Queenie
“No, I’m dead serious, man,” Barry insists. “Sell me what you’re wearing.”
“You need to seriously go fuck yourself, man,” the man answers, shoving Barry aside with sufficient force to make him stumble backwards and collide with a bike rack.
“I need your damn clothes!” Barry bellows at the man’s rapidly receding, FUBU-clad figure.
Barry hasn’t exactly fallen to the ground, but almost. He’s awkwardly commingling with the bike rack and has to wrench himself upright. In doing so, he snags his pants on a sharp burr protruding from a protuberant galvanized bolt.
“Shit!” he exclaims on discovering the resulting rip in his brand new Gap 1969 Limited Edition Premium Jeans (rigid rinse, with selvage trim on the coin pocket). They and his brand new Gap (PRODUCT) RED™ cotton T—in soft black with the word “HAMME(RED)” raggedly silk-screened to simulate a cracked and faded, dozens-of-washings look—had been purposely selected from an official Gap window manikin to impress Queenie, the object of Barry’s ardor, with (a) Barry’s Zeitgeist-synchronized sense of style and (b) Barry’s deeply ingrained social awareness.
If the jeans by themselves don’t get the job done, Barry had reasoned, then surely the fact that half the profits from his T-shirt had gone or would eventually be going to a global fund to fight AIDS, will.
In other words, mission accomplished.
Or so Barry had believed while brandishing cash at the Gap. He’d even embellished the ad hoc ensemble with a military-inspired wool jacket featuring four extra-generous flap pockets, shoulder epaulettes with button closures, strapped cuffs, and a concealed nylon hood.
It was all over but the waiting, Barry was certain—meaning, the waiting outside the bodega where Queenie had been shopping the day she saved his sorry ass (as Queenie had put it) when his Harley had fallen on top of him, and she had lifted it from his sprawling person with the apparent ease of a mommy freeing a traumatized two-year-old from a toppled trike.
Four days he had waited. Four days! And then, on the fifth day, there she comes, glowing and gliding towards him like an ethereal form, moving as if in slow-motion through a throng of faceless pedestrians paralyzed in their tracks by her grandeur.
The world becomes a blur for Barry as Queenie floats past him and into the store. He stands there shivering in the sweltering heat, waiting for her to emerge, his heart marking the minutes at two beats per second.
Barry hears her before he sees her. Hears her calling, “Yeah, man, the same to you!” And as she slides back into the sunlight, he hears himself speaking to Queenie, saying, “Hey—remember me?”
“No,” Queenie answers with a tone that’s equal parts indifference and impatience.
Barry gulps like some kind of over-the-top buffoon in some cartoonish melodrama. Like Jack Larson as “Jimmy Olsen,” for instance, in any 1950s episode of Adventures of Superman.
“I’m the guy you pulled the motorcycle off of,” he says, pointing. “Up the street? Over there?”
Queenie’s amber eyes give Barry a thorough going over, then light up with recognition. “Jesus Christ, it’s the Marlboro Man! Who you tryin’ to be now, Jack—that ‘Bono’ dude? And why you wearin’ that fuckin’ coat in this fuckin’ heat, man?”
Barry realizes he’s sweating buckets, but carries on as though he weren’t, as though he were indeed channeling Bonovian cool. “Listen,” he says, “I just have to ask you again—”
“Ask me what?”
“If you’ll go to Starbucks with me. When I asked you the last time, your exact words, as I recall them, were ‘No fuckin’ way.’”
Barry smiles at Queenie after saying this. Smiles like they’re sharing a joke or reminiscing about some distant contretemps whose memory they’ll shortly be washing away with raspberry mocha.
Queenie smiles back at Barry and keeps smiling at Barry while delivering her reply. “I’ll put it a little differently this time,” she says, giving his bulky pockets and pointless epaulettes a final, bemused inspection. “How about, ‘No fuckin’ way—José.’”
She leaves Barry standing there, slack-jawed, in a puddle of perspiration. All seems lost as he watches her walking off, swinging her bag of groceries in sublime unison with her strides.
But then Barry sees Queenie checking out a FUBU man who’s passing her on the sidewalk and coming his way, and decides all’s not lost after all.
# # #
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
209
Little Barry
Big Barry, to all intents and purposes, has disappeared and Little Barry wants his daddy back. Gone without a trace are Big Barry’s pirate trappings and sundry cowpoke furnishings, and with them his peerless “Big Barry” persona.
Worse still, like a self-inflicted mortal blow Big Barry has upped and sold his Harley Davidson—the thundering, fire-belching, ass-kicking “hog” against which Jimmy’s father’s lily-livered, chicken-legged Vespa motor scooter had exuded about as much machismo as an antique treadle sewing machine.
“Where’s the hog, Daddy?” Little Barry had demanded with a quivering, panic-singed voice, his horrified eyes all but sucked from their sockets by the black hole where the motorcycle had formerly held sway like a gunmetal god in Big Barry’s garage. “Where’s the hog?—”
“Sold it,” Big Barry had answered, just like that. And just like that Little Barry’s universe had collapsed to pinhead proportions.
And so, when Big Barry brings Little Barry home a little earlier than usual on Saturday afternoon, Little Barry does not emulate Big Barry’s erstwhile cocksure saunter on making his way from the curb to the porch. He runs as fast as he can, desperate to escape the stranger in his father’s car, determined to reach the haven of his bedroom before the first sob.
# # #
Big Barry, to all intents and purposes, has disappeared and Little Barry wants his daddy back. Gone without a trace are Big Barry’s pirate trappings and sundry cowpoke furnishings, and with them his peerless “Big Barry” persona.
Worse still, like a self-inflicted mortal blow Big Barry has upped and sold his Harley Davidson—the thundering, fire-belching, ass-kicking “hog” against which Jimmy’s father’s lily-livered, chicken-legged Vespa motor scooter had exuded about as much machismo as an antique treadle sewing machine.
“Where’s the hog, Daddy?” Little Barry had demanded with a quivering, panic-singed voice, his horrified eyes all but sucked from their sockets by the black hole where the motorcycle had formerly held sway like a gunmetal god in Big Barry’s garage. “Where’s the hog?—”
“Sold it,” Big Barry had answered, just like that. And just like that Little Barry’s universe had collapsed to pinhead proportions.
And so, when Big Barry brings Little Barry home a little earlier than usual on Saturday afternoon, Little Barry does not emulate Big Barry’s erstwhile cocksure saunter on making his way from the curb to the porch. He runs as fast as he can, desperate to escape the stranger in his father’s car, determined to reach the haven of his bedroom before the first sob.
# # #
Sunday, September 5, 2010
315
Chuck
Chuck flips the switch that puts his Kindle to sleep, then the one that shuts off the blue-white diode of his reading lamp, which he wears on his head. It is a headlight in the literal sense, complete with an adjustable elastic band, and much more convenient and effective than any clip-on reading lamp he’s ever owned. He removes that and sets it and the Kindle on the nightstand and checks that the alarm’s turned on on his digital alarm clock.
The room’s dark now, and the ceiling fan’s gently thrumming. But even under conditions so conducive, Chuck’s mind, as usual, won’t allow nodding off. It starts working, as usual, on something, and the something in this case is how wonderful is the book he’s reading—a novel from 1915 called The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford—and how much lonelier the fact of that makes him feel.
Chuck always feels lonely. But being unable to share with anyone the sumptuous perfection of Ford’s prose or the novel’s masterfully woven story-line or the powerful insights and delightful wit the book contains aggravates his isolation to the throbbing point. Chuck simply does not know anyone who would give a rat’s ass about The Good Soldier or about Ford Madox Ford.
Or about Chuck himself, come to think of it. Which Chuck does, of course, come to think of.
Why am I here? he winds up wondering, inevitably. It is his inevitable meta-theme. He means nothing to everyone, something to no one, increasingly less to himself. He thinks about all the photo albums his image must be in—an anonymous background element in thousands of keepsake snapshots snapped by untold strangers at parks, fairs, zoos, monuments, historic and scenic points of interest, and by marginal acquaintances at social gatherings whose fringes he routinely helps populate.
“Background fodder,” Chuck mumbles, rolling onto his side. “My raison d’être.”
# # #
Chuck flips the switch that puts his Kindle to sleep, then the one that shuts off the blue-white diode of his reading lamp, which he wears on his head. It is a headlight in the literal sense, complete with an adjustable elastic band, and much more convenient and effective than any clip-on reading lamp he’s ever owned. He removes that and sets it and the Kindle on the nightstand and checks that the alarm’s turned on on his digital alarm clock.
The room’s dark now, and the ceiling fan’s gently thrumming. But even under conditions so conducive, Chuck’s mind, as usual, won’t allow nodding off. It starts working, as usual, on something, and the something in this case is how wonderful is the book he’s reading—a novel from 1915 called The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford—and how much lonelier the fact of that makes him feel.
Chuck always feels lonely. But being unable to share with anyone the sumptuous perfection of Ford’s prose or the novel’s masterfully woven story-line or the powerful insights and delightful wit the book contains aggravates his isolation to the throbbing point. Chuck simply does not know anyone who would give a rat’s ass about The Good Soldier or about Ford Madox Ford.
Or about Chuck himself, come to think of it. Which Chuck does, of course, come to think of.
Why am I here? he winds up wondering, inevitably. It is his inevitable meta-theme. He means nothing to everyone, something to no one, increasingly less to himself. He thinks about all the photo albums his image must be in—an anonymous background element in thousands of keepsake snapshots snapped by untold strangers at parks, fairs, zoos, monuments, historic and scenic points of interest, and by marginal acquaintances at social gatherings whose fringes he routinely helps populate.
“Background fodder,” Chuck mumbles, rolling onto his side. “My raison d’être.”
# # #
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
183
Milena
Shortly after David dumped her for that bimbo he picked up at his mother’s funeral, Milena decided there wasn’t any point in keeping her Mirena intrauterine contraceptive “up there” any longer. She’d had the nasty little pickax-looking gadget inserted more so for David’s convenience and pleasure than her own, and apart from now being pointless it had acquired a sort of snide symbolic stature—an ever present reminder, within the most intimate region of her innermost self, of the all-encompassing sway which that motherfucking shitass (her latest appellation of choice) had held over her.
So she made an appointment and went to the doctor and had the gizmo removed as a Mother May I? giant step toward moving on.
Only, the ground had collapsed beneath her footfall, as it were, and moving on from David had proved to be outside the compass of Milena’s resolve. Lying on her back in bed at night, she found herself staring through closed eyelids for hours on end at an unfathomable, impenetrable blackness; struggling for an answer, straining to understand why:
Why? Why wasn’t I good enough for him?
# # #
Shortly after David dumped her for that bimbo he picked up at his mother’s funeral, Milena decided there wasn’t any point in keeping her Mirena intrauterine contraceptive “up there” any longer. She’d had the nasty little pickax-looking gadget inserted more so for David’s convenience and pleasure than her own, and apart from now being pointless it had acquired a sort of snide symbolic stature—an ever present reminder, within the most intimate region of her innermost self, of the all-encompassing sway which that motherfucking shitass (her latest appellation of choice) had held over her.
So she made an appointment and went to the doctor and had the gizmo removed as a Mother May I? giant step toward moving on.
Only, the ground had collapsed beneath her footfall, as it were, and moving on from David had proved to be outside the compass of Milena’s resolve. Lying on her back in bed at night, she found herself staring through closed eyelids for hours on end at an unfathomable, impenetrable blackness; struggling for an answer, straining to understand why:
Why? Why wasn’t I good enough for him?
# # #
Saturday, August 21, 2010
675
Crystal
Queenie and Crystal are conversing over coffee at the new Starbucks on 152, across from the new Hungry Howie’s pizza franchise, adjacent to the new Hy-Vee grocery store. Crystal is vaguely sipping a venti raspberry mocha. Queenie’s draining a venti chai tea latte as though there were no tomorrow—in great, which is to say grande, cup-compressing draughts.
“Leave some for the fish,” Crystal jokes meekly. She’s been saying pretty much everything meekly since becoming tormented with the memory of the snot bubble that billowed from her nostril and embarrassed her to death in front of her fifth-grade class.
“Fuck the fuckin’ fish,” Queenie quips mid-slurp, “and the sea horses they rode in on.”
Crystal laughs. No one can make her laugh like Queenie can.
Queenie sucks the cup to the point of collapse, slams it down on the table, leans back, says “Ahhhh,” wipes her mouth with her sleeve, then says, “Jesus! That was damn good. I’m gonna go grab me another—”
Crystal smiles, nods, and begins absently tearing an unbleached-paper napkin into more or less uniform strips. Across 152, a man in a blaring pink sweatshirt emerges from Hungry Howie’s with a large pizza box in his hands. Crystal notices the steam wafting from the box, but the sweatshirt does not register. She begins twisting the napkin strips into miniature ropes.
Queenie comes back in her usual flash and drops into her chair. “Doggone, I love these things,” she says, swigging a little less vigorously now on account of the piping hotness.
“Y’coulda fooled me,” Crystal responds meekly.
“So listen, girl,” Queenie begins, ready at last to get down to bidness. “You gotta get over this snot-bubble bullshit. You’re worse than that ‘other monk.’”
“Huh? What other monk?” Crystal asks, baffled. (No one can baffle her quite like Queenie can, either.)
“Good God, Crystal, gimme a break—don’t tell me you ain’t never read no Zen koans?”
“No,” Crystal answers with a flush of unwarranted shame. “I don’t even know what they are.”
“Ach du fuckin’ lieber, liebchen!” Queenie exclaims, amazing Crystal with her unexpected use of German. “I mean, mein Gott in Himmel, they’re little stories that teach you somethin’, only not in so many words.”
“Okay, and—?”
“And you’re just like the second monk in the one about the girl and two monks.”
Queenie pauses and lets Crystal’s curiosity build through two long pulls on her latte, then picks up an untwisted napkin strip and dabs her lips and continues.
“There’s these two monks, see. And they’re walkin’ through this woods. And they come to a river and there’s this beautiful young woman standin’ there, and she don’t know what to do ‘cause she’s afraid she’ll ruin her kimono and her pretty little flip-flops and white split-toe socks if she tries crossin’ that river. And the first monk goes, ‘Hey, what’s up, girl? You afraid you gonna get all wet if you try crossin’ that river?’ And the girl’s all, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ And he just picks her up and carries her across, just like that. And she’s all, ‘Hey, thanks a million, monk,’ and they all go their separate ways. “But the other monk starts stewin’ over what happened, ‘cause in their thing, you understand, monks ain’t s’posed to touch no women. And finally, after like four or five miles, or whatever, he just can’t hold it in any longer, and he goes, ‘Hey, man, what was up with carryin’ that fine young thing across the river? You wasn’t s’posed to touch her, man.’ And the first monk turns and looks the other monk straight in the eye and says, ‘Listen, Chuck, I put her down back at the river—you been carryin’ her all the way here!’”
Crystal looks up from her rope-making and Queenie leans forward till their noses nearly touch.
“Crystal,” Queenie says, letting her stentorian voice slip to a loud whisper, “It’s time to stop carryin’ your fuckass bubble around. You need to go ahead and put that bitch down, girl. Ain’t nobody else give a scheisse.”
# # #
Queenie and Crystal are conversing over coffee at the new Starbucks on 152, across from the new Hungry Howie’s pizza franchise, adjacent to the new Hy-Vee grocery store. Crystal is vaguely sipping a venti raspberry mocha. Queenie’s draining a venti chai tea latte as though there were no tomorrow—in great, which is to say grande, cup-compressing draughts.
“Leave some for the fish,” Crystal jokes meekly. She’s been saying pretty much everything meekly since becoming tormented with the memory of the snot bubble that billowed from her nostril and embarrassed her to death in front of her fifth-grade class.
“Fuck the fuckin’ fish,” Queenie quips mid-slurp, “and the sea horses they rode in on.”
Crystal laughs. No one can make her laugh like Queenie can.
Queenie sucks the cup to the point of collapse, slams it down on the table, leans back, says “Ahhhh,” wipes her mouth with her sleeve, then says, “Jesus! That was damn good. I’m gonna go grab me another—”
Crystal smiles, nods, and begins absently tearing an unbleached-paper napkin into more or less uniform strips. Across 152, a man in a blaring pink sweatshirt emerges from Hungry Howie’s with a large pizza box in his hands. Crystal notices the steam wafting from the box, but the sweatshirt does not register. She begins twisting the napkin strips into miniature ropes.
Queenie comes back in her usual flash and drops into her chair. “Doggone, I love these things,” she says, swigging a little less vigorously now on account of the piping hotness.
“Y’coulda fooled me,” Crystal responds meekly.
“So listen, girl,” Queenie begins, ready at last to get down to bidness. “You gotta get over this snot-bubble bullshit. You’re worse than that ‘other monk.’”
“Huh? What other monk?” Crystal asks, baffled. (No one can baffle her quite like Queenie can, either.)
“Good God, Crystal, gimme a break—don’t tell me you ain’t never read no Zen koans?”
“No,” Crystal answers with a flush of unwarranted shame. “I don’t even know what they are.”
“Ach du fuckin’ lieber, liebchen!” Queenie exclaims, amazing Crystal with her unexpected use of German. “I mean, mein Gott in Himmel, they’re little stories that teach you somethin’, only not in so many words.”
“Okay, and—?”
“And you’re just like the second monk in the one about the girl and two monks.”
Queenie pauses and lets Crystal’s curiosity build through two long pulls on her latte, then picks up an untwisted napkin strip and dabs her lips and continues.
“There’s these two monks, see. And they’re walkin’ through this woods. And they come to a river and there’s this beautiful young woman standin’ there, and she don’t know what to do ‘cause she’s afraid she’ll ruin her kimono and her pretty little flip-flops and white split-toe socks if she tries crossin’ that river. And the first monk goes, ‘Hey, what’s up, girl? You afraid you gonna get all wet if you try crossin’ that river?’ And the girl’s all, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ And he just picks her up and carries her across, just like that. And she’s all, ‘Hey, thanks a million, monk,’ and they all go their separate ways. “But the other monk starts stewin’ over what happened, ‘cause in their thing, you understand, monks ain’t s’posed to touch no women. And finally, after like four or five miles, or whatever, he just can’t hold it in any longer, and he goes, ‘Hey, man, what was up with carryin’ that fine young thing across the river? You wasn’t s’posed to touch her, man.’ And the first monk turns and looks the other monk straight in the eye and says, ‘Listen, Chuck, I put her down back at the river—you been carryin’ her all the way here!’”
Crystal looks up from her rope-making and Queenie leans forward till their noses nearly touch.
“Crystal,” Queenie says, letting her stentorian voice slip to a loud whisper, “It’s time to stop carryin’ your fuckass bubble around. You need to go ahead and put that bitch down, girl. Ain’t nobody else give a scheisse.”
# # #
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
274
Barry
Sitting cross-legged on the curb with his sizzling groin and Queenie hovering over him like that, Barry was feeling sheepish for the first time in his life and in no way inclined to argue money. Besides, his sensibilities weren’t wholly self-directed; he recognized and accepted legitimate obligations, and believed he did owe Queenie for the groceries some asswipe walked off with when she dropped her shopping bag and rushed to his rescue.
Whatever the case, had it not been for Queenie’s instant intervention, his motorcycle’s super-hot exhaust pipe might have totally toasted his almonds. And so with no little effort, Barry extracted his wallet from the pocket of his snake-skin jeans. He was shaking a little and hoped Queenie did not interpret this as fear.
“Twenty-three sixty-five, you say?”
He fished out some bills and thrust two tens and a five-spot towards Queenie’s looming form.
Queenie plucked the bucks from Barry’s tremulous fingers. “Danke shön,” she said. Then she reached down and snatched another five from the still-gaping billfold. “Let’s just call it thirty, Chuck. I gotta re-shop that stuff, you understan’, and time’s money.”
Barry watched Queenie stuff the cash in her bra and wondered where this Abyssinian goddess had been all his life. He could feel his whole body blushing as though irradiated by her aura. Slowly, without thinking, he began divesting himself of the trappings of his persona—the bandanna, the earrings, and finally the spurs.
Then, naked as it were before her, he haltingly posed a suddenly imperative question:
“How about ... Starbucks?”
# # #
Sitting cross-legged on the curb with his sizzling groin and Queenie hovering over him like that, Barry was feeling sheepish for the first time in his life and in no way inclined to argue money. Besides, his sensibilities weren’t wholly self-directed; he recognized and accepted legitimate obligations, and believed he did owe Queenie for the groceries some asswipe walked off with when she dropped her shopping bag and rushed to his rescue.
Whatever the case, had it not been for Queenie’s instant intervention, his motorcycle’s super-hot exhaust pipe might have totally toasted his almonds. And so with no little effort, Barry extracted his wallet from the pocket of his snake-skin jeans. He was shaking a little and hoped Queenie did not interpret this as fear.
“Twenty-three sixty-five, you say?”
He fished out some bills and thrust two tens and a five-spot towards Queenie’s looming form.
Queenie plucked the bucks from Barry’s tremulous fingers. “Danke shön,” she said. Then she reached down and snatched another five from the still-gaping billfold. “Let’s just call it thirty, Chuck. I gotta re-shop that stuff, you understan’, and time’s money.”
Barry watched Queenie stuff the cash in her bra and wondered where this Abyssinian goddess had been all his life. He could feel his whole body blushing as though irradiated by her aura. Slowly, without thinking, he began divesting himself of the trappings of his persona—the bandanna, the earrings, and finally the spurs.
Then, naked as it were before her, he haltingly posed a suddenly imperative question:
“How about ... Starbucks?”
# # #
Saturday, August 14, 2010
320
Queenie
Barry loved making a big fat production of backing his big black Harley into a curbside parking spot, slapping down the kickstand with a booted heel, and easing out of the saddle in the über-manly slow-mo manner of the Marlboro Man. He was sure all eyes were on him (where else would they be?), and that he was making bosoms swell with desire and dicks shrivel with envy.
Only, today—today just wasn’t going to be Barry’s day for Marlboro Manly display.
The backing to the curb had gone without a hitch. The slapping of the kickstand had kicked ass per usual. But the dismount did not come off as planned. The spur on Barry’s boot got caught on a fringed-leather saddle bag as he was swinging his right leg rearward, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground, pulling the motorcycle down with him.
“Help!” Barry shrieked, as the engine’s hot exhaust pipe instantly began searing his groin.
Much to Barry’s good fortune, Queenie, a woman of uncommon strength and unhesitating action, happened to be strolling toward the scene of his distress on her way home from the corner bodega. Dropping her sack to the sidewalk, she sprinted the twenty or so yards to the writhing victim of his own excess and yanked the Harley upright as though it were a Huffy.
Barry rolled over and crawled to the curb, sucking air through his teeth against the pulsing pain radiating from his scorched scrotum. “Omigod—it HURTS!” he squealed.
“Serves you right for wearin’ spurs on a goddamn motorcycle, fool!” Queenie scolded. “I saw what happened—and who you tryin’ to be anyhow, the fuckin’ Marlboro Man?”
Barry, feeling sheepish for the first time literally ever, just sucked more air and cupped his crotch with both hands.
“And look here, bitch” Queenie continued, “you owe me twenty-three sixty-five, ‘cause now some asshole’s gone and stole my fuckin’ groceries!”
# # #
Barry loved making a big fat production of backing his big black Harley into a curbside parking spot, slapping down the kickstand with a booted heel, and easing out of the saddle in the über-manly slow-mo manner of the Marlboro Man. He was sure all eyes were on him (where else would they be?), and that he was making bosoms swell with desire and dicks shrivel with envy.
Only, today—today just wasn’t going to be Barry’s day for Marlboro Manly display.
The backing to the curb had gone without a hitch. The slapping of the kickstand had kicked ass per usual. But the dismount did not come off as planned. The spur on Barry’s boot got caught on a fringed-leather saddle bag as he was swinging his right leg rearward, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground, pulling the motorcycle down with him.
“Help!” Barry shrieked, as the engine’s hot exhaust pipe instantly began searing his groin.
Much to Barry’s good fortune, Queenie, a woman of uncommon strength and unhesitating action, happened to be strolling toward the scene of his distress on her way home from the corner bodega. Dropping her sack to the sidewalk, she sprinted the twenty or so yards to the writhing victim of his own excess and yanked the Harley upright as though it were a Huffy.
Barry rolled over and crawled to the curb, sucking air through his teeth against the pulsing pain radiating from his scorched scrotum. “Omigod—it HURTS!” he squealed.
“Serves you right for wearin’ spurs on a goddamn motorcycle, fool!” Queenie scolded. “I saw what happened—and who you tryin’ to be anyhow, the fuckin’ Marlboro Man?”
Barry, feeling sheepish for the first time literally ever, just sucked more air and cupped his crotch with both hands.
“And look here, bitch” Queenie continued, “you owe me twenty-three sixty-five, ‘cause now some asshole’s gone and stole my fuckin’ groceries!”
# # #
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