1

I met Jack in back of the bar. Not a bar, really, but a pizza joint with a liquor license, a counter where they served liquor, and, most importantly, no desire to card you so long as you looked cool, meaning you didn’t look like you had parents who’d start some legal shit if you got in trouble, which was not a problem for Jack and me. So we called it a bar. I had a pretty good buzz on when I stepped out the back door and—whap—my best friend for the last five years, since high school freshman year, clocked me on the side of my head.  

I staggered, nearly taking a knee, to a sudden ringing in my ear like I was Suzanne Vega. “The fuck?”

“You’re drunk, Mark. Again. Again. You’re supposed to be driving tonight.”  

“Yeah, yeah.” I looked at Jack, my right eye still twitching from the hit. People sometimes mistook us for brothers. He was a few inches taller and not quite as pale, but we had the same center-parted long black hair, the same bony build. I guess that was it, except we often wore the same thing, so maybe that affected people’s perceptions: black Levi’s, black concert tees, black jackets—his leather, mine denim. “I can handle it.”

“You can’t handle shit.” Jack made to pop me in the nose but stopped a few inches short. “I should punch your lights out. But that wouldn’t do either of us much good would it?”

I spit to the side. “Nah, man.”

Best I could tell in the orange half-light of that back lot, Jack was just staring me in the face, like his eyes might burn me to sober, will me to sober, or maybe just erase me from his orbit. 

“You good to drive?” I asked him.

“Better than you.”

“Straight, man. It’s cool.”

“It’s not cool. You’re not cool. Every damn time. Shitfaced. Fubar. Blotto Mark-o.”

“The fuck, man. I’m not even drunk.” If my skull was lolling around at this point I’m sure it was from Jack’s wallop more than anything else. 

“You want me to drive? You don’t want me to drive? What are we talkin’ about?”

Jack shook his head, turned and walked back inside. 

I lit a smoke and followed him in. The smell of fresh-baked pizza filled the air. Everything was very red—the dingy carpet, the cracked vinyl of the maroon stools and booths, the mirrored walls reflecting the stools and booths. And damn if Suzanne Vega’s surprisingly bad-ass new single “Blood Makes Noise” wasn’t playing on the radio.

“Hey!” I noticed Missy and Sheila were there now, sitting at the counter. Missy had Jack’s leather in her hand, holding it up. 

“You shouldn’t leave this on the stool with no one around, brainiac,” Missy said, then gave her crazy-ass laugh that sounded like a crow mid death throe.

“Yeah, I was distracted by this lush.” Jack thrust his head back toward me.

“Mark, you drunken hero son of a bitch, give me a kiss.” Sheila cupped her right tit and pointed it at me as she said that. But even half drunk—I’d give Jack that much—I remembered she didn’t actually mean it. We were friends. We did shit like this. That was all. So I grabbed my crotch as if to say suck this, and we both laughed.

“Mark, why’s the side of your eye all puffy and blue?” Missy pointed in case I had forgotten where the side of my eye was.

“The fuck, Jack?”

Jack shook his head and grabbed his leather from Missy. 

“I need to get out of here, away from this clown,” Jack said. “Missy, come on, let’s beat it.”

“You guys want to see what’s going on at Kim’s? We were going to stop there later anyway.”

“Not him, Missy. I mean it. I need to get away from him.”

“Sure pissed him off,” Sheila said, then stuck her tongue out at me.

I held my palms up like the fuck is going on?

Jack put his hand on Missy’s shoulder and started walking toward the front exit as if to pull her away, and indeed she went along. 

Sheila stood up and flashed a look at me like I gotta go where I gotta go, bro. Best my dry eyes could tell, she was sincere. I really did love her, even if I did already have a girlfriend.  

As they were walking out the door, I could hear Sheila calling up to the others, “How’s he gonna get home?”

I laughed as I gave their disappearing backs the finger. I turned and leaned against the counter and held a different finger up in the direction of Carla, the waitress doubling as a barmaid. Hell, for all I knew she was the manager. She was always there, flirting with Jack, flirting with me, or our other friends, just not when the girls were around. She brought me a beer and I took a seat in the booth in the back corner. Just getting started, I thought.

2

It was well past midnight when Carla closed out the register in Zeno’s Pizzeria as she did most Saturdays. The whispery rhythm of counting cash seemed to sync up with the beat of Live’s “Operation Spirit” coming from the speakers. The booths sat empty but for a few regulars, friends or almost friends of the establishment, lost souls slumped in the shadows of the dimmed overheads, unmoved by the thought of having to go. Across the carpeted floor, so worn its red fibers appeared almost black in places, the glow from the streetlight across the parking lot cast even more shadows, shadows that stretched like claws through the front glass.

Mark grimaced as he lifted his chin from its position hovering over the table and let his head fall back to the cushioned booth. He stared at the faint swirls on the ceiling, trying to figure out where to go next. The putting away of silverware and glasses and stainless steel pots could be heard from the kitchen. Occasionally a heavy refrigerator door opened and closed. The attention-grabbing intro of the Screaming Trees “Nearly Lost You” took over the radio. The song eased into its first verse. The idea of being called back to your “sin” might have applied to anyone in the place.  

Mark smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea why, but it was as good a cue as any to reach for the one bottle among the many on the table in front of him that still had beer in it and finish it off. The smile shifted to something of a smirk before sinking into oblivion. Mark tensed up and arched his back, a scrawny, paint-white boy with one noticeable freckle on the knob of his nose and three silver studs in his left ear framed by shoulder-length black hair, the kind of full-bodied hair that the hairdressers or aspiring hairdressers at Budget Cuts always complimented.

Mark swayed to his feet. Fubar? He wouldn’t say so. He could stand after all. Mark’s left hand landed on the table to steady himself, his right instinctively patted his left breast pocket to make sure his smokes were still there.

He scuffed his leather high tops across the grimy floor to the brindled laminate counter near the kitchen entrance. From an office off the kitchen, Carla turned off the radio. Unfazed, Mark began drumming on the counter to a tune in his head he no doubt appreciated more than anyone else who might hear it.

Carla emerged from the kitchen, wild red curls framed her creamy not-white-not-brown face. Chubby cheeks, retroussé nose, and ordinary brown eyes rounded out her features. At twenty-three, she was four years older than Mark.

“Wendy,” Carla announced, looking out at a ghostly dark-haired woman about her same age. “Yo, you gotta go, sister. Shop’s closing.” Indeed, of the regulars, only Wendy and Mark remained at this point.

“I thought, you know, I thought we could hang, like we used to.” Wendy lifted her head and turned toward Carla revealing a shot-up dead-eye look.

“Sorry, hon. I can’t tonight. Come on, I gotta close up. I’ll call you tomorrow. OK?”

Wendy stood up and lumbered her way out the door, slowly nodding her head.

Mark watched her leave with a look that suggested concern, but that may have been a trick of the light and the alcohol. 

“She’ll be OK,” Carla said. “She lives in Shady Hill, out behind the back lot.”

Carla stood up straight and cracked her knuckles. Her uniform consisted of comfortable flats, black pants, white blouse. She didn’t wear her clothes tight, but in his drunken state, Mark figured they accentuated Carla’s curves nicely. A black tag over her left breast ensured any patrons would know Carla by name.

Before she could get a word out, Mark spoke up, “Carla, you like Suzanne Vega?”

Carla shifted her eyes up toward the swirls of the cheaply painted ceiling. There was nothing special in her movements, but in the dim light, Mark felt it as a flirtation on par with Susanna Hoff’s famous eye-dart in the video for “Walk Like an Egyptian.”

Carla stared back at him. Her face was soft but impassive. Still, after a moment, she loosened up and her lips pursed in a natural, unconscious way.

Mark waited for Carla to say something, but she didn’t.

He shook his head as if trying to free up a thought.

“You like Suzanne Vega, Carla?”

Now Carla’s eyes squinted. That’s when she knew what she was going to do. 

“Her new song’s good to dance to.” 

She glanced at his shirt. “You like White Zombie?”

“Hell yeah. I saw ’em a couple years ago at Toad’s. Before they broke out. They opened for Slayer. Eight Days in the Abyss, a mini-tour before Slayer hit Europe. Killer show. Fucking Slayer—stage is filling with smoke, for like twenty minutes, tension is building, people are ready to go off, swaying, bumping shoulders, then bam, one note, the place erupts, limbs fly everywhere. First song “Raining Blood” our friend Teddy catches a boot in the head, gets knocked out, he’s dragged back to the bar, they splash water on him, he opens his eyes and runs right back into the fucking pit. It was crazy.”

Mark stood up on his toes for a second then lowered himself back down. Carla was about his height, maybe an inch or two shorter. Her red curls gleamed, at least for Mark they did.

“Who do you listen to?”

They looked each other in the eyes and Mark realized that all of Carla’s soft-cheeked cuteness couldn’t hide something hard in her stare, the kind of hard that grows from hurt. For all of his general immaturity, Mark was experienced at recognizing pain, even buried pain. 

“I’m not into anyone too much. When I was a kid I was really into Michael Jackson, and Madonna of course.” Carla walked back to the kitchen area. “I had a crush on Jon Bon Jovi.” 

She returned from the kitchen area holding a bear bottle. “Oh, and Billy Idol!” She gave a big smile. “But, yeah, I listen to whatever.” 

She held the bottle out to Mark. “Last one tonight. On the house.”

Mark reached out and took Carla’s hand that was holding the beer, leaned forward and kissed it. “You fuckin’ angel.”

3

I lifted my head off the pillow and blinked my eyes awake. I was lying naked in a bed under a beige blanket. The room was bright. My clothes were in a clump on the blue-carpeted floor. A TV sat on the bureau across from me. I heard a toilet flush from the other side of the wall to my right. Between me and that wall was a dresser with a mirror over it. I tried to see if my eye was still swollen, but all I could make out in the mirror was the top of my head. Did I mention the room was bright? Sun streamed in through a pair of windows to my left. 

Carla entered the room from the right. She was wearing a bra and panties, pinkish, or lighter than her bronzy skin anyway. She was a lot more woman than I had ever seen that close before. I thought of AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie.” She was all folds of flesh that the lacey undergarments could barely contain. Not entirely unappealing and certainly not helping to fell the morning wood. I propped myself on my elbows and sat up to face her.

Carla smiled at me. “Morning, hon.” 

“Carla.” My mind was working well enough, but my mouth was taking a little time to catch up.

“Yeah, hon?”

I couldn’t remember anything after ordering a beer from Carla and slouching into a booth. There was a glimpse of a table full of empty bottles. Me talking to Carla. Carla laughing and me noticing her, how she filled out her white blouse. But that was it. I had no idea how I got here. It seemed obvious enough that I was at Carla’s. She must have driven me from the bar. I wiped the sleep from my eyes.

“We didn’t—?” I stared at her in case there was any chance she wouldn’t catch what the didn’t referred to.

“No.”

“Oh good.”

Carla smooshed her face up.

“I mean, because I have a girlfriend.”

“I know. You only mentioned it like a hundred times last night.” Carla lowered her voice to faintly imitate mine. “I have a girlfriend. She’s an hour away. Blah, blah, blah.”

“I do. She is.” That’s what I said, and it was true, but what I was thinking was Carla’s breasts looked fucking amazing right now.

“You had me thinking of—what’s that saying? You protest too much?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“You wanted to drive yourself home. You numbskull.” Carla walked over and stopped beside me in the bed. “You for sure would have crashed.” 

She reached her hand under the covers and grabbed my cock, started to stroke it with a feathery touch. 

“You like this though?” Carla sat herself on the bed beside me.

I leaned my head back. My lips parted with wanting. Carla smiled.

“So . . . we can’t have any of this.” Carla took her hand away from me. “You have a girlfriend. An hour away.” She seemed pleased with herself, like someone who had pulled off a successful surprise party.

But her right breast was right there. I couldn’t not look.

I raised my head and put my mouth over where her nipple was under her lacy bra, slid my big bottom lip over that proud little bump of her. Once. Twice. I reached my right hand onto her left breast as I pressed both lips around her right nipple. At that, she reached back and unclasped her bra. She flung it behind her and it landed with a thwop on the clump of my clothes on the floor. I realized that if she lied to me, and we had done it last night, I’d never really know.

Carla grinded against my hip. I moved my hands all over her, that it might feel like I was everywhere at once. She was starting to sweat. She slid off her panties and moved herself on top of me, undulating until she was wet as the rain forest. She was wearing a gold chain with a crucifix and for a moment Jesus Christ touched my lips. She grabbed my cock again. She started to slide it in. Stopped.

“No,” she shook her head, “you have a girlfriend.”

She continued to grind against me, reaching back now and then to make sure I stayed harder than hard. Her whole body started to throb, and all of her weight fell on me, and it felt like she was driving me into the earth. She huffed and she puffed—not squeaks or moans—until she sighed, a good quick sigh, then wasting no time she lifted herself, slid herself down around me, all the way this time, and reaccelerated. Before long she was huffing and puffing again and chaining together a string of moans. We rolled over in one motion, keeping the momentum until I was the one huffing and puffing and moaning good God.

•

Carla showered first. Then me. We got dressed. Ate toast. Drank coffee. Conversation was pleasant, mostly light. Clear September sky. Supposed to stay nice all day. She had to work at three. I didn’t have to work till tomorrow. She would be going to church later that morning. I was raised Catholic too but hadn’t considered God real for many years. 

We climbed into Carla’s red Escort so she could drive me back to my car at the Zeno’s parking lot. No radio—her antenna was broken—made for a quiet ride, but it was fine. Traffic was Sunday-morning light. We drove down side streets filled with old Victorians that were all multi-family rentals. The main road was a run of plazas, smaller establishments, and gas stations with one long-ass brick apartment complex sandwiched between. When we arrived at Zeno’s the parking lot was of course empty. We exchanged goodbyes, and smiles, but no plans to hookup again, no phone numbers. We knew where to find each other, or I knew where to find her anyway. 

I sat down in my blue Honda Civic, which if I’m being honest was my mother’s blue Honda Civic. I turned the key and the classic rock radio station came on mid Zeppelin as it so often did. Robert Plant was singing how he was going to leave his woman, how he didn’t want to leave his woman, how he had to leave his woman. He wailed “Baby” after “Baby” and I felt a deeper meaning was waiting for me in this moment. I thought about Val an hour away, how I didn’t want to leave her and how maybe I needed to, if only for her sake. I thought of Sheila, how I could maybe love her too, how someone like her would never tie me down. I thought about myself, wondering where I needed to be and how I needed to get there, and when no answers came, I thought about Jack and how he would get over last night, how he always did. I thought about how it was Sunday, and that meant the liquor stores would be closed, how I was out of beer at home. I thought about how Missy talked about them heading to Kim’s. I gripped the wheel. Probably there had been a party or at least a gathering. I shifted the car into gear. Probably there would be something left there to drink. I pressed the accelerator. It was worth a shot.