On Archimedes Street (41 page)

It wasn’t very long before the archenemies, cousins though they were, learned their star turn would be upstaged by each other’s presence. Lotte sniffed at Elwood on the street, and he stared straight ahead, pretending she didn’t exist. In the privacy of their separate houses, they each rehearsed the answers to the questions they imagined Terri Moss would ask.

F
LIP
WONDERED
how long it would be before the leopard remembered he still had spots. The seduction scene had been laughable. Kneesies, of all things! Tabula Rasa, né Diminutiva, had nearly laughed his skin flaps off when Flip related the scene. And then the declaration of curiosity after the laughable “You’re very handsome. A desirable man.” Flip had kept a straight face as he told Dutch that, no, he had never experimented with a man but that he, too, was curious and game to try anything once. He felt he hadn’t been very convincing in the obligatory what-a-surprise-I-thought-I-was-straight-but-now-I-realize-I’m-Dutch-o-sexual scene, but Dutch had lapped it up like cream.

After four weeks of this, Flip was fed up with the hearts and flowers. If he needed a measure of how bad it was, he had to look no further than the saccharine pillow talk. “Love you, love you. You’re so handsome.” He didn’t even talk dirty anymore! He missed that. He was tired of constantly being told he was loved. In fact, he missed the old Dutch altogether, assholey and crude and arrogant, but at least witty, unpredictable, lively, and
fun
. The new Dutch was as much fun as a schmaltzy Mother’s Day card.

The worst part? Being constantly told how beautiful he was, being led to the mirror and having all his “charms”—legs, butt, shoulders, face—lovingly catalogued and praised. It was as if Dutch had transferred his narcissism to Flip. Really, it was beyond him. Exasperating. No—the old Dutch had been exasperating. This was just boring.

I’m really in love
, he realized. It wasn’t just Dutch’s body and his scent. He still had those. It was the man himself, his insecurity masked by arrogance, his lively wit.
I’ve got to get him back.

“Gonna shower.”

“Okay, beautiful. Want company?”

“Nah. Just a quick rinse.”

When he stepped out, Dutch was right there with a towel. His new obsession was drying him off as he looked at their reflections in the bathroom mirror. He followed the same pattern every time: face and hair, back, chest, arms, then kneeling to dry between the toes, up the legs to the knees, finishing with a very thorough and tender toweling of the crotch and ass. Flip repressed a sigh of irritation as he started on his routine.

“Love drying you off,” he spoke to the Flip in the mirror. But then, as he knelt and lovingly separated the toes to dry between them, Flip noticed something. He stared first in astonishment and then in secret glee, but he waited for the right moment.

When he finished, he draped the towel around Flip’s neck, put one arm around his shoulders, and stared at their reflections. “I can’t get over how beautiful you are.”

“No, Dutch, it’s you. You’re the handsome one.”

“No, nobody can touch you, even come close.”

“Nah. I’m not all that. You’re the one.”

Dutch glowed.

“But’s what’s this?” Flip arched up onto tippy-toes. “Is this the beginning of a little bald patch here?”

“Ha-ha. You’re so funny. Don’t even joke about that.”

“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s a trick of the light. Let me go get my shaving mirror.”

Dutch looked alarmed.

“Here. Take a look.” Flip handed over the mirror.

From the look Dutch was giving it, the mirror may as well have been a coiled rattlesnake ready to strike. His hand rose slowly to receive it, and he held it like a World War II mother would hold a War Department telegram in an old black-and-white movie. He made no move to raise it to his head.

“Here, let me help you,” said Flip chirpily. He wrested the shaving mirror from Dutch’s grasp and angled it over the crown of his head.

Dutch’s eyes bulged. “Gimme that!” He turned it this way and that, craning for a better view and growing increasingly agitated. “Nooooooooo! Nooooooo!”

He ran to the bedroom mirror and angled the shaving mirror, then to the mirror over the mantel in the front room, as if those other mirrors would tell a different story.

“Nooooooo!” he cried in anguish.

Flip collapsed on Dutch’s bed, overcome with amusement, as Dutch stampeded from room to room in the shotgun, looking in every mirror to be found. Horror and desperation transformed his features. Finally, he threw the shaving mirror against the wall and shattered it. This pushed Flip over the edge, and he doubled over, clutching his stomach in laughter.

“Oh, stop, stop. It’s just too rich. Hahahahaha.” He gasped for breath. “That’s bad luck, you know, breaking the mirror. It’ll make your hair fall out all the faster.
Hah
!”

“It’s not funny, you dipshit!” Dutch thundered.

Flip spluttered, “Oh, but it is. It’s hilarious.”

Dutch sat on the side of the bed, his mouth drawn up in a pout. As Flip’s fit of hilarity subsided, Dutch’s mind raced down the heretofore-untraveled roads of Rogaine and hair plugs.

“I wouldn’t laugh if it happened to you.”

“Why? Because a little bald spot would mar my rare and great beauty?”

Dutch narrowed his eyes and gave him
the look
. He hadn’t given Flip
the look
since the hearts-and-flowers thing had been going down.

“Aw, poor baby.” Flip sat beside Dutch on the side of the bed and started fingering the thinning patch. Dutch deepened his pout.

“You know what they say about bald men, don’t you?”

“What?” he said sullenly.

“It’s all that testosterone that they push out of their big, hairy balls into their bloodstream that makes their hair fall out. They say that they’re half hard in their pants all the time, and that the slick drips out of them constantly as they walk around.”

“You fuckwad.”

“They say a bald man can’t go commando because he’d embarrass himself and spend a fortune on dry cleaning in the process.” Flip lowered his voice to innuendo. “They say that bald men have to change their underpants three times a day. They say that they walk around with an invisible thought bubble over their heads, and in that bubble is a willing pussy or a lubed hole, as the case may be.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“They say that their sex drives are in high gear every hour of the day, and when the lust hits, they’ll do it right in the middle of the street. They say that if a bald man really wants you, he’ll run after you and hold you down. They say he’ll make you suck it before he sticks it in you. Hard. And they can fuck for hours. They say that when a bald man finally comes, he’ll leave you raw but satisfied, and dripping out a gallon of spooge.”

“You little shit!” Dutch lunged at him. Flip dodged and ran around the bed, with Dutch hard on his heels. “When I catch you, I’m gonna fuck you from here to Mississippi to Alabama and straight into Florida! I’m gonna fuck you into next month!”

Flip threw himself on the bed and cocked his knee seductively, offering a partial view. “Okay, then. Take that hole, Baldy! Hard! Spit it up good and then make me feel it! Fuck me like I stole something!”

Dutch looked at him with a gleam in his eye. “
Yeah
.
Talk
that talk!” He momentarily forgot all about his balding patch.

The leopard had found his spots. And he was taking those spots to LSU, not Harvard.
Because of me. He’s staying to be with me, even though he won’t say it.
As Dutch entered him, Flip sought his mouth and opened for Dutch’s tongue.

In the afterglow, Flip spooned Dutch and nuzzled his ear. “Dutch?” he whispered. “Next blowjob?”

“Yeah?”

“Make me swallow it.”

Chapter 54

E
ACH
HAD
brought a coach to the television studio. Both coaches had done their best to prepare their fledglings for their shot at fame, and both coaches hoped to advance their causes—education reform and environmental activism—through their less-than-polished tutees. Each coach was equally dubious and nervous as Lotte and Elwood were being prepped in makeup for their star turn on
An Early Morning Cuppa N.O.
Actually, they were sympathetic to each other’s cause.

“Oh, God. I’m so nervous. God knows what will come out of Lotte’s mouth,” said Gaia.

“Elwood’s a loose cannon too. But look at it this way: even if they bomb, they haven’t done any harm,” Special Ed told her, not believing his own words.

She nodded but secretly she felt that, given the persistence of climate change skeptics, Lotte could perhaps single-handedly set the movement back ten years.

But it was beyond their help. Special Ed and Gaia looked at the monitor, which would soon display their TV-powdered wards. They reached for each other’s hands.

“Break a leg, Special Ed.”

“You too, Gaia.”

T
ERRI
M
OSS
had ambitions. Behind the plump, attractive, and motherly exterior lurked a steel-trap mind. Unlike her female peers in the industry, she had no ambition to do hard news. Recipes, gardens, and decorating tips were fine by her. But she was ambitious nonetheless. She was frustrated by her backwater venue and longed for national exposure. She viewed every guest as an opportunity to propel herself into the national limelight. And here were two. They held little promise, it was true. But she’d gleaned a fact. They were cousins. And, if her infallible instincts were correct, they hated each other.
Conflict is always good.

“Good morning! Welcome back to
An Early Morning Cuppa N.O.
Today, on ‘Around the Town,’ we’re featuring Gretna, a fifteen-minute stone’s throw from downtown New Orleans. And, as our special guests can tell you, it’s all happening there. Welcome to Escalonia Lotte LaNasa and Elwood Robichoux, longtime Gretna residents. How are you this mornin’?”

Elwood and Lotte looked at the camera, as they had been instructed to do. Both froze, suddenly victims of stage fright. Every word rehearsed beforehand with Gaia and Ed flew straight out of their heads.

At least they’re good-looking. A hunk and a tasty cougar.
Still, Terri held out little hope. They were as stiff as stone.

“Escalonia is quite the local celebrity, as is Elwood. Let’s show some clips. Fellas, please?”

There was Professa Wailin’ Elwood doing his “sebben-kick-sebben-in-the-behin’” multiplication chant, among others, and there was Lotte, graciously accepting the plaque and ribbon for her stuffed artichokes, with a scowling Elwood in the background standing beside his overlooked headcheese. Then there was a shot of the “LaNasa—Keeping the Green in Greengrocer since 1937” sign. Elwood and Lotte relaxed as the clips were played.

“I believe you’re cousins. Is that right?”

“Oh. Wunst remove’,” sniffed Lotte.

“Yeah, remove’,” said Elwood, icily.

“Elwood is doing wonderful work with children, don’t you agree, Escalonia?”

“Always good to edjicate,” Lotte admitted. “But if it was me, I wouldana said ‘behin’.’ Ain’t dignify. Send out the wrong message to our yout’.”

Elwood forgot all about the camera. “What wrong wit’ behin’? If it so wrong, why you jes’ say it on telebbision, for all the worl’ to hear? Ain’t nothin’ wrong wit’ behin’. Ain’t dis screen behin’ us? An’, by the way, why dis screen green?” Elwood accused. “Shouldana it be showin’ the Café Du Monde, or the streetcar, or Lee Coicle? What wit’ dat?”

“Yes!” Lotte agreed. “Where the Café Du Monde, an’ dem udder scenes?”

Terri Moss knew when to speak and when to hold her tongue. She interrupted smoothly now. “You entered the cook-off too, didn’t you Elwood? I believe your entry was….”

“Headcheese.”

Lotte sniffed. “People nowadays don’t wan’ no headcheese. Berlin’ up a pig’s head? Dey disgusted by dat.”

“What wrong wit’ headcheese? It good! Also! Know all ’bout your Eye-talian beef, what won the prize a few year ago. Ain’t nothin’ but tongue!”

In the back room, in front of the monitor, Special Ed and Gaia put their heads in their hands.

Lotte shot daggers at Elwood. Her vacuumed-sealed portions of Italian beef would no longer fly off the refrigerated shelves. But she could not contradict him.

“Still,” Elwood softened his stance, “tongue good. The ol’ ways, the ol’ dishes, dey goin’ away,” he lamented.

“You too right, cuzzin,” echoed Lotte in sympathy. In something, at least, the cousins were in solidarity.

Terri knew when to keep quiet.

“You gotta keep up wit’ the times,” Lotte suggested. “Nobody eat headcheese nowadays, though it good. Artichoke—dat dey eat.”

“Headcheese take t’ree days! Artichoke take two hours!” raged Elwood. “I shoulda won fair an’ square!”

Again, Terri knew when to maintain silence. These two were good.

“An’ enudder thing! Dat artichoke receipt? Stole straight from Pizzalotta’s.”

In their Gretna shotgun, Dutch relished Elwood’s TV debut. “Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“Poor Elwood,” said Flip. “He looks like he’s going to lose it right in front of everybody.”

Eunice and Thelma Pizzalotta were sipping their early morning coffee. Unlike Lotte, they dripped water through a chicory blend in their cafetière. Lotte used only pure coffee. Devotées of
An Early Morning Cuppa N.O.
, they pricked up their ears in interest.

“But I hadda secret ingredient!”

“Dat nothin’ but the t’ree peppers,” protested Elwood. “White for bite, black for heat, red for boin. Oldes’ trick in the book. You rob from Pizzalotta!”

Terri reconsidered her opinion. These two were television
gold
.

Eunice and Thelma Pizzalotta were enjoying this tremendously. Fortunately for Lotte, they were not litigious. Their motto: “A lady gets her name in the paper only three times: when she’s born, when she’s married, and when she dies.” They would rather die than bring a lawsuit and had no intention of taking Lotte on. She looked exceptionally fierce when she glared at her cousin. They tsked at each other.