by Joe Clifford
"Haven't you ever given a rim job?" she said.
I swear I came in my pants a little. Like a spurt.
"Or had one?"
I was concentrating so hard on not looking at her tits that I didn't know if her nipples were getting hard, but mine were. At least the unpunctured one.
"My betrothed doesn't go for that kind of stuff," I said. "Or any kind of stuff really."
"That nipple looks infected," she said. She didn't mind looking at mine, so I took a glance at hers, now that we were getting personal. They appeared intact.
"I should probably get it looked at."
"It's a rough piercing," she said. "Where'd you get it done?"
"The Interstate Lounge."
She made a face.
"Oh, you know it?"
"Never heard of it."
"I'm not surprised," I said. "How do you know so much about dogs and their habits and all, aside from having two of them?" I wasn't so frantic-acting now that we were having a normal conversation.
"I work for a vet."
"Like with cats and dogs and stuff?"
She was looking amused again. "Exactly."
"So it all fits together," I finished lamely. "We'll, I'll be going. Just wanted to let you know about your dog, but I guess you got it covered with your specialized knowledge and all." I was getting uptight again trying to get away without acting any more foolish. I was almost back to my yard when she called out.
"What's your name?"
"Oh, yeah. It's Huck."
"Like Finn?"
"Who?"
She looked at me like some people do at hummus, with an expression that was a cross between disgust and wonder.
"Just kidding," I said. "I know who he is."
"Never mind," she said. "Thanks for the visit."
"No problem," I said, and I actually pointed my index finger at her involuntarily, like a pistol. I was able to hold back a wink though. "Don't tell your dog I said anything. I don't want her on my bad side."
"You mean you don't want to be on her bad side?"
"That either," I said. This time I winked.
I wasn't always a stay-at-home slug. After I got out of the Navy in San Diego I put together a white R&B bar band that kind of hit it big after a few years of touring the west coast. We had a couple of singles. "I Wanna Be Your Dumpster Cat" hit #51 on the R&B charts, and "I'll Cook Your Bunny" made it up to #37, riding that crest mainly due to vaguely obscene lyrics. We toured clubs off and on for more than a year until everyone figured out we were hairy undernourished white guys in jeans and t-shirts instead of suave studs in sharkskin suits, and stopped buying the records. After that I drifted into frame carpentry.
I figured out the neighbor's name was Mira. In a lucky break, I got hold of some of her mail, almost by accident. I wanted another chance to chat with her, but when we finally did talk about something other than dog dirt I came away feeling like tenth place in five-dog race.
When I rang the bell, she answered the door in her scrubs and looked at me flatly.
"You must have just gotten home from work," I said smartly. I knew that she'd been home for seven minutes because I'd been watching out the window for an hour. I was hoping to catch her in a state of semi-undress from changing out of her work clothes, but I didn't wait long enough. It was a disappointment.
"Anyway, you must be Mira. I've got your mail." I had removed it from her box soon after it was delivered. I was hoping she didn't notice the faint reek of cat piss that was drifting off me. Batty had come home with a kitten so she'd have something to love, and instead of using the litter box, it preferred the clean clothes we piled on the sofa before they got around to being put away. At least my clothes stunk, maybe Batty put her own away before the kitten got to them. I didn't even know its name.
"Where's my Victoria's Secret catalog," Mira said. "In your bedroom with the pages stuck together?"
I laughed a little, hoping not nervously. "I haven't seen one of those in years," I said. "It's a good thing you didn't get one or it might be."
She gave me the look again. One of her dogs barked in the back yard.
"Did you steal this so you could bring it over here after I got off work in the hope you'd catch me changing?"
I probably swallowed my tongue a little. After I spit it up I gave a nervous laugh. "Yeah, that's me. Totally calculating."
I think she sneered a little, then closed the door.
Aside from my fear of Batty, which is the reason I stuck around, I was also scared of her father. Batty actually told me that if I tried to leave her I'd wake up one night to her pounding my skull into mush with a ball-peen hammer. I think her father would be happy to do worse.
Batty's father lived alone with his Kools and Budweisers in a manufactured home a few blocks away. He didn't like me much, which is fairly common in these types of family relationships. But he was pretty good with a grill, and I was always trying to angle for a dinner over there when I knew he was cooking something like a Boston butt. I came up with the idea once that we open a barbeque restaurant together, with him cooking and me handling the front of the house. I even had a name. I was sure he'd go for it because it was named after him.
"Wow-B-Que?" What the fuck is that?" he said when I proposed the idea one night after we demolished a particularly tender roast at his house.
"We'll call it 'Smitty's Wow-B-Que' 'cause you'll wow 'em with your bar-b-que."
"I know what the fuck it means," he said. I could swear he snarled like a dog. "It's stupid."
"Then we could just call it "Smitty's Bar-B-Que," I said. "Forget the 'Wow.' The food will speak for itself. No need to oversell it."
"I ain't going into business with you."
"Why not?"
"Because you're a fuckin' moron."
Batty sat there and smiled stupidly. She had potato salad on her upper lip. I didn't tell her.
One night Batty wanted to have Smitty over for dinner for a change. She was a vile cook but he didn't say a thing about the bland meat loaf or lumpy gravy. He just took it out on me more than usual. The only thing Smitty and I had in common was smoking. We were out back puffing away on his cigarettes and not talking to each other after dinner. He gave me a killer look when I bummed one, but didn't say anything. Mira let her dogs out in her yard and after a couple of minutes, the old one circled and dumped and the young one moved in for the kill. Smitty watched, gathered his thoughts, and said nothing for a minute.
"There's no way to tell for sure, but if that's not the stupidest dog in the world it's got to be in the top ten."
Batty sat upwind of us and smiled like she did at anything he said, no matter how obnoxious.
"There's probably some malnourished mutt in Haiti slinking around the slums trying not to catch cholera or end up in someone's stew pot," he said. "But I don't see how it could be much stupider than that dog."
The mutt in question was sniffing happily around the yard, oblivious to its status as possibly the least intelligent canine on earth.
"The poop eating, it's called coprophagia," I said, mangling the pronunciation, I was sure. "It's pretty common."
"I know what the fuck it's called," Smitty snapped.
"But not necessarily desirable," I concluded.
Smitty had no idea what it was called. He just couldn't have me knowing something he didn't, even on the subject of canine fecal consumption. It wasn't the natural order of things in Smitty's world.
"Anything that eats its own shit has to be the lowest of the low," he said.
I didn't bring up the point that, technically, it was the other dog's poop.
A week ago I would have silently agreed with him, but I was beginning to see the dog's view of things. You get what you can, no matter how terrible it tastes.
"Cholera," Batty said. "Dog cholera." She laughed. We both looked at her like she was crazy.
So despite my fear of Batty, and Smitty, I went over to visit Mira one night when they went bowling. I wasn
't invited because I usually beat Smitty by twenty pins, and he couldn't have that. I was out back smoking, something I never really get tired of doing, and daydreaming about how I could just pack my dusty guitar and CD's, my mementos, and the few non-cat piss smelling clothes I owned and drive away one day to a place where Batty would never go, like Memphis or Macon.
Mira stepped out her back door and picked her way barefoot across the yard, which was pretty clean thanks to the dog with the dietary issues. She was wearing a leather vest and daisy dukes. After I got a good look I had to adjust my pants right in front of her. Mira leaned on the fence and looked at me.
"Want to come over for a beer?"
"Why?" It was the only response I could imagine. I almost looked around to see who she was talking to.
"Because it's Friday."
"Is it?"
She strolled back to her house. "I'll leave the front door open."
I had to think about it and what would happen if Batty came home and I was next door with a woman, especially one in shorts like that and a vest that appeared to gape open invitingly in the front. Or even a man dressed that way. On our eleventh anniversary, Batty accused me of hitting on an effeminate waiter at The Red Lobster because she thought I overtipped him.
"It's a guy," I said.
"A pretty one though," she said. "Watch him walk."
"I'm not sure I should."
"Oh, you know you like it."
"I only left him five dollars," I said. "I don't think he liked that. I wouldn't have left that much if you hadn't sent your salad back twice."
"It was too green!"
"That's probably why he was making that pouty face at me."
"Look," Batty said sarcastically as we were leaving, "He's waving at you." She pinched my arm hard.
"Yeah, with one finger."
"Want some music?" Mira was fooling around with her iPod. She had one of those docking stations with a speaker on her coffee table. It seemed insubstantial. I'm a stereo component guy, a lasting result of serving in the Pacific. I liked something with some heft. Music was the one thing I still took seriously.
After deliberations and consideration of the ramifications—which took about fifteen seconds—I had run into the house and brushed my teeth after Mira invited me over, but didn't change clothes or shower because I didn't want to give her time to reconsider and lock the door.
"Got any James Brown in that thing?"
"Do you like J.D. Souther?" she said, ignoring my question.
"J.D. Souther? That lame soft rock dude?"
"His voice makes me wet."
"Put him on."
It felt strange to be sitting in her house, drinking beer and listening to a folksy crooner, but I went with it. By the second beer J.D. Souther was starting to grow on me. Mira wanted to talk, something Batty and I gave up on a decade ago.
"Tell me something that would make you interesting."
"Interesting to you, or a normal person?" I was getting the idea those were two different things entirely.
"Me."
"Besides the infected nipple?" I said trying for a joke.
"That doesn't count."
I thought. "My wife told me I have no empathy."
"And what did you say?"
"After I looked it up I kind of had to agree with her."
She looked at me for the first time not like something you scraped out of the litter box.
"That is interesting," she said. "I've been told that too."
"That's cool," I said. "But we don't need to have a contest to see who gives less of a shit about other people." The beer had loosened my tongue.
"I would win."
"I wouldn't bet against that."
"What else?" she said.
"What else what?"
"Makes you different."
I had to think again. This was getting to be like work. "I'm one of those people that you don't miss until they're gone."
"What's that mean?"
"People take me for granted when I'm around. Then when I'm not, they miss me."
"How do you know? Have they told you?"
"In so many words," I said. "If I haven't been to a place for a while the bartender will usually pour me a free one and say 'Where the fuck have you been Huck?!' or something like that."
She looked at me like there was more. I didn't want to mention the two records that charted. It was the one area of my life that I tried not to sully. I kept the albums and set lists and posters and press clippings and record company check receipts on the top shelf of the closet where even Batty didn't go—she was long past being impressed with any aspect of my short performing career.
"I'm two-time belt sander racing champion at the Skyhook Tavern." I thought that might grab her.
"I knew there was more to you than appears."
"There usually is," I said, not knowing what I meant.
"Why don't you have any kids?" she said.
"It just never happened. I think Batty's tubes are fucked up, but she blames it on me," I said. "She says I probably caught something from a hooker before she met me and sterilized myself."
Mira sipped her beer.
"You ever heard of anything like that?" I said, hoping to draw from her medical knowledge.
"Not in the animal world. I don't know about men."
"I wasn't any wilder than the next fellow," I said.
"You're not very complicated, are you?"
"Naw. I like to keep things simple. I learned that the hard way."
"So what are you doing over here?"
This had the scent of an ambush and threw me off track for a second. It's funny how you can be sitting around on your third beer of the evening and kind of relaxing with a hot babe that you had no right to be alone with for a number of reasons, and it all kind of puts you at ease until a question like that pops up. I wondered what she was playing at.
"Just sitting here drinking a beer with a neighbor," I said. "Nothing simpler than that."
"So you're just here for the beer?"
"You invited me, young lady," I said, trying to lighten the mood. I raised the beer to salute her.
Mira looked at me. "How much neighborliness can you stand?"
This was my cue to say 'as much as you can give me.' My little head doesn't do as much of the thinking for me as it used to, most of the time anyway, so now I was able to avoid doing something stupid. A few years ago I might have stood, walked over to her, looked into her upturned face, and showed her what I was there for. These days I wasn't sure if I was there for anything but the beer and the tease of an attractive younger woman.
"Probably about one more beer worth," I said, tilting my can.
She sat there showing me a lot of leg and I started rethinking my strategy because this was a situation that hadn't come my way in a long time.
"Don't you want to show me your tattoos or anything?" Mira said. "The way you've been looking at me I half expected you to be sitting here staring down my vest and drooling on my leg by now."
"Is that what you wanted?"
"Not really. It's what I expected."
I sat there with my beer and realized I was never going to know what anyone else was thinking about 95% of the time. Mira, Batty, Smitty—they all had something going on underneath that I would never guess.
"Well, truthfully, fifteen years ago I would have done exactly that."
"And fifteen years ago I would have been ten."
"That wouldn't have worked out too well then."
"Not legally anyway," she said. "But I've always liked older guys."
I uncomfortably contemplated this drift in the conversation.
"Why are you so skinny anyway?" she said.
"Just my nature. That and the fact that everything my wife cooks smells like feet."
"You're not on meth or anything?"
"I just don't eat a lot, for obvious reasons." I almost felt bad about criticizing Batty's cooking to a near-stranger, but I let that go.
"Her father can cook up a storm though." I was about to tell her about the terror that is Smitty, when a Harley—you can tell by the timbre—came down the street, pulled up in the driveway and shut down. I glanced out the window and watched a big guy dismount, open Mira's garage door, and push the bike inside. I looked at Mira like what the fuck?
She gazed at me in innocence. "He's a friend," was all she said, looking like the cat that ate the something.
I was still contemplating how completely I'd been snookered and was starting to get up to leave when the guy, who was about six-three and looked like a biker from a commercial instead of a real one, strode into the house, kissed Mira on the cheek, then walked up to me and put his hand out. He walked like his boots didn't fit.
"Katzenjammer," he said.
More foreign lingo. "What?"
"Katzenjammer."
Was this all he could say? "Sorry, I don't speak German."
"Clyde Katzenjammer," he said in perfect English. "It's my name."
I just looked at him, then her, and tried to wrap my mind around what was happening. His biker vest, chaps and boots looked brand new. His hair was wavy and recently had attention from a blow drier.
"You any good with a video camera?" Katzenjammer said. His voice intonated like the guy that does Batty's hair.
This was more confusion. "I've had some practice."
"Good. We want you to film us."
"Film you what?"
"Doing something," Katzenjammer said. His expression was strangely coy, one I've never seen on any biker's face, even a fake one.
"Something special," Mira said with an uncharacteristically shy grin. She was sunk back into the sofa with her beer. J. D. Souther was supposedly doing his work. Katzenjammer got a beer and lowered himself next to her. Together they looked ready for a Halloween party.
"We've been wanting to do this for a while and Mira said we could trust you to film it."
"Who are you?" I asked Katzenjammer. "The boyfriend?"
"No nothing like that. We just get together once a year for this."
"And we'd like you to be part of it this time," Mira said.
"By filming." Katzenjammer said. "You can't really participate, because you'll be behind the camera, unfortunately."
