Fubar

by Ron Carpol

  This bitch could see that she scared the shit out of me. “Stafford,” she said, doing a lousy job of hiding her prejudice, “I’ll get you next time.” Then clear as hell, she mouthed the word ASSHOLE.

  I stood still, not daring to speak.

  “Let’s go,” she said to the Jap holding on to Watson’s arm. “Let’s get him to the station in time for the jail bus to ship him down to the County Jail where he’ll meet more guys who can’t count past seventeen.”

  _____

  For the next fifteen minutes the mood around the house following Watson’s arrest was like being at a funeral. I must’ve been the only guy there who was thrilled by this unexpected good turn of events. One more guy gone, lowering the pledge list to thirteen, even though I was barely still one of them.

  “Pledges,” Adams suddenly announced, breaking the morbid silence in the living room. “You got the rest of the afternoon off. Be back here at 7:30 tonight. We’re having an autograph party.”

  PART 6

  THE

  EXTORTIONIST

  28

  AUTOGRAPH MY WHAT?

  7:30 P.M.

  “TONIGHT YOUR DICKS ARE GOING TO GET AUTOGRAPHED,” Adams said between fits of laughter. “By a girl between eighteen and thirty.”

  He looked around at the rest of us gathered upstairs in the pledge dorm, all with the same surprised look on our faces. If he was trying to change the gloomy mood that everybody but me felt from Watson’s arrest earlier, he was succeeding.

  “Anybody know how you’re going to prove you did it?”

  Nobody answered.

  “You’re going to have a partner tonight. Each guy is going to take a Polaroid of the girl signing his partner’s dick.”

  “You got enough cameras?” Dung asked.

  “Yeah, and a roll of color film for each camera. And that reminds me, take good care of the cameras since we’re returning them Monday to K-mart. And don’t bend the boxes or lose any of the papers it comes with. Otherwise you’re going to pay us for it. The list of partners is posted on the bulletin board.”

  “Where we supposed go for this autographing?” Grossberg asked.

  “Santa Monica Pier,” Adams answered. “We’re taking you there now. You’ll start at eight. You’ll have two hours from when we drop you off to be back at the entrance where we’ll pick you up at ten. If you’re a minute late or your dick isn’t autographed, don’t come back.”

  “What if we go somewhere else other than the pier?” Rickshaw Boy asked.

  “Then you’re out of here. Stovepipe will be standing at the pier entrance. He’ll see you if you leave.”

  “Who’s going to sign the autograph?” Rainey asked.

  The murmur of laughter and snickering continued.

  “I told you. Any girl between eighteen and thirty.”

  Castle couldn’t seem to comprehend this or almost anything else for that matter. “Tell us again, what’re we suppose to do?”

  Adams took a deep breath and explained patiently like he was talking to young, retarded children. “Find a girl on the pier who’s between eighteen and thirty. Give her the black, felt-tip pen you’ll carry. Using the black pen, have the girl print your name on your dick while your partner takes a Polaroid of the girl doing it. Then reverse the procedure. The girl prints the partner’s name on his dick and you take a Polaroid of it.” He looked around and shrugged his shoulders innocently. “It’s that simple. You guys all can’t be that stupid. Anybody got any more dumb questions?”

  “What girl would do this?” Dung asked like an idiot.

  Adams snickered. “Princess Di or Jackie Kennedy. But since they’re both dead, you’ve got to find somebody else. Sooner or later some girl will do it.”

  “But what if nobody will?” Lyman asked.

  “Then if your mother is under thirty, have her meet you on the pier in the next two hours and photograph her doing it.”

  I got stuck with Lyman while Batman had Froggy, and Vysell was with No-Wood. As soon as we saw the pairings, me and Batman and Vysell agreed that we needed to thin down the pledge class to our advantage so we came up with a good plan: if any of us found a girl to give the autograph, we’d call the other two on our cell phones and that guy would ditch his partner and join whoever found the girl. That way, the two pledges that got ditched would be aced out. Meanwhile, I kept calling every place that I thought I could find Tiffany or Amber to have them meet us on the pier and do the autographing for us.

  _____

  It seemed like there were thousands of people walking around on the pier; especially a lot of girls between eighteen and thirty. And mostly every one of them was all bundled up from the sharp, breezy chill blowing off the ocean. The heavy smell of salt was in the air and the waves were pretty high, crashing onto the surf. Lyman carried the camera and I had the pen.

  We were wandering around aimlessly like gypsies. The crowd was so big that after the first fifteen minutes we didn’t see any of the other pledge teams.

  As if we weren’t five million dollar competitors, Lyman and I talked a little, mostly about Watson’s arrest, and how unfair Lyman thought it was. I had to admit, since Lyman located his mother around the first of the year, he was a little friendlier to me than when we started pledging.

  The swelling, pressing crowd made it impossible to take more than a half-step at a time, making me feel like a salmon fighting against the current to swim upstream. By nine o’clock, with half the allotted time gone, I asked four girls and Lyman asked three. All their answers, by word or gesture, unmistakably meant fuck you! Even for me, asking a girl to do this was pretty awkward. And not getting a phone call from either Batman or Vysell meant they were shooting with blanks too. We continued moving around aimlessly, hunting for any possible handwriting candidate. Finally we stopped near the railing, just watching the human wall inch along in opposite directions.

  “Shit,” Lyman said, shaking his head sadly as he leaned against a lamppost. “No girl is going to do this. What’re we going to do?”

  “I don’t know but you’re probably right. But we got to try.”

  “Wow,” he said suddenly. “Look what’s coming!”

  He was looking at a cute, dimpled girl walking towards us about twenty feet away totally dressed in black with a pink crew cut and a piercing over each eye. She was carrying a furry pink cat that she must’ve used the rest of the bottle of hair dye on.

  I nodded towards her. “Ask her. Maybe she’ll do it.”

  He stopped. “Like hell. Nobody would.”

  “You know her?”

  “No.”

  “That’s the point.”

  “What?”

  “If she says no, you’ll never see her again anyway.”

  “OK,” he answered, surprising me. “You’re probably right. What do I have to lose?”

  By now the girl, who was clearly alone, was only a few feet away from us. Lyman took a step towards her, blocking her forward motion.

  “Excuse me,” he said smiling politely. “Can I ask you for a personal favor?”

  She had a sour expression on her face as she looked at him, then at me, then back at him again. It was obvious that she wasn’t impressed with either of us.

  “What?”

  I held up the pen.

  Lyman continued: “Will you use that pen and write my name on my penis?”

  I guess this girl couldn’t think and see at the same time. Like she was trying to digest Lyman’s preposterous request, she closed her eyes and her dark-blue eye shadow covered them like a blue window shade being rolled down. Seconds later she opened her eyes again. “What the hell did you say?”

  Lyman repeated it. The girl laughed, then smiled, and finally nodded her head. “This is unbelievable,” she said in a flat, Midwestern accent. She laughed again, showing little teeth the size of split peas. “I can’t fucking believe it. In the four months that I’ve been on the streets, this is the most perverted thing any guy ever asked me to do.”r />
  Lyman was entranced. “Then you’ll do it?”

  She smiled and stroked the cat. “Sure. I love weird shit. But why do you want it?”

  “For the fraternity scrapbook.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about but so what?”

  Lyman pointed to me. “Can he take a picture of you doing it? We need it to prove we didn’t do it to each other.”

  “Sure. But where? Not out here. I’m not going back to Juvy.”

  “What’s that?”

  She snickered. “Juvenile Hall.”

  I looked around. We were standing near the entrance to the Ferris wheel. I pointed to a pathway that turned a corner behind a hamburger joint.

  “What about behind there?”

  She looked where I pointed and shrugged. “OK I guess.”

  “I’m Lyman,” he said to the girl. “What’s your name?”

  “Rainbow.”

  “I’m Kurt,” I mumbled as she looked disinterestedly over my right shoulder.

  While Lyman led the way with Rainbow following him, I lingered behind a little and quickly punched the speed-dial on my phone; first for Batman and then for Vysell. I hurriedly whispered our intended location to both guys and hung up.

  Suddenly Rainbow’s words hit me; that she wouldn’t go back to Juvenile Hall! Instantly, I thought of Watson in jail for fucking Frizzhead who was only seventeen. I don’t know if there’s a law against an underage girl autographing some guy’s dick or not but I wasn’t taking any chances. Especially since there’s so many undercover cops wandering around on the pier looking for dopers and molesters. I caught up with the girl.

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  I shot a fast look at Lyman. “Now what?”

  He looked around. We were standing directly against the pier railing, looking down over the black, white-capped waves. There was a wall behind us and one on the right. We were against a corner. The walkway that we took to get here provided the only way anybody could see us.

  Lyman was really getting daring. “If we do it fast, nobody will see us.”

  I couldn’t fucking believe Lyman would take this risk. Especially since Watson’s asshole probably stretched at least an inch an hour since his arrest.

  “You first,” I said.

  He handed me the camera.

  Rainbow tossed the goddamn cat to me like it was a rag doll. I caught it off balance and almost dropped the pen over the side into the ocean. I cradled the squirming, furry cat in my right hand and handed her the pen with my left hand.

  “Hurry,” the girl hissed.

  Lyman faced the corner of the two walls with the ocean to his left and his back to the pathway. His hand shook as he unzipped the fly to his khakis. He pulled out his limp dick.

  “Jesus,” the girl said looking at it. “Another John Holmes.” She gripped the end with her left hand, stretching it out. “What’s your name again?”

  “Lyman. L-Y-M-A-N.”

  She snickered. “If it was Alexander you’d be out of luck.”

  Slowly she printed the letters in a fancy, swirled design that was barely legible. When the girl got done I dumped the squiggly cat into her left hand. She smiled and posed, her right hand holding Lyman’s outstretched dick with its visible printing like it was the trophy for winning the Kentucky Derby. I snapped the shutter and a big flash went off in this tiny, dark corridor.

  The camera purred and buzzed and whirred for a few seconds before the grayish print started sliding out.

  “Let me see it,” Lyman said, grabbing the bottom edge from my hand.

  The three of us stood there staring at the photo as the colors slowly developed. It seemed like less than a couple of minutes before a damn good picture showed this screwball girl printing Lyman’s name on his dick.

  Lyman was turning the picture around trying to get a better look in the poor light. “I’ll take your picture now,” he said, snickering like a little closet-pervert.

  I handed him the camera and we changed positions with the girl staying where she was.

  “I’m getting cold,” Rainbow said, shivering. “Hurry up.”

  I was shivering too and had trouble grabbing the zipper tab; especially since I kept looking over my shoulder expecting Dirty Harriet to be standing there dangling an open set of handcuffs all ready for my wrists. Then I remembered Vysell and Batman. Where the hell were they?

  “Come on already,” this sweet little thing snapped.

  I finally got the zipper down and reached into my jockey shorts and pulled out my dick.

  “Shit,” she snickered. “It’s too shriveled up.”

  Lyman started laughing.

  “Yank it out further,” she growled. “I’m freezing. I’m not staying here much longer.”

  I pulled on the thing but it stayed shriveled, barely measuring an inch.

  Rainbow started laughing. “I’m leaving.”

  “Please,” I pleaded. “I just got four letters. K-U-R-T. Write them small.”

  She looked down at my dick before her eyes met mine. “If your name is Al there’s not enough room to write it.”

  Lyman started laughing again and this bitch joined him. I stuck my dick back in my pants, zipped up the zipper and looked around at the water. The waves were getting real choppy. Then I spotted a clock on top of a huge building across the street from the pier. It was nearly 9:20; only forty minutes to go!

  Both these bastards were still laughing, suddenly getting real chummy as they stood next to each other facing the railing, looking out at the water.

  I crept forward a few steps until I was directly behind Lyman. Then, suddenly, I reached into his back pocket and grabbed the Polaroid picture! In one sweeping motion, I flung it like a Frisbee over the side, smiling as it waffled around in the air before finally floating down and getting buried under a crashing wave.

  “Hey!” Lyman screamed. “What’re you doing?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Seconds later some Mexican busboy wearing a white apron walked around the corner towards us drinking a can of Coors. He looked at us.

  “You OK?” he said to the girl.

  She nodded. “Yeah.” Then she looked at Lyman. “I’m leaving.” She turned to me and blew me a kiss. “Bye.”

  “Bye,” I answered sweetly, mimicking her.

  “Fuck you and your little dick,” she sneered before she turned around and walked away.

  I grabbed the camera away from Lyman.

  “At least I still got the writing on my dick,” Lyman said cheerfully.

  “But no proof.”

  “You saw her do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Fuck you too, little dick,” he snapped. “I’ll get her to do it again.”

  “But I got the camera, asshole.”

  “Then I’ll get another pledge to photograph it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He turned around and rushed after the girl, disappearing from sight.

  Great. So now what?

  I hurried back to the stream of people walking up and down the pier and joined them, looking around, wondering where the hell Batman and Vysell were. Meanwhile I kept trying to dream up something to get the autograph. I was more desperate than ever. I called each guy again leaving a message that the girl signed Lyman’s dick and then left the area. And to keep looking around for a girl and to stay in touch.

  I stopped one girl and asked her but she told me to eat shit. The second one said her father was a cop and she was going to tell him about me as soon as he got out of the bathroom. I changed directions fast and disappeared into the mass of people swarming around in the other direction.

  I looked up at the revolving Ferris wheel, with its beautiful geometric design that brightly lit the sky. Then the rumble of the roller coaster raced by with carloads of screaming, laughing idiots inside.

  I kept walking, looking at the suckers play carnival games: throwing ping pong balls in gol
dfish bowls having tiny openings, trying to knock over steel milk bottles with light baseballs, trying to throw a baseball at some dolls that were heavily weighted. I don’t know why, but the people looked like they were having fun even when they lost.

  There was booth after booth after booth. Fortune tellers, foods of every kind, booths selling T-shirts, trinkets and souvenirs. I scanned them all until I spotted the sign: GUSSIE’S TATTOOS.

  I hurried across the width of the pier and entered the yellow booth. A black and white, digital, Felix-the-Cat clock, with eyeballs and tail that moved back and forth, said 9:35. A gray-haired woman in her mid-50s, with a yellow and white name tag that said GUSSIE, was seated behind a tiny table next to the hanging tattoo mechanism that held the needle at the end of it. Although her arms were her best advertisement, designs of all shapes, colors, and styles lined the walls.

  “Your artwork is really beautiful. Where’d you learn how to do it?”

  Her light smile quickly faded. “The joint. Did almost three years in Corona for forgery.”

  I nodded. “You do penis tattoos?”

  “Sure. What do you want on it?”

  “My name. K-U-R-T in black letters.”

  She shrugged. “Easy. Go in the back, pull your pants down and turn on the porn video. Call me when you’re ready.”

  I raised my right palm. “But I got a problem.”

  She smiled. “You don’t seem the bashful type.”

  I sat down on the tan folding chair opposite her and told her what needed to be done.

  “You’re a crazy motherfucker,” she said in a scratchy voice when I finished. “If you were here twenty-two years ago we wouldn’t have this problem. But now, even if I did it,” she said, “and I will for a hundred bucks, I couldn’t pass for thirty. So it would be useless.”

  “You know any girl around here would do it? I’ll give you a hundred bucks for a finder’s fee. Same for the girl.”

  She seemed lost in thought. Finally she shook her head. “Sorry. Don’t think so.”

  I stood up. “Well, thanks anyway.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said, obviously not wanting to lose the C-note. “Is all that you need is just is a picture of a girl between eighteen and thirty writing the four letters on you?”