by Mike McCrary
Remo didn’t really respond to the slice of openness I offered up. He coughed, sniffed, ran his tongue over his teeth, and stared at me like he didn’t understand English.
I get it. He thinks I’m a dead man and didn’t see the need to get into it with me, but he did throw me a blank stare. I took it to mean he cared and wished me well. I know he didn’t give a fuck, but sometimes you have to lie to yourself in order to get through this sausage grinder called life. We rode the rest of the way in silence.
Probably best.
The cab stopped. Remo turned to me, established eye contact, made sure I was listening, and gave me a list of instructions I’m to follow in exact order with no deviation whatsoever. Any deviation will “dick it the fuck up,” he said. He paused after he finished with the instructions. Paused more, and then some more. After about a full minute or two of silence, he asked if I had it all down. I copied the instructions down on my hand, ran out of room, and had to continue the instructions down my arm, but I do have it.
I think.
Remo nodded and shooed me out the door. The cab pulled away and Remo left my life forever.
I look to the notes I have scribbled on my hand and arm. These instructions are as follows…
20
Press the buzzer at the back door of the Jiggle Queen (the purple button, not the red one, don’t ever press the red one).
Nobody will answer.
Then knock three times.
Nobody will answer.
Draw a penis on a hundred-dollar bill and slip it under the door, then call the phone number Remo wrote down on the napkin from the Chinese joint.
Nobody will answer.
Leave the message, “The fat man walks alone.”
Nobody will call you back.
Go around front. Enter the Jiggle Queen and seek out an exotic dancer named Destiny, give her a folded hundred. No penis needed.
She will not speak to you.
Leave and go to PK’s Massage Palace three blocks south. Ask for Penny Kim. Tell Penny you’d like the “Korean rub and tug.”
She will slap you.
You will say, “Please, Penny, please. Daddy needs his medicine.” She will say “Okay” and kiss you. You will not use your tongue.
She will slap you again.
You will hand her an unfolded hundred, no penis, and then clap twice, turn around three times, close your eyes, and drop your pants…
What could possibly go wrong?
21
With a shaking hand, I press the red button.
As I reread my sweaty hand-arm notes, I can’t help but notice this is not the correct button. I realize, almost immediately, this was a massive mistake. An eye-level slit in the door slides open revealing two of the angriest eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Fuck off, ya cunt ya,” says this set of angry eyes from behind the door.
“I’m…I’m…,” I say.
“What? Ya think ya can sneak in the back, catch a sneaky peeky? Take a grab at’s the ladies? Ya fucking cunt, ya.”
“No.” I look down at my notes. I can’t focus. I try to read them, but the order is all jumbled because of the panic-induced shaking.
Clunk. The back door is unlocking.
My bouncing eyes fight for clarity. I scan to the top of my palm, attempting to start from the beginning.
The door flies open. Angry Eyes explodes out from the darkness. He’s raging, with a baseball bat gripped tight in his fat hands. I step back, almost tripping over my own feet. He’s a massive man, a walking monster of meat and muscle. He sucks in hard. His enormous back rises and falls as he takes in air. A naked girl appears in the doorway. She’s drug-skinny. Bone-skinny. She giggles then gives me the finger as she closes the door, leaving Angry Eyes and me alone in the alley.
I decide reasoning with the man is the way to go. “Hey, man, I don’t want any shit here—”
Fwomp.
His fat hand drives the blunt end of the bat into my gut. I fold as all the air evacuates my lungs almost immediately. It’s as if everything I knew about my body was undone in a fraction of a second. My legs stop functioning. I simply wilt to the street. Straining my neck to look up, I see Angry Eyes is standing over me with his bat gently swaying by his leg.
“Best start with your talking. Tells me what the fuck ya want,” he says.
After I vomit, I say, “The fat man walks alone.”
Angry Eyes tilts his head birdlike. “The what does what?”
“Do you have a pen?” I ask, pulling out a hundred. “I’d like to draw you a penis.”
He backhands me. I feel the side of my face swell almost on impact. The contents of my head slosh.
Angry Eyes gives me a hard squint as he pulls his bat back. I watch the bat. It’s ready, good to go. Fluttering in my mind’s eye is the vision of his bat making contact with my skull. My brains spilling out into the gutter—mind in the gutter, I think. I’d smirk, but that might get me killed.
“Wait. Look,” I say, sticking out my hand-arm notes, pointing frantically at the words itched on my limb like a crazy person.
Angry Eyes hits pause.
“I was told to come here and do these things, but I fucked up and pushed the wrong button. I didn’t mean to push the red one. I should have pushed the purple. The purple. Let’s pretend I pushed the purple.”
Angry Eyes leans down and grabs my wrist, popping it while twisting it around so he can study the instructions.
“Who gave these to you?” he asks.
“Remo.”
Angry Eyes begins to howl with laughter.
22
Booming, teeth-rattling bass.
Jiggle Queen’s resident DJ sounds off, fighting to be heard over Jay Z asking the question if he can get a “fuck you.” He calls out, “Destiny to the center stage, Destiny to the center stage. I want everyone down in the erection section to get your hands out of your pants and into the air for…Destiny on the center stage.”
I watch the sculpted goddess named Destiny slink over to the center stage, taking her rightful place under the big lights. The room rapidly evolves into a freshly whipped frenzy.
Her hair flips.
Leg kicks.
Lip curls.
Not going to lie, I’ve been to a lot of strip joints, and I kinda always felt sorry for these women. Almost condescending—these poor girls. Then of course I’d get distracted by the booze, drugs, and lust and sympathy went headfirst out the window. Looking at her now, she doesn’t need my sympathy or anybody else’s. She’s out there making a living. Running this show. In control of the pooling sea of testosterone spread out before her. Wielding the blunt, raw power nature has provided and modern society has sharpened into an industry. Not mention, doing it all on her terms.
Complete control of chaos.
Can’t help but wonder what that’s like.
This is the first time I’ve been able to remove myself from the madness of crowds and take a deep dive into this. It’s an amazing magic trick. To these men, Destiny, mixed with Guns N’ Roses, is melting away their past rejections. That beautiful girl from high school who laughed at them. Girl from Accounting who won’t call them back. The one from Starbucks who lied about not dating customers. Those women? Not here now. All gone with a poof of glitter-induced amnesia. You can see it, the lies they’re feeding themselves.
Destiny, she gets me. We could be happy together.
Or perhaps, just maybe, they are fighting off the alone thing. Could be some of these guys have messed up something good. Really good. Made a disaster of something before it had a chance to be a fully realized piece of greatness.
Hope and hopelessness together on the center stage.
I’m almost certain Destiny has not analyzed the situation the way I have. She’s probably working out her grocery list while bouncing for the chubby, hairless wonder with a five-spot stuck in his teeth.
Angry Eyes and I are having a drink at the bar. He has informed me that Remo is an as
shole, a righteous dude, but an asshole nonetheless, and I didn’t have to do any of the bullshit on my hand and arm. My face still hurts like a bastard, but I’m relieved Angry Eyes no longer wants to eat my heart.
He did say I needed to slip him a hundred or two, that part was accurate, but all I had to do was go to PK’s down the street and slip Penny Kim a bill or two then tell her Remo sent me.
“Nice lady. Show respect, ya cunt. Hopefully Remo told her what’s up,” he says.
“Hopefully?” I ask.
“Yeah, as in, one should hope. What the fuck?”
“No rub and tug?”
“Not necessary,” he says.
“And Destiny? I need to give her a hundred?”
“Ya can. She’ll take it. Again, not necessary.”
I thank Angry Eyes for his help. He apologizes for the beating. I lay down a couple of twenties for the drinks along with his hundred or two, a friendship tax, I believe he called it. As I leave him behind at the bar, I pull out my phone, checking to make sure Lucy’s message is still there. I think about stepping outside to try and call her.
How would that go?
What would I say?
What would she say?
Where the hell would I start?
I head to the center stage to see Destiny.
Who couldn’t use some hopeless hope?
23
PK’s Massage Palace is exactly what you’d expect—a lot of cheap wood paneling, cheaper linoleum floors, and shit-tons of jade.
I ask the disinterested Asian teen working the front counter if Penny Kim is around. The teen grunts and points to a row of three chairs lined up in front of an aquarium. None of them match, but I pick the one that looks less likely to give me a disease.
As I sit and wait, the sounds of muted groans and slaps of flesh seep from the thin walls. I try not to picture what’s going on in there. It’s difficult, so I focus on the instrumental version of “Been Caught Stealing” that’s playing through the exposed-wire speaker dangling overhead. It helps. I bet Angry Eyes hangs out here all the time. They probably know his real name. The Asian teen has her head buried in her smartphone texting about whatever the fuck, pausing only long enough to pick at a scab on her knee.
At least I’m not in the burbs.
I’m back.
Back to the living.
Back to the universe.
I turn my head when I hear the hanging beads clink. An Asian woman, early twenties maybe, again, who can tell, wearing a silk robe with a pink scorpion. She is escorting an older man out through the beads. The man looks like he’s been run through a car wash without the car. His hair is firing off in fifty different directions, and his face is the color of a cherry tomato. I can’t make out if he’s happy or if he’s going to drop dead on the floor in front of me. Either way, he has my attention. The man hands some cash to the teen at the counter and shuffles his feet toward the front door, swishing with his shoes barely leaving the floor. As the rusted bell above the door dings, the Asian teen points me out to the woman in the pink scorpion robe. She whispers something in her ear as she counts the man’s cash.
They giggle.
I clear my throat.
Pink Scorpion whips around to face me, her robe flowing with her lightning-quick moves. For a second she looked like she was a classic martial arts star about to lay her tiger fighting style all over some poor motherfucker. Hope it’s not me.
Our eyes lock.
Her stare is piercing.
Her brow cocks.
I swallow hard, forcing a smile. She does not return the gesture.
Considering how well my last meeting went, I’m less than optimistic this will end with cocktails and a false, glitter affection.
24
Pink Scorpion has a slap that is nothing like Angry Eyes’s, but it does leave a sting.
She’s taken me to a private room and locked the door. There’s a pro massage table with a small stack of towels and a counter filled with lotions and exotic-looking oils. The barely lit smallish room has a red glow that’s coming from some unknown location. The place smells of sweat, Febreze, and despair.
Slap.
“Do the thing,” she screams an inch from my face.
As the swelling in my face starts up again, I ask, “Are you Penny Kim?”
“I am,” she says, giving me a third flat-handed strike.
“Penny, I was sent here—”
Slap—slap.
“To ask you about—”
Slap—slap—slappidy-slap-slap.
“What the fuck, lady?”
She stomps my foot with her high-ass heel. She balls her petite little fist and punches my gut, then slaps me one more time, for constancy, I suppose. She proceeds to whip out a meat cleaver from underneath a towel. A fucking meat cleaver.
“Do the thing or I chop your cock off.”
One can assume a few things here:
Remo told her I was coming.
She wants me to work the instructions Remo gave me as some form of verification. Of course those have been compromised or, more to the point, rendered illegible from the table dance I got from Destiny—don’t you dare judge me.
Penny has chopped a cock before.
I feel myself peeling away, removing myself from this situation, falling like a feather, soft and light. Act as if this isn’t happening. Find a warm, safe spot in the universe. I do this from time to time, helps me in an odd way. Allows me to exit mentally then come back focused, armed with the thought something shitty isn’t really happening, thus I can act freely because I have convinced myself whatever I do doesn’t matter because it isn’t really happening. Rather freeing. Confidence via extreme onset denial. You can do anything in a world that doesn’t truly exist.
Confused?
Try being me. The great ones make it look easy.
There’s a tap to my chest from Penny’s meat cleaver. Her lips move, but I cannot hear what she’s saying. I’d rather not join the world again, but it’s looking like it’s unavoidable at this point. As the sound to my world comes back online, I hear her say…
“Do the thing, you motherfucker. Last chance.”
I close my eyes and say, “I’d like the Asian rub and tug.”
Kick to the shin.
“I’d like the Japanese rub and tug.”
She slaps my face with the flat side of the cleaver. The cool metal sticks to my skin a bit as she peel-rips it away.
“Thailand?”
“No, dummy,” she says, pointing to a flag in the corner.
I squint, processing the color pattern. “Oh yeah, shit, sorry. I’d like the Korean rub and tug.” She slaps the shit out of me, but I remember that one was actually part of the thing and not part of her hostility that I’ve come to know.
She drops her head, looking up at me—and?
Closing my eyes, I pick around the dusty corners of my short-term memory.
“Oh wait, fuck, I know this one. Please, Penny, please. Daddy needs his medicine.”
Penny smiles and kisses me. I remember not to use my tongue.
She slaps me again. It’s all coming back to me now. I’m rolling. I hand her two hundreds, can’t remember how many I was supposed to give her, then clap twice. Turn around three times. Close my eyes and drop my pants.
At this moment, I realize I’ve allowed my bachelor status to get the best of me.
I am not wearing underwear.
Woody Womb Pecker is out there.
The silence is deafening.
It is amazing how the world slows to a crawl when you have your eyes closed, your pants down around your ankles, and Mr. Sniffles hanging out.
“Hello?” I say.
“Keep ’em closed, silly white boy,” she says.
I hear the door open and then close. I feel the air conditioner kick on. A cool breeze wraps around me—fairly certain my dick has retreated a bit. Glad it happened now and not when Penny was around. I realize we were never going to be
a couple, but still, you’d rather get a fair shake in the penis game than have a woman, any woman, snicker. I get it, I’m not huge, but I’m still relevant.
What’s more amazing is what goes through your head when you have your eyes closed, pants at your ankles, and Spurt Reynolds is saying hello.
The door opens.
A man speaks.
“What’s the story, Tiny?”
25
Opening my eyes, I find a half man–half creature staring at me.
“Put your dick up,” it says.
Can only assume this is Remo’s guy as I pull up my pants. Looking this guy up and down, I can’t help but think he has the look of someone who might offer me safe passage to Mordor. The short, chunky, bearded guy sports a dirty Paul Simon T-shirt and camo cargo shorts that seem to have long passed their prime.
“Some call me Donnie the Pope. You call me The Pope, and don’t leave off the fucking the. Fucking hate when people, lazy people, skip the the. The the makes the whole thing, right? Now, what the hell do you want from The Pope?”
“I’m Jasper. I was told you—”
The Pope snaps his fingers and holds out his hand. “I should’ve opened with this, but I didn’t, so fuck it. You got something for me? Better fucking have some coin for The Pope.”
“You mean like an offering?” I joke.
Crickets. Could have at least smiled. It was a decent joke, given the circumstances. The Pope crosses his meaty arms as his nostrils give a flare.
“Yes, I have some cash for you. But there are a few details we need to iron out so we can establish a mutually acceptable level of trust.”
