Something in My Eye: Stories

by Michael Jeffrey Lee

  Whoring

  Once, on payday, a young man named Pate and a young man named Larsen sat on the edge of Pate’s unmade bed, eating dinner in Pate’s apartment. Neither of the men were handsome, though Larsen was the cleaner of the two.

  “This food is pitiful and nasty,” said Pate.

  “I like spending time with you, Pate,” said Larsen. He stopped eating and put his food box down on the bed.

  Pate lifted his food box and tilted the rest of its contents into his mouth. “Sometimes you make me feel like a rose bouquet,” he said. “But that being said, I will never fuck you.”

  “I know,” said Larsen.

  “The very thought sends me wriggling.”

  “You don’t have to explain.”

  “If you woke up tomorrow with the body of a woman, but somehow kept your winning personality during the transformation, we might be able to work something out. But as it stands now, no way no how.”

  “We don’t need to sleep together to have a good time.”

  “Good,” said Pate. “So what the fuck are we going to do tonight?”

  Larsen stood up from the bed and sat down on the floor, next to Pate’s legs. “Well,” he said, “There’s the bar. We could start there, have a few drinks, figure out where to go next.”

  “But we were there last night, and the night before. The whole place is one big shit smear, if you ask me. It’s payday, for God sakes. I want to whoop it up.”

  “We could go see a movie. There are a couple playing right now that I would consider seeing.”

  “Movies put a hole in your head. Jerk your emotions around.”

  “We could go have coffee at a coffee shop,” said Larsen.

  “If we go to the coffee shop,” said Pate, “we might as well go to the god-damned bar. At least at the bar we can whoop it up and nobody will look askance.”

  “Or, we could stay right here and talk,” said Larsen.

  “Talk about what?” said Pate.

  “We could reminisce,” said Larsen.

  “Fuck that,” said Pate. “Let’s focus on the present.”

  “What do you want to do, then?”

  “I say we go a-whoring,” said Pate.

  “Couldn’t we just go to the bar? You could find a girl to hook up with there.”

  “There’s a god-damned difference,” said Pate, “between hooking up and a-whoring. You don’t go to the bar with the intention of hooking up. You go with the intention to get yourself drunk and be among the community. The hooking-up occurs on account of lonesomeness. Now, when you go a-whoring, you go to the whorehouse with the express intention of sleeping with whores. If you get a little tipsy while you’re there, well, that’s just a little sideline bonus. No way you’ve forgotten the feeling of walking into a whorehouse, seeing them whores all in a row: like eating cake, for breakfast.”

  “It sure has been a long time since we went a-whoring.”

  “Haven’t been a-whoring since Sonny got himself a girlfriend,” said Pate. “Those were the good old days. Me, you, and Sonny, a-whoring till dawn.”

  “I miss Sonny,” Larsen said. “The old Sonny, I mean.”

  Sonny had met Bessy at the bar and had fallen in love. He refused to see either Pate or Larsen now apart from her. At the bar, he and Bessy sat in a booth. They drank the same drink out of the same glass with two straws.

  Pate rose from the bed and took off all of his work clothes, then walked naked into his closet. Several minutes later he walked out in casual clothes. “I’ll bet we can rouse Sonny,” he said. “Sonny has whores in his future.”

  Pate drove them in his car to Bessy’s house. She lived several miles outside of town in a cabin paid for by her brother, who was very rich. Pate and Larsen got out of the car and walked to the cabin. They stopped under the window, where the blinds were raised a crack. They could see part of the bed and part of the floor, and a leg that dangled off the bed but did not touch the floor.

  “Makes me sick,” said Pate. “Probably spooning.”

  “Whose leg is that?” said Larsen.

  “Fuck does it matter?” said Pate. “Either it’s a leg belonging to a man that’s about to go a-whoring or it isn’t.”

  “How do we get him out here?” said Larsen.

  Pate thought for a moment. “We talk to Bessy first.”

  “Why?”

  “We convince her that Sonny needs to go a-whoring to get it out of his system, then she goes inside and prods Sonny for us. We talk to Sonny first and he’ll refuse outright, on principle. Then we’ll have a real scene on our hands. Now what would make a lady come outside before a man?”

  “A baby crying?” said Larsen.

  “That’s it,” said Pate. “Make that baby cry noise you do so well.”

  Larsen began to whimper, then lifted his voice into pealing cries. They watched the leg right itself on the floor. Then another leg came down to meet it, and the legs walked themselves to the door.

  “Keep it up,” said Pate.

  They heard the screen door open and close, and Bessy appeared before them under the window. She wore a thong and carried a bottle of milk. She was beautiful.

  “You always greet crying babies with thongs?” said Pate.

  “Hi, Pate,” said Bessy. “Hi, Larsen. I heard a baby crying out here, where is he or she?”

  “Just us babies,” said Pate. He and Larsen laughed. Larsen made the crying noise again.

  “I’ve heard Larsen’s impression before,” said Bessy. “This was different.” She poked around in the weeds and in the ditch, looking for the baby.

  “We wanted to ask if Sonny could come out with us tonight?” said Larsen.

  “Sonny’s no prisoner,” said Bessy. “Where are you going?”

  “A-whoring,” said Pate. “I believe in honesty first.”

  “You boys use protection when you go a-whoring?” said Bessy.

  “Of course,” said Larsen.

  “Always,” said Pate.

  “Well,” said Bessy. “Seeing as a-whoring is just about the only thing Sonny and I can’t do together, it’ll make it all that more special for him.”

  “Can you go inside and prod him?” said Pate.

  “Sonny doesn’t like it when we prod him,” said Larsen.

  “I’ll prod him and send him along,” said Bessy. “You boys have fun tonight.”

  Pate and Larsen said goodbye to Bessy and walked to the car. Pate told Larsen to sit in the backseat. They sat in the car together with the heater on, waiting for Sonny.

  “Bessy is really considerate,” said Larsen.

  “Immodest, though,” said Pate. He honked the horn.

  After a while, Sonny appeared in the headlights. He wore a fur coat, and was slightly better-looking than his friends. He sat down in the passenger seat.

  “Howdy, stranger,” said Pate. He started to drive to the whorehouse.

  “Hello, Sonny,” said Larsen.

  “Bessy tells me we’re going a-whoring,” said Sonny.

  “Sure are,” said Pate. “You know what day it is, don’t you?”

  “Bessy has me all turned around,” said Sonny.

  “It’s Friday, for your information,” said Pate. “Friday and payday. What kind of shit coat is that?”

  “It was a gift from Bessy,” said Sonny. “I like it.”

  “I guess it’s good to have you back,” said Pate.

  “It’s good to be back,” said Sonny, yawning.

  “Are you too tired to go a-whoring?” said Larsen.

  “Oh, no,” said Sonny. “I’m just waking up from nap. How are the both of you?”

  “Same old,” said Pate.

  “You been going a-whoring without me lately?”

  “No,” said Pate. “Hasn’t been the same.”

  “How’s your life, Sonny?” said Larsen.

  “All in all,” said Sonny, “pretty terrific. Bessy and I are very happy. We’re even thinking about getting married.”

  “Yo
u do that,” said Pate, “and you say goodbye to a-whoring forever.”

  “I don’t know,” said Sonny. “Bessy is very open-minded.”

  “Once that ring’s slipped on,” said Pate “the gloves come flying off. Ask Larsen.”

  “There’s a good chance she’ll restrict you,” said Larsen.

  “What makes you and Larsen authorities on women’s ways?” said Sonny.

  “Because me and Larsen are smart,” said Pate. “What the hell do you think they pay us at work for, anyway? They don’t pay us to stay ignorant, that’s for sure.”

  “Well,” said Sonny, “if you really think Bessy will lock the gate on me, I won’t wear protection tonight.”

  “Not even the thin ones?” said Pate.

  “Just me and the whores,” said Sonny, “close as can be. It’ll be a proper farewell.”

  “Aren’t you getting your share of intimacy with Bessy?” said Larsen.

  “Certainly,” said Sonny. “We’re as intimate as a whisper. But we certainly aren’t close.”

  “Bessie wants you to wear protection,” said Larsen.

  “I’ll wear protection for her any time after tonight,” said Sonny. “But tonight I’m putting me first.”

  They arrived at the whorehouse. It was twenty stories high, with a whore’s face in every window. They parked in a space near the dumpster.

  “Why do you they need such a large dumpster?” said Larsen.

  “The spent protection,” said Pate.

  “It feels good knowing I won’t be contributing to more trash,” Sonny said. “With the environment like it is.”

  “Any way you might reconsider about the protection?” said Larsen.

  “No,” said Sonny. “No, there isn’t.”

  “Let’s whoop it up, then,” said Pate.

  The men agreed to meet each other a few hours later on the front steps. Then they went inside and whored for a while. Later, Pate and Larsen met on the steps outside the whorehouse. They were tipsy and tired.

  “Where’s Sonny?” said Pate.

  “Still a-whoring, apparently,” said Larsen.

  “Having a hard time letting go,” said Pate.

  They gave Sonny another hour. Larsen began to nod off on the steps.

  “Did you see him in there while you were a-whoring?” said Larsen.

  “Once,” said Pate. “He was on all fours, whooping it up.”

  “Was he using protection?”

  “Couldn’t tell from my vantage point.”

  “We promised Bessy he would,” said Larsen.

  “We told Bessy that we always use protection,” said Pate, “We didn’t make any damn promises about Sonny.”

  “You’re right,” said Larsen. “But I do think we owe it to her to tell her that Sonny won’t be home for a while. I’m exhausted.”

  “Me too,” said Pate. “Fully unloaded.”

  They drove to Bessy’s cabin. She was sitting in her thong on the porch, combing her beautiful hair.

  “Hello, boys,” she said. “Where’s Sonny?”

  “Sonny’s still a-whoring,” said Pate. “We’re tired and want to get some damn sleep.”

  “You boys use protection tonight?” said Bessy.

  “Sure did,” said Pate. “Why do you care?”

  “I’m not an idiot, boys,” said Bessy. “I know where whore babies come from.”

  “You’re talking over our damn heads,” said Pate.

  “I know that when a man and a whore are intimate, without protection,” Bessy said, “that a whore baby is made. What the world does not need is more whore babies.”

  “Hadn’t considered that,” said Pate.

  “Do you remember, earlier tonight, when I was sure I heard a baby crying out here?”

  “That was just Larsen,” said Pate. Larsen made the noise again.

  “Actually,” said Bessy, “you’re wrong. After you took Sonny away, I heard the crying again, so I walked in the direction of it. Sure enough, there was a whore baby splashing around in the creek, crying his head off. It was the fourth one this week.”

  “Who did it belong to?” said Larsen.

  “Nobody,” said Bessy. “It was a whore baby. I gave it some milk and sent it on its way.”

  “I’ve never seen a whore baby,” said Pate.

  “Nor I,” said Larsen.

  “Of course you haven’t,” said Bessy, “They’re invisible to men who go a-whoring. May I borrow your car, Pate?”

  “What for?”

  “I’m going to fetch Sonny.”

  “Best of luck,” said Pate. “A man a-whoring is a man hell-bent.” He handed Bessy his keys. “Can Larsen and me catch forty winks in your cabin?”

  “No,” said Bessy. “I don’t trust either of you enough.”

  “We won’t search for incriminating things,” said Pate. “We’re too damn tired for that.”

  “My cabin is messy,” said Bessy.

  “I don’t feel well at all,” said Larsen. “I really need to lie down.”

  “Alright,” said Bessy. “But no fucking.”

  “Never was a possibility,” said Pate. “Was just telling Larsen tonight, no way no how.”

  “Poor Larsen,” said Bessy. “Larsen never gets what he wants.”

  “You’re doing a good thing,” said Larsen, “trying to keep more whore babies from being born.”

  “I know,” said Bessy. “It’s a thankless job.” She let them in the cabin and drove away in Pate’s car.

  The cabin was furnished with two chairs and a bed. The only place to sit down was the bed. Bottles of milk took up every other inch of the place.