Dick’s
DICKS QUALITY USED CAR’S: The sign, with half of its neon bulbs burned out was much like its owner Dick. He was a shady character burnout, pushing lies, rusted metal, re-capped rubber and re set odometers to anyone left on the planet gullible enough to buy his rap.
Dick is hung over, another brutal night sucking rye, too much cocaine. He was wondering when the roving band of cockroaches would leak out of his ears, relieving his pounding temples.
He was a 52 year old, living the all or nothing last stand life of a life-long party animal. He was on track for a massive heart malfunction, which could break dance in at any moment.
Ash spills down his plaid pants, past the white patent leather belt coming to rest on red, patent leather loafers. Moans of cranial grief, he peeks out the window, his day grows a smidgen brighter. Out in the lot, a slinky, sexy doll, wearing slim fit jeans, looking interested at probably the only ride that did not need a transplant, something he was dire in need of.
Drawer opens of his oak laminated desk, he grabs a breath spray, gives his mouth a sprits’, adjust his toupee, adjusts his clip on tie, stands, weaves, smiles, begins to move.
A ‘Master of his Universe’, Romeo of the Patent leather universes is on the prowl.
IN THE lot, Mandel eye balls a faded, lime green, 1975 Cadillac, El Dorado, rag top. She holds the brain of an artistic savant. The Caddy, about as long as a Winnebago hits all the bells and whistles inside her bent spinner.
Flash cars, driven by pimps, gamblers, criminal types, Wall Street types and perverted Catholic Bishops, sicken her. Cosmetic world, where everything hinges on looks, hype, six pack abs, instead of what can be produced from the brain enrages her.
In a global village, folks gone zaftig over Brittany pierced belly buttoned bimbos. Where marginal talent was something touted, adored, the whore she is, understands the brain is the only organ that is unique; gosh she is such a thinker girl.
Spin doctors, cheer-leading the Dumbing of America makes her head ache. Nothing on earth impresses her except passion, desire for an artist’s, his work; attributes so lacking in every man she has ever met.
She forgets that she is a prostitute, a thief, a grifter, a habitual liar and the other ghastly thing that she did.
Selective memory can be good at times, even for genius whores. Her eyes glaze over failing to remember if she has murdered another human being yet. She is not sure.
Coming out of her morphine drip of thought, she will ponder on that later.
One tire kicked, two tires kicked, a rap of knuckles on the door panels. She checks her knuckles. Still there, that’s good.
She likes the icon from a time Detroit was cool, had style, soul, turns, gawks and, then shushes a smile from her lips, as she stops in mid stride. From out of an acid trip past, a disco world, a guy looking like a Vegas Wayne Newton, strolls towards her, patent leather, Dacron, polyester everywhere. Most men had left any semblance to originality long behind them, but this dude has something, she giggles in her brain to herself.
He sidles up like a drip of butterscotch plaid, maybe thinking he can score twice; once with the Caddy and the other with the sleek doll as he purrs. “I can see ya got great taste, doll.”
‘Doll, your fucking kidding me’ sweeps around her brain.
She likes him. Why not cut the player some slack.
Fighting a grin, she lights up a Marlboro, tilts the pack at him, snaps the Zippo shut. Unable to help himself, Dick follows the smoke from her lips into the smog as if it were the last bit of oxygen left in the world.
“You think so?” She purrs.
She tilts the pack some more, fights grinning and cuts him out a smile.
A debonair guy, he takes a cigarette, catches the lighter in mid air, smiles as Mandals says. “Nice catch.”
Seduction is her specialty plying everywhere around both of them.
He looks her over, as well as the lighter. He nods in approval, lights up his filtered cigarette. Handing the Zippo back, he’s living in a world of delusion.
“Thanks doll, sweet lighter.”
She slots the lighter into her jeans change slot, she smiles.
“Thanks...DICK...Right?’
He takes some Beechnut out, tilts the pack at her. She nods, no. He shrugs his shoulders, peels back the tin and pops the gum into his mouth.
“Right, Dick. Like I was say in’ Miss. It is Miss, is it?”
“That’s right. How about you? There a Mrs. Dick at home?”
She was having a fun time at her own time consuming expense.
Dick, a player at the local Elks Club, was already counting the thread count on a set of sheets at the York Deluxe Motel. He smiles his seducers smile, chews gum, smoke’s a bit. He uses his usual Styx, which usually gets him tail from the strippers over at the Pink Elephant. Cosmetic idiots who when drunk or stoned enough would fuck him just as easily as they would a fucking Cameroon Baboon.
“No doll, No Mrs. Dick. I’m takin’ applications though.”
Mandal drags on her cigarette, nods her head in understanding, stifling roars of laughter.
“Bet the list is a long one, uh?”
Dick grins, sucking smoke into his collapsing lungs, smoke twirling out of his nose like he seen Sean Penn do in one a those movies over there at the Paradise drive in.
“Yeah, but it’s getting shorter by the minute.”
“Yes, well that’s great news.”
Mercurial moods, switch time, mood change. She morphs, her eyes close, no more the imp; she’s on the time clock.
Jerking the mood back to serious, she blinks, eyes roll around her head, come back, nothing sweet in them any longer, playful either; maybe death, maybe not.
Dick sees a different doll, not the sex toy he was day dreaming about screwing silly later, anywhere, even in the back of that Caddy he is praying he will off load on her.
Mandal, now a cold rolled pipe of breathing, talking stainless steel, cuts to the chase.
“How much for the Caddy?”
“Well, as you can see, she’s a classic.”
About to continue, like a nail gun she tacks through his eyes and staples his brain to the back of his head so he can get on with it; the reality of car salesmanship.
“Last time. How much for the Caddy or I scoot?”
Boom one minute; bust the next, boom better.
“Two Grand, guarantee her for 30 days.”
“That long, huh?”
Negativity was not her thing.
A black Lincoln Town Car cruising by with tinted windows gets some gitty-up into her.
“SOLD.”
Dick, about to rap more, but that ends when she digs in her bag, rummages around a world of money. Hand gun flashes by, another, and for a sec he thinks the twist is going to gun him down.
He exhales as the minx fishes out twenty crisp new C-notes, layers his palm with them. She waves four more-tight Benjamin’s in front of his blood shot eyes.
“Another four hundred if we can get the paper done in ten minutes?”
He snaps the green paper out of her hands.
“Done doll. Come on honey; let’s get you in those wheels.”
A hitch in his loafers, he turns and leads Mandal to the trailer he uses as an Office. Through the aluminum door, inside, sets her small butt on a plastic chair and, then whips out his famous seven-minute paper work.
Checking carbons, inking paper here and there, he thinks’ that life is sweet. This trick sweetheart, spooky as she was, whoever the fuck she was pretending to be just paid for some serious cocaine for the night.
He’d be a hero at the Pink tonight, humming away, he could hardly wait.
DICK, FROM, DICK’S quality Used Cars, watches as the Ermine in the black wig, seen that immediately, wings out of the lot, top down.
She was edgy, seemed to be looking over her shoulder a lot. With the serious coin in the sack and the weapons, he figures he pretty much knows why.
That don’t concern him now, for he knows several nude honeys that adored coke, ludes, ecstasy, pot, speed, mushrooms and heroin as much as they loved ass fucking by anyone who could supply them with their nose candy and other treats.
Looking out the window, he picks up the phone and, then watches as the cunt hits the street, smokes the wheels and rips down the Ave. As his coke dealer comes on the line, the last thing he sees are a couple a duel finned tail lights disappearing up the ramp of the Interstate.
The doll is moving south.
He would remember that babe, she had made his day.
“Yeah Mickey, Dick, 3 grams my man. Jack it with a gram of China White...oh yes...