The Life of Lol

by Andrew Birch

  He picked up the handset,

  “hey babe”, he said weakly.

  “Quick calling me babe you shmuck”, I retorted sharply, “You’ve got some cheek. First you leave me to the heat, then when I’m sent to fucking jail, you don’t even have the courtesy to come visit! What the actual fuck?”

  “Babe”, he replied, “just chill, ok? And it was you left me with the heat, remember. That car belonged to Tony Maranzano. He was pretty pissed. I said you were real sorry, and that after all you were in jail and doing time anyway, so he let you off. I took a beating for you, babe.”

  I was silent. The years had changed me. What the fuck had I ever seen in this loser. I realised that he must want something. It wasn’t likely that he wanted to reconcile with me. I know I was up for a parole hearing soon, but I wasn’t likely to get released. Not yet, not with a twelve year sentence.

  “You look good, sweetheart, real good” he cooed.

  “What d’ya want”, I said curtly,

  “I don’t want nothing babe”, he replied, casting his head to the floor, “Did ya know baggie got killed?”

  “No”, I replied acidly, “I’ve kind a been out of the loop, ya know?”

  “Yeah well he did”, Allen said sadly, missing the sarcasm in her voice entirely, “Cops shot him in a carjacking last year. Poor prick was just helping out. Nothing to do with him. His mom’s all cut up cos Baggie was paying off the loan on her house. Now she’s homeless.”

  “She wants to get in here”, I remarked, “bed, board, three square meals a day. I swear I’m getting fat.”

  He missed her sarcasm again,

  “You look great to me babe,” he cooed, then took a deep breath. Here it comes, I thought.

  “Thing is” he wheedled, “I kind of feel responsible ya know. Baggie and I were bros. He and I had been scoping out the neighborhood for a mark.”

  “I guess then you are responsible”, I said curtly. He blanched at my coldness.

  “Yeah well”, he blustered, thing is, I was wondering….”

  “Hmmm?” I prompted.

  “I’m kinda short”, he said looking at the floor again, “I need a loan and was wondering if I could hit you up for a few bucks.”

  “Allen”, I replied slowly, “listen to me carefully, honey”

  “yeah babe, he replied?

  “Look around you. I’m in fucking jail. I can’t exactly walk down the bank and draw you out a couple of hundred. They kinda lock the door, ya know?”

  “I know babe, I know, it’s just that…baggies mom and all, she needs to pay off her loan and…”

  “Allen”, I said again, “I don’t give a living rats fuck about Baggies mom. She’ll have to go back to turning tricks like she did when she weighed less than two hundred pounds. Her fanny’s so well used she could probably rent it out as living accommodation to a family of polish immigrants and make money that way. Either way, I don’t know what actual fucking planet you’re on where you think I have access to some vast fortune I can just hand you over the desk?”

  “I know you have money, babe”, replied Allen shrewdly, “squirreled away. You told me one night when you were wasted, about this fucking chest buried somewhere.”

  “Allen”, I said, “I don’t know how to say this any simpler to make your tiny pea brain understand. I’ve been in jail eight years. I have no fucking money, apart from four dollars to buy tampons and toothpaste with”

  Of course I was lying. I had thousands, buried under that old shed in the forgotten corner of the old bus depot. But this soft shmuck wasn’t having it. Even if the story about Baggie’s mom were true, which I doubted, he still wasn’t getting it. He’d probably blow through it in a few weeks for drugs. Fuck him.

  “Babe please”, he said, “I know you’re pissed, and I’m sorry. Don’t be such a hard ass and lend me some money. I’ll only take what I need, I swear. You might be out soon, and you and me can pick up where we left off, huh?”

  “Allen”, I said staring at him with my cold green eyes, “I would rather be fucked up the ass by every gorilla in the fucking zoo than have your two inch dick touch me again. I know I’m in jail, but if you call me babe again, when I get out I’ll come after you, cut your dick off and make you fucking eat it. And no, you’re not getting any of my money. Because I don’t have any.”

  Of course the guards had heard my raised voice, and were moving towards my booth to escort me away. It was fine. I’d already slammed down the handset and was making my own way back to the inmates area. One of the young officers escorted me,

  “You ok”, he asked?

  He was a sweet boy. I’d had him in a trance for weeks now, but he was genuinely nice, like he cared what happened to us, and not just for what we could do for him.

  “Fucking shmuck”, I snorted, “comes in here asking me for money to feed his fucking habit.”

  “You can do better”, he said quietly, walking with me back to my cell.

  “Thanks”, I said, “I used to think he was sexy as hell. What the fuck was I thinking”

  “Dunno”, he smiled, “you girls are all the same. My sister Justine just broke up with a real loser, just like that bastard out there. Worshipped the ground he walked on”

  “Poor bitch”, I remarked, “what happened.”

  “her brother happened”, he winked, “and for some reason he decided to leave town. Funny that.”

  “She’s a lucky girl” I said suddenly thinking of Groucho again.

  “tell ya what”, he said as we reached my cell, “she runs a bar in town. If you get parole next month, I’ll give your parole officer her number. Might be able to get you work.”

  He was a proper sweetheart, this guy, I could see that.

  “I’d be real grateful”, I said genuinely, “maybe her and me could look after each other.”

  “That’s the idea”, he smiled again.

  I sat in my cell alone. For some reason, I began to think of the little apartment I had shared with Allen and how much nicer it had been after he’d left me.

  The apartment was quiet now. She’d no idea where the fuck Allen had gone, or Baggie for that matter, and she couldn’t have cared less. Lol was happy working her scams and credit frauds, she’d applied for and got about five different credit cards all in different names, all maxed out. The apartment was full of boxes and boxes of designer stuff and expensive electronic gear…most of this she sold to an old friend Zimo. Zimo was a sort of cross between a fence and a drug dealer, sometimes he got her hooked up in exchange for a special order. At this particular moment, she had a bunch of video gaming consoles in, with matching expensive looking monitors. Lol was raking it in, and without Allen to drag her down, she was making out like a bandit.

  She’d heard nothing about the escapade with the stolen car with the guy in the trunk. Like she’d surmised, the car had been stolen anyway, so in Lol’s eyes, she’d done nothing wrong.

  Today was quieter than usual. She was working on the phone and didn’t notice the men marching up to her open front door. She panicked as she saw them, thinking at first they were thugs sent to beat her up. They were not. They were cops. Lol ran, but barely got to the back door, before she was stopped by a female officer who twisted her arm behind her back. With a scream of pain, she twisted and wriggled in an attempt to get free, but after a moment, the officer managed to get the handcuffs on. Lol began to feel a small knot of fear in her stomach. Caught. The next few weeks were to be a flurry of new experiences involving police, jail cells, uniforms and court rooms. It didn’t help that her fear soon dissipated, and she began to try to work the system. The judge saw her as a game player, with her don’t care attitude. When he told her she had relied upon looking innocent and angelic to perpetrate her crimes, she had replied,

  “I ain’t no angel baby”, she laughed, “and I didn’t drop from heaven. I dug my way up from hell”

  That hadn’t impressed. As well, they had produced a raft of damning evidence, which resulted in L
ol getting sentenced to serious prison time.

  The voice droned on,

  “…all seems to be in order here; you have several letters of recommendation as to your behavior, a recommendation for a job, good behavior…”

  Taylor shut the voice off. She’d been out of prison for three days now, and had been settling into a prisoners hostel. It was kind of like released, but not quite released, as they were eyes on her all the time. The hostel was worse than the home had been, having to check in and sign out and jump through all kind of fucking hoops. Now the [parole officer droning on and on about what a fucking girl scout she’d been.

  As luck would have it, the parole board had somehow approved her application for parole. The young prison officer had sorted out a job in the bar his sister Justine worked in, and now here she was. The city had changed a lot in the time she’d been away. The old quarter had mostly been torn down and replaced with grey office buildings and yuppie bullshit; she hadn’t had the time or the freedom to properly look around yet so she didn’t know if any of her old haunts were still even there. Now, the commercial district, with its high street shops and sidewalk bars had gotten more run down, as the money moved away into the new smart clubs and bars that had replaced the old quarter, and the old alleys. They must’ve gone too. She thought of Groucho.

  Justine worked in an old fashioned bar, owned by a nice quiet guy whose family was connected to politics. The parole officer loved it, and when he’d signed all the shit he had to sign, he let her go. She paused on the steps of the parole office. It would have been so easy just to do a runner, and go make some money someplace else, turn her old tricks. Then there was the matter of the stash in the old bus depot. That at least was there, or at the very least the shed was there. She’d seen that from the window of the cab when she’d been driving by on the way here. It needed to be investigated. But, somehow she didn’t want to do a runner yet. She wanted to explore this whole bar job thing, see what happened. The freedom, in a way, scared her. So much freedom, so much choice. The true American fucking dream. One nation under god worshiping the dollar. A hundred thousand shmucks and rubes ready to be parted from their cash. The bar would provide a nice base of operations for whatever she decided to do.

  ***

  Chapter 13. Jack Mason

  The bar was a basement bar. At one time, it had been a high class place, but now the money was moving away. It was dark inside, and decorated with polished oak wood and green leather. A kind of old time place that had a vague smell of spilt beer and mustiness. It certainly wasn’t high class any more. Jack mason hadn’t wanted high class. With his family all involved in politics, jack wanted a quiet bar with one or two regulars that would sit at the bare. And a back room for him to organise his more shadowy business affairs. Jack Mason was a small time gangster, with connections up the chain to the local ruling mobster Vincent Maranzano. These days Jack liked the quiet life, and often had reluctance to get involved in things that clearly didn’t concern him. Like with the jailbird friend of Justine’s. She didn’t seem like someone he would ever want to know, or even trust. Still, the girl was quiet and got on with her work, although she seemed a little confrontational with his clients at times. He had to admit that sometimes she amused him. He remembered their first meeting. She was wiping up the bar top with a rag, Justine having already hired her, and he strolled down the entrance stairs and sat at the bar. She looked at him with a filthy look,

  “Ain’t open yet”, she snapped, “come back in a couple hours.”

  “I know”, he smiled, “it’s my bar. I’m Jack Mason”.

  She looked him up and down carefully before shaking his offered hand. He had dark thick wavy hair that was just going grey at the sides, and a smile that she had seen before, a bad boy smile that meant trouble with a capital T.

  “I better get back to work then”, she grunted, “place is a dank pit”

  “You don’t say”, he smiled at her bluntness, “I kind of like the dank. It’s comforting. Somebody like me feels more at home in dark dingy place. Anyway, my names Jack. What’s yours? I can’t just call you ‘hey you”

  “Taylor”, she replied quietly, returning to her mopping of the bar top, before replacing all the mats and cloths down again.

  “Taylor what?” he probed?

  “Laurence”, she replied.

  “Huh”, he said, sounding the name over in his head. I thought form what I read on the papers they sent me it was the other way round. No matter. Pleased to meet you, Taylor. Justine show you what to do?”

  Yeah”, she said, “and my name was the other way round. Used to get called Lol. I changed it.”

  But Jack couldn’t respond. At that moment another guy came in, some kind of business acquaintance of Jacks. Whereas Jack wore casual street clothes and a brown leather jacket, this other guy was in a light grey suit, with lots of dark cream on his slicked back hair to hold it in place. He wore thick black framed glasses, and looked Taylor up and down like she was a piece of shit.

  “New staff, jack?” the man asked coldly.

  “Yeah”, Jack replied, pouring himself a Bourbon from behind the bar, “Taylor, meet my business acquaintance, Carl. Carl…Taylor. You want a drink, Carl.”

  The man called Carl completely ignored Taylor standing there, and shook his head,

  “No”, he said quietly, “Elaine has me on detox.”

  “Huh”, smiled Jack, “one of the perils of having a wife, I guess.”

  “Tell me about it”, Carl replied without a smile on his face. He pushed his glasses up to the top of his nose, looked at Taylor and spoke again,

  “Perhaps we should go talk in private?” he suggested.

  “Hmm”, whatever you want, Carl, let’s go through the back” replied Jack.

  Carl looked Taylor up and down, with the coldest look she had ever seen,

  “See that we aren’t disturbed” he said. Taylor shivered at his look. She could tell he was packing heat under that jacket. Jack probably wasn’t, but Taylor knew he kept a shotgun and a bat under the desk. Then there was Horace. Horace was the mangy old alley cat that jack had rescued. Said he felt sorry for the mangy little one eyed black moggy. Taylor hated him, and, with the way that Horace looked at her malevolently with that one eye, she knew Horace hated her too. Not that Jack cared or even went near Horace. Now that he was safe and rescued, jack had lost interest in the cat. At first, Taylor wondered what the baseball bat was for, this didn’t seem that kind of bar.

  But before long, Taylor was going to get acquainted with that bat quite well. Justine, the small dark haired quiet one worked the bar, while Taylor worked the tables. This particular night was busy, as there had been a ball game on the TV, and there had been plenty in, and plenty drinking. These four guys had been trouble, so to speak. Sat in the corner every time Taylor went past, one of them would whistle her, call her ‘bar wench’, or skank, or pinch her butt. Still unused to work, Taylor grew more and more frustrated with the group. Still they were served drinks. It was time for them to pay the tab, and unfortunately Taylor’s job to ask for it. Surprisingly, the college guy, the one with the dirty curly hair and wispy beard pulled out a twenty. Casually he dropped it on the floor between his legs,

  “There it is slut”, he slurred drunkenly to the cheers of his friend, double it if you suck me off”

  She snapped.

  “It’s ok, keep it” she said retreating with her head down, feeling the blood pumping in her ears. She stalked behind the bar, to be met by Justine,

  “You ok honey”, said Justine worriedly.

  “Just fine baby, answered Taylor in that quiet sing song voice she had that meant danger. Justine watched horrified as Taylor grabbed the bat and walked casually back to the four guys in the corner. The curly haired guy didn’t know what hit him as the bat connected with the back of his skull. He collapsed onto the table, overturning it. His three friends were up in a moment, but Taylor felled another with the bat, before the other two brought he
r down and started kicking her. At that moment, Jack emerged form the back room,

  “What the fuck?” he exclaimed, tearing the two guys off Taylor. One went to slug him, but jack motioned his inside holster, and so they backed off,

  “Go home you three”, he said to the standing guys, “you’ve had enough.”

  He turned to Taylor,

  “Help this guy to the back room”, he ordered, “let’s clean him up, check he’s ok, but of luck you haven’t killed him”

  Taylor couldn’t tell jack’s tone, but the way he gave orders, she had no choice but to join Justine dragging the curly haired guy, knocked out, through to the back as his friends reluctantly departed. Through the back there was a p[private office, and a storage garage. To her surprise, Taylor and Justine were motioned to carry the guy to the storage area. They sat him on the floor, and watched as he came around slightly.

  “You’re finished you little bitch”, he said, “I’m calling the cops. You can’t do that to me, that’s assault”. Taylor knew he was right, she thought glumly. It was assault. She would be straight back to jail for this. Shit. Just as things were settling down.