Tats

by Layce Gardner

  Vivian pulls me to her chest with my face in the crook of her neck and holds me tight.

  “You’re the only person I’ve ever told,” I say softly.

  “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you for telling me.”

  I fall asleep with her arms wrapped around me and the sound of her heartbeat in my ears.

  Chapter Twelve

  According to Vivian, the only way to get rid of a hangover is hair of the dog. Or in her words, “If you just stay drunk, you don’t get hangovers.” Which explains why we are in Boomer Sooner Sports Bar drinking one Bloody Mary after another. I think the bartender recognizes my hangover and is kind enough to help out by giving me more Mary than Bloody.

  Boomer Sooner is like heaven for OU fans. The whole place is decorated in red and white, with OU memorabilia covering every square inch. There’s a huge wall-sized TV set up in a corner of the bar and all the patrons watch the football game and scream obscenities at the coach and the other team. Personally, I think football would be a hell of a lot more interesting if they’d just take off all those pads and beat on each other.

  Viv and I sit at a corner table, leaning back in our chairs with our feet propped up on the bags of money. I chow down on a dish of peanuts and pretzel sticks while Vivian licks on a celery stick. I’m a little embarrassed about my emotional incontinence of last night and, thank God, Vivian hasn’t brought it up again. But at least she wasn’t a scrooge with her tits and she let me hold onto one all night long.

  “I’m allergic to nuts,” Vivian states.

  “I’m allergic to seafood.”

  “I had clams once. Not the seafood kind either,” she states.

  I raise an eyebrow and question, “Don’t you mean crabs?”

  “It was some kind of crustacean,” Vivian says with a shrug. “Do you think they serve food here? I’m hungry. You think they have pie? Lemon or chocolate or something like that.”

  “This is a bar, Viv. You don’t order pie in a bar. Just like you don’t go into a Chinese restaurant and order a hamburger. Besides you won’t eat it anyway.”

  “Don’t tell me what I won’t eat,” Vivian says and takes a bite of her celery stick.

  “We are talking about food, right?”

  “Right,” she chews.

  I finish off the peanuts and scoot the bowl to the far side of the table. “I wish we’d known each other in high school.”

  “We did know each other,” Vivian objects.

  “Yeah, but we never talked. Did we? I don’t remember us ever talking.”

  “I don’t think you talked much,” Vivian says.

  “Not to you, I didn’t. You were too popular to talk to somebody like me.”

  “I wasn’t popular,” Vivian says.

  “Bullshit. Cheerleader. Football Queen.”

  “No boys ever asked me out. I never had one date in high school. I didn’t even go to junior prom. Nobody asked me. I had to ask Mark Thompson to take me to senior prom. His girlfriend was a sophomore and couldn’t go. I didn’t even ask him myself. My daddy called his daddy and they set it up. I wasn’t popular. Not by a long shot.”

  “I didn’t know that or I would’ve asked you to the prom.”

  “Oh, that would’ve changed things. That would’ve made me real popular.”

  “You know I just did that night with Mark in order to get closer to you.”

  “Hmmm...” she says, squinting one eye at me. “How’d that work out for you?”

  “Not too good,” I admit. “If I could go back in time, I’d talk to you. I’d march right up to you and say, ‘C’mon, let’s go find some trouble.’ Your dad would have to bail us out of jail.”

  “We can get into trouble now,” she says. “We can make up for lost time.”

  I lean toward her and whisper, “Uuuhhhh...I think we are in trouble, Viv. We’ve got the English Mafia equivalent chasing our asses, I think that’s trouble enough.”

  “Heeeyyyyy,” the entire bar groans in unison. I look over and see that the football game on the TV has been interrupted and replaced by a newscaster who solemnly looks at the camera, announcing, “This is a Channel Six breaking news special report. Tulsa police are searching for two women who broke into an area WalMart. WalMart management just released this security camera video after discovering a large quantity of painkillers was stolen from the pharmacy.”

  I squeeze Vivian’s arm and she grabs my hand, squeezing back. We both hold our breath as the huge screen fills with a black-and-white grainy film of Vivian in the red OU T-shirt crawling through the pharmacy window. Cut to me putting up the tent. Cut to Vivian eating a s’more. Cut to us both lying in the hammock in front of the tent. Cut to me carrying a stack of Bibles. Cut to me putting stickers on a passed-out Vivian in the cart.

  Vivian leans over and whispers in my ear, “Aha. You did put those stickers on me.”

  The newscaster’s voice continues over the footage, “The two suspects raided the pharmacy, camped inside the store, using a gas grill and erecting a camping tent. If anyone recognizes the suspects, they are urged to contact the anonymous toll-free line shown at the bottom of your screen.”

  The screen goes back to the newscaster’s fake-smiling face, saying “This has been a Channel Six special report. Now back to the football game.”

  Everyone in the bar slowly turns in their chairs and looks at us.

  I give them all a tiny smile and wave weakly. Nobody waves back.

  Vivian quickly stands and says, “Who wants a free drink?”

  After a small pause, a big, bearded man in coveralls slowly raises his hand in the air.

  Vivian asks, “Have you ever seen those two women on the TV?”

  “What two women?” He grins.

  “Bartender! I’m buying this man a drink!” Vivian shouts, pointing to her new friend.

  “I’ve never seen them either,” says another man.

  A woman pipes up, “Me neither!”

  “Two more drinks, bartender!” Vivian adds.

  Then the whole bar chimes in with their own version of not knowing the alleged WalMart campers.

  “Drinks for everybody!” Vivian laughs. “I’m buying!”

  Everyone claps and cheers and shouts their orders at the bartender.

  Vivian turns to me and raises her drink. I raise mine with her and she toasts, “Me and you, Lee. Back to back with our guns drawn and the bad guys circling us. Let’s go out in a blaze.”

  “Okay, Louise,” I laugh and clink her glass against mine.

  “Okay, Thelma,” she says, clinking back.

  Vivian turns to the bartender and yells, “I changed my mind! Make it an open bar! Everybody drink as much as you want!”

  The whole bar whoops and hollers and shouts some thank-you’s. The bartender yells back to Vivian, “You sure of that?”

  “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life. I want to celebrate. Today’s my birthday.”

  I jerk back in utter surprise. “Today? Today is your birthday?”

  “Yep,” she says. “And I want to have the best goddamn birthday ever!”

  “Happy birthday, Vivian Baxter! Happy birthday!” I raise my glass and toast her. “Here’s to you and your happy birthday!”

  “Happy fucking birthday!” shouts a guy from across the room.

  Everyone in the bar stands to face Vivian and raises their glasses with us. I take this as my cue to lead them in song. “Happy fucking birthday to you...”

  We stumble down the street, leaning on each other for support, carrying our money bags between us. I’m wearing her high heels and she’s wearing my boots, and I have no recollection of how that happened. I’m a happy drunk and so is Vivian. It must be after five o’clock because the streets are filled with rushing people and we stop and stand in the middle of the sidewalk like an island unto ourselves. We stand stock-still and people rush past us and around us and it feels like we’re the ones moving not them. Everyone looks so sad and I don’t understand why
. I want everyone to be happy. I want all these sad five o’clock workweek faces to be as happy as we are.

  “Happy birthday,” I call out to a businessman who glances at me warily out of the corner of his eye.

  “Happy birthday,” I say to a woman dragging her kid on one of those doggie leash things. She ignores me.

  “Happy fucking birthday!” I shout to a teenager on a skateboard breezing past us.

  “Happy fucking birthday to you!” shouts the teenager back, flipping me the bird.

  That makes me feel so good I shout it to the world in general, “Happy fucking birthday, world!”

  “Happy fucking birthday world!” echoes Vivian, falling into me and almost knocking me to my ass.

  People turn their heads and look at us nervously as they cut a large swath around us. I kick off those damn high heels and jump up into the bed of a parked truck and drop the bag. I stretch my arms out far and wide and shout, “Happy fucking birthday, world!”

  Vivian’s right behind me and she throws her bag into the truck bed and jumps in with me. Barely able to stand upright, with her arms swinging wildly, she shouts, “Today is my birthday! And I wanna say happy motherfucking birthday to everybody who ever fucked with me these past thirty-three years! HAPPY MOTHERFUCKING BIRTHDAY!”

  That stops a few people in their tracks and they look at us, each other and back to us. Viv laughs like a drunken maniac and continues, “Happy birthday to you Mother Dearest! Happy fucking birthday to you and thanks for the birthing hips and anorexia! Happy birthday from your never-good-enough-for-you daughter!”

  Now people definitely stop and listen. A crowd forms and Vivian motions that it’s my turn, so I clear my throat and shout and punch the air, “Happy fucking birthday, Ginger! Thanks for fucking everybody and their dog and their brother and the horse they rode in on behind my back! Happy fucking birthday to you!”

  Viv jumps up and down a couple of times, spins around in a circle, then shouts, “Happy fucking birthday, Roger! Thanks for fucking that whore and giving me a bad case of the clams! Now I can’t ever eat seafood without thinking of you, you asshole! Happy fucking birthday!” Vivian looks at her audience gathered on the street and says in an aside, “Whew! That felt fuckin’ great!”

  Most of the people laugh with her and so I grab Vivian’s hand and hold it high up in the air between us and jump in with, “Happy Birthday, you French-speaking bitch who’s lived in America for twenty years but still puts the adjective after the noun. And who tells me she’s really straight and packs up and leaves in the middle of the night! Birthday Happy, you bitch fucking!”

  The crowd has grown to about fifty or more people and they all laugh and hoot their approval. Vivian shushes them with a wave of her arms and shouts out, “Happy birthday, Mrs. Patterson! You seventh-grade history teacher with the amputated hand who used to clobber me in the head with your stump that looked like an Englishman’s dick! Let’s give her a big hand, everybody!” Vivian applauds and the crowd laughs and claps with her.

  Then lo and behold, one middle-aged houswifey-looking woman steps up beside the truck, turns to the crowd, cups her hands around her mouth and shouts, “Happy Birthday, Daryll! Happy fucking birthday and thanks for the sperm! You, you, you, sperm-donor no-count father husband loser! Happy fucking birthday!”

  Housewife gleefully turns to Vivian and they slap palms in a high five.

  A big burly man jumps into the front of the circle next and adds his own, “Happy fucking birthday, Judge! Happy Birthday for giving my wife all my money and my kids and the house and totally fucking up my life, Happy fucking birthday!”

  He barely high-fives me before he’s pushed out of the way by the next woman who shouts, “Happy f-word birthday, you, you, you Mr. Dickwad! Happy birthday for ten years of awful sex where I never had a you-know-what! Happy f-word birthday to you!”

  Right on her heels is a mousy little woman with the voice box of an elephant, “Happy fucking birthday to you with the brain the size of a planet who thinks it’s A-Okay to run away from your wife and kids and go waste your life with some young slut! Happy fucking birthday and I hope you rot in hell!”

  There’s thunderous and cathartic applause. People all over the street smile and laugh and shout out their own birthday wishes. I catch bits here and there: “Happy fucking birthday! Side Show Freak! Manic-Depressive Asshole! Constipated colon! Dingleberry! Happy fucking birthday!”

  Vivian laughs and slaps her leg and I punch the air with my fists, egging people on and—“Happy birthday, Vivian dear!”

  I look toward the familiar accent and holy shit almighty! It’s Prince Charles!

  I grab Vivian and point.

  She follows my finger, still laughing, then suddenly not laughing. I look for an escape, but the crowd is so thick, we’re trapped.

  Vivian screams at the crowd and points at P.C., “That’s him! That’s him!”

  I put my fingers in my mouth and whistle as loud as I can. The crowd quiets and jerks their attention back to us.

  Vivian screams and points again, “That’s him! That’s the motherfucker who left me for a younger woman and now I have to raise three kids by myself and he hasn’t paid alimony in four fucking years!”

  “Asshole!” shouts a little lady. She swings her purse hard and slaps P.C. upside the head with it. He covers his face with his arms and back away from the mad, purse-slinging lady.

  “He used to beat me too!” Vivian throws in for good measure. “Take the fucker down!”

  The crowd converges on P.C. like a pack of wolves, howling obscenities. He’s sucked under a tidal wave of angry faces. I grab Vivian, we each grab a bag of money and we leap over the side of the truck, running fast and hard.

  Ten blocks later and, shit almighty, I can’t run anymore, my lungs are going to collapse. I grab Vivian’s hand and yank her into the dark alcove of a brick building. It smells like piss back in here. This isn’t exactly what you’d call the nice part of town. Hookers, male and female, and stinky homeless people walk the streets and they’re all throwing us looks like we’re the weird ones. I’d yell a few choice words at them if I could catch my breath.

  “How the hell,” I gasp, “does that motherfucker,” I gasp, “keep finding us every time?”

  Vivian’s tits BZZZZ and she takes the phone out of her tit safe.

  We overlap each other as we have the same thought at the same time: “That’s it! He’s tracking us through your phone!” “We have to get rid of the phone!”

  Shit, I could kick myself for being so damn stupid. I jerk the phone out of Vivian’s hand, grab a couple of hundreds out of a bag and march out onto the sidewalk. I saunter up to the first hooker I see which happens to be a six and half foot tall black transvestite.

  I wave the money under her eyes.

  “Nu-uh, girl,” she says, pointing a long red fingernail in my face. “I don’t do none of that kinky girl-on-girl shit.”

  “All’s you have to do is hold on to this phone. When the guy shows up for it, give it to him.” I wink. “And tell him his blow job is paid for.”

  The transvestite grabs the bills and the phone and shoves them down between her tits.

  Damn. Is that a girl thing or what?

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Sorry I lost your high heels again,” I say. “I just took off running and forgot to get them first.” I’m pretty sure I’m stone-cold sober now because one mother of a hangover is starting at the back of my skull.

  Vivian’s not talking. She’s not even looking at me.

  I take another stab. “This is my first cab ride.”

  Vivian just stares out the passenger window, still ignoring me.

  “It’s not very nice inside. And it kinda smells like old sex back here,” I say.

  Vivian doesn’t move. Her silence scares me. If I could read her mind right now, I wouldn’t.

  I sigh deeply and tick off on my fingers. “We started with Ginger’s Fatboy, then Hell Camino, green Pinto, Me
rcedes, Lincoln Continental...can’t forget my new Street Glide, which I hope is still at WalMart. And now a cab. Did I forget any?”

  The cabbie (who surprises me by being white and wearing a cowboy hat and speaking plain English) steers the taxi down a narrow road. I look out my grimy window at all the passing gravestones. Right over there is where I met Vivian. The pole tent’s gone now, but there’s some yellow crime scene tape draped around the grave.