Switcheroo (18 page)

Chapter
32

“You’ve been following me.  That’s
how you knew I’d end up here, right?” Now I was gaining composure but still
about to hurl.

“Yeah.  Really I was worried about
you.  I knew you’d need help and since I had already interfered I figured there
was no harm in making sure you were okay.”

“Or making an anonymous call to
the cops if I wound up dead?” I wondered.

“Yeah, that too, I guess.”

“Well, I guess I‘m tougher than
you thought.  Now why didn’t you stop them?”

“The big one was really
mean-looking and I’m sure they were packing.  I’ve already done more than I
should and I’ve got a broken arm to show for it.  Just because I have health
insurance doesn’t mean I like to use it. Really, this is the end of the line
for me. I’ll take you home since you’ve got no car.”

“Oh shit, my car is still parked
at Slink’s.” I groaned.

“I wouldn’t worry about that
anymore.  I’m sure it’s gone now,”  Fred said with the smirk of a grade school
tattler.  Then his face softened a little.  Even though I had broken his arm by
tripping him on the metal stairs in Knoxville several days earlier, he still
had some sympathy for me.

“How’s my face?”

“Bad.”

“Any blood?”

“Yeah, and some black and blue
places. What happened?”

“Well, I was drugged with truth
serum and dragged through a smashed truck window and beaten by Partee.”

“Who is Partee?”

“The big guy with the shaved
head.”

“Yeah, he was a real bruiser,”
Fred Smithey winced as he thought about it.  “Come on.  We’ll get you some
trucker vitamins.”

I was afraid to ask what trucker
vitamins were.  I slowly followed Smithey out to his rented Ford without even
acknowledging Wysynski’s drunken plea.

“Hey, you owe me a hundred bucks!”

It turns out that Smithey’s
‘trucker vitamins’ were sold at the Golden Churn Quick Shop.  This one-time
farm store, now sold gas, beer, eggs, firewood, motor oil, toilet paper,
rolling papers, condoms, and corn dogs, which were under a heat lamp.  A lot of
things that the Golden Churn sold were self canceling.   The beer could give
you a hang over, but hot corn dogs, a coke and some Goodies Powder could make
you feel better. Too many corn dogs could give you the trots, but relax, they
sell toilet paper, too.

And, of course, there are the
trucker vitamins.  These are in tiny, single serving plastic bags hanging on a
rack beside a white vase that has roses, wrapped singly, in it.  The flowers
are to patch up anything stupid the beer made you do.  The vitamins are to heal
your mind and body after being doped and beaten by a massive hick.

“How ‘bout a corn dog?” Fred asked
as I paid for an orange sports drink and my pack of eight multicolored vitamins
and trucker uppers.

“No.  You know what I really
need?  Waffle Hut.  Please take me to Waffle Hut.”

“Okay.  But then I gotta head back.”
He was jangling his keys nervously. That was the way he did most things.

Fred Smithey was a walking
contradiction, as Green Day would say.  Is it possible for someone to be skinny
and fat at the same time?  Looking at Fred straight on, his sweater was baggy
and his slacks poorly tailored. From the side he looked like a pencil that had
swallowed a baseball.  That gut had been accumulating over the years.  Stake
out food, donuts, and lack of exercise, coupled with take-out pizza and his
wife’s fried cooking, all added up to a pregnant paunch that would give a
lesser man a slipped disk.

As small as the rest of him was,
his gut touched the Formica table as he leaned back in the booth at Waffle Hut.

“What can I get cha?” said our
sugary southern waitress.

“Coffee,” Smithey said in his
weary tone.

“Me two.  That’s, three in all,” 
I snapped.

The waitress frowned but obliged,
bringing back three cups and putting two in front of me.

“And to eat?”

“This picture,”  Fred pointed at
the menu.

“The same, but with a side of hash
browns.”

“How do you want them hash
browns?” The waitress asked, boredom beginning to harden her syrupy persona.

“How can you make them?”

Now it says right on the menu how
they can make them and a code name for each type of topping. Covered equals
cheese, chunked equals ham, etc. Only someone who’s been living in a van down
by the river would not know this.  I just wanted to hear her say it.

“Well you can get them ten
different ways: Scattered, smothered, slimed, covered, chunked, kinked, inked,
diced, topped, and peppered.”  I could tell she wanted to stab me.

“Just scattered and covered,” I
smiled, satisfied. I drained one of the coffee mugs.

“Inked?” Fred wondered.

“Yeah, for the kids.  They cook
‘em in food coloring.  Hot pink or neon green.  It taps into the whole
gross-out your mom factor. Elementary school kids love it, I’m sure,” I
answered.

“If you knew that, why did you ask
her?”

“I just wanted to hear her say
it.”

Fred just sat quietly and waited
for his food, leaving me to think my thoughts.

I needed something.

The punches to the head, the
sodium pentothal residue and the potent Waffle Hut brew were working me up into
some kind of fit.  The tiredness left me and was replaced with the jittery
bliss of a college mushroom trip, only without the guilt of missed classes.

I usually ran to a woman when I
was feeling like this, but most of the chicks were onto my line of shit these
days.  I tried to decide if Wendy liked me enough to put up with a visit right
now.   Probably not, but I wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Fred, can you drop me off at a
friend’s house after this?”  I said, trying to keep scrambled egg in my mouth.

“Don’t you think you should just
go home? You’ve done enough for one day.”

“Yeah, but there is still a lot
more I could ruin.” I said with resolve and finished my food.

It was getting dark as we headed
out to Fred’s rented car.  I remained quiet on the way over to Wendy
Forsyth’s.  Thinking, wheels turning, formulating idiotic plans.

I glanced in the mirror behind the
sun visor.  Bags under eyes? Check.  Torn tweed coat? Check.  Scratches on face
complete with dried blood? Check.  Bloody bandage on neck? Check.  Irresistible
charm? No where to be found.

I hopped out of the car in front
of Wendy’s.

“Write your cell phone number down
for me,” I told Fred.

“You borrowed my phone and lost
it.”

“Oh, are you in the book in Nashville?”

“Yes, but don’t call me.  I know
you’ll get me in even more trouble.” Fred held up his arm as he said this.

“Sorry, Fred.  I’ll be in touch. I
have an idea for you.”

Fred rolled up his window and
pulled away.  It had gotten dark at some point.  I squinted at my watch but
could not make out the time.  I walked toward Wendy’s door.

Her neat suburban rancher seemed
to glower at me. A sense of dread swelled in me like an undercooked hamburger. 
I needed to think.  I could walk home and not bother Wendy. It was getting late
though and there was a late October chill in the air.

I leaned against her mail box and
thought. Fatigue settled onto me like a summertime fishing buzz.  I fell asleep
for an indeterminate period.  I startled awake to the sound neighborhood dogs
barking.  I straightened my wobbly legs and stood. I reeled, then careened,
then calmed down and just shivered for a minute.

I took a deep breath. A steam
cloud puffed out when I exhaled.  For a moment I thought I smelled a truck
stop.  It was only me though.  The rat poop, brambles, bacon/sausage grease
combined with cigarette smoke and sweat had me smelling ripe.  No turning back
now, I headed down the sidewalk toward Wendy Forsyth‘s house.

I was becoming increasingly
nervous and still questioning myself. Should I even be at Wendy’s place in my
present state? I shook my head trying to clear it. Thoughts rattled like
mismatched, out of tune, wind chimes.

I knocked on the door and Wendy
opened it. She was beautiful, wearing a soft robe with the belt untied.  I
could get just a peek of some sheer, pink fabric showing. I attempted to
straighten up.

“Rust, what you are doing here?” 
She looked at me like I was a stranger. This was a mistake.

“I was in the neighborhood and I
thought I’d…Wait, What I mean is, I have had a horrible day, I lost my car and
I needed to see you. I missed you. Can I come in?”  This sounded desperate,
maybe even whiney, and in a way it was.  I stepped forward.

“You could, but you knocked on the
window.” Wendy frowned, but she still looked cute. I looked down and saw my
Bostonians deep in the dark grass and mulch of her foundation flower bed.  “Go
over to the front door.”

When Wendy opened the door, the
robe was tightly closed and she held herself with hands in her armpits for
warmth.  I knew I had made a mistake.  I needed to get out of here before I
ruined this thing in its infancy.

“Wow, you’re a mess,” she said,
taking a half step back.

“Yeah, and I know I probably don’t
smell too good either.  I think I stepped in something in the yard.”

“What did you step in; a boxer’s
spit bucket?  Well come on in, it’s cold.” Wendy backed out of the way.

After kicking off my shoes on the
porch, I walked into her darkened den and sat down on the rug, leaning back
against the front of her sofa.  Shadows played through the room and Wendy
walked to her rocker and sat down.

“I know I shouldn’t have come, it
was wrong. I wasn’t thinking.”

My mouth hit autopilot and before
I knew it I had regurgitated the whole story of the day. Wendy softened a
little, but was still mad.

“You have the reverse Midas touch
with cars lately, don’t you?” I could just make out her faint smile in the
shadows of the den, but there was still tension.

“Yeah, since I am going to buy my
third car in as many weeks tomorrow.  Listen, I should go.  Can you call me a
cab?”

“Okay, I was gonna ask you to
stay, but I’m not really into sleep-overs when my daughter is here.”

“Yeah, I know,” I held my head in
two shaky hands while Wendy called the taxi company. Could I return to zero any
quicker?

The smart thing would have been to
go home. I have been doing the opposite of smart these days so I didn’t go
home.  I considered going to Orby’s, but I could not face Tammy McHenry after
today’s debacle.

“The Bistro by the Bijou, please,”
I told the driver.

Fatigue won out over worrying and
I dozed off again in the darkness out the cab.  The driver woke me rudely,
addressing me as “dude.”  I paid up with a scowl and hoisted myself to the
sidewalk in front of the Bistro at the Bijou.

The Bistro sat next to the Bijou
Theatre, the lesser of the two downtown theaters.  The much larger, fancier
Tennessee Theatre was a block away and played host to a higher caliber of
entertainment.   The Bijou, by contract, was now up for grabs to the highest
bidder. They featured dance school recitals, low budget plays and concerts of
all sorts.

The Bijou Theater is old and
interesting. Years ago, during a low point in Knoxville’s moral time line, it
was used as an X-rated movie house. The Bistro at the Bijou- the pub that
adjoined the Bijou’s lobby- was once rumored to be a brothel. The floors above,
that supposedly had housed busy harlots, were now converted to small condos lived
in by yuppies who liked the exposed brick and the ghosts of whores in the
two-hundred-year old building.

The Bistro’s bar still featured a
huge oil painting of a reclining nude female with long dark hair and mammoth
breasts.  She would be considered fat by today’s standards, but she was
attractive in a sort of Renaissance way. The artist had posed her outdoors on a
chaise with lush gardens pressing in towards her.

It was this painted woman that I
focused on as I waved silently to the hostess and blinked my way to the bar.  I
sat down at the bar, took my focus away from the painting and put it on Manny
the bartender. He nodded and brought me a Bass Ale, which was not what I
wanted. However, I nodded in thanks to him anyway and he left to fill the
waitress’s orders for drinks in the dining room.  Manny was an ass. He tried to
make each bar patron feel special by having their favorite drink ready for
them. He may never forget a face, but he always gave me a different drink,
sitting it down in front of me with a knowing smile, thinking he had it right. 
I didn’t feel like protesting, or even speaking until I had some alcohol in me.
I had wanted the Guinness.

As I swallowed the cold brew I
could feel my Waffle Hut dinner making its way through my gut. It did this the
way a loose bowling ball would slowly fall down an old wooden staircase.  The
Bass Ale did little to stop its progression. Something would have to give and
soon. Right then Manny returned.

“How you doing, Rust?” Manny
smiled and shook his flap of dark bangs to one side. He leaned across the bar
to talk to me.

“Well, I lost a girl’s truck. She
is gonna be really pissed at me tomorrow,” I wasn’t lying either. Tammy had put
her faith in me. She had even had sex with me on her porch swing. She would be
more than disappointed.

“Dude, that makes two of us. This
girl I just stopped dating, I left her car for dead, and she is beyond pissed.”
Manny raised one eyebrow in a GQ way. “I am between cars, see?  Sharon had this old International Scout or Bronco or something.  Good looking 4X4 with
huge mudders.  Not your normal chick car, but she was a helluva redneck girl. 
She’s going to UT, studying psychology.

“Anyway, she lets me use her car
to make a beer run from a little party we were at in the Fort.  Well, me and
the fellas took the Scout down to the Ag campus mud flats on the way and almost
got it stuck.  I guess really you could say we did get it stuck.  I had it
rocking back and forth trying to get it out and was just starting to get
traction when, whamo! I ran out of gas.  It got real quiet in the bog and we
had to think about what to do. Oh man.” He looked down.