“I live in West Hollywood, Tommy. It’s a nice part…”
“West Hollywood? Isn’t that where all the fags live? You hang out with a bunch of queers?”
“Well, I do have some gay, lesbian and transgender friends, if that’s what you mean.”
“Yeah, right.” Focusing his attention back on his plate, Tommy Joe shook his head in disbelief. It then took him about ninety seconds to devour the rest of his sausages, two servings of green beans and about twenty tater tots. “Thanks for the grub, Patty. I’m out of here… don’t wait up…”
The teenager’s sister stood and protested, “But wait… where are you going?” but it was too late. Like a starving wolf in search of suckling piglets, the kid had vanished into the night leaving me and Patty looking across the table at each other.
As we finished our meal, my dinner companion told me about her conversation with Bernie earlier this afternoon. Needless to say, with the story originating from me, Deputy Dawg was fairly skeptical, but Patty showed her the fragments of the Cadillac she had collected and urged the deputy to at least drive out and confirm the existence of the bomb crater. After a brief discussion, the deputy agreed to let Patty show her the site of the explosion Monday morning. If there was anything to it, which she doubted, Bernie would want to question me that afternoon. I nodded, thanked Patty, then, with our “business” taken care of, we moved into the living room.
Demure, my young hostess asked if I would light the fireplace so, rising to the call of manly virtue, I said sure. How hard can it be, I thought… Seeing a box of matches on the mantel, I took one out, struck it, held it under a log… and it went out. Undaunted, I struck another, and another, and another… bewildered, I looked over at Patty, barely concealing a giggle. Finally after another minute or so, she took pity, grabbed some newspaper and kindling and lit the fire. We laughed and sat side by side on the couch. The TV was on, showing an old CSI rerun or some boring crap, but neither of us was watching; except for the twin flickerings of tube and tinder, the room was dark. The wine bottle was more than half empty as I poured more Chardonnay into my Mason jar, took a couple of sips, then turned to look at Patty. Returning my gaze, her eyes glazed over as her mouth, surrounded by moist and inviting lips, glistened in the firelight.
Pausing to place the jar on the floor, I turned back, immediately kissing Patty full on the mouth. Without hesitation, her tongue found mine and they danced back and forth, igniting the unspoken passion flowing back and forth between us all evening. I slipped my hand under her top and grabbed a breast, eliciting a clearly audible moan as the eager young woman reached her arms around my neck, pulling me closer. Consumed by passion, we slid over, laying side by side on the couch, eagerly kissing, groping and undressing each other. I pulled her tube top down, exposing her breasts to my tongue. With Patty’s moans growing louder, she tangled her fingers into my hair, jamming my face against her breasts. Grabbing her crotch, I rubbed my hand against the fabric of her tight jeans, unbuttoned her pants, and pulled them down to her knees, causing both of us to tumble off the couch and onto the carpeted floor.
If anything, the pace of our lovemaking only accelerated as we rolled across the floor ending passionately entwined before the fireplace. Our mouths locked together once more, tongues darting in and out like two snakes in a slavish and savage embrace. Reaching my hand down into her panties, I felt the wetness between her legs, immediately causing Patty to arch her back, pushing her pelvis hard against my hand. Suddenly her fingers were holding my dick, stroking it back and forth causing me to match her moans, the two of us filling the empty air with the feverish music of lust.
Slipping my pants down to my knees, I rolled Patty onto her back, easing my torso between her legs as they locked around my back. Rubbing my hard cock against her panties, I felt her wetness through the thin fabric. After two or three strokes I paused, preparing for the final assault, causing Patty to look up at me, her eyes pleading. “I love you, Frank, I love you…” she moaned. “Do you love me? Do you?”
Startled, the sudden sound of words, questions, vocal assertions, thrust into the midst of our debauched and animal lovemaking, caused me to hesitate… to consider… to take assessment… and just as suddenly I was impaled by the unassailable fact that I didn’t love her… that I was wholly propelled by lust to fuck a nice kid who looked like she could be my baby sister… okay, I didn’t HAVE a baby sister, but the young woman beneath me was pristine, perfect and pure, an ideal of innocence before it’s twisted by lust, distorted by desire, warped by the ravaging fire that only consumes and never fulfills. How could I fuck it?
What was I thinking, I asked myself. It’s only sex, but somehow, I found myself outside it, no longer engaged in the act, no longer hurtling ahead, no longer squeezing, pushing and licking as if the fate of the world depended on the sudden and violent discharge of my no longer mighty member.
“What’s wrong, Frank?”
The next morning I woke up on the couch, alone. I found a note from Patty on the kitchen table, explaining that she had left for church and would be back a little before noon. I was welcome to whatever I could find to eat.
The previous night, laying nearly naked in each other’s arms, I made a pitiful attempt to explain my lack of… what?… staying power? But no matter how much a guy professes exhaustion, alcohol excess or the reality of random dysfunction, there’s never an adequate explanation for the failure of one’s manly hard… uh, software.
I got up, dressed and was about to check out the kitchen when in galloped Patty’s brother, Tommy Joe, apparently having been out all night doing whatever teenagers do. The kid was surprised to see me. “Hey, whoa… what have we got here? Looks like the L.A. dude stayed over… how was it, stud? My sis is a pretty cute trick, huh!”
“Uh, look, Tommy… uh, it wasn’t exactly like that…”
“Wasn’t exactly like what, cousin? Wasn’t exactly like a hot piece of ass… what’s the matter… disappointed my big sis ain’t like all those hot L.A. babes?
“No… no.. you see…”
“Yeah, I see. Wait ’til old Duane hears about this! WOO HOO! I wouldn’t trade places with you for a million buckaroonies… he’ll turn you into Silly Putty, dude, then eat your eyeballs out of spite… something to look forward to, huh?”
“You don’t understand, Tommy Joe…” But it was too late. The kid had already headed up the stairs three steps at a time, slamming his bedroom door behind him a split second later.
Great… not only did I have a dysfunctional dick, but Patty’s brother was going to tell her mad moose boyfriend that I screwed his sister. Talk about lose-lose… if I was going to get my ass kicked, at least I could’ve gotten some action for it… and it wasn’t even 10 a.m. yet. Talk about a shitty way to start your day…
At that point, I figured I’d better move on. I wanted to make it right with Patty, but didn’t exactly know what to say… and who knows, the moose might show up any minute. It was time to head for safer ground.
And when you’re stuck in Clinton, Missouri, what could possibly be more benign than Terry’s Café? By now Terry’s was practically my second home… Jesus, did I really say that?… but sure as shit, after walking into the small café and basking in the bouquet of bacon, eggs and hot buttered toast—the awesome aroma of grease—a warm feeling welled up inside of me… okay, maybe it was just hunger, I often get those mixed up, but Terry’s suddenly seemed like THE place to be. Of course, before entering I scanned the street for Duane’s Moosemobile, but it was a quiet Sunday morning. The place seemed safe enough.
I ordered my breakfast then sat sipping a cup of coffee, reflecting on the strange events of the last several days. It had been almost two weeks since I first learned about the sad, abandoned body of Wilmer Graves, and during that time I had gone from a casual observer to alarmingly close to… something… something not only incomprehensible, but teeming with twisted implications. And if that wasn’t enough, I had gotten myself involved wi
th a young woman who was far too nice, far too naïve and, for some reason, far too interested in me… and worst of all, I COULDN’T EVEN DO IT! Oh shit, I know all the rationalizations and maybe some of them were even true, but nothing makes a guy feel worse than a droopy dick… a poopy pecker… an irrelevant rod… and I couldn’t stop thinking about it! It’s always the same. You can rip off ten, twenty, screaming, scratching, eyeballs-rolled-back-forever FUCK ME! FUCK ME!s in a row, then it’s one wilted willy and… OH-MY-GOD-WHAT’S-HAPPENED-WILL-IT-EVER-WORK-AGAIN!!!… and it nags the shit out of you until it does. Doubt… failure… feeble… useless… pathetic… lame… all swarming around your brain like bees abusing a legless lamb. I mean, usually when this shit happens, you have a girlfriend or a wife or somebody you’re doing on a regular basis, so it’s like falling off a horse, hopefully a cute horse, and you just jump back on and everything is okay again, but if you’re not with someone… if you’re all alone in Armpit, Missouri, and the only bonkable babe is a sweet young thing who works for the sheriff and also happens to have the Hulk for a boyfriend… well, it’s not quite as easy as let’s get it on.
My breakfast had long since arrived but somehow faded into irrelevance. I picked at my food, my mind wracked with doubt, until, with half a plate of cold scrambled eggs, hash browns and bacon staring at me, I gave up and headed toward the cash register. After paying my bill and counting the change, I looked up—WHAT THE FUCK!… a large black-and-white cruiser pulled up in front of the café. Great! After ducking out the back door, I hastily retreated to the safety of my motel room.
After leaving Terry’s I found a convenience store where I could buy a fresh fifth of Jack and then proceeded to down most of it that afternoon and evening watching football. A worthless exercise in squandered time to be sure, but I was tired of thinking, tired of being horny and most of all, tired of feeling lonely and, in that regard, the Jack did its job; but television is a lazy diversion, leading to lethargy, despondence and passing out with an almost empty bottle of booze on your chest.
A little later I was awakened by a loud and insistent knock on the door. Barely conscious, I staggered across the room, leaned against the wall and said, “Who… who’s… there?”
“It’s Patty, Frank. Let me in.”
Patty? Patty? The name was familiar but I was having a problem pinning it on a person. “Patty? Patty? Where… where do I know you from… Patty?”
“Frank! Stop joking around! I want to talk to you.” The voice was familiar, but still… I couldn’t quite place it. “Frank, c’mon… it’s cold out here!”
“Okay… okay…” I reached over, unlocked the door and opened it wide enough to peek out. “Oh… Patty, of course… I remember you… come in… come in.” I tripped and nearly fell over backwards making room for the overly animated young woman to enter the small motel room.
“Frank… what’s wrong with you? What… you… you’re drunk! You’re drunk, Frank! I was worried and came to see what happened to you… and you’re drunk!”
“No… I’m not really… drunk… I just had a few…”
“A few! I see the bottle on your bed… What’s wrong with you? Why did you just disappear? We had a nice evening together… I thought we had something going, Frank, and okay, maybe the sex stuff didn’t work out, but we can fix that… but you… all you can do is hide out in a motel and get drunk? Is that the best you can do, Frank?” I stared at the floor, then slumped back onto the bed… numb and brainless, I could only think of how remarkably few hiding places the small motel room offered. “Answer me, Frank! Is this the best you can do!”
Briefly looking at Patty for the first time, I saw anger mixed with disappointment… somehow without even trying, I had failed again. “I… I’m sorry, Patty. I didn’t mean…”
“You should be sorry, Frank! You should be sorry… I made a nice dinner for you… we were having a great time… and just because you lost your erection… is that what this is all about, Frank? Because if it is…”
“No… Patty… no… well, maybe, just a little… you see…”
“I see… I do see, Frank. I see a man who just broke up with his wife and he’s lonely… and wants to connect with someone, but he doesn’t exactly know how… is that right, Frank?
“Well, I don’t know…” Staring at the bedspread, I noticed how the little rows of tufted cotton balls undulated across its surface like miniature hills and valleys. There was something almost soothing about the regularity of…
“Look at me, Frank… look at me… be real.”
In a stupor, my gaze moved from the bedspread to Patty’s eyes which were somehow hard and soft at the same time. And as I looked, we connected, as if the opposite poles of electromagnets were suddenly charged, compelling and driving us together, fueled by forces of friction, desperation and lust.
It was over in a matter of minutes… maybe seconds. The frenzied ripping away of clothing, at least enough to bare the essential parts, was awkward and crude but ultimately efficient. Somehow, even in my feeble and wasted state, I was able to get it up… up enough at least, and in… and three or four strokes later, it was over. And that was it… my tolerance and capacity for dealing with a world far beyond my control was shriveled, shattered and shot… at least for today.
Patty woke me up at 6:15 the next morning. She had to be at work at 7:00 and wanted to brief me on the day’s activities before leaving to grab a quick breakfast at Terry’s. Toweling herself dry after getting out of the shower, she said, “Did you hear me, Frank? Did you?”
To begin with, the words “morning” and “person” are never uttered in conjunction with Franklin Blodgett, but today was special. A spongy mixture of mush and mud on the best of mornings, my brain was totally paralyzed by throbbing pain, courtesy of yesterday’s Black Jack. I replied… weakly, “Huh… whassat…”
“C’mon, Frank… now listen. I’ll be taking Bernie out to the bomb crater around 9:00 or 9:30 and I’m almost certain she’ll want to see you after that, so you should come to the office around noon. We’ll be back by then… got it?”
“Huh… yeah… office… noon… I got it.”
“And Frank…”
“Huh?”
“Underneath it all, you’re an okay guy. I like you a lot.” And with that she threw her arms around my neck, gave me a huge smacker on the mouth and bolted out the door.
“Yeah… I, uh, like you too… uh…” As my voice trailed off, my newly authenticated lover abruptly disappeared. Stumbling over to the window, I barely made out the outline of Patty’s Jeep speeding away, but the sun beaming through the curtains hit me like a hammer in the hands of King Kong. Unable to face the day, I wobbled back toward the bed and collapsed, instantly disappearing into a deep sleep.
Two hours later, consciousness creeped back toward the neighborhood of my brain, which was clearly not a good thing. Lurching into the bathroom, I took four ibuprofens, drank a huge glass of water and stumbled into the shower. Laying in the tub, I felt the water washing over and around me like a warm summer rain… in hell. The pain pounded against the back of my eyeballs like an eager invasion of rats, gleefully jabbing away with tiny icepicks.
But as I laid there, the pain slowly ebbed away. And as the throbbing diminished and the mental haze began to clear, my cognitive power slowly returned. So I fucked Patty last night… or she fucked me… or something like that. This was not going to make things better.
Finally, after nearly an hour in the shower, I decided to brave the outside world. Breakfast at Terry’s was out. Duane was obviously a regular at the local diner and, having more or less hosed his girlfriend last night, crossing the big guy’s path was a no-show on my priority list.
My head still slightly pounding, I hopped in the Sonic and took off. A quick cruise around Clinton revealed Dave’s Donuts and suddenly the thought of sugar and fat, washed down with a quart of coffee, seemed like a great idea. If everything worked out as planned, I still had to meet with Deputy Dawg and c
learly needed to be semi-coherent.
Desperately seeking refuge, I peeked inside. The place was not only still and quiet, but the sound of classical music softly filtered through the room, reinforcing the feeling of calm. Round and serene, the guy behind the counter, apparently Dave, looked a little like Buddha wearing a white apron. The place was perfect. As I walked in, he was just setting a tray of fresh goodies in the display case. It looked like I had made a good decision.
“Two glazed, one jelly and one chocolate… oh yeah, and a gigantic coffee… thanks, Dave.”
“…not Dave… Dave’s a stupid prick… here… three bucks… pay now.” Thrusting the coffee and confections in my general direction, not-Dave seriously contradicted my worldview. Oh well, he was still round… fat, actually… surly and fat. Not anxious for interaction, I quietly slunk to a table across the room. Determined to jump-start the job of rejuvenation, I kept my head down as the chubby cook rattled dishes, pots and pans in the sink… loudly.
Suddenly, three teenagers came bursting into the room carrying a huge boom box, which, unless I was mistaken, was blaring out the music of Vanilla Ice. VANILLA ICE? Man, the neighborhood was going down fast. I mean, okay, I’m not a huge fan of rap, or hip-hop or whatever, but white guys doing it? No way! And this shit was uncool twenty years ago. At least they could be disturbing my morning with something that’s uncool now, like Keisha or Justin Bieber. The kids, white of course, were wearing typical “gangsta” drag: coats about three sizes too big, low-slung pants, black knit caps and sunglasses.
At this point, breaking through the cacophony, came the piercing voice of not-Dave. “Look, I told you kids a million times, Dave won’t stand for no music but operas and stuff in here, so turn it off! I don’t care, but Dave says it gives the place class, so stop! Okay? You want me to lose my job?” Not-Dave was not happy. Anxiety tightened the skin across his face like a paunchy pink balloon about to burst.
The Brickeaters Page 8
