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.”

Mulch Pit, chapter 1

“I don’t know what these people want from me?” Lucy screamed at the top of her lungs as she sat down next to me at the bar. I shrugged my shoulders, then asked her for a beer. She was, after all, the waitress of the joint.

“Yeah. That’s what I want too. And I ordered mine 15 minutes ago, ya bum!” an older guy at one of the dilapidated booths in this joint said as Lucy handed me a cold Ranger IPA. I’d started drinking IPAs so I could get drunk faster. They cost a bit more, but if you drank them all night instead of regular octane beers, you didn’t spend as much. Quality not quantity, someone smarter than me once said. Probably before it was used by Slater in “Dazed and Confused.”

“You know Lucy, you might want to give that guy a beer,” I said. “He is paying your salary.”

“The hell he is. That old fucker never tips. He’s been coming in here for 14 years now. I know, I’ve been working here for 15. And that shitty motherfucker only leaves dimes. One for every beer. If this was 1947, I’d be rich off the bastard. But it’s 2012, and I can’t pay my rent.”

“Neither can I but I still tip ya.”

“I know, honey, that’s why you never have an empty bottle for long,” Lucy smiled and blew me a kiss.

“Rent a God damn room you two!” the old bastard said.

I motioned at Lucy for two more beers. One for me, one for him. She brought me an IPA and a Budweiser. I looked over at his table, there were three empty bottles of Michelob. I swallowed hard as I stumbled over to his booth.

The vinyl seats were cracked and crusty. Probably never cleaned after this joint – Mulch Pile – was cleaned after the great cigarette ban of 2009. I remember Mulchie, God rest his soul, cursing up and down as he scrubbed those walls with a brush every night for months. All the while folks were still smoking up a storm in the time before the end. Now they all stand in front of the front door and give every non-smoker a big old lungfull of secondhand smoke every time they come near it.

I sit down and hand the old guy a Budweiser. He stares at it for a second, then grabs it in his meaty, blood red hands and takes a gulp.

“Thanks kid,” he said. “I always knew you were good for something. Not much, but something.”

“Well, thank you sir!” I said with a wave of my hand in my best Colonial style. He didn’t seem to appreciate it as much as I did in my mind. Such is the life in the bar.

“How come Lucy won’t never bring me a beer?” he finally asked as Frankie Freeman grounded into a double play on ESPN above us.

“You don’t tip, old-timer. Simple as that.”

“Don’t tip? The fuck I don’t. I leave her dimes for every beer!” he angrily snarled while finishing off the Budweiser. “Lucy! Bring me another damn beer!”

She looked at him, then at me. I nodded. She brought two more over. I hadn’t even take a sip of mine yet. She stood over us, waiting to be paid.

“Well?” the old man snarled some more. “Are you going to pay for it or not?”

I reached into my trusty Velcro wallet and pulled out a 10 spot.

“Keep the change, Lucy,” I smiled at her. “And keep ‘em coming.”

“Why’d you give her so much?” he asked me, gripping the beer I’d just paid for with both hands like some kind of kid with a controller in his hands after you’d unplugged his PlayStation3. “These beers only cost seven bucks.”

“Well, old man, you see, she now likes us. The better you tip, the better the service.”

“Fuck that. Like I said. I tip after every damn beer.” He pointed at a stack of dimes. Must have been 11 or 12 of them.

“How many beers have you drank today?” I asked.

“Countin’ the two you bought, 15!” he said proudly.

“Well, I see only 12 dimes there. Where are the other three?”

“You got me, kid. You got me.”

“Now watch this,” I said to the old man, pointing at Lucy.

“Hey Loooose,” I cooed. “Can you come here for a moment?”

She looked at me and smiled her crooked-teeth smile. There was something about a lady that had never had braces that I liked. The vampire-esque quality of teeth slightly out of kilter and a little bit stained. It told me they got what life was about. Being happy. Not being what others think is happy.

“What, darling?” she said, sitting on my lap. I felt a slight twinge in my crotch. I hadn’t slept with a woman in six months. The prospect of Lucy had never crossed my mind seriously. Until that moment. Her legs were bare and very clean shaven. She had the veins of someone who’d stood her whole life working, but they weren’t ugly. Her feet were big, but her toes were painted nice which made them look awesome. Before I knew it, I had to move her a little, so she wouldn’t notice.

It was a futile effort.

“Honey, is that what you wanted to show me?” she said, patting me on my head. “Because I’ve seen it all before.”

“Wait,” I said. “I want you and the old-timer here to bury the hatchet.”

“Wha?” the old man said. “I never said …”

“Hold on, there sir,” I interrupted. “You listen here. From now on, you order a beer, or order beers all day and night, you leave a tip of more than a dime. Before you know it, you’ll be best friends with Lucy.”

“Ha!” Lucy snorted. I loved it when a woman snorted. It meant they were in the moment and not thinking about laughing. Which meant they weren’t really laughing at all.

“Deal?” I said, looking at the old man.

“Oh what the hell!” he said. “I’ll never spend all of my money before I die anyway. And my good-for-nothin’ son sure as hell don’t deserve to get any.”

We all laughed and took a long swig. I handed Lucy my other beer and she took a sip too.

It was going to be a good night at the ol’ Mulch Pile tonight. I could already tell.

And that’s when she walked in. The redhead I thought I’d never see again. Just like the song said, things went from better to bad to worse. Only I wasn’t at no Texas Funeral.