edges. So I turned to an old vice. Maybe that night would have turned out differently if I hadn't; Maybe I should have just gone home. But I didn't.

The patio where all us smokers went to poison ourselves was small and enclosed on three sides, so it was relatively sheltered from the wind. It was a breezy night and the lake was restless. The waves slapped at the shore and kicked up the fine mist that filled the air around us, making the smoky stench cling to us like death shrouds. Some hipster's girlfriend complained that she was getting cold, so they all went inside.

So long, I thought. Thanks for leaving me in peace. I don't know why I went there in the first place. Mazzy's Beachside Bar had changed. It used to be full of bikers who rolled in after cruising the shore all day. Now, most nights, the bar and the tables outside on the beach were littered with all these young kids who paid less attention to each other than they did their goddamn cellphones as they tried to Instagram the sunset. Like there wouldn't be another one the next night. They annoyed me.

The sun just dipped below the horizon as I took my last puff and flicked my butt out into the sand. Everything was cast in crimson and made the spray that the angry waves kicked up around the rocks look like blood. It was like the lake was trying to cleanse itself of some murderous deed. To some extent, I could relate. I could use a cleansing. I could use a lot of things, not the least of which was a good night's sleep. I might as well have asked Wells Fargo for a billion dollars, such was the likelihood of that happening. I gave up on sleep a long time ago, but that didn't mean I didn't desire it.

Part of me wished I hadn't bummed that smoke; now I wanted another. After what had happened, I found myself quickly slipping into old habits. It's funny how the span of five short days can turn your life upside down. And it wasn't as if it was just one thing; no, this was like the universe saying "your life needs to be shittier, right now, immediately. And then it's going to get even shittier tomorrow. And the day after that. Thursday? Yeah, then too. Just wait for Friday." So there I was, drinking watered down whisky and bumming smokes from hipsters at Mazzy's and wondering what I could have possibly done to warrant my life getting FUBAR'd to such a grand extent. No one even had the courtesy to buy me dinner first.

I was about to slug back the rest of my Jameson when she walked out. There wasn't anything particularly extraordinary about her, but I couldn't stop staring. She wasn't thin; she was… softly comfortable, was about the only way I could describe her. She wore a pair of well-worn running shoes with no socks, tight black leggings, and a white halter top covered loosely by a blue and green, plaid flannel shirt that was barely buttoned in the middle. I'll admit, I noticed the boobs first; they were hard to miss and she clearly had no problem showing them off. Those eyes, though…. She had piercing blue eyes. And there was just something angelic about her face, round cheeks, and slightly upturned nose. I couldn't tell if her hair was long or short as she had it bobbed up in the back. Whatever color it was, I could tell by the highlights that it wasn't natural. I was mesmerized.

"You want one?" she asked as she pulled a pack of smokes from her purse. My staring had been obvious and she was kind enough to offer me a cigarette to break the tension. She could have just ignored me or called me out on my gazing.

"Sure, thanks," I said. She even lit it for me. I cupped my hands around hers to keep the wind from blowing out the flame, and I couldn't believe how soft the skin of her hands was. I held on longer than I should have and took a couple extra puffs pretending to make sure the cigarette was lit. She didn't seem to mind.

"Haven't seen you around here before." I regretted the words the second they left my lips, thinking I must have sounded like some moron trying to pick her up. In reality I was just desperate for conversation.

"I moved in to the cottage a few doors down about a week ago. I'm Elise."

"Mike. Nice to meet you." She held out her hand and I shook it, again marveling at the smoothness of her flesh. Lucky girl; those hands had never known hard work. Mine must have felt like sandpaper in comparison.

"Nice to meet you too. You a regular here?"

"Occasionally. The beer's never cold enough and the whisky's watered down, but it's near the water, so there's that."

Elise laughed. "Well, I don't drink beer, and I don't drink whisky."

This time I chuckled. "Honey, you're drinking in the wrong place then."

That really got her going. "You're funny, Mike. I like you. And I know they serve Vodka here. Buy a girl a drink?"

"Name it."

"Martini, extra dirty."

I liked her. "Be right back." I sifted my way through the hipsters and nudged my way between a couple of the other regulars at the bar. They were already three sheets to the wind and neither noticed nor cared that I forced my way between them.

"Another Jameson, honey?"

"And a vodka martini, Mazzy. Extra dirty."

Mazzy rolled her eyes at me, knowing fully well that the martini wasn't for me. She probably thought I was trying to get laid. To be honest, it wouldn't be the first time Mazzy watched me take someone home from that bar, but that wasn't my intention that night. Mazzy brought the drinks and I went back outside. The hipsters were back out there and one of them was desperately trying to pick Elise up. I almost dropped both drinks when I heard her say to the kid "Sorry, but I don't date men that wear women's clothes" as she nodded down to his skinny jeans and tennis shoes I would swear were a pair of ladies' Ked's. I really liked this girl.

"Here's your drink, babe," I said.

"Thanks darlin'," she answered, with an unexpected kiss on the cheek. When she did that, the kid reluctantly moved on. The kiss told me I'd just been used for that purpose; to drive away the idiot in the leggings. I'd been used for worse.

"Seriously, what kind of girl finds that attractive?" she joked before talking a long sip of the martini.

"You're asking the wrong guy." I just happened to be wearing a pair of faded, straight cut Lucky's that fell across the tops of my Dingoes. She noticed them, too.

"Nice boots. You a cowboy?" she asked with flirtation.

"Nah. I just play one on Friday nights to pick up women."

Another laugh.

"What's your deal, Michael?"

No one had called me Michael since my mother died. I hated being called Michael. But from her pouty lips, with her voice, my name danced in the air like a melody.

Sister, you really don't want to know, I thought to myself. "It's long and boring tale. You don't wanna hear it."

"Listen," she said as she poked a finger into my chest. "I'm new here, and in the ten minutes I've known you I've already learned that you're the only guy worth talking to in this joint. So come on. Let's go inside, grab a booth, get some food, and tell each other our life stories."

I'd certainly accepted less lucrative offers, and Elise intrigued me. I've met some forward women before, confident, but there was something different about her. Something mysterious. I wanted to find out it was, and let's face it; at that point I had nothing to lose. She winked at me and grabbed my free hand to lead me back into the bar. That soft touch did something to me. She did something to me. For the moment I thought maybe, just maybe, my luck was changing.

© 2016 J.J. Goodman. All rights reserved.