“How’s your pizza?” Dan asked.
“Delicious,” Clyde said, “and hot, too. I love the pepperoni.” He dangled one over his tongue and dropped it in. “Mmmm!” Pete's Pizza Joint was a popular family spot: part arcade, part sports bar, and part hang out. Weekends were especially busy early in the evening as many families took their kids there to unwind. Things looked right and smelled right at Pete's: pizzas, hotdogs, hamburgers, fried baloney sandwiches, and pitchers of beer were landing on almost every table. Dan was dropping the last gooey nacho of his black bean nachos into his gaping mouth.
“That’s gross, Dad,” Clyde said, shivering his face. “That looks like Pokémon barf.”
Dan grinned as he dusted off his hands and looked around.
Most tables were filled with animated arms and talking faces. Kids were running back and forth begging for quarters, and the parents were more than happy to oblige. One older man, brown-haired and hefty, sat at the bar, nose down in his mug. They called him Mo, and he’d been part of Pete's since Dan was a boy.
Mo had beefy forearms that were covered with thick black hair, and the chair groaned every time he moved an inch. His face was puffy, but welcoming, and his teeth were as crooked as rusting nails. Mo had plenty of change for the children, but they’d have to listen to a tale or two. Dan listened in every time, as it was always something new. A boy and a girl had bravely gathered at the man’s side, each with a nervous look in their eye, tugging on the man’s black coat.
The little girl asked in a sweet voice, “Can we have some quarters, Mr. Mo?”
Dan listened as Mo started in.
“Have you ever heard the story about the fox and the fiddle?”
The children shook their heads.
Mo sounded completely different than he appeared. His voice was something unexpected of such a gruff-looking man. No, he sounded like a natural born story teller, a local Huck Finn of sorts.
And so it began, with Mo’s arms moving like he was conducting a symphony of story.
“A fiddle player was lost in the woods, hungry and trying to find something to eat. He came into a clearing among the trees and saw the blackest fox he had ever seen. He stood as still as a tree; and not even a leaf rustled, for the breeze was gone. The fox’s pelt alone would have been worth a fortune. The fiddle player, however, was no hunter, only a fiddle player, but back then, every man knew how to hunt and fish, to some degree, as it was a long time ago.”
The boy yawned and Mo rapped him on the head with his ring finger. The little girl began to raise her hands to her mouth, drawing Mo’s glare. She quickly pinned them back to her side.
“The fiddle player had a sling and a stone. Do you know what that is?”
They shook their heads.
“It’s like a slingshot. Anyway, he loaded the stone into the sling, whirled it around his head and let the stone fly. He knew his aim was pure and true, but at the last possible second the black fox jumped away ...”
Dan noticed that Clyde was facing the man and leaning forward. As far as he knew, Clyde had never even noticed Mo before.
“… Now, the fox was gone, and the fiddle player was now so hungry that he barely had the strength to walk. ‘Surely I shall perish,’ he said. Sad and hungry, he sat down and played the saddest song he ever knew. It was one that he had played at funerals with his father. He remembered his father, who was dead now, and that made him even more sad. Still, he played. If he was going to starve to death, at least he could starve doing something he enjoyed. So he played on, song after song, when suddenly the black fox appeared nearby. ‘He likes the music,’ the fiddle player thought. So he kept playing.”
Mo was playing his own fiddle in the air.
“The black fox got closer and closer. It was one of the most wonderful creatures the fiddle player ever saw. Its pelt was pitch black, and its eyes looked like they were pure gold. For a moment the fiddle player thought he was dreaming, but the rumbling in his stomach told him he was not. The fox lay down at his feet and slept. All he had to do was pull out his knife and kill it.”
“Don’t kill the fox, evil fiddle player,” the little girl said, wiping her eyes.
Mo wagged his finger in her face.
“Easy … the story isn’t over yet. The fiddle player put down his fiddle and pulled out his knife. Just as he was poised to strike, an arrow sliced through the woods and hit him in the chest. The fiddle player saw the fox one last time before he died and swore it was smiling. A large Indian, red-skinned and hawk-nosed, with two big eagle-feathers sticking up from his head, stepped into the clearing. The black fox nuzzled the Indian's legs. The Indian said, ‘Black Fox, you make good fiddle player bait.’ The Indian and fox left the fiddle player where he died, but they took the fiddle with them.
Mo turned away from the children and began drinking his beer. The kids looked at one another.
“Hey,” the boy said, “Isn’t there supposed to be a moral to the story?”
Mo faced them both and rubbed his chin while looking up to the ceiling. “Uh … the moral is, don’t hunt black foxes if you want to live. Now, open your hands.” They obliged, and he filled each palm with a handful of quarters, just as a beautiful black woman in jeans, sports jersey, and golden eye-shadow and fingernails walked by. Dan almost choked on his beer as Mo winked at her, bringing a smile to her red lips. Clyde was scratching his head.
“Dad … Hey Dad!” Clyde said.
Dan was still watching the woman’s swaying hips when a mountain of a man blocked his view and glared over his shoulder at him.
“Eh … what? What’s up, Clyde?”
“Can I go and play with my friends?”
“Who?” he said, looking around, “that kid picking his nose?”
“No,” his boy giggled, “the ones over there.”
“They go to your school?”
“Yep.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to make friends with the four-eyed nose picker over there? He looks pretty cool.”
“No Dad!”
“Okay, just stay close.”
He smiled as he watched Clyde run over to his excited friends. Waving over to the table of parents, he made one of those faces like ‘Hey, kids will be kids.’ I better go over and introduce myself in case Ann has a bucket load of questions.
He started to turn in his chair and get up, but then Shooter and Skylar arrived.
CHAPTER 12
The pair of impish men raised their tiny hands to wave as they caught his eye. Each one was in a tight short-sleeved shirt and a pair of wrangler jeans. One's T-Shirt read, Mess with The Best and the other's said, Die Like the Rest.
“Whoa-ho! Look who’s here, Skylar: its Dan! Yes, yes, yes; it’s Dan!”
Shooter was a peppy talker whose personality covered you like a sheet of rain. The man was Dan’s age, high energy, no fear, and with the mouth of a ringmaster. Nodding beside him was Skylar, Shooter's older brother by half a dozen years.
“Hey guys! I was beginning to worry you might not be dropping in. It’s been kinda quiet around here,” he said, clasping their hands.
Shooter pulled up a chair and sat down beside him, with Skylar taking a seat facing them.
“Dan!” the man’s words were intense as his voice began to rise, “You gotta hear this,” Shooter said, slapping him on the shoulder. “Now check it out: last night I was with this gal, and she had these tits,” he held his arms out in front on him, “that were so big they could fill a kitchen sink. I mean those tits were bigger than both of our heads, and I’m not exaggerating.”
The tables in the nearest vicinity were giving Shooter looks of disdain, and Dan saw one woman covering her child’s ears. Shooter caught the woman’s look and said, “It’s a bar, Lady, and 'tits' isn’t a cuss word, right Dan? Not a cuss word. What am I supposed to say, boobies? Now, go mind your own business.”
Skylar kicked his brother in the
skin.
“Ow! Okay, okay, I’ll try to keep it down, but you have to understand, Dan, that beautiful girl was into me, with tits from a watermelon garden. I mean I was on Cloud Ten!”
“Nine!” Skylar said.
“Okay, whatever, nine then. Anyhow, she’s coming down here tonight. I can’t wait for you to see this broad. I mean, the tits … er … boobies, Dan, you gotta see them!”
Dan looked at Skylar, who nodded. The waitress plopped a pitcher of beer and some frosty mugs on the table and Shooter slapped her on the rear. “Thanks, Gorgeous!”
Dan felt his body begin to cringe, but the waitress paid the gesture no mind.
Whew! Dan glanced over at his son, who seemed to be having a good time with his pals, looming over an arcade game.
The grim-faced Skylar started filling their mugs.
Dan couldn’t help but be curious now. Shooter’s stories always held an element of truth. But there was usually quite a disparity between the truth and the whole truth, when it was coming from Shooter.
“So, where’d you meet this Wonder Woman?”
“Oh, that’s the best part. She’s at the track with some rich dude, you know, real snobbish asshole type, showing off his horses. Anyhow, I’m brushing the horse I'm about to ride, Soldier One, and she walks over and starts petting him. The whole time, and I swear this is true; I can’t stop looking at her ta-ta … boobs! Finally, I look up at her face, and she’s got that hungry look in her eyes. We start talking, and man, she tells me she’s into jockeys and she thinks I’m cute. Then, the rich boyfriend, real arrogant type, you know, the kind who thinks he’s better than everybody, he comes over, stares me down like I’m some kinda munchkin, and pulls her away, but, little does he know; I’ve already got her number. I call, at 6 pm sharp, like she said. I go to his hotel room and bang his woman on his bed. Three hours we went at it; I mean she was crazy about me.”
“Three hours?” Dan asked, as he took a really big drink of his beer.
“Yeah, three whole hours,” Shooter said, holding three tiny fingers up. “I will admit though, well, I had some help. I took one of those pills before I got there—well two pills—you know the ones.”
Dan said, “No, no I don’t.”
“Ah … the funny shaped ones, and you do, too! What’s it called,” he said, rolling his hand.
“Cialis,” Skylar answered.
“That’s it, Cialis!” Shooter cried loud enough for the whole room to hear, drawing more disconcerted stares. “You ever take one of those things? Huh Dan? I mean, POW! I’m there like a rocket. I mean three hours, that’s like impossible without that stuff. Wow! Dan, you need to get you some.”
“No thanks, I’m good. Besides, sex isn’t supposed to last that long. Five minutes, tops,” he said, as he eased back on the two legs of his chair.
Now he was getting the odd stares, more from the women than from the befuddled men. He was smiling, though; he knew they were listening. It was fun to mess with people.
“Sure, I mean, how long does it take to make a baby anyway? A few seconds at most, right?” Dan said.
Shooter’s tight and happy expression began to deflate, and Skylar had an odd look on his face, holding his chin and cocking his brow.
Dan continued, “So Shooter, if you had sex for three hours, you probably increased your chances of being a father one thousand percent. Wow, you’re probably going to be a father. I mean, those pills make you more potent in more ways than one. I bet those little fellas were galloping like wild mustangs to crack into her egg. Man, think about it: if you have a girl who's small and has a big chest, you’ll be fighting the teenage boys off all day and all night long.”
Shooter sat agape, eyes wider than a river. Dan loved Shooter’s short sightedness almost as much as his ridiculous stories. He watched as the jockey jumped out of his chair.
“I forgot the rubber! I didn’t take a rubber! Oh shit, I’m gonna be a father!”
Dan and Skylar pulled him back into the chair.
“Settle down! I’m sure she’s taken care of herself,” Dan assured him.
“You think?”
“Sure,” Skylar added, patting him on his back. “But, you know I’ve always wanted to be an uncle.”
“Oh crap, I better call her and make sure,” Skylar said, running his hands over and over through his slick black hair.
“Didn’t you say she was coming by?”
“Uh … yeah,” Shooter said, nodding his head and looking all around. The little man gulped down his beer and said, “Say, Dan, you’re just messing with me, right?”
“I’m just looking out for what’s best for you, Buddy. Now, when did you say she would be here?”
“Ah, you don’t believe me, do you?” Shooter pounded his fist on the table then pointed back at Dan. “Well, she’ll be here, and when she gets here, she gets to come out with us.”
“Sure, if she shows up, she can come. But, she has to know her role, and I’ll give her that, got it?”
“I got it.”
Skylar nodded.
Dan knew that no woman was going to show, so they didn’t have anything to worry about when the mission began.
“Hey, Clyde’s with me, so we got to keep it on the down low, and no booby talk! And nothing too crazy, either. His mom’s already trying to put him on Ritalin.”
“What!? That’s insane! What did the little fella do, shoot someone?” Shooter asked.
“Nah, I’ll explain later. Now, hold up your mugs.”
The jockey brothers obliged as they all clanked the thick glasses together and said, “To the mission!”
CHAPTER 13
At full occupancy, the Buick cruised down the highway at eighty miles-per-hour. Skylar’s small frame sat at Dan’s side in the passenger seat. The man’s stoic face with its rugged nose was intent on the road ahead. The small man always had to sit in the front seat: anywhere else he said he felt out of control.
In the back seat behind his brother sat Shooter, smiling, laughing, and talking the whole time. It was like taking a kid to Chuck-E Cheese for the first time and giving him one thousand tokens. Behind Dan sat Clyde, cool and content. Dan could see in the rear-view mirror that his boy was having some issues with what Shooter was saying, but otherwise he was entertained. The other passenger between the two saw to that.
Dan had never checked his rear-view mirror so many times a minute. There she sat, a goddess straight out of Shooter’s storybook. She was beautiful to glance at, but a closer inspection revealed her better years were gone. Her hair was in a short reddish-brown perm, and her teeth had bright red lipstick on them. Her loose knee-length dress was casual, but its modest design could not hide her plush interior. Dan gawped at a pair of breasts so enormous that they could keep his car and all the passengers afloat for days. Even Skylar was glancing back from time to time.
“You are the most adorable boy! Dan, your son looks just like you: handsome and everything. Where did you get such a cute boy?” She had been commenting the entire time in a voice as sweet as Southern tea.
“Liz, I told you, easy on the boy. You might embarrass him,” Shooter said, with a twinge of jealousy in his voice.
“Ah … I bet he’s used to girls fawning all over him,” Liz said, shaking his chin.
Dan heard Skylar whisper, “Not with tits that big,” making one of those funny snorts you make when you’re trying to keep your laugh in but can’t.
“Hey, over here, Liz. Come on,” Shooter whined. “Clyde’s fine. Give him a break. I missed you, Baby!”
“Aw … alright. But he’s so cute. Kinda like you, Shooter.”
Skylar and Dan tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it.
“Hey, I’m not cute.”
“Shush, I like cute … remember,” she said in Shooter’s ear.
“Yeah, yeah, I remember alright,” he said with a giggle.
“Okay, okay you t
wo, cut that out. This isn’t a drive-in theater, and my kid’s on board. Shooter, Ann will kill me if she finds out about this.”
“Ah … nobody’s paying any attention.”
“Really, you think so, Shooter?” he replied, thinking about the scene that had exploded less than an hour ago.
As soon as Liz stepped inside, everyone at Pete's was paying attention. The old cat on the top shelf was paying attention. The blind man at the end of the bar was paying attention, and Mo almost choked to death on his 2nd bacon cheeseburger. Dan was pretty sure wherever they went with Liz, the whole world would be watching. Youtube, here we come. Five minutes later they arrived at the Walmart parking lot. Here we go.
“Okay, you know what to look for. Send a text or call if you see someone,” Dan said.
“This is so exciting, Shooter,” Liz said, bouncing up and down on her toes. “I haven’t been in Walmart in years. Do you think we can swing by the make-up counter?”
“Babe, there is no make-up counter here,” Shooter said, putting his arm around her waist. “There is a jewelry counter, though … you wanna go over there?”
“Oh could we, Sugar? I just love jewelry.”
“Come on, Liz. Hey Dan, we’ll call, but by the sound of things, we’ll be here awhile.”
Dan watched them head off, but Skylar was still at his side, along with Clyde.
“We gonna hit the toy aisle, Dad? I need more Pokémon cards, and I lost one of my Bakugans. I think one of Mommy’s dogs ate it. I need some super heroes, too. There are some new ones coming out. I read where there is a Hulk with blond hair, a misprint.”
“Okay, we’ve got plenty of time, but I don’t have plenty of cash.” Dan rubbed his chin and asked, “Are you telling me there is a surfer Hulk out there?”
“Only one way to find out,” Clyde said, as he climbed into the cart and sat down.
The boy was barely as big as a large sack of puppy food, but he was comfortable riding in the cart. Ann hated it when Clyde sat there. She always insisted on taking him out. It was all the more reason for Dan to let him climb in. Besides, you’re only a kid once.
“Comfortable?”
“Yep, let’s roll.”
“Then let’s go find some Wal-nauts,” he said, eyes darting around before zooming the cart past the produce aisle. And let's not find that desperate produce lady!