Joe's Black T-Shirt

by Joe Schwartz

  It wasn’t until he was outside re-lacing his boots that he thought about it. He forgot to get the check. How the hell could he possibly go back in and ask for money now? The sneaky bitch, he thought.

  He picked up a white trash bag he presumed by the smell and weight to be his soiled clothes. Pissed off he had been so gullible, he stopped dead in his tracks. Underneath his driver side wiper blade was a check. In the note field Jeannie had written For Services Rendered.

  Jeannie still lay in bed as Steve got out. She had lit another cigarette and had turned on the television. It was one of those remodeling shows where in half an hour they turned a shithole into the Garden of Eden. Steve liked that they didn’t show the crew of thirty people doing the actual labor. Steve had repaired many a broken pipe by an under-informed do-it-yourselfer. An amusing thought crossed his mind that he should send in a suggestion to the station to do more shows regarding plumbing. It would be good for his business.

  The bathroom door closed, Steve turned the shower ‘HOT’ valve wide open. When the steam had begun to fog the mirror, he tested the water with the tips of his fingers. Slowly, he opened the ‘COLD’, trying to perfect the water’s temperature. When it seemed he was close he stepped inside cubicle closing the white glass door. The water was still too hot and scalded his feet. He added more cold water and the sting subsided. With the removable showerhead he had installed in hand, Steve liberally sprayed his entire body. In ritualistic fashion he moved the water from his groin to his head, as he always had, with no more thought than as to how he ate or sat.

  The water was barely tolerable. One degree hotter and he might risk a third degree burn. Steve’s theory was whatever micro-bacteria might have attached to him could not survive the elevated heat in conjunction with his energetic scrubbing. It was based in theory to a story his grandfather had told him as a teen-ager.

  ***

  The old man had been in the Navy in WWII. As soon as they docked and were issued liberty, him and his buddies would hit the ‘shore-whores.’ After four months out at sea, surrounded by swinging dicks night and day, unless you were a sissy, you couldn’t wait to dip the ol’ wick as soon as possible. A lot of his buddies would stay overnight in the cathouses, too drunk and exhausted to make it back to the ship. His grandfather said he always came back and immediately took the hottest shower he could possibly stand. He claimed, due to this ritual, he was able to avoid the myriad of venereal diseases his buddies suffered.

  ***

  Steve shut off the shower. His skin pink and warm to the touch, he gently patted his skin dry. Jeannie’s terri-cloth towels were rough and itchy. Maybe he would buy her some of those good ones he had seen shopping with Brenda. If they were still on sale he would go back and get her a set. If not, then he would buy only one for his exclusive Sunday usage.

  Finished attending to his hair, teeth, and under arms, Steve stepped nude back into the bedroom. Searching through his red gymbag, he found his clean boxers. Not normally much for talking while he got dressed, he noted the remarkable quietness inside the bedroom. The bottom right hand corner of the television screen had the word ‘MUTE’ spelled out in green letters. Grateful for the silence, he finished dressing.

  Fully clothed next to her prone, nude body except for his boots, he bent down to give her a kiss. She put a hand against his chest to stop his advance.

  “Steve,” she said, “We need to talk.”

  Pulling back, he looked at the clock. He hoped this wouldn’t take long. Brenda and the kids would be expecting him soon.

  “What’s up?”

  “Are you satisfied with this?”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t wish sometimes we could have more than this?”

  “I don’t have time for this shit, Jeannie.”

  “No, of course you don’t. We wouldn’t want that precious little wifey of yours to think anything was wrong, now would we?”

  Lighting a fresh cigarette, she blew the smoke out in disgust. The tension of her last comment made Steve defensive.

  “What the fuck is your problem?”

  “I’m sick of this shit. You come here, fuck me, and tell me that I’m ten times the lay your wife is, then I’m alone until you decide to come back.”

  “You knew what this was. I told you I would never do something as stupid as leave my wife and kids,” Steve said. Again he looked toward the clock. He would give her one more minute to make her point, then he was gone.

  “I know, I know,” she said.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Steve,” Jeannie said, “I want more.”

  “I told you already---”

  “Goddamn it! I heard you the first hundred times.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me,” Jeannie said, “is that I ain’t nothing, but a hole to you.”

  “Give it a fucking rest already. This is the best I can do.”

  “I want more, Steve. I’m sick and tired of getting your old lady’s leftovers.”

  “Jeannie, I have to go.”

  “Good. Get the fuck out of here,” she said, “and don’t come back unless you can figure it out.”

  Steve’s hands were clenched in rage. Nothing would satisfy him more right now than knocking the shit out of her. Who the fuck was she to make demands on him? Up until this moment, everything had been fine. Women, he thought, if it weren’t for pussy men would hunt them like deer.

  “I gotta go,” he said.

  He shoved his boots on without lacing them up and slammed the trailer door behind him. The entire drive home he could hardly concentrate. The thought of not having Jeannie anymore was unacceptable. He was a smart guy. If it killed him, he would figure this shit out.

  ***

  Friday night, Steve and his buddies were exercising their rights as men. Stationed at their usual table, the jukebox couldn’t drown out the sound of bowling pins being smashed. The Seven-Ten Split bar set inside of Striker’s Bowl-A-Rama had been their hang out since high school. Their great affection with the bar began when the owner had been willing to serve them before they had reached the legal drinking age. As long as they didn’t start any trouble and paid in cash, they could get pie-eyed as they liked.

  Now as men, the original owner was as distant a memory as those glory days before work and family. They were regular, good customers, who always drank a shitload of draft beer, and settled their tab at last-call.

  The four, including Steve, did this as much to decompress as out of habit. Mostly, they told stories about the biggest idiots or some rich asshole they had come across that week. It was a game of one upmanship that lasted from seven until nine. The guy with the best story won by having his tab paid by the others.

  Come nine o’clock, the moderately sized bar that could sit thirty snugly was standing room only. The room buzzed as excited people talked, drank shots, and tried to decide what song they would sing. It was a parade of drunken jackasses that got worse as the night wore on. Steve never grew tired of watching people drunkenly slosh off-key through songs, fucking up the lyrics even though they scrolled tele-prompter style on all the big screen TVs.

  It was Steve’s brother-in-law Vincent who had convinced the current owner to put Karaoke in the bar. Doubling the bar’s revenue within two months, he was now putting it on every Friday and Saturday night.

  In Steve’s opinion, the guy was a loser. The little bit of cash money he made here in two nights was less than he made in one day. He had never known Vincent to have a real job outside of this except little part-time bullshit janitor gigs that paid next to nothing.

  Once, mostly due to Brenda’s insistence, he had offered Vincent a job as his helper. The son-of-a-bitch turned him down. That was the last time he thought about helping him. If he were on fire, Steve did not believe he would make the effort to piss on him.

  Physically, Vincent was repulsive by any sane person’s standard. He was a heroin skinny freak. His every bone and j
oint visible as a skeletons. Deep pock marked ruts in his cheeks from the severe acne he suffered through as a teenager was hideous. He looked more like a survivor of a flash fire than a case of zits. To top it all off, he wore coke-bottle thick glasses due to his insatiable appetite for books. Why the hell a guy would want to read so damn much all the time anyway was a mystery to him? Served the dumb jerk right, Steve thought.

  Vincent’s hair was long, unkempt, and greasy. The few clothes he owned were pretty much all the same. Stained and ripped blue jeans, a black t-shirt promoting some band no one in the Midwest knew, and the same junky ass Converse high tops that he had worn since Steve had first started dating Brenda.

  If Vincent had ever gotten laid, Steve surely thought it was only out of pity. If it weren’t for his wife, he wouldn’t even say hello to the ugly piece of shit at family get-togethers. Wherever he was, Steve made it a point to keep Vincent in his peripheral vision. If that freak so much as came within twenty feet, he would do his damnedest not to get trapped by him.

  Inevitably, he would have no choice but to talk to him.

  “Hey, Vince, how’s the world treating ya?” Steve would ask.

  “You know.”

  No, I don’t know you ignorant asshole that’s why I asked.

  “How’s work?”

  “Okay. It’s work.”

  If that’s work than I’m a flying fucking elephant.

  “Did you see that drunk bitch last Friday? I bet she could have swallowed that mic whole and never gagged.”

  “Mmm, yeah. I guess. Whatever.”

  I can’t listen to this shit sober.

  “I’m gonna get another beer. You want something?”

  “Do they have any Diet Pepsi?”

  “Not sure, but I’ll go look.”

  Go fuck yourself retard.

  That was life with Vincent. Nobody knew what the hell to do with him, but no one had the balls to tell him to fuck off. God knows he wanted to once or twice, but Brenda restrained him. Out of respect for her he left Vincent alone.

  As the night wore on, a thought began to formulate inside Steve’s drunken mind. Vague at first, the idea became a bit more clear with every beer. If there was ever a way to kill two birds with one stone, this had to be it.

  Steve ping-ponged his way down the narrow corridor. He felt acutely proud of himself and was laughing out loud while he pissed. The enormous joy the thought brought couldn’t be contained. From a distance, no one would have thought any thing of such behavior. He was merely another guy getting shit faced. It was Steve alone who knew the evil that thrilled him to no end. He left the bar without saying a word to his buddies.

  ***

  The night had turned cold as the waning days of summer gave way to the coming fall weather. Steve’s shivered inside his wife’s idling mini-van, his light jacket inefficient against the brisk air. To take his mind off the cold, he thought about the plan.

  He revved the engine in anticipation as he watched the temperature gauge needle rise from below the capital C. The heat would be refreshing against the sobering cold. Steve turned the blower on halfway. The immediate shock of icy air followed by the mild warmth stopped his chattering teeth. Warm again, he reached into pocket and pulled out his cell phone.

  He knew the number he dialed better than his own home phone. It rang five times before Jeannie picked up.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hey, baby,” Steve said, “did I wake you up?”

  “Jesus Christ, Steve. What do you think?”

  “Aw, sugar, don’t be mad at me.”

  “I’m not in the mood for this shit, Steve. Some of us have to get up and go to work tomorrow morning. If I’m late one more time it will be my third write up by the nurse this quarter.”

  “We’re kindred souls. I clean shit out of pipes and you wipe it off old folk’s asses.”

  “Kindred souls?”

  Steve could hear the familiar sound of her lighter striking flint. He was happy to know she was smoking. It meant she would tolerate his call despite the late hour.

  “You have got to be drunk talking that kind of smack.”

  “I work hard for a living. Nothing wrong with knocking back a few.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. Jeannie paused to drag on her cigarette. “Did you want to come over?”

  “Not tonight, baby.”

  “So you called me at goddamn near two in the morning to tell me how much you missed me? I’m touched.”

  “I figured it out.”

  “Steve, it’s late.”

  “I said,” Steve said deliberately louder, “I figured it out.”

  “Figured out what?” Jeannie asked. Maybe he wasn’t as drunk as she initially presumed.

  “You said you wanted more. Well, I figured it out.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Steve.”

  “Darlin’, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  ***

  Jeannie slid the magnetic strip through the time-card slot. The laminated plastic rectangle resembled a credit card and doubled as key between the electronically sealed wards. Spared by one minute, she had not been late.

  Promptly, Jeannie reported to the nurses’ station. Nurse Dugan waited clacking her inch long nails in succession from pinky to pointer. Everyone at the Little Flower Nursing Home knew better than to piss her off. Nurse Dugan had no problem in making a subordinate feel like shit because they had forgotten some minor detail. It was well within her power to reprimand the lower class C.N.A. staff, and it was her delight to do so. The worse of it all was that she held the power of virtual life and death in her slim, ballpoint pen. Jeannie had received only one raise in three years as a direct result of the nurse’s evaluations.

  Jeannie stood at the nurse’s desk. She had learned to wait. Nurse Dugan believed religiously in the proverb that aides should speak only when spoken to. Jeannie tried not to fidget, eager to get in motion, into the rhythm of work.

  “Cutting it mighty close there today, Ms. Sitzes.”

  “Yes, ma’m,” Jeannie answered. She made sure to keep direct eye contact. To look away as she spoke was one of Nurse Dugan’s many pet peeves.

  “Was it car trouble this morning or did we forget to set our alarm?”

  “No ma’m.”

  “Probably spent the entire night carousing with some hoodlum. Someday you’ll wind up in some ditch with your throat cut and your legs spread.”

  “Yes, ma’m.”

  “Don’t sass me. You’re lucky to have this job, and I suggest that if you want to keep it you mind your Ps and Qs. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’m.”

  Nurse Dugan handed a single sheet over the counter to Jeannie that listed room numbers and duties to be performed.

  Jeannie took hold of it, but the nurse refused to let it go.

  “I’m watching you Ms. Sitzes. Never forget that.”

  “Yes, ma’m.”

  Jeannie looked over the sheet as she walked away from the desk. First on the list was an Alzheimer’s patient famous for his incontinence. Next was another and then another after that. Nurse Dugan, for reasons unknown to Jeannie, had saw fit to put her on the ‘shit run’ today. Usually, this sort of thing would have put her into a mood fit to kill. People covered in their own excrement would need to be stripped, bathed, their bed linens changed, and eventually re-dressed. She would dream of the many horrible way she hoped Nurse Dugan would eventually die as her green hospital scrubs became speckled in black and brown dots.

  Today, however, she found no discomfort in even these most foul duties. The wonderful idea that Steve proposed had put her into a euphoric trance. She moved room to room with a newfound solace that was the plan.

  ***

  She went after work to buy a new outfit, then spent hours on her hair and make-up while chain smoking. Jeannie hadn’t been this nervous in years. If this went well tonight all her hopes of domesticity with Steve may yet come true.

  She arrived early at the Seven-Ten Sp
lit. Steve had told her to get there around quarter to nine, but she couldn’t wait. Even though there was another hour before Karaoke began, the bar was beginning to fill with excited people grabbing the thick, spiral bound books that were all over the place. Jeannie found a seat at the bar and thumbed through one. It was an alphabetical listing of songs. New songs, oldies, pop, punk, metal, country, R&B, and shit she had never heard of before.

  “What’ll ya have, sweetheart?” the bartender asked.

  “Shot of Jager and a Stag if ya got it, a Bud if ya’ don’t.”

  Amused by her order, he smiled to himself. He set a twelve-ounce can in front of her next to a shot glass of the black licorice liquor.

  In one quick gulp the shot was gone, followed closely by the carbonated tickle of beer. Jeannie was nervous as a whore in church. She immediately ordered another Jager and repeated.

  The bartender with the protruding belly and man tits remained. He was still smiling and it was beginning to annoy Jeannie. She was used to strange men’s attention, but if this fat asshole thought he had a shot in hell, he was crazy.

  “Something funny?” she asked.

  “Not necessarily funny ha-ha as just odd.”

  “Come again?”

  “There’s only other person to my knowledge who ever orders a Stag with a Jager back around here.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Vincent,” the bartender said pointing across the room. “He’s the guy in charge of the Karaoke.”

  Jeannie followed his finger to its target. Vincent had his back turned to toward them.

  “Well hell, why didn’t you say so? Give me a pair, pal.”

  Jeannie weaved in-between the tables and people standing about. She almost spilled the drinks more than once, but finally got close enough to tap Vincent’s shoulder. The big black hoodie that covered him was puffy. Jeannie had to push much further than she had anticipated before coming into actual contact with his body.