The Skeleton Crew
You’ve all heard of the solar plexus no doubt, a nerve plexus in the abdomen that is situated behind the stomach and in front of the aorta and the crura of the diaphragm and containing several ganglia distributing nerve fibers to the viscera? How about the ethmoid? Have you heard of the ethmoid?
I’d been hugging a cup of coffee to keep myself occupied for some twenty minutes when along came this guy, this tall…akin to a …and twice as…ugly isn’t the word and I’m not being nice. It really isn’t the right word. Unusual’ll have to do. I try to be open and try not to shutter any of my instincts. Just then they told me to reach out, shake the guy’s…, and ask him if he’d care to join me for a drink.
When the waitress came over she eyed my new friend warily.
“Orbital lobe,” he said looking up at her warmly. She was clearly immediately charmed.
“What if I tell you he’s from Venus,” I said mischievously.
Shutting me out she addressed my new eating companion. I didn’t mind. I’d been there a while without ordering food and perhaps now was the moment to do so. I sensed today would be a special day.
“We do have a special drink,” she said, “for special customers.” She looked him (her?) over with an appraising eye.
“Scapula. Pre-frontal cortex,” he/she/it mumbled more in the direction of my coffee than at anyone in particular.
Having fully determined it was a he I was now intrigued by his thoughtful demeanor.
“Zygomatic Arch. Lacrimal Gland. Tooth.”
So that was it. From the moment our eyes had become entangled (met doesn’t do it justice) my mind had been racing and not of my own accord. That way he said: Tooth. Huh.
I wasn’t there when the waitress returned. She told me so later.
“You were just sort of all misty. Hard to explain exactly.”
“And the…visitor?”
“She was quite alert!”
“He.”
“She! She is definitely a she.”
We agreed to disagree.
“Alert you say. Friendly?”
The waitress thought about it.
“Yes, definitely. Not a mean bone in her…its body…yeh. Body.”
“That’s it!” I yelled. “Tooth.” Tooth was bone wasn’t it? Or was it ivory? Was ivory bone? I seemed to recall people calling their teeth ivories.
“Do you find marrow in teeth, or tusks?”
The waitress squinted.
“I’ve got work to do.”
I knew I was onto something. I just didn’t know what.
The good thing was my day had gone remarkably well. I hadn’t been required to fill my time with absurdly long thank you letters to people I’d met once who weren’t going to employ me anyway. You can always tell.
Being in a trance was a great space filler.
I wanted to be in a trance again.
The waitress returned.
“What do I owe you?”
“You don’t owe me anything.” The waitress came over all-gooey as she said this.
“The visitor paid for my coffee?”
“Yup!” She said this with the largest smile on her face. Why did I all of a sudden feel jealous?
I decided to return again the next day.
“Sphenoidal Sinus.”
I was surprised to find myself surprised.
“Good morning!” I said. I was once again trying to make the day go away by filling it with coffee hugging and an artificial day dreaming I’d concocted for the first time that morning-the kind where your mind goes nowhere and not in a productive way.
“You’re back,” I said, stupidly.
The waitress was already beside us eager and ready to take our order.
“Eggs,” I said. “You? Care for breakfast?”
The visitor looked up, then up, then up again. He was staring at the ceiling, boring a hole through it. Bits of plasterboard began to drift down onto our table and into my mug. I found myself actually, and rather surprisingly annoyed.
“Would you stop that?”
For the first time I saw the visitor blush. I assumed it was blushing because the place where cheeks would usually be …tarnished.
“Palatum Osseum…” he stuttered. “Oxyntic Cell.”
I had no idea what he was on about but have to say I was heartily inclined to agree. I was also distressed. I was irritable and, even worse, bored. I seriously needed a new occupation. Coffee hugging didn’t cut it, and niether did sitting with a visitor from God knew where. Random hook ups just weren’t doing it-not as I’d experienced them.
“Vomer? Manubrium Sterni? Humerus?”
There was definitely a question in there.
“Get out!”
I woke suddenly to find the waitress, redfaced, glaring at me.
“You’re really distressing our customers.”
I looked at the other tables. Nobody looked at me.
“Do that again and I won’t serve you.”
The contents of the diner were visibly and audibly agitated, everyone talking at once.
“Proximal and Distal End!”
Boy, were they mad.
I’d no idea what I’d done but I sensed now was not the time to ask what had happened. Needless to say the visitor—he/she/it—was no longer there.
I pulled out a dollar bill with some loose change and left it on the table.
As I walked down 31st a deep roaring sound erupted behind me. I looked back to see that beautiful, shiny, slip-streamed, 50’s style diner hovering in the air above me, way above me, above the tallest skyscraper. Then it was gone leaving behind only its steaming, electric sputtering footprint, a marrow of mangled aluminum.
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