Mark had thought that it was a pretty good idea, too, but he also thought that it was going to be a bit of a hassle like when you cook a big meal for yourself. It always looks good on paper, but it’s a lot of work and then there’s the mess of the thing in the end. Like the trash can’s overflowing and a week later the sink still has dirty dishes in it that are starting to smell. And then the fruit flies. Those things just don’t go away.
The guy, Jake, was sitting on one couch in the living room and Mark was on the other. From the sound of it outside, it was probably raining. Jake was pulling the bottle of beer away from his lip and swallowing right before he said it.
“I think I’d like to get with two chicks at the same time.”
Mark quit tapping his typewriter keys for a moment. A fist full of robins’ eggs. That’s what he was typing about.
The refrigerator kicked on as Jake took another pull off the beer and Mark did the same thing. He thought about the idea while he drank until the last of it was gone.
“I,” Mark said, and he was not sure how to continue uttering, so he went on the only way he could, “know a couple girls we could call.” And he did. He called up Maria and she said that she and Courtney would come down in a little bit. There weren’t many more beers in the refrigerator so Maria would bring some over.
The thing about the fist full of robins’ eggs was coming along pretty well and somebody had put a different album on the stereo when the girls arrived. Mark introduced them to Jake.
“Jake: Maria and Courtney. Maria, Courtney: Jake.”
“Hey Jake,” Maria said, “We met at that party.” Courtney agreed. The whole scene reminded Mark of a car crash where nobody really gets hurt but you feel embarrassed for everybody when you drive by and see some guy looking pretty upset because he just wrecked the car and his insurance doesn’t cover it and the guy knows it was just a little mistake he should’ve prevented that snowballed into the whole ugly scene. Courtney went over to the stereo and put on a different album.
The whole thing was progressing along nicely like items nearing the end of the moving belt on the way to the checkout girl at the supermarket. It was a good enough idea, something to see.
Maria thought that Jake’s t-shirt was cool. It said, “Domestic Violence is the New Black,” and on the back it said, “consider the irony.” Jake didn’t get up to show her the back, but he said, “thanks,” and added that it helped him to pick up the chicks. Courtney thought it was real funny.
After a quick glance at a painting across the room of matadors slaying bulls in instant sprays of red, Mark typed up the thing about the items moving down the belt to the girl at the end of the checkout line. Instead of “items,” he used “whitening toothpaste.” Nobody thought that it was all that good, except Mark. He pulled the paper out of the typewriter and put it down on the coffee table next to a little fishbowl he had. The fish looked at the thing for a long time, hanging there in the water.
A couple beers and a few albums later, Jake asked if Mark had any rubbers. Mark didn’t have any, but he said that he wouldn’t mind going down to the store. He announced that he needed cigarettes and that he’d be back in just a few minutes. Courtney and Maria didn’t pay much attention. Courtney was looking through all the albums and making dime-sized comments about what she wished was there instead and Maria was showing off a tattoo. Mark saw a dolphin about to eat a watermelon, but he was pretty far away. Still, he thought the tattoo was probably a dolphin coming up to a watermelon, hungry. That was probably better than anything else it could’ve been, there on the neck of her ass.
A couple of plastic bags blew past as Mark walked to the store, through the rain that he thought was outside earlier. Inside, there were a lot of colors on the shelves. Mark walked past the antiperspirant red and the olive oil yellows. The whitening toothpaste faded behind him as he came up towards the rubbers—purple. He was deciding which brand would be best for two chicks at the same time when he thought about the whole idea of what was going on back at the house. When he would get back, they’d probably be all done and Mark would only know that it had all gone down because there’d be whispers and giggles and some actions reminiscent of planets in orbit. Later, Jake would let him know that it had gone on as planned. They’d click together a couple of beers and Jake would smile and shake his head. Someday, bouncing a grandkid on his knee, Jake would tell the story even though the little tyke was too busy playing with the buttons on his granddad’s shirt and didn’t have language yet, anyway.
Mark picked out some rubbers that he figured were appropriate and kept going, following a path to the back of the store. At the end of the aisle, he saw it: Robins’ Eggs: $2.98 A Fist Full. He filled his fist and looked at it. The things were at least 256 shades of robin’s egg blue—just right. Somewhere in a cedar forest there was a robin who had worked hard for them, singing her little, beating heart out for no other reason except for that’s just what she does. From the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out with his other hand two dollars and ninety eights cents.
In front of him in line was an old lady buying whitening toothpaste and a tired man returning from work who was really looking hard at his red can of something as it moved down the belt toward the checkout girl. Mark looked hard at the rubbers as they went on, too. Not too hard, not to break the fragile things, he held the robins’ eggs in his fist. It wasn’t two chicks at the same time; it was just robins’ eggs—like the view from an airplane window above the cloud line during the daytime—two dollars ninety eight.
