Tagalong by William Clifford

     At the only occupied booth an elderly couple sat whispering things about me. They did their whispering the way old people did most everything: conspicuously. So don’t think I’m some kind of Sam Spade or something. I mean, from where I was sitting, they might as well have been using a bull horn. And the attention had started the second I walked in to the place, wide grins and eyes that followed my every step to the bar, as if a second before my entrance an announcement had been made: Ladies and Gentlemen, The President of the United States. Then came the whispering. They droned this and that’s while they sat on the same side of the booth staring at me like old folks stare at at The Web on a computer screen: with a thrill and disbelief that such a thing actually exists. I squirmed on my bar stool. I wasn’t even facing them -- but I could feel them.

     I had planned on starting my week stint at The Sunshine Inn by blowing a sizable portion of my summer savings at the ideally barren hotel bar,“Happy Daze”, but the not-so-sneaky chitter-chatter was really unnerving. Well, I figured, I can just as easily drink Heinekens in room 313 as I can here -- watch HBO instead of the ocean while wondering if I made a mistake by enrolling in Grad School right after college (to start in three weeks at Pepperdine, right down the road) so, so what.

     “Check, please.”

     “Oh, hi. Actually, I was just about to tell you, Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy just asked if they could buy you a drink.”

     The barmaid (“BUNNY”, according to her stitched-on name tag) was about my age and had mentioned something about me looking a little bit like Edvard Munch pre-mustache, so I figured she had a good brain, and gave her the are-you-serious eyebrows. (Not to mention she was dynamite looking in that impossibly pretty beach-girl way: strawberry blond hair, a few freckles down a ski-jump nose, green eyes as vibrant and inviting as a couple of senseimillia nickel bags. And she had a body that told you she surfed.) Anyway, she surpassed my expectations by giving me the subtle, but unmistakable,what-the-hell-a-drink’s-a-drink eyebrows. Not bad, this Bunny.

     Now, this is not the way stranger-bought-drinks usually transpire in lonely bars, but, still, I played into it like a beach comber looking to score.

     So, I look over my shoulder the way a driver looks over his shoulder at an accident on the turnpike: am I really doing this?

     And there they were, boy. The McCarthy’s: grinning like a couple of wax figures; sagging, tanned skin; white hair for her, none for him; American built dentures. The Mister gave a come-on-over wave. Like an idiot, I looked back toward the bar in hope that he was gesturing to someone else, but there was no one else.      Bunny put a Bud (what else, right?) in front of me. I picked it up, turned back to the table, and politely raised the bottle. The Mister gave another wave, a bit more emphatically this time. They wanted me over there. I took a deep breath, a last look at Bunny (feeling like I did when I was six years old, getting on the bus for the first day of first grade, with a helpless, pleading look for mommy that said...I don’t want to go, can’t I stay with you forever?), and acquiesced.

     “Thank you very much. Ma’am. Sir.”

     “Not at all, young man.”

     “No, that’s right. Not at all, son...hell.”

     I sat across from them and drank up appreciatively in hopes of placating their need to keep flashing their horror-movie gums at me(the McCarthy’s Polident needed a work out). It didn’t work. They sure were happy.

     “Well good goddamn it!”

     The old man said (yelled) this, and then we all three sat there sucking on our beers looking like some Norman Rockwell in hell painting. Done drinking, they stared at me. I stared at my almost empty Bud and concentrated on the smell of the place: beer, fishy sea-air, Oil of Olay.

     “Goddamn it, indeed. 71 years of age and would you look here at this. It’s like them sheep, wouldn’t you say, Peg?”

     “Yes, Gil.”

     He shook his head and started (rather maniacally) laughing and slapping his own knee like some possessed caller of square dances. The woman, Peg, started tittering and rubbing Gil’s big forearm, so hell, I finished the Bud and just started laughing too. Bunny suddenly appeared with three fresh Buds, set them down, knowingly, softly chuckling.

     So, there we were, Bunny back behind the bar, Gil, Peg and myself, all laughing our heads off, rocking back and forth, looking from face to face to make sure we were in, whatever it was we were in, together.

     Great, I figured, old folks, just a little batty with age (not to mention the Buds -- Peg, the trouper, was half way through her newly arrived brew). They were probably happy to buy a youngster some drinks, probably going to tell me stories about falling in love back when things were simple or something. Well, I was down here to clear my head anyway, what better way than to listen to a twighlight-of-their-life couple spin some yarns -- snap me out of my self-pitying, worrywart crap (that is, my college girlfriend gone abroad; my dorm friends who would probably become strangers; one dorm friend in particular who had already become something else, something far worse than a stranger...though that is a different story; you know, all the little things that mean a lot). Maybe the Mister and Misses here would lend me a little perspective: laugh, laugh, laugh because, hey, you’re alive!

     “So”, I giggled, “where are you two kids from?”

     Whereupon Peg burst into wild, nearly iridescent tears.

     Gil turned pale and Peg garbled something completely unintelligible to which Gil said, “I know, I know.”

     Bunny came running over (with three more beers, the God send) and helped Peg out of the booth. With her arm around Peg, Bunny walked her slowly into the Ladies Room.

     “Sorry about that, son, you see, Christ -- we didn’t even get your name.”

     “Uh, Stuart, Sir. Is Mrs. McCarthy going to-”

     “Stu, lemme explain. Peg’s an emotional person. You see, so her crying jag is no prob-lay-mo. Just pictures in her head. Bunny’ll clear things up. Women understand such matters.”

     “But-”

     “Right-o, Stu. You see, we got a boy ‘bout your age, whaddaya, 27, 28?”

     “Actually, 23. I just graduated and --”

     “Right, so our boy and you, well...” He inhaled for what seemed like an hour. Gil was a stout man. “Well you’re the spittin’ goddamn image. I still can’t get over it.”

     “Oh, “ I said, only a little relieved, still a bit foggy. “That’s really...great, I guess. So, where is your son? What did you say his name is?”

     “I didn’t, Stu. And that’s because the little tagalong fairy is dead to us.”

     He lifted and drank his entire Bud in one long, methodical drink. When he finished, he slowly put the bottle on the table, his hand still gripping it (withered, giant hands; white hairs by his red knuckles; thin, blue veins -- exactly: red, white and blue). He stared at the bottle unblinkingly (cataracts, spiderweb wrinkles) and gave a short, derisive snort.

     “Dead as dirt.”

     “Right as rain!”

     Peg materialized. Gil stood to let her in. She looked like she had just come from a health spa. I think it was at that exact moment -- seeing Peg so cheerful and rejuvenated -- that I suspected I might be falling in love with Bunny.

     “So, did Gil fill you in on...Timmy? Tim?”

     “Uhhh....sort of.”

     “I gave him the skinny low down. Boys name is Stu, hon’. Stu, I’m going to ask you a question and I want you give it me straight. Straight, get it, Peg?”

     In lieu of answering, Peg drank her Bud.

     “We got a deal, Stu? Hey, Stu, you need another? We run a tab down here. Been coming down here for thirty years, if you can believe that.”

     “Gil, maybe the boy doesn’t want another one.”

     “Peg, he’s young, that’s all they do is drink! Hell. Right, son!?”

     With a surprising quickness Gil smacked me on the shoulder. He hit me so hard I dropped the empty Bud I was holding. It clanked and spun across the table.

     “See, looky there, empty. Honey!”

     Bunny came over with three Buds. Gil was whispering in Peg’s ear. Maybe that’s just how they talked.

     “You seem to be having fun,” Bunny said to me, and then she went back to the bar. I watched her go.

     When I turned back, Gil was mugging at me with an inane, dirty-old-man leer. I immediately regretted looking at Bunny’s ass. Actually, I always hated when I saw guys do that stuff.

     One time (actually, the last time) I had dinner with my parents: two years ago, my sophomore year, at a Thai place near my university. My dad decided to start checking out our waitress -- in front of my mom. Fuck it, in front of me! Mom pretended not to notice, which only made me twice as embarrassed, twice as furious. I went to the restroom for ten whole minutes (I know because I sat behind the locked stall door, belt buckled, looking at my watch, trying to determine how many minutes it would take to indicate a sort of punishment -- I came up with ten). After I emerged, I didn’t give my dad a word or a look all night. Later on, when they dropped me off at my dorm, my dad said, “so, why’s our book-thumper suddenly so tongue tied, sport?” In the murky lights of the parking lot I just looked at him, letting him know that I was old enough to notice his looks, and to understand that those looks meant to touch, and had before. I think we all felt ashamed. They drove away and got a divorce seven months later. When I started my senior year, I stopped talking to them both.

     But with Bunny, well, there were the beers, and, I don’t know, she had a particularly remarkable ass. Besides, the only wife around here? well, she sure wasn’t mine. So there you go, my actions: rationalized, justified.

     “Fun, fun fun!” chanted Peg. “I want to have nothing but fun. No more crying!”

     She drank her Bud.

     “Hubba, hubba. Huh, Stu?”

     “Uh, yeah, she’s really pretty. So,” I said, wanting to switch gears before Gil said something like “trim” or “tail”, “are you two just down here on vacation?”

     “Hell no,” Gil boomed. “Vacation, that’s richer than a movie star’s cheese cake.”

     “We own, honey,” said (slurred) Peg.

     “Plus a farm up in Fresno. Son, my question is simple: you like a nice piece of tail, right?”

     Whaddaya know.

     “I’m...I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

     “Son, I’m no red-neck, I made a lot of money on Wall Street, met a lot of different men. If I talk like a good old boy, well, that’s what a smart college educated person like yourself would call an affectation. I, in fact, respect diversity.”

     Here Gil sighed and (this is when I started planning my nice-to-meet-you, so-long-now, wow-are-you-two-fucking-insane lines) put his hand on my wrist. “With my death so imminent, I mourn for your entire generation. Today, it’s a bandwagon full of fags. And it’s OKAY, it’s PC, it’s...gay pride? Biological or environmental? Well, Stu, you’re educated, scientists are cloning sheep, doing embryonic stem-cell research, curing AIDS for God’s sake -- and you don’t find the notion of them just not being to identify that one tell-tale gene just a tad dubious? Well, I’ll tell ya: there is no gene. Not from my stock and barrel. It’s total environment, psychological. It’s a fucking pep-talk. Queer nation? Kiddo, you do the math, it’s Hitler all over again. Charisma can blind men to what they really believe, who they really are. I’m not saying hey-ho for violence, I don’t think stringing a fairy to a fence and puttin’ his lights out works. Hey, I propose...nothing. This is a theoretical discussion. For a little peace of mind before the grave. Stu, we lost a son to a used-car salesman; that’s a metaphor, you understand. And our boy got a jalopy, a lemon of a life. Sounds heavy, but it be the truth. A lemon of a life. Sin. Whatever happened to two roads, huh, Stu? And that’s why God sent you, so we can see Tim as a real man, right in front of us for a few Buds, before we go. A healthy, virile man. Timmy, right in front of us”

     Right. Fantastic. Nicely said.

     “Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy...thanks for the drinks. I actually have to...use the men’s room, and then I should be going.”

     I had meant that “men’s room” thing to sound really sarcastic, a real snarky fuck-you from the college kid, but Gil just smashed his huge hand against my shoulder again and winked.

     “You’ve caught on, son.”

     I had no idea what Gil was talking about.

     I stood up and felt my head spin.

     “Honey,” slurred Peg. “You do like girls, right?”

     I put my hands on the table to steady myself -- oh so cool.

     “Sure I do, Mrs. McCarthy.”

     Knocking a couple of bottles over, Peg stood clumsily and grabbed my face. Her hands felt like paper macheÈ. She puckered-up and (swear to God) leaned in to kiss me -- breath like a skunk -- but I backed away (actually, I jerked a Nosferatu-recoil, Peg’s Revlon-Reds my crucifix), causing her to fumble and crash back into the corner with a cross between a scream, and a sigh.

     Gil was working on his beer, looking out the window at the

inky waves, smiling.

     In the bathroom I tried to clear my head. I read the graffiti on the wall: NO MATTER HOW HOT SHE IS, SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, IS SICK OF HER BULLSHIT. I didn’t think the scrawl was funny, but found myself laughing and hoping Gil might hear in case he’d read it too -- why? I pushed open the miniature window which only opened half way because of warping from the salt air. The Pacific blew in: warm, heady breeze. I closed my eyes while I pissed. Soon, the sound of the tide spilling in and sucking out was mingled with my relief, and I felt myself drifting out, out toward Japan with Bunny. We’ll swim naked on the other side of the Pacific, skip shells off the sea’s surface, hold hands and shriek on Space Mountain in Tokyo-DisneyLand. Right, so much for clearing my head. I flushed twice. I went to the sink and splashed water on my face. Right. Quick exit. Last goodbyes to the the Homophobic American Gothic, a casual, maybe I’ll see ya later tonight to Bunny. (Come to think of it, what the hell time was it, anyway? 11-ish? What day?)

     I opened the door and Happy Daze was gone. Pupils all haywire. I wondered for a second if I accidentally walked into a broom closet. But then I saw a silhouette moving in the shadows, a red neon HAPPY DAZE burning in reverse at the far end of the bar, and heard a voice, low; sweet: “Hey, thought you got lost. Mom and Dad are gone. The doors are locked. Can I get you a real drink?”

     Bunny stood still. I wavered over.

                         *     *     *

     “Do you know what difference is between a tributary and an estuary?”

     Before I could answer she purred a “shhhh” and produced a bottle. A tall, black bottle.

     “Tributary” she said, pouring two big shots.

     Flicking open a Zippo, she bent the hardware to our drinks where they caught fire: blue flame licked the rims of our glasses. Pier lights bounced off the water. The exit sign glowed beside us, violet light spilling across the beige carpeting.

     “Estuary, “ she said. Her jaw went slack as if a dentist had just asked her to say “ahhh”. I saw silver fillings in the back of her mouth. She took the ember-orange tip in her mouth and swallowed.

     So, we were flirting.

     “So, what the hell was going on with those two?”

     We were on our third shot of whatever Bunny was pouring. Sitting close together on two wicker chairs on the closed patio, the bottle on a table between us, we were talking.

     “They’re here all the time. I told her that if she still loved her son, it didn’t matter.”

     “...What didn’t matter?”

     Bunny looked at me and smiled. Her cheeks ballooned out red and sweet like bazooka bubbles.

     “Do you want me to kiss you?”

     I looked up at her (up? wait a second, how did that happen? me at her feet, worshiping her), and smiled.

     “I’d love...” I tried to think of something clever to say about estuaries and tributaries and kissing and sharing spit and the roar of the Pacific behind us, but there she was with her boozy breath breathing down my throat, burning my tongue, getting me instantly erect so that I almost flipped over backward like some side-show Rubber-Boy. Slow, still kisses. My head was reaching up, and I could feel my pulse pounding against my neck.

     And then (just like that but probably hours later) we were in water.

     Even now, months after, the end of this story seems present tense. I can’t make it history. Every day, it happens again.

     Seaweed snarls around my toes. Bunny pulls at my hamstrings. The tide sucks out each time I push so I sink deeper with each thrust. Like digging a hole in the sand, a little more falls in each time I dig. Her hair looks black now; it mingles with the water and California sky. Fat moon, big winds. I like women. I like Bunny. A five-footer breaks and foams in my drums; I dig; she scratches my back and I feel sand and dirt beneath her fingernails (eggshell blue); someone is yelling; a few hundred yards south, down around Santa Monica, I notice either fireflies playing tag, or, more likely, the floating cigarette embers of flanneled locals and slickered foreigners who are casting off into moonlight so their families won’t starve, and more likely than that, it’s just buzzed swirlies behind my squeezed shut lids; still, I think about the Santa Monica fishermen and imagine being a family man -- a real stand-up guy with eyes for no one but my Bunny; I imagine this while Bunny and I fuck on the beach; I dig; Bunny loves me; I know it; we’ll marry and divorce will be a never-heard-of word; I want to come right here in the waves so it rips out to nowhere and is swallowed by a thousand fish, impregnate the globe, the planet, the fishies in the sea (you betcha I like women -- grampa, old hag); I see Peg’s horrible mouth coming toward me, I bite down hard, I strike something; no bandwagon full of fags here, just Superman, baby; I dig; Bunny, Bunny...

     She’s suddenly grabbing my cock which is about to explode; she’s screaming under midnight; I feel like I’m spiraling into greatness.

     “STOP! DO YOU FUCKING SPEAK ENGLISH? YOU WERE HURTING ME! FOR THE MILLIONTH FUCKING TIME -- STOP!”

     I swallow a mouthful of black salt water. I cough, gag sick, sweet booze, reach for Bunny’s hips, get an ankle kick in the mouth, something crunches, my thick tongue searches, hoping to find Bunny’s ocean soaked vagina, but instead -- slick gum. My tooth is gone. Kicked it right out. Blood. Now she’s on top of me. Blood spills from her mouth too. I’m naked. Feels warm.

     “Do you like that, motherfucker?” She snatches my scrotum and forces her middle finger perilously close to my anus. “Oh yeah, ohhhhh yeaaah!” She is writhing painfully atop my stomach, and I suddenly realize I’m extremely, woozily drunk. She clamps a bony hand around my neck. “Jesus Christ. So much for sweet college kids. Whaddaya, some fucking psycho? I told Gil you were cute and we’d chit-chat, maybe make out, maybe even more, but I wasn’t really in the mood to get fucking raped. Creep.”

     “They, they planned this...?”

     “Like you didn’t know. Shape up, pal. They see us, wanna play matchmaker, you’re cute, I’m cute, we both know it, who cares? No one gets hurt. They get a false sense of pride and we swap spit, maybe get lucky and maybe even get along.”

     “You’re telling me you..?” I said.

     “Please.” She laughs. “Don’t try pulling out a bag of morals, ‘cause you sold those for a few gay-bashing Buds. Right? What? did Gil give you the tagalong speech? So what? You smile so you don’t throw up and still feel kinda sorry for the fucker ‘cause you know it’s evil, and you know it’s bullshit. But you fuck it up because you know what? despite your crafty smart-boy smirk at their table, you inherently believed in Gil’s pathetic schpiel. And you know why? and here my big speech will end.”

     She stands up, naked. Her small breasts are wet and stained and goosebumped under the moonlight. I want to wash the blood from them, kiss it away, and beg forgiveness for something I can’t believe I did. But did do.

     She crouches down near my ear and hisses, “Because you’re susceptible.”

     She stands up again and kicks some sand in my face.

     The water laps at my toes. Vertiginously, I watch Bunny stride back to the bar, pull on her bikini, fumble with something...disappear. The neon yields to empty tubes.

“Happy Daze” is gone. I miss her instantly.

     An airplane speeds across the sky, probably LAX to Tokyo -- then I hear a rush, a soar, and hold my breath as a wave crashes over me. Under the humming surf, I try to believe I am good.