Bad Art
by Eric Gideon
This is a work of fiction. The characters and events are imaginary and any similarities to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Eric Gideon
This book may not be copied or reproduced by any means without written permission, although limited quotes may be used in reviews and articles.
www.badartnovel.com
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my wife for her love and for indulging my living half my life in an imaginary world. Also to my Dad for being the first to read whatever I write, no matter how bad. Thanks to Jim, the eagle-eyed editorial samurai, and to my Mom and her incredible typo-finding pencil of doom, for helping to make this all come together.
Bad Art
-1-
Jenna came across Danny's body in the back of the video store only an hour into her shift, dressed in his tuxedo, and lying still amongst several 30-gallon bags of neon yellow popcorn. He looked quite dead to her, and anyone watching could have guessed from the blood-red 'horror specialist' badge on her chest that her mind was racing with the murderous possibilities. She stood, frozen silently in place by fear until he stirred slightly in his sleep, whereupon she began screaming vigorously. When Danny opened his eyes in response to her banshee wail, she reacted as if he were a reanimated corpse ready to join a flesh-eating army of the undead. It was very loud. Danny jumped to his feet.
Outside on the sales floor, the customers heard the commotion. Thinking quickly, the late shift supervisor Stuart shouted, “It's Halloween in July, ladies and gentlemen! Get a free bag of popcorn with any horror movie rental for the next five minutes! Boo!” Then he ran into the back room to Jenna's side.
“Hey! What the heck are you doing to her?!” Stuart demanded. Danny was brushing popcorn kernels from his hair while trying unsuccessfully to calm the terrified girl. She was standing in his way so he couldn't get out of the corner of the storeroom without brushing by her, which undoubtedly would have made things worse.
“Hey, seriously, I don’t know what’s going on. I just took a little rest after my shift, and when I open my eyes she's here freaking out! Can you make her stop?” Danny yelled over her shrill squeals.
Stuart put his hand on the distraught teenybopper's shoulder and she collapsed into his arms. “You're not on my shift. Aren't you from the morning crew, buddy?”
“Please don't call me buddy. My name is Danny Fortune. Yeah, I was on open, why?”
Stuart looked behind him at the time clock. “Man, it’s like 9 o’clock at night. What have you been doing back here in the popcorn for four whole hours? Is it still safe for the customers to eat?”
Danny pushed past the two of them and ran the few steps to the time clock.
“Oh no! I’m totally hosed. I'm really late.”
Stuart had both of his arms around the unhappy girl, who had ceased her sobbing, but not her clinging embrace. In their tuxedo uniforms they looked like a pair of lovesick penguins. Stuart freed a hand and pointed at Danny with as much authority as he could muster.
“You bet you’re hosed, buddy! No one frightens the Couch-Mates on my watch. Just wait until I report you to the assistant district manager for this. Your Potato days are over, buddy!”
Danny scrambled to put on his bike helmet and pointed his bicycle towards the doorway leading into the store.
“Dude, seriously, I need this job. Couchpotatoville needs me anyway to cover all the day shifts. Can't you be cool?”
“In my book, there's nothing cooler than adherence to the Couchpotatoville standard operating procedures. You're getting a written reprimand for this. Sit down at the manager's desk while I write it up.”
Danny looked again at the clock.
“This is so not part of the Plan. I've got to get to my other job. Come on, can we talk about this tomorrow or something?”
"This is insubordination! We need you to sit down right now and sign-off on your reprimand! Remember, Mister Danny Fortune, there's no 'I' in Team Potato!"
Danny genuinely felt he should comply, and really hated confrontations like this. He glanced again at the time clock and saw how far off he was from his schedule. If he didn't leave right now, he'd be in real trouble at both jobs, and then the whole Plan was in jeopardy. Besides, if he stayed there and talked with Stuart he might not be able to resist pointing out that there indeed is an 'I' in insubordination. Danny grabbed his backpack and pushed open the swinging door to the storefront with his front wheel. Most of the customers and all the remaining employees stared at Danny. Many of the customers were holding horror movies and awaiting their free popcorn. Stuart started taking purposeful strides towards Danny.
Danny joked over his shoulder, loud enough for everyone in the store to hear, “I don’t care how important the promotion is to me, it’s not worth my male virginity! I'll just go back to selling #2 pencils on the street corner if I need to!”
Stuart stopped in his tracks, just outside the view of the sales floor. Danny turned to the other two other tuxedoed personnel behind the counter. He lowered his eyes sheepishly and said, “I’m sorry for all the noise. I scream like a girl when I’m threatened. Watch yourself around that Stuart guy. Don't fall for his 'extra sales training' like I did.”
No one laughed or smiled, even just to politely break the tension. Other than shocked silence, the only response he got was a sneer from one co-worker, who mumbled, “Nice working with you, loser.”
Danny swore quietly to himself, pulled his backpack on tightly, charged out of the Couchpotatoville Video Shack, and leapt onto his bike. He pedaled furiously into the early Buffalo night, wondering if he still had a job waiting for him at the end of the ride. It would be especially bad luck to lose two jobs in one night, even though he hated the time he spent at each of them equally fiercely. He had everything so carefully detailed in the Plan, he was distraught to consider that it might have all gone off the rails again.
After dodging traffic, hopping curbs and panting in the humid summer night, Danny came to the parking lot of Sabatini’s Ostentatious Catering. Sabatini's occupied a low-standing, single story building, decorated on the facade with every piece of trim in the Disney Make-Your-Own-Castle kit. The garden in front of the facility was an expanse of bright white gravel, interspersed with bright lights and naked stone cherubs. Danny, red-faced and dripping wet in his tuxedo, short-cutted his bike through the field of brightly lit marble chips, catching the eye of a few of the customers at the buffet line.
He locked his bike to a light pole and headed around to the front door, dragging the backpack holding his catering clothes in one hand. Normally, he’d go in through the back kitchen entrance, but tonight, late as he was, he thought a frontal attack would be the best strategy. If he went in the kitchen, he’d be recognized as late upon arrival, and would likely be fired before he took two steps in the door.
Instead, he decided he'd go right in the front door, change into his work clothes in the customer bathroom, then slide into place at one of his usual stations. If the bartender asked him where he had been, he’d say he had been pulled into the dishroom. If the back-of-the-house manager asked him why he wasn’t doing dishes, he’d tell them he’d been helping set up the room in front. At the end of the week, he’d let the payroll clerk know he forgot to punch in on Saturday, and everything would be fine. Sabatini’s was a large operation, and you could aget away with some timecard chicanery if you knew the system.
He paused near a window and checked his look in the half-reflection before he went in. His shaggy brown hair, well-overdue for a haircut, was matted down by sweat and his bike helmet, and it curled out near his ears at even odder angles than usual. His brown eyes looked tired, more tired than usual, but the months of living lean and bicycling around for transportation had trimmed off any excess body fat from his tall frame and had him lean and in shape. He thought that he looked pretty good, considering what his evening had been like so far, at least in the dark and fuzzy reflection. He tucked in his shirt tail, straightened his cuffs, and charged the front door.
He made it in and past the coat check undetected, but his plan hit a snag when he arrived in the men's room and discovered that all three stalls were occupied. Danny stood in front of them for a few minutes, checking his watch and shuffling from foot to foot impatiently. Men came in and out to use the urinals, giving him understanding nods when they saw his sweaty brow and anxious dance. But the shoes under the stall doors showed no sign of moving, so Danny eventually gave up and darted out of the men’s room, quickly formulating a Plan B.
There was a rest room near a stock room in the back of the kitchen that were both seldom used. If he could cut through the main banquet room, he could slide between the movable walls that were used to carve up the banquet hall into different sizes, jump across the hall when no one was looking, get changed and make sure he was seen coming out of the stock room. He'd come out complaining loudly about how he had to clean up a mess left by the prior night’s crew, thus explaining his apparent tardiness. It would be almost too easy.
Carrying his backpack as unobtrusively as possible, he entered the crowd of people who had spilled out of the wedding reception into the hall outside the banquet room. All eyes turned to him as he approached and Danny feared that he had been caught in his subterfuge. Suddenly one of the guests pressed a drink into his free hand, the crowd started chattering.
“Great party, huh?”
“Dude, are you gettin’ with that bridesmaid tonight, or what?”
“Aww, leave him alone. Get me another sangria, will you?”
The somewhat tipsy guests from the rear tables had mistaken him for a low-ranking member of the wedding party. Danny smiled and drained the glass on cue for an impromptu hallway toast, and tried to break away from the group. His rumpled and sweaty video store tuxedo was not particularly nice, and he feared that his mistaken identity would be cleared up as soon as one of the actual wedding party happened by. It would be difficult to explain the presence of a purple and yellow Couchpotatoville Video Shack logo on his right lapel. None of the real groomsmen would have a jacket that literally stated 'We'll Be Classy So You Don't Have To'. Danny almost got free of the group, after promising he'd return after telling the DJ to play something that didn't suck.
Just then, the sounds of a horn section flowed out to the hallway from the dance floor. A driving disco backbeat rode beneath, carrying a wave of energy through the crowd. The people on the dance floor cheered, and even the wallflowers standing near their tables started to stream to the center of the room. The crowd near Danny caught the wave, and jumped simultaneously to attention. They cheered and poured in towards the dance floor around him. Hands grabbed his arms just above the elbows and pulled him backwards onto the crowded parquet dance floor. It was time for the Y-M-C-A.
Danny was trapped on the floor in the midst of the tightly packed horde. He tried courageously to push his way through to the far side of the floor, but it was like swimming in silly putty. Then the chorus came. “It’s fun to stay at the...” Danny raised his left arm and made wild motions in time with the crowd, protecting his backpack below in his right hand. He found that he was able to make a little progress across the floor during the chorus with everyone’s hands in the air. He covered half the distance to the access door during the first chorus, but would have to bide his time until the next one to complete his escape.
He spent the verse in the tightly pressed mob soaking any remaining dry patches of his clothing in sweat, not all of it his own. The second chorus started, and he jumped sideways in time with the beat, waving his left arm and dragging his backpack. The edge of the crowd and the door to the back hallway were within sight. He raised his arm for the ‘Y’ and prepared to make the final leap, when he felt a sudden sharp pain. Someone behind him had grabbed his ear quite firmly and was pulling him back into the crowd.
* * *
The evening before Danny fell asleep in the pre-popped popcorn, Arthur Zeno threw a bit of a tantrum in his opulent office. He pounded his desk in frustration, making a high pitched screeching when his titanium watchband dragged across the glass top. He was impeccably but casually dressed, as always, but there was nothing casual about his enraged scowl.
"Dammit! The whole thing is in danger of falling apart. First, Roland cooks his head with a prototype, making the whole project reliant on the last goddamn gnome, and now this. What did the idiot say he was doing? Did someone offer him more money?"
"No, Arthur. It wasn't about the money. It was the exact opposite, in fact," said Jillian. "He didn't want to work for 'the corporate machine' anymore, he said. Something about the evils of the profit motive. He's on his way to Central Africa with the Peace Corps right now."
Zeno leaned back into his leather chair. He scowled in thought, and worry lines threatened for a moment to overtake his sun wrinkles as the dominant feature of his face.
"It probably didn't help that you called him 'idiot boy' to his face, even if the job is easy. Can't we just find someone new?" she asked.
Zeno complained, "Yeah, but we had idiot boy all broken in. He should have been hooked with all we threw at him. What a stupid thing for him to do. He was just smart enough to do the moron job without being smart enough to figure out what he was really accomplishing. He had the system down too, was really starting to move on production. We'll lose two, maybe three weeks now getting our new dial-a-moron in place and self-sufficient. I can't afford that time. Crap, the buyers are all over me already."
Zeno swiveled around in his chair away from Jillian to face the credenza. She allowed herself to pout for just a second, and craned her delicate neck to see what Arthur was looking at without getting out of her seat. Lined up in the middle of the walnut cabinet were six little figures. Although three of them were faded by the sun and the others were still rendered in fairly bold colors, they were otherwise identical. The six of them were arranged to the left of the credenza, such that there was space for one more on the right. Jillian was of course familiar with their little blue pants, their curly toed shoes, and the tunic cinched around their ample middles by a little brown belt. Each one had one arm behind his back, with the other casually held akimbo, as if it were about to deliver a rousing song. Each one had also been neatly decapitated with a Stanley utility knife, and had a gash running down its spine from the nape of its stumpy neck to the seat of its dumpy little pants. The heads were nowhere to be seen.
Zeno was quiet for a moment. Jillian cleared her throat to remind Zeno that she was behind him. It was possible she had been dismissed. It was sometimes hard to tell, but she didn't think Arthur should treat her like everyone else, even though she would let him. Zeno spun himself back around but didn't look at her, his eyes fixed on a point on the ceiling in thought.
She said, "There's nothing we can do until Monday. Do you want to go get some dinner now, Arthur? Maybe relax a little?"
"You've got that thing tomorrow, right? So you aren't available for the rest of the weekend?" he asked.
Jillian winced, letting a painful expression cloud her pretty face. "Yes, my friend from high school is getting married. She's from a rich family and a lot of powerful people will be there. Have you changed your mind about coming with me? You could make some connections."
Zeno made a face like she had just burped up hour-old liver and onions while smoking a cigar under his nose. "No. I think... Yeah, I have to go to the coast this weekend. Business stuff. You have fun at your thing, cut loose, go crazy. I'll see you on Monday."
Zeno picked up the phone, and without a moment's hesitation, barked, "Put me on the next flight to LA. First class, window seat, and make sure there's something decent to eat this time," then hung up the phone.
Jillian looked at him sadly. Quietly, she said, "I could go with you, you know. I help you with everything here, so I don't understand why LA is different. I'm sure that..."
Zeno cut her off, saying "Not for this kind of business, sweetheart. See you Monday." He rapped a key on his keyboard to awaken his computer, and started perusing something on the screen. Jillian fought back an involuntary pouting of her lower lip, then steeled herself and walked out the door, with only a quick glance back as she turned the corner. Zeno wasn't watching her leave.
-2-
Danny yelped in pain and surprise, sure that he had been caught by the beefy bartender Cory, or perhaps old man Sabatini himself. He was jerked off balance, and bumped backwards against a couple pairs of shoulders as he was pulled back into the crowd. His backpack was stripped from his hand as he fell. The grip on his lobe was released, so he turned around, expecting to get a verbal dressing-down from a superior caterer, and perhaps get fired right there on the dance floor.
However, when he did, he wasn’t immediately sure who in the crowd had plucked him from the edge. It became apparent when a small, dark-haired woman, a full head shorter than Danny and standing right in front of him, grabbed his other ear. Danny had looked right over her head, expecting a taller and more masculine assailant.
She pulled his ear close and yelled into it, “You’re doing it all wrong!” Although he was confused, hurried and in pain, Danny noticed her perfume when he was pulled in. It smelled nice. It smelled expensive.
“I’m very sorry,” argued Danny. “What are we talking about?”
She released his ear and smiled, allowing him to right his head and get a look at her face. She was pretty. Her hair and makeup were tastefully done for the event, and she looked as good up close as she would from far away. Danny had worked enough weddings to know that many women dressed to look good in the photographs, but their makeup was so heavy that up close they looked like lawn ornaments. Or clowns. Danny didn’t like clowns, and there was no way he'd consider a woman attractive once he thought of her as one.
The woman shook her head and laughed. “You really need help, don’t you? Haven’t you ever done the YMCA? You’re supposed to use both hands!”
She grabbed his wrists and resumed the pre-chorus bouncing that had infected the entire room. Danny thought it would be polite for him to bounce too, but he was also worried about getting to work, and to do that, he’d have to retrieve his wayward backpack from the floor. He briefly considered breakdancing as an excuse to get down to floor level and find his bag, but thought this might attract too much attention. Besides, he was intrigued by this woman, and she was holding him firmly captive.
“You guys looked great up there today,” she said.
Danny felt the sweat running in rivulets down his back, laminating the shoulders of his Couchpotatoville shirt to his skin. He self-consciously mopped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve and worried about how transparent the cheap shirt must have become.
“Sorry,” he said, sheepishly.
“It’s OK. You’ve been dancing really hard. I’ve been watching you for a while,” the girl admitted, then she shyly looked away, without letting go of his wrists. Danny looked around for an actual member of the wedding party. He felt as though he might have cut in on some other guy's chances.
The song got to the final chorus, and the woman led him through the hand motions like he was an oversized marionette. She seemed to enjoy treating him like an idiot. He felt ridiculous being led through the dance like this, but he wasn’t prepared to break contact with the pretty woman. He grew quickly fond of the way she leaned in against him to get his arms into position from her vertically disadvantaged position. And despite having a wedding caterer’s deep seated and passionate hatred of the YMCA song, he was disappointed when it came to an end. The next song was a slow dance number, and Danny didn’t know what he should do, whether he should take the girl into his sweaty arms, or walk away and go wash dishes. The floor cleared, as the early slow dances often do. He craned his neck around, but his backpack was nowhere to be seen.
He returned his gaze to the girl, awaiting further instructions. She didn’t hesitate to provide them.
“Buy me a drink,” she commanded playfully, dropping his hands.
“Um. It’s open bar,” said Danny, somehow hoping this would guide her into getting her own drink. He was supposed to be barback right now, and asking Cory to serve him seemed like a really bad idea.
“Don’t tell me that. It takes away all the romance. I’ll be over there, waiting for you. But not for very long,” she said, indicating an empty table in the corner of the room and running a finger along his jaw with her other hand. The table she picked was right next to the access door.
Danny sidled up to the bar. Being a complete novice at sidling, he looked as if he were a big sweaty kitten about to pounce on a ball of yarn. He pulled a pair of rumpled and moist dollar bills from his pocket, and smoothed them out against his thigh. He checked Cory the bartender out to see how he was doing on his own.
Cory was a burly fellow who looked like he spent all of his awake time away from the bar lifting weights and eating protein supplements. He was balding on top, and wore his remaining hair cropped close and slicked back to give himself a streamlined and dangerous look. He was unnaturally tanned in an otherworldly orange hue, and his shirt rippled as he moved fluidly behind the bar. He was smooth and professional with the guests, particularly the ladies, but was never anything but a bastard to Danny. Barbacks and dishwashers were the lowest life forms on the Sabatini's catering hierarchy, barely recognized as the same species as the bartender.
Cory was handling the crowd all right, but was starting to fall behind without Danny's help. Danny couldn't help taking some pleasure at Cory's misfortune. He waited hidden until Cory was filling a blender, and then Danny shouted, “Hey man, I told you, two vodka martinis with a twist! Come on man, I’ll hook you up!”
Danny immediately ducked behind a distant and balding uncle of the bride who happened to be leaning against the bar. He left his arm sticking out onto the bar with dollar bills folded precisely to hide the quantitative value, but showing their verdant field of green. Cory wheeled his scowl around in the direction of the sound, but in the sea of faces, saw only the arm with the tip offered. He internalized his anger for the moment, and switched on the blender with one hand while grabbing a stainless steel shaker with the other.
“Right away sir!” he called over the noise of the music.
Danny peeked around the uncle, who was curiously unconcerned with the way Danny was breathing in his ear. Danny saw Cory shaking the martinis one-handed while he built a monument honoring the Goddess of the Drunken Bridesmaid with the neon frozen blender stuff. Despite his unpleasant personal characteristics, Danny was impressed. No one could sling alcoholic sugar slush like Cory. After Cory poured the martinis and was turning to hand them to Danny, Danny stood up and twisted around. He kept his arm with the tip on the bar, but raised his other arm like he was waving to someone across the room.
“Hey! Yeah, I’ll be right there, you party dog, you!” he called.
Danny felt the bills get plucked from his fingers and knew Cory would be at the other end of the bar by the time he realized he’d been reeled in with a pair of well-folded singles. He wheeled around, keeping his face behind the uncle of the bride, and snatched the drinks from the bar.
When he returned to the table, the woman was talking on her cellphone. She glanced up at Danny, looking annoyed, but then seemed to remember who he was. She said a terse word into the cellphone, and carefully closed it and stowed it inside her tiny accessory purse.
“Ever have one of those really bad nights?” she asked.
Danny considered the circumstances he'd been immersed in so far that evening, but only said, “I'm sorry.”
She answered, “It's okay, it's better that you're here. You took a long time at the bar. I wasn’t sure if you were coming back,” she said.
“I’m sorry about that. This place has got some of the worst service staff around. For you,” he said, handing her the glass. She swished the clear liquid around the glass, just under the rim, then set it down on the table without tasting it.
Danny was nervous. He downed his martini in one gulp. The woman raised her eyebrows in surprise, smiled and slid her glass in front of Danny. He thanked her and chugged it down as well. The two martinis were all he had put in his stomach since breakfast, other than a couple kernels of stale popcorn that he had ingested accidentally during his nap. He had counted on sneaking through the kitchen and picking off unattended entrees at the start of his shift, but that hadn't worked out.
“I think you need another,” said the woman, standing up. “Let me get these.” She walked towards the bar as if it were her own.
Danny slunk down in his chair and hid his head in his hands, feeling his coworkers' eyes boring into the back of his skull, although he hadn't seen any of them yet. Between dinner and clean up, the caterers avoided the guests as much as possible, staying in the kitchen or smoking dope out back by the dumpsters to kill time. For the moment, Danny was anonymous and safe, as long as he continued to avoid Cory's notice, who was in turn busy being deluged at the bar.
The woman returned with two more glasses, tall, with dark liquid gnashing around a column of ice. Danny recognized them right away as Long Island Iced Tea, a noxious, sometimes flammable concoction that Cory mixed strong enough to make customers gag on their first sip.
“You looked thirsty,” she said, handing him one glass, and placing the other on the table halfway between their seats. She sat down. “So I got you a something a little bigger.”
Danny thanked her and took a long sip of the beverage. He fought to suppress a cough as the vaporized alcohol fumes filled his head.
“Mmmmm, smooth,” he choked. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can go any farther with this until we’ve met. I’m Danny. Danny Fortune.”
“What is 'this' that you think we're going further with?” she asked with a smile.
Danny, having honestly meant nothing but to learn her name, was embarrassed, and found that he couldn't maintain eye contact with her. He looked away to the dance floor, where actual members of the wedding party were now on the floor, the men wearing much nicer tuxedos than Danny’s video store monkey suit. Tuxedos without logos on the jackets or white athletic socks. A side-by-side comparison would quickly reveal Danny's mistaken identity. Danny took off his jacket and hung it on the back of the chair to avoid any direct comparisons.
He glanced over his other shoulder and saw the front of the house staff congregating near the kitchen door, freshly anesthetized and ready to begin clearing the tables. A proud man in a pristine tux pushed through the thronging waitstaff, and Danny realized that the groomsmen had been in back taking advantage of one of the kitchen staff's many alternative pharmaceutical sideline businesses. Danny knew his secret identity was rapidly coming into peril, never mind his job.
He chugged down his drink and wiped his chin on his sleeve. The woman was watching the dance floor and moving her head in time with the music. Soon she’d guide them back onto the dance floor. Danny had to act.
“So, uh, I think I have to get going. You know, make the rounds and all. Duty calls.”
Her face dropped in disappointment, although a small and sharp crease between her eyes registered some annoyance as well.
“What’s the matter? I thought we were having a good time. If you want to go mingle, take me with you and show me off. I’d love to meet your friends.”
Who the hell does she think I am? wondered Danny.
“No, that’s all right. I just... You know, weddings, right?” Danny stammered.
She smiled and put her hand on his wrist. He felt the effects of the Long Island Iced Tea start to make their way from his stomach to the fronts of his eyes.
“Do you want to get out of here?” she asked. “With me?” she added, after a moment.
“Yes, absolutely. Oh, let’s totally do that,” answered Danny, standing up and pulling her by the arm. The dance floor and the swarming waitstaff stood between them and the front door, so Danny pulled them through the false wall, much to the woman’s surprise. He pulled her down the passageway behind the wall, reaching the door to the kitchen hall. Instead of turning right to sneak into the kitchen as was his original plan, he turned left to the emergency exit door, and pulled her through. They emerged outside behind a greasy and stinky dumpster.
“Oh!” she exclaimed in horror, covering her nose and suppressing a gag.
“Huh. I guess the fish wasn't too popular at the buffet last night,” said Danny. He started walking around the front of the building.
“Where are you parked? Isn’t the lot behind us?” she asked, looking over her shoulder. Danny froze when he realized he was walking her towards his bicycle. He briefly pictured her riding on his handlebars while he stoked away on the pedals. It seemed almost romantic, and a little sexy with her in her little black dress, but mostly ridiculous.
“Oh, right. I’ve got the worst sense of direction. Plus I’m totally wasted.” He meant this as bravado, but in fact he was feeling amazingly fuzzy. There seemed to be a time delay between when he thought he said the words, and when he heard himself say them. As he turned back to her, the images passing before his eyes blurred and lost focus. He tried snapping his fingers to listen for the echo, but after a few times, he noticed the she was staring at him and looking annoyed.
“Actually, I didn’t drive. We took a cab. Limo. You know, because we were hammered. Partying. Rock on, right?” He held up his arms to check that he was indeed still wearing his tuxedo and a member of the faux groomsmen's party.
She smiled and took him by the hand. Her fingers were cool and soft. “I guess I'll have to do everything. We can take my car.” She pulled him toward the parking lot.
With a glance back in the direction of his bike, feeling like a deadbeat dad for leaving it behind, Danny followed her obediently and stopped remembering things before he even saw the car that she drove him away in.
-3-
Nelson was worried, although he didn't want it to show. Danny regularly accepted Nelson's invitations to go out drinking or participate in shopping cart jousting matches, with no intention of actually showing up. Nelson knew Danny did it because Danny didn't want to admit to his face that he wasn't interested. Nelson took this as a sign of friendship, so he made sure to never leave Danny out. But this was different. Danny had never missed a shift in the six months they had worked together at the Couchpotatoville video rental store, and a half year in the world of retail wage-slavery was easily equivalent to several years in other lines of work, such was the turnover and the long hours of forced proximity. There was also the matter of the written reprimand left for Brandi's review on the manager's desk with Danny's name on it, which Nelson promptly stuffed into the back of his boxer shorts before Brandi discovered it.
Nelson looked a fright, as he usually did for work. Somehow, he managed to make a tuxedo look less formal than checkered flannel pajamas. He wore his dirty blond hair long and shaggy, and it often fell in front of his eyes while he worked. Today it had bits of popcorn in it. He was pale skinned and pudgy, bordering on plummeting towards overweight due to his keeping to a diet devoid of any adult restraint, even though he himself had recently turned 21. His small dark eyes gave him the look of a quizzical stray dog, and his tuxedo shirt was pulled out of his pants in the back. When he bent down to pick up a quarter or just hide from the customers in line, his boxer shorts popped out for a viewing. But despite his personal shabbiness, Nelson was always punctual for his shift and would always cover empty shifts on short notice, which was plenty enough for a solid career at Couchpotatoville.
So, when Danny didn't show for his Sunday afternoon shift at the store, Nelson lied to the manager, Brandi, telling her that he and Danny had previously worked out a shift switch, and that Nelson had simply forgotten to mention it. Perhaps there was a mix up with his other job at Sabatini's, as the calculus of Danny's scheduling between the two jobs produced the need for arcane 4-dimensional applied mathematics to keep Danny in the right place at the right time. In covering for Danny's shift, Nelson worked a sixteen hour shift at the store, and by the end of it, his store tuxedo uniform was a horrible mess, more so than usual. He left the store, checked the dashboard clock in his tiny SUV, and since it was too late to pop in at Danny's to collect his well-earned good karma, he decided to go blow off some steam.
He drove into downtown Buffalo and arrived at the Slag Heap, a heavy metal bar where bands played painfully loudly throughout the night, even on Sundays. The club owners had taken over an industrial warehouse to build the bar, and had decorated the club by welding everything the prior tenants had left behind to the walls and bar, creating a rusty, craggy surface of vehicle parts, file cabinets and flatware. The last band of the night, 'Contusion Method', was just going onstage as Nelson walked in at 1 am, still wearing his tuxedo. Most of the room was well lubricated by hours of cheap beer and bottom-shelf vodka, and together they formed a sweaty mass blocking the way to the stage. By the third song, Nelson had worked his way to the front of the stage and was head-banging energetically at the feet of the lead guitarist.
Unfortunately for Nelson, his wild gyrations attracted the attentions of a large and poorly socialized off-duty mall security guard, who decided that Nelson was a poser. In the hierarchy of heavy metal culture, posers are a lower caste even than country music fans, and though the label couldn't have been more wrong for the devoutly righteous Nelson, he was wearing an ill-fitting tuxedo. He couldn't have been worse off without wearing a ten-gallon hat and a magenta Japanese kimono.
The burly beefcake pushed his way through the crowd, and without even waiting for the end of the guitar solo, tapped Nelson roughly on the shoulder.
“What?” barked Nelson into the man's broad chest.
“You suck. Unrighteous poser,” slurred the self-appointed guardian of the hardcore.
“Dude. Step off. He's shreddin'!” yelled Nelson over the tirade of sixteenth-notes pouring from the amplifiers, but it was of no use. The mall cop had said all he had to say, so he picked Nelson up, and carried him out of the crowd towards the wall. He hefted Nelson into the air, intending to throw him into a backhoe bucket attached to the wall near the ceiling. However, the mall cop's actual muscles were not nearly as strong as his beer muscles thought they were. He hefted the pudgy video clerk, and blew foul exasperated breath in Nelson's face when he failed to get him aloft. Instead, the mall cop pushed Nelson against a rusty bit of scrap iron hanging much closer to the ground, cutting Nelson's shoulder painfully. Nelson's attacker dropped Nelson to the floor, and looked like he was readying himself for another try. But when Contusion Method started their next song, a heart-rending and dangerously loud power ballad, the attacker seemed to lose interest in destroying Nelson, and shuffled away waving a cigarette lighter over his head.
Nelson saw the blood soaking through his shirt, decided he wasn't up to being righteous at the moment, and slunk out of the bar to drive himself to experience the glory of an uninsured emergency room visit for stitches and a tetanus shot. Nelson had to wait until long after sunrise for attention, until after the gunshot recipients, overdose cases and rape victims were taken care of. He was finally stitched up, left the hospital and drove directly to Danny's apartment, logically blaming the night's events, including the $173 cash outlay at the hospital on Danny's transgression the night prior. Nelson rang the doorbell and called Danny's phone, but there was no answer for either. Nelson was exhausted, so he sat in his miniature SUV in front of Danny's apartment house, and dozed in the front seat.
* * *
Danny woke up in an unfamiliar place wearing his tuxedo shirt, a sock with a hole in it and no pants. He had no idea where he was or how he got there. There was a pillow under his head that was thick and soft, and he felt the weight of a down comforter pressing down gently all over his body. He sniffed the air for any of the moldy, malty or rotten odors that dominated his typical sleeping quarters, but couldn't detect anything but a refreshing absence of smell. Perhaps it was the smell of clean. He couldn't be sure. His curiosity eventually outweighed the comfort of staying put in the warm bed, and he sat up to look around. His body felt stiff and creaky all over and his head hurt.
The furniture was spare and sparse, with the shelves bare but a few impersonal knickknacks carefully placed. It looked like he was in an Ikea catalog or a Swedish hotel, and Danny wondered how he got to from Buffalo to Sweden on his bicycle. He was surprised by a sound outside the room and he yelped a little bit, hugging the comforter to his chin. There was a door near the foot of the bed, open enough to let sound in, but not enough to let Danny see out.
He stood up next to the bed, and looked around for the rest of his clothes, but they were nowhere to be seen. He slumped over and pulled the hem of his shirt down to give him some frontal coverage, and ventured a peek out of the door.
Danny pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked out into the living room of a small apartment. It was clean and neat in a museum display sort of way, as if no one actually lived there, but that someone had tried hard to create the illusion of occupation. It felt like someone had cleaned it so vigorously that along with the dust bunnies, they had sucked all of the soul out of the place with a vacuum cleaner. The light beige couch looked soft but uninviting. The room was brightly light, and put his hands to his face to shield his eyes. He noticed that his chin was covered in stubble.
On the right of the living room was an open doorway, where he could see the hints of a room even brighter than the living room, which he guessed was a bathroom or a kitchen. Danny needed a bathroom fairly urgently, so he clutched the front of his tuxedo shirt, and ran on his tiptoes into the light. He was two steps through the door when he learned two things in rapid succession. One, the room wasn't a bathroom, and, two, he wasn't alone in it.
“Well, good morning, lazy man,” said the dark haired woman, standing in the kitchen by the coffee machine and looking over her shoulder at Danny.
She was fully dressed, making Danny feel even more than half naked by comparison. What's more, she was well dressed for a day at the office, with trim beige slacks and a button-down tailored shirt showing off her figure. A dark leather belt was cinched tight around her trim waist. She had dark brown hair that was affixed into a fashionably permanent breezy look by hairspray Danny could still smell. Danny, who was barefoot, noted with some disdain that she was wearing a pristine pair of uncomfortable looking heels. Danny knew very little about women beyond the basic mechanics they teach in fifth grade, but it was still disturbing that someone would wear uncomfortable shoes in their own kitchen.
“Where am I?” asked Danny.
She proffered a cup of coffee to him. He backed up into the living room and grabbed a throw pillow from the couch. He clutched the pillow tightly like a teddy bear, although somewhat lower on his body than traditional.
“Oh, don't be silly,” she said, pressing the coffee mug into his free hand and kissing him on the lips. She had to pull him down, as Danny's six-foot frame put his mouth much higher than this rather small woman's. Danny could taste the residue of her lipstick left behind, but didn't have a free hand to wipe his mouth. Gosh, she just kissed me, he thought in awe.
“What happened last night? Did I go to work?” he asked.
Her eyes drifted down on his body, and her eyebrows twisted wryly. “Oh, you went to work all right,” she said, standing close enough that Danny could smell her perfume.
Danny stumbled back around the arm of the couch, spilling the black coffee onto the cushion as he twisted to minimize his exposure.
“Oh gosh. Sorry. No, really. The wedding! Did we meet at the wedding?”
She smiled and answered, “Of course we did. You were quite the dancer.”
“Did I make it in time for my shift? Why can't I remember? Gosh, I hope I didn't get fired. Where are my pants? Is my mountain bike here?”
She stalked back to the kitchen doorway, turned and crossed her arms. She frowned, and despite her smaller size, was all of a sudden very intimidating to Danny.
“Are you serious? You're not part of the family that owns Millennium Real Estate? Are you seriously saying that you work at Sabatini's? And you ride a bicycle?”
“That's a lot of questions,” said Danny, and he felt a knot form in the bottom of his stomach. He thought he felt nervous sweat begin to collect on his bare rump. She tapped her toe and waited for his response.
“Yeah, I work at Sabatini's. At least I did. If I missed my shift they probably fired me. Crap, I needed that job. It's Sunday, right? I'm supposed to work tonight at my other job. Why don't I remember anything?”
She took a step forward and drummed the fingers of her right hand on her arm. It was like the nervous twitching of a cat's tail just before it pounced on the helpless mouse before it.
“It's Monday morning. Tell me what you do there,” she demanded icily. Her brown eyes locked onto his. The were so dark it almost looked like she had giant pupils. It made for a freaky and imposing effect that she didn't blink much.
“Where, at Sabatini's? Oh, I'm a dishwasher. Sometimes I barback, which is a pain in the ass because the bartender is a tool, but the tips are good.”
She uncrossed her arms and held her hand to her mouth as if she felt sick. “Oh God,” she said sadly, “tips. You work for...tips. This can't happen. It didn't happen.”
“What didn't happen? Can you please tell me what happened that didn't happen? Do you have some problem with caterers?” asked Danny, unsure how indignant he should get in his current situation.
She closed her eyes and pointed somewhere behind him. He checked his grip on his pillow before turning to see that she was pointing to the door.
“Out! Out out out out out! Now!” she yelled suddenly, surprising Danny into dropping his cup. It landed on the end table and doused the cordless phone in double-sugar City Roast. The phone made a sad little beep, which seemed to anger her even more. She stomped forward in that careful way women have to when walking in tall heels. She took his arm and led him to the door, holding her face away so he couldn't see if she was crying or angry. He stood there, helpless and dumbfounded as she threw open the lock and swung the door open to reveal a pastel wallpapered hallway beyond. She pushed him out into the hall, with Danny offering very little resistance, and slammed the door behind him. He turned and faced the door and listened to the bolt sliding shut in the lock. He was suddenly and violently aware again of his need to urinate and looked around the hallway, still holding the couch pillow in place.
“Is this Sweden?! Because I don't have a passport!” Danny yelled at the door, without getting an answer. Then he realized there was an old lady walking a small dog in a sweater watching him just down the hall in front of the next apartment. He turned to face her, checking the position of his throw pillow of modesty.
“Good morning, ma'am.”
“Oh my,” she said.
She wavered slightly. Danny wasn't sure if she were about to scream or keel over dead. Or perhaps destroy him with her kung fu. So many women were renting those kickboxing videos lately, you never knew if they might be learning something from them. But rather than unleashing her Shaolin fury on him, she stayed there, quiet and wavering in place.
“Lovely morning isn't it,” asked Danny, although it was more of a self-affirming statement to himself than an icebreaker. He nodded down towards the pillow. “I seem to find myself locked out without my pants. Do you think you might let me use your bathroom for a moment? I'm sorry for the trouble.”
The woman smiled and relaxed. She looked at the apartment door Danny had just been locked out of and seemed to think for a moment. She reached out to touch Danny's elbow. It wasn't a threatening gesture at all, but Danny still intensified his grip on the throw pillow.
“It's OK honey, I've done that too. You can call me Mrs. Russell, and this little ruffian is Bitsy,” she said. She pulled Danny to her side and started ambling back towards her own apartment. Her arm snaked through his left elbow as if he were escorting her to a cotillion dinner. While her movements were the cautious steps of someone preeminently concerned with breaking a hip, her grip felt anachronistically strong and sure. Bitsy barked and tangled his leash around Danny's feet, scratching Danny's bare toes with little unworn claws. Every time the dog circled behind them, Danny tensed up, awaiting the sensation of tiny teeth on his bare ass. Bitsy, for his own part, either couldn't make the jump, or was biding his time for a more interesting target, and sufficed with the leash tangling game that humans think is so unintentional.
Mrs. Russell let him in and showed him to the bathroom. After he had relieved himself, and was standing in the bathroom unsure if it was polite to go back out in his current state of undress, there was a soft knock at the door. Danny cracked it open.
Mrs. Russell stood outside, eyes averted, holding a pair of brown wide-wale corduroy trousers towards the door.
“Here honey, these are Mr. Russell's. You could use them more than he could right now,” she said, and walked away without looking after Danny pulled the pants through the opening. The trousers were cut for someone six inches shorter and many inches wider then Danny, and brown corduroy with a wrinkled tuxedo shirt was no one's idea of a good look, but Danny was nonetheless grateful.
Before he came out, he noticed a noise, and stopped to cock his head and listen. It was a song, almost familiar, but sung in a voice devoid of pitch or melodic talent. It stopped suddenly when he opened the door. He met Mrs. Russell in the living room, where she had set a serving tray on the coffee table with an empty glass and an open bottle of root beer.
“Was there just somebody singing?” asked Danny. “I couldn't quite place the song. Is that Mr. Russell?”
“Oh gracious, no dear,” she said quickly. “Have a seat and let's talk. You must be parched.”
Danny would have much preferred a double shot of espresso, preferably made with Ethiopian beans, but he wasn't about to insult his benefactor's kindness. He was really hungry and thirsty.
As they sat on the Davenport, Danny's bare feet protruding from the bottoms of his pants several inches, Mrs. Russell made polite small talk. She was either unaware or unconcerned with the state she had found Danny in. She told him Mr. Russell had passed away several years ago, and about the cutthroat politics of the wholesale shoeshine business that had been Mr. Russell's life's work, and her continued sadness at never having any children of her own. She was interrupted by Bitsy, whose had been whining at her feet, but was now barking and scratching at the door.
“Oh Bitsy, we are a bit overdue, aren't we?” said Mrs. Russell kindly. “You'll have to excuse us now, Mr. Fortune. It's time for Bitsy's morning constitutional, and I must get to the market for some fresh eggs. I do hope you have a better day ahead though, and it was lovely to meet you.”
As soon as she stood, Bitsy spun in place, about to implode with excitement. Danny rose as well, and though Bitsy gave him a cursory sideways growl, the dog was too concerned with the state of his bladder to menace the big and smelly intruder.
“Thank you, Mrs. Russell. It was a pleasure meeting you and, um, Bitsy.”
“Oh don't be silly dear. It's a pleasure for no one to meet Bitsy. I may be an old lady, but I know that much. And you keep Mr. Russell's pants. I certainly don't need them any more, but I believe that you will today. I'm sorry that I don't have proper shoes that would fit you. Mr. Russell had feet like a seven-year old boy.”
She opened the door, and Danny walked past her out of the apartment, mindful that Bitsy not get a grip on one of his toes. Mrs. Russell followed him after a momentary pause as she went back in to retrieve the throw pillow Danny came in with.
“Here dear, this is yours as well. You'd better keep it close, you never know.”
Danny grinned and reddened, taking it the pillow, but fidgeted with it, unsure how one is supposed hold an accessory that had such a checkered past -- clutched to the chest in fond remembrance, or dangled by a corner in unabated disgust? Behind him, another door further down the hall opened with a faint gasp of air. Out stepped the dark haired woman in heels. She didn't appear to acknowledge Mrs. Russell or the yapping microcanine's existences, but glared directly at Danny.
“Well? It's about time. You've made me late for work. I had no idea where you were,” she accused.
Danny didn't move. He looked at Mrs. Russell, who gave him an odd, impish grin.
“Come on, it's time to go and you're not even ready. And oh my God, what are those pants you're wearing?”
“You'd better go dear. Never keep a lady waiting,” said Mrs. Russell, giving Danny's pillow arm an affectionate and strangely strong squeeze.
She guided Bitsy down the hall to the elevator, passing the younger woman without a glance or a word. After a moment, Danny shrugged and shuffled over to the open door. He handed her the pillow.
“Here. This is yours,” he said.
“Oh, but that's not what I want,” grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pulling him down into another kiss. Danny fought to suppress a root beer infused belch as she pulled him into the apartment and shut the door behind them with her foot. She attacked him with violent kisses and energetic groping, but after just a minute of this, her cellphone rang. She opened one eye to look at the screen, then broke off suddenly in mid-kiss. Before Danny knew it, she was driving him home in sullen silence.
-4-
Nelson was awakened by Danny knocking at his car window. Danny looked as tired as Nelson did, and was also still wearing his tuxedo shirt, although without Nelson's display of gore. Nelson awoke and nodded at Danny, blinking his heavy-lidded eyes until he figured out that he should get out of the car and follow Danny inside. Although initially self-conscious about his blood soaked shirt and pile of gauze strapped to his back, he was comforted that he still looked cooler than Danny in his mid-calf corduroys and bare feet.
“Dude!” Nelson shouted from the street at the back of Danny's head. “Where have you been? You missed your shift last night! Plus, you owe me $173!”
Danny unlocked the door to the apartment house and entered the hallway. He paused for a moment, looking back at Nelson to decide if it was a good idea to invite him in. The morning had been plenty odd enough already, but Nelson always seemed to mean well, and his ragged condition and demands for cash compensation piqued Danny's curiosity,
The apartment house was once upon a time a grand single family house, with servants' quarters and an expansive tile foyer for receiving guests. In the 70's, it had been carved up into three rental units by an entrepreneur with little regard for architectural worth. Now the grand foyer was the front hallway, and there was a kitchen on the second floor where the original master bedroom used to be. Danny lived in the third floor former servant's quarters in a dead-end firetrap one-bedroom that would never pass a building code inspection without a bribe.
“Come on in, man. Do you want some coffee?” asked Danny, holding open the door.
Nelson jumped eagerly to the step. “Coffee? Are you kidding? What's my name, Mohambo?”
Danny shook his head. Nelson had been trying unsuccessfully for the last couple of months to establish a trademark catch phrase, of the kind possessed in the B-grade films he borrowed like an addict from Couchpotatoville on his employee account. He had tried to launch and subsequently abandoned “Monkey see, monkey do. Me monkey!” and “Captain ashore! Prepare to be boarded!” He spent two weeks exploring the possibilities of “Roll it in butter, I'll take two!” before getting a written warning from the Couchpotatoville assistant manager. “What's my name, Mohambo?” was his current affectation, and at least it hadn't resulted in any reprimands yet.
“I don't get this one, Nelson. Are you asking me if my name is Mohambo, or are you not sure if it's your name?” asked Danny as they ascended the creaky staircase to the top floor.
“Dude, you don't get it? It's like, what's my name, right? You say you want coffee, I say yo, what's my name, but people get all wrung out if you say bitch, so Mohambo is all cool like that,” Nelson responded, his breath getting heavier as they rose.
“You sound tired. Were you up all night again?” asked Danny.
Nelson pointed sharply at the lump of gauze wadded onto his shoulder, panting as they reached the third floor landing.
“Was I up all night? Damn straight I'm tired. Man, look at me! It's like I went through a war zone. You oughta compensate me for combat pay too! Where the hell have you been anyhow, you... owe... me...<gasp>”
Nelson's building tirade ran out of gas when he lost the last of his breath and needed to recover, grasping the bannister for support. He caught his breath, and when he noticed Danny standing with his key in the door, waiting politely for Nelson to continue, Nelson shrugged and said, “Aw, never mind. Where's the coffee?”
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