By Jim Parks
She call herself staying in a holiday hotel any time we go there, that girl. She couldn't get enough of laying in the bed and screwing, not like on the bayou where the damn kids and her mama keep things in a, how you call, uproar.
We won our first trip in a contest, something that come in the mail. She saw the pictures of the fountains and the big neon lights and we had to go. Airplane, rent car, everything in the damn world. So we go. Las Vegas.
Clarice go crazy for thowing dice and pull those damn handle on those damn machines - five, six at a time like the rest of the women. All the colored lights and bells going off. She got so excited she damn near wet her pants. In fact, her pants were wet when she dragged me to the elevator and made me go to the room. She jerked my belt loose and tore my britches down by my knees, fell down on hers and took me in her mouth working on me like never before. I told her to hold on, don't go so fast. We got to work together.
When she got herself naked, I saw what she had been doing in the beauty salon downstairs. Her pussy was - how you call - waxed. It was a smooth as can be, not a hair on it. She grab my head and grind it into her. She fuck my mouth and my nose, cussing me in French. She call me a dirty whore dog and a form of how you call sissy in French. She slap the top of my head and tell me I can't fuck worth shit, I might as well eat pussy like a damn lesbian.
That's when I came unglued. I fucked her - hard, hard as ever. She beg me to put it in her asshole and she screamed at me that I ain't nothin' but a damn faggot, I might as well fuck like one. I didn't let up. I gave what she wanted. She was asking for it. She claw the sheets off the bed, man. She holler my name and she wet the damn mattress. It was a good thing we had two king-size beds in that room. We use one for her to come, one for sleeping.
Then she got on the phone and order sea food - lobster, oysters on half shell, seafood gumbo and stuffed flounder. They bring it up on a little cart, two nigger boys in white jackets. Cost plenty. We feed the whole family for a week on that much in Bayou Bleu. She made a hog out of herself.
Then she cuss me again. She get up and slap my face while I try to watch the ball game. She make me spank her fine ass and she promise to be good.
I fucked again, this time harder. She got drunk on that scotch she drink and passed out. I went back downstairs to shoot dice, and when I come back to the room, she had broken the mirror. She throw a glass at it.
One of those little sign they have on the wall to show folks where they at and where the emergency stairs are located? She write on it in lipstick, "Y'all here, cher!"
She act a damn fool like that for three days, then we fly home to Louisiana.
Funny thing. We never drive that car, no, hell, no. Not more than ten, fifteen miles back and forth to the airport. But it was worth it.
Driving down that street with all them bright lights, she put my hand between her legs in those tight slacks she bought and grind real hard. She act like she sixteen again.
Ooh, la! I recommend. It all make her too much hot.
That's where Ti Jean come from,yeah.
# # #
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The Dance
Talk about your woman, boy
I wish you could see mine.
Talk about your woman, boy
I wish you could see mine.
She got feet as fleet as lightning
Lips as sweet as cherry wine.
By Jim Parks
The girl liked to dance. She knew rhythms and things to do with her body that no one else knew, and I loved her for it.
I had seen her at the kind of lame ass little dances they have for kids - the bubble gum music, the funny little bop steps and clumsy slow dances, but it wasn't her style. You could see it in her hips, her flashing black eyes and curly hair - the big rack and delicate little toes jammed into strappy sandals. So I stole her for the day - her and the jet black hair, the hoop earrings and the olive complexion of a full-blown latina, a native New Yorker in the Bible Belt with the transistor at her ear, gum snapping and hip slung, giggling and winking.
She wanted it and she wanted it bad.
So did I.
We went to the beach with a six pack and some condoms, wearing cut-offs, she wearing an extreme string bikini. When we got there, we were all alone on the dirty ass Gulf Coast sand, all tarry and briny from the low tide.
She fiddled around with the radio for a minute or two and got Dizzy doing "Manteca." I had never heard it before, but the way she danced like wild fire, she could have been on the stage of a sophisticated venue like Lincoln Center, a corner in Spanish Harlem or that beach where white birds circled around her head, her eyes closed, hips undulating, bare feet gripping into the sand for more and better purchase on the Earth.
It was quite a show. To the wild drums and horns, the dudes in Dizzy's combo sang, falsetto, "I never go back to Georgia; I never go back. I never go back to Georgia; I never go back." Then, whistling their little rhythm and going back into the chorus again and again, they wove a series of colored ribbons in the air around that dark, muscular girl's body and legs.
She snapped her fingers and pointed at me, crooked a finger and commanded me to come to her and we danced like crazy gone wild until she used the same finger tip to put me on my back, supine in the sand, and straddled my electrified body. We made out for awhile, then she pointed to a little pier built over the sand where we went into the shade with the blanket and spent the afternoon screwing while the music of the spheres sang in my ears.
It was good to be alive.
She made me grateful.
I wish you could see mine.
Talk about your woman, boy
I wish you could see mine.
She got feet as fleet as lightning
Lips as sweet as cherry wine.
By Jim Parks
The girl liked to dance. She knew rhythms and things to do with her body that no one else knew, and I loved her for it.
I had seen her at the kind of lame ass little dances they have for kids - the bubble gum music, the funny little bop steps and clumsy slow dances, but it wasn't her style. You could see it in her hips, her flashing black eyes and curly hair - the big rack and delicate little toes jammed into strappy sandals. So I stole her for the day - her and the jet black hair, the hoop earrings and the olive complexion of a full-blown latina, a native New Yorker in the Bible Belt with the transistor at her ear, gum snapping and hip slung, giggling and winking.
She wanted it and she wanted it bad.
So did I.
We went to the beach with a six pack and some condoms, wearing cut-offs, she wearing an extreme string bikini. When we got there, we were all alone on the dirty ass Gulf Coast sand, all tarry and briny from the low tide.
She fiddled around with the radio for a minute or two and got Dizzy doing "Manteca." I had never heard it before, but the way she danced like wild fire, she could have been on the stage of a sophisticated venue like Lincoln Center, a corner in Spanish Harlem or that beach where white birds circled around her head, her eyes closed, hips undulating, bare feet gripping into the sand for more and better purchase on the Earth.
It was quite a show. To the wild drums and horns, the dudes in Dizzy's combo sang, falsetto, "I never go back to Georgia; I never go back. I never go back to Georgia; I never go back." Then, whistling their little rhythm and going back into the chorus again and again, they wove a series of colored ribbons in the air around that dark, muscular girl's body and legs.
She snapped her fingers and pointed at me, crooked a finger and commanded me to come to her and we danced like crazy gone wild until she used the same finger tip to put me on my back, supine in the sand, and straddled my electrified body. We made out for awhile, then she pointed to a little pier built over the sand where we went into the shade with the blanket and spent the afternoon screwing while the music of the spheres sang in my ears.
It was good to be alive.
She made me grateful.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Ocean Devil
By Jim Parks
There is a house near the U.S. Naval Base at Yokosuka, Japan, where an ocean devil can get clean, really clean. Forget your quickie California shorty where the ship is on water hours and making a lot of steam, her hull groaning from the constant strain, the evaporators churning out feed water distilled and converted from sea water, the turbines whining, the shafts spinning and the screws biting through the water as she rocks and rolls, rolls and rocks - in a hurry to go nowhere in particular, just a spot on the water for duty and more duty.
Maybe she's looking for submarines, pinging the ocean depths with her sonar. Maybe she's watching out for rockets or other ships or aircraft. Maybe she's looking to meet up with another ship and relieve her on station so she can go to join the picket around the carrier battle group and get underway replenishments - groceries, fuel, the mail, ammunition, tools, parts and last but not least, the movies, the all-important movies.
But water - water to drink and cook and wash the ass, the dungarees and shirts and socks, the dishes and pots, pans and steam-jacketed coppers - comes second to the water needed to feed the boilers, power the turbines and condense to make the round trip again and again and again.
Sometimes the crew went dirty and ate cold cuts and pea soup packed in the middle of World War Two while the old man drove the boat across hundreds and hundreds of miles of ocean. When she's pressed, really pressed, walking the dog, the snipes down below in the engine rooms and boiler rooms catch a bath in a bucket while perched on the deck plates over the bilges. They make the feed water; they use it, too. Temperatures hover around 140 degrees on a good day in their spaces. The California shorty method is for deck rates, for office pinkies and for officers. You get wet, turn it off, scrub and rub with a washrag, then rinse it off. When things get out of hand, a Master At Arms wearing a badge of his office and carrying a riot stick will tap on the shower partition. It's the signal to turn it off - now, or he'll write you up. You don't want to have to explain to the Captain how you fucked up his Navy by using too much feed water when the MAA told you turn off the water. No matter what you may say, he just won't see it that way. Here come the judge, shipmate.
They take this stuff seriously.
Why?
Because any vessel exudes an odor, an odor of lubricating and machine oil, fuel, bilge, brass polish, gunpowder, fresh paint, burned and freshly welded and fluxed steel and the garbage that passes for chow in her galley. That odor is pervasive, all-encompassing, almost unnoticeable after one has spent a week or two in her inner spaces, only coming up for fresh air at chow time or for the odd turn around the fantail. It's a total luxury to wash it off if only to hit the rack, that odor of the ship and the sweat, powdered paint and rust, grease, oil and goo you've accumulated since your last dance with the shower head.
So it was a little bit of heaven for Riley when she made Yokosuka and he went over to get clean - really clean - and get some leg.
Now Riley was a proud sumbitch. He had made his crow and lost it half a dozen times, but got it back for his exemplary service in the engine rooms. He was a first class petty officer, cock of the walk, a Machinist's Mate who knew every part, and loved every part, of her propulsion system, generators, blowers, boilers and turbines. He got along good with the snipes. The other shipmates, well, they didn't have much understanding of what made her tick; however, he didn't hold it against them.
His latest peccadillo had been with a j.g. - a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, who had dared to come directly to him to talk about some inspection forms that were due for turning in to the Bureau of Ships. He had violated protocol in a very gauche way. Everyone knew Riley didn't like officers. For an officer to address Riley, he was expected to make his move through the Chief Petty Officer. He should have asked the Chief, then let the Chief turn around and say, "Riley, Mr. So and So wants to know about them there inspection forms and everything. You know anything about it?"
But this guy had no sensitivity whatsoever. He actually interrupted a shipmate who was talking to Riley about a certain problem with a worn ball valve. He didn't even say "Excuse me, men," or something respectful. Anything, any gesture would have sufficed, but, no, he made no attempt to show that he was a shipmate, just that he was another paper pushing officer from nowhere.
Forget him, Riley decided.
Irked, he made a terse reply. "I've already told someone else to do that, sir." He was lucky the old man was an ex-engineering officer who knew him personally by reputation and former experience. They had served together in another ship of the same class.
When the Executive Officer asked the old man, the old man told him, "Ah, fuggedaboudit! Riley is a proud sumbitch. Hardheaded fuck. Let it go, Sam."
They both shrugged.
Riley felt his roscoe stiffen as he alighted from the tiny taxi in front of the bath house. Inside, he told Mama San he wanted two girl, sex massage, numbah one boom boom and sleepy time.
She took his money, led him to a cypress and paper cubicle, bowed and smiled.
Riley stripped.
On the cheeks of his ass were two propellers, one for the left and one for the right. The skin over each of his shoulder blades was emblazoned with a Geisha, each holding a parasol. In accordance with Naval Regulations, his tattoos stopped at his wrists so that the sleeves of his uniforms covered them. No images protruded past the collar of his t-shirt. But all was colorful in fair territory. He had multi-colored cobwebs on his elbows to signify that it had been a long time since he'd had a drink, that he was very dry; hinges decorated the interiors of his elbows to show his facility at bending them. Twin serpents coiled around his arms, twining across his pectoral muscles and ending rampant, fangs bared, just under his clavicle. On his belly, a full-rigged clipper ship ran before the wind with every piece of canvas available bent on her poles under a full moon on one side and a blazing sun on the other. Naturally, there was a circle with a dot in the middle on the left pectoral, a square on the right, and the compasses extended in the middle under the snakes's heads.
Riley had ridden Navy ships plying the Western Pacific for nearly twenty years between Pearl Harbor, The Philippines, Japan, Korea, Guam and Midway. The tats represented quite an investment. If he'd bought books worth the amount of ink used to draw the designs upon his body and had read them, he would be a knowledgeable man, indeed.
But Riley was a sailor. He traveled light. If he couldn't get it all in one bag, he didn't need it.
He descended the stone steps into the area of the cleansing bath where two giggling black-eyed Japanese country girls, their shiny dark hair done up and held with combs and chopsticks, waited for him under the foaming, sudsy surface, their ample breasts floating up to meet his gaze. He slowly walked into the near-scalding water, then immersed himself, letting the warmth soak into his body. He suddenly felt as limber as a wet dishrag.
A thrill of pleasure ran up his body from the base of his scrotum to the back of his skull, up and down his belly and ended in a deep, groaning smile as he stretched and growled.
The two girls cracked up. They'd caught his act before. Then he got out of the water and sat on a low stool, his lanky legs and knees coming almost to his chin, his back and neck exposed to the ministrations of the two women. They scrubbed him down fore and aft, from the top of his burr head to his toes. They worked on his ass, his cock, his nipples, forced curlicued corners of rags into the depths of his ears, made him snort a menthol solution up his nose and blow it, and then poured bucket after bucket of steaming water over his body as he sat perfectly still and let it all happen to him. They were just getting warmed up. The led Riley to the cooling pool where the water was distinctly chilly and the three of them waded into the cold water together, laughing at each others' goosebumps and the way the girls' nipples turned almost inside out.
One of the girls, whom he arbitrarily called Susie, weighed his dick in her little hand, it having shriveled to a pitiful dimension, and said, "Sailor man too much cold. No can do. Anyway, I think so!"
They all died laughing at the remark.
Back in the cubicle, Riley laid out on the narrow table with the tight poplin sheet on the thin pad and a girl took each end of his frame, working cocoanut butter into his fingers, toes, feet, wrists and hands joint by joint. He began to melt. The trapezoid muscles behind his neck loosened and relaxed. They stretched and stripped all the massive muscles of his limbs, kneaded his pectorals, abdominals and glutes.
Next, the spine. Susie mounted to the table, pulled down a trapeze, and worked up and down each vertebrae with the heels of her tiny bare feet. He watched her body jiggle in a full length mirror mounted on the wall. With each rotating step, you could hear Riley's back snap, pop, re-align, and snap again.
"How it feel, Sailor Man?"
"Heavenly," Riley croaked.
His mind wandered. There was high school, the little obligatory legal jam, courtesy visits from the military recruiters, the only one of whom he got any good vibes from having been the Navy guy in his pegged gabardines and spit- shined oxfords, the Dixie cup white hat jaunty and cocky on his head, a sharp-talking hipster who snapped his gum and plied Riley with non-filtered cigarettes and fresh coffee, his sea stories all about adventure and far away places - Naples, Haifa, Spain, Hong Kong, Hawaii, Japan.
The names of the places tripped off his tongue as if he was a railroad conductor announcing the local milk run. The juvenile judge suggested he make a choice and he chose enlistment in the Navy.
He found it a home and a feeder; he never looked back; he never complained. That town on the Kansas plains was a very dim memory as he rolled over for Susie's kisses and the other girl's ministrations to his cock.
After a half hour of cat and mouse give and take, she had him begging for release. He thought of a red-tailed hawk soaring higher and higher, then finding prey and swooping down, its talons bared and ready to snatch and grab the struggling animal below it. Then he lost all control. He howled and arched his back, slamming his heels into the surface of the table, unaware of whether he was experiencing extreme pleasure or extreme pain.
He was lost in the sweet torture of the moment. They showered together and lay down for a short nap.
When he awoke, he was treated to a romping, thumping rowdy session that left his nut sack empty, swinging, slapping and slathered with spunk.
After they washed him for the last time, he dressed in his freshly cleaned and pressed Hong Kong tailored gabardines and his newly spit shined shoes and hit the street, headed for the Farmer's Grill. Inside, all was loud and smoky.
The snipes from his watch were dominating the scene. They had taken over.
Japanese girls played electric guitar and drums at full volume, shouting out American tunes.
"Here one for all soul brother," a tiny woman with an electric guitar shouted into the mike. She chanted, "The best thing in life are free But you give'em to birds and bees. I want money - that's what I want. That's what I want..."
The drummer slammed the floor tom three times at the end of each verse, then crashed the cymbal. Conversation ebbed and flowed around these outbursts as if they were the bow of the ship cutting through green, angry waves, rising and crashing into the troughs just as violent. Riley ordered a Lucky Tiger and hunched over the bar, watching one of the go go girls dancing barechested in a g- string in a bird cage above his head.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was the j.g. Who did this schmuck think he was? Some captains made the rounds of the bars with a junior officer to buy drinks for those they thought were doing an outstanding job, but they never stayed, and they never shared the drinks with their men. They drank up and took note of all hailings, then cleared their skirts and got out of the place immediately.
This nut wanted to sit at the bar and talk to him - in the middle of all this, this Valhalla, this - liberty!.
Exasperated, Riley said, "Yes, sir, what do you want, sir?"
His voice sounded like a computer-generated spoof of a man from outer space. The j.g. let his face fall. He'd had this ridiculous get happy grin from his eyes to his chin. Now, he lost it all to the corners of his mouth as he sat there in his gaudy costume of a starched white shirt with black epaulets emblazoned with gold braid, two tiny service ribbons on his chest, his hat tipped back on his head like a baseball cap, its gaudy eagle and crossed anchors riding a spray of blonde curls.
Suddenly frowning, he signaled the bartender, ordering another round for he and Riley. Riley ignored the drink. He would drink what he wanted, when he wanted. Yeah, now that he was screwed, blued and tattooed, he was out to get snot-dripping, commode-hugging drunk.
You bet.
But he was god damned if some j.g. was going to start setting the pace.
Fuck that conversation.
He looked back into the caged girl's nearly naked crotch, digging the area where her vagina melded into her butt crack, watching the play of muscles in her legs and back, the way her abdomen flexed and the bounce of her little budding breasts.
Stuff.
Stuff like that was worth fighting for.
Pussy, prestige, money, booze, guns, running fast and free - all that was worth fighting for.
The j.g. poked him in the upper arm with his elbow, as if to get his attention. Riley didn't study trouble; he just didn't understand why a motherf_____ thought he could start poking him for the price of a beer. Wrong. He turned to him scornfully and said, "SAY WHAT? HUH?"
The j.g. was repelled. He recoiled.
"G'head, man. Spit it out," Riley shouted rudely, putting his face less than an inch from the j.g.'s, showering his countenance with flecks of saliva.
"Riley, what do you want out of life? What is your problem, man?"
"I already got it, sir. I got a home and a feeder. Got no problem. What do you want?"
"I..."
"I could have sworn you were looking for a dick to suck," Riley said, evenly, hissing.
"Now, look here," the j.g. started to say.
"No, bitch, you look here," Riley said, giving him a quick uppercut with his left hand, then smacking his forehead hard with the tiger claw. The j.g. keeled over backward. He never knew what hit him. After the Marines got through with him at the brig, they brought him to sick bay and patched him up a little bit.
Most of it didn't show.
Marines know their job.
Two days later, he was standing tall before the old man. The yeoman read the charges - committing mayhem, striking a superior officer, failure to comport himself in a military manner; the old man looked at him with a wry smile.
"How do you plead, young man?" Riley stood mute for a long moment, staring over the captain's shoulder board with the three broad gold stripes at the chart room chronometer, then dropped his eyes to the service ribbons on the old man's chest that matched those he had earned serving in the same ship with him.
"Guilty, sir."
"Very well. I have no choice but to find you guilty. You will be..."
That crow flew away again.
There is a house near the U.S. Naval Base at Yokosuka, Japan, where an ocean devil can get clean, really clean. Forget your quickie California shorty where the ship is on water hours and making a lot of steam, her hull groaning from the constant strain, the evaporators churning out feed water distilled and converted from sea water, the turbines whining, the shafts spinning and the screws biting through the water as she rocks and rolls, rolls and rocks - in a hurry to go nowhere in particular, just a spot on the water for duty and more duty.
Maybe she's looking for submarines, pinging the ocean depths with her sonar. Maybe she's watching out for rockets or other ships or aircraft. Maybe she's looking to meet up with another ship and relieve her on station so she can go to join the picket around the carrier battle group and get underway replenishments - groceries, fuel, the mail, ammunition, tools, parts and last but not least, the movies, the all-important movies.
But water - water to drink and cook and wash the ass, the dungarees and shirts and socks, the dishes and pots, pans and steam-jacketed coppers - comes second to the water needed to feed the boilers, power the turbines and condense to make the round trip again and again and again.
Sometimes the crew went dirty and ate cold cuts and pea soup packed in the middle of World War Two while the old man drove the boat across hundreds and hundreds of miles of ocean. When she's pressed, really pressed, walking the dog, the snipes down below in the engine rooms and boiler rooms catch a bath in a bucket while perched on the deck plates over the bilges. They make the feed water; they use it, too. Temperatures hover around 140 degrees on a good day in their spaces. The California shorty method is for deck rates, for office pinkies and for officers. You get wet, turn it off, scrub and rub with a washrag, then rinse it off. When things get out of hand, a Master At Arms wearing a badge of his office and carrying a riot stick will tap on the shower partition. It's the signal to turn it off - now, or he'll write you up. You don't want to have to explain to the Captain how you fucked up his Navy by using too much feed water when the MAA told you turn off the water. No matter what you may say, he just won't see it that way. Here come the judge, shipmate.
They take this stuff seriously.
Why?
Because any vessel exudes an odor, an odor of lubricating and machine oil, fuel, bilge, brass polish, gunpowder, fresh paint, burned and freshly welded and fluxed steel and the garbage that passes for chow in her galley. That odor is pervasive, all-encompassing, almost unnoticeable after one has spent a week or two in her inner spaces, only coming up for fresh air at chow time or for the odd turn around the fantail. It's a total luxury to wash it off if only to hit the rack, that odor of the ship and the sweat, powdered paint and rust, grease, oil and goo you've accumulated since your last dance with the shower head.
So it was a little bit of heaven for Riley when she made Yokosuka and he went over to get clean - really clean - and get some leg.
Now Riley was a proud sumbitch. He had made his crow and lost it half a dozen times, but got it back for his exemplary service in the engine rooms. He was a first class petty officer, cock of the walk, a Machinist's Mate who knew every part, and loved every part, of her propulsion system, generators, blowers, boilers and turbines. He got along good with the snipes. The other shipmates, well, they didn't have much understanding of what made her tick; however, he didn't hold it against them.
His latest peccadillo had been with a j.g. - a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, who had dared to come directly to him to talk about some inspection forms that were due for turning in to the Bureau of Ships. He had violated protocol in a very gauche way. Everyone knew Riley didn't like officers. For an officer to address Riley, he was expected to make his move through the Chief Petty Officer. He should have asked the Chief, then let the Chief turn around and say, "Riley, Mr. So and So wants to know about them there inspection forms and everything. You know anything about it?"
But this guy had no sensitivity whatsoever. He actually interrupted a shipmate who was talking to Riley about a certain problem with a worn ball valve. He didn't even say "Excuse me, men," or something respectful. Anything, any gesture would have sufficed, but, no, he made no attempt to show that he was a shipmate, just that he was another paper pushing officer from nowhere.
Forget him, Riley decided.
Irked, he made a terse reply. "I've already told someone else to do that, sir." He was lucky the old man was an ex-engineering officer who knew him personally by reputation and former experience. They had served together in another ship of the same class.
When the Executive Officer asked the old man, the old man told him, "Ah, fuggedaboudit! Riley is a proud sumbitch. Hardheaded fuck. Let it go, Sam."
They both shrugged.
Riley felt his roscoe stiffen as he alighted from the tiny taxi in front of the bath house. Inside, he told Mama San he wanted two girl, sex massage, numbah one boom boom and sleepy time.
She took his money, led him to a cypress and paper cubicle, bowed and smiled.
Riley stripped.
On the cheeks of his ass were two propellers, one for the left and one for the right. The skin over each of his shoulder blades was emblazoned with a Geisha, each holding a parasol. In accordance with Naval Regulations, his tattoos stopped at his wrists so that the sleeves of his uniforms covered them. No images protruded past the collar of his t-shirt. But all was colorful in fair territory. He had multi-colored cobwebs on his elbows to signify that it had been a long time since he'd had a drink, that he was very dry; hinges decorated the interiors of his elbows to show his facility at bending them. Twin serpents coiled around his arms, twining across his pectoral muscles and ending rampant, fangs bared, just under his clavicle. On his belly, a full-rigged clipper ship ran before the wind with every piece of canvas available bent on her poles under a full moon on one side and a blazing sun on the other. Naturally, there was a circle with a dot in the middle on the left pectoral, a square on the right, and the compasses extended in the middle under the snakes's heads.
Riley had ridden Navy ships plying the Western Pacific for nearly twenty years between Pearl Harbor, The Philippines, Japan, Korea, Guam and Midway. The tats represented quite an investment. If he'd bought books worth the amount of ink used to draw the designs upon his body and had read them, he would be a knowledgeable man, indeed.
But Riley was a sailor. He traveled light. If he couldn't get it all in one bag, he didn't need it.
He descended the stone steps into the area of the cleansing bath where two giggling black-eyed Japanese country girls, their shiny dark hair done up and held with combs and chopsticks, waited for him under the foaming, sudsy surface, their ample breasts floating up to meet his gaze. He slowly walked into the near-scalding water, then immersed himself, letting the warmth soak into his body. He suddenly felt as limber as a wet dishrag.
A thrill of pleasure ran up his body from the base of his scrotum to the back of his skull, up and down his belly and ended in a deep, groaning smile as he stretched and growled.
The two girls cracked up. They'd caught his act before. Then he got out of the water and sat on a low stool, his lanky legs and knees coming almost to his chin, his back and neck exposed to the ministrations of the two women. They scrubbed him down fore and aft, from the top of his burr head to his toes. They worked on his ass, his cock, his nipples, forced curlicued corners of rags into the depths of his ears, made him snort a menthol solution up his nose and blow it, and then poured bucket after bucket of steaming water over his body as he sat perfectly still and let it all happen to him. They were just getting warmed up. The led Riley to the cooling pool where the water was distinctly chilly and the three of them waded into the cold water together, laughing at each others' goosebumps and the way the girls' nipples turned almost inside out.
One of the girls, whom he arbitrarily called Susie, weighed his dick in her little hand, it having shriveled to a pitiful dimension, and said, "Sailor man too much cold. No can do. Anyway, I think so!"
They all died laughing at the remark.
Back in the cubicle, Riley laid out on the narrow table with the tight poplin sheet on the thin pad and a girl took each end of his frame, working cocoanut butter into his fingers, toes, feet, wrists and hands joint by joint. He began to melt. The trapezoid muscles behind his neck loosened and relaxed. They stretched and stripped all the massive muscles of his limbs, kneaded his pectorals, abdominals and glutes.
Next, the spine. Susie mounted to the table, pulled down a trapeze, and worked up and down each vertebrae with the heels of her tiny bare feet. He watched her body jiggle in a full length mirror mounted on the wall. With each rotating step, you could hear Riley's back snap, pop, re-align, and snap again.
"How it feel, Sailor Man?"
"Heavenly," Riley croaked.
His mind wandered. There was high school, the little obligatory legal jam, courtesy visits from the military recruiters, the only one of whom he got any good vibes from having been the Navy guy in his pegged gabardines and spit- shined oxfords, the Dixie cup white hat jaunty and cocky on his head, a sharp-talking hipster who snapped his gum and plied Riley with non-filtered cigarettes and fresh coffee, his sea stories all about adventure and far away places - Naples, Haifa, Spain, Hong Kong, Hawaii, Japan.
The names of the places tripped off his tongue as if he was a railroad conductor announcing the local milk run. The juvenile judge suggested he make a choice and he chose enlistment in the Navy.
He found it a home and a feeder; he never looked back; he never complained. That town on the Kansas plains was a very dim memory as he rolled over for Susie's kisses and the other girl's ministrations to his cock.
After a half hour of cat and mouse give and take, she had him begging for release. He thought of a red-tailed hawk soaring higher and higher, then finding prey and swooping down, its talons bared and ready to snatch and grab the struggling animal below it. Then he lost all control. He howled and arched his back, slamming his heels into the surface of the table, unaware of whether he was experiencing extreme pleasure or extreme pain.
He was lost in the sweet torture of the moment. They showered together and lay down for a short nap.
When he awoke, he was treated to a romping, thumping rowdy session that left his nut sack empty, swinging, slapping and slathered with spunk.
After they washed him for the last time, he dressed in his freshly cleaned and pressed Hong Kong tailored gabardines and his newly spit shined shoes and hit the street, headed for the Farmer's Grill. Inside, all was loud and smoky.
The snipes from his watch were dominating the scene. They had taken over.
Japanese girls played electric guitar and drums at full volume, shouting out American tunes.
"Here one for all soul brother," a tiny woman with an electric guitar shouted into the mike. She chanted, "The best thing in life are free But you give'em to birds and bees. I want money - that's what I want. That's what I want..."
The drummer slammed the floor tom three times at the end of each verse, then crashed the cymbal. Conversation ebbed and flowed around these outbursts as if they were the bow of the ship cutting through green, angry waves, rising and crashing into the troughs just as violent. Riley ordered a Lucky Tiger and hunched over the bar, watching one of the go go girls dancing barechested in a g- string in a bird cage above his head.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was the j.g. Who did this schmuck think he was? Some captains made the rounds of the bars with a junior officer to buy drinks for those they thought were doing an outstanding job, but they never stayed, and they never shared the drinks with their men. They drank up and took note of all hailings, then cleared their skirts and got out of the place immediately.
This nut wanted to sit at the bar and talk to him - in the middle of all this, this Valhalla, this - liberty!.
Exasperated, Riley said, "Yes, sir, what do you want, sir?"
His voice sounded like a computer-generated spoof of a man from outer space. The j.g. let his face fall. He'd had this ridiculous get happy grin from his eyes to his chin. Now, he lost it all to the corners of his mouth as he sat there in his gaudy costume of a starched white shirt with black epaulets emblazoned with gold braid, two tiny service ribbons on his chest, his hat tipped back on his head like a baseball cap, its gaudy eagle and crossed anchors riding a spray of blonde curls.
Suddenly frowning, he signaled the bartender, ordering another round for he and Riley. Riley ignored the drink. He would drink what he wanted, when he wanted. Yeah, now that he was screwed, blued and tattooed, he was out to get snot-dripping, commode-hugging drunk.
You bet.
But he was god damned if some j.g. was going to start setting the pace.
Fuck that conversation.
He looked back into the caged girl's nearly naked crotch, digging the area where her vagina melded into her butt crack, watching the play of muscles in her legs and back, the way her abdomen flexed and the bounce of her little budding breasts.
Stuff.
Stuff like that was worth fighting for.
Pussy, prestige, money, booze, guns, running fast and free - all that was worth fighting for.
The j.g. poked him in the upper arm with his elbow, as if to get his attention. Riley didn't study trouble; he just didn't understand why a motherf_____ thought he could start poking him for the price of a beer. Wrong. He turned to him scornfully and said, "SAY WHAT? HUH?"
The j.g. was repelled. He recoiled.
"G'head, man. Spit it out," Riley shouted rudely, putting his face less than an inch from the j.g.'s, showering his countenance with flecks of saliva.
"Riley, what do you want out of life? What is your problem, man?"
"I already got it, sir. I got a home and a feeder. Got no problem. What do you want?"
"I..."
"I could have sworn you were looking for a dick to suck," Riley said, evenly, hissing.
"Now, look here," the j.g. started to say.
"No, bitch, you look here," Riley said, giving him a quick uppercut with his left hand, then smacking his forehead hard with the tiger claw. The j.g. keeled over backward. He never knew what hit him. After the Marines got through with him at the brig, they brought him to sick bay and patched him up a little bit.
Most of it didn't show.
Marines know their job.
Two days later, he was standing tall before the old man. The yeoman read the charges - committing mayhem, striking a superior officer, failure to comport himself in a military manner; the old man looked at him with a wry smile.
"How do you plead, young man?" Riley stood mute for a long moment, staring over the captain's shoulder board with the three broad gold stripes at the chart room chronometer, then dropped his eyes to the service ribbons on the old man's chest that matched those he had earned serving in the same ship with him.
"Guilty, sir."
"Very well. I have no choice but to find you guilty. You will be..."
That crow flew away again.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
...And The Nights On Broadway......And The Nights On Broadway...
...And The Nights On Broadway...
By Jim Parks
I don't know what was there in those days - at the corner of Romolo and Broadway - next door to Enrico's. I don't remember.
You know Enrico's, Enrico Banducci's - the bistro that is open air at the sidewalk in front and filled with elegant tables all dressed in white linen in back. Sometimes they have a little combo playing there, guitar, sax, upright bass, keyboards.
North Beach. To the bone.
But the building across the way on the same side, across Romolo, one of the steepest streets on Telegraph Hill, has been the location of many things. It was the city jail in the nineteenth century, smack dab in the middle of all the bagnios and small time hootchy kootchy joints up street from the Barbary Coast on Kearny and Montgomery down to Portsmouth Square and Pacific Street.
Anyway, it was the happening of a moment; it happened in the blink of an eye, and it is burned in there, in my memory, where it belongs.
I was strolling, really humping down the sidewalk on Broadway's level after I had come up from the Tenderloin through downtown, through the Stockton Tunnel, skirted Chinatown. I was really strolling, really humping the way a young man does, really picking them up and laying them down, slamming my heels and toes into the sidewalk. I'd worked up a sweat, one of those clammy feeling sweats you get in the cool fog of a San Francisco night.
There on the sidewalk ahead of me, that chipped and cracked old sidewalk with the granite curbstone and the parking meters, the exhaust gas and bally of the barkers and flashing colored lights, there was another man dressed in grey sharkskin, his baggy suit coat with side vents swinging to and fro with his gait, his wingtips slamming down on the pavement, a thin little cigar in the corner of his mouth. I could smell the cigar as he chuffed and puffed along, minding his business. I didn't think anything about it. There are a lot of dudes in business drag on that block. They come and go from the topless places and the jazz joints, the eateries around the corner on Columbus and Upper Grant Avenue. I figured he was on his way to a parking lot on down Broadway to get his car.
In the blink of an eye, a street dude stepped out of the dark there on the corner of Romolo and got in the sharkskin dude's face. I don't know what was said, or even if anything was said. It all happened so quickly.
But he got in the dude's face and you could suddenly see his complexion, the kind dopers get, all pale and sick looking, his hair unkempt and tangled, Levi's and t-shirt just hanging on his frame because he was so sick and so down and beat.
The dude in the sharkskin didn't hesitate. He kicked the street man's knees out from under him, upset that nonexistent third leg on the tripod they talk about in martial arts, and with one swift motion drew a snub-nosed double action revolver in some cold blue steel with his right hand while he flipped out his Inspector's badge with his left.
"You want some of it? Huh? Whadda ya' want? Huh?" He forced the muzzle of the pistol under the dude's nose, jabbing it with every phrase.
The man who had gotten in his face was down, the breath knocked out of him. He waved his splayed fingers in front of his face - back and forth - from his place on the cold concrete, his head in the gutter. He'd fallen there as neatly and swiftly as a tree suddenly fallen by a lumberjack.
Behind me, two guys dresssed in leather jackets and khaki chinos had jerked up two other men - both of them as unkempt and goofy looking as the guy sharkskin had felled. Across the street, two uniformed cops were chasing down another dude where he fled down the steepest part of Montgomery Street.
But it was that moment with the gun sticking in the assailant's face, the glare of the multi-colored blinking lights glinting off its precisely machined surfaces and highly polished finish, that brought it all home for me. Knocking the schmuck down in one set of well-coordinated moves was one thing; badging the guy was another, but without the gun to back it all up, it would have been meaningless, totally about nothing.
"All right, guy, you're charged with Section ____________ of the California Penal Code, Assaulting a Police Officer, Pandering and Loitering in violation of the San Francisco Municipal Code," the sharkskin dude bellowed as he jerked his prisoner to his feet and cuffed him.
"You have the right to remain silent," he said, as he kicked his ankles and made him spread his legs wide where he leaned against the wall. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law..."
I stroked on through the scene, neatly sidestepping the actors and continuing on up the street to the hotel where I knew the people and went to score sometimes. Without the gun, it would have all been meaningless to me because I was a much, much younger man in those days.
I think Sharkskin and the other cops had been laying for that little gang there in old Sydney Town. Nothing new on the Barbary Coast.
You'd better believe he would have shot him if he had to do it. You'd better believe it.
My point is that it all makes the revolver with the knot in its barrel, you know, the giant sculpture of the Colt .45 Peacemaker in United Nations Plaza in New York, it all makes that scene look ridiculous when you've seen it up close and personal in a place you dig. That's all I mean.
By Jim Parks
I don't know what was there in those days - at the corner of Romolo and Broadway - next door to Enrico's. I don't remember.
You know Enrico's, Enrico Banducci's - the bistro that is open air at the sidewalk in front and filled with elegant tables all dressed in white linen in back. Sometimes they have a little combo playing there, guitar, sax, upright bass, keyboards.
North Beach. To the bone.
But the building across the way on the same side, across Romolo, one of the steepest streets on Telegraph Hill, has been the location of many things. It was the city jail in the nineteenth century, smack dab in the middle of all the bagnios and small time hootchy kootchy joints up street from the Barbary Coast on Kearny and Montgomery down to Portsmouth Square and Pacific Street.
Anyway, it was the happening of a moment; it happened in the blink of an eye, and it is burned in there, in my memory, where it belongs.
I was strolling, really humping down the sidewalk on Broadway's level after I had come up from the Tenderloin through downtown, through the Stockton Tunnel, skirted Chinatown. I was really strolling, really humping the way a young man does, really picking them up and laying them down, slamming my heels and toes into the sidewalk. I'd worked up a sweat, one of those clammy feeling sweats you get in the cool fog of a San Francisco night.
There on the sidewalk ahead of me, that chipped and cracked old sidewalk with the granite curbstone and the parking meters, the exhaust gas and bally of the barkers and flashing colored lights, there was another man dressed in grey sharkskin, his baggy suit coat with side vents swinging to and fro with his gait, his wingtips slamming down on the pavement, a thin little cigar in the corner of his mouth. I could smell the cigar as he chuffed and puffed along, minding his business. I didn't think anything about it. There are a lot of dudes in business drag on that block. They come and go from the topless places and the jazz joints, the eateries around the corner on Columbus and Upper Grant Avenue. I figured he was on his way to a parking lot on down Broadway to get his car.
In the blink of an eye, a street dude stepped out of the dark there on the corner of Romolo and got in the sharkskin dude's face. I don't know what was said, or even if anything was said. It all happened so quickly.
But he got in the dude's face and you could suddenly see his complexion, the kind dopers get, all pale and sick looking, his hair unkempt and tangled, Levi's and t-shirt just hanging on his frame because he was so sick and so down and beat.
The dude in the sharkskin didn't hesitate. He kicked the street man's knees out from under him, upset that nonexistent third leg on the tripod they talk about in martial arts, and with one swift motion drew a snub-nosed double action revolver in some cold blue steel with his right hand while he flipped out his Inspector's badge with his left.
"You want some of it? Huh? Whadda ya' want? Huh?" He forced the muzzle of the pistol under the dude's nose, jabbing it with every phrase.
The man who had gotten in his face was down, the breath knocked out of him. He waved his splayed fingers in front of his face - back and forth - from his place on the cold concrete, his head in the gutter. He'd fallen there as neatly and swiftly as a tree suddenly fallen by a lumberjack.
Behind me, two guys dresssed in leather jackets and khaki chinos had jerked up two other men - both of them as unkempt and goofy looking as the guy sharkskin had felled. Across the street, two uniformed cops were chasing down another dude where he fled down the steepest part of Montgomery Street.
But it was that moment with the gun sticking in the assailant's face, the glare of the multi-colored blinking lights glinting off its precisely machined surfaces and highly polished finish, that brought it all home for me. Knocking the schmuck down in one set of well-coordinated moves was one thing; badging the guy was another, but without the gun to back it all up, it would have been meaningless, totally about nothing.
"All right, guy, you're charged with Section ____________ of the California Penal Code, Assaulting a Police Officer, Pandering and Loitering in violation of the San Francisco Municipal Code," the sharkskin dude bellowed as he jerked his prisoner to his feet and cuffed him.
"You have the right to remain silent," he said, as he kicked his ankles and made him spread his legs wide where he leaned against the wall. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law..."
I stroked on through the scene, neatly sidestepping the actors and continuing on up the street to the hotel where I knew the people and went to score sometimes. Without the gun, it would have all been meaningless to me because I was a much, much younger man in those days.
I think Sharkskin and the other cops had been laying for that little gang there in old Sydney Town. Nothing new on the Barbary Coast.
You'd better believe he would have shot him if he had to do it. You'd better believe it.
My point is that it all makes the revolver with the knot in its barrel, you know, the giant sculpture of the Colt .45 Peacemaker in United Nations Plaza in New York, it all makes that scene look ridiculous when you've seen it up close and personal in a place you dig. That's all I mean.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Blood, The Pool Cue, and the Parking Place
By Jim Parks
Because everyone gets sick at the same time, there were almost no parking places available at the VA Hospital.
A white man in a pickup and a Mexican in an ancient station wagon vied for the same slot, nearly slamming fenders. The white man grabed a sawed-off pool cue and menaced the Mexican. The Mexican took it, fed it to him - blunt end first.
The cops confronted the Mexican about the fight.
What fight?
They showed him the pool cue, the blood on the pavement.
I laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Whoever designed this parking lot. He showed his ass pretty good. "
(100 words)
Because everyone gets sick at the same time, there were almost no parking places available at the VA Hospital.
A white man in a pickup and a Mexican in an ancient station wagon vied for the same slot, nearly slamming fenders. The white man grabed a sawed-off pool cue and menaced the Mexican. The Mexican took it, fed it to him - blunt end first.
The cops confronted the Mexican about the fight.
What fight?
They showed him the pool cue, the blood on the pavement.
I laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Whoever designed this parking lot. He showed his ass pretty good. "
(100 words)
Monday, May 18, 2009
You got that screaming tenor horn, dude. You got that rock and roll. You got your driving beat. You got your summer heat. You got all that sweet, sweet female meat - jumpin' jivin' soul survivin' and hangin' out on the street.
You got that jive he's chanting; it's riding that bass line like it's on a brand new groove line, downtown to uptown, any which way, but right on time. Always right on time. No fair runnin' late.
You'll never get over it, dude.
Roll up a pack of Luckies in your t-shirt sleeve and hit the streets when it's hot, man. Down at the shore. Up in Newark, over by Cherry Hill Township. Give it a shot, man. We call it the refinery. That's what it is.
Check out the "Stray Cat Blues" for a change. Shift gears and give it up to "Be Bop A Lula."
You know, like, all my friends got it, so it must be goin' around, saith Carl Perkins at the birth of rock - and you roll, dude.
You roll.
Got to let your backbone slip, walk with a hip slung strut, leather jacket draped over your left shoulder, engineer boots with the horseshoe taps striking fire from the pavement, your blue suede tenny-shod feets pounding that street, smokin' that crack and lookin' back.
But I warn you, mister. If you walk this way, walk on the wild side, man, if you do, don't be lookin' back because whatever is behind you is definitely gaining on you. Thus spach Satch Paige of the storied and fabled Negro Leagues.
And you rock And you roll.
That's what I be talkin' about, man.
Go. String 47 miles of barbed wire. Wear a cobra snake for a necktie. And then take a little walk with me, honey, and tell me who do you love.
Hoodoo ya' love, baby.
Thus spach Bo Diddley. We gone. Beep beep.
The Legendary
p.s. What I mean, when you dig Bruce, you dig a dude puttin' on his trash - flashin' his trash - with all the grand tradition implicit in that high walk of tragicomic American jive, my man. It's a solid lock, a family tradition. They all be doin' it, man. They all do it.
J.
You got that jive he's chanting; it's riding that bass line like it's on a brand new groove line, downtown to uptown, any which way, but right on time. Always right on time. No fair runnin' late.
You'll never get over it, dude.
Roll up a pack of Luckies in your t-shirt sleeve and hit the streets when it's hot, man. Down at the shore. Up in Newark, over by Cherry Hill Township. Give it a shot, man. We call it the refinery. That's what it is.
Check out the "Stray Cat Blues" for a change. Shift gears and give it up to "Be Bop A Lula."
You know, like, all my friends got it, so it must be goin' around, saith Carl Perkins at the birth of rock - and you roll, dude.
You roll.
Got to let your backbone slip, walk with a hip slung strut, leather jacket draped over your left shoulder, engineer boots with the horseshoe taps striking fire from the pavement, your blue suede tenny-shod feets pounding that street, smokin' that crack and lookin' back.
But I warn you, mister. If you walk this way, walk on the wild side, man, if you do, don't be lookin' back because whatever is behind you is definitely gaining on you. Thus spach Satch Paige of the storied and fabled Negro Leagues.
And you rock And you roll.
That's what I be talkin' about, man.
Go. String 47 miles of barbed wire. Wear a cobra snake for a necktie. And then take a little walk with me, honey, and tell me who do you love.
Hoodoo ya' love, baby.
Thus spach Bo Diddley. We gone. Beep beep.
The Legendary
p.s. What I mean, when you dig Bruce, you dig a dude puttin' on his trash - flashin' his trash - with all the grand tradition implicit in that high walk of tragicomic American jive, my man. It's a solid lock, a family tradition. They all be doin' it, man. They all do it.
J.
Monday, April 27, 2009
The Spanish Moon
By Jim Parks
... From down the street, I heard such a sorrowful tune coming form the place they call the Spanish Moon. - Little Feat
The constant drone of the conveyor belt taking away shells through a hole in the cinder block wall, the clicking of the shells as the shuckers tossed them on the pile, it was all very lulling in the shed, its dank atmosphere and wet floor exuding that scent of iodine and brackish water where the mollusks grow on top of each other. Gino was busy culling the best for the half shell trade, arranging them on a wooden slab the way they would be served on a tin tray in the bars and restaurants - with red sauce and horse radish, lemon wedges, the works.
He worked with deadly accuracy with the short, brutal oyster knife, its edges honed to razor sharpness by years of use, as he "lipped" the oysters, forcing them open, then cutting the muscle that held the creature to the shell, finally twisting the top half of the shell away and throwing it over his shoulder. Carmine just liked to see if he had a quality selection before he got on the phone.
The oyster house competed with a half dozen other organizations around the bay, their cultivation beds famous for quality. He came to look at them, grunting his approval. These were nice and salty, clean and with a crisp texture, even though they hadn't been iced down. They were fresh from the bay. He pointed to the culled piles Gino had arranged around his stool, motioning for the two helpers to sack them, tie them, load them on the truck.
He handed Gino a diminutive oyster fork and they began to eat the ones he had shucked for display. He had an ice cold beer in each pocket of his foul weather jacket, and they cracked them for a quick lunch. After that, they worked together quickly to see how many oysters it would take to fill a pint jar, a quart can, a half gallon, a gallon, for the stores and places that served them in stew and fried.
It had been a pleasant morning's work. Everyone was making money. They had caught the weather just right - cold enough for the mollusks to close their shells and purge themselves of the impurities washed down from the creeks and bayous, the cities and towns upstream. The state biologist had declared them clean enough for human consumption. They were getting well, a yearly drama after white shrimp season was all over.
At that moment, a state biologist wearing the crisply starched khaki shirt and funny-looking stretch fabric uniform pants walked into the shed. He beckoned to Carmine. They argued, Carmine gesticulated, the biologist shrugged his shoulders; he made reasonable faces at the enraged Carmine; he threw up his hands and let it be known that Carmine was somehow unreasonable.
"All right," Carmine shouted as he man left the shed. "Get this stuff back down on the barges. It's got to go back to the beds. Pezzonovante turned them down."
One of the barge hands who had been lounging outside the door came on the run. "But, hey, boss, the man passed them out on the water this morning." Carmine silenced him with a fierce look that beetled his brows and made his nose look like a hawk's beak
"Hey, what are you gonna do? This is his boss. He said some over at Lone Star Fish Company didn't pass. Better be safe, he said. I give up."
In his mind, Carmine knew exactly what had happened. His rivals knew he was doing very well, especially because his beds were located where his family and friends who lived on the point could see exactly who may be on the bar at any given time. He had over the years furnished everyone in his compound with high power binoculars and telescopes for the purpose. Then there was the new liquor and alcohol permit for "The Spanish Moon," a bistro and trattoria all brass and mahogany and green gloosy enamel paint and soft lighting he had located on the point.
Full moon nights the path of the reflections on the water were very pleasant to diners and people boozing on the patio. It would start to make money if he could just keep on supplying what they wanted - fresh shrimp and oysters, stuffed flouder, broiled red snapper, all that jazz.
He went back to his office and figured his daily payroll, the taxes, wrote the checks, looked at his fuel bills, his utilities. He ran his fingers through his curly hair and struggled to keep calm. He kicked back in the hard wooden swivel chair, rocked back on its groaning springs amid the paperwork mess and dusty atmosphere that made his grandchildren sneeze. He looked at the needlework sampler framed on the wall - "Old bosses never die. They just sit on their assets."
Still, he was angry, deeply angry. He couldn't deny it. The last thing he should do would be to lose his temper.
That really cost money.
He shrugged and twirled his moutstache ends. For every action, there is a reaction. What's a lousy day? He would be back tomorrow, an earner, a man of respect.
"Pezzonovante!" He mouthed the word with contempt. He spun his rolodex, found the card he was looking for, and dialed the number.
"Hey, it's me. You know the guy in the shirt? Okay. Time we drank a beer. Yeah, the Moon. Why not?" He listened carefully for a minute. "Okay, then, The Castaway."
He swung out of the office, traipsed across the shed floor, stomped his boots clean and changed to a pair of loafers, then climbed into his pickup truck. The motor caught on the first spin.
"Pezzonovante!" He spat out the open window and adjusted the radio, looking for his favorite news show.
It would be simple enough. The asshole who dropped the dime on him had opened up his own place across the bay from the point. It was a combination disco, restaurant and a general mess. All it would take would be to import some very good-looking young women from a nearby city to start coming there nightly with fake identification that gave their age as twenty-one, then drop a dime through the alcoholic beverage control board. Suddenly, the young girls would have proper identification that showed them to be underage. His spies already knew the doormen came to work drunk, sold drugs and they were banging the young girls in the men's room.
He should be so lucky, Carmine thought. To go to the men's room to screw a young woman! He laughed, snorted, twirled his moutstache ends.
"Pezzonovante!" He said it with conviction, clinging to the multisyllable word with all his might.
_________________
... From down the street, I heard such a sorrowful tune coming form the place they call the Spanish Moon. - Little Feat
The constant drone of the conveyor belt taking away shells through a hole in the cinder block wall, the clicking of the shells as the shuckers tossed them on the pile, it was all very lulling in the shed, its dank atmosphere and wet floor exuding that scent of iodine and brackish water where the mollusks grow on top of each other. Gino was busy culling the best for the half shell trade, arranging them on a wooden slab the way they would be served on a tin tray in the bars and restaurants - with red sauce and horse radish, lemon wedges, the works.
He worked with deadly accuracy with the short, brutal oyster knife, its edges honed to razor sharpness by years of use, as he "lipped" the oysters, forcing them open, then cutting the muscle that held the creature to the shell, finally twisting the top half of the shell away and throwing it over his shoulder. Carmine just liked to see if he had a quality selection before he got on the phone.
The oyster house competed with a half dozen other organizations around the bay, their cultivation beds famous for quality. He came to look at them, grunting his approval. These were nice and salty, clean and with a crisp texture, even though they hadn't been iced down. They were fresh from the bay. He pointed to the culled piles Gino had arranged around his stool, motioning for the two helpers to sack them, tie them, load them on the truck.
He handed Gino a diminutive oyster fork and they began to eat the ones he had shucked for display. He had an ice cold beer in each pocket of his foul weather jacket, and they cracked them for a quick lunch. After that, they worked together quickly to see how many oysters it would take to fill a pint jar, a quart can, a half gallon, a gallon, for the stores and places that served them in stew and fried.
It had been a pleasant morning's work. Everyone was making money. They had caught the weather just right - cold enough for the mollusks to close their shells and purge themselves of the impurities washed down from the creeks and bayous, the cities and towns upstream. The state biologist had declared them clean enough for human consumption. They were getting well, a yearly drama after white shrimp season was all over.
At that moment, a state biologist wearing the crisply starched khaki shirt and funny-looking stretch fabric uniform pants walked into the shed. He beckoned to Carmine. They argued, Carmine gesticulated, the biologist shrugged his shoulders; he made reasonable faces at the enraged Carmine; he threw up his hands and let it be known that Carmine was somehow unreasonable.
"All right," Carmine shouted as he man left the shed. "Get this stuff back down on the barges. It's got to go back to the beds. Pezzonovante turned them down."
One of the barge hands who had been lounging outside the door came on the run. "But, hey, boss, the man passed them out on the water this morning." Carmine silenced him with a fierce look that beetled his brows and made his nose look like a hawk's beak
"Hey, what are you gonna do? This is his boss. He said some over at Lone Star Fish Company didn't pass. Better be safe, he said. I give up."
In his mind, Carmine knew exactly what had happened. His rivals knew he was doing very well, especially because his beds were located where his family and friends who lived on the point could see exactly who may be on the bar at any given time. He had over the years furnished everyone in his compound with high power binoculars and telescopes for the purpose. Then there was the new liquor and alcohol permit for "The Spanish Moon," a bistro and trattoria all brass and mahogany and green gloosy enamel paint and soft lighting he had located on the point.
Full moon nights the path of the reflections on the water were very pleasant to diners and people boozing on the patio. It would start to make money if he could just keep on supplying what they wanted - fresh shrimp and oysters, stuffed flouder, broiled red snapper, all that jazz.
He went back to his office and figured his daily payroll, the taxes, wrote the checks, looked at his fuel bills, his utilities. He ran his fingers through his curly hair and struggled to keep calm. He kicked back in the hard wooden swivel chair, rocked back on its groaning springs amid the paperwork mess and dusty atmosphere that made his grandchildren sneeze. He looked at the needlework sampler framed on the wall - "Old bosses never die. They just sit on their assets."
Still, he was angry, deeply angry. He couldn't deny it. The last thing he should do would be to lose his temper.
That really cost money.
He shrugged and twirled his moutstache ends. For every action, there is a reaction. What's a lousy day? He would be back tomorrow, an earner, a man of respect.
"Pezzonovante!" He mouthed the word with contempt. He spun his rolodex, found the card he was looking for, and dialed the number.
"Hey, it's me. You know the guy in the shirt? Okay. Time we drank a beer. Yeah, the Moon. Why not?" He listened carefully for a minute. "Okay, then, The Castaway."
He swung out of the office, traipsed across the shed floor, stomped his boots clean and changed to a pair of loafers, then climbed into his pickup truck. The motor caught on the first spin.
"Pezzonovante!" He spat out the open window and adjusted the radio, looking for his favorite news show.
It would be simple enough. The asshole who dropped the dime on him had opened up his own place across the bay from the point. It was a combination disco, restaurant and a general mess. All it would take would be to import some very good-looking young women from a nearby city to start coming there nightly with fake identification that gave their age as twenty-one, then drop a dime through the alcoholic beverage control board. Suddenly, the young girls would have proper identification that showed them to be underage. His spies already knew the doormen came to work drunk, sold drugs and they were banging the young girls in the men's room.
He should be so lucky, Carmine thought. To go to the men's room to screw a young woman! He laughed, snorted, twirled his moutstache ends.
"Pezzonovante!" He said it with conviction, clinging to the multisyllable word with all his might.
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