Jun shakes one of their two heads. “I haven’t seen anyone in a straitjacket.”
“Oh!” Uncle Waterloo utters. “I know who you mean! With the glasses?”
J nods.
Waterloo grins. “I have no idea who she is!”
“Jesus Christ,” Smells Like Teen Spirit spits out. “She’sright there.”
To J’s bemusement, Smells Like Teen Spirit points the way. Somehow, Straitjacket Heart has undone one of her arms so she can hold a drink. She leans away from the crowd, watching it with a cool detachment.
“Who is that?” Jun asks Arthur.
“I can’t tell,” Arthur says. Then he turns to J. “You should go talk to her.”
“It’s alright.” Even though J has just been on a stage performing in front of the whole room, this conversation is far, far too public for his taste. “Why don’t you tell me what song that man over there is dressed as. ‘Hounds of Love’?”
Jun and Arthur both roll their eyes, Jun tilting his head to the left while Arthur tilts his to the right.
“Clark is ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’...and you’re trying to change the subject.”
“Typical,” Smells Like Teen Spirit mutters.
“Excuse me?” J asks.
“You know what I mean,” she replies.
He does. But he doesn’t understand how she’d know this about him.
Finally, I Want Candy (age five) weighs in.
“GO TALK TO HER!” he yells. And then, for good measure, he repeats it.
J, sensing that this song is all chorus and no verse, understands the only way to get to the outro is to make a move.
Even though the acoustics make it nearly impossible for Straitjacket Heart to have heard I Want Candy’s cry over all the table conversations, she puts her glass down on a sill and heads to the bar.
This complicates J’s route considerably, since now he must squeeze between tables to get to her. The remaining balloons on his costume squeak and whine in protest as they press against chairs and people who refuse to let J pass. A few people slap him on the back and compliment his singing, one causing a bright pop in the process. By the time he emerges from the table area, he’s down to five or six luftballons.
Whether cued by the pop of the balloon or simply the keen radar most women have to tell them when an awkward suitor is approaching awkwardly, Straitjacket Heart looks right at J as he covers the final few feet to the bar. Then, when he’s about five balloon’s-lengths away, she turns back to the bartender for her fresh drink.
There’s a part of J that wills his feet to keep walking to the end of the bar, to pretend a gin and tonic is the only intoxication he’s come here for. This part warns him that the song of the awkward suitor is one he’s played many times before, and it always comes to the same end.
But the greater part within J is the more hopeful part, the one that thinks love is the song that can be played a thousand different ways, and that every time you play it, a different reaction can occur.
“Hey,” he says. “Where did you get that straitjacket? It looks so...real.”
The woman looks up, her expression not at all betraying what kind of song she’s hearing.
“I don’t know,” she replies. “I just woke up in the park like this. Barefoot. Covered in broken glass. I didn’t have time to change.”
“Must’ve been a great party last night.”
She shakes her head. “No. I’m just insane.”
J lights up his face. “Me, too!”
She looks at him skeptically. “In what way are you insane?”
