Kid, just let it go

“Listen kid, you can’t go home every night, take off your pants and pop open a beer,” Lyle said. I looked into his eyes to see if he was going off on some tangent like he does sometimes. But those were the only words coming out of his mouth. For the moment.

We both took a long, deliberate swig of beer. They were so much better when the bottle was just opened. It still had that little bit of steam rising out of it and the rim was still wet. Lyle used to say he likened it to licking a pussy right after you’d pulled your fingers out. I always countered with the penis followed ejaculation statement. And he always winced and called me a fag. He was 73 years old and didn’t have much use for politically correct speak. “To hell with that,” he’d always say. “You and your God damn penis jokes. I really wish you’d stop it. You sure you ain’t one of ‘em?”

To that, I always replied “So, I spend all my time, here with you, talking about a redheaded woman who stole the life out of me, and you still think I might be a fag?”

Lyle always smiled at that. Then frowned. He was predictable. Like a hack sportswriter using clichés or quotes from coaches that included “giving 100 percent” or “one game at a time.” When they’re spoken by other people, they’re still clichés I’d tell writers under my wing. A few got it. One was a gal. She was way too sexy to be working at the small town rag we were at. And eventually, she got out. But she was trouble. By the end of her stay in that part of the state, she’d fucked every single sportswriter who had anything to offer by way of expertise or networking. Ended up marrying the one who hated all of us others. If only he knew we’d all been there, done that. He’d probably disgorge – which was the fourth entry under vomit in my dictionary/thesaurus. Which were usually the words he’d choose, just to feel superior.

“I know kid, you’re not a fag,” Lyle said after that. “But damn it, you just need to let it go.”

“It ain’t that easy,” I’d always say.

“Fuck you, kid,” he always replied. “You don’t know how to, that’s all.”

He was right. There were a lot of things I didn’t know how to. And usually, somehow he found out what those things were. I think it’s just because we spent so much time together. Sitting on those rotten old barstools just talking.

Lyle had three kids. One was dead. Shot in the head during a bank robbery of all things. He was just there to withdraw $50 to give to Lyle so he could get a tire fixed. Lyle never drove his car again after that happened. His other two – one boy and one girl – were in prison. They were both heavy drug users. Started selling it to pay for their habits and got nabbed.

His wife died of cancer when he was 45. Never even went on another date after that. However, he was quick to point out that he’d fucked at least 100 women in the last 28 years. But he couldn’t see himself marrying any of them. Why, I asked him a while back. He answered simply: “Any woman that’ll fuck me before she gets to know me, ain’t worth marrying.”

I tried to bring up how polar opposite all the advice he tried to give me about redheads, booze and kitchen sinks was to the way he lived his life, and he poo-pooed it by simply saying “Do as I say, kid, not as I do.”

“Like a cop, huh?”

“Yeah, fucking police.”

That was one of my favorite running jokes with Lyle. He hated cops almost as much as he hated Budweiser. Almost. I once saw him hit a waitress over the head with a full bottle of Bud. Simply because she accidentally placed it in front of him instead of Heineken. “If I’d ordered a Bud, I wouldn’t have done it,” he told the police after the incident. Lyle was gone for two weeks in jail after that. I missed him. But I kept drinking in the same spot. Whenever someone else sat in Lyle’s seat, I’d talk to them. But not once did anyone keep me interested for more than 23 minutes. I had Sam, the owner of the bar, keep a stopwatch on me and my new barstool friends.

“You’re a tough nut, Jones,” Sam said after a particularly short three-minute conversation with some guy in a suit and tie.

“All I said was how’s it going ‘Suit-and-tie guy!’ And he started going off on welfare and bums and such things,” I said. “I was hurt by that. I’m not a bum. I write. It’s worse than being a bum.”

“You got that right,” Kylie, the local whore, said. “Writers never have any God damn money. Until they’re gone.”

I chuckled and wished Lyle had been there to hear it. He got a blowjob from Kylie in 2004 I think he said. Said she wasn’t very good at it … “for a pro.”

Then, one day, Lyle showed up again. And we got right back to it.

“Don’t ever go to jail, kid,” he told me. “You’ll see people you never thought you’d see in your life.”

“Like who?” I replied, knowing exactly what he was going to say.

“My God damn drug-addict of a son,” he yelled.

“Quiet it down there Lyle, you just got here,” Sam implored.

“Eat shit and die, Sammy boy!” he responded with.

“One of these days, Lyle. One of these days…”

I took a sip of my beer and looked at Lyle. Over the past few years he’d become the father figure I never had growing up. Yeah, I had a dad. And yeah, he was around. But he didn’t talk to me much. And if he did, he was usually yelling or complaining. It’s where I got my great personality, I do believe. He also didn’t teach me things. I still to this day do not know how to shave with a blade. My pops never taught me. I didn’t drive until I was 18. My mom taught me how to ride a bike after I cried the first time and dad gave up.

Lyle never gave up. No matter how pathetic the story got.

He patted me on the back, every time, and said “Kid, just let it go.”

the drip, chapter 3

He slumped into his chair. The crickets were out early today. He listened in peace for a few minutes. A car drove past, Dean Martin’s “Memories are Made of This” came out of the speakers.

For just a second, life was perfect, he thought. And of course, by thinking it, it ended.

The blonde haired hooker from General Pershing strolled by just as the car disappeared around a corner. He waved at her. She waved back.

“We need to talk,” he said to her.

She tilted her head as to question why.

“Johnny’s in love with you,” he said.

She slumped just a little in the shoulders. “I know,” she replied, kicking a crushed water bottle around with her right foot. Almost like a cat playing with it, but not quite.

He’d known her when she was at Tulane. She played soccer there. A right fullback. Just like he played when he was young and didn’t fear getting kicked in the face and losing his teeth. They met while he was writing game stories and features on the team for a local web site. It started with the Picayune, but they didn’t want a lot on the women’s soccer team. There was a time in his life when covering smaller sports like that for a big paper was the dream. He’d met a guy in Phoenix who got to do it, and always wondered how he could do the same. It never happened. Supply and demand.

Back then, he just wrote stories for papers and web sites all over the country. Luckily, Tulane played in Conference USA, which was so spread out, no one traveled to games. Making it stringer friendly. And supported him for the most part when he first moved back to the city. He had sex with her three weeks after she blew her knee out during her senior season. He was there to write a feature on the 23 year olds attempted comeback. They ended up going out for drinks, jumped on a street car to her house and one thing led to another.

He told his editor the next morning. He wasn’t allowed to cover Tulane anymore. Things kind of dried up at the paper soon after. Go figure.

Three years and a pain-killer addiction later, she was a Craigslist hooker and stripper. Private parties only. Not in the Quarter. He found out one day and tried to stop her. Instead, he became a steady customer. Life is funny that way.

“He’s a douche,” she said.

“Agree,” he said. “But I told you that.”

“What should I do?”

“Keep them.”

“Them?”

“You’ll have twins. His is Johnny Two Kids, you know.”

“Shit.”

“And then get him to pay for everything.”

“That’s mean. And I don’t know if I want kids. Especially his kids.”

“No meaner than an abortion.”

“Johnny tell you that?”

“Yeah. I know you won’t do it, too. Your mom would kill you.”

“You tell him that?”

“No. He doesn’t deserve that. Yet.”

“Yeah.”

“So buck up and own it, babe.”

“I don’t know.”

“Plus, you won’t have to be on Craigs anymore.”

“That means none for you, too.”

“Poor Bono.”

She laughed. His sense of humor was a bit off. But she liked it. It’s why they’d been friends. Even though she charged him, it never seemed that way to her. In fact, he had insisted on it. Kind of weird, but it helped pay the bar tabs. If he were 15 years younger, she thought, we’d probably have made it. But he’s old. I’m not.

“Listen, Tara,” he said. “Come to Matty’s this afternoon. We can talk about it in a better setting.”

“A better setting?”

“They’ve got a great jukebox. I should know, it’s mine.”

“I can’t drink.”

“I know, babe. We’ll have ginger ales on ice. Just like during rehab.”

She smiled. He always had the right words for her. She wondered why he got her so well.

“Ok, George,” she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheer. He blushed.

“You’re blushing!”

“Every time, sweetheart.”

“You’re going to have to explain that to me sometime.”

“Sometime.”

“Ta Ta. I’ve got to go to the market to get some veggies.”

She closed the gate with her left hand. Oh so gently. She understood how much he hated it when people just slammed the old iron fence. That clanky sound just shot through him like a knife through butter.

He looked at her face. She smiled and waved.

He smiled back, then slumped back into his chair. He grabbed a notepad. It was writing time.

“But first, another beer,” he said aloud to no one but the birds and crickets. He reached into his old metal Dixie 45 ice chest. One of his favorite possessions. Found it in an alley after a couple of warehouses were torn down to build a new parking garage a couple months ago. It was sturdy, with just a little bit of rust. He found a beer, a Shiner Black.

“She was beautiful, but crazy,” he wrote. The day was young still. And the drip had stopped.

The Drip, Chapter 2

Johnny pulled into his driveway. He sighed because he wasn’t really in the mood for this right now.

“See ya,” Alison said with a smile. She must not be mad, he thought.

“Burger tonight?”

“We’ll see,” she winked. They’d meet at Matty’s bar, he new that, and they’d not get that burger. That would be too much like an honest-to-goodness date. They weren’t there yet. Or at least he thought so.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Johnny said to Alison as she started off in the other direction. “Why you running away sweet thing?”

She turned, still jogging, and flipped him off.

“Why is your broad so mean to me?” Johnny asked, looking at her ass as she jogged away. His sunglasses were down on the edge of his nose. Not expensive ones, instead, more like the cheap one’s you get in a tourist trap surf shop in Myrtle Beach, complete with the neon sides. Johnny slapped him on the back and let out a hearty chuckle, definitely happy with himself at the moment.

“You’re a douche,” he replied.

“Man, it’s no wonder you have no friends.”

“I am what I am.”

“Fuck that Popeye shit, man,” Johnny said, reaching into his front shirt pocket. “You mind if I smoke up?”

“Nah,” he said, but Johnny had already struck a match and began a puff. He thought it would be nice to catch a little bit of a buzz before the day got a little more involved.

Johnny took a long drag on the joint, sat there for a long while, then finally exhaled the beautifully pungent smoke from his shit. Johnny always had good shit, he gave him that much credit. Johnny repeated this five times. Never offering once.

“Man, I need some advice,” Johnny said, bleary-eyed.

“I’m all ears, ya douche bag,” he said, leaning back into his recliner resigned to not getting any of the good shit. He took a sip on his Shiner that had been sitting out a little too long. It was warm. But, still tasted the same. Like soap water. From the first time he’d had one all those years ago because a girl said it was the only beer she’d drink. It eventually grew on him. She started drinking Michelob Ultras while away in Florida. It should have been a sign.

“I got another bitch pregnant,” Johnny said absent-mindedly, as if he really didn’t give a shit. However, he could tell Johnny was trying to sound that way. So it made it sound even more desperate.

He sighed. This wasn’t what he was expecting. He was hoping for a traffic ticket or something. Maybe an STD. This guy, he’s dumb as a bag of hammers, and he gets laid all the time. Everyone knows he’s got eight frigging kids already. But they also know he’s loaded. He never wears a rubber, and now is apparently about to have his ninth and tenth kids. Johnny’s 27 and has had kids with five different women now. He thought to himself about when he was 27. He’d had sex with four woman at that point. Total.

“Who’d ya go and knock up this time John Boy?” he said.

“That skinny blond at the corner of General Pershing, man. She is so cute.”

“Wear a fucking rubber, dude. Wear a fucking rubber.”

“That advise shoulda come last month, man,” JOhnny said. “But seriously, I need some advise about this one.”

Johnny sounded serious. A rarity.

“Have at it kid,” he said.

“I’m not a kid.”

He always called youngsters kids. Alison pointed this out to him one night at the bar. She thought it was funny that he called 15 year olds, 25 year olds and 35 year olds kids. It was a habit he picked up working at small newspapers. He always seemed to be one of the old guys. It’s why so many of his friends are all younger than he. Hell, he’d never had sex with anyone younger than 28 before he turned 40. Funny world.

“Anyway,” he said, pausing to hopefully elicit the continuing of this session. It didn’t work.

“Dude, what’s your fucking question?” he said, finally, too exasperated from watching him smoke up and not share, all the while trying to get advice out of him on a beautiful fucking day in paradise. Hell, he had some writing to do. Especially since Johnny chased Alison away.

“Let me finish this j, man,” Johnny said. He took one last hit off the tiny roach, looking at it, then at George. A look of horror came over him.

“Shit, I didn’t offer you any,” Johnny said.

“Never mind it,” he said.

“After a few seconds past, finally Johnny started to talking. Johnny explained to him that over the last month, Johnny’d stopped hitting on other women. Was always thinking about the Pershing blonde, as Johnny called her. But she never returned his phone calls anymore. Until she broke the news about being preggo.

“I think I love this one,” Johnny finally finished with. “But she wants an abortion, man. How can I stop her?”

Now, this he didn’t’ expect. If Johnny knew his history, he’d never as this question of him. But no one knew his history. Except for him.

“Why do you think you love her?” he finally asked.

“She’s so beautiful. So funny. So everything.”

“And you met her how?”

“Drunkenly at Matty’s, I was on fire at darts and she came up to me real strong.”

“Were you flashing bills?”

“Of course.”

“Did you tell her about your trust fund?”

“No.”

“You know, she’s a hooker.”

“Fuck you, man!”

“She is.”

“You don’t fucking mean that!”

“Yes, I do.”

“You don’t’ fucking know that!” he was getting mad. What I said next, made him madder.

“Yes, actually, I do know.”

The pupils in his eyes shank to nothing. Johnny got up, flicked his roach at him and stomped off.”

“Maybe you can change her? Like Christian Slater or Richard Gere?” He regretted saying that as soon as Christian came out of his mouth. But it kept coming no matter.

Johnny looked at him. An evil look, really. Chills raced up his spine.

“I’ll show you,” Johnny said, struggling to open the door of his El Camino. Finally, he slung it open and jumped in, gunning the engine before the door even closed. Robert Palmer’s sweet voice rang out as he pulled away in a puff of smoke and burnt rubber.

Ha. Rubber, he thought. Finishing the rest of his Shiner.