by Jeff Johnson
Tom glared at me, mute with rage, just as he always was when he told the story of that night. Hank squirmed, and then finally asked the burning question.
“Why do they let you in?”
“Tom?” I asked, redirecting the question.
“My daughter is a stripper.” It came out in a strangled whisper. “She works for the Mexican Conan.”
“His daughter Destiny,” I clarified, “is a private contractor at the fine nudist establishment I have part ownership of. Santiago manages it. We, ah, we keep an eye on her.”
“Ready when you are.” Hank downed his shot and drained his beer. I did the same and tossed a couple of twenties on the bar. Tom glared at me without glancing at the money. Outside, Hank and I lit cigarettes. It was misting rain, but it didn’t seem to bother him. I didn’t mind, either.
“You’re, ah, you were kinda mean to that dude,” Hank commented. He tried to sound casual, but I could tell the whole thing had rattled him.
“Tom,” I said. “He’s on my permanent shit list. The bully kind of bartender. Scowls at everyone. Saw him card an old lady one time, freaked her out. Not a wino old lady, either, just this old gal out with her daughter. He didn’t card the younger gal. Plus, you know what kind of dad has his baby girl wind up on the pole?” I squinted over at him. Hank shrugged.
“Dunno. Depends, I guess.”
“On what?”
“Dance lessons.” He looked at me and smiled. I sighed.
“Delia texted me the address of the tux place,” I said. I pointed at my dirty little Italian car. “That’s me. Let’s get through it without freaking the guy out and then maybe grab some lunch.”
“What happened to your other ride?”
“Fire.”
“Ah.”
We got in and I started the engine. Already not as robust as a new battery should be, I could tell. The problem was getting worse. Hank marveled at the antique dials, very retro, especially for a brain-damaged ten-year-old, and seemed to get a little more excited about the prospect of spending the afternoon with me.
“Can I drive?”
“No.”
I pulled out. We smoked in silence. I thought about Delia, who was at the Lucky mopping and checking the messages, her art supplies out on the light board in back with her first design of the day. I thought about Suzanne, of how proud she would be if she knew what I was doing, that I was actually taking Hank to the tuxedo place instead of an abandoned building with a human shaped hole in the foundation. That made me smile. Hank took it as his cue to start talking.
“You know, man, I sometimes feel like we got off on the wrong foot, me and you.”
“Why’s that?” I tried to make it sound casual.
“When I first started dating Delia, you were all fucked up, man. Your face—” He trailed off, looking for the right words. “You got in a fight with those dudes, and then the whole hiring my band to help you with, the ah, the—”
“Remember the deal,” I cautioned. “We never, ever, ever talk about that, even with each other.”
Hank was referring to the incident where I hired his band Empire of Shit to help me rufie the real estate developer, Oleg Turganov, and Santiago. Hank himself had put the crushed-up pill in Turganov’s drink, had in fact given him an almost fatal overdose because he’d been too stupid to follow instructions. In the aftermath, when we thought the guy might die, they’d all helped me transport the bodies and they’d well and truly lost their collective shit as they did. Per our deal, I paid for their first and only 45, Empire of Shit’s epic sonic assault entitled “Vomitorium.”
“I remember,” he said, a little too quietly. “I mean, I remember that I don’t remember anything. Whatever. My point is that it was a gnarly time all around. We didn’t know each other real well and we still don’t. Delia says you’re a private sort of dude, but you and her are tight, I know that. So let’s try to maybe get a good thing going here, you and me. Whaddya say?”
“Sure.” I smiled when I said it. Hank nodded.
“Good. Make her happy. She’s been all bummed out with her family lately. You know about that?”
“What, her dickhead dad and her country club mom? The bitchy Stepford sisters?”
“Delia’s family. Shit. You ever met any of them, before I came around?”
“Nah.”
Hank glanced at me. Dude could lie so well he should have gone into politics. “None of them have ever even been here. And mine, well, pretty much the same thing. It bums her out.”
“I can imagine.”
“She tells me that you don’t have any kind of family either. Guess that puts all of us in the same boat.”
“I hope not. She deserves better.” We came to a stoplight and I turned a little to face him. “Know what I do when she starts in on the whole family business?”
“What?” He squirmed a little. It was an unconscious thing.
“I don’t say anything at all. I tell you this, Hank, not to be a dick or anything, but because I’ve been handing out advice like M&Ms the last few days and I’m on a roll. I don’t say anything because whatever I do say will make it worse somehow. So I just listen. Maybe try that. Listen to her without coming down on one side or another. Delia is an amazing creature if you can get past her broken glass and nails routine. See what I’m sayin’?”
“I guess.” He looked away. The guy had no idea what I was talking about. I patted him on the knee. To his credit, he didn’t jump.
“You just listen. Bet you’ll appreciate her even more than you already do.”
That provoked no reaction at all. Instead, he took his cell phone out and a few clicks later he was checking his Facebook page. I drove on and at the next stoplight I glanced over again. Still looking, smiling now.
“Delia tells me you’re starting a country band.”
“Yeah.” Distracted. He scrolled.
“What about Empire? You gonna do both?”
He looked up to see why we’d stopped, then at me. “We broke up.”
“Ah. I see. This country band have a name?”
“Solo project. So Hank something-or-other.”
The light turned green. I realized for the first time that all my CDs were gone. Every last one of them, the sum total of all the music I had purchased in my adult life, was burned.
“Lost ten CDs when my car went up,” I said ruefully.
“Bummer, dude.”
I stopped talking. Hank’s shift from weaselly and fearful to arrogant, now that I was trying to be polite, had him close to the edge. One wrong word at this point and I wasn’t going to even try to stop hitting him. We were quiet when we pulled into the parking lot of Tuxedorama.
“Door to door service,” I announced. He looked up and pocketed his phone.
“Rad. Let’s make this snappy, man. I’m fuckin’ starved.”
I started to reach for him as he got out, jerking like I had rabies, and he didn’t even notice. He ducked under the awning of the place and lit up a pre-fitting smoke. I blinked rapidly, willing the bile back down, and got out, giving him a chipper smile as I joined him. Behind us, the lone Tuxedorama clerk looked out on us with dread.
“You have specific orders?” I asked.
“What?”
“The kind of tuxedo you’re supposed to get.”
Hank shrugged. “I don’t think there’s more than one kind. The James Bond type, I guess. You know, the one with the little bowtie.”
“Right. They have more than one kind, Hank.”
“They do?” He turned and glanced inside. I did, too. The clerk stepped back and turned, headed for the cash register.
“Yeah, dog. Gray ones, even green ones. Blue. Tails. Frills. Old-fashioned, weirdo super modern David Bowie.”
“Well fuckin’ hell.” That seemed to confuse him. He looked at me, and we were close enough for me to see the crust in his eyes. “What kind are you getting?”
“I already have a tux,” I lied smoothly. “Black. The funera
l kind, but it works for all tuxedo events.”
He nodded. “Maybe let’s take a sec to check it out. I’m supposed to buy mine, not rent it. Delia wants me to have one for all the other shit I might need one for.”
“Expensive.”
He flicked his hand. “She’s picking it up. You know how much money she makes.” He laughed, like he was saying something good about her behind her back. I dropped my cigarette and ground it out, gave him a dead clown smile.
“Shall we?”
He looked at my glassy eyes and his smile faded a little, so I opened the door and held it for him so the moment wouldn’t stretch. He slipped inside and I followed.
“Jesus,” I said to myself.
A horrific party disco was bubbling at volume one from a broken speaker somewhere and the place smelled like plastic, nervous sweat, and men’s cologne. There were mannequins everywhere, all of them with blank ovoid faces, and a ghastly orange and lime green piñata was lying on the gray shag carpet to the side of the register counter. Hank threw his arms wide and spun around like he was on camera, in a documentary where he had just summited Mount Everest.
“I love this place!” he declared gleefully.
Something gurgled in my guts then, and I felt a clammy wave of sickness. I glared at the clerk, who winced at my face.
“C-c-c-can I help you gentlemen?” he stammered. I pointed at Hank.
“Dildo here needs a tux. He’s buying, so let’s not sell him the Mercedes of matrimonial whatever, got me?”
The guy nodded.
“They do have different kinds!” Hank held up an old Rhett Butler affair, beaming. “Holy shit. I thought you were just fuckin’ with me, man.”
I snapped my fingers at the clerk and rubbed my fingers together in the international sign for money. He jerked into action.
“Let’s get you measured first Mr . . .”
“Dildo. Hank Dildo.” Hank gave the clerk his best smile and handed him the Butler. “Put this on the maybe list.”
The clerk took it and looked my way, terrified, and I shook my head.
“G-good, sir. Now, if I can just get you to step over here, I’ll take your measurements and then we can see what we have for sale that fits you.”
“These aren’t all for sale?” Hank looked confused. The clerk glanced my way again and I squinted.
“No, sir. Certainly not. This is primarily a rental outlet. All tuxedo establishments have that in common.”
“Ah man.” Hank deflated and held his arms out. “Measure away. But that’s a bummer, dude. I mean, what happens if you rent a tux and fuck it up? Then is it for sale? I bet it is. One more example of the system shankin’ it to the little guy. And when he’s getting married too, no less. Fuckin’ raw, dog. R.A.W. Raw.”
“I’m gonna sit,” I said. I looked around and realized there were no chairs. The clerk began to hurry in earnest.
“Just one moment.” He zipped his tape over Hank’s bored, crucified posture and stepped back. “This way, sir. You’re unfortunately much smaller than American Standard, so—”
“Meaning I’m not fat,” Hank snapped. “Jesus. Let’s see what you have in the boy’s section. Christ.”
Less than five minutes later we walked out with a cheap tuxedo wrapped in plastic.
“That wasn’t bad,” Hank said. “Fast anyway.”
“Regular turnstile.” It was raining a little harder. “What you in the mood for, foodwise?”
“Delia usually makes banana pancakes.”
“I don’t know where to get those, dude.” I fired up a cigarette to keep my mouth busy.
“What do you usually have for breakfast, Darby? You’re a physical fitness kinda guy, right? Some kind of smoothie action?”
“Tacos. Sometimes beer.”
“Delia is so into smoothies, man.”
I didn’t want to talk to Hank anymore, and right then I realized why Suzanne was so mad at me all the time. I was terrible at faking it. I just sucked when it came down to eating my daily ration of shit. This was a perfect example. All I had to do, at this moment, was play it cool. Don’t punch this foul little grease bag in the throat. Don’t even menace him. Do what everyone else would do and be nice until I had a rational, measured way of dealing with the situation. I took a deep breath and looked at him.
“What’s your least favorite horror movie, Hank?”
“Dude!” He laughed, still deep in his own headspace. He hadn’t heard me. “I just realized the best possible solution! Let’s go to the food cart cluster on Hawthorne, down by Twelfth. They got tacos and they have the Belgian french fry place! Crepes right across from that! And they have a beer wagon!” He turned to me and winked. “I can try to eat like a tough guy! Grow an extra load of jizz, yo.”
I resolved right then, at that very instant, that this would be the first and last time I would ever roll with “tempered and even” as a description of my behavior. It felt good, so I smiled. Hank smiled, too.
“You’ll need your strength,” I said. “For the coming storm.”
He looked up at the sky. Unbelievable.
The food court Hank was talking about was one of the older ones, in my estimation, or at least one of the more well known. Ten or twelve colorful food carts were arranged in a ring around a collection of wooden picnic tables. People were coming and going as noon approached, and there was a low-key midway feel to it. Hank peeled off toward the Potato Champion wagon, where he loudly ordered the chili cheese fries, for all the world a celebrity of some kind briefly walking the earth before the paparazzi drove him back into the heavens. I went straight to the nearest source of beer, which turned out to be a BBQ place.
“Pint of—” I looked at the selection.
“You gotta order food, too,” the girl said. “Sorry. OLCC.”
“Okay, I’ll have the ribs, mustard greens, cornbread, pint of your World Famous Brawnier.”
“Mini pitcher’s two dollars off.”
“Deal.”
She gave me a ticket and the mini pitcher, which was distressingly miniature, just over a pint, and I went and sat down under one of the umbrellas on a wet bench and watched Hank work his magic. He had the poor woman at the potato wagon under his spell, chatting her up and flexing his mighty charisma, and for an instant I could see what Delia saw. Hank was a charming guy, there was no doubt. It was a natural charm, too. He did it without even trying. When he was done he gave the woman his name and then looked around, spotted me and did a little Irish jig in my direction.
“Calm,” I said to myself. I sipped and smiled his way. “Easy. Be a unicorn on a unicycle.”
“I told her I was suuuuuper hungry,” Hank said. He dropped on to the bench across from me. “She might have gotten the wrong idea. Women.”
“You got quite a way about you, Hank,” I admitted. He shrugged.
“Tell me more about the band,” I continued. “You say you guys broke up?”
“Long time coming,” he replied. “Long time. Band like Empire of Shit was pretty much made to break up. It’s, like, a design flaw built into all punk bands. Here today, gone tomorrow.”
“The guys sticking around when you and Delia split for Austin?”
“Moving to somewhere, I forget. Fresno. Bakersfield. Somewhere apocalyptic. Kinda hard news when you get right down to it.” A flash of real sadness went across his face and he glanced at my beer. “Those guys, damn, dude. We had some very fuckin’ good times.” He looked up at me and I knew what was coming. “Bad ones, too.”
“What about work?”
He frowned and looked away. After a moment, he smiled. “Sure as fuck ain’t working at a Tuxedorama. Dude, you see that piñata? What the fuck was in that thing? Mice?”
I had to laugh.
“And that dude,” Hank went on. “Man, dude was wilted. Crushed by the system and life at the same time. Minimum wage job, but shit, dude had no wedding ring. Can you imagine that? Selling wedding crap to chumps all day. Forever the bridesmaid b
ut never the groom or whatever? Post gnarly.”
I laughed again, surprising us both.
“Glad you’re finally warming up,” Hank said. “You’re a scary dude, man. I always get the feeling you don’t like me all that much.”
“Don’t take it personally. Me and the world have problems in general.”
“I can dig it. You and Delia, you two are both kinda that way. You ever, I mean, you know.” He made an “O” with his thumb and index finger and stuck his other index finger through it, making the pokey-pokey sign.
“Nah.”
“Suzanne.” He changed the subject that fast. “Tall. Sorta bossy. How’s that going? She’s in Seattle?”
“It mostly sucks,” I admitted.
“What’d she move there for?”
“A brighter future. Same as Delia and Austin.”
“Huh.” He looked away.
“Yeah, man. Cool that you’re so supportive of Delia. Guy has to stand by his gal. Sometimes right behind her. She isn’t as tough as she lets on. This career change, it won’t be easy for her, but she’s worked so hard for it, for years, long as I’ve known her.”
“Yeah.” A little darkness came into him, so subtle that I wouldn’t have noticed it if I didn’t know all about it. “Yeah. Good to stand by your gal. But it’s a two-way street.”
“How do you mean?”
“Dunno. I guess—” He took a deep breath. “She’s pretty focused, dude.”
“You mean bossy, like Suze. Get real, kid.”
“There it is again.” Hank’s eyes flashed anger. “That tone.”
I scowled and finished the beer, plonked the empty down, and gave him my best fake smile, the one I usually aimed at Dessel. Hank looked bewildered.
“I’ve had the longest fuckin’ week,” I began. “I mean, long long.” I had to play it cool until I decided what to do, I reminded myself again. Cool, cool, too cool for school. “Let’s get more beer. I think part of my problem is this hangover.”
“Delia says you’ve been hitting it especially hard.”
“I have. But the Lord hates a quitter.”
The Potato gal began calling for Hank, so we both went back to our respective windows. I ordered another beer, and while I waited my ribs and sides came up, suspiciously like they were done already and just sitting there. When I met Hank back at the table it was clear he had gotten the royal treatment. His steaming pile of chili cheese fries was enormous, overflowing with everything, and he’d doused it with hot sauce.
