Like Grownups Do (13 page)

“Mr. Jordan, don’t you leave town before letting us know. We’ll throw a party,” Leo said.

“Damn right, we will. Now you’re talking, Leo,” Lewis said.

“You’re on. Thanks, boys. I’m going to miss you all. You are family,” Jordan said.

Babe looked up as the front door opened. Millie and Bradley walked in. Millie wore a pink tinted Patriots jersey, and her hair was piled casually on the top of her head. She pulled Bradley behind her like she was dragging a toddler to a dental checkup. Bradley seemed to be offended by the surroundings—he looked around the room like he was trying to locate the source of a bad smell. He was dressed in his ever present professor outfit complete with a black and gold checked sweater vest. This earned him a few boos and hisses. He was totally oblivious to the fact that he was sporting the colors of the rival team from Pittsburgh. Millie looked around, bouncing on her toes until she spotted Babe waving.

“Hi, Babe. Hi, Jordan. You two know Bradley. Hello, Mr. Englemann. It’s been a long time, sir,” Millie said, extending her hand to Jack.

Jack stood slowly, buttoning his jacket as he did so—a move that Bradley acknowledged with a flare of the nostrils and narrowing of the eyes.

“Very nice to see you again, Millicent.’ He offered his hand to Bradley.

“Pleased to meet you. Jack Englemann.”

“Bradley Weyner.”

Jordan kicked Babe underneath the table.

“You two are welcome to bring in a couple of chairs if you like. The boys keep extras in the back,” Jack said.

“No, thank you,“ Bradley said, too quickly to be tactful, “I have reserved a booth.”

“Nice to meet you, Bradley.” Jack said. “Enjoy the game.”

“Gentlemen,” Bradley said, nodding.

Millie looked deflated as Bradley dragged her away.

“I told Babe about makeover day with MG,” Jack said to Jordan.

Jordan laughed.

“You finally gave that one up? You made me promise on my mother to never tell that story.”

Jack took a long swallow of Samuel Adams.

“Well, you know what? What the hell is so precious about us anyway, Jordan? Twenty years from now nobody will give a flying purple dick about the Boston SAC being afraid of a ninety nine pound hairdresser.”

“You’re absolutely right, Jack. Nothing is that fucking precious. So, tell him about Mary Alice,” Jordan said.

Jack slammed the bottle down.

“Goddammit, Jordan. Do you never forget anything? That’s it. I’ve had quite enough of you. I’m having you transferred to Washington.”

He pulled the bottle to his lips and winked at Babe.

Jordan leaned forward and put his elbows on the table.

“Come on, Jack. Please? I want to hear it again, myself.” He looked at Babe. “This one is right up there with Esteban.”

Jack began.

“Well, you know, I grew up in rural eastern Ohio—nothing around but these little farming towns. All the kids went to these little tiny schools through junior high and then there was a collective high school. Most kids rode the busses. So, right after the start of my freshman year, I saw these posters around the school advertising a hayride on the Saturday before Halloween. The hay wagon would leave the school grounds a little before dark, ride around for an hour or so and then the school busses would take everybody home around eight o’clock. Sounded like fun to me. Remember, I was just a country boy.

“Over the next couple of weeks some kids kept telling me that this girl, Mary Alice Briggman, wanted me to ask her to be my date on the hayride. I didn’t know anything about dating, and I didn’t know if I needed a date to go on the hayride or not. Like most country bumpkin farm boys I was too backward to ask anybody. But I sure wanted to go on that hayride. So I asked Mary Alice to go with me. And she said ‘yes’.”

“So, we’re sitting next to each other on this flatbed trailer covered with hay being pulled around by a John Deere. It was getting dark. Mary Alice leaned over and whispered in my ear ‘Do you like me, Jack?’ I said, ‘Sure, I like you, Mary Alice.’ She says’ Will you kiss me?’ So I kissed her. It was really nice. She laid her head down on my shoulder. I thought to myself, ‘Hey, this is easier than I thought.’ The next thing I know she’s sliding her hand under the blanket, right on my crotch.”

Jordan threw back his head and howled. This garnered a few looks from the rest of the crowd.

“Keep going, keep going. Sorry, Jack.” Jordan said.

He punched Babe on the arm.

“This is good shit.”

Jack leaned in a little more, knowing that Jordan had blown some of their cover.

“So Mary Alice is…you know. I’m sitting there—probably looking like I had shit my pants. I was too scared to jump, or scream, or do anything that might make her stop. We didn’t say a word for the rest of the hayride. And of course we rode the same bus home. She sat beside me, put her coat across my lap, and did the same thing until we got to her house. She got up and said ‘Good night, Jack’, and I couldn’t even talk. I just stared at her.”

“Stop,stop,stop, Jack. Wait. I gotta pee. Wait,” Jordan said, scrambling to his feet and heading for the men’s room.

“Damn, Jack. You should write a book or something. A memoir, maybe,” Babe said.

Jordan slid back in at the table with another round of beers.

“What I should do is start telling stories on this damn gorilla,” Jack said.

“Don’t forget, I know where all the bodies are buried, Time-Out Jack,” Jordan said with a wink.

“Wait,” Babe said. “Time-Out Jack? What is—”

“Don’t listen to a thing this overgrown orangutan says,” Jack interrupted.

“Wait, I thought I was a gorilla,” Jordan said. “You’ve left me in a state of primate confusion, Jack.”

“That’s the same state I found you in years ago, you mutated chimpanzee,” Jack said.

Jack briefly gave Jordan a cold stare before he went on.

“I figured that Mary Alice was my girlfriend now, and I was able to pry enough information from some of the older boys about what to do next. I tried everything I could think of to get in Mary Alice’s pants but it just wasn’t happening. And she wasn’t kidding about it either. I mean, there was no way. I never got further than the consolation prize.”

“Consolation prize?” Babe asked. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what’s that?”

“Yeah, Jack? What are you talking about?” Jordan said.

“Mary Alice’s parents tried many times to have a son but they stopped at five daughters—five daughters who grew up on their father’s little dairy farm. And sometimes the milking machines would break down…”

Jordan had been waiting for this line and he almost fell off his chair. Babe was holding his side and laughing, hoping that Lewis and Leo were not getting ready to ask them to leave.

Jordan tried hard to regain his composure.

“But, Jack. Jack. Pray tell, why haven’t you ever looked up Mary Alice? Because she’s married?”

“No, because she’s Mother Superior Sister Mary Alice, that’s why. Asshole.”

Jordan had his head down on his arm on top of the table while Babe held both hands over his mouth.

“And every night Mary Alice prays, ‘Thank you Lord, for making Bill Clinton the President’.”

Jordan and Babe ran for the front door.

Babe and Jordan walked back in shortly after kickoff to a few odd stares. They made it to halftime without further incident.

The crowd lined up at the bar and the restrooms at the beginning of halftime. Millie walked up to Babe and whispered, “Bradley wants to leave. He’s being an asshole and he won’t shut up about Jack’s gun and he’s practically demanding that I tell him about… about work. I’m not going with him. Will you help make sure I get a cab?”

“Sure, Mil. If that’s what you want.”

Babe watched Millie walk back to the booth. She sat down and leaned over to speak to Bradley. They argued visibly for a few minutes and then Bradley stormed to his feet. He shot an angry glace toward Babe and his friends. He turned and walked out.

Millie continued to sit hunched over the table. She stared at the floor for a few moments. She slowly lifted her eyes and Babe looked away quickly. When he turned back, Millie was smiling at him. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders.

Babe waved Millie over as he stood and asked the group at a nearby table for a spare chair. As Babe held the chair for Millie he looked toward Jack and Jordan and put a finger to his lips.

Jordan recognized the situation, and Jack had a pretty good guess. There were no uncomfortable moments because as soon as Millie sat down, the Patriot’s return man fumbled the opening kickoff of the second half and gave the Steelers the ball on the New England four yard line. All four at the table leapt to their feet along with almost everyone in the room. Heard above the groans and outrage of the crowd was Millie’s yell.

“You bone-headed
bastard
. Jesus.”

The game was close for the remainder of four quarters. The Patriots pulled off a win four minutes into overtime amid a wall of cheers from the crowd at Momma’s. A birthday party consisting of a dozen college boys had pushed three tables together before the game and they were drinking heavily. They looked to be a group of preppies from old money and they were feeling no pain. One of them stood up and yelled.

“Fuckin’ ‘A’! Shots for the house.”

Shot glasses of tequila were distributed around the room. Babe noticed several of the college party glancing toward Millie. When a waiter reached their table he sat a shot glass in front of each of them, except for Millie. He placed five shot glasses in front of her. She caught the eye of a few of the birthday party boys and nodded toward them as she raised a shot glass and knocked it back. The dozen boys stood and gave her a standing ovation, to which she gave a mock bow. She threw back one more shot and crossed her eyes. She pushed the other three shots in front of the men at her table.

Millie fanned her reddening face and excused herself. She had an audience as she sashayed toward the ladies’ room.

Lewis and Leo opened up the jukebox for the next hour. The jukebox was stocked primarily with classic rock.

The opening notes of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” filled the room as Millie exited the lady’s room. She was still flush from the tequila shots and had removed her Patriots jersey, which she held in one of her hands above her head. She danced her way back to the table with her hair down. She had stripped down to an Alabama tank top, which appeared to be a size too small and exposed her perfect midsection.

Halfway to the table there was a loud crash followed by a second of silence and then raucous laughter. Leo had caught sight of Millie as he carried a tray full of empty bottles and glasses toward the bar, and he lost his balance. Millie turned toward the crash to see Leo smiling at her. She blew him a kiss and continued dancing back to the table. A half-dozen employees helped Leo with the mess. They teased him mercilessly and Leo became as red as the Crimson Tide.

The crowd thinned out by midnight and Jack was the first to announce the need to be coherent in the morning. Babe thought that Millie would have been willing to help close down the bar. Jordan was staying over at Jack’s for the night, as he always did when they were drinking.

There was only one taxi at the nearby stand. Millie and Babe insisted that Jack and Jordan take the first trip since Jack’s condo was close by.

Babe sat down on the bench as the taxi pulled away. He rolled his head on his neck and exhaled as he looked up into the night sky.

“Thank you so much, Babe” Millie said, “That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

“You’re most welcome, Millie. I hope it doesn’t always take a fight with Bradley for you to have a good time.”

He was sorry he had said that as soon as the words left his mouth.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Millie. That is absolutely none of my business.”

“No, you’re right. It isn’t working. You know, I dated nothing but dumbass jocks the whole time I lived in Alabama—like it was part of the State Constitution or something. You’re a cheerleader, you date jocks, you got it, Sister? After I moved here, I wanted to change everything. I told myself that someone like Bradley was what I needed.

“Do you know what most of my girlfriends are doing right now? They’re married to ex-jocks or divorced from ex-jocks and they’re squirting out little quarterbacks and cheerleaders right and left— getting fat, chain smoking, and listening to Mr. Wonder-stud relive his glory years. I thought I could remake myself—become a big-city girl with some class. But I guess you can’t take the ‘hick’ out of the ‘chick’.”

“You don’t need to change anything, Millie. You’re great. You need to lighten up on yourself,” Babe said.

“You’re sweet, Babe,” Millie said.

She sat down with her hands shoved into her coat pockets.

“Bradley has been interviewing with the Sierra club and Greenpeace, and all of
those
people. He wants to be a lobbyist. I’m not surprised that he hates teaching. He fucking hates
everything.
He organized a student club for his political science students last year. He should have called it The Hate Club because that’s all it is. He gets more radical by the day. Every time he interviews for these lobbying positions he gets angrier. I think he scares them.”