Joe's Black T-Shirt

by Joe Schwartz

  “Fuck me!” Steve yelled in disgust. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Quit fucking saying that.”

  She could hear in the background somebody chastise him for his language. In typical Steve style, she could hear him respond to the anonymous do-gooder with a vibrant, “Go fuck yourself.”

  Vincent came out of the bathroom and stood in the hall. Too polite to interrupt, he had the good manners to wait until she was done.

  “Mom,” Jeannie said, “I have to go.”

  “Mom?” Steve asked. “What the fuck Je---”

  “I love you, too.”

  Promptly, she closed the phone and turned off the power. Steve was no doubt calling her back this instant. His sudden neediness was both disturbing and emasculating. It gave her a secret pleasure to think that big, bad Steve, the manly plumber man had been reduced to acting like a little bitch.

  “How’s your mom?” Vincent asked with a hint of facetiousness.

  Jeannie laughed and lit up a smoke. “She’s going to be okay.”

  ***

  Jeannie took a shower and changed into clothes Vincent lent to her. His standard uniform of jeans and a t-shirt fit her fairly well. The pants were a bit tight, but she hoped the over-sized t-shirt hid her muffin top. She had never worn men’s clothing in public before, yet she felt oddly empowered.

  They smoked a joint in the van as Vincent drove. It didn’t take Jeannie long to figure Vincent smoked a lot of weed. That was certainly all right by her. It was an inconsequential drug in her opinion and if given the choice between alcohol and pot, she would choose weed every time.

  By the time they had arrived at the auto parts store, they were thoroughly stoned. Jeannie was pretty sure the sales clerk knew. He was cool about it though and while it seemed to be an effort for her to recall the make and model of her car, he seemed pleased to help them. Vincent paid for the battery, insisted on it, and Jeannie found his chivalry quaint.

  Starved, they ordered tacos and hamburgers at a Jack-In-The-Box drive thru. The greasy food tempered their collective buzz. Jeannie applied hot sauce to his deep fried Mexican treats while he drove. She told him she didn’t mind, that it would be far better if he could fully concentrate on the road considering their current mental conditions. In truth, she wanted to return some of his kindness. He had done so much for her and hadn’t made even a furtive pass toward her. It was rare to be so appreciated and she couldn’t help herself for liking it.

  Her buzz pretty well disposed, she watched as Vincent installed her new battery. He worked methodically, doing one thing at a time, careful as a surgeon with the greasy car.

  Vincent started the car without any hesitation. He closed the hood and climbed back into the van’s driver seat. Through the windshield they watched the car idle. It was funny to Jeannie. Her car was fixed, but she had no desire to leave.

  Vincent asked, “You got a boyfriend?”

  “No,” she said thinking about Steve. The last two years seemed vulgar in comparison to the few hours she had been with Vincent. Steve was right in calling her a whore. She was his whore.

  Jeannie found a scrap piece of paper in her small purse and a pen. She wrote her number down for him and handed it over.

  Vincent couldn’t keep from smiling. The ten digits might as well been the winning lottery numbers to him. With precision, he inserted the jaggedly ripped paper in his billfold.

  “I guess I better get going,” she said. “It has been a long night and I had better get some rest before work tomorrow.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “You better.”

  Jeannie leaned over the seat and rested her body weight between the steering wheel and the back of Vincent’s seat. With delicate restraint, she kissed his rutted cheek. Through her lips she could feel him trembling.

  She worried as she left the van and went to her car. He hadn’t looked at her or said a word. Behind her own steering wheel she mustered the courage to look one last time at Vincent. He was staring directly at her.

  He put his hand to his lips, kissed the tips of his fingers, and blew a kiss toward her. Jeannie reached up and pretended to grab it. After a lifetime of being with men, of seeing their naked exposed flesh upon her own, this was the closest thing to intimacy she had ever experienced.

  ***

  Monday was busier than usual at work. Two of the other girls had called in sick, and Jeannie was forced to do the work of three people. Not impossible, but exhausting none the less. The only highlight was that it also kept Nurse Dugan too busy to ride her ass.

  Jeannie drove home at a break neck speed. Her pathetic stereo system cranked as loud as it would go, she loudly sang along with the radio to relieve the day’s stress. She hoped there wasn’t any cops between her and home. If she got another speeding ticket, there was a hell of a good chance she would lose her license. Fuck it, she thought. She was tired, hungry, and desperate to clean the elderly stench from her body.

  The surprise she found when she pulled into the driveway dumbfounded her. Red, long-stemmed roses in half a dozen vases covered the steps leading to her front door. Their magnificent, overwhelming aroma dwarfed her body odor. She caressed a handful of buds to prove to herself she was not hallucinating. The petals were softer than an infant’s skin and without warning she began to cry.

  It took her half an hour to carry them all inside. The interior of her dingy trailer looked like a display at Shaw’s Garden.

  A green ribbon attached a tiny envelope to one rose. Carefully she loosened it from the flower and read the card inside.

  The penmanship was obviously printed by a computer, but the sentiment was from a romantic’s heart.

  “There are many beautiful things, but the silent beauty of a flower surpasses them all.” S. Teshigahara

  They were from Vincent. There was no doubt in her regarding that. This sure as hell wasn’t something Steve could even fathom doing.

  Surrounded by her private garden, Jeannie sat in the middle of the floor. The magnificence was surreal. Was this what they called love? She didn’t know, but if it was, Jeannie couldn’t imagine a more wonderful thing.

  ***

  Steve was in hell. That ungrateful cunt, Jeannie, how could she do this to him?

  He had been lucky enough to bid a job in Chesterfield that would last him all week. The affluent home set among the rolling hills, abutting to a golf course that had hosted several PGA tournaments, would pay handsomely for work that was simple enough. The home had six bathrooms and the owners wanted each re-fitted with custom vanity hardware. Of course, it also meant the removal and installation of six commodes as well. The most challenging aspect would be in the lady of the home’s personal powder room. In addition to a regular toilet, she had insisted on a matching bidet. That was what would take the majority of his time. The sum total he would collect from this job was almost embarrassing by his standards.

  This kind of a job would normally put him a terrific mood, but he couldn’t help himself. Every minute of his day was consumed with her. He was having constant flashbacks to their sex, her body pleasing his every wanton pleasure.

  After Sunday, he had been drinking heavily every night. His usual four or five beers a night became twelve accompanied by half a bottle of tequila or whiskey. The bitch of it all was he drank to forget, yet it only intensified the remorse.

  He woke up Brenda Monday night desperate for sex. Not with her, but with Jeannie. In the darkness he kept his eyes closed, drunkenly imagining his mistress’ body under him. Tuesday, he did the same but did not enjoy it. Brenda complained mostly through the motions, and his ability to fantasize his lover presence couldn’t be accomplished. Disappointed with Brenda’s cooperation, he masturbated in the basement, using his wife’s dirty panties for inspiration.

  Each morning though he awoke more depressed than the last. Work a chore to be faced with no hope to escape his constant misery. He thought if he could ju
st talk with her, not on the phone, but face-to-face. Maybe he could reason with her. He wasn’t above using every cent made on this job to bribe her back if he had to. The only thing he wouldn’t put on the table in trade was himself.

  He had a twenty-year strong marriage. Without Brenda and his children, he would probably kill himself. A sin even he didn’t believe God would absolve him from. That kind of thinking though wasn’t like him. Up until all this shit hit the fan, he was happy guy. No, the rational thought, the idea that replaced the longing for Jeannie, was that of her death.

  Throughout the day he imagined shooting her, strangling her, watching her sit inside of that shitty little car of hers as it exploded, or throwing her off the Eads Bridge. At night he drank and mourned for her, whipping himself with alcohol for his errant thoughts and cursing himself for doing such a stupid thing.

  By Friday, with a check in his wallet, he drove with determination to the Seven-Ten Split. It was four o’clock and happy hour didn’t begin until six. Fuck it, Steve thought. He couldn’t take another night at home with Brenda or without Jeannie.

  ***

  Vincent made it to the bar at eight sharp. This last week with Jeannie was the best he had ever known. Everyday he talked with Jeannie after she got home from work. He listened patiently as she vented about her job, her home, and her life in general.

  She returned the favor as Vincent regaled her with stories from the being in a band. Mostly, they were funny, entertaining tid-bits she couldn’t imagine having really happened, but he told them so matter-of-factly, Jeannie had no reason to doubt their validity.

  One of his most charming was the time the band was flat broke in Iowa. Out of desperation for gas money, they worked out a deal to clean the bar they had just gigged at for gas money. After two days of stealing beer and beef jerky, the owner called the police. The small town Sheriff impounded their van and locked them together in a cell with two bunks and a stainless steel commode.

  Unable to pay their meager fines, the Sheriff gave them a choice: Play a charity gig at the local high school or pick trash off the side of the highway for a month. “It was always some shit like that,” Vincent told Jeannie, melancholy for those carefree days, but not the desperation it bred.

  Steve’s buddies were at their regular table sans his brother-in-law. That didn’t concern him. Vincent had seen Brenda’s mini-van in the parking lot. Steve was here somewhere, probably in the john or pumping dollars into the impossible to beat claw machine. His brother-in-law’s presence use to concern him. They had never bonded and it was obvious Steve wanted nothing to do with him. Vincent, in turn, was more than willing to accommodate his wishes.

  It took Vincent less than fifteen minutes to set the songbooks out and power up the equipment. It was his ritual to check every microphone prior to the show. Whether it was necessary or not, he replaced each wireless’ nine volt battery source. There had been thus far only one time a mic went dead during a performance. The singer had been malleable regarding the whole incident and was glad to take it again from the top. Vincent, however, found it professionally embarrassing. If he could, it was a mistake he would do his damnedest not to repeat.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Steve stumble into his buddies’ table as he was sound checking the first mic.

  “Check one. Check one-two,” he announced.

  “Check this mother fucker!” Steve said to the great amusement of his pals. He held his crotch with his right and shook it with enthusiasm toward Vincent.

  Vincent picked up the next mic. It’s green light glowed in the darkness indicating full power.

  “Check one. Check one-two,” Vincent repeated. Before he could put it down, Steve was beside him. A thick odor of alcohol radiated from his every pore. Hardly able to stand, Steve rested his body into Vincent.

  “I want to sing,” Steve said. His speech was a mixture of slur and beer belches.

  “Sure, Steve,” Vincent said trying to seem undaunted. “Just give me a second.”

  Behind Steve and his buddies, Vincent could see the bartender. He watched from behind the bar with the look of a dog ready to attack.

  “No goddamn it. I want to sing now,” Steve said. With a slight bit of resistance from Vincent, Steve pulled the mic from his grip.

  “Okay,” Vincent said elongating upon the vowel, “what song do you want?”

  Into the microphone, Steven yelled, “What it’s gonna be fellas?”

  “Brittany Spears,” yelled one of men. Another, even louder called, “Madonna.”

  The reckless goading by Steve’s friends made Vincent nervous. It was obvious they had all been drinking more than usual. In an attempt to sandbag their current taunts, which could easily turn from playfulness to cruelty, Vincent cued up Black Sabbath’s ‘Ironman.’ A shout of ecstasy erupted from the table as Steve shouted, “Fuck yeah!” into the microphone.

  Gray words scrolled turning white as the lyrics appeared on the TV’s. Unable to read the legible words through his inebriated haze, Steve lyrically imitated the words in an infantile fashion of unintelligible grunts.

  “Bluh, bluh, ba-boo-bee. Dada dada, dada, Fuck this shit.”

  Vincent tried to control the volume from the mixer, but the squeal of feedback accentuated Steve’s ever-increasing volume. Frustrated, worried that Steve’s close proximity to the massive speaker could cause a blowout, he futilely moved the mixer’s sliders lower trying to avoid disaster.

  It was a shock to everyone when the bartender pushed Steve from behind. Too drunk to stand, he fell with no more effort of a wobbly domino to the floor. The microphone slammed to the concrete floor causing a loud pop that overloaded the speakers. The built-in clip mechanism automatically shut down the power in an effort to save itself.

  Steve floundered on the floor trying to regain his footing. He had not realized he had been pushed until he rolled over from his stomach to his back. Even in his worthless state, it was apparent to him things had become deadly serious.

  The voices of his buddies became quiet with reverence. The unmistakable sound of a twelve-gauge shotgun click-chuck slide action was robust in the soundless room. Vincent was grateful for the intervention, but immobile with fear at the sight.

  “That’s enough,” the bartender said. He was aiming the shotgun at a forty-five degree angle to the ceiling. Without hesitation, he could put the barrel onto a target. At this range, whatever he aimed at he could hit with complete confidence.

  “Fuck almighty, man. There ain’t no need for that kinda shit. We were just having fun. Ain’t that right, Vince?” Steve asked.

  Vincent couldn’t have said shit if he had a mouthful. He had seen Steve plenty drunk on many occasions. Normally a solitary drunk, who preferred the company of an empty, dark corner, it was rare to see him driven so far over the edge. Strangely enough, he did want to help him, to pick him up, and defend his actions as the carelessness we all befell to in the name of relaxation. The serious bartender and his weapon rendered him mute.

  “Well, ain’t this some kind of fuck you,” Steve said.

  “There’s a cab outside. I suggest you give up your keys and get your ass home.”

  Steve floundered to his feet and found his balance against a chair. His friends whispered among themselves, unable to hide their laughing smirks. Steve smiled at them, emboldened, not understanding that for a change he was the butt of the joke.

  “You can kiss my ass you dumb, fat bastard.”

  Enraged, the bartender swung the barrel of the shotgun with the precision of hitting a fastball. Steve collapsed unconscious as he crumpled to the floor.

  Before his buddies could rush him, the bartender swung the weapon directly toward them. Steve had got what was coming to him. If any of them decided to play hero, it might be the last thing they ever did.

  The trio stood stopped in motion, paused in their group reaction to retaliate.

  The biggest guy spoke for the group with his hands held high above his head. “We don’
t want any trouble.”

  “Then pick this piece of shit up and get the hell out of my bar.”

  The group moved slowly toward Steve. Limp and unconscious, they carried his slumped body outside.

  “You okay, kid?” The bartender asked Vincent.

  “Yeah,” he said having to think about it.

  The bartender rested his gun over his shoulder and let go a deep sigh of relief.

  “These fucking guys. Always horsing around, they never know when to quit.”

  Vincent bent down and collected the fragments of the mic. The bulbous silver knob had a large dent and a wide crack split halfway down the cylindrical case. He didn’t need to test it to know it was a total loss.

  The bartender set his hand on Vincent’s shoulder. He too could tell the damage to the microphone was beyond repair.

  “Maybe,” the bartender said, “we should call it a night. The cops will be here soon enough.”

  ***

  Sunday was a beautiful day. The forecast for cloudy weather had been circumvented by an unprecedented warm front out of the south. Late October’s traditional cold being held at bay was almost a disappointment to the heavily bundled guests.

  It was an established ritual for the Bickel family, Vincent’s family, to hold a party the weekend prior to Halloween. Mother and Father Bickel, the proud parents of five, and beaming grandparents of nine found comfort in the ritual of gathering. The children played upstairs, enjoying video games on Grandpa’s colossal TV and a buffet of homemade candies and cookies dutifully prepared by Grandma. The adults were given the secluded semi-privacy of the basement.

  The vibrant yellow gold shag carpeting had faded. It’s luster fresh and new in the seventies was now dull, stained, and quite immaterial to the décor. Concrete basement walls were disguised behind imitation pressed wood paneling. Cutouts where once a light switch had been installed then removed or access had to be gained to make a repair were left open. Not forgotten necessarily, but familiar enough that after a time they were no longer noticeable.