Beads of sweat were on her lips and she was a bit out of breath after he was gone. She lit a cigarette. "It was easier when I could just fuck you little shits to make you shut up."
"C'mon," Eddy said.
"He won't be opening anymore."
"He's not even that good."
"Not in bed either."
"Really?"
And her eyeliner just blinked at Eddy, all black and vicious. "No, not really."
Eddy tried not to smirk, but wound up doing so anyway. He was embarrassed for her. Everybody was.
"What?" she said. "He's young and divorced. Nobody got hurt," and she swung open the mini-fridge and grabbed the same kind of beer the kid was drinking. Popped it open by slamming the edge of the cap on the corner of the coffee table. The beer foamed over the lip. She let it drip over her hand and onto the scummy rug. "You want one?" she asked, wiping her hand down the side of her blouse.
"You know I quit."
"You were funnier when you were drunk."
"Booze ruined my life."
"You never liked advice." She took a swig and they listened to the emcee onstage introduce the closer. Same dude who always closed. Slept in his car out front. Nobody remembered his name.
"That Dan something?"
"It's Dean. He toured with you."
"Back when I was drinking?"
"Two years ago. Christ. What is with you, Eddy? You're losing it."
This made him smile and he sat down beside her. "There anything else in that fridge besides beer?"
She kicked the door open with her foot. A smell wafted out. That old fridge smell. There was a shriveled little tangerine in the door slot and a baggie of old weed in a foggy drawer. There was also an orange Fanta. She handed it to Eddy and they listened to Dean's set. It was good, but muffled and bassy because it was all coming down the hallway. Distant, yet loud. That's what they liked about it.
"Dean's good."
"I know," she said. "You tell me every time you stay for his sets."
"That must be why I brought him on tour."
"No. You brought him on tour because he's the size of a goddamn water buffalo."
And then it hit him. "Oh, that guy. Yeah, he's great, ain't he?"
They listened some more, a thing they used to do. Sit back there, listen to those faraway sets. Nobody knew how good it could be except for Eddy and Betsy. They used to talk about it.
"Best way to hear comedy," Eddy said and he clinked her bottle.
"You always say that, too."
After Dean said thank you and good night, Betsy was at the bottom of her beer. She said, "That joke's gonna get you killed, Ed. I'm serious."
"I know."
"You should lay low. You still living in that shithole?"
"You mean my ex-wife's house?"
"Is it a shithole?"
"Sorta—well, no—it's nice. Different kind of shithole I guess. And no I don't live there. A new shithole. You'd love it."
"We're not doing that again."
"I know."
And she got that smile that meant she was serious and there was absolutely no way they'd give it another go, but Eddy liked it anyway. She seemed to feel bad for him—or at least something for him. That was more than most women he knew. "We go back to wherever you now live and they're gonna kill you, Eddy. You just don't say what you said."
"That's my job."
"But you don't say what you said to who you said it."
"Maybe that's what made it good."
"Don't give me this pure art crap again. I don't want you dead like Chuckles."
"Chuckles was as dumb as they come."
"Yeah, but I loved him."
"You love us all."
"I love what you do and sometimes that gets me confused."
"But you married Chuckles."
"But I married Chuckles," she repeated slowly, and she raised her bottle and Eddy raised his can and they saluted the dumb, dead son-of-a-bitch in their own way as they listened to the emcee thank the audience over the sound of security shuffling the drunks out. Chairs groaned and terrible music thumped for nobody listening.
Then it got quiet and the hall light shut off.
Betsy grabbed another beer, popped it open the same way. Claw marks from the caps' teeth raked the edge all around that coffee table. "You gotta leave town is what I'm saying."
"Wait. What? I'm going home tonight. You're getting paranoid, Betsy. It doesn't look good on you."
"Nothing does, doll. Just go tonight. You're a comic. You got friends in every city. Go stay with one of them."
"That's exactly why I don't have friends in every city."
"We're friends," she said.
"Really?"
"No, not really. I could never like a dumb fuck like you who's so hellbent on dying."
"Chuckles became a legend from it."
"That's not becoming a legend. That's becoming a story. Sad stories aren't the same as legends. People make this mistake all the time."
The Fanta was down to the last dregs and something with that soda, once it got a little warm, it got viscous and heavy. Seemed to gain weight in Eddy's hand. He was thinking diabetes and what the sugar was likely doing to his body. The sugar was in him. Felt like cocaine. Felt good. He felt fat.
Then Dean walked in. He was as big as a water buffalo. He was also black. Eddy didn't remember him being black. He didn't sound black on stage.
"Great set," Eddy said.
"Nah, it wasn't, man."
"Sounded good from here."
"You were great, darling. Always are," said Betsy.
"You left a bad vibe in there."
Now Eddy remembered him. He was always talking about vibes. Always complaining about the audience being left raw after Eddy's sets, just past the place they wanted to go when they wanted to laugh.
"I didn't do that."
"Yeah, you did," he said and he sat in the EZ chair with stuffing coming out the corner. He had his stage water with him. He downed it, then said, "That dude wants you dead."
"This again?" Eddy said. "Betsy told me all about it. Jesus, it was just a joke."
"You don't say jokes like that."
"That's the whole fucking point!" Eddy said. And he said it with his old, familiar rage that everybody knew about. That everybody avoided. They all felt it. Took the air out of the room.
Dean just smiled at him. "I thought you only talked to your girlfriends like that."
And that one hurt. Made Eddy realize that he was standing. It had to be the Fanta sugar. The diabetes. Insulin levels. Something. Maybe it was fear. Maybe he believed them. "I don't need help," he said.
Betsy patted Eddy's lower back and tugged at his shirt, "Sit down, honey. You're getting all flustered like you do. You'll give yourself a heart attack."
And then Eddy sat and he was shaking the way he shook after a set. The adrenaline was back. Had to be the sugar. "What did I say out there?" he asked because he honestly couldn't remember anymore. He knew it was a dick joke about the bimbo and the politician and the mobster.
"You said the wrong thing," said Dean, offering nothing.
Eddy had his face in his hands. He thought he felt tears. People were starting to get to him. It was happening more often as he got older. Something about living with two cats for fifteen years in a Southside apartment and paying the ex-wives their ransom had made him soft. It wasn't sobbing. It was just being tired. This was the comedown, the adrenaline and the rage both just spiraling out of his body like drifting smoke. "It was funny, though, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, doll," Betsy said, patting his knee. "It was funny."
Dean was driving a Honda Accord. Eddy also had a Honda Accord. They took Dean's, which had rims and little chrome doodads all over it. It was blinged out, and unlikely to have a Piccarelli man in the back seat ready to saw Eddy's head off with piano wire.
They were being safe.
"I thought you slept in your car," Eddy said.
"I don
't sleep in my car."
Eddy looked in back at the sleeping bag and the airplane pillow.
"All right, I sometimes sleep in my car," he admitted.
"Smells like it."
They were driving through the city at night. Eddy always liked driving through the city at night especially if he wasn't driving and especially if it was a weekday. Streets were empty. Nobody around but the homeless who could survive the winter bluster blowing in off Lake Michigan. They were headed Southside, to Eddy's shithole, where he always went after Betsy's. For years he'd hit the all-night diners because this was where he and the comics would wind down off the rush of coke and booze. To talk until the sun came up. To dream with the guys. The ones he came up with.
"We should go to the Spoon," Eddy said. "Like old times."
"No."
"Why not?"
"It doesn't exist anymore."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"We can hit another place"
"There's another place?"
"Not really."
Eddy thought about how the Spoon used to be. The shit diner it used to be. The greasy hash browns and watery eggs. They would all hit up the Spoon after bombing at Nyuk Nyuk's, another club. A punk club that hosted a comedy night on Mondays. But this was the late eighties. Comedy was still at its peak. People actually went to a shit club—on Monday nights, no less. And they paid money to drink the piss beer and listen to bad comedy. Eddy and his guys made their living that way until some got SNL, some became writers, some killed themselves with pills or booze or both.
"You remember Nyuk Nyuk's?" Eddy asked. "I used to do comedy there."
Dean just shook his head. "Man, I know. I did too." He flicked on his right blinker a little aggressively and just had that air about him that reminded Eddy why he didn't want to tour with him.
"Don't tell me you were there when I was there. You had to be like seven in the eighties."
"More like seventeen. And I was there. You were just as hacky back then."
"C'mon. You weren't there."
"Yeah, I was. I had an act then. Not stand-up."
"You were one of those guys?" And Eddy thought about those guys. They had puppets and trunks full of props and guitars. They were wacky. One guy did all his comedy on a pogo stick. Another only wore those big bow ties and it spun and shot water. Magicians. Clowns. Fucking mimes. Nothing real about it. Hacky fucking bullshit.
"You remember the pogo guy?"
"Yeah, I remember the pogo guy."
They stopped at a light. Dean's blinker was still on. They listened to it click on and off, both thinking about the pogo guy. The rhythm brought them back. Springs on concrete. This is what their memory was. Dean shut the blinker off.
"You ever see him fall off stage?" Eddy asked.
"Man, he fell off stage every night."
"Really?"
"Yeah. That was part of his act."
"When I saw it, he hit a table. Glasses went flying. His head was bloody." Eddy still told kids coming up in the scene about him as an example of who not to be. The pogo guy—the worst of everything—bad jokes, bad shtick, and bad at doing his bad act.
"That was part of his act, too."
"The blood?"
"Blood capsules. He was an amateur wrestler on the weekends. All planned. Into the theatrics."
"What about the table? Betsy wouldn't ever let him do that."
"He never performed at Betsy's. Only Nyuk Nyuk's, the Factory, a few other clubs."
"He'd make this arrangement?"
"He paid for the arrangement. Had to replace everything. Started bringing his own table and glassware. Set it up front, put a reserve placard on it. The dude did anything to survive."
"I remember the reserve placard."
"You only saw his act once?" asked Dean and he gently pulled through the green light. They were only blocks away from Eddy's apartment now.
"I guess so. Maybe more. Had to've seen him more. He fell off the stage every time?"
"Part of his act. He got himself injured doing that shit. It wasn't wrestling. Broke his collarbone on a club table. Forgot his at home."
"Man, that's commitment," Eddy said. "His jokes weren't bad, actually."
"His jokes were great. He committed himself to everything."
Dean pulled into the parking lot that had spaces for about four or five cars. Dean squeezed his car between two other cars, right into Eddy's spot. The one he paid a couple hundred a month for.
"I always wonder what happened to those guys," Eddy said. "I figure most of them became salesmen and live happy stupid lives in the suburbs." Eddy could only open his door about four inches.
"He became the regular closer at Betsy's," said Dean as he was struggling out his own door, pushing his large frame through the same four inches.
"No shit?" Eddy said.
"No shit," Dean affirmed. "You want see the scar on my head?"
"You said it was blood capsules."
"Not always."
"You don't gotta get out," said Eddy. "I think I can make it from here."
"Yeah, I do," said Dean as he squeezed his large frame between the cars.
Eddy led Dean to the front door and pulled his keys out. It was a trick door. The keys always stuck. He'd been in this spot a hundred other times, only usually with young women from his show. He'd usually be telling them about his cats at this point. They'd be drunk. They'd be young and drunk. He'd be charming. He'd tell them the story about Dirtbutt, the farm rescue who hid under a milk jug while his family was killed by raccoons. He'd tell them how he kept growing, how he'd suck his thumb and snuggle on his chest. How he'd have to bottle feed him and poop him over the toilet. He'd tell them that he loved those cats.
The cat story. It filled that awkwardness at the door, where she'd be wondering if she really wanted to go into a Southside apartment with a strange man who spent forty-five minutes onstage yelling about censorship and irrelevancy and a therapist named Steve. It usually worked.
"I ever tell you about Dirtbutt?" asked Eddy.
"Yeah, he's part bobcat. His family was killed," said Dean, who was minding the street, looking attentive, as if a Piccarelli man was about to come around the corner and mow them down with an illegal gun.
"Oh," Eddy said as he popped the door open. "I think I can handle it from here. I don't know a mobster who has the patience for tricky doors."
"I'll just check the apartment, man. Betsy wants me to."
"All right. Wish you were this vigilant when we were on tour. I probably wouldn't have gotten my ass kicked in Salt Lake," said Eddy.
Dean just smiled the easy kind of smile.
Eddy's apartment was on the fourth floor. They hiked up the stairs without speaking. It all felt a little romantic. Eddy was conditioned this way. He had only ever led women up these stairs. Never a man, but the ascent had all the same excited eroticism for him, which he tried to quell. His palms were getting sweaty and his throat was going dry, like he was on his morning search for Internet porn. The people on first floor were watching a movie too loudly. Filled with explosions. Somebody was either fucking, fighting, or violently masturbating on second. Eddy was pretty sure it was the latter—an old retiree lived there. Never left the place. Smelled like diapers. Third floor was quiet. It was always quiet. Eddy never met the people who lived there, but he assumed Asians.
Then they were at the top.
"Here we are," said Eddy.
"Here we are," Dean agreed.
"I think you can go."
"I'm gonna check your apartment out."
Dean's voice was deep. It resonated through the stairwell. Eddy became suddenly conscious of this and he dropped his own voice to whisper. He didn't want to wake the mythical Asians.
"Man, I'm fine. Betsy really is nuts. You know this. That was just a guy. Another guy. Hates his life. Stuck out on a Thursday. Probably left because he got a text from his wife. That shit happens."
"That shit does happen
. But Piccarelli men like to make it look like that shit happens. How long you been in Chicago?"
"My whole life. You know this."
"That's why you should know Piccarelli."
"Look, I could give a fuck about the Piccarellis. They don't run shit anymore. This isn't the eighties, man. Chicago is different. Worse in ways."
"It's the same in ways, too."
Eddy looked out the hallway window, saw a late evening snow start to fall. Big fat wet flakes falling fast through the yellow lights out on the street. "Goddammit, it's snowing."
Dean looked out. "It's kind of nice."
"I gotta take a bus tomorrow to get my car because of you paranoid fucks. And now I'll be standing in fucking slush."
"Safety first, man. Let me just check out the apartment."
"Whatever. I don't have booze and make it quick."
Eddy pushed his way into his one-bedroom apartment. The place was lived-in but clean. He didn't own a TV, but had a record player and a shelf full of new records on display. Two cats came to greet him immediately.
"Do whatever you got to do, man. I'm gonna feed my cats."
Eddy went into the kitchen, opened a couple of cans and plopped them in a bowl Dirtbutt and Buster shared. He grabbed two sparkling waters from the fridge and went back into the living room, set the water on the coffee table and started to peruse his own extensive collection, while he listened to Dean search his room.
"This is ridiculous!" Eddy shouted, but in a way he did like the fact that Dean came out with him. It felt almost like home. Almost like the days he'd come in late and try to be as quiet as he could when his wife was already asleep. Just that other human presence. No number of cats could fill that. Made him wish he got one of his wives pregnant.
"So you want to listen to Waits or Neil? I got the new Neil on 180 gram."
Eddy didn't wait for an answer and pulled an old Neil Young album down because the new one was honestly pretty bad. He put it on the player and kept the volume low. Dean was checking everything in the bedroom and bathroom. Then he heard the tub faucet get turned on.
"Nice claw foot in here," Dean said.
"Yeah."
"You actually use candles and incense?"
THUGLIT Issue Sixteen Page 8