Steve
the EX-QUEEN of FW~!
The low lighting of Armani Restaurant's main dining room sets the tone for a quiet, romantic atmosphere. Shadows dance playfully across the cream colored walls, their sources of inspiration sitting at rectangular tables scattered across the restaurant. Candleabras sit on the tables, bearing witnesses to dozens of intimate conversations between sharply dressed men and stunning women.
Towards the back of the restaurant in a quiet, secluded corner sits Lindsay Troy. A goblet of deep, rich, red wine sits in front of her. It appears to be untouched. Lindsay’s curly trendrils cascade down her shoulders, a black caged-back dress hugs her body tightly, as her eyes dart around the restaurant, never settling in the same place for more than a moment.
The seat next to her is empty.
Troy checks her watch, and sighs impatiently. His client meeting must be taking longer than expected. He said he shouldn't arrive any later than 9:00.
It's now 9:23.
He's never this late, for anything.
Lindsay rests her chin in her hand, and continues to gaze around the restaurant.
People have to be served.
Romantic evenings are a team effort and often the men and women most responsible go ignored, sans ten percent. Fifteen if the man senses a positive sexual tip-off.
Helpless fools devoted to being seen and not heard are the backbone of a working high society.
Bring a millionaire his chicken and accept your fate.
Take back the pasta because a woman who <i>did</i> finish school never takes the first offering. Don’t show weakness by accepting <b>their</b> best.
It’s a game, and much decides what side you play on.
Joey Melton was used to ignoring the plight of the unclean. It wasn’t his fault they essentially were riding the short bus of life. Opportunity led Melton to the light. Charity to Joey meant destroying free will. Life has a way of sorting the winners and losers out. Why should he break his back pulling another fool up to stand with him? Equality is a myth, one a man who’s bested his challenges dismisses. Melton only tries to control himself. Only a selfish man wins the match.
However, the game has changed.
“Melton!”
Joey, in a white dress shirt, black slacks and bow tie froze in the belly of Armani’s kitchen, surrounded by the other twelve sharing his shift, a resolve for escaping life’s boot print on their ass decreasing as the age gap widened around the room.
It was Melton’s third day and already he’d garnered a cult like status. A forty year-old man working his first real job offered golden material on a silver platter. If only appeasing an angry volcano were this easy. A young virgin hasn’t always guaranteed a village’s safety, but a middle-aged man completely out of his element, too arrogant to realize life has been ordered to humble him, is infallible.
John Wilson, a cook at Armani’s for eight years cut his vacation short. The largest ball of twine wasn’t nearly as entertaining as seeing one of their own defiant in the face of adversity.
Melton provided the laughs and bewilderment that each employee bottled up and sold at home for the past three nights. He provided the rare satisfaction of their career choice. They made less than twelve dollars an hour, but paupers are allowed more laughs. Only from the bottom of the tracks can you see the humor in the train’s consistency. Sure, the bodies putting master degrees to good use shared a chuckle or two in the E.R. or courtroom, but only at Armani’s can you see Melton fumbling for his pride. The price is less than twelve an hour. So be it. They’d rather laugh than live.
Who wouldn’t?
“Melton don’t hide behind Carlos! I’m talkin’ to you boy.”
Mitch Carter was a forty-four year-old midget. A father of three who has chain smoked since birth, which indirectly led to him suffering third degree burns to his scalp six years ago when working for a day on the set of the ABC sit-com Sabrina The Teenage Witch.
Melissa Joan Hart is professional and kind.
Carter plead to a lesser count of stalking seven months ago. The case is still pending. Melissa’s kindness, as well it should, knows bounds.
“Jeebus Carter,” Melton looked ahead pulling himself together, “Isabel Sanford called. She wants her voice back.”
Carter smiled. For two long years he’s waited, dreamed, prayed to have Joey Melton at his mercy. A camel clutch in the TokyoDome in front of eighty thousand people ripped a disc in Mitch’s back clean off.
Melton was hung over from the night before and admitted to the grand jury he passed out briefly while the hold was in application.
The midget was awarded $1.2 million dollars.
With it, he quit the business and bought out the previous owner of Armani’s. In this very building ten years ago Carter bedded his future wife inside a cabinet in the men’s bathroom.
His wife’s a risk taker of sorts. Until he met Louise, Mitch questioned if he was truly alive. Armani was special to him. It’s the reason he sued. As the verdict was read, Mitch daydreamed of showing a couple teens around the place as a gray bearded grandfather.
“Kids this is where your Grammy first spoke in tongues at my hands.”
Through mutual friends Carter offered Melton a job. The last three days have been the icing on the cake.
“Careful Joseph.” Carter’s warning failed to mask glee, “Or I’ll rent you out for birthdays and Bar Mitzvahs.”
Joey’s back straightened and his blue eyes narrowed. It wasn’t the safe move, but for under twelve an hour, his peers entranced in a circle neglecting their jobs, suffered so that they might be entertained.
“For old-times sake Mitch,” Joey started, calmly taking a butcher’s knife off the island table, “we should put grilled shrimp back on the menu!”
As the words rode all over Carter, Melton dangled the knife in front of him.
“That’s two hours pay docked right there!”
“What!”
“You want to make it four?”
It’d gotten ugly quick.
Melton paused before giving full value, “Has anyone see Mitch? He gets lost in the shuffle so easily.”
“That’s,” Carter stuck his left hand out in front of his body, pinkie and thumb twirling in the air, “two more! You want to go again?”
Joey smiled.
“Stand up man, when you address humans.”
“That’s six!” cried Mitch, “Wanna try for the rest of the week? I’m gonna have every dollar you earn for the rest of your natural born life!”
Melton shook his head. “And with that I’m taking a break.”
“Break? You’ve hardly worked all day!”
“Please. The job gets done. Like you’ve gotten any complaints about my performance.”
“Hundreds,” retorted Mitch incredulously. “Every table you’ve had!”
“Well,” Melton’s lips curled back slowly as if the curtains were lifting on restructured dimples. “Can’t say I haven’t been a load of laughs.”
Nothing.
The under twelve gang have been spellbound since the first barb. A brother’s job was on the line. They could feel it. What would Melton do next? Entertainment ceases at a fixed point.
“I said you can’t say I haven’t been a lot of laughs.”
Melton laughs again. No response.
“You irritants,” chided Joey as he stormed for the doors. “That’s funny and a smart crowd would appreciate it.”
The padded double doors in unison smacked Melton’s rear as he stormed out, telepathically acting on Carter’s behalf.
Joey hung a sharp left oblivious to the sets of hands extending from a round of tables, impatiently waving as if hailing a cab. The drop in Melton’s effort brought on by a break indistinguishable.
Running from the calls of his name, Melton flung himself in a corner booth. After over fifteen years in the business fame no longer got him high. He remembers as a thirty year-old walking out into Thomas Indoor/Outdoor Stadium, roof retracted being hated by one hundred thousand strong. He was the beautiful rare bird on display gracing the ring with his presence, the light emitting from his feathers blinding the haters who booed because they knew nothing better. Joey never held it against them. Ignorance is unfortunate, but constant. One day the unclean would look back, when the hope truly was gone from their lives and remark about the time they, if only for a short while, saw deity shine through a mere man.
The former CSWA World Champion once craved the attention enlightening others brought, but no longer. The bird is weary and sings of a silence that eternally eludes him.
What else do these people want from Joey Melton?
He’s on break. When pressured the brilliance of his colors fade.
Hidden in the booth Melton notices he’s not alone. Calvin Carlton slouches in the moderate darkness where the booth resides and shields the exposed side of his face with his left hand. Calvin, in black golf knickers, white and yellow stripped argyle socks, white shirt, and yellow golf cap pushes sunglasses up against the bridge of his nose; Carlton gently scratches a hideously fake mustache.
“You’ve grown that since this morning?” asked Joey still with the strength to be surprised. “You poor man what your back must look like...”
Carlton’s left hand lowers, the shades slip an inch and Calvin’s eyes dart suspiciously around.
“Wait a minute. You’re <b><i>afraid</b></i> to be seen with me.”
“Keep your voice down. I’m not here,” Carlton instructed, sticking out like a sore thumb. “And <b>NO</b> that’s not it.”
“Carlton this hurts. Why? Because I’m,” Melton chokes on the words. “Because I’m...po...po...”
“<i>Poor!</i>” Carlton finished, “Yes.”
“It’s still me Carlton. Mister Melton!”
“Mister? I’m...”
“What are you not telling me?”
“There’s an emergency club meeting tonight with the board.”
“Beautiful,” Joey exclaimed bouncing a fist off the table, “Finally a token minority we can show to the press to get those civil rights activists off our backs.”
“It’s not that vote.” Melton’s eyebrows rose before Carlton could finish. “It’s about your membership.”
“I’m paid up through the year!”
“It’s the principle.” Carlton stated matter-of-factly, “Joey I’m sorry, but ever since Alison froze your assets, the grass on the course has browned, the fish have stopped biting,” Every bit of it true and Melton knew it, “You know what the common people are. They’re anchors Joey!”
“I’m not a commoner!”
“<b>I</b> know that.”
Carlton suppresses a cough.
“Damn that crazy bitch.”
“The board doesn’t know about her, right?” Carlton was going to fight for his man, “Maybe if you came to the meeting and presented your case.”
“Right Carlton,” Joey rolled his eyes, “The club members want to hear I married into money. Though I guess that’s why I always seemed to migrate to the wives at club functions.”
Melton paused. “Why I keep my body in shape for the enjoyment of others.”
“Everybody makes one martial mistake, the board has shown flexibility in the past.”
“I married her when she was 37 and I was 16,” Joey said desperately, “Had to get permission from my parents.”
Carlton shrieked, jumping back into the wall of the booth.
“Your Momma let you go early?”
“She was happy to get rid of me. It just meant she could board another sailor in my room. After sixteen years her exact words were, ‘I could use the break.’”
Carlton didn’t like seeing Joey vulnerable. He’s seen a hero weakened in front of his very eyes. No man should have to endure that sort of pain. Not even the poor.
“Carlton you have to understand. Growing up I had nothing,” the two obviously role-playing, Joey the victim of his parents lack of ambition, and Carlton the Club’s Board Of Directors, “I used to come to joints like Armani’s and sulk. While the other kids my age were hitting a ball, I was near the rich, face smearing the glass as I vicariously existed.”
“How long did you go without money?”
“Until I was sixteen.”
“Did you,” Carlton’s voice trailed off he hated asking but knew Dexter Thorton head of the board would, “Rob a bank on horseback?”
“No. That’s frowned on right?”
Carlton shrugs. If not it well should be.
“I married,” Joey’s heart jumped, “Into money, sir.”
“Gah!”
“What?”
Carlton clapped his hands together. “We’re done here. Membership revoked.”
“Carlton!”
“You wanted honesty right?...”
“...Let me finish, I’ll get stronger as we go on.”
Carlton sighed, the truth was his revoke had nothing to do with honesty. Calvin was simply terrified of being recognized, and the longer he stayed...
“Tell me about the dame.”
“Thank you sir,” said Melton struggling to regroup, “Alison was a self-made real estate multi-millionaire whose right foot was three inches shorter than the left, and she was born with a tail.”
“Sweet mother,” gasped Carlton, shaking with the sort of fear he hadn’t felt since watching Poltergeist 2 as a boy. “I don’t want to hear anymore. Get out! <i>Get</I> out!”
“I started work for my Uncle’s Pool Cleaning service the summer I met her. Decent work,” Melton stopped upon seeing Carlton’s disproval, “Horrible work. Out in the sun, shoveling dirt and taking a short lunch like I was some sort of animal!”
Calvin nodded. This might have a chance after all.
“You serviced her pool, yes? Tell me about the estate.”
“Very nice. Screamed Hollywood Hills. We were hired in late May. I loved the grounds. Just being there I felt complete. Like I had been elevated from society and would rather kill than go back down.”
“Your wife, tell me about her.”
“Distant at first. Then,” Joey laughed, “The requests started to come in.”
“Requests?” a puzzled Carlton asked.
“Our key was taken away. To gain entrance we had to climb over the security fence, but only at even hours!”
“So if you arrived at two to three,” he asked but knew the answer.
“We had two minutes to scale, otherwise we waited an hour.”
“Was this type of behavior typical?”
“Oh yes.”
“Let’s describe your wife’s behavior.”
“Odd. Distant. Childlike.”
“Why do you think she acted as such?”
“Alison didn’t trust people,” reasoned Joey speaking as dramatically as he could to win Carlton over, “Having a wicked limp since childhood played on her, and growing up with a tail made matters worse. She withdrew. Her family moved quite a bit in an effort to find peace.”
“Do you think that’s why she became interested in real estate?”
“Beyond a doubt. Moving as she did gave Alison a good look at how to handicap location. How to size up neighbors instantly. Which ones will snicker behind your back, which ones will bring dinner over out of pity, and which ones can be taken advantage of.”
“Did her behavior towards you and your uncle get more eccentric?”
“Yes. Six weeks into the job she asked that only I stay and clean. Alison was very controlling. Having no control over others made her more controlling by nature.”
“You worked alone then.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When did the relationship turn sexual?”
“For a month she paid me extra to float in the pool on a raft for an hour. She just wanted to sit on the side and chuck rocks over my head.”
“Ah ha!” Carlton jumped out of his seat. Momma assured him he was sharp, “She liked making you feel like the freak.”
“Never thought of it like that. Interesting.”
“Moving along...”
“On a Thursday afternoon I scaled the fence and discovered a trail of Reeces Pieces leading to an unlocked door at the back of the house,” Melton recounted, his voice becoming deeper. “I went inside and the trail followed upstairs into her bedroom.”
“You went in?”
“Yes.”
“What did you find?”
“She was suspended over her bed on a swing covered in Chocolate.”
“Gah!”
“She said, ‘Did you taste the others?’ I said I had not...”
“...’You may taste some of it off me now.’”
“Gah!”
“I wanted to run,” the former 7-time CSWA IC champ said, “I was scared as hell.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you—“
“Yes. Like a pair of horny goats.”
“Gah!”
“She unearthed a side of me I didn’t know existed,” as he spoke Melton dabbed the sweat off his forehead with a napkin. “Three weeks later she proposed.”
“And?”
“With my parents blessing I accepted.”
“Gah!”
“I loved the freakishness of it all, but better was the limos, the estate, and a Swedish nanny to help me breast feed.”
“Um.”
“She may not have been Swedish.”
“Okay.”
“How could I have not said yes? Having tasted life the way it was meant to be lived, I couldn’t go back home.”
“Was it a healthy marriage?”
“As healthy as any other I suppose. She loved pretending she was an animal. I used to walk her around on a leash for thirty minutes a day. Alison always told me humans never should have evolved. From her perspective can you blame her?”
“Why did the marriage end? It lasted four years correct?”
“That’s right. I couldn’t say why. I just know one day she went to the zoo and snapped. Climbed in with the monkeys and wouldn’t come back out”
“That’s almost romantic in a sense.”
“It’s disgusting,” he corrected Calvin, “The woman was a sexual deviant and a lunatic.”
“So noted.”
“I was concerned for her though. For the first six months I went to see her at Green Valley, but she wasn’t coming back.”
“Green Valley?”
“Home for the mentally deranged.”
“Gah!”
“With her in the nutter as her husband I gained control of the fortune. I said my goodbyes, sold the business, and went on my way.”
“But now...”
“She’s back,” Joey warned his voice losing steam, “Sane and out of Green Valley. She’s frozen my assets and is accusing me of adultery!”
Melton sighed in disbelief.
“Can you believe that?”
“If you prick them, do they not bleed?”
“I can’t get into my accounts. She’s gone for twenty years and thinks she can come back just like that. I’m basically penniless.”
“Stop! You stop that right <B>NOW</B>.”
“It’s true Carlton. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have your cards <i>denied</i> to have ATM machines laugh in you face. I have access to nothing!”
“What about the millions made during your career?”
“In the accounts. Until I can get a lawyer to take the case, I’m screwed.”
“You get paid now!”
“Not much. I don’t have a CSWA contract,” Carlton waved Joey off refusing to hear more, “Merritt doesn’t want me there. I work on a show-to-show basis.”
“NFW?”
“Have they given out checks yet? I can make more here.”
“You’ve got to have something. What about that two thousand dollars Randalls gave you last weekend.”
“Damn reservation casinos.”
“You blew through that?”
“Don’t make it sound worse than it is. I was up two-hundred thousand at one point.”
“What happened?”
“Drugs, booze, hookers. It’s Mike’s fault. I had this sweet piece of Choshu, half native American, quarter Irish, half Mexican, and a quarter Swedish.”
“Huh?”
“Anyway I popped this bag Mike gave me that was just supposed to restrict my blood flow. A male orgasm without ejaculation is my quest, like the French Open was to Sampras. I mention it in passing one day and Randalls starts taunting me like he can make it happen in his sleep.”
“I don’t like Randalls and Momma doesn’t either.”
“I’m out ten hours and when I wake up I’m in a corner of the room, left big toe in my mouth, and having double vision. Hell Carlton I thought I was seeing two worlds at once. Off by the bed my late Gram was trying on my boxers and singing commercial jingles.”
“Gram. Was she?”
“Yeah. Nobody really talks about her.”
Carlton had never considered whether being Melton’s shrink was a good thing before. He was company. As a kid Momma had to pay kids to interact with Calvin. With Melton he only had to kiss up a smidge, but the two shared a connection. A frightening thought for both.
“I think I’m still cross-eyed,” Melton leaned across the table, “See for yourself.”
With the lighting it was hard to tell. If Melton’s eyes were off center, there was good reason. Carlton shrugged only half looking. The truth, sometimes, better left unsaid.
“Anyway. I got cleaned out. Somewhere in the reservation there’s a hybrid with golden drapes hanging off the windows of her shanty.”
“Are you going to tell Mike?”
“No. No. I need a break from him,” said Melton stretching his neck, “He thinks what’s happened to me is teaching me honor, and humility. He’s on a weird bonding kick of late.”
“Bond---“
“--ing, not –age you ass. Bonding. Like we can relate better now. The man scares the hell out of me.”
“I would ask Momma but,” Calvin’s suggestion tapered off, “We don’t believe in handouts. So many dishonest people out there.”
“I understand.”
“All of our charity work is done through the Carlton Foundation. Allows a tax write-off.”
“Naturally,” the two stooges nod respectively, “Good move.”
“I’ve got to find something though. You bring the paper?”
“Yeah.”
Carlton pulls out a paper, thumbs through world events, and a recount of another Bonds homer before laying out the classifieds.
“Evening janitorial services, high school education required...”
“Move on,” Melton instructed then breathed deeply, “Got to be something better.”
“Secretary...” Joseph could type, “If it’s anything like the movie.
Melton devilishly smiles. “Maybe.”
“Computer Eng—“
“No.”
“Here’s one!”
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“Could be good,” Joey theorized winking at an eager Carlton, “I’m in shape. Wonder about rooftop jumping though. Lot of ‘leaping in single bounds’ I bet.”
“Assuredly.”
“Highlight.”
Carlton pulls a marker out and highlights the ad.
“What I need is someone to pay my expenses, follow me around on tour, get the mail, buy breakfast, lunch and dinner, and agree to a good amount of healthy sexual tension.”
Carlton thought briefly.
“You mean a pimp.”
“Shush.”
Carlton frantically ducks under the table as an overweight white male approaches, his two meaty hands balled into fists prop against the table for leverage.
“I don’t know what your problem is but you haven’t been to our table in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty-five by my watch,” Carlton offered from shelter.
“Tonight’s my wife’s birthday and she specifically desired to come here for the bread alone! I would link Armani’s would treat returning customers a wee bit better.”
“Look man,” Joey said coolly, “The last thing that woman needs is more bread. The dozen loafs she had on her twenty-first birthday are still stuck on her.”
“Excuse me?,” the enormous weight of the man edged closer to Joey’s smug face, “How dare you!”
“How dare I? It’s time somebody dared. She’s a biscuit away from heart failure and you’re busting my chops for more bread. Is there an insurance pay off you’re not clueing me in on?”
“What? I’m going to get the manager right now!”
“Yeah. Take your ass back to the table I’ll be with you shortly, and I’ll have filtered water with me. Eight pints a day is a start. Ease up on the carbs, and flush the residue fat out, that’s what Momma always says right Cal.”
“You’re going to wish you never said that!”
Wrapped around a leg of the table Carlton watches the man’s thighs, the size of Calvin’s body alone, tremor off towards the kitchen. He counts to ten before sitting back up.
“Irritants.”
“You keep saying that word,” spoke Cal with a thick accent, “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Disgustedly Joey looks off Carlton, his eyes drunkenly scanning the dining room. So his life had come to this.
Melton’s look ceased to wander on a dime, and he bolted out of the booth, a charming fool having spotted prey.
“This is too good to be true.”
“What?”
Towards the back of the restaurant in a quiet, secluded corner sits Lindsay Troy. A goblet of deep, rich, red wine sits in front of her. It appears to be untouched. Lindsay’s curly trendrils cascade down her shoulders, a black caged-back dress hugs her body tightly, as her eyes dart around the restaurant, never settling in the same place for more than a moment.
The seat next to her is empty.
Troy checks her watch, and sighs impatiently. His client meeting must be taking longer than expected. He said he shouldn't arrive any later than 9:00.
It's now 9:23.
He's never this late, for anything.
Lindsay rests her chin in her hand, and continues to gaze around the restaurant.
People have to be served.
Romantic evenings are a team effort and often the men and women most responsible go ignored, sans ten percent. Fifteen if the man senses a positive sexual tip-off.
Helpless fools devoted to being seen and not heard are the backbone of a working high society.
Bring a millionaire his chicken and accept your fate.
Take back the pasta because a woman who <i>did</i> finish school never takes the first offering. Don’t show weakness by accepting <b>their</b> best.
It’s a game, and much decides what side you play on.
Joey Melton was used to ignoring the plight of the unclean. It wasn’t his fault they essentially were riding the short bus of life. Opportunity led Melton to the light. Charity to Joey meant destroying free will. Life has a way of sorting the winners and losers out. Why should he break his back pulling another fool up to stand with him? Equality is a myth, one a man who’s bested his challenges dismisses. Melton only tries to control himself. Only a selfish man wins the match.
However, the game has changed.
“Melton!”
Joey, in a white dress shirt, black slacks and bow tie froze in the belly of Armani’s kitchen, surrounded by the other twelve sharing his shift, a resolve for escaping life’s boot print on their ass decreasing as the age gap widened around the room.
It was Melton’s third day and already he’d garnered a cult like status. A forty year-old man working his first real job offered golden material on a silver platter. If only appeasing an angry volcano were this easy. A young virgin hasn’t always guaranteed a village’s safety, but a middle-aged man completely out of his element, too arrogant to realize life has been ordered to humble him, is infallible.
John Wilson, a cook at Armani’s for eight years cut his vacation short. The largest ball of twine wasn’t nearly as entertaining as seeing one of their own defiant in the face of adversity.
Melton provided the laughs and bewilderment that each employee bottled up and sold at home for the past three nights. He provided the rare satisfaction of their career choice. They made less than twelve dollars an hour, but paupers are allowed more laughs. Only from the bottom of the tracks can you see the humor in the train’s consistency. Sure, the bodies putting master degrees to good use shared a chuckle or two in the E.R. or courtroom, but only at Armani’s can you see Melton fumbling for his pride. The price is less than twelve an hour. So be it. They’d rather laugh than live.
Who wouldn’t?
“Melton don’t hide behind Carlos! I’m talkin’ to you boy.”
Mitch Carter was a forty-four year-old midget. A father of three who has chain smoked since birth, which indirectly led to him suffering third degree burns to his scalp six years ago when working for a day on the set of the ABC sit-com Sabrina The Teenage Witch.
Melissa Joan Hart is professional and kind.
Carter plead to a lesser count of stalking seven months ago. The case is still pending. Melissa’s kindness, as well it should, knows bounds.
“Jeebus Carter,” Melton looked ahead pulling himself together, “Isabel Sanford called. She wants her voice back.”
Carter smiled. For two long years he’s waited, dreamed, prayed to have Joey Melton at his mercy. A camel clutch in the TokyoDome in front of eighty thousand people ripped a disc in Mitch’s back clean off.
Melton was hung over from the night before and admitted to the grand jury he passed out briefly while the hold was in application.
The midget was awarded $1.2 million dollars.
With it, he quit the business and bought out the previous owner of Armani’s. In this very building ten years ago Carter bedded his future wife inside a cabinet in the men’s bathroom.
His wife’s a risk taker of sorts. Until he met Louise, Mitch questioned if he was truly alive. Armani was special to him. It’s the reason he sued. As the verdict was read, Mitch daydreamed of showing a couple teens around the place as a gray bearded grandfather.
“Kids this is where your Grammy first spoke in tongues at my hands.”
Through mutual friends Carter offered Melton a job. The last three days have been the icing on the cake.
“Careful Joseph.” Carter’s warning failed to mask glee, “Or I’ll rent you out for birthdays and Bar Mitzvahs.”
Joey’s back straightened and his blue eyes narrowed. It wasn’t the safe move, but for under twelve an hour, his peers entranced in a circle neglecting their jobs, suffered so that they might be entertained.
“For old-times sake Mitch,” Joey started, calmly taking a butcher’s knife off the island table, “we should put grilled shrimp back on the menu!”
As the words rode all over Carter, Melton dangled the knife in front of him.
“That’s two hours pay docked right there!”
“What!”
“You want to make it four?”
It’d gotten ugly quick.
Melton paused before giving full value, “Has anyone see Mitch? He gets lost in the shuffle so easily.”
“That’s,” Carter stuck his left hand out in front of his body, pinkie and thumb twirling in the air, “two more! You want to go again?”
Joey smiled.
“Stand up man, when you address humans.”
“That’s six!” cried Mitch, “Wanna try for the rest of the week? I’m gonna have every dollar you earn for the rest of your natural born life!”
Melton shook his head. “And with that I’m taking a break.”
“Break? You’ve hardly worked all day!”
“Please. The job gets done. Like you’ve gotten any complaints about my performance.”
“Hundreds,” retorted Mitch incredulously. “Every table you’ve had!”
“Well,” Melton’s lips curled back slowly as if the curtains were lifting on restructured dimples. “Can’t say I haven’t been a load of laughs.”
Nothing.
The under twelve gang have been spellbound since the first barb. A brother’s job was on the line. They could feel it. What would Melton do next? Entertainment ceases at a fixed point.
“I said you can’t say I haven’t been a lot of laughs.”
Melton laughs again. No response.
“You irritants,” chided Joey as he stormed for the doors. “That’s funny and a smart crowd would appreciate it.”
The padded double doors in unison smacked Melton’s rear as he stormed out, telepathically acting on Carter’s behalf.
Joey hung a sharp left oblivious to the sets of hands extending from a round of tables, impatiently waving as if hailing a cab. The drop in Melton’s effort brought on by a break indistinguishable.
Running from the calls of his name, Melton flung himself in a corner booth. After over fifteen years in the business fame no longer got him high. He remembers as a thirty year-old walking out into Thomas Indoor/Outdoor Stadium, roof retracted being hated by one hundred thousand strong. He was the beautiful rare bird on display gracing the ring with his presence, the light emitting from his feathers blinding the haters who booed because they knew nothing better. Joey never held it against them. Ignorance is unfortunate, but constant. One day the unclean would look back, when the hope truly was gone from their lives and remark about the time they, if only for a short while, saw deity shine through a mere man.
The former CSWA World Champion once craved the attention enlightening others brought, but no longer. The bird is weary and sings of a silence that eternally eludes him.
What else do these people want from Joey Melton?
He’s on break. When pressured the brilliance of his colors fade.
Hidden in the booth Melton notices he’s not alone. Calvin Carlton slouches in the moderate darkness where the booth resides and shields the exposed side of his face with his left hand. Calvin, in black golf knickers, white and yellow stripped argyle socks, white shirt, and yellow golf cap pushes sunglasses up against the bridge of his nose; Carlton gently scratches a hideously fake mustache.
“You’ve grown that since this morning?” asked Joey still with the strength to be surprised. “You poor man what your back must look like...”
Carlton’s left hand lowers, the shades slip an inch and Calvin’s eyes dart suspiciously around.
“Wait a minute. You’re <b><i>afraid</b></i> to be seen with me.”
“Keep your voice down. I’m not here,” Carlton instructed, sticking out like a sore thumb. “And <b>NO</b> that’s not it.”
“Carlton this hurts. Why? Because I’m,” Melton chokes on the words. “Because I’m...po...po...”
“<i>Poor!</i>” Carlton finished, “Yes.”
“It’s still me Carlton. Mister Melton!”
“Mister? I’m...”
“What are you not telling me?”
“There’s an emergency club meeting tonight with the board.”
“Beautiful,” Joey exclaimed bouncing a fist off the table, “Finally a token minority we can show to the press to get those civil rights activists off our backs.”
“It’s not that vote.” Melton’s eyebrows rose before Carlton could finish. “It’s about your membership.”
“I’m paid up through the year!”
“It’s the principle.” Carlton stated matter-of-factly, “Joey I’m sorry, but ever since Alison froze your assets, the grass on the course has browned, the fish have stopped biting,” Every bit of it true and Melton knew it, “You know what the common people are. They’re anchors Joey!”
“I’m not a commoner!”
“<b>I</b> know that.”
Carlton suppresses a cough.
“Damn that crazy bitch.”
“The board doesn’t know about her, right?” Carlton was going to fight for his man, “Maybe if you came to the meeting and presented your case.”
“Right Carlton,” Joey rolled his eyes, “The club members want to hear I married into money. Though I guess that’s why I always seemed to migrate to the wives at club functions.”
Melton paused. “Why I keep my body in shape for the enjoyment of others.”
“Everybody makes one martial mistake, the board has shown flexibility in the past.”
“I married her when she was 37 and I was 16,” Joey said desperately, “Had to get permission from my parents.”
Carlton shrieked, jumping back into the wall of the booth.
“Your Momma let you go early?”
“She was happy to get rid of me. It just meant she could board another sailor in my room. After sixteen years her exact words were, ‘I could use the break.’”
Carlton didn’t like seeing Joey vulnerable. He’s seen a hero weakened in front of his very eyes. No man should have to endure that sort of pain. Not even the poor.
“Carlton you have to understand. Growing up I had nothing,” the two obviously role-playing, Joey the victim of his parents lack of ambition, and Carlton the Club’s Board Of Directors, “I used to come to joints like Armani’s and sulk. While the other kids my age were hitting a ball, I was near the rich, face smearing the glass as I vicariously existed.”
“How long did you go without money?”
“Until I was sixteen.”
“Did you,” Carlton’s voice trailed off he hated asking but knew Dexter Thorton head of the board would, “Rob a bank on horseback?”
“No. That’s frowned on right?”
Carlton shrugs. If not it well should be.
“I married,” Joey’s heart jumped, “Into money, sir.”
“Gah!”
“What?”
Carlton clapped his hands together. “We’re done here. Membership revoked.”
“Carlton!”
“You wanted honesty right?...”
“...Let me finish, I’ll get stronger as we go on.”
Carlton sighed, the truth was his revoke had nothing to do with honesty. Calvin was simply terrified of being recognized, and the longer he stayed...
“Tell me about the dame.”
“Thank you sir,” said Melton struggling to regroup, “Alison was a self-made real estate multi-millionaire whose right foot was three inches shorter than the left, and she was born with a tail.”
“Sweet mother,” gasped Carlton, shaking with the sort of fear he hadn’t felt since watching Poltergeist 2 as a boy. “I don’t want to hear anymore. Get out! <i>Get</I> out!”
“I started work for my Uncle’s Pool Cleaning service the summer I met her. Decent work,” Melton stopped upon seeing Carlton’s disproval, “Horrible work. Out in the sun, shoveling dirt and taking a short lunch like I was some sort of animal!”
Calvin nodded. This might have a chance after all.
“You serviced her pool, yes? Tell me about the estate.”
“Very nice. Screamed Hollywood Hills. We were hired in late May. I loved the grounds. Just being there I felt complete. Like I had been elevated from society and would rather kill than go back down.”
“Your wife, tell me about her.”
“Distant at first. Then,” Joey laughed, “The requests started to come in.”
“Requests?” a puzzled Carlton asked.
“Our key was taken away. To gain entrance we had to climb over the security fence, but only at even hours!”
“So if you arrived at two to three,” he asked but knew the answer.
“We had two minutes to scale, otherwise we waited an hour.”
“Was this type of behavior typical?”
“Oh yes.”
“Let’s describe your wife’s behavior.”
“Odd. Distant. Childlike.”
“Why do you think she acted as such?”
“Alison didn’t trust people,” reasoned Joey speaking as dramatically as he could to win Carlton over, “Having a wicked limp since childhood played on her, and growing up with a tail made matters worse. She withdrew. Her family moved quite a bit in an effort to find peace.”
“Do you think that’s why she became interested in real estate?”
“Beyond a doubt. Moving as she did gave Alison a good look at how to handicap location. How to size up neighbors instantly. Which ones will snicker behind your back, which ones will bring dinner over out of pity, and which ones can be taken advantage of.”
“Did her behavior towards you and your uncle get more eccentric?”
“Yes. Six weeks into the job she asked that only I stay and clean. Alison was very controlling. Having no control over others made her more controlling by nature.”
“You worked alone then.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When did the relationship turn sexual?”
“For a month she paid me extra to float in the pool on a raft for an hour. She just wanted to sit on the side and chuck rocks over my head.”
“Ah ha!” Carlton jumped out of his seat. Momma assured him he was sharp, “She liked making you feel like the freak.”
“Never thought of it like that. Interesting.”
“Moving along...”
“On a Thursday afternoon I scaled the fence and discovered a trail of Reeces Pieces leading to an unlocked door at the back of the house,” Melton recounted, his voice becoming deeper. “I went inside and the trail followed upstairs into her bedroom.”
“You went in?”
“Yes.”
“What did you find?”
“She was suspended over her bed on a swing covered in Chocolate.”
“Gah!”
“She said, ‘Did you taste the others?’ I said I had not...”
“...’You may taste some of it off me now.’”
“Gah!”
“I wanted to run,” the former 7-time CSWA IC champ said, “I was scared as hell.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you—“
“Yes. Like a pair of horny goats.”
“Gah!”
“She unearthed a side of me I didn’t know existed,” as he spoke Melton dabbed the sweat off his forehead with a napkin. “Three weeks later she proposed.”
“And?”
“With my parents blessing I accepted.”
“Gah!”
“I loved the freakishness of it all, but better was the limos, the estate, and a Swedish nanny to help me breast feed.”
“Um.”
“She may not have been Swedish.”
“Okay.”
“How could I have not said yes? Having tasted life the way it was meant to be lived, I couldn’t go back home.”
“Was it a healthy marriage?”
“As healthy as any other I suppose. She loved pretending she was an animal. I used to walk her around on a leash for thirty minutes a day. Alison always told me humans never should have evolved. From her perspective can you blame her?”
“Why did the marriage end? It lasted four years correct?”
“That’s right. I couldn’t say why. I just know one day she went to the zoo and snapped. Climbed in with the monkeys and wouldn’t come back out”
“That’s almost romantic in a sense.”
“It’s disgusting,” he corrected Calvin, “The woman was a sexual deviant and a lunatic.”
“So noted.”
“I was concerned for her though. For the first six months I went to see her at Green Valley, but she wasn’t coming back.”
“Green Valley?”
“Home for the mentally deranged.”
“Gah!”
“With her in the nutter as her husband I gained control of the fortune. I said my goodbyes, sold the business, and went on my way.”
“But now...”
“She’s back,” Joey warned his voice losing steam, “Sane and out of Green Valley. She’s frozen my assets and is accusing me of adultery!”
Melton sighed in disbelief.
“Can you believe that?”
“If you prick them, do they not bleed?”
“I can’t get into my accounts. She’s gone for twenty years and thinks she can come back just like that. I’m basically penniless.”
“Stop! You stop that right <B>NOW</B>.”
“It’s true Carlton. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have your cards <i>denied</i> to have ATM machines laugh in you face. I have access to nothing!”
“What about the millions made during your career?”
“In the accounts. Until I can get a lawyer to take the case, I’m screwed.”
“You get paid now!”
“Not much. I don’t have a CSWA contract,” Carlton waved Joey off refusing to hear more, “Merritt doesn’t want me there. I work on a show-to-show basis.”
“NFW?”
“Have they given out checks yet? I can make more here.”
“You’ve got to have something. What about that two thousand dollars Randalls gave you last weekend.”
“Damn reservation casinos.”
“You blew through that?”
“Don’t make it sound worse than it is. I was up two-hundred thousand at one point.”
“What happened?”
“Drugs, booze, hookers. It’s Mike’s fault. I had this sweet piece of Choshu, half native American, quarter Irish, half Mexican, and a quarter Swedish.”
“Huh?”
“Anyway I popped this bag Mike gave me that was just supposed to restrict my blood flow. A male orgasm without ejaculation is my quest, like the French Open was to Sampras. I mention it in passing one day and Randalls starts taunting me like he can make it happen in his sleep.”
“I don’t like Randalls and Momma doesn’t either.”
“I’m out ten hours and when I wake up I’m in a corner of the room, left big toe in my mouth, and having double vision. Hell Carlton I thought I was seeing two worlds at once. Off by the bed my late Gram was trying on my boxers and singing commercial jingles.”
“Gram. Was she?”
“Yeah. Nobody really talks about her.”
Carlton had never considered whether being Melton’s shrink was a good thing before. He was company. As a kid Momma had to pay kids to interact with Calvin. With Melton he only had to kiss up a smidge, but the two shared a connection. A frightening thought for both.
“I think I’m still cross-eyed,” Melton leaned across the table, “See for yourself.”
With the lighting it was hard to tell. If Melton’s eyes were off center, there was good reason. Carlton shrugged only half looking. The truth, sometimes, better left unsaid.
“Anyway. I got cleaned out. Somewhere in the reservation there’s a hybrid with golden drapes hanging off the windows of her shanty.”
“Are you going to tell Mike?”
“No. No. I need a break from him,” said Melton stretching his neck, “He thinks what’s happened to me is teaching me honor, and humility. He’s on a weird bonding kick of late.”
“Bond---“
“--ing, not –age you ass. Bonding. Like we can relate better now. The man scares the hell out of me.”
“I would ask Momma but,” Calvin’s suggestion tapered off, “We don’t believe in handouts. So many dishonest people out there.”
“I understand.”
“All of our charity work is done through the Carlton Foundation. Allows a tax write-off.”
“Naturally,” the two stooges nod respectively, “Good move.”
“I’ve got to find something though. You bring the paper?”
“Yeah.”
Carlton pulls out a paper, thumbs through world events, and a recount of another Bonds homer before laying out the classifieds.
“Evening janitorial services, high school education required...”
“Move on,” Melton instructed then breathed deeply, “Got to be something better.”
“Secretary...” Joseph could type, “If it’s anything like the movie.
Melton devilishly smiles. “Maybe.”
“Computer Eng—“
“No.”
“Here’s one!”
<b>WEAR LONG UNDERWEAR WITH PRIDE
SUPERHERO DESPERATLY NEEDED</b>
<i>Your life in a rut? Do family and friends fail to see the inner strength that lies in you? Afraid of guns? Parents senselessly murdered at the hands of evil doers, yet you’ve spent your life misplacing your revengeful energies? Call now to be a beacon of light and hope for the city! After taking our six-week training class, <b>Heroes For The Twenty-First Century</b> will place you in a high-crime rate city. We offer the soul cleansing that fighting crime brings. Good hours, company car, benefits, and an alias provided. 1-800-891-CAPE. Join the battle today!</I>
“Could be good,” Joey theorized winking at an eager Carlton, “I’m in shape. Wonder about rooftop jumping though. Lot of ‘leaping in single bounds’ I bet.”
“Assuredly.”
“Highlight.”
Carlton pulls a marker out and highlights the ad.
“What I need is someone to pay my expenses, follow me around on tour, get the mail, buy breakfast, lunch and dinner, and agree to a good amount of healthy sexual tension.”
Carlton thought briefly.
“You mean a pimp.”
“Shush.”
Carlton frantically ducks under the table as an overweight white male approaches, his two meaty hands balled into fists prop against the table for leverage.
“I don’t know what your problem is but you haven’t been to our table in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty-five by my watch,” Carlton offered from shelter.
“Tonight’s my wife’s birthday and she specifically desired to come here for the bread alone! I would link Armani’s would treat returning customers a wee bit better.”
“Look man,” Joey said coolly, “The last thing that woman needs is more bread. The dozen loafs she had on her twenty-first birthday are still stuck on her.”
“Excuse me?,” the enormous weight of the man edged closer to Joey’s smug face, “How dare you!”
“How dare I? It’s time somebody dared. She’s a biscuit away from heart failure and you’re busting my chops for more bread. Is there an insurance pay off you’re not clueing me in on?”
“What? I’m going to get the manager right now!”
“Yeah. Take your ass back to the table I’ll be with you shortly, and I’ll have filtered water with me. Eight pints a day is a start. Ease up on the carbs, and flush the residue fat out, that’s what Momma always says right Cal.”
“You’re going to wish you never said that!”
Wrapped around a leg of the table Carlton watches the man’s thighs, the size of Calvin’s body alone, tremor off towards the kitchen. He counts to ten before sitting back up.
“Irritants.”
“You keep saying that word,” spoke Cal with a thick accent, “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Disgustedly Joey looks off Carlton, his eyes drunkenly scanning the dining room. So his life had come to this.
Melton’s look ceased to wander on a dime, and he bolted out of the booth, a charming fool having spotted prey.
“This is too good to be true.”
“What?”
