Lucky Bastard

by S. G. Browne

  As a luck poacher, you never want to have to resort to emergency measures or quick fixes. It’s always best to have a plan. But when you’re making up the plan as you go, you have to improvise, and I can’t afford to be out there unarmed while dealing with greedy Chinese Mafia overlords and dickhead Barry Manilows and multiple Tuesdays. Which means that sometimes, you have to do things you’d rather not admit to.

  Like drinking your own urine.

  When you don’t have the time to properly process good luck or when you don’t have access to transference equipment, drinking your own urine is one way to keep from wasting the good luck you’ve poached. If you weren’t born with it, it’s not meant to stay in your system and will eventually find its way out. But you can prolong the beneficial effects of the luck by reconsuming it.

  If you’re not interested in drinking it straight or mixed with sugar and water, you can run it through a carbon-based water filter to help remove the acid, the color, and even improve the flavor. You just don’t want to let it sit because that’s when it can start to breed bacteria.

  Some poachers practice urophagia regularly, rationalizing that by consuming their own urine they’re not only prolonging their luck high, but re-ingesting their own abilities. While no hard evidence backs up their claims of urinary self-actualization, the concept of extending the beneficial effects of poached luck through urine consumption isn’t without precedent.

  A tribe in Siberia that uses psychoactive mushrooms for ceremonial purposes often engages in the sharing and drinking of urine. Since the urine retains the intoxicating effects of the mushrooms, some tribesmen who can’t afford the mushrooms drink the urine of those who can, while other tribesmen drink their own urine to prolong the experience.

  Nothing like passing out cups of warm pee to get a party started.

  Although this practice isn’t observed regularly in most cultures, urine has been used for all sorts of purposes throughout the centuries.

  In China, the urine of young boys is considered a curative.

  In seventeenth-century France, women used to bathe in urine to beautify their skin.

  In ancient Rome, urine was used to whiten teeth.

  Just to name a few.

  And I won’t even go into the people who drink it for sexual pleasure or who get off by getting pissed on.

  Other than a bacterial infection in the urethra or the high salt content, there’s not much risk in drinking your own urine, so long as you don’t drink it while you’re dehydrated and you make sure to dilute it with water. Poachers who don’t dilute their urine with water have been known to develop receding gums due to the high acid content.

  Drinking my own urine isn’t something I’ve ever had to resort to before now. But I don’t have the time to properly process the luck into a consumable form, and as the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.

  Over the lips and past the gums . . .

  It’s not as bad as you might think. A little tangy, and I regret having had steamed asparagus last night, but I just pretend it’s really bad lemonade and that helps to justify the aftertaste.

  I need a breath mint.

  When I get back to the cab, it’s a quarter to six, and if I’m lucky, I can make it to the Wells Fargo on Grant and Market before it closes, which I hope will get Tommy off my back while I figure out how to infect him with the bad luck I’m supposed to pick up in the Tenderloin.

  And I thought sleeping with multiple baristas was complicated.

  We pull away from my apartment and race down Lombard and I’m sitting in the backseat with my backpack full of good luck, thinking about Tuesday’s phone call and Scooter Girl going into O’Reilly’s, and I wonder if there’s a connection between the two of them. I wonder if they know each other. I go back over the day’s events, trying to play detective. Find a clue. Discover something I missed.

  In addition to heightening your physical senses, poaching good luck, especially top-grade soft, often provides moments of omniscient clarity; an almost godlike perception into situations that would otherwise be muddled or confusing. Moments and circumstances that seemed disconnected at the time suddenly become related, a series of events leading up to right now.

  Except it’s not always the same when you reconsume the luck.

  I’m not getting that aha moment. I’m not having any epiphanies.

  So maybe there’s no connection. Maybe they don’t know one another. Maybe it’s just a circumstance diverting me from something else I should be focusing on. A smoked herring. Or is that a red herring?

  I never was good with idioms.

  I figure it must just be a coincidence that they were both going to be at O’Reilly’s. Except the one thing I’ve learned over the years is that there’s no such thing as coincidence. Scratch that. I’ve learned two things:

  One, there’s no such thing as coincidence.

  Two, a lot of women like to be spanked.

  Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure there’s one or two other things I’ve learned, but my memory isn’t what it used to be.

  Part of me wishes I’d stayed at O’Reilly’s to wait for Tuesday to show up and see if she and Scooter Girl got together. Not in a lesbian-porn kind of way, although I wouldn’t mind watching that, either. But I was thinking more along the lines of listening to them have a conversation. Not as entertaining, obviously, but more relevant to the situation.

  But had I waited around, that would have meant risking the wrath of Tommy, and I couldn’t risk having him more pissed off at me than he already is. Plus I really needed to pee. And I doubted I was going to see any girl-on-girl action. So I’m hoping I made the right decision. With my recent track record, I wouldn’t lay down any bets.

  The cabdriver gets me to Wells Fargo in record time and with another C-note in his pocket. Since there’s no place to park on the street, I tell him to grab a cup of coffee or a burger or a quickie and come back to pick me up in five minutes, then I head into the bank to deposit my bottles of luck.

  When I step inside the door, a tall, male employee approaches me in a canary-yellow shirt, black slacks, and a coordinating tie. He looks like an anorexic bumblebee. His name tag identifies him as Oscar.

  “Welcome to Wells Fargo,” he says. “How may we help you?”

  “I need to access my safe-deposit box,” I say.

  He motions to the queue, which is five people deep waiting for two open tellers. “If you’ll just wait over there, someone will be with you as soon as they’re available.”

  I’m not interested in waiting. I have a date with a femme fatale.

  “Look, Oscar,” I say, hoping Donna Baker’s good luck and Tommy Wong’s reach have some influence here. “I’m supposed to meet someone and I’m in a bit of a rush. My name’s Nick Monday and I—”

  “Oh, of course. Right this way, Mr. Monday.”

  Well, that was easier than I expected.

  Oscar leads me back to the safe-deposit boxes without signing in, takes my key, opens up one of the large boxes on the lower shelf, then leads me to a booth and stands guard outside while I fill the box with plastic bottles of liquid luck. Sixty seconds later, I’m done and walking out with an empty backpack while four of the five people are still standing in line giving me dirty looks.

  Apparently, working for the Chinese Mafia has its perks.

  When I step outside, my non-vegan cabdriver hasn’t yet returned, so I stand on the corner of Grant and Market to wait for him, hoping he shows up soon so I don’t end up missing my drink with Tuesday and her breasts.

  Sometimes I just can’t control my fixations.

  I’m standing there less than a minute when someone calls out to me.

  “Hey, Holmes!”

  I turn to see Doug shuffling toward me, doing his best gangsta-rap walk with his pants halfway down his ass and a big grin on his face.

  “I thought that was you,” he says, giving me a knuckle tap. “What’s the word?”

  “G
rease.”

  “Grease?” says Doug, looking completely baffled.

  “Sure. It’s the word that you heard. It’s got groove, it’s got meaning.”

  “I got no idea what you’re talking about, Holmes.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  A cab comes driving down Market with its light off. It’s not my cab. Apparently, the driver of my cab doesn’t understand the meaning of a quickie.

  “You look sharp, Holmes,” says Doug with a big, ridiculous grin. “What’s up with the threads?”

  “I’ve got a hot date.”

  A streetcar rolls past, traffic moves east and west, everyone’s going somewhere, and I’ve got someplace to be but I’m standing still.

  A crow lands on the top of the street sign next to me and Doug lets out a whistle.

  “What?” I say.

  “That’s bad luck, Holmes.”

  “What is?”

  He points at the crow. “If it was two, it would be good luck, but a single crow means bad luck.”

  What a surprise.

  “Three crows means health,” he says. “Four means wealth, five means sickness, and six means death.”

  Well, at least there aren’t six of them.

  “But maybe there’s another one around here somewhere,” says Doug, looking up and down Market Street.

  I don’t care how many crows there are. It’s after six o’clock and my cab hasn’t returned and I don’t see an off-duty one anywhere. If I don’t get to O’Reilly’s soon, my window of opportunity with Fake Tuesday is going to close.

  “Hey, Bow Wow, you got any wheels?”

  “Shit yeah. Right around the corner. You need a ride, Holmes?”

  Doug’s ride turns out to be a lemon-yellow Toyota Prius with a rear spoiler, mag wheels, and a vanity license plate that says BOWWOW. The custom eight-speaker stereo system with a subwoofer in the trunk is currently thumping out some unidentifiable rap song with a heavy bass line and lyrics that would make a cockney whore blush.

  “I didn’t know you could get a Prius in this color,” I shout over the thumping.

  “Custom ordered, Holmes,” he shouts back at me. “It’s a sweet ride, right? All the brothers think it’s da bomb.”

  Doug has a way of peppering his urban speak with outdated suburban-hipster lingo.

  As far as I’m concerned, the car isn’t so much of a bomb as it is a public nuisance. The thundering stereo system has me looking around to make sure we’re not being stalked by dancing elephants. Fortunately, it’s just a five-minute ride to O’Reilly’s. But I’ve still got three minutes to go and Doug is trying to sing along to the lyrics in a way that makes me realize he could use a coolness intervention.

  “Hey, Doug.”

  “Bow Wow, Holmes. Ain’t no Doug around here.”

  “Right. Sorry. Bow Wow,” I say, turning down the volume until the dancing elephants become gorillas at a ballet recital. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Say what’s on your mind, Holmes. Dr. Bow Wow is in.”

  “Right,” I say, wondering how the doctor is going to react to my analysis. “Look, I know it’s probably none of my business, but why are you doing this?”

  “Because Bow Wow’s got your back,” he says, making a fist in a show of solidarity. Either that or he just had a seizure. “You’re on the case, Bow Wow’s gonna back you up.”

  “I don’t mean giving me a ride. I mean this,” I say, gesturing to everything inside his car.

  He shrugs and smiles. “I’m not diggin’ your meaning, Holmes.”

  “I mean this persona you’ve created. The clothes. The voice. The car.”

  It sounds harsh coming out of my mouth, even to me, but this has to stop.

  “What’s wrong with the car?” he says, his smile faltering.

  “It’s a little bright. And this music. It can’t be good for you. I think it’s taken three years off my life already. Have you ever listened to Green Day or the Pixies?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Holmes,” he says, his shoulders sagging more than normal, the perpetual smile gone from his face. He reaches over and turns the volume up and brings back the dancing elephants.

  Maybe this isn’t a good idea. Maybe I should just leave it alone. But now that I’ve started it, I can’t let it go.

  I turn the music back down.

  “Listen, Doug.”

  “It’s Bow Wow,” he says, like a scolded child, sulking and looking straight ahead.

  “How long have we known each other?”

  “I don’t know. Couple of years.”

  “And in that time have I ever steered you wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I guess not. Though there was that time you told me women liked it when men waxed their nuts.”

  “I mean besides that?”

  “No, not that I can remember. But that really hurt.”

  “I’m sure it did,” I say. “But what I’m trying to say is that this, the clothes and the bling and the car, it’s not a good look for you. To be honest, it’s not a good look for anyone. And while I admire the effort you’ve put into it, I don’t believe it’s who you are inside.”

  The car suddenly comes to a stop.

  “We’re here,” he says.

  I look out the windshield and see the crowd of happy-hour revelers gathered out in front of O’Reilly’s. It’s ten after six. Scooter Girl’s ride is gone from in front of the mortuary and I’m hoping Tuesday is still somewhere inside.

  Bow Wow just sits there, staring straight ahead, thumbs tapping on the steering wheel to the beat of some song about bitch-slappin’ and cop-killin’. Good, wholesome lyrics. The kind of music you hope your kids grow up listening to. I figure Doug’s not going to answer me, so I open the passenger door and get out.

  “You’re wrong, Holmes. This is who I am.”

  I look in at him, still staring straight ahead, and I realize I don’t have a valid response.

  “Thanks for the ride, Bow Wow.”

  Then I close the door and he’s driving away and I’m walking through the horde of happy-hour drinkers into O’Reilly’s.

  Inside O’Reilly’s, the cacophony of conversations is almost enough to make me appreciate Doug’s choice in music, but I manage to avoid concentrating on specific voices, and all the conversations blend into a constant background murmur.

  On the bar’s stereo system, Jimmy Buffett is singing “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw?”

  The left side of the wraparound bar is dominated by a mahogany back bar with a canopy supported by pillars and illuminated stained-glass panels. Opposite the bar, the walls and drinking nooks are plastered with old photos and framed pictures of Ireland and Irish celebrities, while covering the corner walls at the back of the bar is a hand-painted mural of famous Irish writers, including Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, and Samuel Beckett.

  At the moment, I feel a bit like a character out of a Beckett play, looking for meaning in the obstacles and distractions of my existence. I don’t know if my coming here is a fruitless attempt to find some answers, if I’m only waiting for Godot, but I have my doubts that anyone here is going to be saved. Either way, today has most definitely been the theater of the absurd.

  One of the characters in Waiting for Godot, Lucky, was apparently so named because, according to Beckett, he was lucky to have no more expectations.

  If only I was so fortunate.

  I find Tuesday, the fake one, sitting at the far end of the bar near Oscar Wilde with a half-empty beer in front of her. I glance around the bar, but Scooter Girl is nowhere to be seen.

  The thought that the two of them might be connected continues to knock around inside of my head, and I’m more than curious as to Scooter Girl’s motivations. What is it about her situation that’s so complicated she couldn’t have dinner with me? But at the moment, I’m more interested in finding out what Tuesday wants and why she’s pretending to be the mayor’s daughter.

  “So
rry I’m late,” I say, sitting down on a stool next to her. “Something suddenly came up.”

  “That’s the same thing I say when I want to get rid of men like you,” she says, taking a sip of her beer.

  On the bar’s stereo system, Jimmy Buffett has better odds of getting laid than I do.

  “Maybe I misunderstood,” I say, stealing a glance down her V-neck sweater. “But didn’t you invite me out for a drink?”

  “To discuss business. Not for your company.”

  “Well, they say honesty is the foundation of any good relationship. So at least we’re off to a good start.”

  She laughs and takes another drink. “Nice suit, by the way.”

  “You dig me. You just don’t know it yet.”

  In front of me on the bar is a small brass plate that says THIS SEAT IS RESERVED FOR CHOCOLATE DICK. I don’t know who Chocolate Dick is, but I bet he’s popular with the ladies.

  I order a Guinness from the bartender, then I turn back to Tuesday and catch her watching me before she looks away. Not with a look of desire, but more with a look of distaste. Which doesn’t bode well for my chances of getting more than a glimpse of her cleavage.

  “I figured you as more of the martini type,” I say, indicating her pint of beer. “Fund-raisers, box seats at the symphony, stiffs in tuxedos.”

  “Never acquired a taste for them.”

  “Martinis or stiffs in tuxedos?”

  “Both,” she says.

  “So you prefer beer and detectives in suits?”

  “Just beer.” She finishes off the rest of hers in two swallows.

  I take the opportunity to steal another peek at her breasts. Actually, it’s more like a lingering stare than a peek. Long enough for me to determine that she has a mole on the inside of her left breast. Long enough for me to notice the outline of a nipple in the fabric of her sweater. Long enough for her to notice me staring.

  “So about your father,” I say, getting down to business as my Guinness arrives and Tuesday orders another Stella.