Woolly Bully

I was on a fishing trip with the Old Man and my Uncle Johnny when I was eleven, around the time I was starting to think for myself. Uncle Johnny wasn’t really my uncle but was the husband of my mother’s cousin. I was told to call him Uncle Johnny, so I did as I was told. He was a good-natured guy who told hilarious stories from his days as a “bag man” for the Chicago Mob. He also had incredibly large ears, which is why I believe he’d inherited the nickname “Eavesdropper,” which was shortened to just “Dropper.”

We had stopped at a roadside cafe on our way to the Wisconsin fishing hole, which  was unusual because the Old Man hated to stop or take a break from driving. Once we were on the road, that was it, express from start to finish. Memories of family vacations driving long distances always included having to pee in a plastic bottle. He wouldn’t even stop for my mother, when she needed to go, making her wait for a gas station instead. She later got a bedpan from her friend that worked at the hospital. My younger sister always wet her pants on vacation road trips. Then the Old Man would start hollering at my mother, saying it was her fault for letting my sister drink too much water. 

My older brother was quite an inventor and devised a contraption made from a piece of hose. It had a metal funnel on one end to pee into and the other end he hung out the window. I thought it was brilliant, but unfortunately it would flush back if you didn’t piss down the hose. And when he finally did succeed in pissing downward, the piss was swept up by the wind and got my Old Man’s arm hanging out the window all wet. That was the end of the “Easy Pisser.”

Anyway, Uncle Johnny wanted to get some lunch and liked the rhubarb pie at this particular cafe near Janesville. So the Old Man gave into his request after arguing about it for twenty minutes.

Johnny gave me fifty cents for the jukebox and the Old Man matched his donation. 

“What do you want me to play?” I asked.

“Play whatever you want! I don’t care,” Johnny replied.

“Ya, whatever you want,” the Old Man begrudgingly agreed.

I knew better and I don’t know what made me think I could actually play whatever I wanted, but I gave it a shot.

I made the mistake of playing “Wooly Bully,” which pissed the Old Man off. He thought Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs were all black musicians, when actually they were all white guys.

My Old Man was a racist down to his Catholic soul and hated Blacks. He always used the ‘N’ word. I never found out the reason why.

“What the fuck you wasting my money on?” he hollered. “Wooly Bully, what is that shit? You’re not supporting a bunch of niggers with my fucking money.”

He got up and pulled the plug on the jukebox. Then he slapped me on the back of the head.

“What the hell are you thinking? Dumbshit!”

“Hey take it easy on the kid,” Uncle Johnny said. “He didn’t do anything wrong. You said he could play whatever he wanted. What’s wrong with you?”

I’d never seen anyone stand up to the Old Man before and was even more surprised by his reaction.

“Ya, well he knows better than to play that shit.”

“Relax, take it easy. This is a fishing trip to get away from all the stress. Come on, give the kid a break.”

Now I believe the reason my Old Man didn’t give it to Uncle Johnny is because he was connected, a “made man,” and you don’t want to be screwing around with the Italians.

I ordered a cheeseburger, which pissed the Old Man off even more because they charged an extra fifteen cents for a single slice of cheese. After my Old Man bitching about the overpriced cheeseburger, my Uncle Johnny bought me a piece of rhubarb pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. It was excellent. 

After finishing our meal, Uncle Johnny lit up a cigar, which caused the Old Man to start bitching about the smell and laying down the law about smoking it in the car. The Old Man chain smoked cigarettes like a convict, of course, never considering anyone else’s feelings. 

“Come on John, let’s get on the road.” 

“Right behind you. Come on Santi.”

“Why do you call him that? His name is Judge. He’s going to be a big shot lawyer someday.” 

Unfortunately, he had no idea I would end up appearing before so many judges in my lifetime.  

We stood at the counter, waiting for the waitress to come with our bill. I could feel the tension stretching  thinner and thinner, like a rubber band getting ready to snap. Johnny was eyeing some Payday, Hersheys and Milky Way candy bars while the old man grew more impatient. I heard Johnny quietly humming before he suddenly started singing and dancing around all nutty and crazy like, “Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully. I kinda like that song. It sticks with you, huh Santiago.”

“I guess so?” I replied. He had me laughing, causing me to forget all about the jukebox incident.

“Excuse me miss,” the Old Man shouted at the waitress. “I’d like to pay the bill and get on the road, if you don’t mind?”

She walked over, glaring as she slapped the bill down on the counter in front of him.

“Guess she doesn’t want a tip, acting like that,” he said to the cashier.

She never said a word, just handed him the change. He walked out in front of us as we followed, but before exiting I saw Uncle Johnny throw a five spot on the counter.

On the side of the restaurant sat an old black man with a guitar, playing and singing some gospel music. I have always been attracted to music. Any type of music. I ran over to the raggedy old man and he gave me a toothy grin. I had seventy-five cents left that I didn’t put in the jukebox, which I threw into the hat sitting next to him.

“Now you’re trying to piss me off,” the Old Man screamed, grabbing my arm and dragging me back to the car. “Why are you giving that bum money? He’s probably a drunk and will spend it on booze.”

“I hope so,” I wanted to say but knew better.

I never wanted to go on this fishing trip in the first place, but Uncle Johnny thought it would be nice to spend time together. He liked me and always gave me a Christmas and birthday present. So I thought it was the right thing to do.

“Now check the boat trailer and the shit in the boat,” the Old Man ordered. “Make sure everything is okay. Go on ya little shit!”

I don’t know what got into me then, but it was to be my first act of retaliation against the Old Man. I walked around the back of the car while he was checking under the hood, unlocking the hitch on the boat trailer. 

“Looks good Dad!” I yelled as I got in the car.

“Here, got us some candy bars,” Uncle Johnny said, handing me three Milky Ways. “They were free just sitting there.”

“Uncle Johnny, did you pay for these? “

“Believe me Santiago I’ve paid, I’ve paid.”

He gave me his signature wink and a smile, rubbing the top of my head affectionately.

It was a few miles north of Madison when the boat and trailer finally went off the side of the road. It crashed into the trees, flipping several times before its fiberglass body shattered to pieces.

We ended up fishing from the shore, but surprisingly we caught a large amount of walleyes and crappies. The Old Man never confronted me about the boat. And I never offered an explanation. 

Whenever Uncle Johnny saw me after that trip, he gave me a secret wink and then he’d  start singing, “Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully.”

I think he knew.

Pulled Pork

“That’s right, asshole,” Deputy Buddy Turnage muttered around a considerable chaw, “just turn that hippie van around and get the fuck out of here.  Go find someplace else to drink your beer and smoke your pot and throw your goddamned Frisbee . . .” 

His Caprice cruiser baked in the late afternoon sun, baked like chicken at the entrance to the park, a source of comfort for families and law-abiding folks looking to enjoy the beautiful spring day, an effective deterrent for the hard-partying crowd seeking diversions of a less than savory nature.  

Turnage raised a plastic cup to his mouth and unleashed a torrent of brown spit.  Eyes concealed behind mirrored aviators, he watched the van with satisfaction, smiling as the long-haired driver executed a U-turn in the parking lot and headed back to the highway.  

No doubt the long-haired driver and his long-haired commie freak friends were up to no good.  Otherwise they would’ve come right on in, easy as you please.  Good old fashioned police presence had put the kibosh on their plans.  As well as the sign recently posted at the entrance gate:  NO COOLERS ALLOWED.  The sign had been his idea.  A mighty fine one, too.  Now troublemakers had to go somewhere else to get their kicks, preferably across the county line where they would be somebody else’s headache.    

Turnage’s stomach growled.  His was a large stomach, an incredibly bloated belly which stretched the seams of his shit-brown uniform shirt.  He ate garbage and hadn’t gotten a lick of exercise since his high school football days.  Dr. Buckhalter had given him a stern warning at his last checkup.  “You’re a heart attack waiting to happen,” the doctor had said.  Turnage had promised to do better.  

But damn if those jumbo pulled pork sandwiches heaped with coleslaw down at Dax’s Drive-In weren’t the closest thing to heaven on earth.  In fact, he could go for one right about now.  The iced honey bun he had washed down with his morning coffee had worn off hours ago.  He needed fuel to get through the remainder of his shift.

Turnage cranked the cruiser and pulled out onto the highway.  He wasn’t even halfway to Dax’s when his mouth began to water. 

***

After eating lunch Turnage had spent the afternoon running radar on the short stretch of I-20 within his county, a fruitful undertaking as he had netted three speeders and helped a stranded motorist with a flat tire.  Now, fresh wad of Beech-Nut tucked in his jaw, he returned to the park at the brink of dusk, one final drive through before heading back to the station.  

The parking lot was empty.    

With one exception.  

Turnage grinned when he saw the hippie van.  

He wheeled in beside it and climbed out of his cruiser, hitching his trousers as he walked to the rear of the van and saw the California plate.  

Should’ve known, he mused.  

Land of fruits and nuts.  

He walked around and peered through the passenger side window.  Nothing incriminating within view.  But that didn’t mean diddly squat.  He could see them down there by the lake, a group of five long hairs with their backs turned to him.  They hadn’t even seen him pull in.  At least he didn’t think so.  Probably stoned out of their gourds, he thought.  Well, this was his park, a family-friendly park, and that kind of thing just couldn’t be tolerated, not on his watch.   

Turnage stepped off the asphalt and descended the grassy embankment.  It wasn’t steep, but his knees popped just the same.  The hippies were some sixty yards away.  Turnage walked with purposeful strides.  One of them turned around when he was halfway there, setting off a chain reaction.  Turnage saw pale faces framed with long, stringy hair parted in the middle. 

He reached the party and stopped, towering above them with his hands on his hips.  His smile became a sneer when he saw their red and white Coleman cooler.  

“Can you folks read?” he asked.  

“We can read.” 

Their spokesman, Turnage thought.  He saw three men and two women.  They looked older than he had suspected.  These weren’t college kids.  And that made it worse.  These folks should know better.  Strangely enough, he didn’t see any beer cans, nor did he smell the pungent odor of weed.  The speaker and one of the women were smoking cigarettes.  The cooler lid was closed. 

“Coolers are prohibited in this park,” Turnage said.  

“We didn’t know,” said the smoking woman. 

They wore old jeans, threadbare T-shirts, battered dollar store sneakers.  They were unwashed, unkempt, transient.  Turnage saw paper plates, napkins, plastic forks, everything spread out atop a dirty blanket.  

“You folks having a picnic?” 

Nobody said a word.  

“I bet that cooler is loaded with beer.  I hate to break it to you, but this here is a dry county.  We don’t allow—”

“No beer,” the spokesman said.  “Just sodas and food.”  

“Sodas and food, huh?” 

“That’s right.”

Turnage eyed them warily.  “Mind if I take a look?”

“We’d rather you didn’t.” 

“And why is that?”

“Leave us alone,” said the other woman, the non smoker.  “We haven’t done anything wrong.  You’re harassing us.” 

Turnage got a kick out of that one.  He stepped closer and placed his boot atop the cooler.  He moved his foot back and forth, agitating its contents.  Ice rattled. 

“It’s a fine day for cold beer.  Yes, indeed.  Unfortunately you all picked the wrong place.  But I’m a reasonable man.  Pour the beer out and throw away the cans and I’ll let you go about your day without so much as a ticket.  How about that?” 

“There’s no beer,” said the spokesman.   

“Says you.” 

“We don’t even drink—”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.” 

“Enough of this bullshit!”  

Turnage had had enough.  He kicked the cooler, fully expecting an avalanche of ice and 12 ounce cans.  It took several seconds for the whole thing to register, the contents of the cooler spread out atop the blanket—the upper portion of an arm, a muscular thigh, a pink tongue—

“Jesus!” Turnage reached for his sidearm.  

Too late. 

Much too late. 

They attacked, five against one, an all out blitzkrieg.  They took him to the ground.  Turnage didn’t stand a chance as he felt a knife plunge into his gut.  

The cult made short work of the deputy.  

And ate good for two whole weeks.

Where The Horses Once Ran Free

He sat there on the beach for no reason but to simply escape. The drinks were as meaningless as the conversations these days.

Everyone was fake when you get to a certain level you expect that. It’s a weird kind of badge of honor and a curse you bear with ambition.

Real writers understood it, most that read the pages and envied did not. You do anything long enough and better than the rest you will be hated.

And when you realize you made it, you will be too fucking exhausted to care.

Frank didn’t give a shit to ever write a follow up to that curse of a novel. It sold, it afforded him his vices.

And to him that seemed like an even trade for the life blood of his soul. He had lost it all and everyone thought it was a blessing.

It was just another delusion and nothing more. He sat there, with the only bastard stupid enough to remain with him through everything.

And if that old bulldog Boozer could open his own food cans he probably would have jumped ship as well.

Frank had his phone off for two weeks straight. It wasn’t unusual for him to vanish but it was odd for him not to be writing.

He told them all he was blocked but that was pure bullshit. He sold a few stories now and then to maintain interest.

The pages breathed life until the day there was no life left in which to write about.

Rebecca picked up stakes and went back home he heard. It had been a year since last they had spoken.

Yet another hurricane was bearing down on the outer banks and as always the debate arose amongst the locals and tourists alike.

Do we stay or carry our asses?

Frank had the windows boarded, well he paid to have the windows boarded. The generator was gassed up and the bar was stocked and Frank as always was fully loaded.

It’s the fucking wait that gets everyone.

And as Frank kicked back with a cocktail in hand, he thought he was either hallucinating or in route to get shot when he looked to see Rebecca standing at his door.

“So Satan, how the fuck are you? And if you don’t mind me asking, who’s guarding the gates of hell in your absence?”

Rebecca cut her eyes at Frank letting him know if she could turn folks to stone, Frankie certainly wouldn’t be talking.

She didn’t say anything so after a minute of extremely awkward silence, Frank just turned to go get a refill.

And as he poured another scotch he heard his former best friend close the door behind her.

He mixed her one as well and left it on the bar, taking his place back on the couch, As Boozer laid in his bed whimpering at the sight of Rebecca.

“Hey buddy, how have you been? I got a treat for you.”

She said, kneeling down.

Boozer was old, going grey around the muzzle and partially blind but much like his owner, too fucking stupid to die.

And no matter how stiff the drink was, that awkward silence hung heavy in the room.

Rebecca took her seat at the bar and finally broke the verbal Mexican standoff.

“So, you leaving or riding this one out?”

“Well I was going to head to Martha’s Vineyard to live it up like a Kennedy then I thought. Oh yeah, I’m still at best, a semi- famous writer who no longer writes. So yeah, me and the Boozehound are going to stay here and guard the bar.”

“Maybe if you worried less about the bottle and those whores you’re always chasing, you could actually write something for a change.”

“Shit and give Simon a stroke by actually making him happy? Fuck that besides, how many stories can a man pen about one night stands and booze?”

“I wouldn’t know being as I haven’t read anything by you in a year or more.”

Frank finished off his scotch looking at Rebecca.

“I thought I sent you that last one I sold to The New Yorker?”

“You did, but I just put it in my cat’s litter box. “

“Oh well, I always did try to market my work to pussies and landfills. I really hate those environmental nut cases. Refill my dear?”

Rebecca just stared at the T.V.

“I don’t know why I even came here.”

“Sure beats the shit out of me as well kid, but being as you’re here, have another round for old times on me.”

Frank replied as he poured Rebecca another.

They sat there for a while, Frank turned the television off for the moment was awkward enough, without adding the weather forecaster about creaming his shorts rambling on about a hurricane.

They sat there at the bar opposite of one another, two strangers who had once shared everything.

Frank knew there wasn’t a damn thing he could say to fix the scars of the past, as he saw no point in reopening old scars for the sake of nothing better to do.

“You know you’re a real bastard!”

Rebecca said, finally breaking the silence.

“You know, once there were wild horses running all over these beaches. It was a beautiful site. Then along came the yuppies in their quest to be one with nature and of course had to remove all that nature stuff because it’s not very cosmopolitan having your head in the stars and horse crap on your lawn.”

“Stop avoiding facing me. I don’t give a fuck about your stories I came to talk to you!”

“I can’t change what fucking happened okay! You rejected me sweetheart not the other way around. So, go play victim to somebody who actually buys into you bullshit sweetheart! You wanted delusion but we cannot fight our true nature so get over yourself princess!”

“You’re just a self-absorbed piece of shit you know that! Besides you can’t love anyone because you’re always going to love that stupid bitch!”

Frank threw his glass into the wall as it exploded into a million pieces.

Rebecca went dead silent.

Frank said nothing, just picked up the bottle and went and sat on deck out back, listening to the one constant in his life, the ocean.

And as he sat there, he heard Rebecca step outside.

He never turned around for there was nothing left to say. A closed chapter is a mile marker, you never pine for it, you simply move on.

She vanished from his existence leaving him to his world of page counts and papercuts.

And now as Frank sat there by the fire, he looked at the manuscript that was the curse of his trade.

It was a mile marker as he viewed the gun and the bottle as both were illuminated by the fire.

The Devil Is My Co-Editor was promised to the publisher and its only copy sat in the hands of someone far beyond burnt out from living his life’s pages.

He knew the cost of another so called best seller and all the trappings that yet more success would bring him.

So, reflecting for a half of a second, Frank simply tossed it into the fire and was now burden free.

He then killed the remnants of his drink and started to reach for the gun when he viewed that mangey old mutt of his get up, walk around in three circles to only proceed to take a shit and in return, start eating that very same deposit.

Frank’s stomach was never that great to begin with as it turned while he fought the urge to vomit.

As he thought to himself, why the fuck could he have just done like Hemingway and bought a fucking cat?

He canceled his proverbial departing flight leaving the gun outside and went to grab a refill instead.

As he picked up his laptop and tossed it out the door, locking the door just in case it got any ideas.

Boozer whimpered at the door. Frank just opened it and tossed his dog bed outside with a can of food.

“Sorry old man, but I think I need some alone time, besides you got a real taste for shit and I hate for it to influence my non-writing activities.

Frank closed the door. The old dog stood there for a second and simply laid down and went to bed.

The horses once ran wild up and down these beaches in Carolina, until nature was deemed a bit too wild.

Frank didn’t regret burning his only copy of his manuscript, besides he had to keep a low profile.

For if his neighbors had even a clue about his antics, he may just end up on that endangered species list too.

The drinks poured endless as once the page, like the horses had once run free.

That’s All She Wrote

We were barrelassing down the interstate toward the Texas coast in Ray’s rusty old RAM.  Windows down. Wind howling through the interior like a demon lover, clinking empty beer cans together, stirring up candy wrappers, Cheez-It bags with nothing left but cheese dust, maybe a few leftover grains of blow from a wild night. Jesus, mounted on the dashboard by the truck’s previous owner, swayed back and forth in a quasi-religious version of the Texas two-step. It had been raining all morning but now the sun had reappeared, beating down like a ballpeen hammer on a tin roof on the set of a long-lost Tennessee Williams play.

My name’s Jimbo.

We passed three dead armadillos on the shoulder and the bloated carcass of a feral hog. Tough luck for the local critters. 

Next, a steaming single car wreck came up on the right. It looked like the car had done a double flip before coming to rest at the bottom of the rain swollen drainage ditch. Must have just happened. A man sat stone still in the driver’s seat, his door wide open, his head thrust back at an odd angle. A woman climbed over him and eased her feet down into the six inches of rain runoff. She wore pink panties. That was it. 

She staggered around in the ankle-deep water as if she was lost. Or had mislaid her life. Blood streaked one cheek.

Ray slowed to get a better look, wheels crunching on the verge.

“Hey,” I said. “Maybe we should offer a Good Samaritan hand to the maimed and the mutilated.” 

“Well, now, what the fuck do you think they were getting up to just moments go?” asked Ray.

“I’d say some kind of hanky-panky,” I said.

“A risky business indeed when you’re doing 90 mph and the windshield fogs up due to lust,” said Ray philosophically. 

Ray stopped the pickup, set the parking brake, disembarked and edged down the embankment and right up to the woman, who stood stock still watching him come. When he arrived, she hurled herself against him, wrapping her arms around him in a desperate hug, as if he was about to head off to certain death in Afghanistan. I saw her whisper something into his ear. I imagined what her bare white breasts felt like pressing again Ray’s chest. His hands gripped the twin orbs of her buttocks as though they were a god send. Some guys had all the luck.

Ray stepped over to the car, some kind of Toyota or whatever, and put two fingers against the man’s neck. After a minute Ray looked back up at me and give an exaggerated shrug. 

I heard her say: “My bag.”

Ray ducked down and leaned into the car, almost as if he was embracing the dead guy. Reappeared with a tote bag in hand big enough to hold a half dozen dead possums after an all-night possum hunt. When I was growing up in the East Texas piney woods, nothing beat a slow cooked possum stew.

Ray handed the bag to the woman, swooped her up in his arms and carried her like a bride up the steep side of the gully, careful about each step he took so as not to fall. Suddenly remembering she was topless, she held one arm across her breasts, the other hooked around Ray’s neck. 

I was like: Whoa! What’s up, dude.

Ray opened the back door of the crew cab and set the woman carefully on the bench seat as if she was made out of something that might break easily.

“There’s a T-shirt you can put on in one of those bags on the floor.”

Then Ray winked at me.

“Jimbo, this here is Debbie from Dallas. Debbie, this is my best buddy, Jimbo.”

She found a white T-shirt and slipped it over her head. It fit pretty good. Her nipples pressed against the cotton like the twin knobs of an old-timey radio. I had this intense desire to change the station, adjust the volume.

A Cadillac had pulled up at the side of the Interstate behind us. A man in a cowboy Stetson stood looking down at the wreck.

Ray cranked the RAM awake and put her in gear.

“Debbie doesn’t want to stick around and get caught up in a whole big accident clusterfuck with Highway Patrol and ambulance guys and what not. Doesn’t know who the dead guy is. Thought we could give her a lift somewhere.”

With a spray of gravel, we sped back onto the highway.

Well, I thought, this could be interesting. Or weird as shit. 

* * *

Why, you may ask, were we barrelassing south on the interstate?

Ray is a minor American novelist. Teaches Rhetoric and Communication Skills to freshman at Knotty Pine Community College, a tad northeast of Dallas in a town called Murder. I’m an IT guy there. We’d hung out for a few years and that morning were in Ray’s office drinking coffee. Day three of the Fall semester and we were the worse for wear from a late previous night at the John Wilkes Booth Tap. 

We didn’t go there very often because of its Republican ambiance. They even had a photo of a 1922 lynching hanging above the urinals in the men’s shitter. There was no women’s shitter. The gals had to pee outside in the bushes or between the parked cars. 

When we did wander in and meander up to the bar, there were always one or two women with hairy arm pits and (presumably hairy) nether regions to talk to. Chit-chat and (in your dreams) lots more. Usually of a religious disposition, pretty (but not spectacular) and, for the most part, possessed of (outstanding) tits, these women, grad students or older, pined for an academic discussion over a Stoli Martini with a pickled onion (a/k/a a Gibson) or a Russian Mule. Baudelaire was a popular topic. Or Sylvia Plath. Or Chekhov. As the evening wore on, the topic under consideration invariably shifted to out-of-body sex research.

A rap on the door of Ray’s office ripped these two-bit recollections to shreds. 

The mail guy stuck his head in, gave Ray the stink eye, handed him a letter in a pale blue envelope.

“Fuck you too, Harry,” said Ray.

Ray slit open the envelope with his finger, wrangled out the letter and looked at it.

“Well, shit,” he said.

I picked up the crushed envelop, held it to my nose. The scent of el cheapo cologne (on sale at Marshall’s) whacked my sinuses like nettles. Whatever the letter said, it couldn’t be good news. The return address: Wanda Smith care of Ray’s beach house in Galveston. 

Ray leaped to his feet, shoved his cellphone in his back pocket, checked for his wallet and keys.

“Got to go to Galveston.”

Why Galveston? One reason might be that it was the location of the beach house Ray had recently inherited from a rich, childless uncle. Along with a yellow Stingray and (according to Ray) several valuable paintings—including one of Ulysses S. Grant taking a piss at the side of the road in the summer of 1864. Ray’s uncle had been found in the trunk of his Coup de Ville with a bullet hole in the back of his head.

Ray was known to allow the occasional femme fatale to reside rent free in the beach house. To keep the place tidy and shipshape. One such babe, heavily tattooed and calling herself Wanda Smith, had even managed to finagle her way into Ray’s heart.

“Today?” I asked.

“Now.”

“Need company?”

I didn’t get an answer as Ray leaped for the door. I followed anyway.

* * *

Ray and I and Debbie proceeded apace down ye olde interstate. After an appropriate period of mourning for the dead guy, Debbie leaned over into the front seat. The pong of recent wild sex wafted. Her blond hair, chin length, swayed in the AC cranked to high. A coy nose sniffed. Very kissable lips, the kind you linger over, painted a flamboyant vagina pink, parted to display dazzling pearly whites cast in a shit-ass grin. Almond-shaped eyes the color of stone-washed blue jeans gazed at me, then Ray. In summary: lush, cocky and fearless.

“Thanks, boys,” she said. “That was a bit of a tight squeeze.”

“Hey, no problem,” said Ray. “What something to drink.”

“Got any Jack?”

“Sorry, sweetheart, we’re shit outa Jack. But we’re got half a paper cup of cold coffee with two sugars and a spritz of Half & Half. Or a diet Coke with all the ice melted.”

She turned and looked at me.

“You there,” she said. “Maybe you’d like to help a girl out?”

“Hey, I’m a good listener.”

“What kind of cock you got hangin’ there between your legs? I mean, is it dying for some action? ‘Cause I wanted to suggest maybe stopping at a motel. Of course, you’d get the two for one rate.”

“Oh, man,” said Ray. “I’ve got VD.”

Ignoring Ray, she ruffled her hand through my hair.

“You on board with a little X-rated divertissement, sport?”

I looked at Ray.

“Hey, Bat Man,” I said. “How about we stop at a gas station so Debbie and I can use the men’s room. You can get some cigarettes. Ice cold drinks. Or even have a turn.”

“Sorry, no can do, Robin. Galveston is calling me el pronto.”

“Oh, baby,” lamented Debbie.

She reached for Ray’s crotch, but he batted her hand away.

“Who was the dead guy?” asked Ray.

“Don’t start with that shit,” said Debbie. “I was just workin’. He picked me up outside the downtown Dallas train station.”

“Train station? What the fuck were you doing at the train station?”

“I took the train in from DFW ‘cause the asshole who was supposed to pick me up in a limo was a no show. Story of my life. I was just standing there outside Union Station, taking in the Dallas skyline, this car stops. The front passenger window rolls down. Single guy behind the wheel says, get in. I lean down and glance at him. He’s wearing shades, a white shirt and tie. And his dick’s stickin’ out of his fly like the leaning tower of fucking Pisa. And since I had some cash flow problems, I said to myself: ‘What the hey?’”

“Swell. Where’d you fly in from.”

“Harlingen. Down the valley. I worked the oil fields for a while.”

“Is that right?”

“Hold up, now. How’d we get so far off topic, speaking of which, how’s your dick, cowboy. Limp? Or the opposite? It’s a shame you won’t let me help you out in that department.”

“It’s Ray, sweetheart,” said Ray. “Not cowboy. And the status of my dick is private.” 

With a sigh Debbie sat back.

“You’re bummin’ me out,” she said. “I’m totally broke. Should have taken that dead creep’s wallet.”

We drove on in silence for a while. Then I tapped Ray on the shoulder and pointed to the gas gage which had slipped into the “hey, douchebag, you’re in the zero, zip, nada zone.” Just then we were passing through some dying, two-bit town—of which Texas has a multitude. Ray veered for the exit. Next moment we were on the Columbia Pictures’ back lot set for The Last Picture Show. Two rows of single story, and a couple two story, brick storefronts faced each other. Three blocks down, a Dairy Queen and a QT gas station did the same.

Turning left, we cruised thru downtown Barryville. A sketchy-looking fat lady in a white halter top and super-stretchy, grape-colored workout pants waved. Here and there cowboy dudes leaned in doorways picking their teeth or strutted up or down. 10-gallon hats, open-carry side arms, ostrich hide boots. How many Antifa nihilists have you gunned down in cold blood today?

We passed seven bars, a gym, a secondhand store, a vape and CBD oil shop, tattoo parlors up the wazoo, a bunch of empty storefronts and a liquor store. At the liquor store Debbie said:

“Y’all can let me out here.”

“You sure?” asked Ray.

  “How the fuck is it your business whether or not I’m sure?” she snapped.

Ray stopped the truck. Debbie dismounted. 

“Good luck,” I said, leaning out the window to take in her glorious stats one last time. I noticed she had a couple of tats on her legs. Tropical themed. (I have a love hate relationship with tats on chicks. Oddly erotic on the one hand. Ugly-as-fuck graffiti on the other.) Her skin was golden. She’d rolled up the sleeves of Ray’s borrowed T-shirt to show her stone-smooth rounded shoulders. Was I in love or in lust? Did it matter? 

With a puff of air, she flipped me the bird and pushed through the glass door of the liquor store.

We continued down the main drag to the QT station and filled her up.

“Man, I could eat something,” said Ray.

“Me too.”

By chance the QT station doubled as a takeout barbecue. We ordered brisket sandwiches, Mexican Coca-Colas, slaw and potato salad sides, plus pickle and raw onion slices. At the edge of the gas station, we pulled over and ate like jackals. 

Ray wiped his fingers with a moist towelette.

“Damn that was good. But we’ve got to get going.” 

He turned the ignition key. When the engine rumbled alive, he reached out and adjusted his side mirror.

“Oh, shit.”

I looked behind.

Running toward us, barefoot, purse over one shoulder, boobs bouncing like wildebeests on the run, waving frantically. Debbie. I had an instant hard-on.

Ray’s RAM waited. She caught up, opened the crew cab door and jumped in.

“Whew.”

“I guess Barryville sucked eggs,” said Ray.

“If I were you,” said Debbie. “I’d step on it.”

In one hand she held a pistol. In the other her purse yawned open, revealing a goodly clump of cash.

“Thought you said you were broke,” said Ray.

“Was,” she replied. “That liquor store was an f-ing windfall. But we should blow town before the owner breaks out of the closet I locked him in.”

She grinned, happy as a lark at her newfound liquidity.

At a stoplight Ray held his phone left-handed down between his legs and texted me: “Need 2 dump this honey ASAP.”

Back on the interstate, Debbie pulled a pint of Jack from her bag, twisted off the cap and took a long swig before passing it to me. What choice did I have? I took a long swig. Passed the bottle to Ray. Etc. Etc.

Dropping the empty bottle on the floor, Debbie climbed over the seatback into the front seat. Be still, my heart. She had taken off her panties but not the T-shirt. Through the thin cotton, I kissed her nipples as if they were wild strawberries. My penis morphed into the leaning tower of Pisa (just like the dead guy’s), upon which Debbie forthwith impaled herself. Oh, God!

Afterward, she disimpaled herself. Looked over at Ray, whose eyes never left the highway.

“Hey, stud. Lighten up. You’re next. After I pee.”

“Pee?”

“Yeah, pee. My bladder overfloweth.”

Moments later Ray pulled onto the shoulder and stopped. But didn’t turn off the engine. Thick trees stared from both sides of the highway.

“You’re such a gentleman,” said Debbie. “Be right back.”

She opened the right crew door, jumped down and over a narrow ditch, her purse slung over her shoulder. Partially hidden by a tree, she squatted.

Ray hit the gas.

* * *

A little while later we passed Huntsville. They killed murderers there. And probably a few innocent folks as well. But we hadn’t murdered the guy in the wreck (or anyone else). Still, a chill crept on little mouse feet up and down my spine.

Around 4 we rolled into Galveston. Straight down Broadway, past Rosenberg Avenue and the Texas Heroes Monument to 14^th Street. A Victorian fantasy is the way I described Ray’s inherited beach house. Porches up and down done up with decorative arches. The façade a whimsical mishmash of gewgaws and doodads painted white with red and yellow trim. 

“What the fuck!” shouted Ray, reacting to the absence of the Stingray from the side porte cochère where he kept it parked. That was just the beginning. 

The paintings (of some considerable value according to Ray). Gone. The liquor. Gone. The finer Art Deco pieces, including the piano, the thick handwoven Oriental rugs, the Louis XIV china, the silver. All gone.

“Noooooo!”

Ray’s eyes went into orbit. He swooned, collapsing onto the beautiful hardwood floor.

“Shit. Piss. Fuck. Cunt. Twat. Anus. Dick. Clit. Cock. Gook. Jizz. Slut. Penis. Vulva.”

Wanda, the heart throb, had transmogrified into Wanda, the fucking grifter. She had cleaned him out.    

I found a bottle of small-still bourbon that had been overlooked and poured measures into a pair of left-behind Waterford tumblers. 

Ray had made his way to a left-behind Bauhaus lounge chair (1931), the only piece of furniture in the living room.

I handed him one of the glasses.

The ultimate insult. On the dining table she’d left a whole dead fish long past its prime wrapped in yesterday’s Galveston Daily News (since 1842). I tossed the fish out the back door. The local feral cats would throw one heck of a party tonight.

“Well, son of a bitch,” said Ray.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out Wanda’s crumpled letter on blue linen paper and opened it.

“Dear Ray,” he read aloud.

‘OK,” I said. “What did she say?”

“That’s all she wrote,” said Ray. 

He crushed the letter into a ball and threw it across the room. It bounced off the wall and lay still. Exhausted, we drank the fifth of bourbon, smoked a jay and crashed.

* * *

The sun woke me about 8:00, streaming into the upstairs bedroom where I’d succumbed to slumber. 

Where was I? Oh, yeah, Galveston. Why was I here? I’d come to help my friend Ray whose hot patootie Wanda had shown her true colors as a rip-off artist.

When I looked out the bedroom window, Ray’s truck was gone. So was Ray.

I ended up taking a Greyhound back to Dallas. An old girlfriend (Babs) picked me up and dropped me back at my apartment in Murder, Texas. I asked her in for a drink and she stayed the night. Was she still hoping I might change my mind about entering into a long-haul amatory relationship?

Ray was absent without leave from his professorial job at Knotty Pine Community College. After two weeks the college fired him. Babs and I moved in together. I liked to cuddle and so did Babs. She also liked to fuck.

A year went by. 

Babs and I were still together.

I followed Ray’s meteoric literary rise in the newspapers. His new novel clawed its way to the top of the New York Times best seller list. He got a movie deal. He lived in London, Bogota, Istanbul and wrote political pieces for The New Republic.    

For our first anniversary Babs and I flew to Paris for a week in February. She’d always wanted to go. The day we arrived, icy winds skated down the Seine. It was colder than a witch’s tit.

After checking into cheap lodgings near the Beat hotel (9 rue Gît-le-Cœur), where Burroughs and Ginsberg had lived back in the 1950s, we sought shelter from the winter blast in a nearby bar.

There, unbelievably, at the marble-topped bar, drink in hand, wearing an expensive sheepskin coat, stood Ray.

And next to him? Who else but Debbie? 

Her white see-through silk blouse, sans bra, reminded me of the first time we’d met. Then it had been summertime. Today she looked cold. 

Rumors of them hooking up had appeared on the paparazzi websites. And that they were living in Paris. But still, running into them like this was one far-fucking-out fluke.

I’d also come across a story online about a woman who’d been found dead in the driver’s seat of a yellow Stingray at the bottom of a Louisiana bayou. She’d been there a couple of months (or longer) when they dredged her out. Some said an accident, some suggested suicide, still others voted for foul play—but as far as I know, nothing came of it. A driver’s license found on the body identified the deceased as Wanda Smith. What do you think?

As Babs and I walked toward the bar, Ray looked up and recognized me. His eyes flashed delight.

“Well Goddamn, if it isn’t Jimbo!”

After a grappling, wrestler-like bro huge, Ray stood back, his arm around Debbie’s waist.

“You remember Debbie,” he said.

“Boy, do I ever,” I replied, the tip of my dick tingling.

Who can predict the kinky and outré twists and turns of fortune? Certainly not me. I was just along for the ride.