Good Timing

Billy parks the clunker he has borrowed from his buddy outside the Night Owl, back end to the wall, just in case he has to hit the road in a hurry. Billy doesn' t shy away from trouble but he has been around long enough to understand that there is no need to make things harder than they have to be.

He sits at the darkest corner of the bar with his back to the wall and waits for the waitress to come by. There is no chance that his parole officer is going to see him in this joint; the place is too low life for such an upright citizen to show his ugly face here. The waitress comes by and he orders a Bud. Nice ass.

Through the smoke from other patrons and his own he keeps a watch on the bar counter. An old hag with bad hair is tending bar tonight. There is a big black dude cracking jokes and a few other losers sitting at the bar, laughing, probably the regulars ' cause they look too relaxed, like if they were watching TV in their living rooms and scratching their balls. Billy cannot relax. His jail mindset still runs through him, the natural mistrust of anybody and everybody. Even at the halfway house he sleeps with an eye open.

Where is that bitch, Debbie? he asks himself. His info is good. The ex works at this joint. Billy wants to talk to her, wants to get laid. The fact that she got a divorce after his conviction means nothing to him. It is up to him to decide when she has had enough of him, not the other way around. What was the little one-legged cunt thinking? Does she believe she can just dump him like a dried up dog turd and watch him crumble into dust and be blown away by the breeze?Fuck her. He came to get what was his.

His beer is gone and no Debbie yet. The nice ass waitress stops by his table.

"Another one?" she asks when she picks his empty.

"Is Debbie working tonight?"

"No. She' s off."

"Oh," says Billy. "I don' t need another one. I better hit the road."

"You know her?"

"Sure I do," he says. His smile is more of a sneer. "She knows me too."

Nice Ass says nothing. She can feel that the guy is up to no good, and she is happy when his back disappears through the door. She makes a mental note to tell Debbie, just in case he' s some wacko but by tomorrow she won' t remember to tell her anything.

The bastard left a dime for a tip.

Doubts

Dr. D' Angelo, the shrink, seems like a smart lady and I say that because I think that she is getting the idea that my relationship with Helen is hopeless. Sure, she has talked to both of us one on one and together, probing, advising, and doing the things she is supposed to, but I' m sure we are not fooling her. The patient is way past dead and no amount of cajoling and science is gonna resuscitate the corpse. The doc got the signal and I think she is waiting for the right time to tell us that we fools don' t belong together.

Helen and I are going through the exercises that are supposed to heal our marriage, but I know Helen is doing it half ass and I' m not too far behind. I would like to make a better effort but Helen doesn' t seem to care; yet, she won' t talk about divorce. What the hell does she want from me? Am I supposed to stay by her side like some sort of wooden Indian, lip tight and expressionless but always there to…to what? I don' t get it, and I think that Dr. D' Angelo is trying to get to the bottom of the same puzzle.

I also think it is time to call it quits but I don' t want to give up without at least trying, but simulating that we are when we are not doesn' t do anybody any good. Helen and I still watch TV on opposite ends of the couch, nary a word between us, and I continue to sleep alone in the guest room.

We are not fooling anybody but ourselves. Perhaps even Helen knows that there is no hope and I' m the only one dumb enough to stay in the field holding a pair of pom-poms after the game is over and lost, the ball, the players and the spectators gone. What a pathetic figure I must make standing by myself.

Nasty Surprise

Debbie is running a few glasses through the sink: dip, scrub, rinse, dry, on the shelf upside down. She is drifting into the sounds of tinkling glasses and water dripping between her arms and the anonymous conversation behind her and cannot hear the voice calling to her on the other side of the counter.

“ Yo! Debbie!” the voice says aloud. There is a hint of lost patience in it.

Debbie turns around drying her hands on a rag and freezes when her eyes connect with the face that had spoken. For a few second she is paralyzed with surprise, a feeling that turns to disgust. Billy is sitting across the counter, smiling like he were king of everything, so full of shit as always. While continuing to dry her hands Debbie tries to figure out how in hell she ended up marrying the bastard.

“ Did they let you out or you jumped the fence?” asks Debbie with a hard voice. No dimples for Billy.

“ I’ m glad you’ re so fucking happy to see me.” He sneers.

“ I’ m not. I divorced your ass, remember?”

“ Yeah, what’ s up with that?”

It is Debbie time to reciprocate with a smile of scorn. “ You almost got me involved in your mess. I don’ t need that kind of shit… and I don’ t need you.”

Billy’ s angry eyes try to bring Debbie down a notch or two but they fail. She is staring right back at him. Billy now knows that Debbie is not buying his bullshit anymore; he has lost his power over her. But he is going to try to reassert his control on her, not because he cares for Debbie, or needs her, but because the cunt is too uppity and needs to be taught a thing or two.

“ Give me a beer, ” says Billy in a commanding tone. Debbie points to a sign behind her, under the jar of pig feet, the one that says that the bar can refuse service to anyone at any time. “ Besides, ” she adds, “ if you ain’ t a escapee then you’ re on parole and shouldn’ t be drinking anyway.”

Billy leans over the counter. “ Give me a fucking beer, now.” His eyes are ablaze.

“ Fuck you Billy, I ain’ t your wife no more, ” says Debbie. The bar has fallen silent and all the eyes are on them. She is scared of the man but she is not showing it. She is tired of running from assholes and she has no intentions of running from this one. The law says she owes him nothing, and it is going to stay that way.

Every time something goes sour with a loser boyfriend she ends up packing up and moving away with her clothes and a handful of cash but this time she has determined that she is not going anywhere. She thought about Billy coming back some day, not this soon though, but someday, and he being the asshole he always was. She had already made her mind not to run away. Fuck that. She was getting too old and tired to move to a new city and start from scratch, and for what? To meet another loser and end up in a bus running away again. Not this time. Billy and his kind can fuck themselves, and she means it. She is scared and she is also mad. She has built herself a little life of her own, a little miserable life, with her two cats and her tiny place and her beat up Geo, but all hers, with nobody sponging off her, using her as a private whore, using her labors to live like bums. This time she is staying put.

Billy reaches across the counter and grabs Debbie by her hair. “ You little shit, ” he says in a low but angry voice. “ Don’ t you talk to me like that, ever.”

Debbie answers by grabbing a bottle of Don Q rum by the neck from below the counter and swinging it against the side of his head. Billy sees it coming, releases Debbie’ s hair and jumps back just in time to see the bottom of the bottle whoosh pass his face. Debbie is standing with the bottle raised over her head.

“ Come on you mother fucker! Try to touch me again, you asshole.” Debbie’ s heart is beating so hard it’ s coming out of her mouth. Her hand and the bottle are shaking but she stands her ground and her eyes are set on Billy who stands on the other side of the counter, aware that the bar regulars are now around him, and they don’ t look like a friendly bunch. He surmises that Debbie must be a popular bar wench. A half crooked smile comes across his lips.