Cock and Balls!

“Cock and Balls!”

I looked up from my stool to see why such things were being screamed. I didn’t really find an answer.

A short, stubby little red-haired girl was sitting at the end of the bar. She was drinking an Amstel Light. I fucking hate Amstel Light. It reminds me of Michelob.

I go back to watching “The Middle.” I want to say it reminds me of “Malcolm In the Middle” but it really doesn’t because I never watched that show. I started watching “The Middle” mainly because it was on when I got home from work. When I had a job.

Now, I drink less-than-shitty beer in my local.

Lately, this stubby little red-haired girl has been coming in. It’s making me reconsider my local being my local anymore.

She’s not ugly. She’s not pretty. She’s that in between that you just don’t understand. I dig her tattoo of a soccer ball being kicked by a crab. That’s what I have deduced about her and I’s potential for a long-lasting relationship.

And she yells “Cock and Balls!” quite often when no one is around.

Except for me.

You’d think maybe she’s talking to me. But I don’t make such jumps. It’s why I was a virgin until I was 20, and then I lost my virginity to a girl who told her friends “I’m going to have him tonight!” and well, she did.

It was great at the moment. But soon became a drag.

She was an awful person. And I’d probably hazard to guess she still is.

Of course, a lot of people would say that about me. And they’d be pretty damn correct.

Ryan Adams’ “Losering” comes on.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

“What?” says the stubby red-haired gal.

“I hate this damn song,” I reply, no knowing why I’m opening this line of dialogue.

“Reminds you of an ex, huh?” she replies.

“Nah,” I say. “It reminds me of sitting in my studio apartment drinking over my ex.”

“Touche.” And she goes back to drinking her Amstel Light and I go back to watching “The Middle.” It’s the episode where the mom is worried that the son, older one, isn’t texting her back.

I hate texting. I think. I also hate talking on phones. Fuck phones.

The world outside is wet, rainy and cold. I’m glad I don’t smoke cigarettes. Yet, I miss them. There’s always something wrong about sitting in a dingy bar and not smelling smoke. Now, you just smell it when some ass hat sits down next to you, smelling like an ashtray.

Smokers stink.

But so do people that just fucked in the bathroom stall of a Burger King.

I look at the TV. Charlie Sheen is smiling in a commercial. He’s got HIV, I think. I don’t have HIV, I think next. I’m glad I don’t have HIV, I think even more. Not exactly deep thoughts here, but they keep my mind from drifting too far into nothingness, which shitty beer and chicken wings can do.

I say that about chicken wings knowing full well I haven’t eaten a chicken wing in three years. They give me diarrhea. They haven’t always done that, but I’m 44 years old and they do now. I guess that’s what getting old is really about. Shitting liquid. I guess I expected more. Maybe. But probably not.

I look at the stubby red-haired gal. She’s got a chat pal now. Lost out again.

He’s wearing a ripped Bon Jovi “Slippery When Wet” shirt. I’ll give him no props for that. If he looked like the girl’s tits on the shirt, then I’d give him props. Instead, he looks more like Russ Morman, the former Chicago White Sox player. But 25 years older. Of course, I’m thinking of the Russ Morman from the 1987 Fleer set, so maybe it is Russ Morman sitting in this shitty bar hitting on a stubby red-haired girl that I was thinking about fucking but knew I never would so I just stayed up and watched “The Middle.”

Life is funny sometimes.

At least it is in the moving picture shows. I kind of wish I could afford to go see a moving picture show right now. Maybe trade in one of the 10 or so times I saw Pulp Fiction in my first bit of time living in Arizona. Nah. I enjoyed those times. Sitting alone in a theater, usually almost empty, with my box of popcorn and Coca-Cola. I’m sure I used to dream about some beautiful gal coming in an taking me away. And she probably wasn’t a red head.

And she probably did use the phrase “Cock and Balls!” a lot.

Game Boy

“Never buy your girlfriend a Nintendo Game Boy,” I said to the guy next to me at the bar.

He was wearing dirty camo clothes from head to toe. Probably was going to vote for Donald Trump. Of course, who was I kidding, he wasn’t voting.

“What’s a Game Boy?” he asked through his broken tooth grin.

I was amazed at how white his teeth were, however. My teeth had turned yellow quite early in life. I drank way too many Mountain Dews and Nu Grapes during my childhood for my teeth to have any chance.

Then, I didn’t go to the dentist.

Been five times since 1994.

Now a humblebrag as the Facebook police would say. But a statement of fact. Stupid fact, but fact nonetheless.

Sometime around 2007, I noticed just how yellow my teeth had gotten. I was looking at photos from my best friend’s bachelor part in Austin, Tx. I wanted to put one of them up on Myspace. But they were so damn yellow. So, I made it a black-and-white photo.

Pretty much every phot of me since I’m had this crooked grin. Mostly, covering up my ugly teeth.

This guy, however, had perfect fucking teeth. And he smelled like three-day old burritos soaked in piss.

But at least he’s got a paycheck, I thought to myself.

My last paycheck was cashed on Feb. 22, 2016. I got laid off two days earlier by the last newspaper I worked out. I took out student loans totaling just over $36,000 to get my journalism degree. Really, I took out loans to enjoy my mid-20s, by staying in school, but who is really telling this story. So, I will embellish.

“A Game Boy is a hand-held video game system,” I told Mr. Camo smells like pissed burrito.

“Why’d ya need that? Can’t you use a phone?” he smartly replied.

“That, sir, is why you are a better man than me,” I replied.

He tilted his glass of Keystone Light, yes, a glass of KL, not a bottle, can, etc… and gave me a wink and a nod. Then he wandered off to the bathroom.

I’d never see him again.

The last bit of thinking got me thinking. So I wandered over to the jukebox and plopped a dollar into it. I still hate the Internet jukes, but find me a bar with a 45s juke nowadays in this shit box of a town.

My town, Zebulon, North Carolina.

I did a quick search and hit play.

The Faces’ “Oh, La, La.”

Seemed to fit the mood.

The mood I’m always in now. Sad and pissed off. About a lot of things and about nothing.

I ordered another beer. I drank it. Ordered another.

“You got the money for these beers, Randy,” John, the barkeep asked.

“Probably,” I replied.

I actually didn’t know if I did. Unemployment checks didn’t come anymore. But the occasional royalty check from my one published book did. I know I cashed one recently, but couldn’t quite remember if I’d spent it all yet.

I opened my Velcro wallet with a rip, and looked real quick.

“Yep,” I said to no one. John had walked away. He was talking to some redhead at the other end of the bar. She was not attractive, but she was a redhead, which gave her a chance.

After my song was over, I stared at the TV. There was a Motorhead video on. Hard to believe Lemmy and David Bowie died so close to each other, I thought, then wondered if they went to heaven, hell or nowhere.

I tended to believe in nowhere, but didn’t want to fully pot commit. Kind of my M.O. over the years, never going all-in. And it costs ya.

Just fucking push the chips in. If you lose, you end up in the same place anyways.

At least that’s how it felt tonight.

And has felt for quite a few nights.

I wonder what my son is doing? It’s 2:51 a.m. He’s probably standing in his bed, calling out for one of us to get him a pacifier. I wonder what the love of a piece of plastic in your mouth really is. Suck, suck, suck. Drool, drool, drool. Seems like a Dead Kennedys song.

I stare at my arm. It’s bruised.

I can’t remember where from. I probably fell while sleeping again. Been doing that a lot lately.

It’s an attempt to see if my mom will show up like she did when I was 7. I used to throw myself out of the top bunk of my bunk beds with a thud. I’d hope someone heard. If not, I’d whip up tears.

Surprised I never broke anything.

Only think broken now is my heart. And that got broke a long, long time ago.

“Fuck a broken heart,” John said.

I smiled. But quickly realized he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to the red.

He’d tell me tomorrow about how she squealed when he grabbed the back of her thigh. That got me through the next week of sleeping on a park bench. In fucking Zebulon, North Carolina. Better get moving if I want to make Key West by winter, I thought.

Always said if I ever ended up homeless, it would be there.

Jay Leno midget porn

It came down to this: Jay Leno or midget porn.

Smug jokes about people I don’t care about or some chick named Twiget.

Either choice could end the relationship that was just three dates old. But I didn’t have time to think about it. I made a decision, and God damn it, I was going to live with it. What else could I do?

“What the hell are you watching?” she asked as I pretended to not know she was standing behind me.

“It’s redhead midget porn…” I said as numbly as possible to create some kind of illusion that I didn’t actually type “redhead midget porn” into Google to see exactly what was on the screen of my 52 inch television.

“Weird,” she replied and walked into the kitchen. I heard her books slam against the cement floor, then the fridge opened. Some bottles clinked around and one opened with the pssssssssssst sound that I have heard more than any other in my lifetime.

She came back in the den. Took her boots off and plopped down on my ratty red futon mattress with me.

“Is this what’s in store for the next 50 years?” she said.

“Nah, I like this tranny named Bailey Jay a little more than Twiget the Midget,” I replied, taking a small swig of whiskey from my “Makin’ Bacon” glass.

“Nice glass,” she said, pointing.

“Found it at a thrift store a long time ago,” I said. “Was with a redhead. She won’t no midget though. She was normal sized.”

“What the fuck does normal sized mean,” she said, glaring back at me.

“You know, not a midget or playing in the WNBA,” was the best I could do. I took another swig of whiskey. It was a bottle I’d brought back from Ireland in 2011. My best friend from college took me with his wife overseas. They paid for 99 percent of the trip. I’m a deadbeat, but I’m a lucky fucking deadbeat I thought to myself as I watched some guy with an 8-inch penis fuck a three-foot, 4-inch midget.

“This is pretty good,” she said. “I wonder if it hurts?”

“Nah,” I said. “It’s no different than if it was a …” I honestly couldn’t think of anything to say. My dick wasn’t that big, and I’d never fucked a midget. So my frame of reference was slight.

“You were saying?” she asked, taking a long swig of Michelob.

“Don’t drink that!” I screamed, grabbing the bottle away. “It’s old.”

“How old?”

“It’s been in my fridge for about 3 years, I’d guess.”

“Eh, I’ve had worse,” she said, grabbing the bottle back. Some of it spilled on my table/trunk. An old Joe Strummer sticker got the worst of it. I cringed a little bit. She noticed.

“That trunk means a lot to ya, doesn’t it?”

“It’s been with me for a while,” I replied, trying not to look like it mattered.

“How long?”

“After I left New Orleans. So…about 14 years now.”

“You lived in New Orleans?”

“Just a short while. I should have never left New Orleans…”

“You should write that down,” she said.

“I have.”

“Don’t get testy with me.”

“Not testy, just sad. The past does that to me. I cling to it like the Spanish moss does to the trees or maybe how the Kudzu hugs everything around here.”

“Yeah, Kudzu sucks,” she said. She stared into my eyes. I didn’t want to look at her. I wasn’t ready to fall in love again. The worst part about getting your heart broken isn’t getting it broken, it’s falling in love again.  I reached for my notepad and wrote those words down. I had to. While I probably heard them before in some clichéd Americana song in some shitty dive bar in North Carolina or Richmond, Va., over the years, they sounded close enough to good that I figured I could re-write them some other way years later and maybe sound profound.

Not likely.

The notepads full of aimless starts at stories. The blogs full of inane ramblings. The scaps of paper, or receipts or napkins or even the backs of cigarette packs that I never smoked are full of endless words. Usually scribbled while drunk, but never while thinking about Bob Costas. He scares me. Looks too much like Ellen Degenerees. Or whatever.

She watched me put my notepad back under the couch. I left one there for just such moments. It had beer and some kind of peanut residue on it.

“What was that?” she said.

“Annoying habit I picked up from a buddy,” I said, finishing off her beer.

“Did you just write down something I said?”

“Nah.”

“You’re lying.”

“No I’m not. You haven’t moved me that much yet.”

“No?”

“Nope.”

“Well, you’re really smooth with the ladies, aren’t you?”

“Never.”

A question

Johnny walked out of the bathroom, he struggled with the small wooden door. Everyone did. It was on some kind of spring that shot the damn thing right back at you when you pushed on it.

“When did I become such a shit factory?” he said when he plopped back down on the barstool next to mine.

“Are we talking about poop or your writing?” I countered pointing at the just placed bottle of Budweiser on the bar.

“Very funny, compadre,” he said. “Very fucking funny.”

“He’s got his moments,” a voice cooed from the corner.

We both turned our stools to the source of this angelic voice. It was 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, there usually weren’t such things hanging out with us and our ever-depleting sources of alcohol.

She was stunning. In every way possible. Legs that didn’t end. Pale skin like just poured milk. A figure that would have made Jessica Alba jealous. And red hair. God damn it was the reddest I’d ever seen – and I made it a point to see a lot of red hair. Even if I have to pay for it.

“Hello trouble, come on in,” Johnny said when he was done observing.

“A Buck Owens fan, I see,” she purred. I was beginning to like this lady.

Silence filled the bar. Sarge, the afternoon barkeep had gone to the back to get something, I don’t remember what it was. The jukebox had stopped. The televisions were all on mute. And Johnny and I were completely in awe of what we were seeing.

“You boys going to invite me over or what?” she asked, slicing that silence like a chef in a Japanese steakhouse – with lots of moxie.

“Oh course, darlin’,” Johnny said. “Come on over.”

“Your friend’s gotta ask,” she replied, looking straight past Johnny and right at me.

“Well?” Johnny said, poking me in the ribs. I hated it when anyone poked me in the ribs. Not just because it was in and of itself an annoying thing to do, but because I’d broken a rib years back in a “minor golfing accident” and it still bothered me to this day.

“Only if you can answer one question,” I replied. “Get it right, I’ll buy you beers all night.”

“It’s actually the afternoon,” she tried to sass.

“That’s my point,” I shot back.

“Ooooh, a confident man,” she went back to purring.

“Not really, just full of enough shit to make it work,” I said, not knowing what to say. “But to continue, get it right, you get beer. Get it wrong, and my buddy John here will pay for the beers.”

“Hey…” Johnny said. “That sounds like a trick.”

“Shut up,” she said to him.

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, slinking down just a bit on his barstool.

“Well, what’s this question?” she asked, now a bit of eagerness in her voice. That, I decided, was a good sign.

I racked my brain for something great. Something worthy of the buildup I had given this. But my mind was blank. Like it usually got around a beautiful woman. Completely wiped clean of anything useful.

Finally, I dorked out.

“What’s your favorite Lucero song?” I said.

She smiled. An even better sign.

“Sing Me No Hymns,” she said, walking up and sitting in the barstool next to mine.

“Looks like I’m buying,” I said.

“Leave me be and let me drink, I need none of your good intentions,” she said raising her bottle of Abita amber to my face.

“Well, if that’s not an invitation, nothing is,” I said, clinking my bottle of Shiner Bock to her bottle.

Johnny slinked a little lower in his barstool. I noticed and pointed at him ever so subtlety.

The redhead turned around and gave Johnny a peck on the cheek. Years later, he’d always brag that she kissed him before she ever kissed me.

“Why thank you ma’am,” he said, perking up.

“Listen Johnny, please don’t call me ma’am,” she said. “It makes me feel my age.”

“How old are ya?” he asked. Johnny was never too smooth.

“Old enough, babe. Old enough.”

The next couple of hours went by like lunch period in high school when you sneak out to go to Hardee’s. I looked at the Dixie Beer clock when she sat down and it said 2:11. The next time I noticed it, it read 4:57.

“Damn, the after work party’s gonna be here soon,” I said. “All those, those …”

“Employed people,” she finished my sentence.

“Are you implying, that I have no job?” I retorted.

“Why yes I am,” she said, smiling. Her teeth were so white they scared me. I wondered what she thought of my gold teeth, and I wasn’t talking 14K.

“He’s a writer,” Johnny slurred to her. “Best damn one I’ve ever read.”

“Really?” she replied. “And how many have you read?”

I laughed hard at that. I liked this gal. She had spunk. It didn’t hurt that she was way out of  my league and she was paying attention to me.

Yeah, I was a writer, I went on to explain to her. I wrote mostly about heartbreak and sadness. But my published work was about travel. I went on road trips and wrote about them. I’d stop at the ugliest, most beat up roadside diners or wig shops and find a story. I’d hang out for a couple of days, drink with my subject matter – sometimes I’d go to church with them instead – and the write up a couple thousand words. Slip it in the old electronic mail and a couple days later, I’d get a check.

“What do you do with the checks?” she asked.

“Half in the bank, half to Mick.”

“Mick?” she asked.

“He owns this place. He’ll be in here any minute now.”

“Mick doesn’t own this place,” she said puzzled.

“Huh?” I could only muster. I’d been coming here for two years now, and Mick always told me he owned the place.

“No, my father owns it. His name is Sid. He owns the taco stand a couple blocks from here too.”

Plastic and chrome

That smell. A combination of plastic and chrome. It greeted you every so often.

Some opened and didn’t release that odor.

Others opened and sprayed it out like mace. Or a Glade air freshener, depending on your point of view.

I will always identify that smell from cassette tape in particular – INXS’ “Listen Like Thieves”.

“I have a very vapid life,” I said out loud while I sat in the dark, avoiding my computer.

A bolt of lightning struck the Atlantic Ocean seconds later, filling the air with thunderous approval or rejection.

I turned on my computer seconds later.

The words still aren’t flowing. Maybe it was all the Triscuits and beer?

She sat down on the porch across from his house. She was wearing a striped shirt and knee-high socks. It was like she was straight out of a porn set. If she’d had her hair in pig-tails, it would have cinched it.

Watching her, he noticed that she was very much watching him. They played the game as if neither noticed the other, but it was too hard to do.

“Hey neighbor,” he finally yelled out.

“Howdy,” she screamed back.

A few hours later, he was soaked with sweat and naked. Who knows what she was doing.

“I like bottle caps,” he said to the waitress. “Can you be sure to keep them for me. I collect them.”

She looked down at him, sitting in the booth. He looked pathetic in his cowboy boots and Umbro shorts. All the while the booth’s giant red vinyl seat was devouring him.

“Sure hun,” she responded. “Where’d you come from all dressed like that?”

He looked down at his knees, so much smaller were his legs than just 20 years ago. That was when he rode his bike everywhere. Back then, he said he’d never stop riding. It’s been over a decade since he did it regularly. Over a year since he last did.

“Oh, just work,” he replied.

“What are you a rodeo clown?” she snickered.

“Nah, just a hack writer.”

“Really? What do you write?”

“Anything they’ll pay me to. Anything.”

“Like what?”

He was tired of her questions, but she had red hair and a nice ass. So, he made small talk. She had on long pants – it was 24 degrees outside – so he had no idea what her legs looked like. Legs were the deal breaker for him. Ugly legs equals ugly girl. No matter what.

“My job now is writing travel brochures, so, I dress up like this to inspire my writing. Today, I wrote about Cary, North Carolina and Farmington, New Mexico.”

“Huh,” she said with some interest. “What else?”

“I dabbled in greeting cards for a while. Also was a newspaperman for over 15 years. But, no one reads ‘em anymore, so they don’t need writers as much. Hell, I was replaced by a robot in the Phillipenes. Heard he has a really good way with the letter Q.”

She didn’t laugh, and really, it didn’t deserve a laugh.

“Any books?”

“I’m writing one now. Short stories. Like Hemingway, but not at all.”

“I love Hemingway,” she said with a sparkle. This made him smile.

“What’s your favorite?”

“Oh, you know, the one about the guy who got wounded and couldn’t have sex.”

“The Sun Also Rises?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Do you think it had a happy ending?”

“Of course not,” she said. “How could anyone see that as a happy ending?”

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

“It would be, yes, but it was not a ha…Oh, I see what you did there.”

He was shocked and quite happy to discover she had actually read the book. And actually remembered how it ended. He still thought there was a possibility, no matter how remote, that Hemingway saw happiness in Jake Barnes. It’s what kept him alive many nights, re-reading that book. Trying to absorb it. Become it. Then purge it all out with a 12-pack of beer.

“How’d you like to go see my collection of copies of it?” he said.

“You have more than one?”

“I have almost a hundred now. All with different covers. That’s the catch. I need to see how others have seen the book. I really like finding old library copies. Usually, people scribble notes all over the margins. It’s quite fascinating.”

“Carol,” a voice boomed from behind. “Get your cute little ass shaking and start doing your job. And stop flirting with Mr. Fancypants there.”

He blushed. She blushed.

Later, after he’d eaten his meal – a pulled pork sandwich, Western North Carolina style, and hush puppies with a side of macaroni and cheese (white) – he noticed her phone number on his bill. He tipped $10 on the $4.66 bill and walked out humming. He didn’t know what song it was, until he smelled the awful generic taco shells that he pulled out of his pantry later that night. “Biting Bullets” by INXS. The smell of taco shells brought back the smell of a cassette tape, a fresh one, newly opened in 1985. The smell he always tried to smell because it reminded him of a simpler time, when he didn’t want to do anything except kiss a girl. Not fuck her. Not marry her. Just kiss her. And maybe hold her hand afterwards if he was deemed worthy of such finery.

He looked at the receipt he had put on his fridge. He didn’t want to go all John Favre and call her immediately, or too many times. Instead, he wrote down what he wanted to say. Figured she’d be asleep or at work still.

He dialed the number. It rang. Five times. After the fifth, it picked up.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said.

Startled, he just sat there, listening.

“Listen, whoever you are, we have caller ID. I’m going to get up and go look at it. Then I’m going to come and beat the shit out of you.”

The voice put the phone down and started to walk. He panicked a little, but held fast.

“So, Mr. Jones,” the voice said. “You want to fuck my wife, don’t you?”

“Actually, sir,” he said. “I want to write about her. And now, write about you.”

“What?”

“It’s what I do. I meet someone, I talk to someone, I just see someone and I write about them. Now, you have entered my world, so I will write about you.”

He hung up the phone. It rang seconds later. He picked it up.

“Randy?” the voice on the other end was much softer, much sweeter.

“Yes?”

“Go fuck yourself,” she said.

He never went back to that Bar-b-Que joint again. Even though they had great macaroni and cheese (white, of course).

The white Lando Calrissian

“Wow,” I said out loud, kind of thinking saying wow is sort of dorkish, “I’ve never gotten into a fistfight over Star Wars before,” at once realizing that the rest of the statement made it all a moot point.

She looked at me and patted me on the head. It hurt a little. Not my pride. No, my head. It’s where the guy who insisted on telling me that “No, Return of the Jedi, was never actually called Revenge of the Jedi” had hit me on the noggin with his chair. It bled a lot. But in the end, he bled more. And he was wrong.

Thankfully, no one had a smartphone. It would have kept the whole thing from happening. It also would have kept me from meeting Rose.

She’d been sitting off in the distance while I was eating my pastrami sandwich. I’d driven 113 miles for this sandwich, so I was going to enjoy it. And while I was, indeed enjoying it, I noticed Rose sitting by herself in the booth next to the jukebox. She had long red hair, curly red hair, and deep blue eyes. She was wearing a Hunter S. Thompson t-shirt and a pair of oddly orange plaid shorts. I actually think I have a pair very similar to them. So, I decided to go up to her and talk about those orange plaid shirts.

It wasn’t normal for me to go up to strangers. Especially women. Except on the job. There, I talked to just about anyone. Even if in “real” life I’d never have the guts to do so. I’ve always thought that somewhere in my mind that’s why I became a journalist. Because it forced me to talk to people, and I wasn’t going to do it any other way. Unless they came up and talked to me. And how often does that happen to a guy like me? Not very often, I’ll settle on.

I finished my sandwich a little quicker than I would have liked, but I had a new goal. It was now I drove 113 miles for a chance to talk to this redheaded beauty. She couldn’t have been sent here by anyone other than God. Well, by fate, at least since I don’t really believe in God so much.

I took my final swig of lemonade – don’t drink carbonated sodas anymore – and walked up to her. I stood in front of her and stalled. My mind raced about. “This is not what you want to be doing,” I thought to myself. “She’s going to freak out. You’re some random dude with a shaved head and a long-ass goatee standing and staring at her.”

“Yes, you would freak me out if you did that,” she suddenly said without looking up from her book – “The complete history of Star Wars”.

“Did I say that out loud?” I asked.

“Yep, you sure did,” she said, putting her straw to her lips and sucking up a swig of Diet Coke. I’d noticed earlier what she was drinking when she got a refill.

“Whoops. Well, now you know why I don’t talk to strangers.”

“Did you just say that to the beat of Rick Springfield?” she asked.

“I don’t think so, but I did hear that in my head as I was saying it.”

“So did I,” she laughed. Good sign I thought. And I waited a second to make sure it was just a thought, not an utterance.

“May I sit down?” I asked.

“Only if you tell me exactly what you were originally planning on saying to me when you so awkwardly approached me,” she countered, taking another swig of Diet Coke, this time staring me down as she did.

“Well, I was sitting over there,” I pointed to the table I was at.

“And you were wolfing down that pastrami sandwich …” she said spinning her hands in the air as if to tell me to speed it up a bit. Kind of like Peyton Manning does when he’s trying to run through plays in the no-huddle.

“And I was wolfing down a fantastic pastrami sandwich that I drove 113 miles one-way to have, when I noticed your shorts. Well, I noticed you first, and then your shorts…”

“Just the shorts?” she interrupted coyly.

“Well, and your hair and eyes.”

“Nothing else?”

“And the Hunter S. Thompson shirt.”

“Nothing else?”

“Um, and you were drinking Diet Coke.”

“Nothing else?”

“No, that’s about it.”

“Continue then…” with the same waving arm motion.

“So, I thought, ‘Damn, I love those shorts. I have a pair just like them. This is a sign to at least go up to her…’”

“And make a bloody fool out of myself.”

“Yes, and make a bloody fool out of myself. And may I say, I love that you use bloody.”

“Why thank you,” you may sit down now.

We laughed and joked for another five minutes when Return/Revenge guy walked up.

“Hey Rose,” he said. “What are you doing with that guy?”

“Having some nice conversation, Charlie, that’s what I’m doing,” she replied angrily.

“I see,” he said, sizing me up. Charlie was about 5-foot-9 and weighed in at 225-230 pounds. None of it was muscle.

I looked at Rose, she looked back. Not showing her cards, I thought.

“You guys know each other well?” I asked.

“She’s my step sister,” Charlie said. I felt better. I looked at Rose for confirmation. I got none.

“Why are you talking to this clown,” he said, motioning at me. Obviously, this was not a brother-sister conversation.

“Because he’s sweet and charming and handsome. So, everything you aren’t,” she said. “Plus, he knows more about Star Wars than anyone I’ve ever met.”

I was a little shocked by that comment. We hadn’t mentioned a word of Star Wars in our talks, at least that I could remember. I hadn’t even mentioned the book she was reading. I looked at Charlie, and it dawned on me. He was dressed up like Lando Calrissian, blue shirt and all.

“No shit?” he said looking at me, then her, then me again.

“Yep,” she said. “I think you two should do a quiz off!”

I looked at her with desperate eyes. I knew a lot about Star Wars, but I didn’t know that much. Probably not as much as someone who dressed up like a pretty minor character in a popular eatery near the college.

“You’re on!” Charlie said, plopping down in the seat next to Rose. “And the loser has to eat whatever the winner wants out of her shoes!”

I found that a pretty odd request. I found Rose’s reaction to it, even more odd.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she screamed, taking off her shoe – a green Adidas running shoe that had seen better days.

She finally looked at me and winked.

“May the best man win,” she said.

Soon we were reeling off questions to each other. Each of us started off with what we thought were softball questions, and we were both right. The answers being Ewok and 1138. But the questions instantly got harder.

After 25 minutes, we’d both stayed perfect. That’s when I started to get bored. I wanted to talk to Rose, not some guy. And I let an easy one slide. “What was the original name of ‘Return of the Jedi?’” I asked.

Charlie snickered. “You think you can trick me?” he said. “Of course not! They never changed the name.”

“Ha!” I said. “It was Revenge of the Jedi. They even made posters that said it, sent them out, and had to recall them at the last minute.”

“Bull shit!” Charlie yelled.

“Nope. You lose jack,” I said, looking at Rose’s shoe.

Then a punch. It hit me square in the ear. It didn’t hurt as much as Brad Pitt made it seem like in “Fight Club.” But it did startle me. Enough to fall out of my chair. I got back up and threw a punch back, right into Charlie’s nose. It started to bleed. He lunged for me, but missed as I stepped aside. He grabbed a chair and leveled it right on my head. I fell in a heap. Blood everywhere.

I got up, staggering and kicked the fucker right in the balls. He fell. I kicked his face. He bled some more. I turned about and grabbed Rose’s shoe.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, breathing heavily.

“Second best idea you’ve had all day,” she said.

“And what was the first?”

“The urge to eat Pastrami,” she said.

I smiled and felt my teeth. One was chipped, I could feel it. I hadn’t chipped a tooth since I was in college. And that time I bit down on a spoon. Yep, the wild life.

We walked outside just in time to avoid the cops. A mall security guy had called them. Told them to look for a “Keifer Sutherland looking guy” and “a white Lando Calrissian.” The cops, obviously, weren’t in any hurry to arrive on this scene, so we walked right by them.

Ten minutes later, we were at a Tasty Freeze enjoying some more conversation and a couple of sundaes. I’d completely forgotten I had to be at work later that night.

mulch pit, chaper 3

It took me a little while to realize just what had happened.

There I was staring at myself. My lifeless self. It didn’t dawn on me that I was dead. Until someone came into the room and placed my body in a bag.

The sound of the zipper whirring its way up startled me. Much like a clap of thunder does when you aren’t expecting it.

It was a bit surreal, of course, seeing this. They started wheeling my corpse away. And as I watched it, the body didn’t get further away. Instead, it stayed right below me. Another thing I had to get used to – my spirit, I guess that’s what you’d call it, traveled with the body.

I looked over my shoulder and saw him. I’d made a very conscious effort over the years to make sure that the person who would escort me into the “afterlife” was one of two people. One was Sir Richard Attenborough. The other was Michael Caine.

Lucky for me, it was the Richard Bartlett version of him, too, which made me happy. I’d worried many times that he may show up as Kris Kringle. I was curious, however, if the devil was actually Michael Caine.

So, I asked Sir Richard : “So, is Michael Caine …”

“The devil?” he laughed. “Of course he his.”

We both continued laughing for quite a bit. I didn’t even notice that we were now in a hearse.

I sat down next to the coffin and wondered where exactly they were taking me.

“To the funeral home,” Sir Richard explained without me having to ask.

“Yes, I know what you are thinking. And, if you play your cards right, you’ll be able to do the same.”

“Play my cards right?”

“Yes, you don’t think God just hands out great abilities and great jobs do you?”

“Well, I kind of thought I’d sit around, drink beer and listen to Lucero records. It is heaven, right?”

“That’s what you did before you got here.”

“Well, damn. I was already in heaven?”

We both laughed again. I liked that there was lots to laugh about in death. If I’d been in my shitty house, I probably would have scribbled that one down.

“Are there…”

“Pencils here? Of course there are.” Sir Richard finishing my thoughts again.

“You know what, Richard?” I said, flinching a bit at not calling him sir.

“What?” he replied.

“You mean you don’t know what I’m going to ask?”

“Of course I do, but I figured you’d rather ask it.”

“Yes. Well. How did I die?”

“You don’t remember it?”

“Does anyone?”

“Why, yes. Most people only talk about how it happened for days. Weeks. And sometimes years. But up here, that seems like a millisecond.”

“So?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“What? Why?”

“Because if you don’t know, you’re not supposed to be dead.”

All of the sudden I felt like I was in that damn Warren Beatty movie “Heaven Can Wait”. However, I didn’t have Charles Grodin fucking my wife. And I certainly didn’t want to be Vince Ferragamo.

“I rather liked that movie,” Sir Richard said, breaking my train of thought.

“So, Richard,” I hesitated to ask. “Does this mean I’m going back.”

“Most likely, yes.”

“But time has moved on. My corpse is on the way to the funeral home.”

“Oh, we can fix that.”

I started to think hard now. About the last thoughts I could remember before I was watching my dead body from above.

I was in a bar, no, I was in the bar. The Mulch Pit. Drinking with Lucy? Listening to Lucero? Yes and yes.

There was that old man who didn’t know how to tip. And the Braves were being beat by my Pirates on the television. I think that A.J. Burnett was even pitching a shutout.

“You really can’t remember. That’s astonishing.”

“Why so astonishing?” I asked, my curiosity seriously piqued now.

“Oh, boy.”

“Oh, boy?”

“Oh my.”

“Oh my?”

I was beginning to think I was being given the runaround. So, I kept trying to remember. I looked down at my hands, they were turning blue.

“Why is this happening?”

“Because you are remembering how you died, but you’re not dead. That’s the complication from that.”

“Turning blue?”

“Yes. We call it Smurfing. It usually only happens to little kids, so they like it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m 44 years old. Not exactly excited by that.”

That’s when it started flooding back.

The redhead. The reason for my depression. My outlook on things. My mania. My inspiration. She was there.

“Did she?”

“What? Try to kill you? Of course not.”

I remember sitting down. Forcing conversation. Then the door opened. And there he was. Gun in hand.

“My old boss?”

“No. No. No. Keep looking.”

I saw McPhillop. He was pushed aside by another man I knew. Someone who knew the red head too.

“Randy, that’s why I’m here,” the redhead spoke just before the shots rang out.

Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam.

Some kind of semi-automatic hand gun it was. All the bullets missed. Except the last one. It hit my chest. I fell to the ground.

“You deserve this,” he said.

“Wha…wha…what? Why?” I sputtered out, along with blood.

“Stop, Randy. Don’t think about him,” the redhead said.

I looked into her eyes. There was that sparkle that was missing the last time I saw her over a decade ago. I hadn’t even thought to look for it before now.

“I love you,” I said.

“I know,” she replied.

And I blacked out right at that moment. Right as she said the exact same words she said to me the very last time we talked. In fact, those were the last two words she had said to me.

Now, sitting with Sir Richard I wonder if dead wouldn’t be better.

“You aren’t ready,” he said to me. “Now go back. Finish what needs to be finished.”