Johnny’s back in the chair and he’s turned Joanna’s room into a smoking room without her protest or seeming notice. She lights one of her own. She’s called a taxi for another bottle of wine and Johnny thinks she’s coming dangerously close to pooping on the party if the fucker dont get here soon. She tries to talk about the situation with her husband but Johnny’s enforced a no talkin about your goddamn husband rule and so shuts her down anytime she brings him up. Her talk turns to all the red tape in government and she wanders through a confused, fervent ramble about policies and amendments and the dipshit she has to answer to until Johnny enforces a no talkin about your cunnyhopping job rule and she laughs and says she likes these rules and tells Johnny she likes him even though she knows it’s all a passing lark.
She asks about the urn and Johnny tells her the tale in as clear-cut and simple a manner as he can muster, leaving out the court business and the teapot nonsense and just laying it out as it is, that he’s travelling right to the other side of the country to scatter Madonna’s ashes on some beach where she used to go when she was a girl. Joanna tells of her brother, her older brother who died when she was seventeen. He’d just gotten a job at a lumberyard, his second day on the job, engaged to his high school sweetheart, got his skull split open, struck in the head with a swinging apparatus, maybe a boom. Took him three weeks to die. She tells of her sister’s boyfriend who was thrown from his motorcycle and got trapped under a car and burnt to death up against the converter because the paramedics took forty-five minutes to get there. All these people standing around, lots of burly men, and none of them had the guts to band together and lift the goddamn car off him. But, she said, he was an asshole to my sister, so . . .
Johnny listens to Joanna’s stories of calamity and sorrow and rising up out of the slummy backwoods of New Brunswick to put herself through university when everyone told her again and again that she’d never add up to shit, and Johnny does not enforce any sorta mock rule against this kind of talk, but rather feels a twinge of . . . something . . . deep down or right there on the surface or even outside of himself, a twinge, a vague sensation of knowing what she feels, of feeling for what she feels, of feeling connected to something, an experience that doesnt originate within. And lookit alright, Johnny knows the definition of the word empathy because Christ knows he’s heard it tossed around often enough in courtrooms and counsellors’ offices and fucken rehabilitation workshops, but he aint never measured it beyond a word, beyond a bullshit word until this moment. Now, Johnny, doubling back to that line of thought about how all these perfectly timed out occurrences led me here, to this woman, but, well, maybe there’s something even more to it than a piece of skin, maybe I’m supposed to feel . . .
C’mon Johnny for the love and honour of Christ! Snap the fuck out of it brother. Unless youre planning on going soft or something? Turning into some sorta sissy-boy? Cause that’s how it’s starting to look. Of course it’s all about a piece of skin. Everything is, everything comes down to a piece of fucken skin! And youre tired, wiped out, and as much as you wants that bottle to arrive so Miss Woe-Is-Me over there can feel easier about dropping her fucken trousers once and for all, as much as you wants that, a nice warm dry bed that doesnt rumble and lurch and move at a hundred-plus kilometres an hour, well that’s pretty appealing right about now too. So fuck off with the flouncy self-analysis slop and get her head back around to the matter at hand, namely your rod in all her inviting love-holes.
So when was the last time you and your husband . . . you know?
I thought there was a rule against that?
Well it’s different when I asks . . .
Oh yeah, so what are you asking? When was the last time he fucked me, or half-fucked me with his half-hard prick? Wow, that sounds kind of bitter doesnt it?
Yeah. No. I mean whatever, youre allowed to be pissed off . . .
I am! I’m allowed to be pissed off. I’m allowed to be vicious, arent I? I can be as goddamn . . .
But you dont have to get all pissed off right now? I was just askin how long.
Too long Johnny Teardrops. Too long. And you know what? You wanna know what? I’m not going back to it. I’m not. Christ I cant talk about it! I mean I’m going back but not to that. I’ll give it a month, that’s what. And if nothing changes and he doesnt come around then I’m gone, I’m done. Cause you know something, you know I caught him jerking off one night? Sitting there in front of the TV with his prick out and hard as a rock beating it off to some little anorexic slut barely out of high school. So it’s not like it doesnt work, not like there’s something physically wrong with him, is there? Oh, but that’s different, he says. That’s not the same because there’s no emotional expectation or whatever. Horseshit. I mean think about it, fresh out of the bath and lying back with my legs spread wanting to get screwed. That’s all. I’m not looking to be cuddled or boosted up or made to feel loved and beautiful, this is what I tell him, I’m not looking for any of that. I’m looking to get nailed. Take your prick and stick it in me. Where’s the emotional expectation in that? Horseshit. Oh hey, betcha that’s our bottle . . .
A rapping at the unit door and Joanna seems to catapult from the bed to the other side of the room without touching the floor in between, one bounding leap and the door swinging open and there’s a grizzled cabbie shielding himself from the rain with a scrap of cardboard and passing the prized bottle to Joanna who stuffs a crisp fifty into his hand and tells him to keep the change, and all in one motion she slams the unit door, unscrews the cap from the bottle and sucks back about two standard glasses worth of gut-rot wine.
Oh, that’s amazing. God I needed to get drunk. Where are the glasses?
She skips through to the bathroom and returns with a couple of plastic glasses and fills them both to the brim, hands one off to a mute Johnny, who’s still grappling with the notion of Joanna fresh from the bath, spread-eagle on the bed and some fella cant or wont fuck her. Beyond comprehension when you thinks about it, especially from a jailbird’s perspective. Sure the last time Johnny done a stint at HMP there was that Harnum fella from around the bay who was in for banging a cow. Really, up on a stool in the middle of some meadow where all eyes could see him, slamming it home. The cow munching on a bit of grass, hardly any the wiser. He missed his wife, that’s all he said in court, he missed his wife since she left. Fucken hell. And that time Johnny’s cellmate got a week in solitary after he was caught doing his mattress. His mattress. Ripped open the vinyl fabric and burrowed a hole in the cushion enough to fit his cock and he had away at it, gawking and drooling at a picture of some other inmate’s girlfriend. But they gave him solitary for destroying HMP property, not for twisted sex with an inanimate object or nothing. And then there’s the ones that gets so hard up they starts having a go at each other. And they’re not gay or nothing, at least not when they’re on the outside, just closes their eyes and makes like it’s a woman. Well, come to think on it, one of em would have to be a bit more bent than the other cause it’s not like the fella on the receiving end is closing his eyes and pretending it’s some skirt pounding him with a strap-on. But anyhow, from a jailbird’s angle, the notion of a class gal like Joanna and a fella cant get it up? He should be fucken shot.
Johnny flattens his wine, tries not to grimace at the acidic metal aftertaste, but then considers the vile concoctions he’s poured down his throat in the past—Lysol, Old Spice, ketchup brew, rubbing alcohol—and has a little chuckle to hisself. The past. Joanna tranquilly refills his glass, smiling idly, her eyes glassed over with drunken satisfaction.
You know my husband shit his pants at a Christmas party a couple of years ago? Can you believe that? Try taking that home and getting a rise out of it.
Johnny snorts scornfully at this, hooks his fingers into the waistband of her pants and tries to pull her down into his lap but she slaps at his hand and staggers a little as she tips another half glass down her throat. Johnny wonders then if there’s anything behind all that rape tal
k she was gettin on with earlier, if it’s some sort of twisted fantasy of hers. Lead Johnny to the brink and get herself plastered with the notion that he’ll just take her when she’s too drunk to change her mind. If that’s the case Johnny wants nothing to do with it, no thank you ma’am. Not that foolish. He might be hard up for a piece tonight but he’d sooner jack off onto the guardrail out there. All bad enough. Cause who are they gonna believe if she decides it didnt go down the way she set it up to go down?
She peeks out onto the parking lot through the blinds.
I gotta take it easy Johnny Teardrops. I have to give a presentation tomorrow. You have to keep me out of trouble . . . But hey, they’ve got a whirlpool down the hall somewhere! We could . . . yes, lets . . .
This is Johnny now, Johnny fucken Keough, kicked back in a goddamn Jacuzzi in a hotel on the mainland, glass of wine in hand, waiting to be accompanied by some married drunk government missus who’s dying for the meat. Or at least that’s the vibe she’s giving off, hey Johnny? Hard to know. Fucken hell. But who fucken cares? Where was Johnny a week ago? On his way to Dorchester for Christ sakes. Yeah, and where was Madonna? Hey now, none of that talk. No fucken downers allowed in. Not that kinda party. Madonna, the old Madonna, she’d be tickled pink at the notion of Johnny pulling something like this off. Cause that’s the way it was sometimes. Out on the town and they couldnt be bad enough, wandering from bar to bar on George Street and Johnny sucking the face off some old cougar while Madonna went through her pockets and cleaned out her purse. Madonna luring that young feller into the alleyway behind Liquid that night and then Johnny shaking him down for a month’s worth of E. Good times Johnny, when they were good. A team. A unit. And then back to the bedroom for an all-night romp on E and neither one of you able to get off but going at it all fucken night and maybe sleeping with his cock inside her and the next day he couldnt hardly look at her but she was coming in her panties. All day. Like you build it up and build it up the night before and almost get there so often but the E wont let you and then the next day it’s constant, constant. Johnny too.
So yeah, maybe tonight’s proceedings might not be something Madonna woulda been all that enthused about when her and Johnny were together, like if he fucked off to a hotel and got loaded with some sugar mama, but a story she’d have loved to hear, something from Johnny’s old life, his past, anything. She hung on every word. In the beginning. How real, how valid she made it all seem, hey Johnny. First time in your life someone looks at you and tells you youre allowed to be pissed off, that youre entitled to your rage, that even though there’s nothing can be done about it, the way things were werent necessarily supposed to have been that way, that the knot in your guts is real and that you were reared up by stupid ignorant backwater fucks and kicked around by a stupid ignorant backwater system and that for the most part you were a fucken child.
The day we went downtown to that coffee shop and sat and watched people after I almost got caught swiping CDs from Fred’s Records. CDs neither of us had no interest in listening to. Madonna laughing, sayin I was a right klepto, and I got thinkin out loud about how Pius, God love the old cunnyhopper, bloodied me lip one time for taking a peach from the fridge. Cause where peaches were special or something. Johnny the thief, stealing from his own fridge. Lookin up at Pius, peach juice dripping from me chin and sayin I never took no peach.
See what I’m sayin girl? I was always a thief. I was always a liar.
No. You were told you were a thief. It’s different. And you were told you were a liar. So what are you gonna do? Youre gonna lie and steal. Think about it Johnny love.
And then a little blond boy, a boy of about eight or nine, walking across Water Street holding his mama’s hand, and Madonna points him out, says Look, look at that little fella Johnny. He’s a child. He’s a little boy.
Johnny sips his wine and lazes back in the rumbling water, sweat beading his temples, keeping an eye on the women’s change room for a sign of Joanna, who stayed behind in the room to check in with her sagging husband, let him know she’s alright, safe and sound, preppin for tomorrow’s presentation, watchin trash TV and havin a quiet little nip of wine. Yeah, fuck.
What a night, what a night Johnny this has turned out to be.
Johnny’s naked in the Jacuzzi. The sign says swimsuits are required, but all he had was his long one-piece woollen underwear and they just werent up to scratch somehow, something very unromantic about them. Besides, doubtful Joanna brought a fucken swimsuit to a roadside motel, so that means she’ll either be in the buff herself or she’ll be wearing her bra and panties. Which would be just as awesome, says Johnny, soaking wet bra and panties. He leans back against the force of the jets and glances over to the white plastic lounge chair at the mound of his crumpled suit, his filthy wool socks, the grey boots, Madonna’s ashes, and considers the road in the coming days, his money, his health, his sanity, his freedom. And then what? Once he’s there and finds that beach that he dont even know the name of and scatters her to the wind and makes his peace? What then? Where to?
Johnny notices a faint murky quality to the water around him and realizes it must be dirt coming from him, that this is the first hot water to touch his skin since he showered before court. Fucken hell. Might as well give it a good scrub, soap or no. Maybe there was a fucken reek off him and Joanna was too polite or shy to ask him to take a shower, maybe that’s why she wanted for the whirlpool. Johnny claws at the bottoms of his feet, gives the toes a good squeeze, rolls back the old foreskin and wrings the head of his lad, cups his hand down the crack of his arse and scrubs for all it’s worth, dunks his head into the bubbling heat and grates at his scalp, kneads the cheekbones, temples, then sits back with his wine and tries to settle his lower back against the powerful jet but he cant seem to hit the sweet spot. He raises himself slightly off the tiles and the vigorous stream shoots down the crack of his arse and hits his balls with a blissful humming gush that he likes very much and so tries to raise himself farther up to meet the jet but to simultaneously keep his shoulders under the water so it wont look like he’s doing what he’s doing—frolicking with a Jacuzzi—to anyone who might be watchin, or who might walk in at any moment.
That’s good, that’s really fucken nice, hey Johnny. Imagine if you had one of these whirlpool set-ups one day. The days of chasing women all said and done. Johnny feels himself stiffening, the jet purring and droning heavenly against his nether regions. He lets his head fall forward and wonders vacantly if there’s a name for that square inch of flesh between his balls and his arsehole. Betcha there’s some sorta weird, hard to pronounce clinical name Johnny, just like there’s a name for that thin strand of flesh that joins your foreskin on. Busted that off more than once . . .
Are you doing what I think youre doing Johnny Teardrops?
Near lethal shot of adrenalin surges through his body at the sound of her voice and he looks up to see her stepping down into the pool. His heel slips off the edge of the submerged tile seat and as he tumbles backwards, his spine rasping painfully against the edge of the pool, he feels a severe burst of pressure swelling in his guts and realizes only once it’s way too late that he’s somehow flooded his bowels to the brim with steaming hot Jacuzzi water. He hears himself moan, piercing jolts jabbing agonizing dull knives in the far reaches of his insides, deep mincing electric groan in his lower back, his suddenly bloated belly, knees weak and rubbery. He squints past Joanna to the door of the men’s change room. Maybe twenty feet away. Fucken hell Johnny Keough, this is madness. Joanna with her bra in one hand and glass of wine in the other, smiling, laughing, Youre a bad boy Johnny Teardrops, I know what you were doing . . . Johnny’s puckered asshole winking and twitching, desperate to expel, eject, banish, cast away this nuisance violation of alien hot tub juice. He squeezes the cheeks together, thrusts his hips forward as he rises to his feet, his eyes focused desperate on the door to the men’s change room.
I gotta . . . I need to . . .
Oh my, what hav
e we here?
Johnny waddles tentatively across the tub as Joanna reaches for his midsection and he looks down to see he’s standin at full attention.
Mmmm . . . I know what you want me to do Johnny Teardrops . . .
No . . . I have to . . . just let me . . .
Johnny gets his right leg up out of the hot tub beyond Joanna’s shoulder, his toned abdominals twinging and heaving, shuddering hysterically, searing balloon spasming in his lower back, his cramped and trembling asshole.
Joanna’s cold lips around the head of his inflamed cock.
No wait . . . I got to get . . .
He hoists his left leg towards the edge of the hot tub and he knows it’s all over.
Joanna’s eyes wide with something near terror as a torrent of slurried hot meaty shit explodes from Johnny’s backside. She lets go of Johnny’s stiff member and cries out and backs away as if there were some foul demented creature in the water, which there is. She lunges to the other end of the pool to escape the onslaught but it’s everywhere, Johnny’s shit. Scraps of undigested lettuce from some gas station burger, stringy goops of what mighta been beef jerky, unidentifiable chunks of . . . well, shit, swirling in the bubbles, clinging to Joanna’s hair, spattered onto her chest, lapping against the sides of the pool like so much stinking putrid flotsam.
Minus the urgency of his original intent, baffled and slack-jawed Johnny staggers off towards the change room. Stops and turns to see Joanna struggling to pull herself up out of the whirlpool, gagging violently, thin splash of grainy shit spattered across her back.
Do you . . . do you need help?
Fuck off!
We can shower . . .
Fuck off . . . sick fuck . . .
He trudges across the room to the sound of Joanna throwing up on the wet tile floors, moaning and hacking, not quite sobbing but more like . . . more like . . . whimpering Johnny. The woman is whimpering. Johnny Keough, fucken ladies’ man to the bitter end. He bends to scoop up his tattered outfit and notes dazedly that the urn seems to have a bit more glow to it, a touch more shine, dark, translucent sparkles in the ceramic he hadnt noticed before.
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