CHAPTER THREE (2)

As Toddy left, still tying his tie walking out the door, the smell of booze and marijuana invaded Squirley’s nostrils like an offensive from an army. He fought back the stench by breathing through his mouth, but it was too overwhelming. He slid off the bed feeling the crunch of the soiled carpet between his toes, and felt suddenly very alone.

Let’s see, no deals today.

His eyes followed a line straight to the Board and, as his first inclination was to sigh at the amount he owed, a thought poured into his head: Collections Day. Every once and a while, there would be a day when he had not one thing in the world to do – no work, no errands, no laundry. On these days, Suirley might find himself glued to the public access station on television, engulfed in a world of horrible acting and explicit opinions. But of those few and precious days, every once in a while – in a long, long, while – Squirley rampaged the city, all parts of the city, in the name of collecting the small amount of debt he was owed. It wasn’t as though he really wanted the money, because the more money he had, the more he’d have to keep from the prying eyes of the banks, thus the sticky fingers of the government. And they were sticky. But what he really enjoyed was the brute he became; a hard, dangerous man.

Squirley pulled on his jeans and reached for a white T-shirt. No, he thought, a wife-beater, it adds a certain statement to the whole get-up: manly yet casual. But, really, manly was the main thing. So he threw the t-shirt with little aim towards the closet (missing horribly) and put on the wife-beater. He slapped his back pockets for wallet and keys, and was at once out the door.

His feet hit the pavement with a harsh thud, thud. It was sweltering and he felt the pavement would sear right through his rubber soles. Something was missing; it was serenely quiet today. Ah, there was no one fighting on the lawn. Too hot. He dashed towards his 1989 black Chrysler LeBaron in escape from the smoltering sun.

The car had been through a few raumatic events in its life. The taillights were suspect, only admitting their age. They had been yellowed over by years without the shelter of a garage. Though the paint job was still holding strong, it was betrayed by knicks and dings here and there, each one he remembered with vivid detail their birth. Oh yes, 1993, road trip to Alabama with his brother Nate. That was a doosey, quite a fender-bender. There still remained some of the gold paint from the Buick he crashed into at that mysterious red-light in that one hick town –what was it’s name, again? And then the time when Toddy and he were fleeing from a bar downtown after effectively peeing beneath the bar itself and onto the tools, then proceeding to crush salted peanuts into the pools below their innocent feet, all the while the bar man articled some marital issues he’d been having with the wif-ee in the most demoralizing and licentious way. Another employee of course noted the fact within ten seconds of them having relieved themselves, and chased them out of the bar into the street. Squirley remembered Toddy pulling out his wine key (as they had just gotten off a miserable Saturday double-shift) and producing the harmless blunt knife for loosening the wine bottle seals. “Watch out, mistah, I’m armed!” Toddy yelled at the furious employee. The man threw full cans of Bud Light at the duo and yelled expletive after expletive. One of the Bud Light cans hit the passenger door.