DEATH AT THE DRIVE-IN
CHAPTER ONE
“But that’s double the rent!” Billie Jenkins complained as she followed her landlord into the dimly lit backstage area. “You can’t just double the rent.” Billie raked her fingers through her graying hair, her mind racing to find the words to convince him to reconsider. “It’s taken me nearly three years to write Her Majesty’s Lorgnette and find the right cast and crew for this Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre, and it was going well.”
He flipped a switch but the hallway remained dark. He jiggled it up and down and grumbled.
“That was like that,” Billie said, hoping she wouldn’t be blamed for breaking it. “And besides an article and a positive review in the local Dutchess County papers, we were mentioned in the entertainment section of the Sunday Times. That’s the New York Sunday Times,” she elaborated in case he didn’t know. Never mind that the journalist’s car broke down a block from the theatre and he took in a performance while waiting for the tow truck. Billie thought. A mention’s a mention.
With the success and critical acclaim, as Billie liked to put it, Her Majesty’s Lorgnette could run another six months or more, depending on word of mouth. Seeing license plates from Connecticut, New Jersey, and New England states in the theatre’s parking lot gave Billie renewed hope that people enjoyed going to the theatre to experience a good play.
The legal fees for her divorce had left Billie deep in debt, but she felt it was well worth the twenty-five grand to get rid of Sully. And then, typical of Sully, he died within six months of the final decree. She railed about that, even going so far as to say he’d done it on purpose, just to leave her under a mound of legal bills that could have been avoided if he’d died sooner. Plus, she could have played the grieving widow rather than the bitter divorcee. Then news arrived that she was still the sole beneficiary on his life insurance policy.
“To Sully,” she’d laughed ironically, lifting a glass of Chardonnay in his honor after depositing the $250,000 check in her account. She promptly purchased several acres of land and had a log cabin built to her specifications. Atlas, her polydactyl cat, grumbled about the move from the Bronx apartment to the freshly hewn cabin, until he discovered the field mice and frogs he could swat around with his six-toed paws.
And just like that, her landlord was threatening to put an end to her livelihood.
“I can. And I did,” he said coldly and pushed open the door to the men’s dressing room. “Look at this mess!” Dust motes hung listlessly in the unmoving air in a slant of muted sunlight through the one window in the small room. He pointed at a large jagged hole in the plasterboard ceiling above the makeup table. “You and your actors,” he spat the word. “You’ve ruined my theatre. I’ve half a mind to sue you.”
“You’ve half a mind alright,” Billie agreed angrily. “My actors didn’t make that hole. A couple of your dog-sized rats had that plasterboard for lunch. Nearly scared the shit out of my guys when they came falling down on them.”
“Ooh, I’m sure it made them smudge their lipstick.” His sarcasm twisted his face.
“You’re sounding pretty homophobic. Actors wear makeup, get over it.”
“It’s all the damn food you bring in here.”
“It’s a dinner theatre,” Billie argued. “You knew there was going to be food. But we’ve been super careful about removing every speck of food after each performance.”
“Look at those stains on my carpet.” He pointed to a series of six silver dollar-size brown stains.
“That was from a bloody nose after a dueling scene. But I’ll have you know I bought this carpeting - I’ve got the receipt to prove it - because what was there was horrid and reeked of mildew. And I’ve got the photos of the old crap being ripped out and this new stuff being installed.”
“Who gave you permission to remove the carpeting that was here?” he demanded.
“Are you serious? Now you’re talking like a madman.” The rent check trembled in her hand. “You’ll be putting a dozen actors and six crew members out of work,” she pleaded. “One of the only forms of real entertainment in this town.”
He stomped down the dimly lit corridor to the women’s dressing room. “Pigs!” he shouted, banging wide the door.
“What?” Billie asked, her eyes searching the cramped room for any signs of discarded food or clothing. “That’s a pretty tidy room if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.” He turned and headed back toward the center aisle.
“Why are you doing this? You just want us out?”
“You can stay.”
“But the rent’s double,” Billie stated.
He stopped abruptly, Billie nearly banging into him. “The rent’s double,” he agreed.
“Where do you expect me to come up with that kind of money?” Fear made her voice crack. “What am I going to tell my actors and crew?” she thought aloud.
“Not my concern.” He strode up the inclined aisle and pushed wide the double doors to the lobby. “Pay up or you’re out the end of the week.”
“I want my month’s security back.” Billie said, glad she remembered; knowing it would be more difficult to get it once she’d left the theatre.
The landlord chuckled. “Not with all this damage.”
“Hey, now, wait a minute. You can’t do that.”
He laughed louder.
“I could take you to court,” Billie bluffed.
“My brother-in-law’s the mayor.” He flashed an ugly grin at her. “Pay up or you’re out the end of the week,” he repeated.
Billie’s mouth guppied. She could not comprehend the man’s meanness and indifference. “Fuck you!” Billie shouted and shoved open the glass door to the sidewalk. “No, really. Fuck you!”
“You’ve always been a class act, Billie,” he called after her and chuckled.
“Oh, what are you lookin’ at?!” Billie shouted at a startled passerby. “If Dwyer were here he’d kick that son-of-a-bitch bastard’s ass for him,” she muttered as she strode toward her car, the rent check still clenched in her hand. “No-good tightfisted fascist cheapskate,” she grumbled and unlocked the car. “Now what am I going to do?” she asked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Thank God it’s Monday and the theatre’s dark. But I still gotta call my cast and crew and tell ‘em they’re out of work. “Greedy son-of-a-bitch bastard shithead!”
She pulled away from the curb a little too quickly and the sudden blare of a car horn made her jam on the brake. “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Billie said in response to the other driver’s angry hand gesture. She gave a timid smile and a quick wave. “Drivin’ away thinkin’, ‘Crazy ol’ broad,’” Billie said aloud. “I’m not crazy,” she called after the other car. “Distraught, maybe. But not crazy,” she continued despite the fact that the other driver was already several blocks away. “Think, think,” she instructed herself as she guided her Honda into Monday morning’s sparse traffic, with an impromptu detour in mind. “Oh, God, what am I going to say to Eugene?” she asked and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “He will freak.”
“Will that be all, Billie?” Lily, of Lily’s Liquors, asked as she bagged the two bottles of Chardonnay.
“You know, I was going to place an order for two cases of wine – one red, one white – to celebrate our one hundredth performance of Her Majesty’s Lorgnette, but that son-of-a-bitch of a landlord just doubled my rent.” She looked to Lily for some form of sympathy; a sad expression, a cluck of the tongue, a tsk. Nothing.
“That son-of-a-bitch landlord is my husband,” Lily said and slapped Billie’s receipt and change on the counter. She didn’t bother to turn away pretending to dust or rearrange bottles on the shelves, but stood facing Billie, arms folded across her chest.
Taken aback for the moment, Billie gathered up her change and Chardonnay. “You have my condolences,” Billie said and sucked her teeth as the door’s bell jingled its last on her. “Guess I gotta find a new liquor store,” she muttered and headed for her car.
He flipped a switch but the hallway remained dark. He jiggled it up and down and grumbled.
“That was like that,” Billie said, hoping she wouldn’t be blamed for breaking it. “And besides an article and a positive review in the local Dutchess County papers, we were mentioned in the entertainment section of the Sunday Times. That’s the New York Sunday Times,” she elaborated in case he didn’t know. Never mind that the journalist’s car broke down a block from the theatre and he took in a performance while waiting for the tow truck. Billie thought. A mention’s a mention.
With the success and critical acclaim, as Billie liked to put it, Her Majesty’s Lorgnette could run another six months or more, depending on word of mouth. Seeing license plates from Connecticut, New Jersey, and New England states in the theatre’s parking lot gave Billie renewed hope that people enjoyed going to the theatre to experience a good play.
The legal fees for her divorce had left Billie deep in debt, but she felt it was well worth the twenty-five grand to get rid of Sully. And then, typical of Sully, he died within six months of the final decree. She railed about that, even going so far as to say he’d done it on purpose, just to leave her under a mound of legal bills that could have been avoided if he’d died sooner. Plus, she could have played the grieving widow rather than the bitter divorcee. Then news arrived that she was still the sole beneficiary on his life insurance policy.
“To Sully,” she’d laughed ironically, lifting a glass of Chardonnay in his honor after depositing the $250,000 check in her account. She promptly purchased several acres of land and had a log cabin built to her specifications. Atlas, her polydactyl cat, grumbled about the move from the Bronx apartment to the freshly hewn cabin, until he discovered the field mice and frogs he could swat around with his six-toed paws.
And just like that, her landlord was threatening to put an end to her livelihood.
“I can. And I did,” he said coldly and pushed open the door to the men’s dressing room. “Look at this mess!” Dust motes hung listlessly in the unmoving air in a slant of muted sunlight through the one window in the small room. He pointed at a large jagged hole in the plasterboard ceiling above the makeup table. “You and your actors,” he spat the word. “You’ve ruined my theatre. I’ve half a mind to sue you.”
“You’ve half a mind alright,” Billie agreed angrily. “My actors didn’t make that hole. A couple of your dog-sized rats had that plasterboard for lunch. Nearly scared the shit out of my guys when they came falling down on them.”
“Ooh, I’m sure it made them smudge their lipstick.” His sarcasm twisted his face.
“You’re sounding pretty homophobic. Actors wear makeup, get over it.”
“It’s all the damn food you bring in here.”
“It’s a dinner theatre,” Billie argued. “You knew there was going to be food. But we’ve been super careful about removing every speck of food after each performance.”
“Look at those stains on my carpet.” He pointed to a series of six silver dollar-size brown stains.
“That was from a bloody nose after a dueling scene. But I’ll have you know I bought this carpeting - I’ve got the receipt to prove it - because what was there was horrid and reeked of mildew. And I’ve got the photos of the old crap being ripped out and this new stuff being installed.”
“Who gave you permission to remove the carpeting that was here?” he demanded.
“Are you serious? Now you’re talking like a madman.” The rent check trembled in her hand. “You’ll be putting a dozen actors and six crew members out of work,” she pleaded. “One of the only forms of real entertainment in this town.”
He stomped down the dimly lit corridor to the women’s dressing room. “Pigs!” he shouted, banging wide the door.
“What?” Billie asked, her eyes searching the cramped room for any signs of discarded food or clothing. “That’s a pretty tidy room if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.” He turned and headed back toward the center aisle.
“Why are you doing this? You just want us out?”
“You can stay.”
“But the rent’s double,” Billie stated.
He stopped abruptly, Billie nearly banging into him. “The rent’s double,” he agreed.
“Where do you expect me to come up with that kind of money?” Fear made her voice crack. “What am I going to tell my actors and crew?” she thought aloud.
“Not my concern.” He strode up the inclined aisle and pushed wide the double doors to the lobby. “Pay up or you’re out the end of the week.”
“I want my month’s security back.” Billie said, glad she remembered; knowing it would be more difficult to get it once she’d left the theatre.
The landlord chuckled. “Not with all this damage.”
“Hey, now, wait a minute. You can’t do that.”
He laughed louder.
“I could take you to court,” Billie bluffed.
“My brother-in-law’s the mayor.” He flashed an ugly grin at her. “Pay up or you’re out the end of the week,” he repeated.
Billie’s mouth guppied. She could not comprehend the man’s meanness and indifference. “Fuck you!” Billie shouted and shoved open the glass door to the sidewalk. “No, really. Fuck you!”
“You’ve always been a class act, Billie,” he called after her and chuckled.
“Oh, what are you lookin’ at?!” Billie shouted at a startled passerby. “If Dwyer were here he’d kick that son-of-a-bitch bastard’s ass for him,” she muttered as she strode toward her car, the rent check still clenched in her hand. “No-good tightfisted fascist cheapskate,” she grumbled and unlocked the car. “Now what am I going to do?” she asked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Thank God it’s Monday and the theatre’s dark. But I still gotta call my cast and crew and tell ‘em they’re out of work. “Greedy son-of-a-bitch bastard shithead!”
She pulled away from the curb a little too quickly and the sudden blare of a car horn made her jam on the brake. “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Billie said in response to the other driver’s angry hand gesture. She gave a timid smile and a quick wave. “Drivin’ away thinkin’, ‘Crazy ol’ broad,’” Billie said aloud. “I’m not crazy,” she called after the other car. “Distraught, maybe. But not crazy,” she continued despite the fact that the other driver was already several blocks away. “Think, think,” she instructed herself as she guided her Honda into Monday morning’s sparse traffic, with an impromptu detour in mind. “Oh, God, what am I going to say to Eugene?” she asked and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “He will freak.”
“Will that be all, Billie?” Lily, of Lily’s Liquors, asked as she bagged the two bottles of Chardonnay.
“You know, I was going to place an order for two cases of wine – one red, one white – to celebrate our one hundredth performance of Her Majesty’s Lorgnette, but that son-of-a-bitch of a landlord just doubled my rent.” She looked to Lily for some form of sympathy; a sad expression, a cluck of the tongue, a tsk. Nothing.
“That son-of-a-bitch landlord is my husband,” Lily said and slapped Billie’s receipt and change on the counter. She didn’t bother to turn away pretending to dust or rearrange bottles on the shelves, but stood facing Billie, arms folded across her chest.
Taken aback for the moment, Billie gathered up her change and Chardonnay. “You have my condolences,” Billie said and sucked her teeth as the door’s bell jingled its last on her. “Guess I gotta find a new liquor store,” she muttered and headed for her car.
MOTORCYCLE BABIES
Dear Diary,
I hate my life and nearly everyone in it. I don't know why my mother gave me this stupid diary. I'm not the sort of person to write stuff down. Like I had some rollicking fun stuff to document for posterity anyways. Stuck in this dump of a tiny house, in this dump of a tiny town. My life sucks. Especially my father. He's such a waste of space. Seriously. He just sits around all day sucking the life out of the room, yelling at the TV, finding fault with everyone and everything. Such a miserable tool. I wish he'd just die and leave us alone. Then my mom could do something with her life, maybe enjoy herself for a change. She works two shitty jobs ‘cause he won't work. I work after school and on weekends at Aunt Pitty Pat’s – the only decent restaurant in town. It's good to be out of this dump of a shitty old haunted house. It's not haunted by ghosts – that might actually be kind of fun – it's haunted by him and his stank ass – constantly belching and farting.
Mom says the Waste of Space (she doesn't call him that, she calls him, ‘Your father,’ which to be honest, makes my skin crawl) has ‘emotional problems’ (and she makes air quotes when she says it, but doesn’t make them when she says, ‘your father’) and that's why he's a shut-in. I told her his problem is he's a lazy-ass drunk who's making her into an old woman before her time. Of course I said it nicely but no matter how you say it, nobody wants to be on the receiving end of information like that. God, she looks 60 instead of 40. Her hair’s gray and she doesn't even bother to cover up the roots. I offered to do it for her now that I’ve got some skills in that area. She stopped wearing makeup and is always tired, and frankly, she looks dumpy. What a shitty life. I've tried talking to her, to encourage her to spruce herself up, but she won't listen to me. She’s been keeping her distance from me lately. I don’t know what’s up with her.
Last time she actually looked nice – not in her cafeteria/waitress uniform and sneakers but in a skirt and blouse and pumps, and wore some makeup and fixed her hair to go to some Job Fair thing – he had a major shit fit. Said she was probably flirting with all the guys there and making a fool of herself. What a dick. He's always putting her down and making her feel like crap. I'll never take that abuse from a man. I can't understand why she does.
We've never gone on a family vacation. We did miniature golf once but he ruined it by losing his temper, seeing as he couldn't hit the ball into the hole – and the place is pretty much geared for toddlers, but he was wasted. He hurled his golf club and nearly clobbered some little kid. The kid’s father got all up in the Waste of Space's face – which was mad funny to watch but also very embarrassing. Luckily the kid was OK and we beat it out of there before the kid's father called the cops.
I'm saving up to move away from here. I don't know where I want to go yet, probably Manhattan, but almost anywhere would be OK with me. Murrow and I will get an apartment together wherever we wind up. And we’ll go to those sidewalk cafes, drinking strong coffee and eating croissants. It could be Paris, or Italy, or England – Murrow’s father lives in London. We’ll just sit there and Murrow will subtly point out the celebrities to me. He'll be the host of some celebrity show. He’s up on all the latest gossip. I’ll work at a salon and I’ll treat the regular people the same as the celebrities. I hate when phony celebrities get special treatment. But if I was a celebrity I guess I’d expect special treatment too, but I wouldn’t be all phony about it.
So, OK, here's the About Me segment: Barbara Wisnewski – Polish on both sides – so trust me, I've heard every Polish joke there is – I've even made up a couple of them myself in relation to the Waste of Space. Good ones too. Most everybody I know around here has a nickname but me. One day I corrected Mr. Stangle, our geology teacher, when he said for, like, the 87th time 'mica cyst' when any moron knows it's 'mica schist'. He told me not to be a wisenheimer and since my last name's Wisnewski, that was it for my genius classmates. They called me Heimer for a while, but I didn’t let on that it annoyed me and they dropped it. They’ve got short attention spans.
Anyways, I'm a junior at New Krumpsberg High School. (We looked it up, but couldn’t find an ‘Old’ Krumpsberg. Murrow and I think the town was named after some guy named Newt Krumpsberg who settled here in the 1800s but the sign maker left off the ‘t’ in Newt. Ha ha) We’re nowhere near the Catskills, so we don’t get any tourists any time of the year. It’s a miserable, dead town; an ugly place with derelict warehouses and factories that are total eye-sores. We’ve got no claim to fame of any kind. Not even a juicy scandal or murder. This wasn’t even a stop on the Underground Railroad – not even desperate slaves would want to stay here.
At this point I don't really know what I want to do with my life. That’s why I’m taking the beauty school course so I’ll have a trade to support myself while I figure out what I want to do. And I’ve got my hostessing skills. School sucks. I've been with most of these kids since kindergarten. Some of them are jerks and need to die, and some of them are OK. My teachers are all morons though. Seriously. I can't believe they actually graduated from college. And if they did, why they’d want to live and teach here. I'm not learning anything. Even though I'm in the smarter classes, there are still some assholes who are always disrupting things. I don't know if it's ‘cause they have crappy parents who never bothered to teach them how to behave – I've got one of those but I know how to behave, or if their parents were smoking crack when they got pregnant with them, and their genes must definitely look mad scary magnified in a Petri dish.
So, yeah, Murrow. He’s my best friend in the world since kindergarten. He used to turn his eyelids inside out and eat paste to make me laugh. He’d come over my house after school when we were little and we’d play dolls. He’d squeeze my Barbie doll clothes onto his G.I. Joe and I think I figured from an early age that he was gay. Maybe I didn’t know, but totally accepted him. His parents divorced when he was little and his father moved to London. Murrow visits him most summers and always brings me back something British. I still have the English phone booth piggy bank and the punk T-shirt of the Queen with a safety pin in her nose. The Mind the Gap sign is still up on my wall.
Murrow’s mother remarried a couple of years back. Another abusive alcoholic – not that Murrow’s real dad is an abusive alcoholic – but his stepfather is. Upstate New York certainly produces its fair share of drunks. His stepfather’s a real dick who’s always saying, ‘Make me proud!’ to Murrow no matter what the situation. Murrow says his stepfather even says it when Murrow enters the bathroom. That’s just gross.
Murrow and I made a pact to go to the prom together since we aren’t interested in anybody in our school or town to go with (and nobody’s interested in us). But we’re really not joiners. So maybe we’ll skip the whole thing entirely. Maybe we’ll be backpacking around Europe by then. We love watching movies and award shows. OMG! The Oscars are, like, the best thing in the world! We watch the pre-Oscars red carpet shows too and do a running commentary on the stars’ hair, makeup, and attire, as well as their arm-candy. We’re not mean or anything (well, sometimes), and we certainly make allowances for our favorites who may have fallen under the spell of an evil stylist. We also love the Golden Globe Awards and the People’s Choice awards, and the Emmy’s. We steer clear of the kids’ award shows, ‘cause, frankly, they’re just too lame.
ZZ’s my best female friend. Her real name is Audrey Beardsley but Beardsley got morphed into ZZ for ZZ Top because of their beards – just a side note: their drummer’s last name is really Beard and he doesn’t have a beard. Weird. She's got a fairly normal family – her dad's not a drunk – he works for the phone company in an office and her mom's a legal secretary. They're pretty cool and friendly to me and their house is nice and their furniture matches because they bought it from a real furniture store and not from the Salvation Army like the junk in my house. And they actually eat dinner together and have good manners. And I've never once heard her father belch or fart or yell at the TV. And he wears subtle cologne and speaks to ZZ and her mom in a pleasant way. I've even heard them laughing in the kitchen getting dinner ready. How bizarre yet awesome is that?
They know my story and invite me to dinner and sleepovers pretty often. They do things together and even go away on family vacations. Nothing exotic or extravagant but still, they're vacations. ZZ's pretty and funny and has a good heart. She cries when she sees road kill, even if she's already seen it on the way to school and passes it again on the way home. A real softie. I love that about her and don't tease her because that would be gay.
She lent me this really nice black turtleneck sweater since most of my clothes are pretty ratty. We shop at Kmart but ZZ's mom takes her to the outlet shops at the mall over in Utica and she gets some stuff from Banana Republic and even Ann Taylor. But ZZ never flaunts it. So she lent me this really nice black turtleneck and when the Waste of Space saw me in it (in one of his semi-lucid moments) he freaked. Said it made my boobs look really big – which it didn't and I told him so and told him not to call them boobs. He's such a total creep. I wanted to wear it at work since we're supposed to dress in black at Aunt Pitty Pat's. Thank God, we don’t have to wear those Scarlet O’Hara hoop skirts and bonnets!– just dress in black – and it was freezing cold outside. He told me to take it off and wear something that didn't make me look like I was dying for it. How crude! I could've killed him right then and there. One good whack with the wrought iron skillet and it would be over. I'd say it was self-defense, but I’m not risking spending the rest of my life in jail over him. I stormed out of the house wearing the sweater anyways. He was too drunk to run after me.
Dear Diary
Just got home from my Friday night late shift at Aunt Pitty Pat's. It was fun ‘cause UK works there now. UK is Britney Smalls – we started calling her UK as in Great Britain, yeah, weird I know, but that's how we roll. Ha ha. Anyways, UK begged me to put in a good word for her to get a job at Aunt Pitty Pat's busing tables. She's good at it – very low breakage rate – and always quiet and unobtrusive. The diners don't want some jerk clinking glasses and rattling dirty dishes while they're trying to eat and chat. That's how I started at Aunt Pitty Pat's, and worked my way up to waitressing – which sucked wholeheartedly. I'm not as graceful as UK and my breakage rate was kind of high and that came out of my wages. The more I worried about being careful and would chant it to myself in my head, the more things would slip off the tray and onto the floor. Luckily, Elsa – the owner of Aunt Pitty Pat's – saw some kind of potential in me and made me the Hostess – which is such a gay way of saying I greet the patrons and show them to their seats. I still get a share of the tips which is cool but I feel kind of guilty about it and once a guy slipped me $10 to seat him and his date near the fire. Just like in the movies. He was kind of geeky so I guess being near the fire was a big deal to him in making some headway with his date. They seemed like they were enjoying themselves, so that's good. Maybe he was just cold, I don't know.
Anyways, tonight went OK, a fairly nice-sized crowd of patrons and nobody choked or anything. Which is good because I didn't have time to go over the Heimlich Maneuver with UK before she started. When the last of the patrons had left, I pitched in by helping to lay out the fresh linens for tomorrow's service ‘cause I feel bad that I'm getting a share of tips and didn't want the wait staff to hate me for it, and I fold the napkins into swans which looks really pretty.
Elsa took me aside and said she was glad I'd brought UK in (she calls her Britney) seeing as she's a good worker. She said I've got a good head on my shoulders and am an asset to Aunt Pitty Pat's and 'could go far'. At which point I wanted to say, “Thanks! Far from here!” but I know she didn't mean that and I didn't want to come off as a smartass, and nobody likes a smartass (except the smartass). I didn't tell UK what Elsa'd said about me because it would've seemed like boasting and that's not cool, but I did tell her Elsa said she was a good worker and all and her face lit up like a frigging beacon. (I was gonna say like a Christmas tree but that's so clichéd and I hate clichés.) So, UK and I walked home arm in arm which is kind of gay but we were feeling like grownups and sometimes they walk like that in movies, so it was OK. And it was cold, and the closeness put off some warmth which we were in desperate need of since the wind chill factor was way below hell freezing over.
The cold kills me. You can stand and iron your shirt and look all neat and then have to put on, like, three sweaters and your crummy coat and you're all wrinkled when you take your coat and sweaters off. And forget about your hair. I've got naturally straight hair and no matter what kind of styling products I use, when I take off my hat – which is a really nice Ann Taylor burgundy velvet beret that ZZ gave me for Christmas – my hair's standing up and out all over the place like I stuck a fork in an electric outlet or something. I don't like it just because it's an Ann Taylor beret, I'm not phony like that, all into labels and brands, but the color is really deep and rich and it's soft. And I guess, to be truly honest, it being from Ann Taylor made it special and not to sound all boo-hoo, but I don't have anything special, seeing as we're so poor.
Mom still wasn't home by the time I got here and the Waste of Space was snoring his ass off on the couch – per usual – and the living room smelled like death. If not for the snoring I would've thought he'd died of monumental boredom and laziness and called Murrow and ZZ to share the good news. But that would freak them out (maybe not Murrow) and I'd probably go to hell for that. I waited up for Mom, working on a school project in my room, straining to hear the crunch of her tires on the snow outside, but the snoring from the living room drowned out any chance of hearing the crunch. I wasn't waiting up for Mom to tell her what Elsa'd said. That would be boasting and that's not cool, but I wanted to make sure she got home safely. I hate the thought of her driving that shitbox with bald tires on these icy roads. And deers are always leaping across the roads around here; that chances are pretty good she's gonna hit one one of these days. She’s been getting home later and later and I don’t know if it’s because she’s working overtime or driving slower.
So, yeah, I've got this project that's due next Friday for English class. We've got to write a paper on someone who inspires us. Of course most of the moronic boys will write about some stupid sports guys who run around a field hitting or throwing a ball, getting paid millions, abusing drugs and having sex with lots of women. What lunkheads. I'm doing my paper on Amber Johnson who I've known since kindergarten. She broke her back, a leg and an arm skiing a few years ago and was in a total body cast for, like, a year or something. And had to have several pretty scary operations and had to go through, like, two years of physical therapy to learn to walk all over again. And when she got the casts and pins removed from her arm, she started to knit to get her motor skills back, and she knitted these really pretty scarves that got more and more intricate – I think she called it intarsia, with like dimensions to them – as her abilities improved – and she donated them to the needy. So, yeah, she inspires me because she's one of those truly rare people who doesn't complain about her situation.
I'd be complaining like hell if that was me. I'd be telling anybody who came near me that I was in a boatload of pain and expecting them to wait on me hand and foot. I complain if I get a paper cut. I'm just not saint material. Not that Amber's a saint or anything. I'm just saying. She's stoic and has dignity despite the fact that she's gonna set off airport security alarms for the rest of her life with all those steel rods in her spine and legs.
Dear Diary,
I hate my life and nearly everyone in it. I don't know why my mother gave me this stupid diary. I'm not the sort of person to write stuff down. Like I had some rollicking fun stuff to document for posterity anyways. Stuck in this dump of a tiny house, in this dump of a tiny town. My life sucks. Especially my father. He's such a waste of space. Seriously. He just sits around all day sucking the life out of the room, yelling at the TV, finding fault with everyone and everything. Such a miserable tool. I wish he'd just die and leave us alone. Then my mom could do something with her life, maybe enjoy herself for a change. She works two shitty jobs ‘cause he won't work. I work after school and on weekends at Aunt Pitty Pat’s – the only decent restaurant in town. It's good to be out of this dump of a shitty old haunted house. It's not haunted by ghosts – that might actually be kind of fun – it's haunted by him and his stank ass – constantly belching and farting.
Mom says the Waste of Space (she doesn't call him that, she calls him, ‘Your father,’ which to be honest, makes my skin crawl) has ‘emotional problems’ (and she makes air quotes when she says it, but doesn’t make them when she says, ‘your father’) and that's why he's a shut-in. I told her his problem is he's a lazy-ass drunk who's making her into an old woman before her time. Of course I said it nicely but no matter how you say it, nobody wants to be on the receiving end of information like that. God, she looks 60 instead of 40. Her hair’s gray and she doesn't even bother to cover up the roots. I offered to do it for her now that I’ve got some skills in that area. She stopped wearing makeup and is always tired, and frankly, she looks dumpy. What a shitty life. I've tried talking to her, to encourage her to spruce herself up, but she won't listen to me. She’s been keeping her distance from me lately. I don’t know what’s up with her.
Last time she actually looked nice – not in her cafeteria/waitress uniform and sneakers but in a skirt and blouse and pumps, and wore some makeup and fixed her hair to go to some Job Fair thing – he had a major shit fit. Said she was probably flirting with all the guys there and making a fool of herself. What a dick. He's always putting her down and making her feel like crap. I'll never take that abuse from a man. I can't understand why she does.
We've never gone on a family vacation. We did miniature golf once but he ruined it by losing his temper, seeing as he couldn't hit the ball into the hole – and the place is pretty much geared for toddlers, but he was wasted. He hurled his golf club and nearly clobbered some little kid. The kid’s father got all up in the Waste of Space's face – which was mad funny to watch but also very embarrassing. Luckily the kid was OK and we beat it out of there before the kid's father called the cops.
I'm saving up to move away from here. I don't know where I want to go yet, probably Manhattan, but almost anywhere would be OK with me. Murrow and I will get an apartment together wherever we wind up. And we’ll go to those sidewalk cafes, drinking strong coffee and eating croissants. It could be Paris, or Italy, or England – Murrow’s father lives in London. We’ll just sit there and Murrow will subtly point out the celebrities to me. He'll be the host of some celebrity show. He’s up on all the latest gossip. I’ll work at a salon and I’ll treat the regular people the same as the celebrities. I hate when phony celebrities get special treatment. But if I was a celebrity I guess I’d expect special treatment too, but I wouldn’t be all phony about it.
So, OK, here's the About Me segment: Barbara Wisnewski – Polish on both sides – so trust me, I've heard every Polish joke there is – I've even made up a couple of them myself in relation to the Waste of Space. Good ones too. Most everybody I know around here has a nickname but me. One day I corrected Mr. Stangle, our geology teacher, when he said for, like, the 87th time 'mica cyst' when any moron knows it's 'mica schist'. He told me not to be a wisenheimer and since my last name's Wisnewski, that was it for my genius classmates. They called me Heimer for a while, but I didn’t let on that it annoyed me and they dropped it. They’ve got short attention spans.
Anyways, I'm a junior at New Krumpsberg High School. (We looked it up, but couldn’t find an ‘Old’ Krumpsberg. Murrow and I think the town was named after some guy named Newt Krumpsberg who settled here in the 1800s but the sign maker left off the ‘t’ in Newt. Ha ha) We’re nowhere near the Catskills, so we don’t get any tourists any time of the year. It’s a miserable, dead town; an ugly place with derelict warehouses and factories that are total eye-sores. We’ve got no claim to fame of any kind. Not even a juicy scandal or murder. This wasn’t even a stop on the Underground Railroad – not even desperate slaves would want to stay here.
At this point I don't really know what I want to do with my life. That’s why I’m taking the beauty school course so I’ll have a trade to support myself while I figure out what I want to do. And I’ve got my hostessing skills. School sucks. I've been with most of these kids since kindergarten. Some of them are jerks and need to die, and some of them are OK. My teachers are all morons though. Seriously. I can't believe they actually graduated from college. And if they did, why they’d want to live and teach here. I'm not learning anything. Even though I'm in the smarter classes, there are still some assholes who are always disrupting things. I don't know if it's ‘cause they have crappy parents who never bothered to teach them how to behave – I've got one of those but I know how to behave, or if their parents were smoking crack when they got pregnant with them, and their genes must definitely look mad scary magnified in a Petri dish.
So, yeah, Murrow. He’s my best friend in the world since kindergarten. He used to turn his eyelids inside out and eat paste to make me laugh. He’d come over my house after school when we were little and we’d play dolls. He’d squeeze my Barbie doll clothes onto his G.I. Joe and I think I figured from an early age that he was gay. Maybe I didn’t know, but totally accepted him. His parents divorced when he was little and his father moved to London. Murrow visits him most summers and always brings me back something British. I still have the English phone booth piggy bank and the punk T-shirt of the Queen with a safety pin in her nose. The Mind the Gap sign is still up on my wall.
Murrow’s mother remarried a couple of years back. Another abusive alcoholic – not that Murrow’s real dad is an abusive alcoholic – but his stepfather is. Upstate New York certainly produces its fair share of drunks. His stepfather’s a real dick who’s always saying, ‘Make me proud!’ to Murrow no matter what the situation. Murrow says his stepfather even says it when Murrow enters the bathroom. That’s just gross.
Murrow and I made a pact to go to the prom together since we aren’t interested in anybody in our school or town to go with (and nobody’s interested in us). But we’re really not joiners. So maybe we’ll skip the whole thing entirely. Maybe we’ll be backpacking around Europe by then. We love watching movies and award shows. OMG! The Oscars are, like, the best thing in the world! We watch the pre-Oscars red carpet shows too and do a running commentary on the stars’ hair, makeup, and attire, as well as their arm-candy. We’re not mean or anything (well, sometimes), and we certainly make allowances for our favorites who may have fallen under the spell of an evil stylist. We also love the Golden Globe Awards and the People’s Choice awards, and the Emmy’s. We steer clear of the kids’ award shows, ‘cause, frankly, they’re just too lame.
ZZ’s my best female friend. Her real name is Audrey Beardsley but Beardsley got morphed into ZZ for ZZ Top because of their beards – just a side note: their drummer’s last name is really Beard and he doesn’t have a beard. Weird. She's got a fairly normal family – her dad's not a drunk – he works for the phone company in an office and her mom's a legal secretary. They're pretty cool and friendly to me and their house is nice and their furniture matches because they bought it from a real furniture store and not from the Salvation Army like the junk in my house. And they actually eat dinner together and have good manners. And I've never once heard her father belch or fart or yell at the TV. And he wears subtle cologne and speaks to ZZ and her mom in a pleasant way. I've even heard them laughing in the kitchen getting dinner ready. How bizarre yet awesome is that?
They know my story and invite me to dinner and sleepovers pretty often. They do things together and even go away on family vacations. Nothing exotic or extravagant but still, they're vacations. ZZ's pretty and funny and has a good heart. She cries when she sees road kill, even if she's already seen it on the way to school and passes it again on the way home. A real softie. I love that about her and don't tease her because that would be gay.
She lent me this really nice black turtleneck sweater since most of my clothes are pretty ratty. We shop at Kmart but ZZ's mom takes her to the outlet shops at the mall over in Utica and she gets some stuff from Banana Republic and even Ann Taylor. But ZZ never flaunts it. So she lent me this really nice black turtleneck and when the Waste of Space saw me in it (in one of his semi-lucid moments) he freaked. Said it made my boobs look really big – which it didn't and I told him so and told him not to call them boobs. He's such a total creep. I wanted to wear it at work since we're supposed to dress in black at Aunt Pitty Pat's. Thank God, we don’t have to wear those Scarlet O’Hara hoop skirts and bonnets!– just dress in black – and it was freezing cold outside. He told me to take it off and wear something that didn't make me look like I was dying for it. How crude! I could've killed him right then and there. One good whack with the wrought iron skillet and it would be over. I'd say it was self-defense, but I’m not risking spending the rest of my life in jail over him. I stormed out of the house wearing the sweater anyways. He was too drunk to run after me.
Dear Diary
Just got home from my Friday night late shift at Aunt Pitty Pat's. It was fun ‘cause UK works there now. UK is Britney Smalls – we started calling her UK as in Great Britain, yeah, weird I know, but that's how we roll. Ha ha. Anyways, UK begged me to put in a good word for her to get a job at Aunt Pitty Pat's busing tables. She's good at it – very low breakage rate – and always quiet and unobtrusive. The diners don't want some jerk clinking glasses and rattling dirty dishes while they're trying to eat and chat. That's how I started at Aunt Pitty Pat's, and worked my way up to waitressing – which sucked wholeheartedly. I'm not as graceful as UK and my breakage rate was kind of high and that came out of my wages. The more I worried about being careful and would chant it to myself in my head, the more things would slip off the tray and onto the floor. Luckily, Elsa – the owner of Aunt Pitty Pat's – saw some kind of potential in me and made me the Hostess – which is such a gay way of saying I greet the patrons and show them to their seats. I still get a share of the tips which is cool but I feel kind of guilty about it and once a guy slipped me $10 to seat him and his date near the fire. Just like in the movies. He was kind of geeky so I guess being near the fire was a big deal to him in making some headway with his date. They seemed like they were enjoying themselves, so that's good. Maybe he was just cold, I don't know.
Anyways, tonight went OK, a fairly nice-sized crowd of patrons and nobody choked or anything. Which is good because I didn't have time to go over the Heimlich Maneuver with UK before she started. When the last of the patrons had left, I pitched in by helping to lay out the fresh linens for tomorrow's service ‘cause I feel bad that I'm getting a share of tips and didn't want the wait staff to hate me for it, and I fold the napkins into swans which looks really pretty.
Elsa took me aside and said she was glad I'd brought UK in (she calls her Britney) seeing as she's a good worker. She said I've got a good head on my shoulders and am an asset to Aunt Pitty Pat's and 'could go far'. At which point I wanted to say, “Thanks! Far from here!” but I know she didn't mean that and I didn't want to come off as a smartass, and nobody likes a smartass (except the smartass). I didn't tell UK what Elsa'd said about me because it would've seemed like boasting and that's not cool, but I did tell her Elsa said she was a good worker and all and her face lit up like a frigging beacon. (I was gonna say like a Christmas tree but that's so clichéd and I hate clichés.) So, UK and I walked home arm in arm which is kind of gay but we were feeling like grownups and sometimes they walk like that in movies, so it was OK. And it was cold, and the closeness put off some warmth which we were in desperate need of since the wind chill factor was way below hell freezing over.
The cold kills me. You can stand and iron your shirt and look all neat and then have to put on, like, three sweaters and your crummy coat and you're all wrinkled when you take your coat and sweaters off. And forget about your hair. I've got naturally straight hair and no matter what kind of styling products I use, when I take off my hat – which is a really nice Ann Taylor burgundy velvet beret that ZZ gave me for Christmas – my hair's standing up and out all over the place like I stuck a fork in an electric outlet or something. I don't like it just because it's an Ann Taylor beret, I'm not phony like that, all into labels and brands, but the color is really deep and rich and it's soft. And I guess, to be truly honest, it being from Ann Taylor made it special and not to sound all boo-hoo, but I don't have anything special, seeing as we're so poor.
Mom still wasn't home by the time I got here and the Waste of Space was snoring his ass off on the couch – per usual – and the living room smelled like death. If not for the snoring I would've thought he'd died of monumental boredom and laziness and called Murrow and ZZ to share the good news. But that would freak them out (maybe not Murrow) and I'd probably go to hell for that. I waited up for Mom, working on a school project in my room, straining to hear the crunch of her tires on the snow outside, but the snoring from the living room drowned out any chance of hearing the crunch. I wasn't waiting up for Mom to tell her what Elsa'd said. That would be boasting and that's not cool, but I wanted to make sure she got home safely. I hate the thought of her driving that shitbox with bald tires on these icy roads. And deers are always leaping across the roads around here; that chances are pretty good she's gonna hit one one of these days. She’s been getting home later and later and I don’t know if it’s because she’s working overtime or driving slower.
So, yeah, I've got this project that's due next Friday for English class. We've got to write a paper on someone who inspires us. Of course most of the moronic boys will write about some stupid sports guys who run around a field hitting or throwing a ball, getting paid millions, abusing drugs and having sex with lots of women. What lunkheads. I'm doing my paper on Amber Johnson who I've known since kindergarten. She broke her back, a leg and an arm skiing a few years ago and was in a total body cast for, like, a year or something. And had to have several pretty scary operations and had to go through, like, two years of physical therapy to learn to walk all over again. And when she got the casts and pins removed from her arm, she started to knit to get her motor skills back, and she knitted these really pretty scarves that got more and more intricate – I think she called it intarsia, with like dimensions to them – as her abilities improved – and she donated them to the needy. So, yeah, she inspires me because she's one of those truly rare people who doesn't complain about her situation.
I'd be complaining like hell if that was me. I'd be telling anybody who came near me that I was in a boatload of pain and expecting them to wait on me hand and foot. I complain if I get a paper cut. I'm just not saint material. Not that Amber's a saint or anything. I'm just saying. She's stoic and has dignity despite the fact that she's gonna set off airport security alarms for the rest of her life with all those steel rods in her spine and legs.
A SCOUNDREL'S TALE
CHAPTER ONE
Transmutation via Inculcation
(A poncey title, I know, but Kafka’d already beat me to Metamorphosis)
I am a sorry sod.
There’s nothing worse than waking to find yourself in bed with your best mate’s girl. And that is how I found myself this morning. What is the proper way of extricating oneself from this situ? A hurried “Morning” and a mad dash for strewn clothing? An awkwardly transparent “Blimey, I was legless last night.” Or an attempt at round two?
The first is too horrid, really. Leaves the party of the second part feeling a bit rejected and out of sorts. The second is downright insulting to the party of the first part. Ludicrous, really. I’ve never been too drunk in my life to know what I was doing. I opted for the third scenario. Can’t kill a bloke for trying, eh?
And my overture was warmly welcomed. However, instead of being relieved, this only served to put a thought in my head that I didn’t quite like being there. An emotion I don’t care to be connected to in any way - guilt. And a bit of anger. It’s one thing for me to be unfaithful to my fiancée; I’ve done it before. Not proud of it; I get over it quickly. And I never feel the need to tell her. It’s another thing for me to betray Barmy. I’d never done that before. Only reason is he never had a girl I fancied. I could not get my head round her betraying him. Naturally, I chalked it up to my massively alluring charm and my extremely high irresistibility quotient. (Barmy says it’s due to my abnormally high pheromone levels. I believe the blighter’s on to something there.) The poor darling didn’t really stand a chance, did she? How could she kick me out of her bed after the night we’d spent together? Not that I totally remembered the night before. I had had too much to drink; not so much that I couldn’t function, mind you. A vague recollection of it being rather more than enjoyable was perhaps the thing that sparked the third item on my list. However, an ember of remorse or something began to spark an uneasy feeling and I coughed a good deal to discourage her pucker.
As I rummaged about the bedside table for my pack of smokes I saw my best mate’s goofy face staring back at me from a wood frame. I gave him the thumbs-up and inhaled a lungful. Nothing like the first fag of the day. Bedsprings creaked and I turned to find her watching me. She looked quite scrummy, considering.
“Fag?” I offered with a smile. She shook her noggin and adjusted the sheets, covering herself rather provocatively. She raked her fingers through her tousled hair looking ever so desirable.
“Breakfast?” she asked and stifled a yawn.
“If you’re on the menu,” I replied, thinking that was clever. One likes to be friendly in these situs.
She emitted a regal sniff and scarpered across me, sheet dragging behind like a bloody princess’ train.
“I like mine fried, darling,” I called after her as she exited the room.
“Fix them any way you like,” was her reply.
Couldn’t help but laugh. I’d always liked her, ever since Barmy introduced us at Tesco’s. She’s got a great laugh, a feisty nature, and pleasing to the eyes; a volatile tart by definition. Too much of a woman for him, I always thought. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an ace bloke, just not what a woman like this requires, is my thinking.
Legging it would have been the proper thing to do. However, somewhere in amongst the algorithms that seem to float round inside my head was the notion that this bird could spill the beans on our tryst with little prodding.
I heard the shower and made the move. Treading lightly across her bare wood floors, I ditched the fag and stepped into the bath. A praiseworthy bottom greeted me at first glance. Her head was covered in suds.
“Damn!” she cried upon opening her eyes and getting shampoo inside. “I thought you were doing breakfast.”
“Edibles be damned is my motto.” I leaned in for the kiss. The silly girl backed away, bumping her head on the shower wall. She pouted and rubbed her head. “I don’t feel like being kissed by you.”
I was gobsmacked.
“Oh, stop looking like a scolded spaniel,” she chided. “Hand me the conditioner.”
I did. Stood there wondering about that bit re: her not wanting to be kissed by me. No woman had turned down a kiss from me since I turned 16. Not even that lesbian at Mars. I was perplexed, if perplexed is the word I want, and suddenly didn’t want to be in the shower with this woman. I stepped out leaving her to condition her hair and dried myself, all the time thinking.
Caught sight of myself in her foggy mirror and saw the furrow creasing the brow. Odd this, I thought and went to fetch the scattered garments. Avoided the eyes of my best mate’s photo as I stepped into the trousers. Turned my back on him and did up the flies.
She approached wrapped in a towel; another turbaned round her head. “I like mine scrambled,” she said and went to her wardrobe.
So, I wasn’t getting the old heave-ho after all. This jelly-beaner wanted me to do her a breakfast. I stood there buttoning up the shirtfront, lips pursed. A towel flew past my eyes. Quickly followed by a second. I leant round the wardrobe door for a second helping. Enjoyed the view for a moment or two before grabbing up the socks. “Coffee or tea?” I heard myself asking and stopped dead in my tracks.
“Tea.”
I’d never made breakfast for a woman in my life. Not even for my mum on Mother’s Day when I was a child. I staggered inwardly and gripped the doorknob
for support. “Toast?” the vocal chords chimed out in a cheery tone. I slapped a hand over the mouth and blinked rapidly.
“I don’t think there’s any bread,” she said and stepped away from the wardrobe wearing a short, tight black skirt and white shirt unbuttoned to here. “What?” she asked in response to the goofy look on my mug and slipped her feet into black heels in the sexiest manner I’d ever seen it done. I mean, I’m not a foot or shoe fetishist, mind you, but the way she did it…blimey!
I managed to swallow and visually traversed the woman from stern to stem. Speech eluded me so I smiled like an idiot after a hoof to the head incident. I found the kitchen just where we’d left it the previous night. An empty bottle of Veuve Cliquot stood on the floor, two fluted glasses, one lipstick stained, nestled beside it.
They looked like they’d had a pleasant time together. An image of the jolly participants flashed before my bloodshot eyes. If I mishandled the situ, I was done for. I stared at the spot on the floor and found my mouth full of cotton wool. I grabbed the tap and drank cold water from my hand, splashing some on my face as well.
I heard her messing about in the other room, applying some mascara and lippy, no doubt. She hummed to herself. A bit of cogitation juggernauted through
the cerebellum: I wouldn’t half mind hearing that humming from time to time. I bolted upright and slammed my head on the nearest cupboard.
“What are you doing?” she called out upon hearing my oath.
I rubbed the pate and lowered the volume on the oaths.
“It’s the one next to the sink,” she called out again, hearing me mucking about with saucepans.
“Right ho!”
“Top shelf,” she instructed after hearing the fridge door squeak open.
“Hmm?”
“The eggs.”
“A drop of oil or something would get that to stop.”
She was suddenly standing beside me, giving me a blank stare.
“Erm, the squeak,” I explained and opened and shut the door to illustrate.
“Really?” was all she said and took out the bottle of juice on my last opening demonstration. She must have doused herself with something fragrant because she smelled dead lovely. She swigged back a mouthful of the concentrate and handed it to me.
She dropped the champagne bottle into the trash bin and set the glasses in the sink without a detectable trace of longing or care. I studied the female as she rummaged in her bag. “Got a light?” She held up a fag.
I produced one and found my hand shaking a bit as I ignited the thing. Just like in the films, she placed a hand on mine for stabilising purposes. It didn’t work.
Barmy was in way over his head with this fashion bunny and damn my eyes if I could grasp her interest in him.
“Cheers,” she said offhandedly and slipped on her jewellery in that casually rehearsed way of hers. Not that I found it counterfeit in any way; I mean after all, she’d been doing this – the putting on of jewellery, not shagging her boyfriend’s best
mate – daily for a decade or so, so, naturally, she’d got it down by now. There was nothing clumsy about this woman. Serene would be the word to use re: her movements. Definitely not the sort of woman to clamber atop a chair should a rodent appear on the scene. A capable woman.
Forcing the bloodshot orbs from her strategically crossed legs; I did her up some tea and scrambled eggs with shredded Parmesan cheese and a wedge of tomato. I’ve always believed presentation is as essential as the meal itself.
“Ta,” she said and took a sip and a forkful.
Found myself standing there like a finicky chef awaiting approbation or something equally wonky.
The woman rose, poured the remains of the tea in the sink and scraped the eggs into the trash. “I’m off,” she announced and sallied towards the door.
“That’s it?” I asked and sort of wrang the hands as I followed in her aromatic wake.
She turned and faced me. “What were you expecting?”
I floundered a bit, guppying the mouth, attempting to get something clever out.
She patted my cheek. “Lock up when you go, eh?”
Was stymied, if stymied is the word I want. Stood there in the gawping silence feeling a bit bewildered and chagrined. Then a notion popped into my head. I shook the old noggin to dislodge it, but remain it did. I felt…used. Staring at the shut door did nothing to dispel the gnawing. This London yo-yo had used me. But why? Surely not to get at Barmy. He was a firm believer in monogamy. Could it be there was no reason other than Barmy was away and I was at hand?
I collapsed on the sofa and reflected on my image in the blank telly screen. You know the look you get when the physician approaches with the rubber glove and your pants are down? Such was the look plastered on the face gazing back at me from the screen. Sort of a stunned, ‘Do we really have to do this?’ dreading look.
Violated is the searched for word. Granted, I was a willing participant. No coercion necessary to get me to my present circs., mind you. However, I must confess, it was always me being the one to leg it abruptly afterwards with a cheery, ‘Ta ra,’ and an adroit nicking of the neighbour’s morning paper.
A gong of realisation clanged in my ears, reverberating through my entire being. So, this is how they felt. A pleasurable time spent but left behind to do the washing up alone.
Females invariably think about a thing too much. They analyse a thing to morbidity - a word, a gesture, a look - then perform a post-mortem on it, dissecting it to see if they’ve overlooked the minutest of details. Then they suss the thing with
their girlfriends to see if they can shed some light on it. Curious things, females. But where would we be without them, eh?
Blokes, on the other hand, go about their lives with their heads up their arses 95% of the time. The other 5% is spent on sports or a sports-related activity that requires some brain power, knowing which team is playing which team, who’s next at snooker, who’s light in the ante, or who’s due to plunk down for the next round? We don’t worry about emotions generally. Can’t be arsed. If something gets on your wick, it just does. If something makes you happy, it just does. Simple, really. Go on from there.
But can one go through life like that? Perhaps these females were on to something. Not that one wants to become this ball of agitated pathos steeped in intense thought, but perhaps one can take a moment to sort of look at a thing and think.
Punched in a familiar number and listened to it ring. “Hello?” the fiancée asked in a sleepy voice.
“Good morning, darling.” I sounded cheerful ‘cause I was. I wondered, fleetingly, did she hear a difference in my voice.
“Hello you.”
“Did I wake you, my sweet?”
“No. The alarm did that a minute ago.” I could hear her smother a yawn and envisioned her in bed; hair mussed, wearing one of my T-shirts because she feels closer to me in it. I lit a fag and blew fat smoke rings ceilingward. I was experiencing some sort of bubbly swelling mid-sternum and realised it was one of those goofy pangs of longing for my girl. This pang of longing was not to be misconstrued as one of those naughty pangs. This was a pure pang of longing; wanting to be there with the Owner of the Matched Set so I could gaze dreamily into her Helena Bonham Carter eyes and whisper poetical things one whispers when deeply in love.
“Miss you,” the voice box trilled before I could stop it.
“Do you? That’s awfully nice. I miss you too, softhead,” she said in that sort of husky beddy voice. “Are you at your office already?”
“No. You?”
She laughed her tinkly laugh. And you haven’t heard a more delightful laugh if you haven’t heard my girl’s tinkly one.
“Why do you ask?” I jabbed at a smoke ring, grabbed up my Paul Smith jacket and shut the door behind me.
“Oh, just wondering…” That coyness thing she did on occasion made me smile. She was being seductive and damn my eyes if I didn’t half break into a sprint down Denmark Street.
“How ‘bout I pop round and do you up a proper breakfast?” I asked, suddenly excited at the prospect, and hailed an approaching taxi.
“You’re joking!”
I laughed. “No. Quite the opposite. I never wanted to do anything more in my mangy existence than to do you breakfast.” And it was true. I giggled with anticipation, but in a manly way.
“That would be…lovely,” the soon-to-be ball and chain cooed.
“You’re the tits, darling.”
###
Transmutation via Inculcation
(A poncey title, I know, but Kafka’d already beat me to Metamorphosis)
I am a sorry sod.
There’s nothing worse than waking to find yourself in bed with your best mate’s girl. And that is how I found myself this morning. What is the proper way of extricating oneself from this situ? A hurried “Morning” and a mad dash for strewn clothing? An awkwardly transparent “Blimey, I was legless last night.” Or an attempt at round two?
The first is too horrid, really. Leaves the party of the second part feeling a bit rejected and out of sorts. The second is downright insulting to the party of the first part. Ludicrous, really. I’ve never been too drunk in my life to know what I was doing. I opted for the third scenario. Can’t kill a bloke for trying, eh?
And my overture was warmly welcomed. However, instead of being relieved, this only served to put a thought in my head that I didn’t quite like being there. An emotion I don’t care to be connected to in any way - guilt. And a bit of anger. It’s one thing for me to be unfaithful to my fiancée; I’ve done it before. Not proud of it; I get over it quickly. And I never feel the need to tell her. It’s another thing for me to betray Barmy. I’d never done that before. Only reason is he never had a girl I fancied. I could not get my head round her betraying him. Naturally, I chalked it up to my massively alluring charm and my extremely high irresistibility quotient. (Barmy says it’s due to my abnormally high pheromone levels. I believe the blighter’s on to something there.) The poor darling didn’t really stand a chance, did she? How could she kick me out of her bed after the night we’d spent together? Not that I totally remembered the night before. I had had too much to drink; not so much that I couldn’t function, mind you. A vague recollection of it being rather more than enjoyable was perhaps the thing that sparked the third item on my list. However, an ember of remorse or something began to spark an uneasy feeling and I coughed a good deal to discourage her pucker.
As I rummaged about the bedside table for my pack of smokes I saw my best mate’s goofy face staring back at me from a wood frame. I gave him the thumbs-up and inhaled a lungful. Nothing like the first fag of the day. Bedsprings creaked and I turned to find her watching me. She looked quite scrummy, considering.
“Fag?” I offered with a smile. She shook her noggin and adjusted the sheets, covering herself rather provocatively. She raked her fingers through her tousled hair looking ever so desirable.
“Breakfast?” she asked and stifled a yawn.
“If you’re on the menu,” I replied, thinking that was clever. One likes to be friendly in these situs.
She emitted a regal sniff and scarpered across me, sheet dragging behind like a bloody princess’ train.
“I like mine fried, darling,” I called after her as she exited the room.
“Fix them any way you like,” was her reply.
Couldn’t help but laugh. I’d always liked her, ever since Barmy introduced us at Tesco’s. She’s got a great laugh, a feisty nature, and pleasing to the eyes; a volatile tart by definition. Too much of a woman for him, I always thought. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an ace bloke, just not what a woman like this requires, is my thinking.
Legging it would have been the proper thing to do. However, somewhere in amongst the algorithms that seem to float round inside my head was the notion that this bird could spill the beans on our tryst with little prodding.
I heard the shower and made the move. Treading lightly across her bare wood floors, I ditched the fag and stepped into the bath. A praiseworthy bottom greeted me at first glance. Her head was covered in suds.
“Damn!” she cried upon opening her eyes and getting shampoo inside. “I thought you were doing breakfast.”
“Edibles be damned is my motto.” I leaned in for the kiss. The silly girl backed away, bumping her head on the shower wall. She pouted and rubbed her head. “I don’t feel like being kissed by you.”
I was gobsmacked.
“Oh, stop looking like a scolded spaniel,” she chided. “Hand me the conditioner.”
I did. Stood there wondering about that bit re: her not wanting to be kissed by me. No woman had turned down a kiss from me since I turned 16. Not even that lesbian at Mars. I was perplexed, if perplexed is the word I want, and suddenly didn’t want to be in the shower with this woman. I stepped out leaving her to condition her hair and dried myself, all the time thinking.
Caught sight of myself in her foggy mirror and saw the furrow creasing the brow. Odd this, I thought and went to fetch the scattered garments. Avoided the eyes of my best mate’s photo as I stepped into the trousers. Turned my back on him and did up the flies.
She approached wrapped in a towel; another turbaned round her head. “I like mine scrambled,” she said and went to her wardrobe.
So, I wasn’t getting the old heave-ho after all. This jelly-beaner wanted me to do her a breakfast. I stood there buttoning up the shirtfront, lips pursed. A towel flew past my eyes. Quickly followed by a second. I leant round the wardrobe door for a second helping. Enjoyed the view for a moment or two before grabbing up the socks. “Coffee or tea?” I heard myself asking and stopped dead in my tracks.
“Tea.”
I’d never made breakfast for a woman in my life. Not even for my mum on Mother’s Day when I was a child. I staggered inwardly and gripped the doorknob
for support. “Toast?” the vocal chords chimed out in a cheery tone. I slapped a hand over the mouth and blinked rapidly.
“I don’t think there’s any bread,” she said and stepped away from the wardrobe wearing a short, tight black skirt and white shirt unbuttoned to here. “What?” she asked in response to the goofy look on my mug and slipped her feet into black heels in the sexiest manner I’d ever seen it done. I mean, I’m not a foot or shoe fetishist, mind you, but the way she did it…blimey!
I managed to swallow and visually traversed the woman from stern to stem. Speech eluded me so I smiled like an idiot after a hoof to the head incident. I found the kitchen just where we’d left it the previous night. An empty bottle of Veuve Cliquot stood on the floor, two fluted glasses, one lipstick stained, nestled beside it.
They looked like they’d had a pleasant time together. An image of the jolly participants flashed before my bloodshot eyes. If I mishandled the situ, I was done for. I stared at the spot on the floor and found my mouth full of cotton wool. I grabbed the tap and drank cold water from my hand, splashing some on my face as well.
I heard her messing about in the other room, applying some mascara and lippy, no doubt. She hummed to herself. A bit of cogitation juggernauted through
the cerebellum: I wouldn’t half mind hearing that humming from time to time. I bolted upright and slammed my head on the nearest cupboard.
“What are you doing?” she called out upon hearing my oath.
I rubbed the pate and lowered the volume on the oaths.
“It’s the one next to the sink,” she called out again, hearing me mucking about with saucepans.
“Right ho!”
“Top shelf,” she instructed after hearing the fridge door squeak open.
“Hmm?”
“The eggs.”
“A drop of oil or something would get that to stop.”
She was suddenly standing beside me, giving me a blank stare.
“Erm, the squeak,” I explained and opened and shut the door to illustrate.
“Really?” was all she said and took out the bottle of juice on my last opening demonstration. She must have doused herself with something fragrant because she smelled dead lovely. She swigged back a mouthful of the concentrate and handed it to me.
She dropped the champagne bottle into the trash bin and set the glasses in the sink without a detectable trace of longing or care. I studied the female as she rummaged in her bag. “Got a light?” She held up a fag.
I produced one and found my hand shaking a bit as I ignited the thing. Just like in the films, she placed a hand on mine for stabilising purposes. It didn’t work.
Barmy was in way over his head with this fashion bunny and damn my eyes if I could grasp her interest in him.
“Cheers,” she said offhandedly and slipped on her jewellery in that casually rehearsed way of hers. Not that I found it counterfeit in any way; I mean after all, she’d been doing this – the putting on of jewellery, not shagging her boyfriend’s best
mate – daily for a decade or so, so, naturally, she’d got it down by now. There was nothing clumsy about this woman. Serene would be the word to use re: her movements. Definitely not the sort of woman to clamber atop a chair should a rodent appear on the scene. A capable woman.
Forcing the bloodshot orbs from her strategically crossed legs; I did her up some tea and scrambled eggs with shredded Parmesan cheese and a wedge of tomato. I’ve always believed presentation is as essential as the meal itself.
“Ta,” she said and took a sip and a forkful.
Found myself standing there like a finicky chef awaiting approbation or something equally wonky.
The woman rose, poured the remains of the tea in the sink and scraped the eggs into the trash. “I’m off,” she announced and sallied towards the door.
“That’s it?” I asked and sort of wrang the hands as I followed in her aromatic wake.
She turned and faced me. “What were you expecting?”
I floundered a bit, guppying the mouth, attempting to get something clever out.
She patted my cheek. “Lock up when you go, eh?”
Was stymied, if stymied is the word I want. Stood there in the gawping silence feeling a bit bewildered and chagrined. Then a notion popped into my head. I shook the old noggin to dislodge it, but remain it did. I felt…used. Staring at the shut door did nothing to dispel the gnawing. This London yo-yo had used me. But why? Surely not to get at Barmy. He was a firm believer in monogamy. Could it be there was no reason other than Barmy was away and I was at hand?
I collapsed on the sofa and reflected on my image in the blank telly screen. You know the look you get when the physician approaches with the rubber glove and your pants are down? Such was the look plastered on the face gazing back at me from the screen. Sort of a stunned, ‘Do we really have to do this?’ dreading look.
Violated is the searched for word. Granted, I was a willing participant. No coercion necessary to get me to my present circs., mind you. However, I must confess, it was always me being the one to leg it abruptly afterwards with a cheery, ‘Ta ra,’ and an adroit nicking of the neighbour’s morning paper.
A gong of realisation clanged in my ears, reverberating through my entire being. So, this is how they felt. A pleasurable time spent but left behind to do the washing up alone.
Females invariably think about a thing too much. They analyse a thing to morbidity - a word, a gesture, a look - then perform a post-mortem on it, dissecting it to see if they’ve overlooked the minutest of details. Then they suss the thing with
their girlfriends to see if they can shed some light on it. Curious things, females. But where would we be without them, eh?
Blokes, on the other hand, go about their lives with their heads up their arses 95% of the time. The other 5% is spent on sports or a sports-related activity that requires some brain power, knowing which team is playing which team, who’s next at snooker, who’s light in the ante, or who’s due to plunk down for the next round? We don’t worry about emotions generally. Can’t be arsed. If something gets on your wick, it just does. If something makes you happy, it just does. Simple, really. Go on from there.
But can one go through life like that? Perhaps these females were on to something. Not that one wants to become this ball of agitated pathos steeped in intense thought, but perhaps one can take a moment to sort of look at a thing and think.
Punched in a familiar number and listened to it ring. “Hello?” the fiancée asked in a sleepy voice.
“Good morning, darling.” I sounded cheerful ‘cause I was. I wondered, fleetingly, did she hear a difference in my voice.
“Hello you.”
“Did I wake you, my sweet?”
“No. The alarm did that a minute ago.” I could hear her smother a yawn and envisioned her in bed; hair mussed, wearing one of my T-shirts because she feels closer to me in it. I lit a fag and blew fat smoke rings ceilingward. I was experiencing some sort of bubbly swelling mid-sternum and realised it was one of those goofy pangs of longing for my girl. This pang of longing was not to be misconstrued as one of those naughty pangs. This was a pure pang of longing; wanting to be there with the Owner of the Matched Set so I could gaze dreamily into her Helena Bonham Carter eyes and whisper poetical things one whispers when deeply in love.
“Miss you,” the voice box trilled before I could stop it.
“Do you? That’s awfully nice. I miss you too, softhead,” she said in that sort of husky beddy voice. “Are you at your office already?”
“No. You?”
She laughed her tinkly laugh. And you haven’t heard a more delightful laugh if you haven’t heard my girl’s tinkly one.
“Why do you ask?” I jabbed at a smoke ring, grabbed up my Paul Smith jacket and shut the door behind me.
“Oh, just wondering…” That coyness thing she did on occasion made me smile. She was being seductive and damn my eyes if I didn’t half break into a sprint down Denmark Street.
“How ‘bout I pop round and do you up a proper breakfast?” I asked, suddenly excited at the prospect, and hailed an approaching taxi.
“You’re joking!”
I laughed. “No. Quite the opposite. I never wanted to do anything more in my mangy existence than to do you breakfast.” And it was true. I giggled with anticipation, but in a manly way.
“That would be…lovely,” the soon-to-be ball and chain cooed.
“You’re the tits, darling.”
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