It’s five o’clock. We’re sitting on her front porch, drinking peppermint schnapps with warm Hawaiian Punch chasers. Somehow, for some reason, she acquired six cases of Hawaiian Punch juice boxes. That’s two hundred and six individual drinks. None of the boxes include those little bendy straws on the back, so we’ve been poking open the foil holes with a pencil and squeezing the fluid into our mouths. Both our chins are sticky.
I don’t ask where she got them but I know she didn’t pay for them. The Styrofoam cooler sits between us, empty of ice. Neither of us thought to pick some up.
“I’ve been working on something,” she says, out of nowhere.
I say, “What now?” and realize my mistake right away.
She gives me a look. “What NOW?!”
“I mean, What have you been working on?”
“You think I’m boring.”
“If I thought you were boring I wouldn’t be sitting here. I think you’re crazy. And you are. And that’s why I’m sitting here. But boring? No, you’re not boring at all.”
She just looks at me with a raised left eyebrow.
“Not boring….” I mumble.
The awkward silence of hurt feelings.
“I’m sorry. Really, tell me what you’re working on. I’m interested. Go ahead.”
She turns slowly and faces the front yard. “I’ve been practicing something.”
I nod. “Uh-huh.” It’s obvious she’s starting to doubt herself and feels self-conscious.
“I discovered this new technique. I’ve been Umbrax Shifting,” she finally tells me.
“Umbrax shifting?”
“Yeah, Umbrax. It’s a legitimate term. Almost scientific. It means locating your past lives and bringing them into the surface realm through facial expressions. I’ve been shifting my expressions a lot lately. Y’know, it’s kind of like shape-shifting? Skin-walker type shit. It’s called Umbrax Shifting. I do it in the mirror five times a day and I’m getting really good at it. Watch…”
She turns to me, closes her eyes and begins breathing heavily through her nose.
Then she pops her eyes wide and grins maniacally. Then she looks scared, then bored. She closes her eyes again and opens her mouth. I think she’s supposed to be dead. Then she goes back to her natural, straight face. “Well?” she says. “What do you think?”
“It’s very nice, but…”
“But what?”
“But,” I hesitate, then think, oh what the hell, and jump off the cliff. “Well… Y’know, everyone can do that.”
“Nuh-uh. Like who?”
“Anyone with a face.”
She shakes her head. “No, no, no. You didn’t see. Here, I’ll do it again. And watch closely this time.”
“Okay.”
We look into each other’s eyes. She “shifts” her expression to one of frozen laughter, then she looks stoned, then she looks nervous, then she makes a serious thinking face (she uses her fist on her chin as a thinking-face prop). The gray, grainy distortion of dusk actually does enhance the illusion that she’s shifting into different personas. If that’s even her point.
Then she’s back.
“Okay. Well?” She’s wearing an eager, excited face. Waiting for praise.
“That was amazing!” I tell her. “Wow. Yeah, I see what you mean. Good job. Keep at it!”
“You’re the world’s fattest asshole.”
“What do you mean?” I say, shifting my own face to one of wounded surprise.
“I mean, you don’t have the world’s fattest asshole. You are the world’s fattest asshole.”
“Now that takes talent.”
She nods. “Hey, yeah. You’re right. It would be…” The thinking face comes back.
“I never heard that assholes can even be fat (by the way I’m 6’ 1” and 187 lbs. Not fat). Isn’t a hole an absence of stuff? If a hole gets too fat it becomes a hill.”
“I don’t care. Shut up.”
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
We sit in silence awhile. She drinks a hit of schnapps and then squeezes a box of fruit punch into her mouth and drops the crumpled container into the cooler.
I say, “So, what’s Umbrax mean anyway? I never heard that word before.”
“It’s a reincarnation term. Dr. Paul coined it.”
“Who’s Dr. Paul?”
“He’s a brilliant man. He came up with the technique of Umbrax Shifting after studying in the Himalayas for many months.
“Wow, whole months. He must be an amazing guy.”
“Well he is, smart-ass. And you can shove your sarcasm straight up your ass.”
“If I keep shoving stuff up there I’m gonna have a fat asshole.”
She faces me and the shadows of dusk have changed her face into an angry, bearded, cruel-looking man. I swallow and lean away from her as if she (he) might attack. The face is strong and ferocious.
It was a hell of an Umbrax Shift.
And in a deep, gravelly voice: “Don’t fuck with me little man!”
I snatch the bottle of schnapps from her hand, forcing a change in her face. She’s mild and herself again.
Thank god.
Crumbling Asphalt 