Hard Knocks


 “Gator’s”.  It’s one of those back-alley collisions between a girly show and a dance club.  Don’t ask me why they call it “Gator’s” there isn’t a swamp pig within two hundred miles of the place.   All the bartenders are chicks; they look all right.  Usually wearing teddies, cop uniforms, nurses outfits, or something with straps on it.  They can’t take anything off but for a couple extra bucks they bring the chumps wearing plaid shirts tucked into belted blue jeans onto the bar and slap’em into some kind of old dentist chair.  One of these sweet little numbers will get up there with him and dance around, smack him on the ass, and pour an ounce and a half of cheap booze all over his idiot grin.

Frankie had just swooped in to town again.  We might hit a bar or two earlier in the night but when my kid brother visits we usually end up getting pissed at “Gator’s”.  Frank buys the first round and we both know where things are headed.  We chase Jack doubles with a couple bottles of Bud and I buy the next one.  They got a pool table up the balcony that overlooks the stage.  We take our drinks up there to shoot a little Nine-ball.  Frank is talking shit and running the table as usual.  The kid runs his mouth a lot.  After two games I’ve lost forty bucks and the ability to hear another word come out of Frank’s mouth.

“Great job Frankie!”  He’s smiling like he just won the fucking lottery.  “Now take that money you got there and get us some more beers, you little prick.”
Some assistant manager for Kinko’s is up on the stage doing a shitty Scott Weiland impression.  The chicks that found sitters for the night are crowding the stage and sucking at margaritas with little red straws. 

Frank comes back with double Jacks and Bud again.  The bar is starting to fill up so we take a couple stools over to the railing on the balcony.  I concentrate on the whiskey and the few pieces of local talent worth checking out on the floor.  Frank says something about wanting to get fucked up.  “You talk too much.”

“What?”  He bangs his head back and drains half of his beer.

“You talk too fuckin’ much!”  I love the big bastard, I really do, but you gotta keep him reminded of the boundaries.  After a few more beers he’ll start going punch for punch, if not with me then with someone else.  He’s like clockwork; I just gotta slow him down a while.    

As I’m sitting there, listening to this shitty band, I start to feel something scraping across my jeans.  I look down to find some chicks hand just sitting there on my thigh.  I turn my head a little and find that this hand is attached to some curly brown hair sprawled across an impressive rack.

I smile and go back to drinking.  A little curious of how far she’ll take it.  I finish my Jack and realize if I wait much longer Baby Doll is gonna have us both pinched for lewd behavior.  I put my glass down and take another look.  She’s pretty and she’s looking at me with soft blue eyes.  I’m thinking she’s got it all minus one long thick sucker for those pouty drunk lips.  She leans in to my ear, “My head hurts.  Someone hit me on my head.”  Her name is Kelly and she seems harmless enough.  She pulls back and bats her eyelashes.  I can see some poor schlep standing behind her with a pathetic look on his face.  Trying to get an eye on how far along that hand of hers has made it.

Co’mere shithead.  I wave him over.  “Your girl says she hit her head.”  Bobby leans in.  Not too close kiddo.  We don’t want people to get the wrong idea.  Says something about a friend of theirs.  Downstairs maybe.  His friend hits her with a beer bottle.  I laugh a little.  Bobby doesn’t like that.  Bobby starts talking like he would have really fucked the guy up if they weren’t such good friends.  Sure Bob.  Sure. 

Bob, you’re killing me.  Can’t you see that I’m working on a buzz here guy?  Maybe you should take this poodle for a walk.  “Yeah, why don’t you take her to the hospital.”  I use my words carefully.  Never get caught up in too many of them.
“I tried.  She doesn’t want to go.”  He’s smiling now.  Thinks he found an ally.  Like I give a fuck.  It wasn’t a fucking question moron.  While he’s yammerin’ his old lady is still getting acquainted with my shillelagh and I’m starting to add two and two.  Kelley’s got a pretty good plan.  Either these two apes sitting on the balcony go down and curb stomp the fucker who brained her with one of his empties or I take her home and she blows me, then maybe Frank.  Either way poor little Bobby is severely punished.  And he’ll stay punished for the rest of his life.   

You see Kelly has filleted and pan seared Bobby’s little gonads.  But she overcooked them.  Now she’s just trying to decide whether she should throw them away and start over, or just eat them.  Oh she’ll keep him around but Bobby won’t ever see his balls again.  The lesson I am about to give Bobby is for his own good.  Guys get all fucked up trying to hold on to chicks.  Some guys buy’em, some guys hit’em, but Bobby is the groveling kind.  “What keeps a chick around,” you ask?  Simple.  Let’em go.  They start whining; show them where the door is.  Don’t push them through it, just remind them where it is and just how easy it is to walk through.  It’s kind of like that old saying about letting a caged bird free.  If she returns she’s yours for life.  If not, fuck it.  Go get another bird.

Someone should have looked after little Bobby here.  He’ll learn that a man’s lessons get harder the older he gets.  And Bobby is about to get one hard fucking lesson.  I stand up and hand Kelly my beer.  She takes it like it’s the first time she’s held a man’s beer.  Yeah, they’ve screwed each other up pretty good.  My angle on him has changed and I realize that Bobby is actually the shorter of this undeveloped pair.  I’ll make this an easy lesson.  Oh he’s a lucky one, this one!  The first time I came out of a knockout I had some fucked up weirdo biting my face.  I wore dental imprints on my cheek for three weeks.  No, we’ll go easy on little Bob.  Just get that head of his turning in the right direction. 

I shoot a fist up and make contact with the horizontal angle of his jaw and spin his little head up and to the right. He swoons like a fairy tale princess.  No broken bones, no stitches.  Just a chipped tooth and the best nap of this poor sap’s life.  Nighty Night Bobbers.  Maybe he’ll wake up a little smarter.  Maybe not.  I check the background for a hero.  Nothing.  What kind of fucked up world is this?  I run a hand behind Kelly’s head and bring her eyes close to mine.  She smells like estrus and Cosmopolitans.  Her lips are sweet to taste and as I pull back the honey sticks to me in strings, drawing me back in.  “Does that make your head feel better sweetie?”

She slaps me with her free hand.  I take the beer and Frankie and me make our exit.  The bouncer is eyeballing me all the way to the door.  I’m thinking, ‘Ding-Ding Round Two’. 

“Hey man!  You can’t take that bottle outside the bar.”  Me and Frankie look at each other and just start laughing.  I hand the fat bastard my beer and walk out.

“Hey Frankie?  What kind of fucked up world is this?”

“Dunno bro, but I’m hungry.  Let’s go get something to eat.”