A Father's Kisses

by Bruce Jay Friedman

  No matter how high our aspirations, wasn’t each of us consigned to end up as a speck of dust? And did that not hold true for the mightiest among us—be it Microsoft’s Bill Gates or the fellows who head up Disney? However significant their achievements, no matter how high their year-end grosses, their time on earth was but the blink of an eyelash in terms of eternity. With tremendous luck and good fortune, the president of the United States himself, in all his eminence, would at best qualify as a cosmic footnote.

  So where on the scale of importance did that leave the likes of a worthless sack of protoplasm such as Dickie Moué?

  There was, of course, a humanistic flaw in this line of reasoning—mankind will prevail, every life has worth, Hitler himself enjoyed Alice Faye movies and Bavarian meat pies—that type of thing—but I had neither the time nor the inclination to think all of that through.

  Rather than continue to twirl about in indecision, I decided to take up Peabody on his proposal. My feeling was that any decision was better than none—although some of my past ones had been disastrous.

  Strangely enough, it was not the money that convinced me to proceed, although clearly that was a factor. Nor was it my cosmic speculations. Much more important was having something to do, and I’m not just talking about a reason to get out of the house. You certainly don’t go around killing people for that. What I meant was a real assignment that I could go right to work on rather than have to wait around for an opportunity that might never come. As an unemployed fellow of a certain age, with no future to speak of, I had begun to dry up in spirit. What good was I to myself? What kind of role model did I present to Lettie, always going around with my heart in my throat, and making it worse with my attempts to be cheerful.

  Without a function, I had ceased to feel like a man. Had I continued on the same path, I might very well have decided to join the famous socialite at the bottom of Liar’s Pond.

  First thing in the morning, I wasted no time in contacting Peabody at his hotel.

  “Who is this?” he asked, his voice both hoarse and suspicious, which was quite a combination.

  “William Binny.”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Were you at Frolique last night?”

  “No, I stayed home.”

  “I did as well. I was tempted to go, but I’d been drinking a bit heavily and thought I’d get a good night’s rest. Have you given any thought to our project?”

  “Quite a bit.”

  “And your decision?”

  “Count me in.”

  “That’s splendid. I couldn’t be more delighted. I’ll make all the arrangements and then you can review them and see if they’re to your liking. It’s the way I prefer to work, and I hope you find it satisfactory.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Chapter Six

  The following day, a fat FedEx package arrived, the delivery of which was thrilling in itself, since it was the first one I had ever received. It contained an itinerary for both me and Dickie Moué, some airline tickets and a dozen or so packets that were tightly wrapped and heavy enough to contain bricks. I peeked inside one and saw that it contained crisp new hundred-dollar bills. It surprised me that Peabody’s organization would entrust all that cash to the mails. But then I thought about it and realized that it was considered tip money when you were involved in a global enterprise.

  Had the FedEx man known what was in there he might have bolted and had a great time for himself in Puerto Vallarta or some place like that—until they caught up with him.

  I did not count the money—I’m not that way, having always felt that you either trust someone or you don’t. And let’s say I had been shorted a few hundred. What difference would it make in the universal scheme?

  Moué’s itinerary indicated that he would be arriving in Miami Beach in three days—and there was a notation saying I could either use the airline tickets or receive a cash credit if I decided to drive. There was also a reservation for the week’s rental of a condo on Lincoln Road. Some photos had been included showing Dickie Moué on the deck of a yacht, which served to confirm my feelings about the man. He wore a navy blue blazer, an ascot, a captain’s hat, and the sonofabitch had his arms around two half-naked homewreckers who were probably refugees from the Cannes film festival. I hated his arrogant and scornful patrician features. He represented everything that had gone wrong in America.

  And it was about time someone settled his hash.

  Nowhere in the various documents was there any mention of my name. They were all made out to a fellow named Matthew T. Morning, which I assumed was to be my alias.

  It was the perfect choice. The name had a quiet yet intriguing ring to it and might have belonged to a gunslinger of the Old West (Matt Morning, back then) who had retired to lead a circumspect life. Yet a fellow who was ready to strap on his guns at a moment’s notice if a situation that called for it arose. I was delighted with the name and could hardly wait to try it out.

  Furthermore, it strengthened my confidence in Peabody’s taste and judgment.

  I tore off some of the hundreds and stuck them in my jeans, just to see how it would feel—and in doing so got a little surge in my loins. Score one for Mr. Freud. Then I looked around for a place to hide the other packets—which was not as easy as it seemed. Every place I thought of—my toolbox, the cold cuts compartment of the refrigerator—seemed to cry out: “Look in here for a bunch of money!”

  Finally, I put the packets inside my Capons softball team jacket, which I no longer had the heart to wear. Then I bundled it up and stuck it as far back on the closet shelf as it would go. My thought was that I would slide the money into my checking account, a few hundred at a time, so as not to throw up a flag. If you made a large deposit, the tellers in our town were not beyond making a comment, such as “mmmmm, I see somebody’s rich aunt must have died.”

  But that is one of the disadvantages—and there aren’t many—of living in a small town.

  I told Lettie I’d be going out of town for a few days on a job.

  “How many days?” she asked.

  “Three or four.”

  “How come you can’t tell me the exact number?”

  “Because I don’t know. It’s open-ended.”

  I could tell she was not happy with that answer. To make it up to her, I took her over to a branch of The Gap that had just opened in the new mall and told her to pick out an outfit. (What’s a daughter for if you can’t spoil her?)

  She circled the store, checking the price tag of each item, and then moved on, assuming the garment was beyond our financial means. When I saw her do that, I got sick at heart and knew I had made the right move in accepting Peabody’s offer, no matter what its nature.

  “Just pick something out,” I told her. “And never mind how much it costs.”

  “Did we get rich?”

  “We got comfortable.”

  She selected an ensemble she had seen in Sassy magazine, which I paid for with one of the hundreds.

  The saleswoman looked it over carefully.

  “You could shave with one of these,” she said.

  “I use an electric razor,” I said, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere with a little humor.

  But I could see that those fresh new hundreds might cause trouble, particularly in our close-knit community, where such signs of affluence were uncommon.

  “She was impressed by those hundreds,” said Lettie as we walked back to the Trooper. “My girlfriends would be, too.”

  “The last thing I want to do is impress anybody.”

  “Do you have more of those—or just the ones in your pocket?”

  “We have some more,” I said vaguely.

  “What would happen if there was no such thing as money?” she asked, a welcome line of inquiry, since I was not anxious to pursue the subject of our personal finances.

  “We would return to the barter system. If I were a plumber, I would fix your pipes. And if you were a dentist, you would fix my teeth in exch
ange.”

  “What if there was nothing wrong with your teeth.”

  “Then you would find something wrong with them.”

  That night, I made arrangements for Lettie and the cats to stay over at the house of her best friend, Edwina, while I was away. My daughter had assured me that although Edwina had kissed three boys, she had not made out with any of them, and that she was doing great in Social Studies. Additionally, her mother had dropped the boyfriend with the dirty fingernails and was now dating a hotel manager who took great pride in his personal appearance.

  Armed with this comforting new information, I felt reasonably secure that I had placed Lettie and the cats in safe hands.

  With my daughter accounted for, I waited for a call from Peabody who did not disappoint me.

  “Is this the residence of Mr. Matthew T. Morning?” was his sly inquiry on the phone.

  The question surprised me since up until that time I had not known him to have a satirical bent.

  “It certainly is,” I said, going along with the gag.

  “Are the arrangements satisfactory?”

  “They’re just fine.”

  We agreed, for sentimental reasons, to meet that night at Frolique where we would tie up any loose ends.

  When I arrived, he was in a shouting match with Cassie, the scrawny but hot-looking blonde who was doing the show that night, having completed her industrial-cleaning job out of town.

  From what I could gather, Peabody had advised her to change her yellow sequined panties into what he felt was a more suitable color—and for good measure had thrown in some tips on how to improve her dance routine.

  “I was only trying to help, darling,” he said in a strangled voice.

  “Well, thank you very much, Mr. Steven Spielberg,” she said.

  “There’s no need to have a hissy fit.”

  “Piss off,” she said, and flounced off to her dressing room.

  “Hello, Binny,” he said. “I’ve ordered our Stollies. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience, it’s that you mustn’t criticize a woman’s wardrobe.”

  I agreed—though I had little experience in this area.

  At that point, I was unable to resist asking him if he had followed up on Mary’s proposal to go to bed with him for $1,700.

  “What about Mary?”

  “I was prepared to pay her the money,” he said. “I had it piled up on my nightstand, but she refused to take my calls.”

  “Amazing,” I said. “For that amount of money, I would have showed up myself.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” he said, not acknowledging the jesting nature of my offer. “But I’m afraid it’s the story of my life.”

  After a long, mournful sigh, he recovered quickly and said: “Now look here, I hope you’re taking our venture seriously.”

  “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “Don’t misunderstand. I’m aware you’re an honorable fellow, but you mustn’t fail, Binny. I don’t want to be fired. It happened to me once, and I was shattered.”

  “It happened to me, too.”

  “I was working for a bail bondsman,” he said, showing no interest in my own unhappy experience. “He called me into his office, looked me right in the eye and said I was a cunt. That mustn’t happen again.”

  “I’ll try to see that it doesn’t.”

  “Cheers,” he said, apparently reassured.

  We drank up and turned to look at Cassie, who had ignored Peabody’s advice and did her routine exactly the way she had always done it, if not more so. I enjoyed watching her dance no matter what color her panties were. So long as the half-moons of her butt stuck out of them. I had once considered calling Cassie for a date, but she lived with an ailing hockey star who had chosen our community for retirement, and I did not want to get into the middle of that. Had I been an ailing hockey star, I would not have wanted someone fooling around with my girlfriend.

  Peabody watched Cassie vacantly, and I could tell he still preferred the good-natured Mary, shapeless body and all.

  Then he turned to me, his eyes sparkling.

  “We’re doing it, aren’t we,” he said softly.

  “We sure are.”

  “Yes-s-s-!” he said, pumping his arm in a gesture that seemed to be mandatory for rising young television comedians.

  “Yes-s-s!”

  Two fellows at the next table looked over at us. Though the light was dim, I recognized them as being the surly and antisocial Grimble brothers. They were electricians who had the slogan, LET US REMOVE YOUR SHORTS printed on their truck. It was amusing enough, but I wondered what it would be like to have to read the same joke every day of your life.

  The Grimbles had tangled with just about everyone in the community, including Little Irwin, who had acquitted himself well, since he had the ability to get down low and keep upending them. Touch wood, they had not gotten around to messing with me, but I braced myself for trouble, all the same. As it turned out, the Grimbles, perhaps because it was their night out, were in a good mood. They got caught up in Peabody’s enthusiasm, and before long, they were pumping their arms along with him and also calling out, “Yes-s-s-s-.”

  Inspired by their support, Peabody jumped up on our table and started stamping his feet, and hollering out the same jubilant cry! I got into it a little myself, although I did not jump up there with him. Soon he had the whole place going. Like a deranged master of ceremonies, he pumped and yessed his way from table to table and might have continued on that way all night if the owners hadn’t flashed the closing sign.

  Peabody finally calmed down as we walked across the parking lot to get the Trooper.

  “Should I have asked them to join us?” he asked.

  “The Grimble brothers? I don’t think so. They seem decent enough, but they have hair-trigger tempers and can turn on you. For example, if you don’t pay them on time, they’ll come to your house and rip out the wiring.”

  “Well, I’m not gay,” he said, “If that’s what you’re thinking. No one has ever stuck a finger in my ass and sucked my cock.”

  “Who said you’re gay?”

  “I thought you might have suggested it.”

  “Uh uh. That’s in your head.”

  “Good. Because I’m not.”

  He started to get into the Trooper and then stopped.

  “But we’re doing it, aren’t we, Binny.”

  “I leave tomorrow.”

  He looked at me fondly in the moonlight.

  Then he crouched down, squeezed his eyes shut, pumped his arm one more time and bellowed out a final cry.

  “YES-S-S-S!”

  Chapter Seven

  Though I could barely sleep that night for all the excitement, I got out of bed at six the next morning feeling refreshed and exuberant. There is something about starting a new job, no matter what it is. I packed a few items of clothing, including my all-purpose blue suit jacket with the gold buttons, but I did not overdo it, thinking I would pick up an outfit or two once I arrived in Miami Beach and got the lay of the land in a fashion sense. There was no point in standing out.

  I keep a shotgun under lock and key for home protection, but I decided to let it stay where it was. Strictly speaking, I am not a gun person, which makes me an oddity in this area. (I do take advantage of the reduced rates offered by the Gun Club for their theatre parties. A favorite booking? You guessed it. Annie Get Your Gun.)

  Still, I have seen the mayhem such weapons can cause and don’t care to keep a bunch of them around. I did take along a Navajo scrimshaw knife, one of my prized possessions. After seeing it in the window of a men’s shop in Chicago, I had circled the store half a dozen times before deciding to bite the bullet and purchase it, despite the exorbitant price.

  It’s really a beauty, not that I ever thought it would be of any practical value. Little Irwin had once cautioned me against producing a knife in a fight—unless I planned to use it.

  “Otherwise,” he said, �
�you will find it stuck up your ass.”

  Thus far, I had heeded his advice.

  How I missed that horny little hell-raiser!

  As for a disguise, I was already in one in a sense—since no one other than friends and family could ever remember what I looked like. Medium height, medium build, medium everything. But instead of wearing my hair in the usual modified comb-over, I tried slicking it straight back and was shocked by what I saw in the mirror. It was like getting an accidental look at your own butt. My face seemed naked, but I decided to let it stay that way, since the new hairstyle really did alter my appearance.

  After gassing up the Trooper, I hit the highway, experiencing that sense of possibility and rejuvenation that millions had felt before me. I am not the first to note that it is a uniquely American phenomenon. I’m sure that the Japanese, too, to cite an example, enjoy getting out on the road. But I cannot imagine them doing it with as much gusto. Possibly because the minute they get out there and start enjoying themselves, they run out of road. (And I say this without gloating. It is just an accident of their unfortunate geography.)

  I cut across country and made it to north Florida in eight hours flat. It was a smooth trip up to that point, except for a fellow with a BOYCOTT VEAL bumper sticker who tried to run me off the road. (And I don’t even eat much veal.) After I hit Jacksonville, I thought to myself that’s it, Binny. You are home free. Check into a cozy little Comfort Inn, have a good night’s sleep and then waltz into Miami Beach the next morning, ready to do battle. But I had miscalculated the size of Florida, which does not seem like all that much on the map, but in actuality goes on forever. You could fit a dozen Israels in it and have room left over to spare.

  I floored it at that point since Dickie Moué had already been in Miami Beach for twenty-four hours and would be leaving in two days more for the Caribbean islands.