Big Betty’s Bad Day

This was Peckerwood Johnson’s lucky day. He rummaged through the dumpsters behind the mall, one eye open for an airsoft cop, one eye looking for anything to eat, wear, barter, or sell. Fleas leaped between his voluminous beard and the dumpster. A half-eaten Cinnabon went straight down the hatch. Socks, too small, but keep those, you never know. Whoa, what was this? He pulled out a bright yellow box, still sealed. “Big Betty… inflatable party doll,” he said. He sounded like a little boy who has opened the present he never dreamed in a hundred years he would get. Occasionally he had looked for a Big Betty, or one of her sisters, but they were like fifty bucks. His eyes stared back at the package’s flirtatious gaze. His soul filled with the thought of having a body to lie next to at night, under the bridge. It had been so long… so long. Big Betty’s eyes looked so kind. 

“Hey! You! Gethefuckouttamydumpsteryapieceofshit!” Peckerwood saw the Paul Blart wannabe huffing and jiggling towards him. He took off into the woods behind the loading docks, the yellow box clutched to his chest. He made a beeline for the Jiffy Mart, where the air pump was still free. He had a woman!

Jimbo Puffpants dragged himself upright, one hand after another, clinging to the lamp post in the park. He stood, swayed, took a step, bent over and vomited. It spurted out of him, red with wine and blood, spasm after spasm, until his ribs ached and his throat burned. Finally he spat a few times and stood up. Now he felt like a new man, especially after he pissed down his legs. The urine warmed him and softened the stiffened filth in the several pairs of trousers he wore. He thought about finding that bench at the bus stop to watch the high school girls bounce by, but he knew this robust feeling wouldn’t last. Booze, he had to find more booze. Thunderbird, shart-donnay, it didn’t matter, but he had to get something.

He dug through all the pockets in all the clothes that layered him. A few nickels and pennies. A single quarter. Fear prickled his spine. He couldn’t take the shakes again. It would kill him. He knew there was a long stoplight nearby, good for change and foldables. He pulled the crumpled cardboard from his shopping cart and shambled off to the Jiffy Market.

Peckerwood’s heart raced as he fiddled to get the air nozzle latched onto Big Betty’s valve. “You just piss off if a customer needs that pump, y’hear?” someone from the market yelled, but he was too excited to worry about some aproned clerk. Soon he heard the hiss, and Big Betty’s arms and legs trembled, flapped, and unfolded with a crinkle of fresh plastic. Her head, and her red mouth! He would be so happy tonight, so happy.

“Hey, whatcha got there?”

Peckerwood glanced over his shoulder. “Mind your ways, Jimbo, this ain’t nothin’ for you.” She was almost full, her tits high and perky.

“I need that, Peckerwood, I ain’t got time to wait for change. I can feel the shakes comin’ and it’s gonna be bad. You gimme that doll and I can get twenty for her at Russell’s place.” Jimbo had a thought and looked at Peckerwood all skewy. “You ain’t used her yet or nuthin’, have you?” He shook his head. “It don’ matter, just hand her over. I’ll give ya half, promise.” He stepped forward, arms outstretched, fingers grasping like a toddler wanting a lift.

Big Betty had filled to her full, curvy glory. “Fuck you, Jimbo, back off. Big Betty’s my girl, and she’s spending the night!” Peckerwood stepped away, but Jimbo was fighting for his life.

He grabbed for an arm, missed, grabbed at a leg and found purchase. Peckerwood wanted to flee, but he had to face the maddened Jimbo or lose Big Betty entirely. The battle was vicious, two implacable foes bent on victory yet mindful of their prey’s fragility.

A big-car honk sounded long and loud as an Escalade pulled up looking for the free air. A middle-aged woman with a short haircut hammered the horn in righteous rage. Water sprayed the combatants as the store clerk unleashed the hose coiled at the back of the store.

A gaggle of high school girls walked by, spellbound and disgusted in equal measure, fortunately unaware of the role they had almost played in Jimbo’s fantasy afternoon.

The end was nigh. Jimbo had his hand stuck in Big Betty’s life-like action mouth, while Peckerwood pulled on an arm. Now a breast was grabbed in the reckless, desperate melee.

With a terrible ripping of pink plastic and a sudden whoosh Big Betty collapsed to her former, foldable self. The store clerk turned off the water once he saw the fight was over. The Escalade now had room by the pump, but the lady refused to open her door until the combatants cleared the field. The girls had passed on from the terrible scene. 

Jimbo sat on the curb groaning as the tremors began. Peckerwood shook the water off. He wanted to kick Jimbo, but he knew what horrors the night held for him. He trundled back to the mall. Maybe it was still his lucky day.

Driving and Drinking with Dracula

Drac needs to talk. Urgent. 

I’m getting drowsy, just about ready for bed, when Drac calls. His full name is Count Dracula, but we go way back, so we’re down to nicknames. I call him Drac. Drac calls me Ray. 

“Let’s drive,” he says. “And drink.”

“It’s bedtime,” I protest.

“Not for everyone. Just a little while? No all-nighter. I’ve got work.”

He picks me up in his old ‘54 Nash Metropolitan. Funky, for a guy of Drac’s stature, but as he told me once, “Who cares? I only go out at night.”

I’ll give it to him. He comes prepared, a short case of Burgie on the seat between us. Stubbies. “Wow, these are chill,” I say, using the opener on his dash. 

“I sleep with them,” he says. “Advantages of being … well, you know.”

We met at the blood bank. We were both lying there, needles in our arms, draining into the bags when I realized who he was. I asked what he was doing there, in the middle of the day.

“All that daylight-turns-me-to-ash stuff is horseshit. It’s what they tell you, in vampire basic, but it’s just not true. We gotta get out. Mingle.”

I asked him if he didn’t think it was a little contrarian for him to be giving blood, instead of taking. 

“It’s not like I need it all,” he said. “I’ve got more than I can use, to be honest. I’m an aggregator. And a giver.”

Decent kind of guy. Now, tipping his Burgie, he says he’s been having trouble sleeping. Nights come around, no energy left for popping in on the ladies, sharing a few pints.

I love the way his fangs embrace the bottle mouth, like it’s a kiss and he could chomp down, but he doesn’t, because the kiss is good and besides, who kisses glass? 

He reaches down, punches a button on the radio. He likes oldies rock, always tuned to ‘50s doo-wop. “I Only Have Eyes for You,” “In the Still of the Night,” “Blue Moon.”

“You’re into irony, right?” I asked one time. 

“Who, little-ol’ flittin’-around-in-the-bat-shit me?” 

He smiled and his incisors twinkled in the light. Then he laughed harder, longer, so much he urped. 

“Reflux,” he said, and reached into the tub of Tums on the seat. “I gotta see a Doc, but who would take a guy dead six hundred years?”

“Six?”

“Do the math. If you start at Vlad.”

Just a regular guy. Not sure what this night is about, killing time, I ask him to drive by Lenora’s house. 

“Sweet on her?”

I nod. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this,” he says, to preface what he wants to say,  “but I tried to suck her neck one time.”

I wait. There’s more.

“Not so hot,” he says. 

I tell him I’ll compare notes, if ever I get past first. “Is she a vvvv–?”

“Vampire? No. She had a crucifix around her neck.” 

I nod, happy she’s still available.

“She’s nice and all,” he says, “but she wouldn’t shut up about her Barbie collection. A  woman in her twenties? I never knew.” 

He pulls up in front of Lenora’s, his motor running. I stare at the window of her room. The light is still on. I see her shadow, moving around. Then her arms extend. She’s holding something, a doll maybe. Or a phone. The light goes out. I wish I were in there.

Drac puts it in gear and we head off. We finish the beer, talking about taxes and repairs to his water heater, and he turns toward home. 

“I called for another reason,” he says. “I’ve got news.”

“Oh?”

“I’m going back to school.”

“Seriously? For what?”

“Accounting. I’ve always had a head for numbers.”

“Really? I would’ve guessed phlebotomy. Don’t want to be too obvious?”

“Right?” he says, chuckling. “Hey, what about mortuary science?”

I blow a spurt of Burgie out my nose. 

“I just want to be normal. No more nights. Spend more time with the wife and kids.”

That’s a big reveal, that he has a family. I don’t ask about them. I’d hate to run into them on the street and start wondering if they were gonna jump me.

I steer it back to accounting.

“When I took all the paperwork to my tax guy last year?”

I nod.

“He was so calm. Adding and subtracting. I loved the desk lamp with the green shade. It’s me. A spot of light in the dark. Believe it or not, but I like light. My eyes aren’t cut out for the dark. My nose is my eyes. Keeps me from crashing into things.”

I want to support him, but hold back. Who wants to talk Drac out of being Drac? 

“Wouldn’t you miss the percs?” I ask.

“Like what?”

“You get more neck than anybody I know.”

“You think that’s cool? Dude, it’s neck. There’s more to sex than neck, but not in my line of work. It’s pretty stifling, frankly.”

Then he goes on a rant, about all the limits, how he wants to go out to dinner and have a steak and a glass of wine. Or a salad. 

“Do you realize, for the entirety of my curse, I’ve had nothing to eat but blood? No crackers. No cheese. No Lunchables. No kale. Believe that shit?”

 He tells me change is hard. He’ll have to see a dentist, lose the fangs. Slowly work his way into Italian food, with all that garlic. 

“Talk about indigestion,” he says. “And — I know this sounds whiney — but imagine trying to get a good day’s sleep. All these idiots out there, vampire hunters. They’ve  seen too many movies, running around looking for castle cellars with seeping walls, so they can terminate me. If just one more person drives a stake through my chest, I’m gonna scream.”

He says he would love health insurance without the cardiac risk rider.

I think of Drac in his new gig. Probably have to lose the cape. Shame. I’ve never needed one. If you’re Drac, you need a cape. If you’re not Drac?

Two thoughts hit me: One, an accountant with a cape would attract clients like … I dunno, Bela Lugosi? Two, if he’s not Drac, then who? 

I could do it. Maybe he would cut me a deal on the franchise? Maybe time for something new?

It would be interesting. Meet new people. Working nights? Not my favorite. But that would leave my days free, to go on walks with Lenora, who surely would say “yes” to getting married if she knew I, her husband, was about to become The New Dracula. 

Ha! 

How’s that for a business card? And I could see the fun building my LinkedIn.

Drac pulls up in front of my house and stops. I get out but lean on the roof and look back in. I am wondering if they make queen-size coffins (room for Lenora), even as I give him my best advice.

“Follow your bliss, Dude.”

Turns out, he does. 

Me? I pass on the whole Drac thing. Ugly hours, no upside, and Lenora wouldn’t hear of it. But I got the cape anyway. I wear it for yuks, when we go out driving and drinking. Not for Halloween, though. I know where to draw the line.