Always Happy Hour: Stories(26)

My boyfriend is hollering from the bedroom—he has to take a piss. I go into the kitchen and look through the cabinets and there’s still nothing, and then I remember the pint of ice cream in the freezer. There’s a lot left but I already picked out all the heath bar chunks so it’s barely worth eating. I take the top off and put the carton in the microwave, slurp it from a big spoon while Bear finds his way back to civilization.

I fall asleep. When I wake up, it’s dark. I like it when this happens. I twist my hair into a bun on top of my head and walk quietly back to the bedroom and open the door.

“You fucking bitch,” he says, without looking at me.

I make like I’m going to walk out and he turns and says, “No—you’re not a bitch, you’re a smart, beautiful woman.” I can’t stand to be called a woman. I’m a girl. I’ll always be a girl. I take the little key and unlock him and he runs to the bathroom and pees for a long time, a heavy stream. Tomorrow is Saturday and we’ll go to the river and drink beer and maybe catch more fish to put in the tank. Some of them will die from shock and then the monster will have a heyday. I think about this and try to get excited. He goes into the kitchen so I follow him in there and kneel on the linoleum. He gags me again and again until I throw up a small pool of sour vanilla. Now he’s happy. Now he will do whatever I want, he says. I want to see my sister. I want to eat Thai food with her at our favorite place where we used to live but I can’t because she’s in the hospital and we don’t live there anymore.

I scoop up the mess with a paper towel and stay on the floor.

“So?” he says, opening a can of Diet Rite. With his other hand, he pets the top of my head.

Second choice would be the drive-in, where I’d fall asleep in his arms before the double feature begins, but then I think about the last time we went to the drive-in, how he had a taillight out and we got pulled over and he wasn’t wearing any underwear so he couldn’t tuck his one-hitter into his crotch like he usually does so he told me to put it in my panties but I refused and we were pushing it back and forth while the policeman was walking toward us and then he shoved it between his ass cheeks at the last second. The cop asked him to get out and the two of them walked around the car to look at the taillight and when he finally got back in, he said, I know not to ever consider your panties again and I said, No, please don’t consider them, and then I had to drink myself out of a panic attack while he laughed and took a single shot of whiskey, like every time he comes back from Murfreesboro with a slab of marijuana in his motorcycle jacket.

“I wonder what Coach is doing,” I say, though I know what Coach is doing—getting drunk on his couch. When he gets really drunk, he’ll spy on his neighbors or hide things from himself around the house. Coach is the only person we hang out with, a bad alcoholic with a cough like he’s dying.

We drive over there with half a bottle of whiskey and a six-pack and he answers the door in his sunglasses.

“Miss Amy,” he says.

“Nice hat,” I say. He’s wearing a cap with a pile of fake shit on the brim. Shithead, it says. I know a girl gave it to him, the fat one he’s having sex with but won’t take out of the house. He makes her park in back so nobody can see her car.

I put my beer in the refrigerator and sit on one of two couches. There are also two televisions. Right now there’s baseball on one and Seinfeld on the other. Coach rolls a joint and they smoke it. This is called a “safety meeting.” They text each other back and forth: safety meeting? safety meeting? because you can’t text things like let’s get together and smoke some dope.

Coach deals three stacks of cards and we take turns tossing them into an upturned cowboy hat under the baseball TV. Whoever lands the most is due a quarter from everybody playing. Except me, I don’t pay. My cards fly everywhere.

“Will you fix me a drink?” Coach asks. This is new. We wait to see what I’ll say. I don’t say anything but I walk over to him and take his empty glass.

“Not too much water,” he says.

I go into the kitchen, which is full of to-go boxes and plastic forks and other things boys have trouble throwing out, and fill his glass almost all the way with whiskey and add a splash of water. He used to drink it with Coke but it exacerbated his psoriasis. His legs are red and scaly and he always wears shorts. It’s an admirable quality, I think, showcasing one’s most glaring defect.

He compliments me on my drink-making skills and we watch Seinfeld without the sound. George, Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer are sitting around a booth at the diner, drinking coffee and not eating. Then Kramer throws up his hands and walks out. Then it’s back to Jerry’s apartment where Jerry is talking on the enormous landline. I think about pizza—I could suggest we order pizza and they’d say okay and it would come and I wouldn’t touch it, or I’d eat five slices and it still wouldn’t be enough.

I smoke because I can and think about what Coach will do when we leave, if the fat girl’ll come over and make him late-night snacks or try to get him off.

There’s a knock at the door. We look at each other and don’t move. Finally, I stand but Coach gets up and puts his arm out like he’s going to take care of it so I sit back down. Of course it’s the fat girl, who I’ve never met, never even seen. All I know is that she does all of the work of a girlfriend but gets none of the reward. He tells her he has company and she asks if she can join us and he says no because he’s busy and she starts crying and then the door closes so we can’t hear what they’re saying.