A J Atwater
Jack Boot, thin as a rail, black hair to his waist, red bandanna on his head, a joint of dank from my stash in his guitar-playing hands, says to me go to the bone, girl. Go to the bone, Quackie.
If I do, Jack Boot, will you go to my lace?
Do me, says Jack Boot. A J Atwater
Jack Boot and I are in bed in my apartment. I have fake mustaches pasted on the floor, walls and ceiling. Chaplins and Zapatas. There’s a black hippie dash got off musthavemustache.com pasted above my vanity mirror. Jack Boot is a man I’ve known for five years, a tall man twice my age. I make a living bringing men to my apartment for nighttime entertainment and I’m an online love compatibility guru in my spare time. But mostly I look for men with mustaches to buy me dinner, lay pipe and pay. Jack Boot and I share in the take.
Last night, I say to Jack Boot, my mark was a used car salesman with a draping Fu Manchu name of Chris I met at the Galactic Bar. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Chester Arthurs on the ceiling or when he opened my Frigidaire after making sweaty with me and found more Chaplins frozen in the freezer.
What was the take? Jack Boot asks.
No take, I say. A J Atwater
He shrivels, a little knot against a long body, the same size of man meat he has on stage. He’s a man stricken with stage fright when his band, Fake Horse, plays at the Galactic. He’s angry at me now, backs away, hair covering his upper body like a cape.
This take was mine, he says. I crawl toward him. He hisses me away.
From under the mattress I draw out a checkered suit coat with gold braiding.
The braiding is real gold, Jack Boot, I say. The car salesman said so. I sent him packing without it last night. Thought you’d like it better than cash.
Jack Boot swings like a long fulcrum in my bed. Then he’s on his hands and knees, a tall hairy spider of a man. He rolls to standing. Puts on the suit coat.
You’re happy as a dinner hoe, I say to Jack Boot.
I’m no dinner hoe, Jack Boot answers, tugging the suit coat around himself, insulted. Lays down. Sticks a joint between his pouting lips, hugs the gold-braided suit coat, his bandanna now tangled red in my sheets. He tokes. I take the joint, toke twice, draw bed covers over my body that’s tall and muscular and usually wears dots, dots of all kinds, dots or spots, long dresses and boots, swirling skirts and lace shirts. One of my arms is tattooed with black dots. I had the tattooist add dashes to connect them. The dots must be connected, I think. I toke. Then Jack Boot and I are pirates on a super highway of purple pavement and lime green trees. Find braided suit coats hanging like fruit. Run from our baby blue convertible with headlights like tilt-a-whirls. Pluck suit coats, put them on in layers. Jack Boot ties his long black hair in a ponytail, then puff he’s a genie. We’re both genies. We jam our bodies against jade green bottles that lay under trees. We jab ourselves at the tiny bottle openings trying to get in. Then, in a whisper, we stretch out like long golden threads and we’re inside. The super highway buckles, trees disappear, hands against glass looking at each other from our bottles. From the dank side of the road, no moon rising, no wishes come true.
No wishes come true, I say out loud the next morning sitting at my acid-green laptop, compatibility guru website open and running. I’m up early with a sliced persimmon and a pomegranate split in two, offering me its seeds.
I say, now here’s a real pair of lovebirds. I turn my head toward Jack Boot. He lights a joint and rolls out of bed as the photos of two tattooed men, Steven and Cleaven, scroll across the screen. Jack Boot looks on. He prefers my place to the world at large. Or the bedroom in his mommy’s Spanish Mission where he still lives ten blocks from my apartment down a poorly-lit Tucson street. His bedroom is black with a mirrored ceiling. When we’re there, he inserts a bony finger into his underwear and hooks himself out for me. His mommy opens the door and looks in at us, a tumbler of Beefeater in one hand and a Pall Mall in the other. She sits on Jack Boot’s black vanity chair and watches as carefully, with curiosity, like she’s studying a pair of dinosaurs. She’s tall as Jack Boot and her black hair is as long. A once-upon-a-time-hippie. Watches us, then goes out quiet as she came, leaves a bag of dank on the dresser. Jack Boot jumps away from me like a gazelle on stilts, his red bandanna against the black of the walls. Flowing, lands, grabs the dank grown crystallized and squat in a dark room with grow lights down the hall. Jack Boot’s mommy has a thriving dank business.
Now Jack Boot watches me at my laptop, crouched on the floor at my side, naked except for his gold-braided suit coat and a joint. I type to Steven, keep up the trim on your mustache and Cleaven will be your partner for life. Neatness and cleanness play a part in the longevity of a relationship, I type as Jack Boot taps a dank, stinking finger with black nail polish on my shoulder. He tokes. Leaves for La-la Land. I crush pomegranate seeds between my teeth, hear a rattle at my apartment door. Who’s at my door knob? I ask.
It’s Chris.
Chris? A J Atwater
The used car salesman.
What do you want? A J Atwater
Let me in, he says.
I go to the door and undo five locks. Peer out. Chris has on a white shirt and a fresh pair of jeans.
I’m here for my checkered suit coat, he says. It was my daddy’s. He was a bit of a dandy, he says.
How did you find me? I ask.
I remember the diner we ate in last night before walking here. I looked for Alice’s Asinine Appetite in the Yellow Pages then looked for your name, Quackie, on mailboxes.
You remember my name, I say, opening the door a little further. I hear Jack Boot murmuring behind me.
I guess names stick with me. Can I get my suit coat?
It’s in use, I say.
Look, I just want my suit coat.
I open the door further and Chris steps inside. I turn toward Jack Boot and Chris looks.
What is it? he asks.
It’s Jack Boot in your suit coat.
Who is Jack Boot?
My boyfriend.
Look, can I just get my suit coat? But he sees the problem.
We could both take an arm and slide it off, he says. He takes the joint from Jack Boot’s lips and sets it on an ashtray edge. There is a spent condom in the ashes.
He pauses when he sees it, draws his hand away.
The condom’s yours, I say, as he breathes in the joint’s vagrant fragrance.
He puts his hand on his forehead. What else did I do last night? he asks.
You kissed frost off my mustache, I say.
He looks at my face, searching. Your mustache?
From the freezer, I say. I put one on for you.
Mustaches in the freezer? Look, I have to get back.
To who? A J Atwater
My wife will ask about the suit coat. My condom? Are you sure?
You fired it there from the bed last night. A mighty shot, I say laying my hand on one of his arms. He looks at my hand then up to my lips. I reach out and shove Jack Boot. He hits the floor, bony behind up, gold-braided suit coat now tight around his body. I open the drawer of my nightstand. Toss Chris a neon orange condom. He catches it.
Look I have to go, he says.
You have to come, I say.
Chris trips over one of Jack Boot’s ankles as he backs away from me. I catch him by his belt, kneel down and unbuckle it. Before I can say Jack Boot, he rolls the condom on.
I like you, he says between his teeth, breathing hard, but you can’t give my suit coat to your boyfriend.
Chris, what’s it like to sell a used Cadillac, I ask, aroused.
It’s a high, he says smoothly, especially with women. I take their money and send them home with leaking power steering fluid under their car and non-existent front brake pads. They come back crying. I say, no warranty.
No warranty here either, I say. This is costing you. I grab his shoulders and stop him.
What are you doing?
Before you come, tell me you’ll enjoy wrestling the suit coat off Jack Boot.
I’ll do anything, he cries out, his Fu Manchu flapping in the air.
I catch one side of the Fu Manchu in my mouth and suck him down gently, like pulling on a man’s tie to bring him to your face. He comes. Suddenly, sits up. Mustache slitters out of the corner of my mouth.
I told my wife I was going out for a pack of cigarettes and a hamburger, he laments, laying back.
I flip the joint up expertly from where it sits on the ashtray edge, light up and offer it to him. He takes a hit, then flaps his arms trying to flail out of my bed.
Hey, he turns to me, what is this stuff?
Dank, I tell him. He takes another hit.
Whee, he says, laying back. Ok, let’s get my suit coat, he says sitting up, putting down the joint and firing the neon orange condom into the ashtray.
Pay up, I say. Chris fishes in his jean’s pockets. Pays, then we stand each side of Jack Boot.
How do we get his arms out?
We roll him, I say, around my apartment until his arms break free. Then you’ll be back with your wife and selling used Cadillacs.
Jack Boot catches up fake mustaches from the floor, a Zapata is stuck under his left eye, when we finally slide the suit coat off. Chris puts on his jeans and white shirt. He slips into the gold-braided suit coat. Hey, he says. Moves his shoulders around. Throws them back. There’s a knock on the door.
My wife, Chris says. He looks wildly around the room for a place to hide.
Closets full, I say, and I unlock the apartment door to her.
To Jack Boot’s mommy holding a small bag of dank.
She surveys the room with her Jack Boot eyes, sees her son on the floor naked except for the Zapata. Examines every inch of him from where she stands.
Chris looks from one to the other. Who are these people? he asks.
This is Jack Boot’s mommy.
Chris put his hand to his forehead as if to wipe away the afternoon. I’m leaving, he says.
Jack Boots mommy tucks her small bag of dank into Chris’s suit coat pocket. Where you headed, sweetmeat? she asks, turning her Jack Boot eyes on him.
The Galactic, Chris says, mesmerized. Jack Boot’s mommy closes the door behind them.
I finish Steven and Cleaven’s compatibility chart. Then I do Jack Boot’s and mine. It doesn’t look good, with Jack Boot’s mommy always watching. I feel a finger tap on my shoulder. A dank, stinking finger with black nail polish.
Where’s my suit coat, Quackie? Jack Boot asks.
The used car salesman name of Chris stopped by for it then left for the Galactic with your mommy who stopped by to watch us.
Why do I have a Zapata stuck under my left eye? he asks.
Chris and I rolled you around on the floor to get his suit coat off.
We’re going to the Galactic to get my suit coat.
I close my acid-green laptop. I’m leaving you, Jack Boot, I say.
He stretches his long tattooed arms into a black t shirt with a Guns and Roses logo. Tightens on his red bandana as if gearing up to get his suit coat back, his jeans fit him like he was born to be wild. He turns to me, the Zapata still under his left eye.
I’m leaving you, Jack Boot, I say, again.
First, let’s go to the Galactic, he says and holds out one hand, watching me with his Jack Boot eyes.
I turn my back, go into the kitchen and throw out frozen Chaplins. Jack Boot watches, then turns and goes out the door. I hear the elevator button pushed. Doors ding and slide open. I step into the hall as the elevator door closes. I see Jack Boot’s Zapata on the wall by the elevator. I picture him removing it from under his left eye and leaving it like a bread crumb trail for me to follow.
