Penetrating

I sat down in the restaurant with George and ordered a glass of New Zealand sauvignon blanc. I groaned.

“What’s the matter, sweet pea?” George asked, as ever perky and dutiful. I closed my lips, swallowed, and fashioned a sentence in my head.

“It was a trying day at work,” I answered, hoping my voice sounded even. And not the tinny high-pitched strain that’d usually come out of it when I looked over at his endlessly happy blonde head. It’s how I pictured a Norwegian grenade.

I ordered a filet, baked potato, and garden salad. He ordered ahi tuna, rare, in a vegetable salad. The damned goody-too-shoes would live to be a hundred, and I’d never get any peace.

We ended up discussing the condo board of directors. George had served six years already and was now running for president. Sure, he’ll get it. He always gets the recognition if there’s no money attached to it. Now if it’d been a real job with a real salary? He wouldn’t get it, not in a million years.

A sap is a sap is a sap.

Out of the corner of my eye, another gay couple slithers into a booth, other side of the aisle, behind George. Good looking, too – at least, the one facing my direction. His gaze penetrates into me, and I penetrate right back. Good, perhaps I’ll have a weekend adventure. My type, too – dark hair, chiseled jaw, muscular physique, narrow waist, but not overdone. Not one of those Chelsea bottom bodybuilders. This one would fit nicely under me.

George kept bubbling over with condo board news and gossip about the neighbors. They could screw themselves, for all I cared. I did my best not to let my eyes wander over to my weekend conquest – but I just couldn’t. He had a way of looking over me, twisting the right side of his lips up and looking down at me that had me feeling all smooth inside. Undeniable, I suppose.

“What’re you doing this weekend, honey?” George asked. I turned my head back to him.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, and thought fast. “They’re talking about rebooting the data center, and I might be on call Saturday. Might have to work, dear.”

I got up and went into the restroom, knowing full well that my weekend conquest would follow. Thirty seconds later, the bathroom door opened, and I felt that penetrating gaze on my back. And other places.

Graffiti art

The phone rang on the other end and I scowled. He wouldn’t answer the phone, now would he? Ring, ring, ring. Scowl. Ring, ring, ring. Sigh and roll my eyes.

But it did answer.

“Hello, Jerry?” I said into the text-happy, e-mail-dinging, contacts-out-the-wazoo, neurotic-social-avoidance-excuse smartphone.

Nothing. And then I heard “Hello … Ben?” come right back to me.

“Jerry? You’re breaking up.”

“Ben, are you there? I can’t hear you.”

I hung up and called again. Ring, ring, ring – scowl. Ring, ring, ring –

“Ben, don’t call me at 8:30 in the morning. That’s shower, shit, and shave time.”

“Oh, Jerry.” What would I do with my hopelessly neurotic best friend? “How’s the love of your life?”

“Mom is fine. How’s yours?” Jerry said and giggled in that ticklish sort of way.

“I called because Connie wants to know about your love life. It’s all he lives for,” I said, thinking about Conrad’s penchant for picking up tricks along the Tenderloin. The slut I married ...

There came Jerry’s perky giggle again. Odd, when we were together, I wanted to strangle him when he giggled like that. So I giggled right back when he told me, “No action. Nothing since the Napa Narcissist.”

“You and me,” I said. “Two sides of the same coin. You had the Napa Narcissist. I’ve got the Tenderloin Tessie.”

A pair of shoes

Dwayne played dodge ball better than anyone I knew in the third grade, always the last man standing. Or boy, I suppose. He seemed like a man to me, tall and muscular for a ten-year old boy. He’d been kept back a year by his mother, so he was taller and more developed than any of us nine-year olds. But his clothes were always worn thin, and his shoes threadbare. Hand-me-downs from his older brother, he said once. His last name was Wallace and he sat next to me.

We laughed when Mrs. Spence went over the grammar lesson, punching out prepositional phrases, adjectives, and adverbs like they were kittens in a box. I’d make funny noises with my hand under my armpits and he’d laugh. He’d turn up his nose and lower his eyelids to make goofy faces at me and I’d laugh. I liked Dwayne because he didn’t call me “Pecker” or “Woody” just like all the other kids did. And I liked him because he didn’t pick me last for the kickball team. He didn’t pick me first but he didn’t pick me last.

Half way through the year, Dwayne had to move and I cried. I cried because my friend was leaving the third grade and moving to East Liberty. Had to go to another school, he told me. After he left I felt very lonely. And the class wasn’t nearly as interesting. The only black boy had left and all that remained were thirty pasty-Wallace boys and girls. Nowhere near as interesting without Dwayne.

I wonder where Dwayne is today.

City skyscraper

It was next to the Chrysler building, one brisk winter evening, that Broderick first noticed the pale young beauty with the piercing blue eyes, jet black hair, and muscular physique well displayed, even under the brocade coat.

“The movie lacked the intense mood of the book, and I’d have reversed the casting for Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise,” Michael said. They’d found a seat after a wrinkled old prune of a hausfrau had gotten off at Fourth Avenue, and Michael launched into critique of the movie. And the hunky actors.

All while Broderick responded to Michael’s review of Neil Jordan’s film, with “how interesting” and “I didn’t realize that” remarks, Broderick was focused on the black-haired gentleman staring at him. And Broderick stared back, feeling the familiar excitement that came with the allure and seduction, the fantasy of just what would happen between them. When the brocade coat came off and Broderick saw the man’s milky smooth skin, the contours of his muscles, and those eyes ... those eyes ... anything could happen.

“Broderick, you’re not listening to a word I’ve said,” Michael said. “What’s with you tonight?”

“Don’t look now, Michael,” Broderick replied, deciding he could confide in him, “but there’s a young man on the other side –“

“That one,” Michael said, laughing. “He’s been eyeing me ever since we came out of the theater. Boy, what I’d like to do with him when I take him home –“

“I saw him first.”

“No, he’s mine.”

“No, he wants me.”

“What if we share him?”

“A three-way? That would be gross.”

The piercing eyes never left Broderick’s face. Broderick was sure the man was for him.

A lie

Eddie's dream about Nealie and her pear-shaped boyfriend Herbert came to a screeching halt when the phone rang off the hook. He popped up from his bed like a Jack-in-the-Box, eyes wide open. Leave that to Nealie. Eddie glanced at the alarm clock on the opposite wall's dresser. Six-thirty in the morning, must be his mother. She lived in Virginia with her Republican friends and forgot more often than not that Portland was on the Left Coast, as she called it.

"Excuse us for bothering you, Mr. Edwards." Eddie heard Mr. Spencer's voice. He was president of Eddie's condo board. Why'd he be calling? Someone must’ve complained about Lucy's barking.

"Bad news about your car, I'm afraid. Dan, the night watchman, was trying to let Mrs. Cavendish out. When he put it in reverse, it jumped back and Dan lost control. Went right into the river.”

"Jesus H. Christ! In the river? Are you insane?"

"Don't get upset, Mr. Edwards. It's only metal and plastic. Thank goodness Dan was able to jump out before it went over."

"Have you called the police? What about raising the car?"

"We've already raised it. The police and the tow truck have already come and gone. We thought we'd let you know, in case you wanted to have it repaired."

Eddie rushed down the stairs to find Dan and Mr. Spencer standing out by the dock. My poor Spitfire, all banged up and waterlogged. Dan was always an idiot and this proved it.

"Tell me what happened."

Dan looked at Mr. Spencer, who nodded his head. Dan spoke. He recited the same line Spencer had.

"Why didn’t you call me?"

“It was 5:00 in the morning and Mrs. Cavendish wanted out. She was in a rush and had a plane to catch."

"If she'd been the Queen of England and had commanded you to push the car, you still should've called me first."

"Now, Mr. Edwards, don't be upset!"

Eddie looked at the wrinkled old prune of a condo commando. He turned to go up the ramp to the second level.

“Just one minute,” Eddie said. “If Dan jumped out of the car just before it went over, why doesn’t he have any bruises or scrapes? Something’s fishy here.”

Knife, fork, spoon

Judy screamed, terrorized by the scene before her: Harold, on his stomach, the left side of his face pressed down to the floor of his kitchen – dead as a door nail, a large kitchen knife protruding from under his body, a serving fork stuck in his back, and a spoon jammed into his mouth. Annie stood on the opposite side of the apartment, white-faced, blood on her hands, splattered on her neck and down her cleavage, her eyes blazing and poring into Judy.

Judy looked up and down the outer hallway. It zoomed out like a mile-long tunnel and zoomed back in. Ceiling shadows menaced her like scampering tarantulas, a sudden itch in her back startled her into turning around, sure that Annie would soon seize her, and Annie's eyes penetrated right to the bottom of her stomach. It lurched and seized her abdomen; she vomited dinner onto the floor. Spinach from the salad she'd eaten only forty minutes ago blew out her nose.

Annie flexed her long, tenacious fingers – talons that caused Judy to retch even more. "Bitch-whore!" Annie screamed, blonde hair falling into her face, wet-streaked with perspiration leaking down her blood-stained face. Before Judy even stopped vomiting, Annie was on top of her, grabbing her by her long, dark hair, pulling her head back. Judy choked on vomit, struggled, and spit the last of the bile on Annie's legs. She looked above her, weeping for her impending death. And then the fight came back into her.

With her free hands she clubbed Annie in the knees, pulled one of her legs in one direction, the other in the opposite. Annie fell on top of her, pulling hair out of Judy's head. Judy kicked at Annie, pulled herself free, and with all her might slammed her fists into Annie's back. And then her mind went to blackness.