For three weeks running, ever since she’d left, I’d just flop my ass in front of the TV after work every night. All night. Reruns of Star Trek, Barney Miller, The Twilight Zone, Odd Couple, paired with sacks from Mickey D’s, the Colonel, Whiteys, and the Bell. All familiar junk, TV, and eats alike, revitalized as palatable treats when mixed with beer. There was lots of beer. I’d smoke Reds, eat shit, and drink myself sweaty, then pass the hell out from all the poisons consumed.
I was guzzling beer one night while chuckling along with the anonymous studio audience to an early Happy Days featuring Chuck, the hoops star older brother who dribbled as dialogue until he was quickly disappeared, when, probably cause of my good mood, I answered the ringing phone. Ayyy, it was Pete. Pete said I should come out.
“I don’t know, man,” I said, unwilling to engage, unable to resist the possibility that I might hear keys jingling at the front door.
“C’mon, man. What’re you doing? Still on the couch?”
I didn’t answer.
“It’s Friday night! You’re coming out.”
I sighed, then swigged the last of my beer. I suddenly decided, fuck it, she wasn’t coming back. “Yep,” I told him. And if she did come back, tonight of all nights, well, it’d serve her right to find the place empty.
Bout an hour later, after I’d gussied up with a shave and a shower, a car honked out front. I locked up the house and found Pete riding shotgun in Frankie’s big ole Buick. Backseat for me.
Oh well.
I climbed in, saw Pete lean forward and heard that beautiful glass jingle, an overture promising Budweiser, a sweaty cold bottle pressed into my hand before I could even offer greeting.
“And here I thought I was on the wagon,” I said.
“How long clean?” Frankie asked before gulping at his own beer from the driver’s seat.
I pretended to look at the watch I wasn’t wearing. “Bout an hour,” I said, matter of fact like.
And we were off.
Down to the village proper where bars lined the many crisscrossed blocks, darkened daytime retail shops plugged between so many pubs and taverns and clubs right down to the dives and general drinking holes. We were warming up for whichever caught our fancy after killing that case planted between Pete’s size thirteens. So we did laps and laps and hooted at women of all ages, singly and in packs, and shouted obscenities at groups of pussy boys strutting their finest shit in the public square, and hence more likely than us to actually grab those girlies we were catcalling on our merry way.
We were about halfway through our beers when Frankie suggested we scope out the action next town over, which was a nice ride along the water on what was a cool summer night, sweet salty air, total blackness down that road till split by the occasional shock of opposing headlights. Mirror images, they read the night as we did, figuring the grass might be greener down the pike.
No green beyond envy in that direction for us though, so by the time our case was down to a sixer, Frankie had already spun around and we were pointed back towards the more hoppin’ hometown. By the time we’d get there, we figured the case would be empty and it’d be time to shed wages over the bars.
Down along that fragrant night air, we rode, until Pete shouted, “Watch it, Frankie!” Some sick bastard in a suit was creeping the narrow shoulder with his thumb out, doing what we were all doing, but doing it on foot, which, well, shit.
Frankie pulled to a stop and flicked on his hazards, just in case, and the hitcher had to jog about forty feet to catch up with us, me none too thrilled since he’d obviously be sharing the backseat with me.
“How you doing, guys?” the hitcher greeted us. “Name’s Eddie.”
We each introduced ourselves and I kept my fucking eyes peeled on Eddie to make sure he wasn’t a lunatic who was going to spring a knife on us or pull any other violent sort of bullshit. He may be dressed classy—though it wasn’t a suit, just a sports coat with slacks—but he had pockets, didn’t he? I was ready to pummel the motherfucker if need be. Pete handed Eddie back a beer which, I must admit, caused me to die a little inside.
“Can I get another too?” I asked, never mind my still having half a bottle to go—I was forced to fortify my reserves given this imposition of the new guy.
Eddie told us his story, or at least his adventures of the evening. He’d met up with some old pals for hijinks back in the other town, but things had gotten rowdy, they’d been separated, and Eddie had a few too many he guessed, so said, fuck it, he’d point himself this way and see if our bars offered better action.
“What’re you, Harvard boy or something?” Pete asked. Eddie didn’t answer, so Pete shrugged and followed up, “Your threads, man.”
“Oh, no,” Eddie replied. “I’m not in college.” He paused and sipped his beer. “Look, shit, you caught me, okay. I wasn’t hanging with friends. My Dad took me to dinner. College was a topic. Anyway, it didn’t go well.”
Worked for us. His little lie had been understandable. We dropped it.
“Lots of good ass out on the streets tonight,” Pete said, breaking the tension and earning Eddie’s immediate approval.
“Fucking potholes,” Frankie said. “We’re almost forced to crawl.”
“More power to the scenery,” Pete said, nodding his head towards a bevy of beauties sauntering up the way in too-short skirts. “What must their mothers think,” Pete said with wonder, before adding the requisite, “Hey, baby.”
“Look,” Eddie said. “You guys are really saving my night here, I’m in the lap of fucking luxury, but you think if we go somewhere, someone can loan me a fiver?”
Again, silence, because, well, what was this sudden we shit?
“I’m good for it,” Eddie said. Then he told us his last name, which meant nothing, but then he explained his father was one-half of the local home appliance store kings. These guys ran the corniest goddamn commercials every hour on the TV, which I, given recent experience, could well attest. Wall to wall Eddie’s geezer old man climbing out of fridges or stoves or what have you, shouting about low low prices that always ended in ninety-nine after some silly high first number.
“Shit, we’ve got royalty along with us,” Frankie said.
“I’ll set you up,” Pete said. I assumed he sniffed future discounts. Because I did. We really needed a new washer. (We?) Fucking spin cycle stuck. Had to open the lid and jam something in there, or the fucker would spin to Mars.
We settled on the outdoor bar so we could smoke while we drank and partied. I say, the outdoor bar, but it was actually one of two adjoining joints, the one on the other side of the looming, let’s call it, eight-foot-high fence, pumping dance music through the brief pauses our place offered between ZZ Top, Motley Crue, and the like of the time. Our side was for drinking, theirs was for getting laid. Maybe we’d switch it up later since our goal (my goal?) was both.
Still, there was enough of a crowd on our side of the fence that we were shoulder-to-shoulder back there, part of the great sway, at least me, whose head felt a little heavier now that I was standing, attempting balance and steadiness, instead of just flat on my ass in Frankie’s backseat. There were plenty of girls there too, though it was kind of known, these chicks were here for the cheap shots with the cheaper-sounding names. Once they’d had their fill of that bottom-shelf crap, most would split for next door.
That said, it wasn’t long before this real cutie bounced our way and started grinding her ass against my hip to some Fleetwood Mac, and the boys gave me the eye, but hell, I maybe wasn’t drunk enough, or, shit, possibly wasn’t ready yet, and I was being exposed as all talk. Anyway, I fucking hate Fleetwood Mac.
So she flounced off when the Stevie Nicks faded into Ozzy (subtle DJing), and we’re all us guys bullshitting about this and that, taking in new stories from Eddie, who’d get peppered back with queries concerning his local-famous father, which I could tell was starting to bug him.
“How’d your old man get himself in that dishwasher that time?” Frankie shouted through Ozzy’s vocals. “He didn’t even take out the top rack.”
“My father’s an asshole,” Eddie replied, which we all laughed at him about because, c’mon man, we’re like all in our twenties, grow the fuck up already.
“No, man,” Eddie continued. “He keeps telling me I’m throwing away my life. Fuck, threw away.”
Eyebrows raised in his direction.
“He took me out tonight, fed me drinks, then sprung it on me. I’m out of their plans. The big future plans. They’re going to set up his partner’s son for eventual control. With my Dad’s backing.”
“Fuck, sorry, dude,” said Pete, who I could tell was pretty sorry himself now about that lost fiver, never mind any imagined deals on expensive home goods.
“I’m such a loser,” Eddie said, his eyes to the ground. I’m not sure if we were supposed to hear that over Skynyrd or not.
Then I said, “Look! That hot chick is stuck with a fat fuck,” or something to that effect, but I said it in the break just after “That Smell” had ended, and the fat fuck was looking around pissed off wondering who’d just called him a fat fuck since everybody had heard it.
“Quiet,” Eddie, of all people, said. “That’s Joey Benevides.”
“Who the fuck is Joey Benevides?” I asked though I have to admit, I asked this in more of a whisper because I was a little worried about who the fuck this Joey Benevides might be, and I probably didn’t want him to hear me this time.
Eddie confirmed that Joey Benevides was everything I had quickly imagined—in other words, connected. And the big fat fuck was headed our way, shit.
“Don’t worry, I know him,” Eddie said.
“What’s happening, Eddo,” Joey Benevides said, grabbing Eddie’s shoulder with his meathook hand and giving a playful shake. Eddie gritted his teeth and took it.
Eddie said not much, checking out town tonight, then introduced us all around to Joey Benevides, who had the posture and voice of a total asshole.
“Y’all come down to the club later,” Joey Benevides said. Asked? Commanded?
“Comping us at the door?” Eddie asked.
Joey Benevides laughed at him. “You fuckos gotta pay to get it, so you’re definitely gonna have to pay to see it.”
Joey Benevides departed. Eddie explained that Fat Joey owned one of the four strip joints in town, the second sleaziest of the bunch. We were impressed. We’d never had the balls to go to the sleaziest one, rumors of hard drug use kept us chaste in that regard, but we’d ended a few nights at Joey Benevides’s place without even knowing it was run by some obnoxious fat fuck. Or at least this particular one.
Just as we were coming to the conclusion that it’d probably be worth the cover fee to get into Fat Joey’s place, someone cried look out, and I looked up instead, and spotted a green beer bottle cutting the night with a hypersonic spin, arcing its way towards us from the other side of the fence, and actually striking me on the toe of my boot before rolling a few feet past me.
“Motherfucker,” I said.
“You all right?” Pete asked.
I strolled over and picked up the bottle, juggling it a little inside my palm to gauge its weight. “Yeah, I’m good,” I said.
“Don’t,” Pete said.
I did. I held the bottle by the neck and casually flipped it back where it came from. As dumb luck had it, as the bottle reached its peak height, pretty much directly above the high fence, where it seemed to freeze but a moment in space, our side’s Metallica song ended, and—what were the odds— their side’s bounce and beat whatever the fuck bass tune ended, so every goddamn bar patron, drunk or sober, our side or theirs, could hear when the green bottle landed and shattered on the other side of the fence. And the accompanying scream. Female it was.
Pete and Frankie stared daggers through me, making me thankful for Led Zeppelin’s deafening interruption (A first, fuck those geezers), and allowing me to strip my response down to wiggling my eyebrows like Groucho while I downed my beer. Our new friend Eddie was laughing his ass off. No wonder his father hated him, deep down even I knew I had definitely just fucked up.
Frankie soon passed around more beers, even to Eddie, and I wasn’t more than halfway through this next brew, two big slugs were all, when who should I see headed towards me, but old Roger Guillen, holy shit. “Roger Guillen, holy shit, I haven’t seen you since high school, how’re you?” I asked, my current state-of-drunkenness manic, more like I was coked up than booze-fueled.
Roger was a big guy like me and the other fellas, and it took a moment before I noticed another big guy standing with him and both of them wearing matching vests that made them look kind of gay.
“You gay now, Roger?” I asked. “Cool.”
“I’ve been told that you threw the bottle over the fence,” Roger said to me by way of greeting, each note of his voice trending lower with disappointment.
“What’s that, now?” I asked, holding my hand to my ear like a deaf old man who’d lost his hearing horn.
“You nearly hit a woman with that bottle,” he said.
“Nearly?” I asked, legitimately relieved. “Well, that’s good. I mean, I heard the scream and I thought …” I just let that hang.
“So you admit you threw it?” Roger asked.
“Fuck yeah, I threw it,” I said. I noticed Frankie and Pete peddle back a little towards the crowd. “I threw it,” I said, my voice rising, a bit angry, I suppose, “because some fucker over that way threw it this way first.”
Roger Guillen called bullshit on me with his stare.
I glanced down, then smiled and pointed at my boot like some ballplayer just hit by a pitch down there begging his case to the ump. “Look at my boot, Roger,” I said. It was always bullshit, even in the bigs, never a mark and the same was true this time. “See that scuff? Fucking bottle hit me. Damn near broke my toes.” No scuff. Power of suggestion. It was all in the James Dean plea, you had to overact it, that was the method.
Roger looked at the bigger guy next to him, and they both appeared a bit perplexed. Next step: distract.
“So, what you doing now, Roger? Are you guys like a gang, or together, or something?”
“I bounce next door,” Roger said, no friendly reminisce in his voice.
“You’ve come far,” I muttered, but I’m not sure he picked it up. Shit, I was pretty much blind drunk and had already come down from my little high from first seeing old Roger, so I may have been mumbling or slurring so soon already.
“All right,” Roger Guillen said. “Nobody was hurt—this time!”
“Cool,” I said, perking back up. “You want a beer?”
“I’m working,” Roger said, mortified. “Look, I think it’s best if you leave.”
“But you said you worked next door,” I said. “I find myself questioning your authority.”
“The same guy owns both bars,” Roger Guillen said. “My authority extends over both sides of the fence.”
I glanced towards Pete and Frankie. Eddie was near them and that fat motherfucker with the strip club was whispering in his ear. Pete and Frankie, looking like the boys in one of them ZZ Top videos, jerked their heads left in unison, toward the exit. Pete and Frankie didn’t have beards though. Or guitars.
I had a decision to make.
I thought about it as I pounded the back half of my beer, then belched, catching, as luck had it, another break in the tunes and earning a titter from among the startled bar crowd. Just before AC/DC started up, I said, “Okay, Roger. We’ll go. It was good seeing you.” I extended my hand. Roger looked at it a moment, then I guess he decided, fuck it, defuse the situation for old times sake, took it, and shook. By that time Brian Johnson was croaking, Angus was strumming and hopping along somewhere, I’m sure, and I held Roger’s grip and leaned in. “But I really like this fucking song, Roger. Let’s call it a draw at a slow exit.”
Thankfully the twelve-plus beers held my gaze steady and I held Roger’s eyes and gripped his hand until he nodded, when I released both grips.
“You boys about ready?” I asked
In the car, on the way to the second sleaziest strip joint in town, Eddie, who was somehow still with us on his borrowed fiver, said, “Joey Benevides said he was impressed with how you handled yourself back there.”
“Good for Joey,” I said, totally ripped at this point with adrenaline pumping hard on top of the booze.
“He said he’d comp us at the club. He’s gonna put in a call and we just have to tell the doorman that Joey sent us from that shithole.”
“Cool,” Pete said. “I’ll buy first round.”
“Thanks, man,” I said.
“Priceless fucking entertainment,” Pete said. “Thank you.”
Frankie chuckled and added that he’d buy a second round. Well, fuck it then, we were off to see some real T&A.
Son of a bitch that Fat Joey actually did make that call, either that or his doorman was one gullible SOB. We were soon sitting elbow to elbow nursing overpriced beers, jamming to the same sorts of tunes we’d just left, and witnessing glorious female nudity.
Three girls on the stage, each looking marvelous under the dim lights, and a couple of them even trying really hard to give us a show. They’d dance by for our singles and stop to chit chat every time, give us each a little something special to see, especially when they tucked those singles away, our fresh dollars skipping past their garters to claim space along panties’ edge with a little pop of elastic and, eyes peeled, a hint of bush.
Eddie, somehow, had four bucks left sitting on the bar in front of him. I’d been talking to this one chick, Crystal she claimed through an unrecognizable accent, about how perfect she moved to “Wild Side,” when Eddie stuck a dollar in his mouth and slapped the bar. Crystal gave him a peek, then caressed my cheek and thanked me for my contribution, before sauntering down to wide-eyed speed-nodding Eddie, who raised his chin as Crystal lowered her breasts and wrapped them around his dollar bill. Fucking guy pulled a circus seal act, and he gets smothered in all sorts of soft 36Cs, possibly even Ds, the motherfucker!
Too drunk to resist copying Eddie’s genius, each of us other fellows had a shot at replicating his trick, though, son of bitch if I didn’t get the one surly chick, who happened to have the smallest titties, and so all my cheeks experienced were her rough palms gliding past as they snatched my dollar away. Bitch must have liked gardening or been into auto mechanics or something from the feel of them hands.
That put me in a shit mood, so after I got back from a piss I told Pete I saw the pool table was free in the next room if he wanted to shoot a game, and I guess he’d had his fill because after expressing surprise at Fat Joey wasting real estate on billiards, he said, sure, and, sure enough, Frankie joined us too. Just as we slipped our quarters into the table’s slot, some old guy approached and asked if we wanted to play doubles. I didn’t think Frankie was down for it, he was a notoriously shit pool player, but he said yes, and even partnered with the stranger.
This guy was a real intellectual, claimed he had taught for a while even, and started going on and on about how this game was a lot like geometry.
“Well, maybe you need to brush up on your lessons, Prof,” Pete said, sinking the 5-ball.
Pete missed the 6, but the Prof, who was chuckling scratched, proving Pete’s point, and then it was my go, and I hammered the 6 straight into the left corner pocket.
“It’s a young man’s game,” I said, winking at the Prof. I sunk the 7, and added, “You limp-dicked old bastard.”
“With age comes experience,” the soft-spoken Prof said, the acoustics from the bar muddied just enough in this area for us to barely hear him. I laughed and miscued, forfeiting my turn.
“Old, but experienced,” the Prof said, nodding his head towards the more exciting room with the stage. “Unlucky at games, but lucky in love,” he added.
“Young, but hard,” I replied, grabbing my cock and blowing him a kiss.
Just then, after Frankie had missed, and Pete was leaning over the table set up to sink the 8-ball and end our brief time with the Prof, a scream pierced the mind-numbing refrain of “Cherry Pie” back out in that main room.
“This fucking asshole just bit my nipple!” was overheard through the music.
While we could hear this from Fat Joey’s little poolroom, we couldn’t see a thing, so Pete sunk the 8, and we kind of hung back, as it sounded like there was a dust-up happening in the bar area. The music kept jamming (back to AC/DC, “Given the Dog a Bone” this time), but raised voices, male and female alike, cut through, so Frankie went to take a peek around the corner. He immediately turned to Pete and I and waved us towards the door.
“Let’s get out of here,” Frankie said when we caught up to him.
“Where’s Eddie?” I asked.
“Let’s go,” Frankie said.
We stepped through the small crowd of men and a few barely clad women—one of them rubbing at her breast with one hand while pumping her other fist victoriously—and around the prone body that lay spreadeagle on the pavement ten feet beyond the exit.
“Holy fuck, that’s Eddie!” I said. His fancy jacket was torn and there was blood pumping from each nostril.
“Shut the fuck up,” Frankie said. The bouncer eyed us as we passed stock-still Eddie on the way to Frankie’s car.
“Are we just gonna leave him?” I asked.
Frankie grabbed my shoulder and steered me directly towards his car. Between gritted teeth he whispered, “He was a fucking hitchhiker.”
“We don’t know him” Pete said, as we got into the car. All seated, Pete added, “He’s just a stranger.”
We rode in silence for a time but weren’t more than a few blocks from home when the entire car sort of jumped, and Pete said, “The fuck?”
Frankie had rolled over something with his back tire, the one under me, which sent the top of my head crashing into the roof of the Buick, and left me wondering if he had run over a dog or a bum, or maybe a goddamn elephant.
“Look!” Frankie pointed past Pete to the right side of the road where, racing ahead of us and gaining speed, a round wheel-like object was spinning through the night, spinning with speed that makes me ashamed to have called that bottle’s spin hypersonic earlier. This thing was hypersonic and hypnotic all at once, couldn’t break my gaze.
“The fuck is that?” I asked.
“I think it’s a water drain cover,” Pete said. It looked to be about a foot around, more than half that thick, and made of cast iron.
“Oh, no,” Pete said, pointing himself now, up ahead to a man walking his little dog. This thing raced towards him and his pup, just a couple of helpless pins in a devil’s bowling alley.
“Maybe I can cut the damn thing off,” Frankie said.
He gunned it, but the steel wheel bore down on the dog walker, its acceleration creating a chirp that echoed through Frankie’s car, far-out UFO noises, you know, like audio from some fifties flying saucer movie. If I wasn’t so drunk, I’d have covered my eyes and ears.
We all three stirred at once and called to the dog walker to look out. He must have heard us, or maybe it, coming, ‘cause he turned and I saw the whites of his eyes pop. Frantic, he bent down and scooped up his little dog, cradling it in his arms as he jumped and leapfrogged this angry fate hell-bent on mauling and crippling him based on pure chance … of us happening by when we had to run the damn thing over and pop it from its loose setting in the ground.
We all three exhaled, relieved, as we passed him, leaving him hugging his doggie and looking to the sky, thankfully oblivious to us and our part in his evening’s excitement. He didn’t know what had almost hit him, but we watched as the drain cover suddenly slowed, tilted a little to the right, and spun off into the brush for a safe landing.
We cruised on a little bit, once again in silence, putting the dog walker and the incident behind us before Frankie softly said, “A shame that couldn’t have happened earlier.”
Quiet. Till Pete said, “Eddie.”
“Goddamn right, Eddie,” Frankie said.
It was a restless night’s sleep if you want to call it that, full of tossing and turning, night sweats, the occasional scream that brought a benefit of brief clarity before my next collapse. The phone started ringing and ringing, splitting my head, my hangover, and finally my morning or afternoon or whenever it was when the idea jumped to mind that, oh, she’s coming back! I picked up the phone.
I was disappointed by Pete’s voice on the other end of the line. “You coming out again tonight?” he asked.
My gaze was aimed at the clock, but what I spotted was the overflowed ashtray, my brown filters, and this was key, punctuated by slim filters with lipstick smudges. Her brand, at least three of them in there.
I felt like Mitchum or Alan Ladd in one of them old movies, miserable fucks who finally had a little bit of sunshine lighten them up in the form of a dame.
“So, should we come by for you tonight?” Pete repeated.
She had been there. For me. For me? At least I knew I was better off than Eddie, who’d wake up from the pavement and wonder what the fuck of his life. Knocked cold, he had to go home and face the asshole screaming “Just seven … ninety … nine” on the screen in front of me just then (What were the odds? Pretty good. Motherfucker was ubiquitous). At least somebody loved me. Maybe. Cared about me, at least?
“Dude, you still there?”
I heard stirring from the back of the house. The bedroom. I heard feet hit the floor.
“Not tonight, buddy,” I said to Pete, before hanging up. “Miriam!” I called.
Silence before a footstep.
I was vastly disappointed. The creep with the swollen banana nose was familiar yet unfamiliar. I was tempted to throw something at him in self-defense. Until, recognition.
“Eddie, how the fuck are you here?” I asked.
Eddie’s belly spilled into view as he stretched into a yawn. “They hit me with a bucket of cold water,” he said through his teeth, grimacing, that bright red Durante-dwarfing schnoz obviously causing some pain.
I extended my arms, palms up, the universal plea for, Huh?
“Yellow pages at the 7-Eleven,” Eddie said. “You’d told me your name. It was as simple as looking up Chalmers, Alexander, and calling a cab. I wasn’t going home … to Dad’s place. Not looking like this.”
“Okay,” I said, “But how the fuck are you here?” I asked, flipping my hands over to spin and cut them through the air, emphasizing the here part.
“Your old lady let me in.”
“Wait, she is here? Miriam!” I called again, trying to get off the couch, but it wasn’t in me.
“She was sitting over you talking, a whole lot of Woe, is me.”
“She said, ‘Woe, is me’?”
“No,” said Eddie. “That was just her general attitude. You just went on about some super-deal you could get on a washer-dryer.” Eddie paused. “You know I can’t help you there. I’ve lost my pull.”
“Well, where the fuck is she, Eddie?”
“Must have split.”
I could punch the slob, or at least give the Bozo a little flick across that clown nose hoping for pus and blood. I lighted a Marlboro instead, my head beginning to work as I exhaled. I stared at Eddie and saw a loser. Chuck from Happy Days, left behind. I saw another abandoned loser. I suddenly decided, fuck it, she wasn’t coming back. And if she did come back, tonight of all nights, well, it’d serve her right to find the place empty.
“Want to head out again tonight?”
“Sure.”
I picked up the phone. “Let me see if I can catch Pete.”
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