Diamond in the Rough

by Peter Canning

  A cheer went up and they saluted me again.

  Later, Carrie came over and introduced herself to me, asking if she could sit down next to me. “My name’s Carrie,” she said.

  “I know, I’ve seen you around. I’m Tim.”

  “Hi, Tim. What you did was great.”

  “I just happened to be driving by. I didn’t know it was going to go up so fast; I don’t know if I’d have gone in there otherwise.”

  “They’re lucky you did.”

  “It worked out, I guess.”

  We talked some small talk. She said she worked as a secretary in a real estate firm in Windsor Locks. She was a year older than me, and said she had just broken up with her boyfriend, and wasn’t seeing anyone, just hanging out with her girlfriends.

  “Would you like to go out sometime?” I impressed myself with my ability to keep cool while my heart was racing. Maybe it was the beer I’d been drinking to make my headache go away.

  “A date?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said.

  “Sure.” And she gave me her number.

  When she left with her friends, she turned back and waved. I waved back.

  That night I slept with her number pressed against my heart.

  Chapter 13

  The next Friday—the day of our date—I came in early and worked a transfer car for eight hours so I could get off by three in the afternoon.

  “What’s the big occasion?” Ned Martinson said when I handed him the keys and radio for 462. “It’s not like you to get off early.”

  “Check please?” I said, holding out my hand.

  He sat at his desk and flipped through the stack of payroll checks. “Rumor has it that you actually have a date.”

  I wasn’t commenting. “Dame, por favor,” I said, when I saw him pull my check out.

  “Let me give you some advice,” he said. “Women will do you in every time. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

  I snatched the check from his hand. “I intend to,” I said.

  “Good luck, just be sure you’re on time tomorrow.”

  I took the check straight to the bank, and instead of depositing any of it, I asked for it all in cash. The teller counted out seven hundred dollars, fifty-seven cents.

  My first stop was the Tuxedo Store off Sisson Avenue, where two days before I had been measured and fitted for a black tuxedo, cummerbund, bowtie and cufflinks. At first they had tried to sell me the certain latest style they were pushing, but I said I wanted to look just like Dean Martin, and it cost me more, but I wanted to do it up right. The old Italian guy at the store got a kick out of that. “Say hi to Sammy and Frank,” he called after I’d paid out the eighty-nine bucks, and took the wrapped tuxedo off the hanger, and the box of shoes under my arm. “Don’t forget to bring it back before you turn into a pumpkin.” I just smiled and nodded. I heard him say to his wife, “That boy a gotta class.”

  I went to the florist and paid forty-five dollars for the white orchid corsage I had them specially make at the florist’s suggestion. “This is a classy girl,” I told her. “I want something beautiful, but not overbearing, something that she’ll tell her friends about and her mother, and they’ll think, wow, what a thoughtful, sweet guy.”

  “I have just the thing,” the florist said. “A white orchid.”

  I had never been to a prom. I know that had disappointed my mother, so I called and told her I had a date, and could she help me get ready, make certain I had everything in order. She had the Polaroid out again. “When are you going to introduce me to her?” she asked. “She could come over for dinner on Sunday.”

  “Not yet, Mom, I don’t want to scare her away.”

  “Are you embarrassed about me?”

  “No, no, It’s just this is our first date. Eventually, sure, but I don’t want to rush anything.”

  “I’ll do that meatloaf, and make a chocolate pie, and if she doesn’t like dogs, we’ll just lock them up in the backyard. You look so handsome, I know I say that all the time, but you are and I’m so proud of you.”

  “He looks like a freak,” my sister said.

  “He does not.”

  “Watch it,” I said. “I’ll freak your butt all the way up to your room.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “You know I wouldn’t hurt you, unless you really pissed me off.”

  She laughed. “You do look okay, just strange seeing you in a suit. Where are you taking her? McDonald’s?”

  “Carbones,” I said.

  “Carbones,” my mother said. “I’ve always wanted to go there. The food and the service. That’s classy.”

  “I figure go first class or don’t go at all.”

  I looked at the clock. It was seven. On cue, I heard a knock on the door, and it was an older gentleman in his chauffeur suit. My limo.

  “I’ve got to run, Mom.”

  “Are you forgetting something?”

  “Your slot money. I’m still going to give you that on Sunday.”

  “No, no, a kiss for your mom.”

  But of course, and I gave her a quick twirl like she was a dancing girl, and kissed her on the cheek. “Wish me luck.”

  “What kind of luck do you mean?”

  “Don’t worry, I will be a gentleman.”

  “She’s going to think you’re rich. You have to have protection.”

  “Please.”

  “I just worry. I know what young women are like, I was one.”

  On the limo ride over to Carrie’s house, I thought maybe I should have covered that angle. I laid out everything I might need, and I never even thought about condoms. No, I wasn’t expecting that anyway, not on the first date. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about my intentions anyway. That would come in time, when she was ready.

  The limo was great. I had wanted a stretch, but then I thought that would be ostentatious, not to mention more per hour. As it was, the three hour-rental was going to cost nearly three hundred bucks with the tip thrown in.

  I directed the driver to the address she had given me, a condominium complex, where she rented a room in her friend’s condo.

  I had told her to dress up, but I think she was overwhelmed at my tuxedo. She stood there with her mouth open. “My god, look at you.”

  I smiled and pinned the corsage on her red dress. “Nothing but the best for you,” I said. “I’m taking you out.”

  She looked pretty good herself. She wore a strapless dress that showed ample cleavage, and her perfume enriched my nostrils that had too rarely smelled such a scent in the circumstances of a date.

  The limo driver held the door for us, and Carrie was incredulous at it all. I had a bottle of champagne on ice in the back, and we drank it on the ride, with the sky roof open, although with all the city lights you couldn’t see any stars.

  “What, do you know someone who works for the limo company?” she asked.

  “Don’t you worry about the arrangements. I just want you to have a good time. A toast to a beautiful woman and to the evening. Here’s to being young and alive.”

  And we clinked glasses and drank, and with each growing moment, I saw her begin to look at me in a way no woman had ever looked at me before, like I was a man with real class.

  At Carbone’s they gave us a booth near the kitchen, and I ordered Steak Diane for us, which they prepared en flambe at tableside. And as we ate and drank our wine, she opened up to me about her life. She told me that night that her old boyfriend, Jimmie Winslow, had told her he was working overtime to save up to buy her a ring, but she’d found out he’d really been cheating on her, so she had kicked him to the curb.

  “His mistake,” I said.

  She cried some, but said it was good to be back dating.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t have a line of gentlemen callers at your door.”

  She nearly spit her wine out. “There’s always guys who will go out with you,” she said, “but guys who want a relationship is a different story.”

  �
��It’s a shame,” I said. “They’d be crazy not to see you for more than that.”

  “It just hasn’t been my luck.”

  I raised my glass and clinked with her as I said, “Well, here’s to your luck changing.”

  For dessert we had Bananas Jubilee. The preparer set the flame so high that, for a moment, I thought it would hit the sprinkler and douse all of us, but we made it. I spooned some of the dessert and Carrie ate it from my spoon. I paid the bill by laying two one hundred dollar bills on the waiter’s bill holder without even checking to see the price. I had in fact earlier, added up what it would cost so I knew, with tip, the two hundred would take care of it.

  “What, do you own a diamond mine?”

  “No, I just believe in enjoying life. Some things are worth spending money on more than others.”

  She sat close to me on the limo ride home, and rested her head on my shoulder. I walked her to the door, and I was set to just kiss her good night, when she looked back at the limo driver, and said, “Are you going to send him home?”

  “Huh?”

  She reached for the back of my head and moved my head toward her, and she kissed me on the lips, a soft lingering kiss with just a touch on tongue. “Send him home,” she said.

  I walked back out to the curb, my hand shaking as I gave the driver the last of my money, three hundred and fifty bucks. He winked at me, and cracked his first smile of the evening. Instead of a handshake he offered me his closed fist to bump.

  ***

  I left Carrie’s at three in the morning, and walked the two miles to my apartment. It was quiet; a half moon illuminated the night sky. While I knew that like everyone born, I would one day die on a day not of my choosing, I felt that I had much to live for. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a penny left in my wallet. I had the scent of a woman on my skin.

  Chapter 14

  The first time I stole was a month later. I can tell you I did not walk into that dormitory expecting to embark on a spree of crime. It was circumstance that overcame me. We were called for an overdose. A campus security guard led us into a dorm room where a student sat sobbing with his head in his hands.

  “He told me he took a handful of pills and drank a shit load of beers,” his roommate said. “He said he wanted to die.”

  “Why did you call?” the student said angrily to his roommate, his speech slurred. The student had long hair and wore a tee-shirt that said “Fuck War.” “I just want to be left alone.”

  There were posters of rock bands on the wall. U2 and Dave Mathews. I looked at the expensive stereo equipment. Someone was loaded.

  “What did you take?” Tom asked.

  “I didn’t take anything,” the student said. “I just drank.”

  “His prescription bottles are in his bureau,” the roommate said. “He’s on antidepressants. This isn’t the first time he’s tried to kill himself.”

  “Go check them out,” Tom said to me.

  As the roommate led me into the bedroom, and showed me where the prescriptions were, I heard Tom ask, “Why do you want to off yourself?”

  “None of your business. I wish you’d all leave me alone.”

  The roommate answered, “His girlfriend broke up with him.”

  “Fuck her,” Tom said. “You want to get her back, go fuck someone else, don’t take pills. You take pills and she finds out, she’ll think you’re a weenie.”

  Tom had his own method.

  As I was sorting through the meds, which were in the first dresser drawer—the dresser itself was littered with empty bottles of Corona—I saw several small film canisters in the tray and I opened one. I knew right away it was weed. It was filled to the brim. I glanced over my shoulder, saw I was alone—the roommate had returned to the main room—and just like that, a synapse in my brain misfired. I did something completely out of character for me. I felt as if I was standing outside of my body watching someone else doing the misdeed. I recapped the canister and slid it in my pocket even before my heart started to pound. It was that fast.

  What went through my mind? I was thinking about Carrie, and how pleased she would be if I brought her this little gift. She’d lamented how much she liked a smoke, but that she’d been out since she’d broken up with Jimmie Winslow.

  “How’s it coming in there?’ Tom looked in the bedroom. “What are you finding?”

  “Valium, Prozac, Wellbutrin. There’s just a couple Valium missing. No empties.”

  “Well, one way or another, you’re going to the hospital. You bought yourself a ticket by saying you want to die, bought yourself a charcoal shake.”

  I was by now feeling pangs of conscience, and would have returned the vial to its proper place, but two police officers appeared and Tom was giving them a quick rundown, including showing him the prescription bottles, and saying, “It doesn’t look like he took much, but we’ve got to take him in. Get his sneakers and a jacket, and let’s get going.”

  The roommate was in the room now gathering what Tom had requested, and I was called back in the main room to set the stretcher up.

  The roommate rode in the front with me as I drove to the hospital. He kept looking back at Tom and his roommate. Tom was lecturing the guy on how to handle women.

  “The way to keep your woman is to satisfy her. I’m not talking about being a good boy. I’m talking about TCB—taking care of business. Every time—every time you are in the sack with her—you give her everything you have and more. That’s all that matters. You must conquer her. All this sensitive crap might work at first, but once a woman has had a true man—a champion sire, she is yours at the ring of a bell. You can not call her for a year, then give her a little ring-a-ling and suggest a little get together and she is there. That should be lesson number one in college. Study history. The arms race. The side with the best weapons wins. No surrender. The Gatling gun. Blitzkrieg. The Allied army on D-Day. The H-bomb. Desert Storm. Overwhelming power. It’s the American Way. TCB. Taking Care of Business. You might want to look into it. “

  I was glad Tom’s show was keeping the roommate from suddenly remembering that they kept their stash right where my thieving little hands had been.

  “Is he always like this?” the roommate asked me.

  I nodded.

  “I know he’s your partner,” the guy said, “but what a fucking asshole.”

  I just shrugged. Who was I to judge? Tom may have been a little burned out and full of himself at the same time, but he was entertaining, and at least he wasn’t a fucking thief. And I had to hand it to him—from the way his pager was always ringing—he seemed to have the ladies at his beck and call.

  ***

  “Why are you so jittery?” Tom asked once we cleared the hospital.

  “I’m not jittery.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Don’t tell me that you’re the type to try to off yourself if a girl pulls one on you?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “How a man acts in adversity is the mark of character. Soon as your squeeze puts the hurt on you, we’ll see how you act. You’ll turn into a blubbering fool. You’ve got to be a man and go out and bang someone else before twenty four hours are up.”

  “She’s not going to put a hurt on me.”

  “She’s not, huh?”

  “Nope, not going to happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m a fucking conqueror,” I said. “TCB.”

  That cracked him up. “You’re all right. I’ve taught you well. Still… we’ll see.”

  Chapter 15

  “For me?” she said, looking like a little girl who’d just been given a surprise present as I handed her the vial of marijuana that I’d put a small red ribbon on. “You are the best!”

  Carrie, I soon found out, really liked to get high. We’d retire to her room where she’d put on an old Fleetwood Mac CD. She’d bri
ng out her purple bong, fill up the bowl, light the match, inhale slowly like a pearl diver taking a big breath before diving down deep, then she’d move her thumb off the hole and the smoky cloud would zoom up into her lungs. She’d smile at me with slanted peaceful eyes, and then slowly exhale out her nose, large walrus tusks of smoke.

  The girl was a pothead. When she’d drink, all her insecurities came out, but when we smoked pot together, she was relaxed and loved nothing more than to light candles and let me massage her with oil. After we’d make love, we’d watch a late-night movie or play video games and eat chips, popcorn, brownies and tubs of ice cream. I’ll admit it, I liked to get high too. Life was great!

  Unfortunately, our supply dwindled quickly.

  “We’re getting down to seeds and stems,” she said one night. “You think you get us some more from your source?”

  “Of course I can,” I lied.

  ***

  I turned to Fred, and for a month, he kept me in supply, selling me skinny joints for five dollars each.

  “Can you get me a larger amount?” I asked Fred at the bar.

  “Dude, why don’t you show some initiative and get some of your own? The city is your garden.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just steal it. Don’t tell me you haven’t been on calls where it’s just lying there for the taking. All the ODs we go to, it’s not like they always hide their stash before they hit up.”

  “I don’t want heroin.”

  “Where there’s heroin, there’s dope, just like where there’s alcohol, there’s dope. The President’s right—it’s the gateway drug.”

  “But I smoke and I’d never do heroin.”

  “You’re still a young man. I wouldn’t be surprised to see you, standing on the corner, strung out, your life belonging to the needle. I think you’ve got that kind of addictive personality. I mean look at you with your girl. She’s got you by the balls. Someday heroin’s going to get you the same way. Mark my words.”