The Memory Killer by J. A. Kerley Page A

moment-driven?
    Once upon a time. And not all that long ago.

15
     
    Debro sat in his car across the street from D’Artagnan’s and watched Patrick White through the window. He’d slipped out the back after his conversation with Billy Prestwick. An eight-year-old movie began playing in Debro’s head. The pictures still hurt. Sometimes they stung like hornets.
    The movie montage comes from a trendy gay hangout long closed by the cops for underage drinking. The bar, owned by two old queens nicknamed Harold and Maudlin, kitsch collectors, was
the
place to be that spring, festooned with comic excess on the walls and ceiling: a moose head wearing sunglasses, a bent trombone, a blow-up doll dressed in a tie-dye miniskirt, posters from fifties sci-fi movies, funky birdhouses, a sagging accordion, a stuffed raccoon wearing Mardi Gras beads. The setting evoked fun and laughter.
    Having spent days steeling his courage to step inside the bar, a younger Debro orders a gin-gin at the bar. The skinny, arrogant barkeep gives him a sneering once-over and brings the drink five minutes later, retreating to the far end of the bar to talk with a handsome boy in a Panama hat.
    Debro is about to retreat to the safety of the street when he notices four young men clustered in a corner, one holding court as the others listen.
    “
… so I said, bitch, you are not coming with me dressed like that. It’s too trashy and I will not be seen in trashy company. If you’re coming with me, you have to be elegant, it’s like, my gawwwwd, who wears suede any more?
”
    The storyteller has silver hair à la Andy Warhol and black jeans and long-sleeve black T-shirt so tight that he resembles a cartoon spider, happy and sweet, his web spun from cotton candy. The others are tittering like magpies.
    “
So the slut puts on a pout like I’ve just strangled his goddamn canary or whatever and he goes, ‘But I spent eight hundred dollars on my clothes, Billy, the shirt alone was almost three hundred dollars
.’”
    Debro inches closer to the edge of the semicircle, pushing a frozen smile to his terrified face as the storyteller continues:
    “
So I said, girl, if that’s a three-hundred-dollar shirt, I’ll trade you for two pairs of my hundred-fifty-dollar BVD’s
.”
    The tale-teller stops in mid sentence and looks at Debro, who suddenly feels naked, the other heads turning his way.
    “
Well, hello there,
” the silver-haired boy chirps,
“Can I help you?
”
    “
I … was just listening to your story. You’re funny
.”
    The silver-haired boy’s eyes light up. “
I’m funny? Me?
”
    “
Y-yes. You know how to tell a story
.”
    The storyteller puts his arm around Debro, moving him into the circle and introducing him around – “
Pedro Cardinale, Randy Wilks, Patrick White
”
–
before leaning close in the confidence of old friends.
“
Have you ever been in here before?
”
    “
No. I’d just heard about it
.”
    “
It’s so wonderfully tacky. You like it?
”
    Debro’s head is bobbing, needing to please. “
I love the weird stuff everywhere. It’s a hoot
.”
    The silver-haired boy nods approvingly. He turns to Debro with a conspiratorial grin and leans close, his fingers falling over Debro’s forearm. “
Want to want to see something funny?
”
the boy says into Debro’s ear. It tickles.
    Debro nodded toward the goofy moose head in dark aviators. “
Funnier than that?
”
    “
It’s the funniest thing in this place. I’m talking fall down laughing
.”
    “
Cool. Sure
.”
    The silver-haired boy pivots smoothly on his heels and points toward a back room, another section of the bar.
“
Go down that hall and turn left. It’s on the wall, the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. You’ll howl, I promise
.”
    Debro makes the trip, turns and looks at the wall. It’s a full-length mirror. He’s staring back at himself. He tries to find a back door but can’t, so he slinks past the group and rushes for the front door, his face hot