Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets (14 page)

Despite
almost
zero luck with women,
except for maybe catching a glimpse through a bedroom window,
Chuck
isn’t into prostitute
s. 

He’s not a virgin.  He hung
around
a
fr
at party
at
a community college once,
where
no one was
watching the doors, a kegger that was pretty much open to anyone willing to throw in five bucks.  He got lucky late that night
–
some poor girl passed over by even the most indiscriminate frat dudes.
 

When only
Chuck
wa
s left.

He knows this is his sweet spot.  Knows the vulnerability of the one who never gets picked.  Knows what it’s like to be worse than not picked - what it’s like to be left behind.  Abandoned. 

Chuck
gets those girls.

Not a lot.

But a couple of times.

Chuck
never gets the girl like Jaime.

No, they go to
guys like Dodge.  Hell,
guys like Dodge get Siobhan
-
a
nd
Jaime. 
Chuck
l
ikes Dodge.  The guy’s never a jer
k, he’s not fake, he minds his own business, does his own thing.  Hell, he even has a way of pissing off the police.  And getting away with it.  But the thing is, he’s nothing special.  It ain’t like he’s Romeo.  But he gets it all.

Chuck
even looks like Dodge.  Jaime even tells h
im that.  So it ain’t like Chuck is
horrible looking or anything.

He’s weird though.  He knows that.  He acts weird and creeps women out.

He just wants to have sex with
them, though.

Maybe Dodge is so lucky just
because Sio
bhan likes him
, for whatever reason.  That
happens.  People fall in lo
ve.  But since Siobhan likes
him, and everybody is in awe of Siobhan,
Dodge gets everything
.

You can’t hate a man for that.

But
Chuck
never gets lucky.

So
Chuck
has to be
come
Dodge.

He looks like him.  He has his passport,
his
credit card.  He is Dodge.  He can do whatever Dodge would do here.

Dodge wouldn’t follow this woman in shorts and boots.

Chuck
would.

He
will be Dodge after he follows these legs.

Wherever sh
e stops. 

He stops being Chuck.

Becomes Dodge.

*****

Siobhan has a bad feeling.  Maybe it’s the ominous
thumping of helicopter blades perpetually trailing her.
  Makes her think of Dodge.
 
A Friday night visit to a client is not in the job description.  She wants to find her husband.  But Dressler is money
– her biggest client by far
.  She goes the extra mile for him.

This is a bit much, though.
  Wading through traffic on the Thruway on a Friday rush hour commute.

Siobhan doesn’t do house calls.

She exhales visibly when she hits the exit ramp.  The traffic is no better, but it’s a step.  Off the Thruway.

She doesn’t know why Dodge finds it so fascinating.

The traffic.

It’s just annoying.

She should be at home.

Cocktails by the pool.

She just wants to
get drunk with
her husband, put the tension behind them and get back to having fun when she doesn’t have to work.  It’s why she marries a guy like Dodge, doesn’t have kids.  No drama, no responsibilities. 
Work, then play.

*****

Dressler checks himself in the mirror, adjusting the wide sash on his kimono.  It keeps comin
g loose under the weight of the sword he
jammed through it.

He’s getting his samurai on.

That’s what he likes to call it.

Getting psyched up.

Psyched out.

He face-
dives into the mirror - not the mirror he’s checking himself out in, not that kind of mirror.  The mirror decorated with lines o
f cocaine.  That’s what he face-
dives in
.  The cocaine, not the mirror.  He doesn’t really put his face in the mirror.
It just looks that way.  Because of the reflection.

He strikes a kung fu pose.

He wants to face-
dive into
Siobhan.

Lotus flower style.

He’s surprised that she agreed to come to his place for dinner.

There’s not even food in his fridge.

He yanks the sword
out, runs his hand along its blade.

Yeah, it’s phallic.

He’s going to split her in two.

*****

Chuck
lounges at a café table by the canal.  The legs
he’s been following
are only a couple of feet away from him, which he eyes whenever he has an excuse to lift his head.  He has lots of excuses.  Every second is an excuse.

But now, he has no excuses
for not doing more than just staring
.  He’s Dodge.  No
Mr.
Chuck
here.

He lurches to his feet, shuffles to her table and slumps into the café chair across from her, throwing a leg over its wrought iron arm.

Dodge is not cocky, but
Chuck
feels
arrogant
playing Dodge
,
full of swagger and himself
.  He doesn’t
really
know how to be
confident;
he can only fake it – so he
overcompensate
s
.

Her English is broken

He
has no French
.

Fortunately, c
ocai
ne is an international language, and he scored some down by the bus station expressly for overcoming language barriers.

He dangles some in front of her.

She’s waiting on a friend.

He’s been waiting his whole life.
 

He can wait for a friend.

Chuck knows
Dodge would
play it cool, would
walk away.

The last thing
Chuck
would do.

So he walks
away, giddy with himself at the thought of it.

Sure enough, she tugs on his shoulder a minute later, only glancing back for a second for the friend who never showed.

*****

Dodge shuffles through the bramble of the wooded stri
p that conceals Dressler’s
long driveway and secluded colonial from the road
.

It’s not easy landing a helicopter and not attracting attention,
so he’s hoofing it to get there from a field half a mile away.

He sees Siobhan’s car
parked in the driveway.

He’s certain now he’s going to catch Siobhan.

Certainty and knowledge aren’t the same thing.

Certainty can be wrong.

He has no idea what he’s going to do now that
he
’
s here.  He stops at the edge of the trees, watches through the big bay windows.  Afternoon is giving way to dusk, so he feels protected by the shadows, and it is lighter inside the house than outside the house.

That gives him a view.

He can see Dressler, sure enough.

Waving a samura
i sword like some coked-up nut
job
.

He sees Siobhan getting out of her car.