Nobody Bats a Thousand

by Steve Schmale

  Rita went right in. I hesitated then followed her inside.

  “Larry, this is Billy. He saved my life.”

  The guy held out a massive calloused hand, which I shook. “Call me Stretch, everybody does, except her.”

  We were standing in a small kitchen, which had just a refrigerator and a motorcycle, an old Harley with extended forks, parked on the linoleum where you would normally expect to see a kitchen table. Rita gave the giant a beer that he took with him into the larger room of the apartment where there was just a couch, a small table, a lamp, and a radio on the floor.

  Rita handed me a new beer and put the twelve-pack into the refrigerator. “Come on.” She directed me to the small couch where the giant was sitting, leaning over the table, snorting a yellowish line of some drug from the glass cover of a picture with a wooden frame. He jerked back, tilted his head back, sniffed hard a couple of times, leaned forward, slid the picture frame under the couch, and then opened his beer. “So what’s wrong girl? If it’s that fucken Mexican you married I’ll ring his fucken neck. All you have to do is ask once.”

  “No, he’s not here.” Rita was sitting cross-legged on the floor across the table from us. “He called a couple of days ago, but I wouldn’t talk to him.” She pulled the tequila from her pocket, drank at least a shot, recapped and set the bottle on the table. “I just had to get away from Auntie Fay’s and Uncle Mel’s. Cathy was having a party.” She shook her head while she sipped her beer. “Grit balls and ex-cheerleaders. It was like being on a bad acid trip at a pep rally in the middle of a rodeo.”

  Larry picked up the tequila, took a drink and washed it down with beer. “I don’t know what to tell you girl, but you can stay here as long as you want.” He pulled back and peeked through the curtains to his right. “I’m leaving any minute. As soon as my ride gets here.” He continued to peek outside. “That your VW out there?” He looked at me.

  “Yeah, what’s wrong?” I started to stand.

  “Nothing, you’re okay parked there. Nobody will fuck with it as long as it’s behind my truck. If you parked a block away, either way, these homeboys would have already picked it up and carried it away.”

  Rita crawled over towards the wall, plugged in the little radio on the floor, started messing with it, and soon tuned in some jazz on what must have been a station from L.A. A car horn honked.

  “Got to go.” Larry stepped right over the table with ease, walked to the kitchen, and picked up a tool belt and a small ice chest. “Got to drive all the way to Needles and get started before it gets too hot.” He stopped and looked around like he might have forgotten something. “Hang around if you want to, girl. Just lock the door if you leave.”

  “Thanks Larry.”

  “See ya,” he said as he walked out the door.

  We sat in silence except for a jazz saxophone solo coming from the radio. Rita was looking down at the floor or the table, deep in thought. Her dark green eyes were clear, almost floating. Here I was with this gorgeous wild girl. I didn’t know if being alone with her meant anything or would lead to anything; whether I should run away while I still had the chance or expect to be ready for the greatest night of my life. I knew the only way I could keep from appearing stupid or naïve to this beautiful, worldly woman, nineteen going on forty, was to keep my mouth shut. But finally the nervousness brought on by the silence got to me, and I had to speak.

  “So you’re from Las Vegas?”

  “Born and bred.”

  “So what does your husband do?”

  “None of your business!” she snapped at me, her manner terse and scary for a few seconds before she mellowed again. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

  “Sure…sure, but you were wrong about something earlier.”

  “Wrong?”

  “About not looking good. Even in those overalls you were the best looking chick at that party, the best looking by far.”

  “Yeah?” She scooted closer to the table and smiled, her eyes brightening as she looked directly into mine. She rested her elbow on the table, her chin on the palm of her hand. “You know, you’re cute too. But I don’t remember seeing you at the party, how come?”

  “I tend to lurk in the shadows.”

  “Me too,” she said just before she killed off her beer and tossed the empty can over her shoulder where it bounced on the kitchen floor before sliding to a stop. “Get us another beer, would ya Billy?”

  I didn’t need one but got up and got her another, and then I excused myself and went into the bathroom to unload a piss I’d been holding for about twenty minutes.

  In the bathroom I flicked on the light and closed the door. Old Stretch wasn’t the worst housekeeper, but this apartment had probably seen a thousand tenants, and the bathroom had the feeling of a public restroom with everything stained and old. I did my business, and then stood staring into the mirror, trying to figure out what was going on. Here I was in the middle of the ghetto in a giant killer’s apartment alone with the most beautiful woman I’d ever even talked to, who obviously had to be trouble because she was too good to be true, and the strangest part of it all was I was starting to feel comfortable about it all. I wasn’t as worried as I should have been. I strangely felt rather at home.

  I came out of the bathroom just as she was heaving another empty can over her shoulder. I got her another beer, and as I set it on the table in front of her I noticed she had killed off most of the tequila. There was only about an inch of the gold left in the bottle.

  I walked to the window and looked out at my car.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “If Larry said it will be okay, it will. He doesn’t bullshit anybody. He always tells the truth. That’s why he’s an outlaw. Just relax, that’s why everybody is so fucked up. Nobody knows how to just relax and have a good time.”

  “No?”

  “No. They may think they do, but they don’t.”

  I sat down.

  “Billy.” She looked directly into my eyes. “What’s your biggest fear?”

  “I never thought about it.” And I hadn’t. Most everything in life scared me to some degree, but I had never stopped to pick out one specific thing.

  “Well think about it, isn’t there something that really makes you worried? That really makes you afraid?”

  My first thought was Gina or anybody else finding out I was here, but I wasn’t about to let that secret out. “Well one thing, but it’s kinda stupid when you try to put it into words.”

  “What? Come on, it’s just me and you. I won’t think it’s stupid.”

  “Okay.” I had this thought, this picture in my mind, but I knew it wouldn’t come out right. I knew it would really seem dumb put into words. “Okay, here goes…it’s like, I’ll be killing time watching some worthless crap on TV, and I dunno, I start to worry that’s all I ever really will be, just some worthless jerk with nothing better to do in life than work some worthless job to survive to watch worthless crap on TV.”

  There was dull silence for just a moment, a moment I felt lamer by the second for my idiotic remarks, but thankfully she skipped right past my tirade and on to another question.

  “What about craving? Do you believe cravings are good or bad?”

  “You mean like a drug addict craving dope?”

  “No, that’s different, that’s almost artificial. I’m talking ‘bout what’s already inside not a direct reaction to coke or smack.” She paused to think. “Like craving chocolate cake. Maybe it’s your body telling you it need it. Maybe fat people crave food because they are supposed to be fat. I’ve known girls who’ve craved dirt when they were pregnant. They actually ate dirt. It was like their bodies or the baby inside them needed the minerals. As weird as that seems.” She stopped talking and looked at me until I started to feel a little uncomfortable.

  “Do you ever have any cravings, Bobby?”

  “Billy.”

  “Well do you, Billy?”

  “I guess, I…”r />
  “Billy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you want to fuck?”

  I froze. “Sure,” I said, silently praying that I’d heard the question correctly.

  “Well? Are you coming over here? Or do I have to come over there?”

  After a quick pause, she rose smoothly, guided her long slender body around the table until she was next to me on the couch. After a long solemn look to study each other’s face, she leaned to bring her lips down to my level. We kissed and embraced. After a few minutes she pulled back, sighed, didn’t look at me but at my crotch as she used both hands to suddenly detach the buttons of my jeans. She took me into her mouth as I sat there not knowing what to do or think or say with this mass of blonde hair draped across my lap, working up and down. I was like a spectator in the twenty-fifth row, too detached to be involved, too overwhelmed to become part of the action. Soon she gave up on this position, made awkward by the length of her torso, and brought her body off the couch so she was on the floor on her knees. The switch accomplished without missing a beat.

  I could now see her face, her cheeks contracted, her eyes closed. She kept after it, lightly rubbing my chest with a free hand, stopping for just a moment to look up at me with sleepy eyes, her hair falling across her face. “I want to taste it,” she said before turning her head again and going back to business.

  It took me a moment to understand what she was saying and even longer to believe it. I tried to relax to let go and accommodate her, but I was still rigid and nervous, still more of a spectator than a participant.

  The time slipped by. Finally, she came up from the floor. “Come on.” She took my hand, and led me off the couch, down the hall past the bathroom, and into a bedroom lit only with the dull light filtering from the living room, revealing a small mattress on the floor.

  “I grabbed these at the store when the guy wasn’t looking.” She tossed me a small package of condoms she pulled from the breast pocket of her overalls then she unhooked her straps and her outfit fell on the floor. Her T-shirt came off, and I undressed. I noticed the sheets were fresh as I lay down next to her. I kissed her, lifted myself, lowered and went inside her, the penetration as effortless and flawless as if we’d been practicing the trick for years.

  My stomach and legs felt tight and strong. With my arms straight and stiff, my palms flat on the bed next to her arms, I held my balance and went after it like a pile driver at full speed, breathing slowly and deeply, trying to maintain the power and speed.

  “Be gentle, baby. I’ve had enough of that macho shit. Can you be gentle?”

  “Yeah,” I said and surprised myself that I could, hovering over her long frame, slowly moving in and up, rhythmically, fluidly; naturally without worry or concern.

  I came but didn’t stop. I stayed at it for as long as I could, plus a minute more. I slowly rolled off her, pulled off the rubber, tossed it into the darkness across the room, and then just lay there gaining perspective and catching my breath.

  She didn’t say anything but softly stroked my shoulder and arm. Her touch and the sight of her in the weak light got me going again. I kissed her lips, then her neck, then worked my way down to her small breasts. She played with my hair and gently prodded my head past her breasts down to her stomach.

  “Go down between my 38’s, baby.”

  38’s? No way were her breasts that big, and I’d just come from that direction anyway.

  “38 inseam.” She took my hand and moved it to her leg. “Kiss me down there.”

  Generally oral sex with a woman was vilified if not downright prohibited in my crowd. I’d been going out with Gina for over two years and no matter how hot and heavy we got the thought of giving her head never crossed my mind. Hernandez would try and disgust us once in a while talking about the joys of eating pussy, but Red would always rebut, “That urethral acid can kill you.” And the subject was always quickly changed. But now, as I worked my way slowly down to that vital part of her anatomy I felt ready. As if the act felt somehow natural, somehow pure. Kiss her, that was the key phrase, kiss her womanhood like I had her mouth, and I did for a very long time, much of the time looking up at her, smiling in repose, until the base of my tongue was tired and sore.

  When I finally stopped I slid up next to her again. She kissed me with just her lips then closed her eyes and went to sleep. I looked at her for awhile, she was so long and lovely; then I guess I was finally overtaken with exhaustion after my heart quieted, and I too fell asleep, next to this woman I didn’t know in the bed of a giant biker, despite thoughts that my car was probably being dismantled by a group of hoodlums out in the street fifty yards away.

  But I didn’t sleep long. There were no curtains on the windows, and I was awakened by the light from the first faint blessing of morning. I lifted myself out of bed slowly, so not to disturb Rita, and suddenly I noticed a stain on the middle of the bed. I reached down to investigate. It was still rather fresh—blood—Oh God! What had happened? What had I done to this girl? Then it dawned on me what had transpired. I quickly forgot about her and began to worry about myself.

  I rushed into the bathroom, stuck my face against the mirror and thoroughly checked my mouth and the area around it. Somehow there was no blood to be seen, but I washed my face anyway and rinsed my mouth and spit several times. This could only happen to me. Simultaneously I had been introduced to sodomy and earned my red wings, the old Hell’s Angels’ expression for oral sex with a woman on the rag, here in this biker’s apartment where it seemed almost appropriate but still scary and weird.

  Still rattled by my discovery, I went back into the bedroom and started to dress. I was almost finished when Rita opened her eyes and smiled.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  She reached up, took my hand, pulled me down, kissed me on the lips then let me go. “You’ll probably never see me again,” she said, “but you’ll never forget me.” She smiled with her eyes barely open, then rolled on her side and went back to sleep.

  I left the apartment. Quietly shut the door behind me. Came out into the morning and was relieved that my car was still there intact. It was probably only five-thirty, but the desert heat was already brewing. By eleven it would be over a hundred degrees.

  The logical place to head was to my bed for much needed sleep, but I really didn’t want to go home. My dad would be gone to his job at the post office pretty soon, but I didn’t want to cut it too thin and bump into him because he was such a morning person. Most of the time he seemed almost sullen, since he was quiet and rarely smiled, but at the break of day he was always happy, smiling, full of talk and questions. Which could be rather annoying to someone still trying to wipe the sleep out of their eyes as they desperately struggled to get that first cup of coffee down and that caffeine into their bloodstream.

  I drove away from town, east out into the open desert where I parked, got out, leaned against the hood of my car, and watched the sun coming up over the hills, its light permeating across the horizon, the day stretching itself awake. I tried to reconcile the perversion I’d put myself through in the last few hours. She was so beautiful and exciting, but thoughts of regret came with thoughts of repercussions and disease. Herpes of the mouth, syphilis of the throat, or maybe AIDS contracted though the digestive system, unpleasant, probably silly irrational thoughts, but thoughts that hung with me no matter how I tried to bury them.

  I wouldn’t have been so stupid and careless if I hadn’t been drinking, I thought, but regret was only part of the problem. The lack of regret, the part of me that wanted to rush back and do any perverse thing that beautiful stranger wanted, that was the part that plagued me the most. Crossing the line, cheating on Gina, doing what I knew to be wrong and not being able to totally condemn my actions or feelings was a strange sensation. It was like I’d just had sex with a willing hundred-year-old woman and liked it. Like I’d had gay sex with a first cousin and lived to remember it fondly. These thoughts wouldn’t budge, these feelings of fear
and shame, they stayed right there at the front of my mind the entire drive home.

  I parked in front of my house, went inside, and immediately locked eyes with my mother who was sitting at the kitchen table reading the morning paper.

  “I stayed over Benny’s last night.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, Red got real drunk. We had to take care of him. Benny and I had a good talk. About the meaning of life and that kind of stuff,” I tried to sound convincing.

  “Did you get everything solved?”

  “We’re still working on it.”

  My mother paused without taking her eyes off me. I felt a little self-conscious and looked down quickly to make sure I’d put all my clothes back on.