The Painter

From WikiStory

"Well, that's vintage. It's gotta be at least ten years old." I looked at the old paint can he set on the counter.

"I think it's only about seven," he replied with a smile.

"Well let's see if we still have that color. Yeah, sure enough one twelve, seventy-two. How much do you need?"

"One gallon."

"OK, let's see, base one oh one. Just a sec." I came back with a gallon of the tint base and started to take the lid off. "Tequilla is devil urine," I muttered, not really sure why. God, was I trying to impress this guy who was probably as old as my father? But maybe he wasn't. He did have some gray in his beard, but his eyes were full of life. He just smiled. After I punched the color code into the computer and it did its thing I put the lid back on and started the shaker. "It was an employee party." I resumed lamely. "I was doing alright until someone opened the bottle of tequilla." "Tequilla will do it to you all right," he said, still smiling and looking me right in the eyes. Most men by now are looking somewhere else, but not him. He's just looking me right in the eye. "I'm not hungover. I hit my head. I was sitting on one end of a bench when the guy at the other end got up. I hit my head on a stone table." I wondered if he'd believe me. Suddenly I didn't want to be a tequilla swilling partier. I wanted to be, I can't believe I felt this, more grown up. "When I came in to work people said, 'man you took quite a fall last night.' and I said 'I remember.'"

"Well, at least you remember," he said with a chuckle.

"Yeah." I took the can out of the shaker and opened it on the counter. He looked inside and nodded. "Looks like a match to me."