STONY HIT the streets, hands in pockets, nose aimed at the pavement. He walked half a block before he heard shouts. Mott was running toward him, bloody handkerchief to his face, followed by two Mott-sized guys brandishing baseball bats. At first he thought they were chasing Mott, but when one of them pointed to Stony—"There he is!"—Stony turned and tore ass back to Cheri's. He took the stairs four at a time up to the third floor.
"Cheri!" Stony pounded on the door for fifteen seconds until he heard shuffling slippers.
"What n..."
He pushed past her indignant face, slammed the door. "Mott's comin' up the stairs wit' two guys." He leaned spread-eagled against the door, panting.
"What!?" Cheri didn't know whether to be angry or scared, settled on stunned.
A commotion in the hall. Stony almost jumped into Cheri's arms as one of Mott's friends decided to play home run derby with the door, the resounding boom rattling the dishes in the kitchen.
"C'mout, De Coco, yah cocksuckah!"
"Right away!" Stony shouted back.
Another explosion of wood and metal. Cheri stood catatonic, eyes as big as half dollars. She made a halfhearted grab at Stony's arm as he raced into the living room, lugged and yanked the couch back into the hallway, jamming it lengthways between the door and the near wall. Two bats going at once like the Fourth of July.
With every smack on the door Stony took one step in a different direction, making a full circle after five shots, his hair a nest of sweaty ringlets. After every smack Cheri twitched convulsively as if she was warming up for an epileptic fit. Stony finally shoved/ushered her into her bedroom, slammed the door, ran into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. After six rings: "Ma!"
"Stony?"
"Where's Pop?"
"He's out. You think I ever know where..."
Stony hung up and dialed again.
"Yo."
"Chubby!"
"Hey, Stones, wh—"
"Chubby! You gotta help me! Three guys are after my ass wit' bats. I'm gonna get creamed. Hurry!"
Stony slammed the phone down, walked in little circles. "Shit!" He grabbed the phone again. Chubby picked it up on the first ring. "I'm at Cheri's. Three-two-o-one Bainbridge. Hurry!"
Stony ran into Cheri's bedroom. From the sounds at the door Stony guessed the two lummoxes were trying to shoulder-butt the door down. Cheri started crying. Stony sat her down on the bed, squeezing her shoulder. "Chubby'll be here in ten minutes." His hand strayed down to her tit. Her nipple was erect. He was pretty erect himself. She didn't seem to notice, just stared at the far wall. He debated laying her down on the bed, but a renewed barrage of bat blasts had him on his feet. He ran into the foyer, the door trembled with each blow, but the couch held it shut. He high-jumped the couch into the living room and hung his head out the window scanning the empty street for Chubby's car. After five minutes, an orange-and-cream Impala careened screaming up Bainbridge, coming to a rocking stop in front of the building. Chubby burst out of the driver's side, carrying a five-foot-long broom handle.
"Chubby!" Stony almost fell out the window. Chubby looked up, saw Stony on the third floor waving his arms in desperation like a woman at the window of a burning building. Chubby swung his weapon over his head, let out a battle cry and charged into the building. Stony did a little war dance in the living room, laughing gleefully, ran into the kitchen, grabbed a wax applicator, took a few practice swings smacking the kitchen door. Cheri screamed, running from the bedroom into the bathroom, slamming the bathroom door. Stony stood in the foyer, waited until he heard the stairway door burst open, shoved the couch out of his way and stood poised at the locked door holding his pole like a bayonet.
"What the fuck?" one of them said.
When Stony heard Chubby yell in the hallway, he unlocked the door and came out swinging, his first blow hitting Mott squarely between the shoulder blades with the applicator. Mott fell on his face in the dimly lit sea green corridor. Twenty feet away Chubby dueled with the two other guys. Mott jumped up, bulled Stony backward and ran like hell down the stairs. Stony smacked his head on the wall, sank dazed to a sitting position on the red cement floor and through blurry eyes watched Chubby hold the other two at bay like Little John versus the varlets. Cheri opened the front door and peeked into the hallway. Chubby tightened his grip on the stick, eyes wide open. Suddenly he moved forward a step, stomping his foot with an echoing slap. The two guys jumped back, their bats protruding from under their arms like jousting lances. Chubby laughed.
"C'mon, yah fucking creeps, ya know how to use those things?" Chubby licked his lips, inching forward, raising the stick to his shoulder. He blocked one of the two exits. Stony sat three feet from the other exit, trying to clear his head, still feeling too dopey to stand up. "I'm gonna bash ya faces in ... you know what that feels like?...hah?...you know what that feels like?" Chubby taunted.
Unblinking, Chubby inched forward. They inched back toward Stony and Cheri. "I once killed a guy in the service. It felt good ... you know that?...hah?...it felt real good." Chubby made a weird whining noise in the back of his throat. Stony got frightened by it—a one-note high-pitched whine—because it seemed that Chubby didn't realize that he was making it. Chubby took a vicious cut, lunging at one guy's face with all his beef. The stick made a ringing slap against the wall. The guy dropped his bat, quickly stooping to pick it up. "Hey, shithead, how'd the Yankees do today?" Chubby took another swing, a murderous arc missing chins by inches. One guy screamed, the other retreated within five feet of Stony. Stony cautiously lifted the wax applicator between the guy's legs and gave him a stiff goose. He squawked, dropped his bat, turned around, leaped over Stony and ran down the stairs.
"Jus' me an' you." Chubby grinned wolfishly at the remaining flunky. "What's yah name? Hah? What's yah name?" Chubby stomped his foot again.
The flunky whirled around, running toward Stony and the unblocked exit. Stony ducked and at the same time thrust his stick between the retreating legs. The stick spun out of his hands, as the guy fell headfirst into the door, belly-crawled/scrambled to the stairs and was gone. Chubby stood triumphant, panting in the corridor, his stick hanging loosely from a relaxed fist. He exhaled noisily. Stony struggled to his feet, using the wax applicator as a support.
Chubby laughed. "Yah lazy fuck. I hope yah dug the show."
Cheri stood gawking in the doorway, staring at Chubby. Chubby wiped the side of his face with the sleeve of his T-shirt, smiled at her.
"I'm goin' to bed now ... when I wake up..." Cheri dumbly nodded her head and closed the door, locking it with a terminal click. The outside of the door looked like the hood of a car after a minor head-on—a riot of scratches, dents and craters from the bat barrage. Chubby and Stony stared at each other. Chubby nodded at the door and wordlessly urged Stony to stay with her. Stony dismissed the idea with a shrug, propping the wax applicator beside the door.
"I was pretty fuckin' good tonight, hey?" Chubby draped an arm around Stony's shoulder as they headed for the elevator. Stony wanted to ask Chubby if he knew he was singing like a crazy man during the fight but the memory of the sound weirded him out.
"You were a fuckin' lifesaver, Chubs."
"What's the story?"
"Huh?"
"What was happenin' here?"
"Ah, nothin'." Stony gingerly touched the back of his head.
"Oh, nothin', yeah, O.K." Chubby smirked.
"Ah, I had a fight with Mott over Cheri, busted up his face a little an' he came back with those two lames."
"Hey." Chubby grinned. "Howdja like that thing I did with the foot-stompin' number, hah?"
"That guy almost jumped back in my lap," Stony snorted. The elevator opened with a groan. "Hey, Chubs, you really kill somebody in the service?"
Chubby screwed up his face with a "whatta-you-kiddin'?" expression. "Nah, I got shell-shocked though."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I ate too many peanuts." Chubby guffawed and held his gut until he started wheezing, motioning for Stony to slap him on the back as he leaned over, hands on knees, trying to catch his breath.
***
Chubby ushered Stony into a bar, Buddy Love's, replete with huge shamrocks pasted on either end of a long mirror, crossed I.R.A. and American flags and an all-Irish juke box. They sat in a dark back booth lit by a red-tinted, wax-filled squat glass sheathed in plastic fishnet.
Stony rested his forehead on the corner of the table as if he were looking for something on the floor.
Chubby sat with his arms crossed, elbows on the table. Smirking, he surveyed the bar. "Hey, Stony, you know what they call a faggot Irishman?"
Stony weakly shook his head from side to side.
"A Gay Lick," Chubby cackled.
"I hate Irish bars," Chubby muttered. "I'd rather be in a fight in a nigger bar. The Irish got no sense of humor."
"Who does?"
"You know, that's the first sign a somebody goin' crazy. They lose their sense a humor."
Stony raised his head and rubbed his eyes. He looked like he was sleeping.
"I used to know this guy once, about ten years back. We used to call him Joe Sick." Chubby leaned into the aisle to catch the waitress' eye. "He was a steamfitter. This guy was a beast the likes a which I never seen since. He used to be a wrestler. We'd go to a bar and he'd open beer bottles with his teeth." Chubby pantomimed snarling as he ripped the cap off an imaginary bottle. "This fuckin' guy could piss a Dixie cup off a fire hydrant at twenny feet. He went to jail for two years for throwing his foreman through a plate-glass window. Broke his back."
Stony winced. "Was he Irish?"
"I dunno."
"What'll you be havin', boys?" The waitress stood over them. Her long, black hair hung down her back. Her eyes were crystal blue.
"Tequila," Stony mumbled.
"We don't have tequila." Her brogue was thick as stew.
"Give us two shots of Jameson's." Chubby winked. She left. "Tequila!? Where you think you are, Tijuana?"
She brought two filled shot glasses and left again.
Chubby leaned across the table and whispered to Stony, "Lemme give you some advice. Don't ever fuck around with an Irish woman."
"Temper?"
"Temper nothin'. They don't know their ass from their elbow in bed. That fuckin' church thing got 'em so uptight. They all got twenny-nine priests as brothers. When I was a kid I had an Irish girlfriend. Kathy Conroy. She useta think eating out meant not having any dishes to wash. The first time we fucked she complained of having this weird feeling all over. She went to the doctor. He told her it was an orgasm." Chubby laughed. He noticed the knuckles on Stony's right hand were scraped. He nodded at Stony. "Hey, what'd you do to that guy? He looked like he got hit in the face with a bag a nickels."
"I went berserk ... ah dunno." Stony lowered his head to the edge of the table again. Chubby stared at him for a while before reaching over and slapping him on the shoulder.
"Ah, yer all right, kid, yer all right, you take after yer uncle. You ever hear what I did with Phyllis once? Two months after we was married I walked into the house an' she's siltin' on the couch with this guy I never seen before. I take one look at both a them and I grab this clown by the front of his shirt. I'm just about to put him through the wall and Phyllis says, 'Chubby, I'd like you to meet my brother Larry.'" Chubby downed the shot of whiskey and smacked his lips. A liquor-scented belch reached Stony's side of the table. "The cat néver visited us again. You know, there ain't nothin' like jealousy to get the ol'juices flowin'."
"I think it sucks." Stony took a sip of whiskey and shuddered.
"Granted it ain't the most divine feelin' in the world, but let me ask you something, an' I want you to answer me straight. When you belted that guy tonight"—he finished off Stony's shot—"when you smacked that clown tonight, didn't you feel jus' a little good?" Chubby held up his thumb and index finger slightly apart. "Be honest."
"Nah, whatta' you kiddin'?"
"Nah, whatta' you kiddin'?" Chubby mimicked.
"Well..." Stony shrugged, fighting back a smile.
"Yeah, just a little, right?" Chubby eyed him slyly.
"A little." Stony smiled.
"Lemme tell you somethin'...when you're gettin' ready to break some joker's legs 'cause he's been fuckin' around with Mary Lou, you feel like fuckin' King Kong and John Wayne. God's on your side an' everything. You feel like a man. Am I right or am I right?"
Stony laughed. "You're sick, Chubby."
"Yeah, I'm sick." He motioned for the waitress, held up two fingers.
"Ninety-nine percent a the time a woman cheats, she does it to get her man jealous. Women love violence. Especially when it's over them." Two more shots were brought to the table. "How many times you think Cheri came tonight watching you guys duke it out?"
Stony was horrified. "You're really outta your tree, you know that?" His face was flushed. "You don't even know Cheri."
"Yeah, well I know that look she had on her face. There was four guys fightin' over her ass. That was prob'ly her first gang bang. An' I'll tell you something else, you're a schmuck for not hangin' around after it was all over. You prob'ly missed the greatest lay of your life."
Stony groaned and banged his head on the table.
"You got a lot to learn about women, kiddo. They're killers." Chubby lit a cigarette and chucked Stony on the chin. "You got time."
"Maybe I should go back?"
Chubby wrinkled his nose. "Too late. You gotta have timing with things like this. Chalk it up to experience."
"Experience means mistakes." Stony took a cigarette from Chubby's pack.
"So chalk it up to mistakes." Chubby reached for Stony's drink. "You know, don't get me wrong. Stones. I don't mean you gotta be like an animal all the time. Women dig tenderness too. The trick is to know when the recipe calls for garlic and when it calls for sugar. You know? You gotta use psychology. You gotta get 'em to relax, you gotta get 'em comfortable, you know? Put on some nice music, dance a little, make 'em a drink, get 'em to take a bath with you. You know, get intimate ... like they don't even know they're gettin' laid, but don't make 'em too comfortable. Girls like to be a little scared. It's more exciting for them. You know, like I said, garlic and sugar ... a little, a little."
Four men at the bar burst into laughter.
"Fuckin' green niggers." Chubby sneered. "I'll tell you something else, Irish men are the lousiest lovers. They like to cross themselves right before they come."
"Hey, Chub?"
"Italians and Jews are the only good stickmen around. All niggers know is to stick it in until they come."
"Hey, Chub?"
"Greeks aren't bad if you can get 'em out of the restaurant before they drop dead from washin' too many dishes."
"Hey, Chub?"
"Krauts like to do it to marching music an' Polacks got foreskins like pup tents."
"Hey, Chub, slow down."
"Huh?"
"Lissen, I wanna ask you somethin'. How many chicks you racked with?" Stony bit his nails and raised his eyebrows.
Chubby shrugged his shoulders, suppressing a smile. "In my whole life?"
"In your whole life."
"Oh Christ, three, or maybe four."
"C'mon, will you be serious?" Stony began bending his plastic swizzle stick at different angles.
"Whatta you drivin' at, Stones?"
Stony concentrated on the straw, inserting one end into the other. "Uh ... like ... every time you ball with a chick, does she come? I mean..."
"Nah." Chubby frowned. A bunch of middle-aged women took the booth in front of them. The waitress stood there joking and laughing with them.
"Well, what percent did?" Stony made an octagon with the swizzle stick.
"What kinda question is that?"
"About what percent?"
"Stony..." Chubby took the straw from him. "What's on your mind?"
The waitress stopped at their table. Chubby motioned for another round.
"Well." Stony picked up the straw. "Cheri..." He tossed it aside.
"She don't come?"
"Oh no, it ain't that. Yeah, she don't come, I mean she comes, but not when we're balling."
The waitress brought another round. Chubby sipped his drink thoughtfully.
"I mean I try all different ways. I go slow, I go fast, I do it from the back, from the front, from the side. Nothin' works."
"I don' know what to tell you. If it'll make you feel any better, I been married to your Aunt Phyllis for twenny-three years. I think she came three times, but I'll tell you one thing though, it don't do any good to worry about it."
"Three times?" Stony looked pained.
"Look, some women come more'n that in one fuck, others go to their graves without coming." He shrugged.
"Don't that drive you crazy?" Stony squinted.
"Well, look. Somebody can still dig sex without coming. That don't make 'em lesbians. But like I said, it don't help anybody to worry about it, you know, you just gotta hang loose."
"Hang loose." Stony nodded, picking his teeth with the mangled straw. "Lissen, Chub, I got Butler's car. I gotta go pick 'im up at the club. It's gettin' late."
Stony stood up. Chubby sat playing with his pack of Marlboros, slowly stripping the cellophane wrapper.
"Ah lissen. thanks for helpin' me out tonight."
Chubby gave a short salute off the top of his head.
"Hey, Stones? Also, stay away from PR women. They got two million boyfriends and brothers. They'll tear yah heart out."
***
Stony got back to D'Artagnan's about midnight. Butler was standing at the bar where Stony left him. He was talking to Chili Mac.
"Stones, you missed some fuckin' fight." Butler was drenched with sweat.
"Oh yeah?" Stony ordered a seventy-seven.
"So how's Cheri?" Butler smirked.
***
"Well, I'll tell you one thing, mah man, she can fuck Mott, Pot, Snot, Twat and half the fuckin' Marine Corps from now until doomsday, she ain't never gonna find a better stickman than me and that's the goddamn truth."
They sat parked in White Castle. Stony scarfed down half a hamburger and exhaled through his nose as he chewed. Butler had stopped listening to Stony's bullshit hours ago. He stabbed a straw through the center of the plastic top on his orange drink and eyed the middle-aged carhop ladies scurrying around the parking lot in royal blue slacks, blue short-sleeve tops and little blue Dixie cups on their heads. Some of them wore blue scarfs under the Dixie cups to keep their ears warm.
"My mother would dig that get-up," Butler said.
"Because not only am I a good fuck physically, Butler, but I know all that psychological shit about scoring pussy too." Stony crumpled the hamburger wrapper into a ball and rolled it lightly between his palms.
"I mean, you know, how to make them, how to get them relaxed." He dragged out his words. "You know how ... how to get them to trust you, you know? So they don't even know they're gettin' laid."
"You know what my ol' man got my ol' lady for Christmas?" Butler challenged. "Ankle socks! A fuckin' dozen pair a ankle socks." He paused for the news to sink in, reaching for his cigarettes on the dash. "She asked for them." With his thumb he bent a match onto the carbon and flicked a light.
Stony ignored him and went on. "First I get 'em a drink, see? An' then I put on some music, you know somethin' nice, right? An' we'll dance." Stony shut his eyes and dreamily swayed his head. "I won't even grind, maybe just a little bump like ... unh!" Eyes still closed. Stony licked his lips, arched his pelvis off the seat and rotated his hips.
Butler raised his eyebrows and making a noise like a garbage disposal sucked the last drops of orange drink from the crushed ice.
"And now they're startin' to breathe a little funny, right? So I dance just a little closer, not grindin' or anythin', just enough to brush them with my meat, you know? Give them a hors d'oeuvre."
"They try to act like they don't feel it, you know? But let me tell you something, Butler, you gotta be dead not to feel my piece—"
"I don' wanna feel your goddamn piece." Butler started in on some french fries.
"Anyways, I only do that once, one time, then we keep dancin'. They can think about it an' then like maybe two minutes later I say to them...'You wanna take a bath?' Very casual, you know? If the chick says 'sure!' you know that bitch is mine!" Stony tossed the crumpled wrapper on the tray hanging from the half-open car window. "Except one time I ast this girl to take a bath an' she got insulted. She thought I was sayin' she needed a bath."
An orange GTO with an idle like a dragon with asthma pulled in beside them on Stony's side. Butler squeezed Stony's knee. Two girls were in the front seat. Nice blondes with hard eyes and thin lips.
"Hey!" Butler smiled, leaning across Stony's lap. "What's happenin'?"
The driver and her friend stared straight ahead.
"You wanna take a bath?" He laughed, looking at Stony. Stony elbowed him back to his side of the car. The driver turned away and said something to her friend. Stony leaned out the window, winked at the driver and drummed his fingers against the car door.
"Hey"—his smile was right out of a Crisco can—"your name Carol? You look like a girl Carol I know. Your friend's name Carol?" No answer. He shrugged.
Butler bolted over Stony again and hung out the window. "How 'bout a shower?" Stony cracked up, seeing it was a lost cause.
The girl on the passenger side lit a cigarette. In the brief light of her match Stony could see that her skin was ice white smooth and she plucked her eyebrows. His gut wrenched.
"Maybe you just wanna wash up a little?" Butler continued. Stony didn't laugh. He wanted the bitch with the plucked eyebrows.
Butler tried to say something, but Stony held him back.
"What's your friend's name?" Stony asked in a calm but intense tone that made the driver at least look at if not answer him.
"The girl name is Gelia..."
Both Stony and Butler spun half-around at the sound of the deep Jamaican voice. Slowly the rear-seat window rolled down with an electric hum. The impassive black face was almost invisible behind steel-rim shades and a salt and pepper goatee.
"...an' she go for thirty bills."
***
"You work outta this place mainly?" Stony tried to sound cool as he took off his shirt. Gelia didn't answer. They were in a clean but boring motel off the highway on the Bronx side of the Mount Vernon border.
Gelia pulled off her green turtleneck. A plump pale tit fell out of her peach-colored bra. She hadn't looked at Stony once since the deal. Stony eyed the curve of her belly. She didn't bother to put her tit back. Stony sucked in his gut and casually tensed his biceps. She could have cared less. She slipped off her tartan plaid skirt but left on her brown leather knee-high boots. Stony sat down on a wooden rocking chair to pull off his shoes. He stared intensely at the opaque outline of her pubic hair through the lacy mesh of her white panties. When she turned around to pull down the bedspread, he imagined fucking her in the ass. The skin of her back was milky, and he followed the line of her spine up to the nape of her neck. Her yellow hair fell on either side of her neck. He could see the darker roots fan out from her part. With her back still to him she bent down and slipped off her panties. Stony stared at the scalloped curve of her ass for a minute. He was afraid he was going to come too fast so he got up and locked himself in the john. He tore off the blue and white sanitary seal on the toilet seat, took out his throbbing hard-on, straddled the bowl and started jerking off. When he came, his first feeling was of crushing loneliness and wishing that Butler was out there instead of the bitch. He imagined getting shit-faced with Butler, then cruising in Butler's car and scoring some pussy. Then he realized that's exactly what they did. He opened the bathroom door a crack and watched her standing naked except for the boots. Her bush was brown, soft and flattened against her slightly arching belly. Her nipples were smooth and untaut. Her eyes were narrow snaky green, devoid of emotion. Her nose was long, thin and freckled. He started getting another hard-on. Absently he pulled on his dick before returning to the bedroom.
"A blow job's ten extra but I don't feel like it tonight anyhow. I don't do ass fucking. I gotta fuck on my side cause I got a bad back and if you shit in bed or do anything funny I'll cripple you for life."
This was the first time she'd said anything to Stony. He sat on the bed and tried to say something amusing. "You tongue-kiss?"
Ignoring him she walked around to the opposite side of the bed and lay down on her side facing the wall. She left the boots on. Stony stared at her spine, noticing little bumps all the way up.
He lay on his side in the same position, his nose touching the back of her neck, his prick flat against her buttocks. He could sense that her eyes were open. The overhead light was still on. She lifted her left leg so that he could slip it in. Stony lowered himself a little so his lips were kissing her shoulder blades and taking his prick in his hand he tried to get inside. He couldn't do it. Death Valley. When he pushed harder she winced in annoyance. He froze, afraid she was going to do something like she threatened. He stared at the overhead light for a second, absently kissed her back.
He wanted to lightly run his palm along the hills and curves of her side, but he was afraid. Her leg was still up in the air. Thinking that she might be getting impatient he tried once more to get in. No dice. He spit in his hand and rubbed the saliva over the mushroom tip of his dick. That made it easier. A little. A little, a little more, soon he was all the way in but still was afraid of stroking her belly or touching her tits. He held his breath as he fucked. He liked rubbing his crotch against her buttocks every time he went in deep. Raising himself slightly on his elbow he could see her profile. She was absently chewing on her thumbnail and spacily staring at the red on red fake brocade wallpaper.
"How you doin'?" Stony ventured as he kept it moving around. Leaning slightly forward, not enough for him to fall out, she clicked on the plastic ivory-colored radio on the night table. Frankie Crocker's low-key riff filled the room. He stopped moving inside her, his guts felt like spilling water.
"You come?" she asked. Stony started moving again, though he was losing his hard-on.
"Almost." He stared at her back, her shoulder, the wallpaper. Frankie Crocker chuckled. He started feeling angry, and he fucked harder and faster, but she didn't move.
Tell me somethin' go-o-od
Tell me that you love me...
She laid her arm against her side and patted her thigh in rhythm with the song.
***
When Stony came downstairs to the lobby he found Butler sprawled out on a narrow sky blue couch with metal rods for legs. One arm lay across his eyes, a foot rested on the linoleum floor. Above him on the wood-paneled walls hung a Woolworth's painting of a kid fishing near a barn. When Stony got closer to the painting he realized the wood paneling was contact paper. Stony lightly kicked Butler's foot. Butler raised his head, eyes dazed, arm still shielding his face. "Hey! How'd it go?"
"Fantastic," Stony monotoned. "Let's go."
"You wanna go home?" Butler leaned over the rear of the front seat as he backed out the driveway.
"Let's have a drink. How'd it go for you?"
"Ah, for shit. That black bastard said thirty bucks, right? Well, I get undressed. I'm layin' on the bed nude, right? She takes her clothes off, sits between my legs and whips out a bag. Awright, I prefer bareback, but it's for my protection too, you know? Anyways, so there I am with this ski glove on my cock and she starts jerkin' me off. I'm gettin' nice and hard and I figure she'll jump on when it gets to her likin', but all of a sudden I'm feelin' like if she keeps it up I'm gonna come so I says, 'You better hop on now before you miss the show,' and she says. 'For thirty bucks all you get is a hand job, if you wanna get Laid it's an extra twenty.' " Butler punched Stony on the arm. "Motherfucker! So I said, 'I don't have an extra twenty,' and she says, 'How about your friend? Can you get it from him?' I said, 'Ahh, just finish what you're doin',' an' I came." Butler shrugged. "It was all right."
Butler pulled into a roadside bar with a bright orange "Topless Dancers" sign in the window.
"Butler, please." Stony gestured at the sign. "I just ate."
Butler backed out to the highway. "That didn't happen to you, hah?"
"Are you kiddin'? She was makin' so much noise we had to turn on the radio so the cops wouldn't come in."
Butler shifted into forward.
"I swear I was gonna ask her for thirty bills."
"You know, Stony, if I didn't think you was lyin' through your teeth I'd be jealous."
"I ain't lyin'." Stony shoved his fingers under Butler's nose. Butler sniffed without removing his gaze from the road.
"Smells like hamburger to me." He pulled into Roland's, a nice, quiet, empty bar. "C'mon, I'll treat you to a Dunsky's Delight."
An hour later, Butler almost carried Stony back to the car. "Butler, this tequila is makin' me sick. I can't explain to you about Cheri. I would come in her mouth, and she would make one little motion, wiping her lips with her pinky, and I would get a hard-on all over again right then and there, and later I would fall asleep and wake up thinkin' all my crotch hair was burned, and I would feel the crispy burnt stubble and fall back on the pillow sweatin' like I was gonna die, and you don't understand. I want to feel this ... this shit I'm goin' through now. Like all my skin is peeled and any way I turn it hurts. Don't you understand, you stupid prick, you motherfuckin' bastard with your goddamn thirty-dollar hand job. Chen, you cunt of a lifetime, I love her, I can't breathe. Butler, you bastard; you stupid ... let's go home. I saw her put her goddamn lips on that pig's mouth. Butler, do you love your prick? You should. I love my prick. It's like nobody else's. I don't understand how she could touch anybody else's when she got mine. Butler, open the goddamn windows, go faster. I need air. My dick is like my left hand. It got grace. Butler, open the goddamn window more. My hand can dance. Butler, you pinhead, I'm never alone. My hand is a goddamn ballerina. I'm never alone. When I was a kid I would lay in bed and my hand would dance for me in the dark. Butler, what's she doin' now? I want Chubby. Butler, be Chubby. Do you know how scared Albert is all the time? Do you know Mott, that motherless bastard, must got a prick like a dead twig? All fat guys except Chubby got small dicks. That's the law. Can you imagine what it must stink like when he takes a dump? She's a fuckin' hoowah, Butler. I wake up and my crotch is burnin'. I can smell the burnt hair an' she's sleepin' like nothin' happened. Butler, where we goin'? I don't wanna go home. There's nothin' there." Stony slid down in his seat, his cheek resting on the window.
"Stony, I just got one question." Butler removed a fleck of tobacco from his tongue. "If I came runnin' into your room at the motel there tonight an' told you I needed another twenny to get laid, would you've given it to me? Hah?"
Stony slept.