Shmucks (2 page)

The girl shrugged.

Levin was getting angry. Another few minutes and the girl would leave and end up in some other guy's bed. He had gotten her all horny and some other guy would end up shtupping her.

He rolled down his window. He yelled into the night. “Hey, shmuck, shut off your lights!”

An answer came booming through the alley. “Fock you!”

Levin laughed a short sarcastic laugh. “What a prick,” he muttered more to himself than to the girl.

“I can't take this. I'm leaving,” the girl said, half whining.

“Please don't leave.” Levin put a hurt note into his voice. “I know this guy can't last much longer. He's already brought out his heavy artillery, turning on his brights; the ploy where he stretched out like he's planning for a long night. He's shot his load, he's peaked already.”

“Well then pretty soon he may get really fed up and try and move you out of the way by force.”

“I doubt it.”

“Well I don't. I told you I can't stand violence. Even if you haven't fought, you're acting very violently.”

Levin was beginning to get fed up. He wasn't going to move even if it meant losing out on this girl. He would do his best to try and persuade her to stay, but if she wouldn't it was just too bad. He'd have to miss this one. Of course he could always look her up tomorrow or the next day, next week.

“I've got to leave. I really can't take the tension anymore.”

“Just try and relax. There's nothing to be afraid of.”

“I can't relax.”

“C'mon, let's jump in the back.”

“No, it's almost like daylight in the car.”

Levin could see that the girl was right. He leaned out the window again and shouted once more down the alley. “Hey, shmuck, will you shut your bloody lights!”

Once again he heard the retort. “Fock you!”

Suddenly Levin saw a light go on in an apartment building bordering the alley. The building was set back a good 30 or 40 feet from the fence which delineated the alley, so that Levin had a good angle into the second-story window. A man stuck his head out and bellowed, “Will you cut out the fucking noise down there!”

Levin heard the answer come rolling back down the alley from the direction of the taxi. “Fock you!”

The man withdrew his head and shut the window. The light went out. Silence returned to the lane.

The girl glanced at her watch. “We've been sitting here for fifteen minutes,” she said angrily. “He'll never back up.”

The tone in the girl's voice put Levin off. He shrugged. He couldn't blame her though. After all, here he was giving more importance to a psychological battle with some unknown guy in a taxi than to her and her incredible body. What a putdown! Mind you, if he had been able to give her a little taste of dick, she'd probably have stayed with him in the car for a week if he'd wanted her to. Then again, maybe not. She seemed like a hard-headed type. He could tell by the way she had grabbed his tool. Along with the passion there was a suggestion of no-nonsense authority in her grip.

“Are you going to back up?” she asked again. There was a demanding note in her voice.

“No,” Levin replied bluntly.

“Okay,” she said and moved towards the door. “That's it. I'm leaving!”

“You're leaving?” He tried to sound dumbfounded, hurt and self-righteously angry all at the same time.

“Yes!”

“You're not serious?”

“Yes I am.”

“Gimmie your phone number.”

“Fuck you,” she said and got out.

Levin couldn't help laughing. He turned and watched her go back down the alley, hitching up her underpants through her skirt as she walked.

Observing her beautiful ass, Levin felt a tremendous surge of lust run through his belly. He was almost ready to back the car down the laneway after her when he became aware of the taxi's lights glaring into his car and his passion immediately turned to a dull rage. He was on the verge of getting out and assaulting the taxi driver, but he restrained himself. He wouldn't break his oath. It would be too humiliating. He had promised himself that he would not become involved in physical violence, and he would keep that promise no matter how absurd it seemed at that moment.

He leaned back against the seat, pulled out an Export A and lit it. He looked at his watch. It was almost 11:30. He peered down the lane again just as the girl turned onto Peel Street and disappeared from view. A moment later the taxi's lights went off.

Levin sucked in his breath. Another current of anger passed through his body.

Levin kept his lights on. He left the motor running so that the battery would stay charged. He wasn't worried about the gas. He had a full tank. The tank's capacity was 20 gallons. He made some quick calculations. Idling he figured he could get 15 miles to the gallon. If he estimated a gallon would last perhaps fifteen minutes, that meant he could keep the motor running for at least five hours and probably a lot more.

No problem. It would begin getting light at about 4:30. He could keep his lights on with the motor running all night if he wanted to.

Levin leaned back against the door and put his feet up on the seat. He sat up for a moment to raise the radio volume for the 11:30 news, and then reclined himself again. The news came on. Levin half listened as the announcer spoke about the main events of the day. There was more fighting in Ireland. An item about refugees fleeing from Pakistan. An item about a man who had stuffed his wife into a garbage can and then thrown garbage in on top of her after a minor altercation. A priest arrested in Chicoutimi for smoking pot.

Levin shut the radio and stared down the lane in the direction of the taxi.

CHAPTER 2

EVEN WHEN HE THOUGHT VERY HARD
, which for Pelzic was a rare thing, he could not remember one morning in his life that had started off in an enjoyable way. Something always went wrong. Either it was a malfunction in the taxi or some obnoxious fare with a big mouth, or his wife. There was always something.

With the taxi it was always something unusual. He never seemed to have the normal breakdowns that other drivers had–like a dead battery or a flat tire. He would wake up to find that somehow the steering wheel had fallen off during the night or, if it was winter time, snow had accumulated on the taxi top and collapsed the roof. Once on the way to the airport, he had simultaneous blowouts in three tires. Another time, a passenger had fallen out of his car and broken a leg. Or it was trouble with the police. They seemed to be always after him. It was as though half the Montreal police force was following him around just waiting for him to make a false move. If another driver left his car in a no-parking zone for two hours, nothing happened. If Pelzic ran inside a restaurant and returned twenty seconds later with a morning
Gazette,
a motorcycle cop would be there writing him out a ticket. There was always something. It was because of things such as these that he was so amazed on this particular Wednesday. He had awakened from a dream. In the dream he found himself swimming in Pacific waters. The waves were gentle and the current carried his big bulk along effortlessly. Suddenly a mermaid appeared. She had the most enormous pair of tits that he had ever seen in his life. She swam in front of him and, treading water with her tail, stuck one gigantic nipple into his mouth. “Would big Pelzy like fuck nice mama?” she asked.

Pelzic began nodding vigourously, unable to talk because of his full mouth. As he shook his head, the huge tit flapped up and down like a heavy water-filled balloon. He was wondering how one went about having intercourse with a mermaid when she suddenly flipped under the water and disappeared from sight. A moment later, he felt something very soft and warm on his penis. He looked under the water to see the mermaid swimming there on her back while calmly sucking him off. He smiled as ripples of pleasure coursed through his body.

At that point, Pelzic suddenly found himself awake. He was just about to begin cursing his bad luck when he realized that the pleasurable feelings he had been experiencing a moment before in the dream were still continuing now that he was awake. Through half-closed eyes he saw his wife curled in a tight ball around the area of his thighs, performing the same act on him that the mermaid had been doing in the dream. He couldn't believe it.

The lady must have gone mad during the night! She had performed that act only once in their twelve years of married life–and that under what could be considered duress, in that he had tied her to the bed. After that time she had vomited continually for three days. Pelzic had decided not to insist on this activity after that incident. It wasn't all that important; besides, his girlfriend enjoyed doing it well enough and so if his wife didn't, who cared. She kept a good house. What more could he ask. Pelzic lay there breathing deeply, pretending he was still asleep. He couldn't for the life of him figure out what had come over the old girl. Eleven years after her vomiting spree, here she was sucking his pu
a with the vigour of a conscientious medic like he'd just been bitten there by a rattlesnake.

He couldn't believe it, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to enjoy it. He lay there without moving and began to make a low snoring sound. His wife had one heavy hand around his buttocks, the other on his scrotum, and his penis in her mouth. She pulled her head back for a moment and released it, making little murmuring sounds. She straightened her body out alongside his and grabbing him under the armpits began trying to roll him over on top of her. Pelzic snored ever louder.

“Come Pelzy,” she whispered. “Come give good foock,” she muttered in her heavy Polish accent. Pelzic snored a little louder. Finally she managed to pull him over on top of her. He could feel her grappling frantically with his shlong until she succeeded in getting it in. She threw her ass up at him so hard that the lower part of his 200-pound body was lifted a good foot above the mattress.

Pelzic made a few little grunting noises and twisted a bit, as though his sleep was being disturbed, and then began to snore as loudly as he imagined he normally did when he was in a dead sleep.

What a ride! An hour and a half later, after his wife had orgasmed fifteen times, he allowed himself to do the same. He would have held back even longer because he enjoyed seeing her squirm and grovel on his rod, but he was afraid she might have a heart attack. Afterwards he went back to sleep.

He awoke a few hours later. The sun was shining. He could hear birds chirping near his window. He felt wonderful. He sat up slowly in the bed and stretched. He stood up and walked towards the bathroom. He could hear his wife singing hysterically in the kitchen. He stepped into the bathtub, pulled the curtain closed, and turned on the shower. Maybe today would be his day, he thought as the water came down on him. The way it was starting off, it might be. He had a feeling, a strong sensation, of well being. Luck could be just around the corner. It had been such a long time since he had experienced a perfect day, when everything went just right. In fact, he couldn't actually remember having ever gone through such a day.

As he thought about it, he realized that he'd never experienced one. Something had always gone wrong. Even in Romania things always seemed to go wrong. He couldn't get ahead in Canada and he had never gotten his head even slightly above water in Romania. He had gone to Canada hoping to find success there, but things had been no different in the New World.

Sometimes he thought it was his attitude. He was always trying to make a fast dollar, always attempting to get in by the back door. He spent a great deal of time thinking about how to make a killing. He felt he wasn't suited for work, especially physical labour, and even as a youth had made plans to retire by the time he was into his early forties.

Somehow these plans hadn't worked out. He was forty-six years old now and still struggling. Some people sat on their brains and would somehow end up making a fast easy dollar. He thought of schemes constantly, had a thousand good ideas but they never came to anything.

There were some real idiots with whom he was acquainted. In spite of their stupidity, everything they touched turned to gold. With him everything he touched turned to shit.

In Romania he had tried to avoid army service by feigning deafness. He had practised his deaf act for the entire week before taking his physical exam. When it came time for the examination, he psyched himself into his deaf state. Everything went smoothly. The medical examiners questioned him. They tried to trip him up by speaking very softly. He fooled them. Every time they said something he simply shrugged, pointed at his ears, and shook his head. The examiners called in a ventriloquist who could speak without moving his lips. Pelzic was too wise. He was ready for that. He just stood there as though hearing nothing. After that they were satisfied that he really was deaf, and excused him. He dressed and left the recruitment centre. He decided to phone his friend and inform him of the good news. Spying a phone booth beside the building, he entered it and rang up his friend.