Tell Me Something Beautiful

My folks let me have a computer game as a present one Christmas.

You can talk, she thought, it’s all right for you. It was Sunday again and they were walking in Richmond Park. You’re not even listening, he said. You’re not even bothering to listen.

All night they had argued. It started way earlier even before they were drunk, and now they were walking home still arguing, and their heads were buzzing because the music was loud in the club.

Harmony came into the kitchen wearing a white vest top and nothing else, singing something about Billy Joe Macalister jumping off a bridge. You’re chirpy, I said.

“Don’t worry,” said the fat man, “even cowboys get saddle-sore sometimes. And how about those steel workers, ever see them?” The girl shook her head, but didn’t look up.