Love Over Moon Street

by Saxon Bennett

  Vibro put her pads on and watched as her girlfriend Jennifer talked up a petite, attractive woman with short dark hair and olive skin. Jennifer played for today’s opposing team, the Inks. The woman was just Jennifer’s type—a butch. That was their major problem. Jennifer wanted to be the girl in their relationship and so did Vibro. Vibro wondered if Jennifer’s breast augmentation wasn’t tied to this, a kind of one-upmanship of femininity in their relationship. Vibro didn’t have big boobs, but she’d been told they were nicely shaped. It was one thing to have your breasts resized to reduce back pain or have them removed for prophylactic reasons as in breast cancer, but making them bigger just to outdo your girlfriend—that seemed excessive and unfriendly.

  As she put on her shin guards, Vibro watched Jennifer flirt with Butch—the name Vibro had decided to call her. Butch, who looked a lot like Sparky from the back (she made a mental note to herself to keep Jennifer away from Sparky), must be someone higher up the food chain.

  It was easy enough to find out. Stitched on the back of everyone’s shirt, beneath the team name, was their job title. Vibro thought this was very classist. What did it matter what a person did? This was a ball game, not the corporate circus. Butch, it seemed, was the company’s Public Relations Spokesperson. (Jennifer, on the other hand, was the assistant to the Assistant of the Assistant District Manager of marketing for Ink International. The abbreviations on the back of her jersey read “Ass Ass Ass DM—which made it look like Jennifer was the third ass to the District Manager.)

  So that was Jennifer’s plan, thought Vibro—to fuck Ms. PR and see if she could get an upfront, here are my boobs, shot at corporate success. She frowned as she put on her chest padding. After all, she didn’t know for certain that Jennifer was fucking Ms. PR. That was a problem. What if Jennifer wasn’t doing anything wrong? What, in fact, if she and Jennifer had just hit a rough patch in the road of their relationship?

  The only problem with that metaphor was that it didn’t seem like they were moving at all. They weren’t making their way past the orange barrels and merge signs of relationship road construction; they were stuck on the congested entrance ramp to the highway of love, going nowhere fast.

  Was she scared to be alone? Was that why she stayed with Jennifer? Most times when they were together, she couldn’t wait to get away from her. On occasion she’d even told Jennifer she had to run some errands and then gone for a long drive rather than spend a Sunday afternoon alone with her in the apartment.

  Had Jennifer picked up on that? Was that why she flirted with other women? Or could it be that she was seeking some way to justify getting rid of Jennifer because she liked Sparky more than she was willing to admit? This was all getting very complicated.

  Jennifer greeted, hugged and joked her way down the line of Vibro’s teammates, then came over to greet her. “Hey, babe, don’t cream us too bad. It’s hard on company morale.” She pulled Vibro to her and stuck her tongue in Vibro’s ear, sending shivers down to Vibro’s nether regions. “Thanks for the new phone. It’s just the one I wanted.” She patted Vibro on the tush and went back to join her team.

  “You are so pussywhipped it’s embarrassing. Even my pussy is embarrassed,” Josie Callahan said from the bench. She spit out chew juice. Vibro made a mental note not to step where it had landed. “Come sit for a minute. I want to tell you a little story,” she said.

  Vibro did as she was bid. Vibro wanted to grow up to be just like Josie—except for the tobacco chewing. Josie, their third baseman and clean-up batter, held everyone’s respect. She was sixty-four, had had two husbands (both dead, God rest their souls), four grown-up children (all upstanding citizens, God knows how that happened), and many, many girlfriends. She’d made the last one her life partner with a commitment ceremony and everything. Celeste was gorgeous—she looked just like Audrey Hepburn.

  “Men think with their little heads, right?” Josie said. “That gets them in a world of hurt and others too. They fall for new pussy, families are destroyed and empires are ruined.”

  Vibro nodded. She didn’t see how this pertained to her. She hadn’t ruined any empires lately. Or families, for that matter.

  “Women do the same thing,” Josie said. “Most of the errors I’ve made—and believe me there have been quite a few—have been because I followed my pussy around. I listened to the voice in my underwear instead of looking at the situation logically. I got talked into buying houses, supporting lazy girlfriends and paying for cars for lovers who were long gone and driving other women around by the time I paid them off. Financial mistakes are bad enough, but what’s worse is loving someone who doesn’t love you back. You may not be ready to hear it, but trust me.” She pointed at Jennifer, who was sitting pretty cozy with Ms. PR now. “That woman does not love you. I’m not even sure she likes you.”

  Vibro studied Jennifer, examining her feelings toward her. She had to admit—she didn’t much like her anymore either, something she’d realized after Jennifer had gotten her boob job. When you stopped liking someone, did you stop loving them too?

  “I don’t think you love her anymore either,” Josie continued. “I’m not saying you didn’t at one time or that you at least thought you did. I just know that when you do fall truly in love there isn’t room for anything else. After I met Celeste I knew that for as many times as I had thought I was in love, I hadn’t been. Celeste is the big one. I’d do anything for her. The difference between her and all the others is that she’ll do the same thing for me.”

  Vibro ran her thumb over her glove. Jennifer couldn’t be prevailed upon to do anything that didn’t directly benefit her. “Josie, why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because I wish someone would’ve done it for me. I know it’s going to take something pretty big for you to throw her off, but she will do it eventually. So what I’m saying here is—don’t buy property with her and make damn sure you don’t share any credit cards. Just hold your head high and cover your bases. Now, let’s get out there and kick some ass. It’ll make you feel better. And if I’ve never told you before, I want you to know you’re one hell of a catcher.”

  “I just gotta catch the right girl,” Vibro said.

  Josie patted her on the back. “You will, kid.”

  The game began. Vibro loved being a catcher. It had been scary at first—having the ball coming at her dead on like that, pitch after pitch—but now she faced it fearlessly. If only her day-to-day life could be so easy.

  Vibro gave Mary Lou the signal for a high and outside ball. She caught it expertly as the batter swung for the third time and missed.

  “Great job!” Striker yelled from the baseline. He was a hands-on kind of coach, no sitting in the dugout looking unconcerned for him. This was great if they were winning and he could dance around in a manly fashion as they struck people out, prevented base hits and generally demoralized the opposing team. It wasn’t so great if they weren’t winning. Male histrionics were not a fun thing to watch. He would sigh loudly and beat his head against the wall of the dugout. One time he even flopped down on the grass and pounded his fists into it. Now, that had been embarrassing.

  In the seventh inning the teams were tied at nine. Mary Lou was the runner on second, Josie was at the plate and Vibro was in the warm-up circle.

  Jennifer was the first baseman. While the umpire dusted off home plate and the pitcher readied herself, she looked imploringly at Vibro.

  “Vibro, please.”

  Vibro was annoyed. “What?” She was concentrating on getting herself in the zone.

  “Can’t you cut us some slack? It would mean so much to the team and to me if we could win this one. You guys win all the time. What’s one teensy-weensy game?” She did her best to look pitiful.

  Vibro looked her over. Everything about Jennifer was just a little too much, like her new breasts. Sometimes, Vibro just wanted to shake her and see if the real Jennifer would come tumbling out. Was she even in there anymore?

  “Is this about PR?�
�� Vibro said. She knew full well that Jennifer would think she was talking about team morale and company advertising when she was really talking about the woman Jennifer was cruising, but she felt like toying with her.

  “Yes,” Jennifer said.

  “What do you want me to do, throw the game?” Vibro said sarcastically.

  “Would you?” Jennifer said, looking pleased. “For me, just this once? I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “No!”

  They watched as Josie hit a power drive up the middle of the field and made it to second base. Mary Lou was now on third.

  “Well, can you at least not hit a home run with two on base?” Jennifer said.

  “No! I can’t believe you’re even suggesting this. You can’t finagle and cheat your way through life like that. It’s dishonest.”

  “Please, pretty please? For me?”

  “Why is this game so important?”

  “If we don’t win every once in a while no one will come to the games, much less to practice. This is our chance to redeem ourselves. We’ve never been this close before.”

  “Do you think you could bless us with your presence at the plate any time soon, Vibro?” Striker yelled.

  “Hold your water, Coach. I’m fixing my bra strap and pulling my panties out of my crack,” Vibro called back. The umpire frowned.

  Striker shook his head. “Like I needed to know that.”

  Vibro walked toward the plate.

  “Do it for me,” Jennifer cajoled from first base, sticking her lips out and doing her imitation of a pouty little girl. Which was exactly how she’d gotten another nice phone and everything else she ever wanted.

  You know what, thought Vibro, that’s gonna stop right now. She gave her bat a few more practice swings and stepped up to the plate. The first ball went wide. She waited. The pitcher delivered ball number two right into the sweet spot and Vibro nailed it, sailing it right out of the park.

  She blew Jennifer a kiss as she went by first. “That was for you, babe,” she said as she trotted by.

  “I can’t believe you did that!” Jennifer said. She threw her glove down and stomped on it as if it might be a stand-in for Vibro’s head. “You’re just mean. Mean and spiteful,” she screamed, stomping on her mitt some more.

  Vibro cruised into home and did a happy dance on home plate. Her team came out and danced with her. Josie was laughing so hard that tears were running down her face. “Now, that’s what I call sportsmanship,” she said, pointing at Jennifer, who was slapping first base with her mitt now and having a full-blown tantrum. She gave Vibro a thumbs-up. “You feel better?” she asked.

  “I feel awesome,” Vibro said, smiling. And they both knew it was more than about a ball game.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Paint by Numbers

  “So whadya think?” Mr. Agassiz said to Sparky as they stood in Apartment Number 4 at 33 Moon Street. A well-dressed fat man who dabbed his ever-gleaming bald pate with a white linen handkerchief, he looked like a mobster and perhaps he was one. Uncle Milton had alluded as much to Sparky. He did own a lot of different businesses like storage places, car washes, Laundromats and auto shops.

  “Well,” Sparky said, hedging. “It definitely needs some work.” No one had occupied the apartment for the last two years, but the hoarder who had lived there for eight years before had done some seriously weird shit to it. Not only had the woman painted the windows black, but she had taken up all the baseboards, shoved rags into the space left by them and duct-taped them to the floor. The place needed to be completely repainted, and some of the Sheetrock would have to be replaced where it had gotten wet and warped, but fortunately there wasn’t any black mold to mitigate.

  Uncle Milton stared at the apartment in open-mouthed astonishment. “What the fuck kind of people you rent to, Agassiz?”

  “See, this is my life. I rent to what I think is a nice Christian woman. She lives here for years, I never hear a peep out of her. I’m thinking she’s the perfect tenant until she dies and I come in here with her kids to get her stuff. Man, are we surprised. I gotta threaten the little weasels with a lawsuit to get them to come in here and get all the shit out. A boy and a girl and neither one of them has any idea that their mother is a fucking crazy hoarder living in filth. It took a cleaning crew two weeks to get this place to look this good.

  “So now what do I do? I rent to nice gay girls like our Sparky here. They keep nice places. Something breaks, they call, I get it fixed. They ask if they can paint, I say sure, just nothing too funky. One of them asks if she can plant a nice flower garden in the courtyard. I say sure. Another one wants to fix the fountain itself, I say sure. I rent all my places to gay people now cuz they’re neat, they keep their stuff neat, they keep my stuff neat.”

  He patted Sparky on the back. “You think you can fix this?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not going to be a quick fix.” She looked down at the floor. Beautiful parquet, it was now all scuffed and stained. It would need to be refinished.

  “I know. The place has been sitting cuz I don’t have the time to hassle with all those fucking trade people. I want one person who can do it all. Milton says you’re the one. If you gotta hire out, just bill me. Otherwise you do it your own way.”

  “Great,” Sparky said. She was excited. She would work days at McAlester Electric and nights and weekends fixing this place up. With what Mr. Agassiz was paying her she’d be able to put aside a nice little nest egg for herself. She wouldn’t need financial help from anyone. She’d be on her own, and Wesson be damned. It felt good. “I’ll get started tomorrow.”

  Uncle Milton turned to Sparky after Agassiz left. “We gotta talk,” he said. He looked worried.

  “What’s up? You going to fire me?” This was a standing joke at McAlester Electric. Everyone who worked there was related to someone. You didn’t fire them—you informed them of the errors of their ways and they fixed them. Sparky hadn’t had occasion to discover the exact nature of the corrections that occurred and didn’t want to. The McAlesters weren’t the mob, but they had sort of a mob mentality.

  “I was going to do this anyway, but I want you to know that I’m going to bequeath my estate to you, seeing as I have no children of my own.” He looked grave. “It’s not a lot, but it’s something, and you’ll need it since you are most likely going to be disinherited by your parents.”

  “Hold up. Start over again, this time at the beginning.”

  “If only it were that easy.” He put his head in his hands.

  Sparky had often wondered if her uncle was gay. He was such a queen that he should’ve been. He had never married, something he blamed on Sparky’s father, his older brother, Frank. He’d confided to Sparky once that if being married meant having an “Adele,” Sparky’s mother, in his life he’d rather be a monk.

  As it was, he kind of lived like a monk, albeit a higher ranking one with nice stuff like in the Canterbury Tales. He had a condo down by Puget Sound that was beautifully furnished, and he had a lot of vintage Fiestaware.

  He sighed heavily. “Wesson called your mother in Alaska. She told her you’d gone off your rocker, taken some of your stuff and run off. She made it sound like you were homeless, wandering around with a shopping cart and muttering Bible verses to yourself.”

  Sparky laughed. “Seriously?”

  “I’ll say. They’re coming home.”

  “Oh, crap. I thought they were going to be gone for at least six months, maybe more.”

  “They would have if Wesson hadn’t called.”

  It was Sparky’s turn to sigh. “We are in so much trouble.”

  “It wasn’t really our fault.” Milton sat down on an unopened five-gallon bucket of ecru satin finish paint that was intended for the walls.

  What he was referring to was the removal and cleanup of all the shit her parents had accumulated and put in their front yard over the years. Adele was not a child of the Depression. If she had been, her behavior would’ve made sense,
but her family had had money. As far as Sparky could figure, her mother saved things simply to save them. As if something made her want to rescue them from the ignominy of being thrown out.

  Whatever the source of her obsession was, the result was that Adele had every conceivable household appliance known to man—a vegetable corer, a hand waxer, a smoothie wand, seven food processors, four blenders, two bread makers and fifteen Crock-Pots. A lot of the stuff came from helping older friends downsize and move into assisted living or go off to live with their children. When the church bought plastic chairs that were purported to be more ergonomic and therefore more comfortable to sit in during Bible study, her mother took all the old metal chairs and saved them for the day when they would be useful again, stacking them neatly along the side of the house and covering them with a large blue tarp.

  It wasn’t hoarding exactly, or that’s what Sparky told herself. Perhaps her mother did too. The stuff was organized, and she sold what she could at weekly yard sales, displaying it in glass cases, storage units and clothing racks that she’d gotten from a thrift store that had gone out of business.

  The neighbors never said anything—they were too polite and apparently believed too highly in personal rights to call the city—even though the fixtures and the condition of the porch-turned-storage area clearly constituted a blight on the neighborhood. When her dad retired and her parents set off on their voyage to places far and near, the neighbors had waved and blown party horns. As soon as Sparky came over to check on the house, however, she was surrounded by a polite posse who handed her a four-pack of Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino and a box of biscotti—the Pacific Northwest’s equivalent of a pecan pie to sweeten the sour subject about to be broached—and asked her if in her parents’ long absence something might not be done to “tidy up” the place. In other words, to get rid of all the shit in the front yard. Sparky wasn’t upset. She understood where they were coming from. Uncle Milton had come over and they had carted away truckfuls of the stuff.