Grundish & Askew (12 page)

Askew giggles and doesn’t know how to answer. He just giggles and looks at Grundish. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, what happened that you needed to fight several people without the use of your hands?”

“Well,” says Askew, “I didn’t really have words to explain it at the time. It was really just more of a feeling. But, uh, you know how you’ve been talking about the Fuckers?”

“Yeah. I know all about the Fuckers.”

“Well. These guys was them. They was the Fuckers. I mean,” he grits his teeth and clenches his fists, “if you could’ve seen them, you’d agree that they’s the Fuckers. You should’a seen the way they was eyeing Turleen. She’s an old lady and they was looking at her in a way that wasn’t right.”

“So what’d they say?”

“They didn’t
say
nothing,” says Askew. “It wasn’t about what they said. It was the way they was looking at her. They was Fuckers all right.”

“Okay,” say Grundish, “so they started giving you a hard time and you kicked the shit out of ’em.”

“Yeah, kind of. I could just tell that they was trouble so I guess I kind of cut out the middle man, so to speak, and didn’t wait for them to say something. I just took care of them. I kicked the shit out of them because they had it coming.”

“How many were there?”

“Three that stood their ground, a couple backed off. But, three that came at me.”

“And who won?”

“I look bad, but they gotta look worse. One of ’em was out cold on the ground when we split.”

Grundish sighs, starts to say something, and then stops again.

“What?” asks Askew.

Grundish shrugs his shoulders and says nothing.

“What?”

“I just want you to chill out a little bit,” says Grundish finally. “You never been in a fight in your life, and now you’re all ready to start tearing people up. It’s like you got a taste for blood or something. Just chill out a little bit. We’ve gotta lay low and don’t need no more trouble. I need to figure out our next step.”

“I’ll try. I’m just saying to you that now I’m not worried about losing my job or getting evicted or anything else at this point. There is nothing worse they can do to us when we’re caught unless we’re executed. And that ain’t gonna happen. And you made me your promise, so, well, I guess I ain’t gonna go to jail or prison either. We’re free, man, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Aw,” scowls Grundish, “don’t go talking about that stupid promise I made to you back in high school. We was just kids. You don’t wanna hold me to that now.”

“Damn straight I do,” Askew’s volume increases. “I wasn’t kidding then, and I ain’t kidding now. You promised.”

“Yeah, but...”

“But nothing. You promised. You swore.”

“I know...”

“My god you’re
flustrating
the shit out of me. I don’t mean to get all loud and
voicesterous
, but, you gotta keep that promise. You gotta renew your vow. Say it.”

“All right. All right.”

“All right what?”

“I promise.”

“Good. Now you’ve got me all worked up. Can you get me a drink?” Askew sighs as he grabs his Blue Llamas with his feet and extracts another cigarette. The first cigarette is broken. When it’s broken by the filter there’s a trick Askew found. He just breaks it all apart and turns it around. He slides it in easy and twists it in tight and then he gives it a light. But with his vow to master his feet, the cigarette-fix trick is out of the question. He shakes out another smoke, this one unbroken, grasps it with his toes, and brings it to his mouth with ease.

“I should make you do it with your feet,” scowls Grundish, still sore at being badgered. “What do you want?”

“Just a beer,” says Askew. He struggles with his feet on the Zippo and finally manages to light his smoke.

•  •  •

“Here,” says Grundish, returning with a frothy mug of darkish beer. A fluorescent pink bendy straw leans against the rim of the mug.

“You’re not gonna let me go to prison, right, Pal?” asks Askew again.

“I’m not gonna. I promised you. But, you just gotta chill out a little. Now, will you drop it?” snaps Grundish.

“And you ain’t never going back are you?”

“I’ve already told you,” explains Grundish, “I’m never going back. No matter what. I made a promise to myself last time I got out. I gave myself my word, just like I done with you, that I ain’t going back. I can’t go back.”

“Why not?” asks Askew. “What’s so different for you this time?”

Grundish just shrugs his shoulders and says nothing.

“Come on. Just tell me what it was that changed in you the last time,” prods Askew.

“All right. One time.” Grundish holds up an index finger and stares Askew down. “One time I talk about this and then you don’t ask me about it no more. Agreed?”

“Yeah, Buddy, agreed.”

Grundish mutes the television and refills his tumbler with scotch. No water. No ice. Only room-temperature scotch to just above the top of the glass. The surface tension holds a slight bubble of the liquid just above the top of the rim. He takes the lighter from the coffee table and relights his neglected cigar. The scotch is sipped at, lowering the level of the fluid to just below the rim. The cigar is smoked. Grundish says nothing. Askew waits, smoking the cigarette that is wedged between his front teeth.

Just when Askew is about ready to say something, when the silence is killing him, Grundish speaks. “There’s a saying in the joint. The guys in there say that you ain’t in prison when you’re sleeping. Does that make sense to you?”

“Uhhh, not really,” says Askew as he bends down to sip from his pink straw. “I’m not like, you know, a
neucular
scientist or something. Just tell me without asking me to think too hard.”

“Well, let me put it this way. Whenever I was down, I slept a lot. Because when I slept, I dreamed. And I always had dreams about getting pussy and smoking weed and driving fast cars. Sometimes I just dreamt about sitting out on the beach at night, maybe fishing for catfish that I’d just throw back, but fishing for ’em anyway. I’d catch some big ugly bastards in those dreams. And it was nice. Real nice. Sometimes I’d dream about having a dog and just walking him or taking him to a park to play Frisbee. Other times I dreamt that I was somebody special. Not necessarily famous or anything. Maybe just a successful guy with a hot wife and a couple of kids. You know, a guy that took a different path in life than us. A guy that other guys would like to be.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I get it now. You ain’t in prison when you’re sleeping because it’s like you go somewhere else in your head.”

“Right.” Grundish nods. He sips at the scotch and stares at his fuming cigar. “Well, the more I was down, the more I slept. And I guess I kind of got to the point where I could control what happened in my dreams. I was flying and looking through walls with x-ray vision. Every damn night I was having a threesome with a set of identical twin babes that had three boobs
^[24]
apiece. That’s six boobs in my face at one time. I didn’t care that I was in prison because my dream life was better than my real life. But this last time I was sent up, it was like I used up all of my good dreams. I started losing control of them and having bad ones.”

“Like fucked up nightmares?” Askew grunts. “I hate that shit. I have a
reoccurring
one where there’s this little female goblin thing in my closet and I open the door and go in. And she’s there. And, I can’t explain it, but she scares the shit out of me. For some reason, I start fucking her mouth. And then I wake up all freaked out. You mean shit like that?”

“No, you little fruit,” scoffs Grundish. “I don’t mean anything like that. It started off with just stupid stuff. I would dream that I was at home and my alarm would go off. I would drag myself out of bed and go through my morning rituals, and you know how I hate to get up in the morning. And then they would wake me up for real and I’d have to go through waking up all over again. This time in prison. And my dreams all were in black and white, mostly shades of gray. They say that everybody dreams in black and white, but not me. I always dreamed in color. But when I started losing control of the dreams, they just got all gray and staticky, like watching old shows on a TV with bad reception. And they started getting worse.”

“Like the goblin?”

“Ab-so-fucking-lutely not like your fruity little goblin. I really don’t know what the hell you’re talking about there, so let that shit go.” Grundish shakes his head in disbelief and sips down several fingers of scotch. “The thing that got to me, I mean really shook me, was when I started dreaming that I was in prison. I mean, I was dreaming about having to line up for count. I was dreaming about guards hurrying me in the mess hall to finish my meals and about having to be aware of what each and every person around me was up to. My entire existence, even in my sleep, was incarceration. I was becoming institutionalized. Something in me finally clicked and I realized that I had to make some changes or I would get to the point where I couldn’t remember what it was like on the outside. And that scared me. Worse than any sissy dream about knob-gobbling closet goblins. I promised myself then that I would never go back. And here we are in this fine mess now.”

“Excuse me, boys,” shouts Turleen from the kitchen. “Is anybody hungry for some steak? I’m cooking up some meals in here, I am. I can bring some out if anybody wants it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Grundish and Askew shout back.

“Anyway,” says Grundish, “that’s that. And I don’t wanna talk about it no more.”

Turleen brings in a wooden cutting board with a T-bone steak on it, cooked to the point where it’s brown on the outside and still bloody in the middle. She clunks down a half-f bottle of steak sauce and two plates. Grundish and Askew sit back in their chairs and watch as Turleen cuts the steak into tens of little pieces for them with an impressive rubber-handled knife, slicing back and forth, cutting the meat with the top and bottom of the blade. Turleen, her red dress covered with an apron, expertly separates the fat and bone from the meat and slides the mouth-sized chunks onto the plates she set on the table for the boys. Askew sits back and ponders what Grundish just shared. Grundish sips at his scotch and admires Turleen’s knife skills. Without a word, Turleen wipes the blade on her apron and slips the knife under her dress, up by her thigh. She returns to the kitchen to cook more food. Grundish and askew sit without talking, staring at the muted television screen. Askew drowns his plate in the rust-colored steak sauce and uses his foot to fork pieces of dead cow into his mouth. Grundish sits still and silent, off somewhere in his own head. Askew finishes the meat on his plate. Like a statue, Grundish does not move a muscle nor does he speak.

“Tell me, Grundish,” says Askew, “like you done before.”

“Tell you about what?”

“About the ladies.”

Grundish snapped, “You ain’t gonna put nothing over on me. Come on, Bro, I’m thinking here.”

Askew pleads, “Aw, you come on, Grundish. Please. Tell me like you done before.”

“You really dig that shit, don’t you? All right, I’ll tell you,” Grundish gives in. “And then we fucking party.”

Grundish drops his voice to a soothing, mesmerizing tone. His eyes close and the words flow freely from his mouth, almost like he’s said them a thousand times before. “Guys like us, you know, the ones that work the shit jobs and scrape by, are the loneliest guys in the world. Can’t keep jobs. Don’t fit in. They work for a couple of weeks at some minimum wage job for a paycheck, then they go out on the town and blow their wad, forgetting about obligations, bills, shit like that. Next thing you know, they’re working another shit job and will prob’ly fuck that one up too. They ain’t got nothing to look forward to.”

Askew is delighted. “Fuck yes. That’s it, that’s it. Now tell how it is with us.”

Grundish continues. “It ain’t like that with us. We’re different. We still got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us, you for me and me for you, Buddy. We don’t have to sit in some shitty bar, bitching and moaning just because we got no other place to go. Those other fellas get thrown in jail. They can rot there for all anybody gives a damn. But not us. Not anymore for me and never for you...”

Askew breaks in, “...yeah, not us. And why? Because I got you to watch my back, and you got me to watch yours. And that’s why.” He giggles like a little kid. “Go on now, Grundish.”

“You know it by heart, you can do it yourself.”

“Naahh. I forget some of the shit. Tell about how it’s gonna be.”

“Okay. Someday we’re gonna get the loot saved up and we’re gonna buy a boat.”

“A real big boat,” interrupts Askew. “Like a yacht.”

“That’s right. Maybe bigger,” says Grundish. “And we’re gonna get a stable of hookers, and maybe some hydroponic equipment to grow weed.”

“And tell me what we’re gonna do, Grundish.” Askew’s tone grows more excited. “Go on. Tell me about the hookers again. About the international waters. And the hookers, like how they’ll all have big fake titties, and they’ll never say no to us, ‘lessen they’re on the rag or something. Tell me about how I get to take care of the ladies. Tell me about that Grundish.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself? You know about all of it.”

“Nahh. You tell it. It just ain’t the same the way I tell it. Go on, Grundish, tell about how I get to tend the ladies.”

“Well,” says Grundish, “we’re gonna anchor that boat out in international waters, where we ain’t violating no U.S. laws. Just like those cheesy gambling cruises like to do. We’ll keep a stable of girls out on the boat and they’ll sell their asses, bringing in money for us. We’ll get rich.”

“Yeah, Grundish. We’ll live off the fat of their asses. Go on and tell it.”

“Well, we’ll grow weed, have hookers, maybe some other shit that ain’t legal here. Our clientele will be brought out to our yacht by boat or helicopter or something sweet like that. Then they’ll pay us to do all the shit that they want to do here but can’t. And we don’t have to do shit except for rake the money in, and maybe protect our girls once in a while. Mostly, though, we just party, have a different lady every night, maybe we fish, whatever we want. And you can take care of the ladies if you want. Damn.” He stops, picks up his fork and steak knife. “I ain’t got time for no more of this shit.” He scrapes half of his steak chunks onto Askew’s plate and keeps the other half for himself. They sit for awhile; the only sound is the open-mouthed chewing of Askew, a big, happy goofus grin on his face.