It was Tuesday morning, so Rommel leaned against a column in the Incumbent St. Subway Station. Ca-clink, Ca-clink. People filed off the escalator and through the turnstile, depositing tokens along the way.

Rommel played a game, looking around the station, grouping everyone either as people whose ass he wanted to kick, or people who he'd want to help him kick the asses of the other people. The distinction could be subtle, but he'd become quite skilled.

Bike messengers and soft pretzel vendors were almost always on his side. Bellhops and elevator operators. The concierge was almost universally ass-kickable. Rastafarians and the street philosopher type were allies. Fake Rolex dealers and coffee shop intelligentsia he felt an unhealthy desire to maul. The business world was evenly divided between people who worked to live (allies) and those with over-inflated egos founded on exaggerated views of actually insignificant contributions to various employers likely dumping toxins into rivers and screwing up the spawning habits of salmon. One day he planned to rally his allies and deal out a righteous assbeating on a scale hitherto unheard of, but it was not yet that time.

The woman wore a bright yellow dress, formfitting. The form being a near-perfect ass and a generous but not disproportionate rack. She stood out like a flashlight in all the grays, blacks and blues of the idling commuters. The head of every straight man in the station, and a few women besides, turned to watch her slow, exhibitory procession to the column against which Rommel leaned. Noting her approach, he unpretentiously checked over his own outfit. Bright red hoodie, blue jeans and a black low-crown Steelers cap.

“Got a light?” she asked.

“Sorry. Don't smoke.”

“That's alright, neither do I.”

“What would you have done if I'd given you a lighter?”

“I hadn't thought that far ahead.” She glanced around. “There has to be something flammable around here.”

“Usually is.”

“So you gonna offer me a drink?”

Rommel flagged down a waitress and ordered two Glenlivets on the rocks.

“How'd you know?” she asked, taking a sip.

“It's a gift.”

“One of many, I'm sure.”

“Nope, just the one.”

She leaned close to him, and slipped her hand into the sweatshirt pouch. “Red doesn't suit you.”

The scotch slid smoothly down Rommel's throat, and he tossed his glass onto the subway tracks, scattering shards of glass and ice dangerously close to the third rail.

Seeing the woman latched onto Rommel, the other men in the station had shifted their attention elsewhere. Newspapers and magazines and comic books. Nobody read a novel.

“You good at math?” she asked.

“Never been much for division.”

The woman nodded, and her blond hair bobbed in thick curls. She finished her drink, and likewise threw the glass at a bum pretending to be legless who jumped out of the way, ruining his act. Everyone walked over and took back their money.

Rommel sighed. “You're not really my type.”

“What, you don't like blonds?”

“Yeah. Sure. That's it.”

She slipped her hand out of the pouch. He grabbed her wrist, and took back his keys. Then she flowed away across the smooth concrete platform. Sensing availability, the men once again gawked at her, until the train hissed to a stop, and the doors slid open releasing a flood of middle class America to drown forever the glimpse of something greater in the form of a yellow dress.

The train pulled out, reloaded, and Rommel adjusted his cap, awaiting a fresh crop of people to categorize. One by one, opponent and ally.

The woman hurried back across the platform, this time unnoticed. Even Rommel didn't see her until she leaned gracefully against the column next to him. She wore a faded Van Halen t-shirt and loose fitting, olive drab cargo pants. Her hair had been straightened, and hung messily at her shoulders. All the makeup had been washed from her face.

She took Rommel's hand loosely in hers then let go. He inspected the lighter she'd left there, a silver Zippo engraved with the initials EE. In one motion he flipped it open and struck it. The little flame danced like the memory of a dress. Leaning down, he slid the lighter across the floor. It stopped, and burned harmlessly on the concrete.

“There really isn't anything flammable around here,” she said.

Rommel held out a matchbook. “Can I get your number?”

*****

Her name was Euclid Erasmus, Stripper for the Blind, according to her business cards. The self-described Zamfir of house music, world champion body surfer, noted geneticist. She'd once bred a baboon with a green ass. Her father, an actor, had provided the voice for Electronic Talking Battleship. Every time he said the word ‘before' she laughed uproariously. He focused solely on the future.

Euclid danced around the loft in a yellow tube top and a bright pink pleated miniskirt to Take on Me, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Ana Ng, Money for Nothing and more of the like, having declared it 80s day. She possessed the power to designate holidays at will, and indirectly the ability to summon parades. Rommel accepted this and sat on the couch throwing Goldfish crackers into his empty aquarium.

“Carl Sagan was a smart guy, and he was against manned space travel,” said Euclid, snatching a Goldfish out of the air.

“Scientists are introspective explorers. They turn inside for the answers. Nothing wrong with that, but we gotta get away from this place, go someplace better.”

“You're always running away. What if this is the best we get?”

“Then at least we get to ride in a rocket ship figuring it out.”

She touched the fingertips of each hand together in a point above her head and jumped. “Look, I'm a rocket ship.”

Busker grinned and said, “I'd like to get a ride on that.”

Putting a finger to pouting lips she spun around, looking back over her shoulder girlishly. Rommel threw a goldfish at her protruding ass, and she shimmied as it bounced to the floor.

“In the end we can't escape,” she said. “Life is just the act of trying to escape from the inescapable. So fly the fuck away, as long as you know there is here.”

“But goddamn…you're flying.”

She picked up the hose and started filling the fish tank. Goldfish began swimming through and around the castle and fake coral. They were generally oblivious to the little plastic harpoon wielding scuba diver raising and lowering his arm in time to the bubbles, patiently awaiting a snack break.

“What do you feed a fish made of cracker?” Euclid asked.

“Hell, their mouths don't open anyway.”

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