TFLN

[1sts]

you know what to do.

Comments

3

[topino]

Yes, Booker. Yes, it is a very bad thing.

Why the need to drown yourself in vodka today?

[transfuge]

It's my eldest son's birthday. Would be if he was still alive. I felt like celebrating.

[ Which means he's sad and hurts. ]

[topino]

If the vodka isn't tasting like vodka, maybe switch to wine. What was his favourite?

[transfuge]

We drank what we could afford. Mostly blends around Marseilles.

[topino]

In that case, if you're near the safehouse, check the drawer under the kitchen. I stored a few good bottles of Bordeaux the last time I was there.

[transfuge]

That's the cool dry place you came up with?

[topino]

I didn't know we had budget for wine fridges these days. Andy still keeps all her things in an abandoned mine, you should be happy it's not in a cave.

[transfuge]

One day some geo-catching enthusiast is going to find one of those.

Thanks for the wine, Nicky. It's better than vodka.

[topino]

I hope they will enjoy all the topless paintings they find. I should have known better than to lift the blankets when I was still new.

It's no problem.

Do you want to talk about him?

[transfuge]

Some art historian will be very excited to say the painter and his subject were just close friends.

I don't know.

[topino]

Please don't remind me of how many times in history I have been relegated to Joe's friend.

What was his name, at least?

[transfuge]

People are speaking out now. Some grad student is probably writing a paper about queer artists and their subjects right now.

Etienne. He was a tailor.

[topino]

Do you think I can email one of them and suggest they do a paper on us? I think Joe left some very good love letters that the British Museum has now.

Etienne. It's a good name, Booker. I am sure he made beautiful clothes.

[transfuge]

I can get you a fake identity as another researcher asking for a second opinion on them.

He died of the flu two years before I went to war. He always hated the counterfeiting.

[topino]

That would be a very fun diversion, I think. Maybe I could give the research to Joe as a present.

I am sure he still loved you.

[transfuge]

What do you want to be? Historian? Anthropologist? Grad student?

He did. He tried to get me a job with a printer. A fierce child.

[topino]

Oh, grad student, I think. I could wear one of those, come se dice, the glasses? The ones with the black rims?

Why did you not take the job with the printer?

[transfuge]

There are a lot of black rimmed glasses. Find a look you want and I'll take a picture for the identity.

I did. I got caught using the press for forgeries.

[topino]

I always like new identities, even if it's led to some questionable fashion over the years.

If you think I am going to cast stones, you're going to be waiting a very long time. You were a forger, I was a priest who thought to murder people for his beliefs. We all have our flaws.

[transfuge]

Let's forget the things we wore in the seventies.

We had to eat. Counterfeiting put food on the table. He didn't always understand that.

[topino]

I thought you looked very suitable in bellbottoms.

I do not know the burden of fatherhood, I'm sorry. I have no advice, but only my shoulder for support.

[transfuge]

You would have no idea. You were too busy staring at Joe in all those open neck shirts.

It's not a burden. It's a gift.

[topino]

This is the consequence of spending so many decades together. I have no secrets and my open appreciation is too clear.

You are right, mi dispiace. I do not know the gift of fatherhood. Etienne, when he was a boy, what did he most like to do?

[transfuge]

You two are shameless.

Horses. He loved horses. I bought him a little tin cavalry soldier one Christmas.

[topino]

Shameless, or just without much privacy?

He would have loved to see the horses in America during the same time in the West. Did he ever see a real one?

[ Or maybe that's too close to the war. ]