The Job Pirate

by Brandon Christopher

  “I’m still in,” I snapped. “Very in.”

  I awoke early Saturday morning to a chill in the air and in the stomach. I had spent the prior night recording myself shaving my chest then most of the early morning setting that footage to classical music. I went downstairs to get my customary weekend drive-thru breakfast only to find that my beautiful 23-year-old Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham—a hulking, silver, finned beast of a car—had been molested in the night. Much unlike the previous evening, its windshield now had a thick crack running from the top to the bottom of the glass and the drivers side mirror sat on the asphalt beside the front tire, with its electrical wires splayed out around it like severed arteries. Some weeds and rubble had pooled on the hood. My face grew red and heated, first due to being victimized followed then by pure rage. I scanned the apartment windows around me, hoping to spot the perpetrator peering out at his wrath of destruction below, but saw nothing. Both directions of the street were desolate, quiet; a couple of birds chirping but nothing more. The only person awake at that ungodly hour of 8:20 a.m. was an older man with a gas-powered weed-whacker roaring away the unwanted greens surrounding his lawn. He watched me as I approached with my side mirror in hand. He was my prime—and only—suspect and I was going to make sure he knew it.

  “What’s up?” he asked, letting the weed-whacker idle quietly.

  “Someone busted up my Cadillac’s windshield,” I stated. “Were you weed-whacking over there this morning? Something you want to tell me?”

  He shook his head, frowned his lips, and continued whacking. I pointed back to my car with the hand holding the mirror. “There’s some dirt and grass left on the hood; something you might see if a weed-whacker had been involved.”

  “Whoah, easy, buddy! Don’t make an accusation like that on me. I had nothing to do with your windshield,” he said, very clearly angered by the allegation. He idled the weed-whacker again and turned it upside down so the whirling plastic coils were buzzing between our faces. I thought he was going to use it like a weapon to drive me away, but he instead raised his hand and tapped it against the circular red blur twice, hitting spinning plastic each time. Then he showed me his reddening but uninjured hand.

  “This thing can’t break a windshield! It can’t even break skin!” he clarified. “And my lawn stops right there,” he pointed to the far side of his driveway, which was a good 15 feet from the front of the Cadillac.

  He had two very valid points, but I wasn’t ready to remove him from my list of suspects just yet. I walked back to my Cadillac and assessed the scene of the crime as thoroughly as any CSI agent on television. Just below the center of the enormous crack in the windshield was the point of impact, where a finely shattered indent—about an inch in diameter—told me that it was a blunt instrument that did the damage, and not something with a point.

  I took the side mirror back up to my apartment and doodled some diagrams of my Cadillac’s angled windshield, the street directions, and the most likely trajectory of whatever blunt mystery object hit the glass. I analyzed multiple scenarios, various directions, and numerous theories, but it was nearly impossible with only two dimensions to go on. I needed three dimensions. I needed three dimensions to fully grasp the recoil of the blunt object. What I needed was a crime lab, but all I had was a picnic table that I used as a writing desk.

  It was already early in the afternoon when I thought up the plan to find a plastic car model with the same angled windshield my Cadillac had and run some trajectory tests on that. I drove to a hobby store and found a 1:32 scale model of a 1975 Monte Carlo, with nearly the same type of long, rounded windshield and spent another two hours building it. I probably could have forgone painstakingly gluing the headlights and chrome details on as well as spray-painting it silver just like the Caddy, but I wanted the most factual representation of the incident as possible. Once it dried I set it onto the table then pushed the table up against the window, so I had a crisp, clear view of the actual silver car facing north on the street below and the plastic silver replica facing north on the table right in front of me. I gathered a handful of tiny pebbles and flung them one at a time at the plastic windshield, from every angle. Only one direction provided a clean hit at the center of the windshield then to the driver side mirror, and that was if it was thrown from the passenger side. So I could rule out a drive-by rock thrower. My list of suspects now stood at three: the backseat pipe swinger, the remote-but-still-possible weed-whacking neighbor, and some asshole who just walked by with a big rock and smashed the windshield then the mirror then walked his big rock away.

  Natalie called just as I was about to start testing the drive-by pipe theory, and she asked what time I’d be picking her up.

  “I thought the plan was for 6:00?” I asked.

  “Yes, it was,” she answered sharply. “And it’s 6:20.”

  The clock said she was right, and I told her I’d be there in 40 minutes, to which she loudly exhaled. I wasn’t going into my first threesome unshaven and unshowered—the night was young; we had all night to find our concubine.

  Natalie and I were sitting in the dark booth of a dive bar in Sherman Oaks, drinking pints of beer at a lacquered wooden table that our forearms stuck to each time we lifted our glasses. She had put her brown hair into two braids that arced out from each side of her head like a 12-year-old, and her tight T-shirt hugged her little pudgy tits and exaggerated her pierced nipples. I had taken account of her nubile naughtiness on the drive over, but the two lines of cocaine we did in the parking lot had sent my brain into an entirely different direction.

  “So, it must have been some type of a steel pipe, like a plumber’s pipe, with a knobby blunt edge to it, right? And this guy, he … he must have swung it at the windshield, right? Boom! Breaks the windshield! Boom! Recoil sends the pipe into the side mirror, knocks it clean off, like some madman with a Viking axe taking swings at … at a palace door. No reason for it. No reason for it. Malicious! Yes, I’d label this just plain old malice. Full asshole move. No reason for it.”

  She was watching me talk but I could tell her mind was fiddling with six to eight things she wanted to say as soon as I shut up. And like a game of musical chairs, whichever of her chance thoughts I happened to silence on would surely launch straight out without hesitation nor connection to the statement before it. I was analyzing all of this very diligently while my mouth continued to spew out theories about the Cadillac, like two separate machines working in tandem. Conscious and subconscious dialogue happening simultaneously, parallel to one another. It was actually like there were four separate conversations running around our table: my inside and outside voices, and hers, then all four acknowledging one another in some weird psychic-cocaine phenomenon.

  “… but it’s those little pale pebbles that have really stumped me on this case.”

  A second of silence then boom! “What are you going to do? Tonight! Watch? It’s so weird! I’m nervous! Tonight! Let’s get drunk first!” I was wrong—all her boiled-up thoughts had rolled out into one big blob of words, wide eyes, and flashing teeth. She took another quick gulp, flashed a gaze around the near-empty bar and spun back to me. “I’ve only been with one lad. When I was a teenager. My first time. I didn’t like it. At all.”

  “You know, we never set any ground rules for tonight,” I interjected. “We’re both new to this … to a threesome. We should discuss the … I don’t know if … I mean … do I put it … do I put it in you both? Is there some proper system to this? We should discuss this.”

  “Hmmm, good idea. Good idea. Okay, let’s figure this out now.” She took another swig before leaning forward and interlacing her fingers. “I think you could—and if only tonight happens, not like just us two—but you could do oral on me, and I could do it to you a little bit. And fingers and stuff. And do whatever you fancy to her, and so will I. We should just focus on shagging her! That’s what we should be thinking.”

  “Yes! That’s it! That’s good! Focus on her. All things poi
nt to her. A little doodly-doo on you but focus on her. This is going to be awesome. I’m going to show her things even you don’t know about yet!” The reality of the situation had already left the table and filling its void was another swallow of a Coors Light and two eager smiles.

  Natalie then slid her closed hand across the table and deposited a rolled $1 bill and a thumb-size bag of “Go Yeah” powder between my empty glass and fiddling cigarette hand. “Do a bump in the loo and get us a ‘nother round, yeah?” she proposed. “We’ll take turns.”

  There’s nothing as rock ‘n’ roll as doing cocaine in a bar bathroom—it’s like a lyric-come-to-life of any number of Rolling Stones songs. The rounds of Coors kept coming, and the lines on the toilet paper dispenser kept getting snorted—first every 30 minutes, then about every 15. Hours had passed with this same reckless rotation in place until the bravado of the drugs and alcohol had reached its prime, and our pick-up strategy couldn’t get any finer tuned. We both looked around the bar to find that it had filled up nicely by the eleventh hour—a perfect time to put our threesome plan into action:

  Step One

  Natalie scoped out the barstool area—where the heaviest concentration of lesbians, transgenders, and full-on butches meandered into one big herd—until she found her prize.

  Step Two

  After another quick toot in the bathroom, I sidled up to the lanky woman with the blonde flattop, who Nat had nodded at, and I ordered two Coors. She was pretty decent looking for a woman with a square-shaved head: light southern drawl, on the easy side of her 30s, cute smile. We made a little chit-chat, then it was time for Step Three.

  Step Three

  “Hey, so ma friend and ehhhh are eeeerrrr on a special … sssignment,” I drunkenly explained. I could think clearly and in perfect sentences, but the dialogue coming out of my mouth was warbled and chewy. “She wants essss … with you and … she’s looking at you. She’s … say hi.” I pointed toward Nat with my beer hand and spilt suds across the floor. Then I spilled again when I signaled for Nat to join my new flattopped friend and me over at the bar. Smiling, Natalie sauntered over and the two began talking. I wasn’t intentionally trying to eavesdrop but they were right there beside me, playing touchy-feely with one another as they shouted over the jukebox. She said her name was Ty, which was lesbian for Teresa. She was on leave from the Navy and housesitting her friend’s place a few blocks away. Natalie was shit-faced, and I heard her shout to Ty that I was her long-lost American brother and we were into some weird things. Ty then bought me a beer and asked if we wanted to take the party back to the house where she was staying. I couldn’t believe it, and neither could Nat judging by the relieved expression on her face: Our plan was actually working.

  I left my Cadillac at the bar and we piled into her ‘90s Camaro, which reminded me a lot of Knight Rider. And I kept speaking into my pretend wristwatch communicator and telling KITT, “I need you, buddy!” the entire three blocks to the handsome blue house.

  I remember Ty showing Nat and me the refrigerator full of food, the cupboard full of wine and booze, and the kitchen drawer with a bag of grass and rolling papers in it. I remember her telling me how nice it was for a brother to care this much about his sister, then she suggested I make a drink, roll a joint, and find a movie on cable. It was the most amazing recommendation for a plan that I had ever heard, and I quickly accomplished all three in the span of a minute or two. I remember Ty saying she was going to show Nat the rest of the house as I gnawed on cold pizza in one hand, sipped from a rum and Coke in the other, took a few puffs from the smoldering joint in the ashtray, and watched the beginning shoot-out scene from Terminator 2 on the TV. Then I faded.

  When I came to a short time later, Schwarzenegger was being submerged into the vat of molten metal and giving the thumbs-up to little John Conner. The mix of drugs, alcohol, more drugs and alcohol, and, finally, food, had taken over and temporarily shut down headquarter operations. It felt like I had only closed my eyes for a second, but almost an hour had passed, judging from the scenes in the movie. I glanced around the living room but there was no sign of the two ladies. I stood up and steadied myself against the wall before stumbling into the hallway with my drink. “Nat,” I whispered into the darkness, but no one answered back. I was sure they were in the thick of romance somewhere in this house; my only hope was that I hadn’t missed it entirely by passing out.

  With my hand grazing the wall at my side, I Frankenstein-walked farther down the dark hall until hearing soft moans and pants coming from a bedroom door left ajar. It was pitch black inside but I poked my head in and clearly heard the ground zero of sighs. This was the place and, judging by the sounds around me, I wasn’t too late. I couldn’t see a thing when I walked in, but I felt the presence and warmth of the two coiled lovers on the carpet at my feet—I was standing right above them. I tossed my shirt off, kicked off my boots, and let my jeans fall to the carpet in a jingle-jangle of loose belt buckle. I stood there right next to them, naked as the day I was born, with a boner planking directly above them like a street sign to Horny Ave. I was close enough to hear pubic hair rustling against pubic hair and feel the exhaled warmth of orgasmic groans across my bare shins. I must have stood there for a solid minute listening to them grind together, hoping one of them would just reach up and pull my pecker down into the mix. But neither of them did. I deliberated several strategies on how to get myself involved—should I just lie down and work my way in? Announce my arrival with something like, “Did somebody ask for sausage on their pizza?” Start making my own sounds? All were decent options, but I went for a more direct approach: I licked my middle finger, blindly traced someone’s arched back and simply inserted my digit into the first hole it touched—anus, vagina, Ty or Nat, I had no idea, but it went right in up to the knuckle. Very wrong approach, and definitely very wrong hole. It was instantaneously obvious and quite loud that Ty didn’t like having a male’s finger inserted into her ass because she screamed with all her might, “Get the fuck OUTTA HERE!” Her anger clinched her rectum and shot my finger right out like a magic trick.

  Once the shock wore off, I fumbled around the floor and quickly retrieved my jeans, shirt, and boots and rushed out the door. I hurriedly dressed to the closing credits of Terminator 2, gulped down my drink, and let myself out the front door. I was much drunker than I was in the darkness of the bedroom and staggered down the sidewalk trying to find my way back to my Cadillac at the bar, but I had no idea where I was. I hit a car bumper and fell on someone’s lawn before stumbling back to my feet. That three-block drive in the Camaro turned out to be the most elusive journey an American car had ever made. But I found a liquor store at the next corner, mumbled something into a payphone about “a taxi” and “home,” and 20 minutes later I was jingling my keys into my apartment door.

  It was a painful Sunday spent under the covers, and the only reason I got to my feet all day was to take another taxi back to the lesbian bar to retrieve my Caddy. With my throbbing head and trembling hands, the busted windshield and broken side mirror didn’t seem like too much of a problem anymore. We matched now. We were both torn up and slightly damaged from a night that got away from us, but we both still started up and made it home.

  The cocaine-and-booze hangover wasn’t much better on Monday back at Mark’s Garden, even with a full two nights of sleep under my belt. Nat looked like shit, too, but she had the cherub glow of a freshly laid woman to mask it. She asked where I had disappeared to Saturday night, and I explained the whole finger-in-the-angry-hole tragedy to her. She had no idea; she didn’t even remember me coming into the bedroom that night. We joked about trying a threesome again, without cocaine, but we both knew that plan would never come to fruition—both the “threesome” part as well as the “without cocaine” part. Once you do a particular thing on coke, it’s never as much fun to do it again without coke.

  After making six of the worst bouquets my dulled senses and watery eyes had ever witnessed, I knew it was d
ue time to put that Monday to rest. Tulips should never have to go through that sort of punishment. As I circled my block trying to find a parking spot big enough for the Brougham I happened upon an open patch of street directly behind where I had parked Friday night—the night of the incident. I took the spot, and as I walked past the new Lincoln Town Car parked ahead of me, which was sitting exactly where my Caddy had been assaulted, I noticed an all too familiar sight: Its windshield had been cracked at the center, too. There were no grass blades or concrete pebbles on his hood, and its side mirror was still attached to the door, but a long, straight crack ran from the Lincoln’s roof straight down to its glistening black hood.

  It was an odd feeling I got from seeing it—a trace of anger, a surge of empathy, but mostly a feeling of relief knowing that someone else’s car had been damaged like mine. It took some of the sting away, and I’m not too sure why. Our mutually broken windshields made us brothers—like sibling victims of the same abusive father. Neither of us was unique in our persecution. We were simply the prey of some stupid asshole who liked to break windshields on that particular side of the road. Twice.

  Twice. Twice could be a coincidence. But twice could also be a good hiding spot. Twice could be a good vantage point. Twice is confidence. Twice is a reason. Two windshields. Two identical cracks. Same place two nights in a row. Someone wanted that parking spot; that’s why our windshields were cracked. They were warnings for us to keep our distance. I glanced around and noticed a large, beaten RV parked precariously in front of some trash cans down the street—too big to fit properly in the spot that could easily fit three cars. I remembered that same RV had been parked for an entire week right here, where my Caddy and the Town Car now sat. I remember its enormity had taken up the entire allowable parking section on this side of the street, leaving the red parts of the curb to bookend each of its bumpers by mere inches. The old RV had wanted his perfect spot back—it must have been his elusive white whale, that perfect parking spot. And he would go to any lengths to frighten away would-be takers, including smashing their windshields. It all made perfect sense.