Grundish & Askew (15 page)

...
Wah waaa wa wahhh wa wahhhhh
, is what the boys hear from Turleen as they cram their mouths with the tangy, moist, pig meat. Instead of hearing a word from the old lady, the boys stare silently at one another.
Wah waaa wa wahhh wa wahhhhh
, Turleen explains and Grundish nods automatically, paying no attention.

Wah waaa wa wahhh wa wahhhhh
. Askew continues to stare and stuff himself with food, not even acknowledging Turleen.

Grundish sops up the pork juices with a piece of the French bread, wiping the plate clean. He jams the soggy bread into his talk-hole, and, with his mouth full, says to Askew: “We need to talk.”

“I know,” answers Askew blankly.

“
Wah waaa wa wahhh wa wahhhhh
,” says Turleen.

•  •  •

“I don’t wanna play pool,” Askew whines. “My hands hurt, and we’ve got more important things to do.” He flips a Blue Llama into his mouth, catching it with his teeth since his lip is still partially adhered to the gums.

“Well, we’re gonna play,” says Grundish. “We’ve got a custom-built eight-foot slate table that’s better than anything we’ve ever seen in the places we hang out. Look, there ain’t no stains on the felt. You ain’t gotta put no coins in it to play. Ain’t gotta put no coins down to wait for your turn. The balls roll straight.” He rolls the cue ball slowly down the table. It goes forth deliberately and does not stray from its course. The white ball bounces off the rail at the other end of the table and rolls to a stop half a foot from the cushion. “And check out these cues. Hand made. Perfectly balanced. And not warped.” Grundish sets a cue stick on the table and pushes it. The stick rolls smoothly, not like the chipped and bowed cues Grundish and Askew have come to know in the smoky bars where they play Eight-Ball. “Now rack ’em, bitch.” Grundish rubs his hands on the dusty white cone of chalk attached to the wall, and then smacks his hands together, making a small cloud of dust.

Grundish circles the table and pulls balls from the leather pockets. He rolls them down the table to Askew, who places them in the rack and looks miserable in the process.

Behind Askew, on the wall, hangs an original oil painting of dogs playing pool. A gruff-looking bulldog holds a rolled cigarette between his teeth and concentrates on lining up his shot while the rest of the canine crew watches intently. A drunken German Shepherd-mix hefts a mug of beer and pants excitedly. Next to him a Cocker Spaniel goofus in a bowtie and bowler’s hat leers lasciviously at the bulldog bent over the table. A foxy-looking Finnish Spitz chomps on a cigar and waits for his opponent to finally miss a shot so that he can have a turn on the table. Off to the right a Great Dane smokes a pipe and crosses his arms. He realizes that his friend is being hustled by the bulldog and doesn’t care. Instead, he finds himself thinking about the tasty roadkill he feasted on earlier in the day. In the middle of the crowd sits the smiling basset hound named Idjit Galoot, who doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the group. Idjit seems to be looking out past his canine friends, paying attention to something outside of the realm of the painting. Grundish notices that, as he walks around the room, the basset hound’s eyes seem to follow him. Askew tightens up the balls in the rack, rolling it back and forth on the table, and sets the tip of the rack over the dot on his end of the table.

“Well, are you gonna talk to me, or are you just gonna stare at that painting?” Askew asks as he gently lifts the rack from the triangle of balls on the table.

“Let’s play some pool first.” A square of blue chalk is rubbed on the tip of the cue stick. Grundish blows off the excess chalk and leans over the table. The cue sits on the arched bridge of his left hand while the right hand grips the back of the stick and strokes it backward and forward, stopping the stroke just short of the waiting cue ball. With the last stroke, Grundish leans into it and sends the cue ball hurtling toward the hapless cluster of balls at the other end of the table.

The white ball smacks, just off-center of the lead ball in the rack, bounces back into the air, and lands again on the table. The rest of the balls, shocked by the audacity of the white ball, abruptly scramble for safety. The eight-ball makes a beeline for the left corner, drops in, and cowers in the leather woven pocket, out of sight of the rest of the surprised orbs.

“God damn!” Askew shakes his head. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Rack ’em again, bitch.” A smile forms on Grundish’s face. In his life, he has not been good at much, but he could always shoot some mean pool. Full of confidence from dropping the eight-ball, he shouts out: “Hey Turleen, hows about you bring us a couple of beers in here?”

“I’m busy cooking, I am,” comes the voice from the kitchen. “Hows about you bring me a glass of wine?”

“Aww, shit. I’ll be right back.” He lights a cigar and starts out of the room. “Go ahead and rack those balls up nice and tight. When I come back we can talk. Oh, yeah,” he grins, “and I’ll kick your ass again.”

Grundish’s simultaneous swagger and submissiveness brings a genuine, albeit battered, smile to Askew’s face and he starts to warm up to the idea of discussing recent events. The balls are gathered and forcefully placed in the wooden triangle, the rack is perfectly set on the center dot and the balls are tightened. He lifts the rack so as not to disturb the balls and admires his work. “Damn, that’s a perty rack,” he says to himself as he sits on a stool and smokes his cigarette, waiting for Grundish.

Two tumblers filled with ice and Scotch enter the room, leading the way for the two hands carrying them. The two arms attached to the hands follow in their wake. The thick arms are stuck to the torso that trails behind. Atop the torso sits a bearded grinning face chomping on a fuming cigar. “That’s gotta be one of the shittiest racks I ever seen,” says Grundish. “Rack it again and do it right this time.”

“Fuck that. And fuck you. And give me that drink.” Askew lets out a warm laugh that calms Grundish’s nerves.

He’s acting like his self again
, Grundish thinks.
Maybe he just needed to blow some steam off.

They clink their tumblers together and throw back healthy snorts of the whisky. Grundish sets the drink down and lines up his break, this time scattering balls all over the table and dropping two solids. But the eight-ball remains on the table. Next he drops the three-ball, then sinks a perfect bank shot on the five. An attempt at jumping the cue ball over the thirteen fails, and, in the process, the felt gets slightly torn.

“Hey, no jumping,” scoffs Askew.

“House rules allow it,” says Grundish.

“How do you know the house rules?”

“Just made ’em up.” Grundish steps back from the table, still feeling the watchful eyes of the basset hound from the painting following him. He sips at his drink and starts to feel okay, like things are getting back to normal with Askew. “Go ahead, it’s your shot.”

“I know. I know. Don’t rush me.” Askew drops his cigarette on the carpet and smashes it out with his foot. “I gotta check out my options, come up with a game plan. We both know that I have to think not just about this shot, but setting myself up for the next shot, and even the shot after that. I gotta be strategic. You can’t rush me on this. I play this
simular
to the way some people play chess.” He stalks around the table, checking the lines and angles, plotting the order in which he will drop the balls. “All right. I’m ready to run the table on you.” He bends over the table and lines up his shot. The tip of the stick pokes at the cue ball. The tip scuffs off of the side of the white ball, ruining the shot; the cue ball careens off of the six-ball and drops into the side pocket.

“Fuck!” Askew slams the butt of the stick on the ground.

“You might wanna put some chalk on that.” Grundish smirks and throws the square of billiards chalk over the table to Askew. Grundish fishes the cue ball from the pocket and sets it down on the table. “So, you wanna talk about what’s been going on with you?” He looks up at his friend while he shoots at the four-ball, still making a perfect shot and giving himself a proper leave.

“I don’t know what to say.” Askew’s eyes drop and stare at the drink in his hand, refusing to make eye contact with Grundish. “I know I fucked up. I’ve been fucking up here. I thought you’d be happy that I brought that kid in here for you. And then, when you kicked me out of the room, I could tell you weren’t happy. I started thinking about what I did and realized that it was probably pretty stupid.”

“I ain’t gonna argue with you there.” Grundish lines up his shot and drops the six-ball in a corner pocket. The backspin on the cue ball drags it back and to the left, leaving an easy shot on the seven-ball. “I mean, shit, I appreciate the thought. Hell, I been fantasizing about fucking that kid up for months now.”

“I know. I know. That’s why when you were sleeping, and I saw the opportunity, I snagged that little Fucker and dragged him over here.” Askew downs the rest of his drink and swirls the ice in the bottom of the cup in a circle. “And then I started thinking that it would do your heart good to see that I already worked the kid over for you a little bit.”

“A little bit? A little bit?” He stares at Askew. “You cut the kid’s ear off.” Askew does not stare back.

“I got carried away. I don’t know. I just...” He stops and watches Grundish line up his next shot. “You’re gonna fuck this one up. Ain’t no way you’ll make it. Plus, you’ll prob’ly scratch.”

Grundish ignores the taunts and lines up his shot on the eight-ball. The cue ball knocks the eight into the end cushion. The eight springs back and barrels down the table and clean into the left corner pocket. “Now rack ’em, bitch. And we’ll talk more about this in a minute.” He leaves the room to refill their glasses and returns with two more Scotches on the rocks. Askew sets up the balls on the table again.

Askew takes the glass from Grundish when he returns and they clink the tumblers. “You know,” says Askew, “when you was sleeping, I got to thinking about all the things we been talking about lately. First you tell me that we gotta get the Fuckers. Then you tell me that the shit that I’m doing ain’t enough. So I kick it up a notch and then you start telling me that I’m getting out of hand...”

“Well,” interrupts Grundish, “within the last couple of days, you beat a man to death, you took on a group of guys with your feet, and you cut a kid’s ear off. That seems a little out of hand to me. Especially considering that you ain’t never been in so much as a wrestling match in your life.” Grundish stands with the pool cue vertical before him, the butt on the floor, both hands gripping the stick. He stares at his friend, challenging him to explain.

“You’re right. I don’t disagree. I was getting out of hand. And then again, my
enragement
served a purpose for me. It was
catharsic
for me to get all of that out. That’s stuff that’s been building up in me my whole life. I ain’t never been smart enough, good looking, tall enough. I’ve been a disappointment to my family and my lovers. I’ve fallen short on every measurement of my usefulness in my life. I’ve taken a lot of abuse. Been looked down upon. Passed over for the better jobs. Shit, I’ve been working at Pizza Brothers for five years, and they won’t even make me a shift manager. I didn’t even know how much shit I had bottled up until I let it all out on Bumpy D, and those other guys, and that kid upstairs. And then I get to thinking about our plans, and the fact that you’re the only person that’s ever stuck by me and not talked down to me. And I think about what you been saying about the Fuckers. And I get all confused. I wanna lay low, get out of here, maybe go live in Mexico for a while until we can get our floating whorehouse up and running. And then on the other hand, I get so pissed off and I wanna hurt people. I wanna hurt them bad. I ain’t never felt like that before, and it’s been a real rush for me.”

Grundish remains in the same spot, his hands still gripped on the pool cue in front of him. “Yeah, but do you have that out of your system now? ’Cuz if you’re gonna run around and start killing and maiming people, we ain’t got no future with the brothel idea. So the question is: what’s it gonna be, Boy? Yes or no. You gonna turn cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, or are we gonna lay low and get out from under all this shit hanging over us?”

“I got it out of my system,” Askew smiles. The super glue on his lip cracks and exposes the stitched area to stinging air. He grimaces but continues, “you’re right. We need to lay low and follow through with our plans.” He sits back on the stool and sips at his drink.

“Good.” Grundish sits down on his stool, still feeling as if the eyes of the basset hound in the picture are watching him, judging him. “Now promise me you ain’t gonna do nothing more to that kid upstairs.”

Askew mumbles, “I promise.”

Grundish nods, satisfied, and grows silent. He fixes his eyes on the dog painting and feels as if he is having a staring contest with the hound.

“Tell me, Grundish,” says Askew, breaking his friend’s trance. “Tell me like you done before.”

“Tell you about what?”

“About the ladies.”

Grundish snaps, “Again! Come on, Bro. We’re talking serious shit here. And you want me to tell you the same shit that I tell you every time things get tough. I don’t feel like it right now.” Despite the charade, Grundish welcomes the opportunity to rehash the scheme for his friend. It’s an old standby, a comfort conversation they fall into whenever things get tough. And to have Askew ask about it makes Grundish feel like his friend isn’t so far gone that he can’t come back.

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 I need to sleep again.”

Grundish smoothes himself out and starts his well-worn rap. “Guys like us, you know, the ones that work the shit jobs and scrape by, are the loneliest guys in the world....”

The cold tile floor on his feverish face is comforting, like a tall glass of ice water, like a swim in a mountain stream. Everything else on his body is sore from sleeping on the bathroom floor. How he ended up in such a condition, Grundish does not know. He suspects it may have had something to do with excessive Scotch consumption and the vomit that he smells. He is contorted, with an arm up under his ribs and twisted behind his back, bottom half turned so that the groin is flat on the floor and the legs sprawled out, and head wedged between the toilet and the wall. Nothing else about the position is comfortable. But the tile, the cool tile, feels so good on his cheek that the rest of the discomfort is bearable. The thought of moving is out of the question. The arm pinned beneath his side is numb, his neck aches and refuses to budge, and his legs are like concrete. Stuck to the floor like a bug on flypaper. His temples throb. He focuses his attention on the small patch of facial flesh in contact with the tile and everything else is relegated to the junk drawer of his mind. Only the disconnected sounds of shouting, conflict, and some sort of explosion from elsewhere in the house forces Grundish to peel his cheek from that heavenly patch of tile.