“Corkscrew” – a short story by Mike Wilson

“Corkscrew” was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 69th Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author.

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photo via publicdomainpictures.net

Corkscrew

by Mike Wilson

…..Keith was resting comfortably in an Adirondack chair on the deck at Sandy’s country house, lost in the blue August sky above and the buzz from the glass of Chardonnay in his hand, when Mary, his unofficial “date,” approached.

…..“I couldn’t find a corkscrew,” she said. An attorney by vocation, he suppressed the urge to shout “Objection!” He had a glass of wine in his hand, right? That proved a bottle had been opened, in turn proving that said corkscrew existed, at large in the jurisdiction, notwithstanding Mary’s self-serving denials. If that weren’t enough, she handed him the bottle like it was his problem to solve. Hell, where were Sandy and Fred? It was their house. But Keith had to be nice to Mary, or Sandy, who was Circuit Clerk of the court where he practiced, would hold it against him. He took a breath.

…..“No corkscrew, huh?” he said, trying to sound sympathetic. Call 911, ask them to run a corkscrew out. Fashion one out of a coat hanger. Come on, Mary, show some ingenuity. He noticed a butter knife in her hand.

…..“Can you open it with this?” she asked, looking at him with big cow eyes. Keith restrained his desire to ridicule her – it would be like clubbing a baby seal. He put down his wine, patting himself on the back for patience, as she handed him the butter knife. He tried wedging it between the cork and glass, but the butter knife was flat and the mouth of the bottle was round.

…..“Prying it out is hopeless,” he said. “I’ll try digging it out from the center.”

…..“What do you mean?”

…..“I’ll try to make a hole in the cork by chipping pieces out.”

…..He put the bottle on the ground, his feet on either side to hold it in place, and began digging at the cork, really putting his back into it. Mary squatted down beside him.

…..“Will cork get in the wine?” she asked.

…..She’d given him a fool’s task, digging a hole in a cork with a butter knife (incredibly, the cork was giving way), but now she was worried he would get cork in the wine. His blood pressure was rising. Before he could formulate a response, she stood and reached for the can of bug spray on the patio table. She sprayed it in the air like room freshener. He began choking.

…..“What are you doing?” he asked between coughs.

…..“Sandy says the mosquitoes here are ridiculous,” Mary said.

…..Bam!

…..The cork exploded into his face, knocking him back. She stopped spraying and came to his side.

…..“Oh my God!” she shouted. “You’re bleeding!”

…..He touched his nose and looked at his hand. She was right.

…..At that moment, Sandy came out, waving a corkscrew over her head.

…..“I found it!” she announced to Mary. “It was under the thingamabob.”

…..“I didn’t think to look there,” Mary said.

…..Keith marveled that both women knew what the thingamabob was.

…..“Keith, man, what happened?”

…..It was Fred, the dick that was Sandy’s significant other. Keith pressed both hands to his face. Blood was running down his forearm in rivulets.

…..“Oh, wow,” Fred said, “did the cork pop in your face? It must have been stored upright. The cork probably shrank, letting air in and oxidizing the wine, producing a buildup of gasses.”

…..Keith felt like a prop in a science demonstration.

…..“I’ll get a towel,” Sandy said, without any sense of urgency. She turned and sauntered back into the house.

“Should we take him to the hospital?” Mary asked.

…..Fred shook his head. “He’ll be okay. It’s not broken, is it? God, that’d be funny, going to the emergency room. How’d you break your nose? Opening a bottle of wine!”

…..“I bet they’ve heard everything in the emergency room,” Mary said, focused on keeping the conversation going while Keith bled.

…..“Keith, try not to bleed on the chair,” Fred said. “We just bought that.”

…..Sandy was back with a towel and a plate of hamburger patties.

…..“Here’s a towel,” she said to Keith. “You don’t need ice, do you?” Her tone suggested the correct answer was no, because yes would require a return trip to the kitchen and other trouble.

…..“Hey, Keith, man,” Fred said. “Could you hold your head over the railing? You’re bleeding all over the deck.”

…..“I’ll get the burgers going,” Sandy announced, twisting dials on the gas grill like a mad scientist.

…..Fred took the bottle from Keith. “Who wants some wine?”

…..The bleeding had stopped, but Keith’s nose was tender and swollen. He’d dampened his anger with more alcohol and sat in a semi-stupor, listening to the others chat as they ate burgers and potato salad on the deck. The sun was sinking and the temperature was dropping.

…..“Tonight’s perfect to watch the Perseid Meteor Showers,” Fred said.

…..“You can really see them out here,” Sandy said. “There’s no light pollution.”

…..“Being that this is a farm and all,” Fred said. Fred, Sandy and Mary all laughed. They looked at Keith, waiting for him to laugh. Keith bit into a celery stick. He’d not merely surrendered to self-pity – he’d seized its flag and was leading a forced march to the slough of despond.

…..“Meteor showers? That sounds like fun,” Mary said, picking up the ball Keith had dropped. “Are we going to watch?”

…..Fred nodded.

…..“We’ll spread sleeping bags on the ground, camp out, and watch the show. How’s that sound?”

…..The others said it sounded grand. They looked at Keith.

…..“Sounds like fun,” Keith said, saying it as if they’d decided to have some cheap laughs by undergoing chemotherapy. Sandy was looking at him with furrowed eyebrows. Keith forced his mouth into the shape of a smile and wondered if he looked like a badger baring its teeth.

…..After they finished eating, Sandy and Mary cleared and cleaned, leaving Keith at the table with Fred, who was some type of academic in the humanities.

…..“I guess you know that the Perseids are named after the constellation Perseus,” Fred said. Fred went on and on about the constellation Perseus, as if Fred had co-created it with God back in the day. Keith hoped Sandy would bring more alcohol soon.

…..“They’re called the Perseid showers,” Fred said, “because you see them in the same direction as Perseus.”

…..“I always suspected as much,” Keith said, confident that Fred was too into himself to detect sarcasm even if it slapped him back and forth across the face.

…..“The average rate is one to two hundred per hour,” Fred said, “but sometimes it’s thousands of meteors.”

…..“Do they ever strike people in the head?” Keith asked, hoping for one with Fred’s name on it. Fred’s pretentiousness was breathing energy into Keith’s depression, but there were no sharp objects within reaching distance, so passive aggression would have to do.

…..“Actually, the showers are debris from Swift-Tuttle,” Fred said.

…..Fred paused, eyeing him, but Keith wasn’t taking the bait. He would not ask what Swift-Tuttle was. They stared at each other, a blinking contest. Fred blinked first.

…..“I’m not sure how much you know about astronomy,” Fred said, “Swift-Tuttle is a comet.”

…..It was Keith’s turn. He considered lobbing a non-sequitur at Fred. Did you know that barnacles have the largest penis in the animal kingdom in proportion to their size? Fortunately, divine intervention was approaching – Sandy with a bottle of brandy. Keith leaned toward her, hand outstretched.

…..“We’re lucky,” Fred said. “There’s no moon tonight.”

…..“Why are we lucky?” Keith asked. “Are you a werewolf?” The brandy had not been a good idea. Note to self, keep mouth shut.

…..“The darker it is, the easier it is to see the meteors,” Sandy explained.

…..Or to run to your car without being noticed. Keith felt pressure building inside like a bottle of something fizzy someone let get warm and then shook up. Sandy handed a sleeping bag to Keith and a couple of pillows to Mary. Fred and Sandy grabbed their own sleeping bag and pillows. They descended the steps of the deck and followed Fred out into the field where Sandy kept her horse.

…..“Watch out for horseshit,” Fred said, a statement Keith thought ironic in a meta sort of way. The further from the house they walked, the darker it was. Finally, Sandy halted and they all halted with her.

…..“This is a good spot,” she declared.

…..“We just spread out our sleeping bag?” Mary asked.

…..“The meteors will be over there,” Fred said, pointing. “Set up to watch in that direction.”

…..Keith thought sharing a sleeping bag was kind of cozy for a first date. This wasn’t even an official date. Only after he’d accepted Sandy’s invitation to dinner did she reveal that she’d just happened to invite Mary, who just happened to be unattached, etcetera, supplying him with details that he’d tuned out. “It doesn’t have to be a date unless you want it be,” Sandy had said.

…..“Does anyone want bug spray?” Mary asked.

…..But everyone knew it was a date. The women had their date checklist out, checking boxes women know exist, like women know what a thingamabob is.

…..“We all better spray,” Sandy said. “The mosquitoes are ridiculous.”

…..They took turns spritzing themselves with poison. Then Mary spread the sleeping bag on the grass like a blanket.

…..“It’s a two-person bag, so you both can get inside when you get cold,” Sandy said.

…..“Okay,” Mary said, sounding unsure how to react to Sandy’s suggestion. Fred and Sandy stood there, waiting. Finally, Mary sat on top of the sleeping bag. Then Fred and Sandy looked at Keith. He sat on the bag beside Mary.

…..“We’re going to set up over the hill,” Sandy said. “Fred and I have a place we go to be alone under the stars.”

…..“Plus, whoever’s on the bottom can watch the meteor showers,” Fred said.

…..“Fred!” Sandy said, hitting him on the chest. “Too much information!”

…..Fred grinned, took Sandy’s hand, and turned to Keith and Mary.

…..“See you in the morning.”

…..“We’re serving omelets for breakfast,” Sandy added.

…..Fred and Sandy disappeared over the hill. Keith looked at Mary. She started laughing.

…..“Why don’t we watch meteors for a while?” she said. “Then we can decide whether we want to spend the night in a field of horseshit.”

…..This was a droll side of Mary that Keith hadn’t seen. He liked it. Then he realized he hadn’t paid any attention to Mary all night. Between the artillery attack on his nose and Fred’s encyclopedic pomposity, he’d been up to his elbows in alligators.

…..“Sleeping in horseshit has always been a dream of mine,” Keith said.

…..Mary laughed, a sound so kind that it glowed in the dark. They positioned their pillows and lay side-by-side, eyes to the sky. The meteor shower was starting, like random sparks from a sparkler God was trying to light.

…..“This actually is a good spot,” she said.

…..“The angle of the slope on the hill puts our line of sight perpendicular to the meteor showers when we’re reclined with a pillow under our heads,” Keith said.

…..“That’s a very precise description. Sandy said you were a lawyer.”

…..“Guilty as charged. Sorry. It’s hard to turn off.”

…..“No,” she said, “it’s a good thing. I’m an English teacher. I like the skillful use of words.”

…..Keith wondered if she also liked the person who’d uttered them. Suddenly, that was important.

…..“Sorry about your nose,” she said.

…..“Not your fault. You didn’t know the corkscrew was under the thingamabob.”

…..“You’re right, I didn’t.”

…..They watched meteors for a while without talking. He became absorbed in spotting as many as he could. After a while, he noticed that his bare arms and legs had goosebumps.

…..“Are you cold?” he asked.

…..“Uh-huh,” she said. “Why don’t we get in the bag?”

…..They sat up and crawled off the bag so she could unzip it. They took off their shoes and got in. Mary zipped them up. He put his arm around her and she rested her head on his shoulder.

…..“This is nice,” she said, looking at the sky. He wondered if she meant the meteor shower or him. He hoped she meant him.

…..“Uh-huh,” he said.

He heard tension in his voice, and she must have, too, because she lifted her hand to his chest and patted it, like a mother calming a child, and left it there. Tension left his body like air hissing out of a tire, but then he felt something else filling it up.

…..“I don’t usually get in the sack with someone on the first date,” she said. “How about you?”

…..He smiled. Mary was witty. They were more alike than he’d realized.

…..“Actually,” she said, “Sandy said this wasn’t a date unless I wanted it to be a date.”

…..“She said the same thing to me,” he said. “Is Sandy trying to fix us up?”

…..“Probably,” Mary said. “Want to have a proper date some time?”

…..He felt a weathervane spinning in his chest, wind blowing hard from every direction.

…..“I’d love to,” he managed.

…..The meteors were falling hot and heavy, now. They watched the sky, not needing to fill the silence with conversation. After a while, he heard her breathing slow. She’d fallen asleep in his arms, peace with a heartbeat, her body melted into his. She smelled good, too. Even the horseshit smelled good. He gazed at the sky. The stars were brilliant in their singularity and the meteors were like corks popping from celestial bottles of champagne.

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Mike Wilson‘s short stories have appeared in magazines including The Petigru Review, Fiction Southeast, Mud Season Review, The Saturday Evening Post, Deep South Magazine, Still: The Journal, Barely South Review, and Anthology of Appalachian Writers Vol. X. He’s author of Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic (Rabbit House Press). Mike lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

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