Desk Jockey Jam
Ainslie Paton
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are the product of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organisations or people, living or dead is purely co-incidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher. Copyright © 2013
Desk Jockey Jam
Ainslie Paton
Whip it meets Wall Street
Anthony Gambese thought he had life sussed. Happy family, good mates, the freedom of surfing, a new career, and enough action in the bedroom to keep him well satisfied. He had no idea. But two chicks were about to show him the error of his ways, trashing his love life, stealing his promotion and challenging his honour. And that was before he discovered what a roller derby doll could do by skating over his heart.
Like a roller derby jam, this novella is tight packed, fast and furious.
It can be read alone or as a follow up to Grease Monkey Jive. It tells the story of Ant Gambese, the last of Dan’s mates not felled by a girl who was exactly what he needed, and didn’t see coming.
Chapter Index
1: Bitch
2: Big Swinging Tricks
3: Puce
4: Pivot
5: Warmer
6: Bruised
7: Sucker
8: Contact
9: Epiphany
10: Confession
11: Suicide Zone
12: Soul Crush
13: Stickyfoot
14: Fresh Meat
15: Holding the Star
Grease Monkey Jive
About Ainslie Paton
Acknowledgements
1: Bitch
The wave looked sweet and since not too many grommets were angling for it, and Dan, Mitch and Fluke had taken an earlier ride, this one was Ant’s. He face-planted his board and spun it towards the shore. This was going to be choice. All he had to do was wait for it. All he had to do was—
“Mine!”
Ah—stupid little grommet cut in front of him. “Fuck!” He either pulled out or ran the kid over. Running him over was friggin’ appealing. Teach him to cut in like that, dangerous. For a moment he and the kid eyeballed each other across the swell. He knew that grommet. Little monkey. Good surfer. Good on a skateboard too. But if he kept pushing it like that all his skinny limbs might not keep working right.
“Grandpa.”
The kid owned the wave and enough skill to flip Ant off as he stood. “Fuck.” Ant pulled up, let the wave tunnel underneath his board. If it wasn’t enough that bitch Bree Robinson had to take the promotion he’d wanted. No not wanted, deserved, now a twelve year old kid stole his wave, gave him the finger, and rendered him inarticulate.
This was not his day, not his week. He should’ve had his wits about him more. Been on the lookout for the kid, been on his friggin’ guard for Bree. He’d known from the moment they were hired together as trainee analysts a year ago that she was the one with gold star stamped on her forehead. She had the pedigree. She had the smarts. And as the year progressed and eight trainees became seven analysts, then six, and he’d watched her in action, he’d known she was his rival for the promotion.
But she was not a better analyst than he was.
So how the fuck had she managed to cut in on his wave?
He sat astride his board outside the break point and rolled his stiff neck. To make life more annoying, there was the extended family lunch he had to show up at, no excuses this time. If he didn’t show there’d be all kinds of hell to pay from Mum, not to mention Nonna, who was like an iPod stuck on repeat about it being time to find a good Italian girl to settle down with.
As a joke one of the dickhead cousins had shown Nonna how dating websites worked. Now she was at him to get a profile and send kisses. What business does a seventy-five year old have thinking about internet dating? Christ.
It was almost worth taking Toni Pagano out to keep Nonna happy. And man would it. The Gambese and Pagano families were as close as proper blood relations and it was no secret a match between him and Toni would be viewed as better than a papal blessing.
He hadn’t seen Toni for years now. She’d been working in London. Pulling beers or making beds, or something minimum wage. But she was back and she’d be at lunch. He could barely remember what she looked like without pigtails. Still in an argument between Toni and RSVP, maybe he could fudge something to keep everyone off his back. Take her to a movie or a concert, keep everyone happy by letting them think something was going on.
Another wave washed under him and he watched the boys signal from the shore. What he really needed was a strategy to elbow Bree bitch Robinson so far out of his way she got eyestrain looking for him. That’s what he needed to be focused on, not Toni Pagano, not electronic kisses, not making Mum and Nonna happy. They’d be happy enough when he was pulling in the big bucks and then maybe he’d think about a serious girlfriend. Till then it’s not like it was a drought and with the rest of the boys paired up he was in the box seat for all the random action.
Jesus. Hard to believe he was the last man standing. That’d snuck up on him too, like the grommet, like Bree. Him and Dan and Mitch and Fluke had been mates since high-school. Dan, Mitch and Fluke went back to short pants days. But last year while Ant had his head down, trying to make sure he came out on top at work, everything changed. And ironically he’d been the one to kick start it.
Freaking ballroom dancing.
He never thought the boys would see that bet to learn how to waltz and whatever through. Never. Not once had he truly considered it was a financial risk, that he’d do his dough on it.
He did his dough. And while he was busy thinking about public listings and share splits the dynamic of their whole friendship changed. The boys were thinking about privacy and splitting rent.
No big surprise about Mitch, serial steady when he could pull it off, and he was king-tide high about being back with Belinda, but Dan. Man! Dan was the ultimate player with a different chick every weekend. Ant didn’t think Dan had it in him to be faithful. But since he’d met Alex it was game over for Dan. If Teach ever dumped him, he’d be roadkill, permanently. He was in a bad enough way when he’d called it off with her because of his fuckwit father. Now Alex had moved in with him and they were rock solid.
Ant thought about that as he lined himself for a wave to the shore. Jesus, maybe he was an a grandpa like the grommet said. Too old for random hook ups and disposable one- night-stand relationships.
And that brought him to Fluke. The ranga had a steady girlfriend. It’d been a dry argument for Fluke since forever. Ant would’ve eaten a tub of Sex Wax before he’d have bet on Fluke getting it on and keeping it up with the cutie pie in the cardy. But now even Fluke had a shot at something worth keeping with Carlie.
Fluke!
Miracles did happen.
Which meant they could happen at work, so Bree Robinson better keep her wits about her, because Papal blessings ran as rich as pasta sauce in the Gambese family, so a fair dinkum miracle wasn’t out of the expectation set.
Meanwhile he needed coffee. He paddled hard, snuck a look behind and then was on his feet, crystal blue streaming under him, foam starting to froth as the wave topped out. No more grommet, no more Bree bitch Robinson, just the wave and the salt air and the white sands and the thought of breakfast making his mouth water. Everything was right with the world again. And even better once he was sitting in the cafe with a Bondi Breakfast –extra bacon, in front of him and his first macchiato for the morning.
Until Mitch opened his fat trap.
“What the stuff is wrong with you, Ant?”
Dan leaned forward. “Don’t tell me the Alfa is buggered. I hat
e working on that prissy little car.”
Ant grunted, “There’s nothing wrong with me, and my baby girl is purring.”
“You nearly whacked that kid who dropped in on you,” said Fluke.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I think the whole beach knew it, Ant,” said Dan, looking at him with his best ‘what gives, you’ll feel better if you tell me’ expression.
Ant groaned. “I lost the fucking promotion.”
“Ah, shit. Who got it?” Dan knew how much this hurt. He did the easy eye contact thing with their waitress and a second round of coffees was on its way.
“That bitch Bree Robinson.”
“You mean that deserving colleague you admire and respect so much?” said Fluke.
“I mean that bitch Bree Robinson.”
Mitch laughed. “Sore loser much."
Ant gave Mitch the evil eye. “Fuck off. That senior analyst role was mine.”
“Hold up,” said Dan. “You said she was good. Knows her stuff.” He pushed back in his chair, settling in. Which wasn’t good. It meant question time. “Why do think they chose Bree?”
“She’s a fucking suck up.”
Dan nearly choked on a toast crust. “And by that you mean?”
“Probably what you’re thinking.” He wanted Dan to start thinking about something else, anything would do. Couldn’t the guy just eat his eggs.
“I’m thinking you’ve always said Petersens was a respected brokerage full of smart people. I’m thinking those smart people chose Bree over you for a good reason. Is that what you thought I was thinking?”
“I was thinking she probably has good tits,” said Mitch.
Ant ignored Mitch and focussed on Dan. “It’s got...”
“No wait, answer Mitch first. Do you think she got promoted because she’s got good tits?”
“No.” The right answer, but not a satisfactory one for Dan.
“She doesn’t wear low cut tops and tiny skirts and flaunt her body?”
“No. She wears tailored suits and puts her hair in a thing,” he gestured at his head to indicate Bree put her hair up there, all sleek and tidy. “It’s a brokerage, Dan. We don’t wear bloody overalls and tool belts either.”
“Right, so what did you mean by saying she’s a suck up?”
“It’s obvious isn’t it?”
“If you want us to think she slept her way to the corner office,” said Fluke.
“So does she have good tits?” asked Mitch.
Ant rubbed his eyes. “There are no corner offices, its open plan, except for old man Petersen and I’ve never looked at her tits.”
“For real?” They all looked at Mitch. He laughed. “You’ve looked at her tits.” He forked a roast tomato in his mouth and swallowed. “You’d be dead if you didn’t.”
“Fuck off, Mitch,” said Ant. “She’s a colleague, not some chick I want to take home from our friendly neighbourhood dive after five minutes of having her tongue down my throat.” And so what if he’d looked at Bree’s tits, he would be dead if he hadn’t, but it didn’t work like that in the office. It was work, not the weekend. Not that there was much of Bree on display anyway. She was so conservative, pants or dark stockings, knee length skirts, long sleeved jackets all in dark colours. The only thing not strictly corporate about Bree was her shoes. She was tiny, she wore these come-fuck-me-shoes with six inch heels. She had a red pair he liked.
Dan waved a knife at him. “So what did you mean by saying Bree’s a suck up?”
“I...” Ah shit, what did he mean? He had no idea why Bree got picked for the role over him, he just knew it burned. Which gave Dan the perfect opening.
“You mean your smart admirable bosses chose Bree not because of any sexual favours or even the promise of them, not because she’s got good tits, but because she’s more suitable than you.”
“Fuck no.”
“Well what then?”
“Look Dan, just because you had a freaking epiphany about women.”
Dan dropped his knife on his plate. Fluke jumped. “Screw you, Ant. What does that mean?”
“Keep your hair on I’m not insulting Alex.”
Dan exhaled hard. He put his fork down without clattering it. He wasn’t taking the bait. Which was good, because even though a topic change would be a godsend, Ant hadn’t intended to ride up Dan’s arse. “Why did Bree get the job, Ant?”
“Bloody equal opportunity. She got it because she’s got tits and wears a skirt. She’d have gotten it if she had no tits and her skirt was a freaking circus tent?”
Mitch chose that moment to prove he could do two things at once. He abandoned his scan of the sports pages to say, “Is it?”
“No.” Ant twisted to look at Mitch. “She is delectably fuckable. But it has nothing to do with what she looks like, just what she doesn’t have between her legs.”
There was a scrape of metal on polished cement, the table bumped and Dan was standing. He slapped a twenty and a ten down. He had a wild look in his eyes. “You just don’t get it.” He leaned over the table till he was right up in Ant’s face. Ant could see the salt drying in the crinkles at the edges of his eyes. Dan was mad about the epiphany comment. He was way too sensitive about Alex.
“What don’t I get?”
“That she got the job because she’s better at it than you.”
“That’s not what happened.”
Dan straightened up. “I’d like to beat it into you, except I know that won’t work.” He shifted upright, put a hand on Fluke’s shoulder, bobbed his chin to Mitch and left.
What! Ant turned to Mitch and Fluke. “Did he just walk out?” Dan had never walked out of a sticky conversation before. Dan who you could say anything to, tell anything to, without having to worry he’d think badly of you, even if he did threaten you with violence.
“I think he did, mate,” said Fluke. He had a sly bloody smile on his face, like he was in on the secret to success. Fluke. Jesus.
“Shit. He’s really taking this putting women on a pedestal seriously.”
Fluke shook his head. “For a smart guy, Ant, you have shit for brains.”
“Whatever you reckon, school teacher.”
“You can’t even entertain the thought this Bree chick is better than you.”
“Nope. It’s just equal opportunity at work.”
Mitch chucked the folded paper in the middle of the table. “So I’m a humble tool belt wearer, tell me why this being equal thing between men and woman is a bad thing.”
Ant looked for their waitress. It was a three macchiato morning. “You’d be right under Belinda’s thumb wouldn’t you? I didn’t say it was a bad thing by definition, but it’s a bad thing when it’s attached to positive discrimination.”
“Meaning you think Bree got the job because your smart bosses discriminated positively in an equal kind of way. How is that a bad thing?”
Ant didn’t have the eye-contact knack Dan did. He could not score a glance from any of the wait staff. “Are there many women on building sites, Mitch?”
“I know one sparkie and a heap of landscapers, some architects, but not a single brick layer or plumber.”
“So there’s a lot of equal opportunity in your profession then?”
“Wait on, how is this about me? You could just as well ask me how many female partners there are at Bel’s law firm. Four out of fifty. Sounds pretty unequal to me. And if Bel wants to go back to uni and study to become a paralegal, or even a fully fledged lawyer, then I hope the boy’s club will give her a go. And if it takes whatever you called it,” Mitch looked at Fluke, but Fluke was reading a text, “positive equality.”
Fluke laughed, “That’ll do.”
“Then I’m all for it.”
“Let me get this straight.” Ant had eye-contact. He had a coffee order. He was not letting Mitch make him out to be a whinger. “You’re comfortable some chick got promoted over me because she’s a chick.”
“I didn’
t say that? I’m not going to hire a woman to work on any of my building sites unless she’s good, as good as a bloke.” He looked at Fluke again. “Is that bad?”
Fluke pocketed his phone. “Nope. It’s about merit. Best for the job. Look at teaching. There are twenty-seven teachers in my school. Five blokes. We just hired a new science teacher—another woman, because she was more experienced than the male candidate. That works for me. It should work for you too, Ant.”
They didn’t get it. They just didn’t understand where he was coming from. He’d lost out to sexual politics not merit. He had a right to be angry about that. “It might if I thought Bree was better at her job than me. She’s not.”
“Dead set, you know for sure?”
“What do you want for proof—a statistical analysis?” It wasn’t near as simple as that. If it was, he wouldn’t be reduced to sounding like a whinger and feeling like a victim, but they wouldn’t know that.
Mitch cut in. “Sounds like something you’d bet on.”
Ant ran a hand over his hair, stiff with salt. There was one way to stick this to them. Especially Dan with his freaking women hold up half the tent, or whatever the saying was. “You’re on. We have an annual office competition to build a fake share portfolio. The winner is the one who makes the most fake money for their fake client. It’s been going all year. We have a month left. I’m going to cream Bree. And when I do, will you accept the fact she’s not better than me?”
Mitch looked at Fluke. Fluke laughed. “If she wins, we win.”
“Right.” His coffee arrived. It took three seconds to finish it and want another one.
Mitch said, “What do we get? And we’re counting Dan in on this.”
Ant thought. “Dinner for you guys, Bel, Carlie and Alex, on me.”
“Nah, too easy,” said Mitch. “You just buy your way out of trouble. If Bree wins this has to hurt you.”
Desk Jockey Jam Page 1