The Performance Artist by Joshua Hebburn

I’m in my room at the motel. I’m watching him floating. My room is poolside. He’s in the pool. I like him. He’s got aviator sunglasses. He’s got a can of beer. He’s got a circular tube with a flamingo head and two fins painted with squiggles, meant to indicate feathery wings, coming out of it. He’s getting pink. There’s sheer white curtains and slat blinds between us. I can tell how pink he is, even through the curtains. I look to myself in the mirror and say, stick a fork in him. I wink and I wink. I say, a fine Christmas Ham. I’m alone here. I smile and I smile. He’s napping, I think, Mr. Pink. I watch him turn. He’s turning as slowly as the hands of the wall clock. Analog. I open a beer. It’s the same kind as his. A green can. Rolling Rock. Ah, I say, nothing quite like a cold one. I laugh at myself, which is to say, I open my mouth into a sort of smile and breathe out hard, like I would if I laugh, but there’s nothing tense in my throat.I open the box, which I purchased one hour ago from Target, containing a circular pool floatie with a pink flamingo head and two flamingo fins. Two hours ago, he entered the pool. I blow into the floatie’s pinch nozzle. I’m inflating. As I catch my breath between blows, I take sips from my beer. It’s a very cold beer. I look up from time to time. He’s just floating. I open the blinds. I open the sheer curtains. I put the flamingo donut on the white tile floor. There’s palm trees by the pool. They lean over it. They’re neat. Freshly shaved, a person might say. No brown scrap or scraggle. The palm fronds are green. They flash in the sunshine when they’re stirred by the breeze. They’re like sunglasses hit by the light. I see him raise his hand and wipe at his face. He rolls his neck. He throws some water from the pool onto himself, cooling his roasted flesh. He drops his hand into the water. I remove my shirt. I remove my pants. I’m very pale, as I can see in the mirror. I make double finger guns. I make double finger guns. I’m wearing blue and white pinstripe boxers. I’m normal looking. I smile. I smile. I’m alone, except for myself watching myself. I take my beer cans from the mini fridge. I place them in a line on the floor. Click, click, click, click. Four green cylinders, wet with condensation. I put my ass in the pink floatie on the white tile. I sit. My forearms rest on the tile. The tile is pleasantly cool. The tile is white. I place my sunglasses on. I look at myself in the mirror. I look nice. These sunglasses suit the shape of my face. I look at him in the pool. Wobbles from the sunlight rays hitting the pool bottom, bouncing off, wiggle slowly on my ceiling. I don’t turn. I’m not like the hands of the clock. I just have hands.  Now I’m not watching myself anymore. Now I’m watching myself. Now I’m watching myself watching myself. He’s not watching himself. He’s not watching me. Nobody is watching me. I’m alone. The plastic squeaks against my arm as I shift to move my beer to my lips. The light makes those lazy squigglies. I think of music. Pop or jazz. I look back out. He’s floating. I take a sip of my beer.

Joshua Hebburn is an assistant fiction editor at X-R-A-Y and a grocery clerk in Los Angeles. He recommends the story “Driver” by Frederick Barthelme.