Devilcountry (21 page)

Lisa found herself becoming increasingly
uncomfortable with Rick and by default Randi. Something about Rick was
unsettling.  It wasn’t fair they were allowed to procreate.  Lisa
knew she must endure this in order to be near the prize.  She swore she
heard a baby cough from afar and tried to zero-in on the sound.  Perhaps
she could swivel on over to the baby and avoid the whole dirty courtship thing.
 He began to eyeball Lisa a bit too heavily.  Lisa was dressed
modestly, wearing black cotton pants that showed little to no definition
whatsoever.  But Rick wasn’t fooled.  He knew she was hiding the
goods.  “Baby, lets go!” yelled Rick, still not breaking eyes with Lisa
and all she had to offer.

“Let me just check on Kevin.  He’s
mid-nap.”

“The kid is fine, hey…baby?” Rick purred and
swiveled his head back towards Randi.

“Yes, baby?” Randi purred back from the other
room.  Lisa hated couples
who
referred to each
other as “baby”.  It robbed actual babies of their good name. He swiveled
his head fast, back to Lisa, making deep eyes with her.

“Can we shoot some porn later?”  Lisa put
her eyes down to the floor.

“I have to read some scripture and then email a
sermon to Honey, but after, I guess,” cooed Randi as she walked over to Kevin’s
crib.

“I get to finish in your mouth!” Rick demanded.

“My jaw gets tired when you take too long.”

“Lisa’ll fluff.”  Rick
eye-balled
Lisa and gave her a wink.  Lisa was speechless and chose to ignore it.
 She followed Randi over to the crib where the child was at peace.

“I’m brewin’ up a serious money shot, here, and
I’m hungry! So let’s go!”

“SHUT UP, RICK!” yelled Randi, as she was above
the crib.  Lisa stood right next to her.  Transfixed on baby Kevin.
 Lisa shut them out.

“Okay, Lisa, I’d like you to meet Kevin.
 Kevin, this is Lisa, you’re temporary momma.” Randi bent down and kissed
the child.  She then looked at Lisa. Randi playfully whispered, “Well go
on now.”  Lisa didn’t know what to do but then realized instantaneously.
 She bent down and kissed Kevin on the forehead.  Randi gave a slight
smile.  Lisa felt reborn.  Baby Kevin lay unstirred, moving his upper
lip slightly in reaction to the affection.  “Congratulations!  You
are now temp-baby-momma,” said Randi as she retreated, and then was next to her
man with an arm tucked under his shoulder.  “All right, let’s do this.”
She kissed him on the cheek.  Then in a whisper that was a little too
loud, as Lisa was bent over in awe of the child, “I am so sucking your cock in
the parking lot, baby.”

“Praise Jesus,” offered Rick.  Lisa heard a
spank of an ass followed by a slight moan from Randi.

“Okay, we’ll be back no later than twelve; you
got our cell in case of problems,” said Randi.  Lisa turned around to face
them, praying they weren’t making out.

“Have fun, you two.”

“There’s a bottle in the fridge, just warm it up
if he wants it.  He’s already eaten but there’s a snack in the fridge for
him if he looks hungry,
”  said
Randi.

“He’s totally full on titty milk!” Rick blurted.
 

Randi faux-slapped Rick on the chest, feigning
embarrassment but loving every second of it.  “Takes after his old man!”
he added.  The child sat quiet in the crib next to the sofa, asleep,
kicking instinctively, breathing it all in like a Buddha.  Rick and Randi
hollered at each other erotic insult after insult as they made their way to the
door.  Lisa shut out the parental diatribe and locked-in on the quiet
pangs of the sleeping child.  All other sounds went unprocessed.
  Lisa went to her happy place.  
A place where
she and baby Kevin were alone.
 
A nice,
comforting wide-open space with a park and a Starbucks.
 She could
see herself holding baby Kevin in her arms.  To her it was paradise. They
stared at each other in awe. She felt
a warmth
overcome her she’d never felt before.  She felt closer to the baby than
she ever did to Ronit, or Chet, or anyone.  The baby ripped-down Lisa’s
shields and made her feel more naked than any naked person standing on any
naked beach anywhere.  She was a raw, unfettered nerve being held together
by all of God’s purity that could be stuck inside a diaper.  She felt
immaculate, clean, and absolved of all
wrong-doing
.
 Nothing else seemed to matter.

After final goodbyes and kisses, hugs, gropes
and exits, Rick and Randi finally left, and Lisa and baby Kevin were alone.

COUCH DANCE

She
stood up from her huge, white, over-sized Chaise armchair.  She walked
casually to the other end of the couch I was sitting on and sat down.  She
slid over. She curled up next to me.  “Hi,” she cooed.  I was
puzzled.  She put my arm around her and brought it underneath her.
 My heart raced.  Nobody had paid this kind of attention to me in a
long time. I thought about Rachel Abramsberg.  How I got used.  How
it shut me down.  That was the kind of attention I was used to.
  I was confused. Where was this in the vision?  Her ear was on
top of my chest.  She could hear the pounding.  “Is that your heart?”
 
she
asked.

“Yes.  I’m sorry.”

 
         
 
“Just don’t die.”

 
         
 
“Been a long time since a pretty girl...”
I said softly.  Carin smiled.  She looked down at Gino’s corpse-like
body, passed out in his underwear, spooning with a bottle.

 
         
 
“How pretty?”  I was unsure how to
respond.  She turned her head up at me and brought me in for a kiss.
 Our tongues swirled.  I
eye-balled
Gino,
who wasn’t moving.  “Don’t worry about him.  Worry about me.”
 We kissed.  It was nice.  
About a minute into
it my senses locked-on.
 I realized I was kissing a beautiful
woman.  We made out on her couch for a while.  I pulled her into me.
 My heart was going nuts.

 
         
 
“I haven’t really done anything in a
while.”

 
         
 
“That’s okay, sweety, we can just sit
here…in fact that’s what we’ll do.”  Her voice started to trail off.
 “We’re just gonna sit here…until your heart feels better. …
and
…you’ll…do…me…”

 
         
 
She passed out in my arms.  
On her couch.
 
In her apartment.
 While I was on duty as her pizza driver…in Devilcountry…  My
beating heart
a lullaby.  I held her in my arms.
 I stared down at her.  I got the solid look at her I wanted to get
when she was in my cousin’s salon years ago.  Her face had aged a bit.
 
Around the edges.
 Her cheekbones were
still high and in place.  Perfect.

I stroked my fingers through her gooey hair.
 It was beautiful.  It still had a sheen and bounce to it like it did
twenty years ago, even if she had tried to ruin it through years of alcohol,
tobacco and shitty men.  Here was her hair.  Here were my fingers
running through it; it felt sticky like pizza cheese.  It was knotted-up
and dirty but there was still a life to it.  It still managed to have
bounce.  I cherished it. Perhaps Cousin Freddy would be upset at all of
the split ends, but I was a fan.   She slept sound.  Me, holding
onto her, thinking about my
Bar Mitzvah
, life back in the eighties and
the wall I had built inside me to keep it all out.  She had a peaceful
look on her face, like no one had held her in years.  It made me feel
important. Useful.  That was a new one for me.  In strip
clubs affection is doled out by half-naked women who charge premium
rates by the song
.   The clubs tend to be the last bastion of
affection for the disheartened or alienated. Sometimes lap dances are referred
to as couch dances.  Maybe it’s to attract the
in therapy
crowd.
 This was the best one I ever had.  

Before I knew it, it was morning.

WHEN PUDGIE MET GOD

Pudgie
heard the phone ring.  He was having a dream about childhood.  He was
at a swim party where he overdosed on chocolate cake.  He loved chocolate
cake.  It was so delicious.  It was heaven on a plate.  It was
love.  He was a bit round to begin with and having cake smudged all over
his face didn’t help things.  It was the day Tommy Kramer started calling
him Pudgie.  At first Pudgie hated being called Pudgie.  Girls didn’t
take him seriously and boys didn’t want to be stuck with the fat kid, even
though he wasn’t fat, he was just kind of pudgy and had eaten too much with his
shirt off.

 
         
 
The dream had him being chased around a
suburban pool, around and around by Tommy Kramer, only he looked like Paris
Hilton until he started to climb the Matterhorn from
Disneyland
which
was behind the house.   He was going to see God.
 At the summit God was there, a giant, disgusting rat.

 
         
 
“You don’t look at all like Charles
Bronson!” God looked at him; Pudgie was ten years old in a bathing suit with
chocolate cake spread all over his face.  He felt shame.  There were
two girls with God, both of them wrapped in plastic, giggling, and drinking
Coca-Colas.

 
         
 
“You’re an asshole, God.”  Pudgie
turned to the east and Geraldo stepped out from nowhere and swung a sword
around.  He connected with the neck and decapitated the beast in one clean
stroke.  Blood spurted out from everywhere, covering Geraldo and Pudgie in
a disgusting, red plasmatic mix. But that was only the beginning of the
skirmish.   The decapitated rat pulled out a sword and they began to
skirmish.  Geraldo stabbed the rat repeatedly until it fell to the ground.
 It’s blood squirting everywhere.  Finally the beast lay dead at
Geraldo’s feet.  Geraldo woke up startled and awake in his apartment.
 For a moment a panic had set in but he fended it off.  He felt a
profound sense of peace overcome him.  He knew he had made the right move
concerning Carin. He stared over at his new
novia.
Gabriella,
a student at Los Angeles Valley College.
They’d been dating for two
months.  He decided at the right moment, he would skip the formalities and
put a baby in her.   

        
Pudgie was still dreaming.  His celebrity friend Jason was there.
 He was transparent and offered Pudgie more cake.  Pudgie hesitated,
God laughed.   It went on like this for a while.

 
        Pudgie
had gone out the night before.  The agent, Steven, asked Pudgie to stop by
a party he was throwing in the Hollywood Hills.  Pudgie said, “No
problem!” This was it!  He was in!  All he had to do was jump through
the hoops and he’d be on the inside.  No more counter work bullshit, no
more dealing with the pizza.  He wanted to make the right impression and
he remembered Gary Coleman’s old manager owed him a favor.  Pudgie got an
eightball at a discount, and before you knew it Pudgie, Jason, two porn stars
and Steven “God” Bergeshwharzz were all sharing several lines of cocaine in
God’s Jacuzzi.  Pudgie couldn’t believe it.  This guy had broken more
career cherries than Joel Silver’s casting couch, and here was Pudgie, one heartbeat
away.  Everything was going great until Pudgie noticed God bogarting the
coke.  God was naked, high, and found “Chasey”, the porn star to his
right, attractive because she seemed to be able to laugh right on cue at his
shitty jokes.

“So then I say, fuck you, Brad Pitt!  You
aren’t getting fifteen percent.  This is MY movie and MY deal!
 You’re getting a shit ton of cash on the front end!  So back off,
chumpy!  And he was like,’ damn, God, you da’ man!’ And I was like damn
right I am.”

Laughter.
 

That didn’t even have a punch line,
Pudgie
thought.  
God had the mirror of coke in his hands
,
Pudgie stared at it
.  
That shit cost me three
hundred bones,
he thought,
and he hasn’t even passed it around!
Pudgie
hated waiting.
              

 
         
 
“I can’t believe Lisa thinks you look
like Charles Bronson,” said God to Pudgie, as he sliced up another line.
 “And this coke is total shit.  Steven Dorff had better white than
you.  Steven DORFF!”  He then started giggling insanely as Chasey
whispered something dirty into his ear. Ignoring it, God continued. “Quentin
keeps bugging me about new talent, blah blah blah, and he’s like ‘I need to
find a Charlie Bronson, Charlie Bronson! Find me a Charlie Bronson.  Blah
Blah Blah.’” He looked deep into Chasey’s eyes.  His voice dropped to a
whisper. “Quentin is so needy.”  He looked back at Pudgie. He paused for
effect.  “I know Charles Bronson, Charles Bronson is a friend of mine,
you, Pukey…”

 
         
 
“Pudgie…”