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GUINOTTE WISE

I want the boat

I was at work. The dream is always there. But different places of work. She said "cuth-puh" over and over. It was like the word cusp only with a lithp lisp and a plosive. It was normal. The most normal thing to happen. It was her face but orange-red lipstick was caked on her mouth, like an old lady who was being coy, cunning, on the cuth-puh, sly and rouged. I said I was tired of the Cord, an automobile with two shifters and two supercharged V-8 engines. I want the boat, I said. We were working out a program for alternating Wednesday nights. (A) would be physical, that odd move people do on dance floors, lying on their stomach, and moving their chest and butt up and away from the floor in an articulated snakelike way (B) would be place mats with words on them, or perhaps just large letters; you were allowed four of them, and it was supposed to improve your mind. Cuthpuh. Then there were boats in water but not much water. Mini-channels. A small Venice. Several people in the background murmured Wednesdays were not good for them and I no longer gave a shit about anything but the boats.
And her.

Guinotte Wise wrote a book of short stories (Night Train, Cold Beer) at his farm in Resume Speed, KS where he welds and writes. It won, got published to not much acclaim. It's on Amazon. He got the soffits fixed with the money. His next two books Ruined Days, a novel, andResume Speed, his second short story collection, (Black Opal publisher) are also available at Amazon and B&N. His stories, essays and poems have appeared in numerous literary reviews including Atticus, The MacGuffin, Shotgun Honey and Best New Writers Anthology 2015. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to keep it. Some work may be seen at
http://www.wisesculpture.com