The Southside of Paradise - Chapter 22

Chapter 22 - The Tapestry

       Dean stood there watching the couple. He was partially hidden by a colorful potato chip display. There was no doubt that something was going on. Micky would say something to her, and Jill would laugh and lean into his shoulder.

        After a few minutes, Mickey got up and went toward the restrooms at the rear of the store. Dean made his way out of the store and walked along the side of the building facing the gas pumps.  When he got to the place where Jill was sitting, she was looking away from where he was. He rapped on the window to get her attention. The music blasting from the outside speakers was Liar, Liar by the Castaways.

            Ask me, baby, why I'm sad
            You've been out all night, know you've been bad
            Don't tell me different, know it's a lie
            Come kill me, honey, see how I cry

         "How totally fucking appropriate, " Dean muttered to himself. Danny had told him earlier that Jill wasn't going to watch his little brother play in the baseball game because she had some family thing that her dad was making her attend. The music was weird though. Danny had told him many times about how often shit happened like that where the background sights and sounds of important situations would jibe together as if the universe was in on the joke.

              Jill turned and faced him. At first, her eyes widened with fear, but she quickly regained her composure and a defiant fire entered her eyes. They both just stood there staring at each other.  Her look spoke loudly and said, "So what. You caught me. Big fucking deal."This attitude pissed him off royally.

         Dean acted instinctively. He undid his belt, unbuttoned his pants and dropped them, and pressed his butt cheeks against the window. It was gross, and he knew it,  but it was also an effective way of showing his disdain for her. He looked over his shoulder. It was a strange vision as he could see a partial reflection in the glass of someone who just like him mooning him. The expression on Jill's face was priceless however. It destroyed the facade of indifference that she was trying to project. She placed both hands to her face and looked down.  Then he saw Micky coming out of the bathroom.

           Dean quickly pulled his pants up and buttoned them then started running for his car buckling his belt as he ran.  His intention was to get in the car and go, but, by the time he got there, he changed his mind. Instead, he popped open the trunk and sat down. 

           Micky came running out of the store like an enraged bull being goaded by a matador. He was cussing up a storm.

         "You pencil neck little pervert, I been waiting a long time to break you into pieces! When I get done with you, your own dad want be to recognize you!" He waited a few seconds then cruelly stated, "Oh. I forgot he's dead!"

        Danny reached into the trunk and jerked out the machete out of a white bucket. He straightened up defiantly and answered, "Well, fuck head, we'll just see how much luck your joke of dad has in putting your ass back together!"

        Micky kept coming, "Fuck you, punk. You ain't got the balls to use that thing!"

          "Come on and find out then, Bitch!" Dean swung the around in front of him and took a few steps forward. Micky slowed down. It might have been those forward steps that spooked him. Or, it might have been Jill's voice telling them that the cops were on their way. It might have been the sounds of the sirens. It might been all three. 

             Jill ran out and grabbed Mickey by the arm and started leading him away.  He turned back over his shoulder and yelled.

             "Dean, I will get you. You can bet your sorry ass on it. One of these days I'm going to break you into pieces. Then I'm going to piss all over the pieces and set them aflame."

              Dean laughed, "I don't know Mickey, sounds like you got kidney problems. You really ought to go see a doctor."
 
                Dean's laughter made Mickey stop in his tracks. He made a show of coming back, but not too hard. Jill's tug on his arm too easily moved him away from the scene.

              After he put the machete back in the truck, Dean saw Droov standing at the half opened door gesturing a question. Dean just raised his hands as if to say, "I don't know." He thought about it then yelled, "Sorry, Man! I'm sorry Droov! Tell your dad, I'm' sorry!" before getting into his car.

               As he drove out of the parking lot, he looked in his rear view. He saw Micky and Jill arguing at the side of a blue Cadillac, and he also saw the imprint that his ass and made on the plate glass window.


                 * *   * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  **  **  ** 


      I sat in the big blue easy chair in my bedroom and stared at Kahlil Gibran poster on the wall behind my bed. It had a picture of Gibran and the quote, “Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”   I was drinking like a heathen hillbilly from a big green bottle of cheap red wine that we kept in the fridge for emergencies. My favorite t-shirt was stained red from the wine.

    I held the bottle in one hand and my pistol in the other. I was waiting for a call from Danny.  Jill had just hung up the phone, and what she had said knocked me for a loop. Danny didn't call; he came over instead.

     As he knocked on the door, I put a bullet in between the eyes of the face on the poster.  I didn't go to answer the door either, and Dean climbed in through the side window. I actually heard him fall when he entered.  I smiled to myself. I don't know why, but it struck me as funny.

     He rushed into the room, expecting, well, I can only surmise what he expected to find.

    "What the fuck are you doing, Man. Have you lost your damn mind?"

     I didn't say nothing, just stared at the poster.

     Dean followed my eyes and continued talking, "What you got against that dude." He walked over and put his finger in the hole in the poster."

       "Nothing, I guess. Just felt like putting a hole in something, and he obliged by being there."

       Dean was thinking more than usual, usually he blurted things out. "Why not shoot Bob Dylan over there, or that one with Miles Davis?"

        "Now you're talking crazy. Who'd want shoot Bob Dylan?"

      Dean looked back and forth at all the posters in the room and studied them closely, " Oh, I get it. You just got something about someone who talks about love."

          I perked up a bit, "You don't think Dylan ever tackled the subject of love? Or, Miles?"

        "That fucker right there is the only one in this room who mentions anything about love on the poster itself. The poster that is hanging from your wall." He waited for me to respond, and when I didn't, he kept going, "I take you heard about Jill then. I was on my way over to tell you."

          "I heard. She just hung up. She said that her Mom had sent her to the store to buy some sanitary napkins and the Rub A Dub was the only one that the one's her mom uses." Dean almost laughed but caught himself,  " She also said when you saw he in there you walked up to the window and exposed yourself, grabbed yourself, rubbed yourself off at the Rub A Dub." 

           "What did you tell her?"

           I didn't answer right away. Tears were intruding on my thought processes. The words I wanted to tell him were choking me instead.

          " I need to know; what did you tell her?"


          I stood up, put the bottle down on the table, and walked over to where he stood.  I saw his eyes quickly glance down at the gun in my hand. " I told her you wouldn't do that."

            He breathed a sigh of relief. "You're damn right I wouldn't do that." He thought about what he was saying and quickly amended it, " I mean I could see myself doing something like that, but not to her. I mean I could see myself doing something like that to her, but not to you, if you know what I mean."

            "I know. That was the answer I knew you'd say. Now, what's the real story?" Dean explained what had happened right down to the imprint of the butt cheeks on the window. His eyes glistened when he talked about how close he had come to swinging for the fences with Micky.

             "I swear I was ready to chop that motherfucker's head clean off his shoulders. I was already thinking about putting it on the stick and putting it thee corner of Lotus and Barnum as a warning to them other assholes he hangs out with."

              "You swear you were going to put his head on stick?"

              "Well, maybe not that part, but the rest is true. I swear on my old man's grave. I can get witnesses if you need me too."

               "No need. Droov called me five minutes after you did it."

               The news made Dean go quiet. His face became as serious as it was on the day we buried his father.  Finally, he spoke, "Danny, I want to know what you have told Jill if Droov hadn't of called you. I need to know."

               I looked straight in the eyes, "I don't know, man. I can't really say."

                His eyes went from serious to sad, "So, it's like that?"

              "Don't get all butt hurt on me. Answer me a question, all things being equal, would you like to screw Jill?"

              "He started to answer then stopped and thought what he wanted to say next. "I ain't going to lie; you know I would. But..."

              "Ain't no buts involved. It's my turned to ask you 'so it's like that?'"

                  "Wait just a fucking minute. The thing at the store was about nothing like that. It was about her and Micky sneaking around behind your back, and me not liking it." His eyes blazed with anger, and his body tensed.

               We stood face to face like that for about two minutes before I spoke," Really, dude. The only place that she could find sanitary napkins to fit her mom was at the Rub A Dub?"

                It took a second for it to hit him. When it did, he pushed my shoulder, stepped back and started laughing, "You are a cocksucker."

                 I laughed too, "I know. I couldn't help it though."

                We both laughed then, and when we finished Dean asked in total seriousness, "I came to tell you what I saw. It took me a few minutes to work up the nerve, but I knew I had to tell you. Are you okay?"

                 I said that I was, but I lied.