Chapter Ten

Jerry shoved his fists deep into his pockets, hunching his shoulders against the thoughts boiling in his head. The inner voice that hectored him every time he screwed up sounded just like Coach Gill, his old Phys-Ed teacher. He could still see the old bastard, stopwatch in one hand, bellowing at him as he ran laps around the football field.

“C’mon Sloan! You’re falling behind! What’s the matter, Sloan? Is your hair gettin’ in your eyes? Jesus Christ on a sea beach! I bet you squat to piss, don’t you, boy?”

The hell of it all was that this wasn’t the first time Alex Rossiter stole his girl.

The first time was in 1993. Crash was opening for Helmet at the Orpheum. It was before the band’s first album and they were still coasting on the success of their single. Jerry was sixteen and had finally landed a girlfriend, Myra Nolan.

Myra wasn’t prom-queen material, but she was good-natured and didn’t laugh when Jerry asked her to go steady with him. Except for the occasional grope in the back seat of his mom’s car, their relationship was still chaste. Taking Myra backstage to “meet the band” seemed a really neat idea at the time, and an easy way to impress his date.

Alex seemed genuinely glad to see him when he showed up backstage. They chatted about old schoolmates and smoked some kick-ass reefer. Jerry was surprised to see Myra toking like a pro. Then he left in search of a soda machine, since all there was to drink in the dressing room was grapefruit juice and Southern Comfort. Of course he promptly got lost. Thanks to an elderly janitor, who have him directions as if he was talking to a retarded child, Jerry finally made it back to the dressing room...only to find Myra sucking Rossiter’s dick. His friend had grinned drunkenly at him over Myra’s bobbing head and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘What could I do?’

Jerry ran out of the dressing room and all the way back to the car. As he searched for his keys, he realized he was still clutching a sweaty bottle of Mountain Dew in one hand. He swore and hurled it across the now-deserted parking lot. He never found out how Myra got home, since he never spoke to her again.

A month later Alex showed up at his doorstep with a groupie and explained she was a “present’ to make up for what happened with Myra. Jerry was too terrified of contracting venereal disease to do anything more than spend the night talking.

Now, years later, the Ghost of Adolescent Loserdom Past was reaching out to give him noogies from beyond the grave. The last thing he wanted was to have his old insecurities and inadequacies return for a high school reunion…

“You leave me be!”

“Gimmee what you got in the bag, bitch!”

The sound of the angry voices broke through Jerry’s self-absorption. He looked around and saw Mad Aggie standing on the neutral ground of Esplanade Avenue, struggling with a young black male dressed in baggy pants and untied sneakers. The old woman’s little red wagon was lying on its side, its contents scattered across the grassy median.

“Let me go or I’ll hex you!” Aggie said, sounding more indignant than frightened, despite the disparity between herself and her attacker.

“You might scare my granny with that hoodoo shit, bitch, but it don’t work on me!” the young thug replied. “Now give it up or I cut you!”

Jerry jerked the mugger backward by his hoodie, smashing his fist into the younger man’s face as hard as he could. The mugger let go of the old woman and staggered backwards, both hands clapped over his nose. Jerry did not realize that the mugger had been armed until he saw the open straight razor lying on the ground at his feet. Mad Aggie snatched up the razor with surprising speed.

“So, you gone cut me, huh?” She waved the blade at her erstwhile attacker. “Son, I’m gone slit you like a pig!”

“Muggafugga, you boke my nodes,” the mugger whined through his cupped hands.

“You be glad that’s all that’s done you!” Mad Aggie snapped. “Now get while you still got a tongue to complain with!”

The mugger hurried away, trailing droplets of blood in his wake.

“You alright, Aggie?” Jerry asked.

“I’m jest fine, bless your heart. Help me with my wagon, would you, honey?”

Jerry righted the little red wagon as the hoodoo lady calmly put her wares back into their proper sacks.

“You done me a service, son, and I ain’t so old I forget such things. I owe you.”

“That’s okay, Aggie. Really, you don’t have to do anything...”

“No, I won’t hear of it! There ain’t many white folk that would help an ol’ colored woman in this town. I just want you to know I’ll be keepin’ an eye out for you.” She tapped the socket with the glass eye. “I’ll see to it you don’t get yourself crossed.”

“I don’t think I really have to worry about such things, Aggie.”

“Don’t you want to get back at that fella what took yore lady friend?”

Jerry’s smile turned into a pained rictus. “What?”

“You went into that bar with a woman an’ I saw you leave without her. Ain’t that so?” There was no maliciousness in the old woman’s voice.

“Well, uh...”

“Then I got just the thing for you.” She rooted through the grocery sacks in her wagon and pulled out a yellow candle shaped like an erect penis, gripping it by the shaft. “Now, you’ll be needin’ mimosa oil and my Mystic Power Powder with this. All you gotta do is hollow this thing out a little at the bottom and put a picture of the man your gal’s taken up with inside. If you can get hair from his crotch, that’d do even better, but it ain’t necessary. Then you seal it shut with the wax. You write the fella’s name on the candle and rub the candle down with some of the mimosa oil, sprinkle my very own guaranteed Mystic Power Powder on it and burn the candle one inch every day. All you got to say while it burns is ‘Holy Penis, grant my wish and keep it soft, bring him no enjoyment.’ It’ll mojo his nature good. I got wives who’ll swear on a stack of bibles it’s good for keepin’ men folk faithful.”

“That’s all right, Aggie,” Jerry said, fighting a schoolboy urge to giggle uncontrollably at the sight of the old crone waving about a wax dildo like a bandleader’s baton.

“No, I insist. No charge.” The old woman said as she thrust the fourteen-inch long phallus at him. “You got to let me do something for you or you gonna shame me.”

“Could you at least put it in a bag?” he sighed.

Charlie stood on the front porch and searched her purse for the keys to the house, Rossiter’s breath hot on the nape of her nape. His hands slid under her blouse, his palms flat against her belly. She gasped and nearly dropped her keys.

“Stop that!” she giggled. “Someone will see us!”

“Let ‘em look! If they’re peeping out their windows at two in the morning, they deserve what they get!”

“Let’s continue this inside, why don’t we?” she whispered.

Rossiter glanced about the front room. “Nice place you got here. You share it with roommates?”

Charlie smiled to herself. At least he didn’t think owning books was weird. “Nope. I got it all to myself.”

She watched Rossiter from the corner of her eye as he studied the signed and numbered Jazz Fest poster hanging over the antique walnut mantelpiece. She’d never known anyone famous before. Of course, she dealt with rich and powerful men every day at work, but none of them was famous. Not like a rock star, anways. Rossiter wasn’t what she would call handsome, but he had a seen-it-all, done-it-all way about it him that was powerfully magnetic. Just looking at him made her ache to touch him.

He turned to look at her, his gaze hungry and direct. There was something untamed in the bottom of his eyes that excited her. Charlie smiled as she poured a drink from the liquor cabinet. Rossiter moved toward her. He took the glass from her hand and drained it in one fluid motion, then lifted her in his arms.

As he carried her up the stairs to the second floor, a low-pitched growl came from the landing above them. Rossiter froze.

“What the fuck is that?” he demanded.

Charlie’s cat stood at the top of the stairs, ears folded flat against its head, teeth bared.

“Pluto! It’s just me!” she called out. But the feline did not seem to heed, or even recognize, its mistress’s voice, but instead continued to issue its menacing growl.

“What’s wrong with that damn animal?” Rossiter snarled as he took another step up the stairs.

Pluto arched his back and hissed like an espresso machine before disappearing into the guest bedroom.

“I don’t know what got into him,” she apologized. “He’s usually quite friendly. We probably just startled him.”

She had neglected to pull the shades before leaving the house and now her bedroom was full of moonlight. Rossiter placed her on the bed, pinning her under his body. There were no words because they weren’t needed. His fret-calloused fingers worked the catch of her bra with the expertise of a lock-picker. Charlie wrapped her arms around him, holding him against her. Now his hands were fumbling at her zipper, pulling her free of her jeans. There was an intensity to his actions she found both exciting and frightening. She placed a hand on his chest and felt his heart racing beneath his ribs like an engine. He quickly cast aside his own clothes, his face unreadable in the night shadows, and idly stroked himself to full erection as he studied her naked body.

He leaned over her, his voice thick and hot in her ear. “Tell me you want it,” he said, his tongue flickering out, tracing the curve of its lobe. Charlie moaned and wriggled against him. “Give it to me,” she whimpered. She cried out as he plunged into her, her fingernails digging into his shoulders.

Their lovemaking was swift and hard, the only sounds being moans, grunts, and the rhythmic slap of flesh against flesh. When she came, Charlie sobbed like a widow, arching her back until her ass cheeks cleared the mattress. Seconds later Rossiter’s face contorted as if someone had plunged a knife into his back. He collapsed atop her, panting like a winded runner. Finished, they lay curled together on the bed, their sweaty limbs intertwined, and slept like hibernating beasts.