by Brian Hodge
“My name’s Amber,” the darker blonde said, leaning forward to eye our bag of weed. Her scoop-necked shirt revealed her boobs, almost to the nipple, and we both got an eyeful. I passed her a joint, and when she smiled at me, I started to really think we might get somewhere with these girls. The taller one sat next to Mikey, who wasn’t even trying to look at her face when he talked.
“It must kick ass to be a chick and get free weed all the time and shit,” Mikey said matter-of-factly. The tall girl scowled mightily and asked him what he meant. “Well, you can just shake your ass for any old guy and he’ll smoke you out, no?”
“That is really offensive,” the girl next to me spat, sliding away from me like I’d just started oozing slime. After some minor bickering, both of the pissed-off blondes demanded we let them out of our “piece-of-shit van.”
“What the hell did you do that for?” I punched Mikey in the arm, hard. He totally deserved it. Those chicks were both easy-looking and hot. Why fuck up such a perfect arrangement?
“I told you, we’re men on a mission.” Mikey spun the car around, without explaining what mission could possibly be more important than bagging some hot blonde chicks.
With one left turn, the factory lights hit my eyes, blinding me for a second or two. Mikey explained that we were at the greatest factory in the world, and that the puppy feet car was going to breeze by all casual-like and steal “product” off a truck. Sounded like a good way to get arrested to me.
Leave it to Mikey though; he timed it just right to steal two full cases of product from the huge silver conveyances that carried it. I remember thinking we should have come to this factory years ago. This would have been the greatest mission ever, if we were, like, twelve.
The back of the van was so full of product, we could barely close the rear doors. I had to admit that it was pretty funny. The brightly lit sign shone behind us: Frito Lay. Like some kind of homing beacon for snack lovers. All thought of blondes was forgotten as we lit up another joint and drove home, without regard for the potential consequences of our stupidity. We had no women to keep us company, but we had weed, each other, and thirty-two pounds of potato chips.
Chapter Sixteen
(Mikey)
The World of Work
It was time for me to get another job. I couldn’t let Mama keep sending me money forever. I’d never have heard the end of it if I did, especially if she thought I was seeing prostitutes. It was because of Mama calling me that I couldn’t keep that Casey girl. Keeping girls had to be a secret; even Mama couldn’t know about it.
I got that girl, Casey, out of my house without … what do you call it? Incident. I got her out of my place without incident. Nobody even saw us together. She didn’t want to go home, so I just dropped her on the edge of Michigan City. Really. She was fine and unraped and I just let her out on the expressway. I barely touched her, and stopped right when she woke up. I was really good and didn’t get in any trouble. I’m the Ace at not getting in trouble.
Anyway, I got sick and tired of Mama sending me money when I didn’t ask for it, then complaining that I was such a burden. She was the fucking burden; she just had all the money. I was a young guy and I needed my freedom, especially now that I was single. I couldn’t have her calling the house at all hours, scaring away all my girlfriends when we were trying to be alone. I needed some of what they call gainful employment.
Every time I had to look for a job, I was reminded that I don’t really have any skills. I went to trade school to learn about airplane maintenance, and I did do that kind of work for a while. But the bosses there were fucked up and I got sick of all their stupid rules. Most of the stuff they wanted you to do didn’t even make sense, but that didn’t stop the bosses from cramming their regulations down your throat every goddamn day. When you complained about it, you were the one with the attitude problem. I knew about airplanes; I went to school for it. I certainly knew more than some ass-wipe who sat at a desk all day doing paperwork. But that’s what they gave me to work with, and to answer to. See what I had to put up with?
I worked in retail for a little while when Dami and I first got married. It’s amazing how bad people treated you when all you were trying to do was ring them up or help them find something or put stuff back on shelves after people messed them up. You tried to just do your job and people treated you like the prices were your fault, like the corporate policies were your fault, like even the damn weather was your fault. You just wanted to punch some of them in the face. If you even so much as frowned in front of these people, the bosses called you into their little offices for little meetings. Then I had to hear all about how I had no team spirit or people skills or whatever the hell. It was really just work slang to say that I didn’t like being treated like shit, especially not by a total stranger or a stupid old woman. God damn, old people are annoying!
That was another problem for me. I tried to get jobs, but I didn’t really have any good references. Almost all my former bosses hated me. I think they just hated when you were over thirty and still working shitty jobs. They thought there was something wrong with you if you had the same job description as a high school kid. Know what though? That didn’t apply to my old boss, Yvette. She was my boss at the ice cream store, where I used to come in and move the giant containers of ice cream around. The young hotties who worked the counter couldn’t lift anything, so they relied on me. It was nice being relied on by a bunch of cute girls.
Yvette was sexy as hell, and kind of a bitch. She liked me just fine. She used to flirt with me at work, even after she knew I was married with kids. That seemed to make her dig me all the more: my wife and kids. Not sure what kind of a woman that made her. But as a boss, she was awesome. I would ask her for a reference, but she left the store right after I got fired. They said I was stalking that new girl just because I wanted to know where she lived. It was so stupid. People will freak out over anything. I don’t have any idea where Yvette is now. I wish I did. I bet she’d be really happy to see me.
I had an appointment to go talk to a woman named Fran, about a job bussing tables in her café. A café, I found out, is like a little diner where people tend to hang out and do other things besides eat and drink. They bring books, phones, computers, and briefcases full of files. It was sort of weird. I always thought you weren’t supposed to hang out too long in diners because the waitresses needed new bodies at the tables, so they could make more tips. Didn’t they feel cheated when some businessman tied up a table for two from ten o’clock till noon thirty? I’d have to ask this Fran when I talked to her. I sort of hoped she wasn’t the boss. Working for women has its own set of problems, like the fact that most women are castrating bitches hell-bent on proving their worth in the wide world of work. Not Yvette, but most women. You’d think someone would’ve put a stop to that by now.
When I got in the car to drive to my interview, I saw that the girl called Casey had left her jacket in the front seat. It still smelled like her, and I thought about keeping it. Too obvious, I thought, though I’m not sure exactly what I meant. What was it obvious of? It was just a jacket. It just seemed like a bad idea to keep it, so I tossed it out the window on my way.
“Hi, I’m here to see Fran,” I told the kid who made eye contact with me from behind a grill. He nodded and I heard him yell her name through the back of the kitchen. She was an old woman with a pushed-up, dyed hairdo, very much like someone you’d expect to see running a diner she called a café. She wore tan pants and a flowery apron.
“You ever bus tables before, young man?” I shook my head. “Well, it’s not exactly rocket science, is it?” I shook my head again, wondering if I should let her know I could talk.
“I can start whenever you like,” I said hopefully. She led me into the kitchen and threw me a white apron and a paper hat. For a few seconds I wanted to cry. I was a trained airplane mechanic and I was about to take a job where I’d wear a paper hat. It was totally fucking sad, and I deserved more out of life. Still
, it was work and I needed the money.
“You can start today. We close at nine, so that’s a nice eight-hour shift to start with. You bus tables, and split one-third of the tips with the waitresses. We catch you liftin’ tips and you’re gone.” She said it just as the thought of slipping random fives and ones into my pocket was beginning to form. This Fran sounded like she could read my mind. She was probably too old to make the Red come on me. That was lucky for her, because she seemed rude and bossy to me already. I braced myself for my latest trip into hell on earth, working at a crappy café for an ugly old woman.
Chapter Seventeen
(Our Narrator)
The Bachelor Party
It’s always the best man’s job to throw the bachelor party when a guy is getting married. Of course I was the best man for Mikey when he married Dami. In fact, I was the only guy who stood up for him. Even though I threw his party at the coolest of strip clubs, I was the only one who actually showed up. Mikey kinda creeped the other guys out, especially around women. I may have mentioned that before; I don’t know.
For a long time we had this buddy named Cliff. Mikey dated Cliff’s sister Dawn, well, if you could even call it dating. He took her out and bought her stuff, spent all the money he earned working at that lousy fast-food job that summer. She screwed around on him like—I don’t know what. Finally I told him, just so he’d look a little less like a cuckold. Yeah, I wouldn’t want him looking like anything that sounded that close to “cock,” anyway. Mikey didn’t care though; he showed up at Cliff’s all crying and shit, wanting to know what he could do to make Dawn love him more. Can you believe that? She cheated on him all over town and he just wanted to know how he could get her to love him more. I don’t even think Mikey was sleeping with Dawn, you know, fucking her. I don’t think he was. He sure spent money on her like he was, though.
Funny enough, that’s what he wanted to talk about in the car when I was taking him to Tom & Al’s place. Tom and Al’s was called T & A for short, which every guy we knew thought was hilarious. I don’t know if I’d call it hilarious, but it was funny enough to laugh at, I guess.
Mikey wanted to drive around before we went to the bar, and I finally realized that, two days before he was about to get married, he wanted me to drive him past the house of an ex-girlfriend who’d treated him like shit. Can you even wrap your head around such a thing? Then once we got there, he wanted to go in. I didn’t know how to tell him Dawn hadn’t lived in that house with Cliff and her parents for years. It made me wonder if Mikey had been coming out here long before tonight to look for her. It was creepy to think he’d drive by here and not stop. He wasn’t even drunk yet.
Mikey always got super excited at the idea of going to a strip club, especially T & A’s. Once we got there, though, he didn’t dance or get crazy at all. He sat there all quiet and smiling, like he was in church.
There’s a law in this state that says if you have fully nude girls, like at this club we were at, you weren’t allowed to serve booze. Kind of a stupid rule, but it also made sense in a way. I wouldn’t wanna be one of these live nude girls having to deal with a bunch of drunks. Men get rowdy enough sober. Well, not Mikey, but other men.
I thought I’d get our hands stamped so we could go pound a few beers over at the Red Baron. That was the bar across the street. I’d guess roughly a hundred percent of its business was patrons from T & A’s, getting a buzz on before going back to get an eyeful of the girls. The Baron was pretty crowded, considering this was a Thursday night. We ended up sitting at the bar next to a white guy and a black guy in business suits. Mikey and I were dressed a little better than normal, in button-down shirts and slacks instead of our normal jeans and T-shirt combos. No reason not to look a little nice for the ladies, no?
“I need a pitcher for me and the bachelor here, celebrating his last night of freedom!” I proclaimed to the bar, thinking this might just score us some free drinks.
“What? Oh, lemme get that!” chimed the black guy in the blue suit next to us. His buddy in the grey suit laid out a bill as well. As it should be, Mikey wouldn’t have to pay for a drink all night. Since he’d been dating this new woman, his alcohol tolerance had gone to hell. Just as well; Mikey was not a fun drunk. “Jumping the broom are ya?” blue suit said, slapping Mikey on the back and making him wince.
“Jumping the broom?” grey suit asks, laughing. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“You know, when you get married, some people, Africans and pagans for example, they jump over a broom for fertility or something. You know?” He looked at his buddy, who clearly had no idea what he was talking about.
“Mikey’s getting married on Saturday; we’re just on our way to uh—” I jerked my thumb in the direction of the strip club. “You know?” The men all nodded knowingly.
The suits from the bar were salesmen for a local radio station. They sold advertising, or tried to, to stores in the area. From the sound of it, they weren’t very good at it. They pounded a bunch of beers in rapid succession and seemed bitter and sarcastic when they spoke.
“I don’t know how we can be expected to come up with a new ninety-second spot every time he changes his inventory. It’s unreal!” grey suit says, sloshing his beer onto the peanut shell-covered floor. “Like he’s some kind of genius businessman anyway …”
“I know!” blue suit chimes in, waving for another pitcher. “It’s like they think we’re … we’re … what am I trying to say here, Mikey?” He leaned in drunkenly, and I found myself feeling relieved that the strip club was only a short walk from here. None of these guys, myself included, should’ve been driving.
After an hour or two of Mikey sitting stoically in front of the bouncing breasts, et cetera, the four of us went back to my place. The two suits wanted to crash, after saying outright that they didn’t have shit else to do. Mikey said he’d brought a special video, which I assumed would be some sort of low-budget porn. We popped it in the player.
Between microwave pizza rolls and lukewarm cans of Coke, we watched a dubbed collection of sex scenes from movies. These were regular, R-rated movies with steamy scenes, not even real porn with penetration or whatever. But before I even knew what was going on, the sex scenes turned into girls getting stabbed, strangled with neckties, bound, gagged, chased by men with chainsaws. It was grotesque.
“Dude, what the fuck is this?” blue suit demanded, as grey suit held his jacket up in front of his face. “Why is this shit mixed in with your porn, man?” Mikey didn’t look remotely embarrassed.
“What? I dunno … um … don’t you think that chick is hot?” Mikey said, pointing at a hysterical blonde woman tied to a chair and bleeding from a head wound. The two suits put their shoes on quickly, mumbling about freaks and weirdoes as they exited. I felt bad for Mikey. This was his bachelor party. But what the hell? That’s the kind of thing that happened all the time with Mikey. Not too crazy, but just weird enough to make people wonder. Looking back on it, I should have wondered a whole lot more.
Chapter Eighteen
(Mikey)
Another Drive-By
Just as I thought, Chandra was growing up to be a beautiful woman. Spiteful, though, like her mother. You should have heard what she said to her friend about me when she saw me that day. I didn’t hear it exactly, but I could see the look on her face okay, and I know she saw me looking at her. She was thinking something bad.
I was really good for a few months about not driving by Dami’s house, or by the girls when they were in school. I’d just been so lonely with them gone, and it seemed like no one good wanted to date me. I didn’t have money or cars or whatever to impress women. No good-looking women ever wanted to hang out with me. It sucked. The only women making eyes at me were the old hags down at the grocery store. The last one who’d smiled at me must have been over forty, with double-wide hips and that leathery skin you get from too much tanning. Eew. Is it really any wonder I’d rather go visit my girls, than have to fend off skeezy
old ladies at the grocery store?
Chandra dressed just like her schoolmates now, short skirts and tight jeans and shirts that didn’t even cover her navel. When I was a kid, you couldn’t even see a navel on TV. I’d told her mother before that it wasn’t a good idea, but she’d told me to stay out of it. Apparently it was more important for her to make Chandra feel trendy and popular than to protect her from perverts. I know how men think, especially young boys. I can tell you Dami did that girl no favors letting her go around dressed like that. If anything ever happened, it would be all Dami’s fault for letting her wear stuff like that in the first place.
When I saw her in a very short skirt for the third time in a week, I felt the Red coming on. It was strong and dangerous. I was amazed Chandra could do that from so far away. She was turning slutty and whorish right in front of my eyes. If her mother wasn’t going to say anything to her about it, someone had to. By the time Chandra walked by my car, I could barely see her. It was all just Red. She didn’t look at me or acknowledge me at all, even though she must have noticed I was there.
“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded. She jumped, startled. “How can you walk around in that? In public?”
My daughter looked furious. She looked around nervously, like I was embarrassing her. All teenagers are embarrassed by their parents, though; it’s a natural part of growing up. Chandra opened her mouth to say something as I opened the door to get out of the car. Her friend had one of those little black dots on her forehead. Prolly meant she was open for business, as we used to say. The little whore stepped in front of my daughter and addressed me in a venomous tone.
