Dodger

by Dan Gallagher

13

  “HOLY SHIT DUDE, THAT WAS awesome!”

  Ray and his girlfriend Angie are there to greet me as I walk out the front doors. Rain pounds the Earth something fierce, which explains why most of the theater goers have dissipated. My friends slap me on the back, grinning. I smile and give them both hugs.

  “Hey, thanks, guys. Thanks for coming out.”

  Ray scoffs. “Like we'd miss opening night? Come on!”

  “Seriously, Jim? You were great. I had no idea you could act like that.” Angie lights a cigarette, offers me one. I decline.

  “Oh, no thanks. I quit.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup.”

  Ray elbows his better half. “See? If this guy can quit, anyone can.”

  “Oh shut up.”

  She exhales and as the smoke wafts my way, I can't help feeling somewhat nostalgic. I was a smoker for ten years – even with patches and nicotine gum the craving comes back once in awhile. I enjoy the secondhand and look up into the night.

  “Cats and dogs, huh?”

  Ray sighs. “Yup. We're parked way the hell over on Balmoral.”

  “Dude, that's like seven blocks.”

  “Well, Angie's the worst navigator of all time.”

  Now she elbows him. “Hey, I used the GPS.”

  “Whatever. Where's Kara?”

  “Oh, she has a few more things to take care of before she can leave. Director stuff.”

  “So no dinner?”

  “No, she'll meet us over there. The reservation is for nine thirty though, so if we're gonna make it we have to take your car.”

  Ray pops his five fingered Peninsula Hotel umbrella, which is big enough to shield all three of us.

  “All righty, then. Let's do it.”

  Lowry's is buzzing but not too packed as we saunter in. The hostess takes us to our table and before the waiter can even explain the specials, Ray orders a bottle of the finest champagne in the house. I raise my eyebrows.

  “Really, Ray?”

  “Fuck yeah, dude! It's a special night.”

  I don't argue. When the bottle arrives the waiter goes to open it, but Angie stops him.

  “Oh, wait, not yet! There's still one more coming.”

  We order some appetizers and shoot the shit while we wait for Kara. It turns out Ray got promoted at work and will now be the Vice President of Operations for his branch, resulting in a hefty pay increase and better hours. In addition to that, Angie's father, who was diagnosed with cancer a year ago, finished his last chemotherapy session yesterday. The cancer has been eradicated.

  Now the champagne makes sense. I knew it wasn't just for me.

  We laugh and gab and reminisce about the old days, when Ray and Angie first hooked up. She was living with this crazy cokehead Melissa, who would bring random guys over all the time and eat all the food and drink all the booze and plug in her stupid tanning light and let it burn until the sun came up and still expect Angie to split all the bills evenly. She had to get out of there so only after three months of dating Ray she moved into our oversized dump in Rogers Park, infiltrating our bachelor pad and basically making me a perpetual fifth wheel. Third wheel. Whatever.

  “I never did get to say I'm sorry for that, Jim,” she says. “I just couldn't live with that psycho anymore. And with no family out here... I had nowhere else to go, really.”

  “It's cool,” I say, munching on a steak crostini. “Any ill will I might have had is long gone. It all worked out, baby!”

  And it did. If Angie hadn't moved in with us I never would've started drinking so much, which means I wouldn't have been sitting on that stool that fateful night, which means I never would've hooked up with Kara.

  It's funny how all the weird shit in life happens for a reason.

  And most of the time it's in downpours, not drizzles.

  The ice in the champagne bucket is all but melted as Kara finally arrives.

  “Hi! Sorry I'm late, you guys.”

  She gives me a scintillating smooch on the lips and sits down. Ray motions to the waiter and he's there in a heartbeat.

  “Are we ready?” he asks.

  “Yes, Jeremy, we are. Pop that bad boy open.”

  He goes to work. Kara raises her eyebrows.

  “Wow, champagne? What's the occasion?”

  I look at Ray, who's smiling like a goofball, then at Angie, whose hand is outstretched. At first I'm confused but then spot it.

  A rock the size of Gibraltar.

  “We're engaged!”

  Jeremy pops the champagne and the cork goes flying. Someone behind us yells “Opa!” as Ray and Angie kiss. I glance at Kara, who's almost as shocked as I am.

  I turn back to my oldest friend and his fiancee.

  “Well, hell yeah!” I shout, raising my glass. “Salud!”

  We cheers, and drink, and all throughout dinner I can only think about one thing.

  I want to marry Kara.

  When we get back to my place she jumps my bones immediately.

  “God, you were so good tonight, babe,” she says, brushing my bangs aside. “I got so hot when you dropped to your knees at the end. That was exactly how I saw it in my head. You were just... incredible.”

  She starts kissing my neck and I let her. My head is buzzing from the champagne and I'm sure hers is too. Not drinking all the time has made us both lightweights and nowadays if I have two beers I'm slurring. It's kind of lame but also pretty cool. I spend less money and have more energy and can really tell when I've had too much, which keeps me from making a complete jackass of myself. Or telling some random reporter my whole life story.

  All in all it's a good thing.

  I kiss her face, her lips, her ears. I sweep her up in my arms and into the bedroom, where we almost break our crazy necks tearing each other's clothes off. We make fierce love, our bodies writhing in the night, and when I finally explode inside her my orgasm carries me off the Earth and into the great beyond. I'm sustained in suspended orbit and couldn't come down if I tried.

  I collapse next to her and she settles into the broken in groove on my chest, kissing it lightly as she makes little Mmm sounds. Each time she does the vibration goes through my chest, and more endorphins flow from my head to my heart to my toes. I close my eyes and smile.

  I can't picture myself with anyone else. I don't want to be with anyone else. This is it, my chance to be happy forever, in the person of this person, this goddess, this angel. Even with my eyes closed she's all I see, all I want, all I feel. I'm all in.

  Mmm.

  I'm halfway to Dreamland when my stupid phone goes off in the living room. I'm expecting a buzz from my weed guy so I get up to grab it, careful not to wake Kara.

  I freeze when I see who's calling.

  Paiger.

  Shit.

  I haven't heard from her since the last time we talked, when she told me our story was no more, when she told me everything I told her was completely and utterly useless because it was old news. That my story was dead. That the Dodger was dead.

  Why the fuck would she be calling me now?

  I answer just for an answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello. Jim.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It's Paige. Long time no talk.”

  “Yeah.”

  There's silence as the fact that we're actually talking to each other sinks in. I break it.

  “So what's up?”

  “Oh, not much. Just wanted to see how you were.”

  “Well I'm great, thanks for asking.”

  “Good.”

  “Great.”

  “I saw you were in that show. Kara's show.”

  “Yup.”

  “How was opening night?”

  “Wonderful, thank you.”

  “Did you kill it?”

  “Why are you calling me at one in the morning, Paiger?”

  “Well. Down to business, I see.”

  “I was sleeping, goddamn it.”

&nb
sp; “Sorry.”

  “Just tell me why the hell you're calling.”

  She clears her throat. “Okay. Um... well, it happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “Our book deal. It finally happened.”

  I sit back on the couch, the ball of nerves in my stomach tightening. “What?”

  “Our story. Grayson Publishing is going to publish it.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? I never wrote a book.”

  “I did.”

  My stomach sinks. I almost throw up.

  “Um... what?”

  “I wrote a book, Jim. About you. About Kara. About all of it.”

  “You... wrote a book. Like a novel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Detailing what?”

  “All the shit that happened with Kara.”

  My stomach sinks further, past my lower intestine, all the way down to my colon. I almost shit myself.

  “Paige... what the hell? You can't do that. I never signed off on anything like that!”

  “Well, it's only a loose representation. I don't need your approval.”

  “Bullshit you don't!”

  “Jim... look, I don't feel like discussing this over the phone. Meet me at Crazy Dan's for lunch tomorrow.”

  “Meet yourself, you story stealer!”

  “Don't be an infant. I'll see you at one.”

  Click. I don't get the chance to tear her a new one but figure it'll be much more effective in person.

  What the hell.

  Kara has to be at work by eleven so she's usually up by nine. After our morning sex I lay in bed and pretend to sleep while she gets ready. I don't want to have to mention my conversation with Paiger or the fact that I'm meeting her for lunch. My mind races.

  Jesus.

  Where does she get off? I told her that stuff in strict confidence. Well, with the intent of sharing some of it among Channel Eight's viewing public. But a book is a whole other entity. If anyone's going to write a book about the Dodger, shouldn't it be me, the actual Dodger? And what does loose representation mean? She changed the names? Instead of dodging a bullet, I dodge an arrow? She makes Kara a dude?

  Christ.

  My only comfort is knowing that she was totally bombed during the whole note taking process. That should muddle the composition quite a bit. Maybe she filled in the gaps with some really awesome adventures or jokes. Maybe she just used our story as a skeleton for a bedazzling and spectacular foundation upon which to build a fictional masterpiece for the ages.

  Or it could suck ass.

  Kara leans over the bed and kisses me on the lips. I open my eyes and smile.

  “Bye.”

  “Bye. I'll call you later.”

  She leaves. I stare at the ceiling and sigh.

  I hope it's just the skeleton, cause if there's any meat on those bones I'm fucked.

  I manage a few more hours of shut eye and get to Crazy Dan's around one thirty. To hell with it – let her wait.

  She's sitting in the same booth she was the first time we met here, only now instead of feverishly scribbling in a notebook, she's texting on an IPhone sporting a contemptuous glare. My how things change in a year. Well, nine months.

  I sit. She doesn't even look up. I knock on the table, slightly hard, and she jumps.

  “Hey, Paiger!”

  She slants her eyes at me and puts down the phone. “Hi, Jim.”

  The waitress comes by, the same one we had last time, and fills my coffee cup. Paiger and I stare at each other in silence for what seems like eternity. Finally:

  “You look good.”

  I stare harder. “What?”

  “You look good. You look fit. Healthy. You wear it well.”

  The compliment catches me off guard but calms me down. I sip. “Thanks. I quit smoking. And drinking.”

  “You quit drinking?”

  “Just the fact that you say it like that tells me I made the right decision.”

  “Well, of course. I just didn't see that coming.”

  “It was either quit or be miserable forever. And misery gets really boring.”

  “No doubt.”

  She takes a sip, smiling, but I don't let her prettiness overtake me. Even contemptuous, she's still really hot.

  “So... you wrote a book.”

  She stiffens, sits back. “Yeah. Yeah I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I had all that good material. I couldn't just let it go to waste.”

  “But it's my story!”

  “I told you, it's a loose represen---”

  “Yeah, yeah. Look, I have to read it.”

  “You will. It hits bookstores tomorrow.”

  “What?!”

  “Yeah. The publishers think it's going to be an overnight success. They said it's really good.”

  She sips again, and I just stare at her, speechless. She smiles.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Since I am I order a Denver omelet and tell the waitress to keep the coffee coming. I've always wanted to say that but can't enjoy the moment this minute.

  “Okay... Paiger, I have to read it.”

  “You'll have to wait until tomorrow.”

  “Not to sound like a broken record, but it's my story!”

  “I'm prepared to offer you a deal, Jim.”

  “The only deal I wanted was the book deal. Thief.”

  “Ten thousand dollars, and ten percent of the first run's sales.”

  Now it's my turn to sit back. “Really.”

  “Yeah. But on one condition.”

  “What's that?”

  “You stop being the Dodger.”

  “What?”

  She sighs. “You never talk about dodging that bullet ever again. If someone recognizes you as the Dodger, you say, no, that wasn't me, I just look like him. Ask your family and friends never to bring it up again, to anyone, because it's embarrassing. It didn't happen to you.”

  “But the people who know me are going to know it's about me!”

  “It's a handful of people, Jim. You're not that popular.”

  “Kick me when I'm down. Great.”

  “Hey.” She puts her hands flat on the table and looks at me. “Do you think, for one second, people really remember the whole Dodger thing? Like really remember it? For most regular people it's a bedtime story they once heard, or a movie they saw, or a bad joke they tried to forget. It's a fable. And when they read my book, they'll think, 'Hey, I've heard this story before, but I don't remember where or when.' That's what'll connect them to it. And make them buy it. And recommend it.”

  She leans back. Chills run down my spine as I stare at her.

  “Wow, you are pure evil.”

  “Oh, grow up. Take the deal.”

  “What if I get a lawyer involved? What if I sue you for defamation of character?”

  “Do you even know what that means?”

  “I can look it up.”

  “Well, the character's not named Jim Bailey.”

  “So you at least did change the names.”

  “Of course I did. Idiot.”

  I cradle my head in my hands and try to keep it from exploding. “I have to read it.”

  Paiger eyes me for the longest time, then finally breaks. She pulls a paperback out of her purse and tosses it to me. I stare at the cover art, which is of an unusually large bullet speeding toward an unusually small heart.

  Written inside the heart is Dodger. Written on the bullet is A Novel, By Paige Scott.

  I drop it and run to the bathroom, where I do, at long last, throw up.

  I return to find the check taken care of and the novel still in my omelet. Paiger is nowhere to be seen but has left a note:

  Jim, read it. Then get back to me. Paige.

  I grab the book and fly out the door.