The Sound of Broken Ribs(15)
His name was Paul and there was nothing limp about his handshake.
As he stepped past her on his way to the front door, he clapped her on the ass. Hard. The impact of his flat palm on her ass both frightened and aroused her. Why is that? she wondered. She should have been appalled to have this ugly motherfucker lay so much as an eye on her, much less his entire hand, but here she was wondering what he was packing in his tighty-whities. Because men like Paul didn’t wear boxers, and to be that ugly with that much swagger and confidence spoke of an unmatched sexual prowess in the bedroom.
So, yes, Belinda was scared of Paul. But she also wanted to throw a fuck his way. Part of her—the reasonable side of her—knew that these thoughts stemmed from wanting to get back at Dan for everything he’d done to her. Oh, to see the look on Dan’s face if he ever found out that she’d bedded Paul’s ugly mug the very evening he’d left her. What a sweet revenge that would be.
The last truck to arrive was an old Chevy Luv. Belinda hadn’t seen one since she was a child, and after a good look at who stepped out from behind the steering wheel, she thought that maybe this Luv was the same Luv she remembered.
The man wasn’t just fat, he was planetary. She wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find a moon orbiting him in lazy circles. He wore coveralls that could have moonlighted as a tarp for his truck. The white T-shirt he had on under the coveralls was stained with everything, from mustard and tomato sauce to grape jam and chocolate. She thought that, if a crime lab got ahold of the fat man’s shirt, they’d likely be able to tell Belinda the man’s last week of meals with a hundred percent accuracy.
The steps creaked as he ascended them. The porch gave a bit when he set foot on the same board on which Belinda stood. She felt as if she were standing on a trampoline instead of solid wood. She prayed the boards would hold and not spill the both of them into the porch’s crawlspace.
“Tom,” was all the man said as he passed her, nodding.
“Belinda,” she returned, but he was already inside and she expected he hadn’t heard her.
Once everyone was inside, she grabbed her empty glass, which had held her lemonade, and went in to join the party.
Tony had flipped the coffee table onto the couch cushions to prepare for his guests. Then he set up a card table in the living room and put the dining table’s chairs around it. They could’ve just as easily played at the kitchen table—and, truth be told, he would’ve had more room; especially when Tom’s girth was taken into account—but Mom had never allowed such shenanigans in her kitchen, and, even after her death, Tony respected his mother’s wishes. He’d always been a momma’s boy.
Belinda played hostess, as she had been trained to do from an early age, when Dad used to throw the same kind of poker parties as Tony did nowadays. Belinda recalled clearly how a much younger but no less prideful version of herself had run beers and nuts and pretzels to her old man and his friends. He’d give her a side hug or muss her hair and all her labors would be worth it. This was before she’d started bleeding and growing tits. Before she realized her father was just another man and nowhere near deserving of her respect.
Tom had forgotten a case of Bud in his truck and Tony sent Belinda to fetch it. She ran out and came back with the twenty-four pack of “piss-water”—Tony’s term, not hers—and put it in her brother’s mostly empty freezer to chill. She set the timer on the microwave for thirty minutes so that she wouldn’t forget to check on the Bud. Last thing she wanted was to have the cans explode. Then she’d have to chisel frozen beer from Tony’s fridge and, of course, buy more beer.
She returned to the living room, where she sat on the arm of the couch (she couldn’t sit on the couch because the coffee table was upended on the cushions) and watched The Boys play Texas Hold ‘em. She didn’t understand anything about cards and poker, had no idea what hands or cards beat other hands and cards, but she’d always found people who could play fascinating. Poker seemed to require as much skill and intelligence as chess.
Belinda listened to The Boys bullshit back and forth about tits and ass and who’d fondled or fucked which this week. This was what her mother had always called “Boy Speak”, and any owner of a penis over the age of ten was wont to devolve into the primitive language. “Boy Speak” wasn’t so odd to Belinda, though. She understood it. She felt that if women talked the same way, the world would be an easier place for ladies of all walks of life. In her opinion, what made a woman weak in the eyes of a man was their mousey, timid nature. Men respected strength and bravado and braggadocio. They respected what they understood and feared the unknown. Because women acted differently, were held to a different standard, they were mysterious creatures to men. And men, in all their stunning intellect, did one of two things to life-forms they could not fathom: fucked or killed them. Sometimes, they did both.
The Boys continued on with their talk of sex they hadn’t really had and the newest, silliest pickup lines, which they swore worked a hundred percent of the time, and Belinda soon stopped paying attention. She watched the hands as they were played and tried to discern why three of one card beat two pair, or why four of one kind beat consecutive numbers. The whole thing was mind-numbing, and she thought about going to the guest room to lie down, until Fat Tom finally said something of interest to her.
“You heard about the writer lady who got runned over today?” Fat Tom said as he tossed in a fist full of blue chips.