Sammy Gets Away
The crook of his right elbow cradled his head while the other hand cupped his ear from the din of bullshit. Orange planes of light leaked across the room from windows up high, obscuring the old movie on his TV hanging from the far wall of the bar. He let out a sigh to remind himself that he was breathing.
The Eagles scored on an opposite screen and the din became louder-fuck yeahs, claps, mugs hitting the shellacked oak.
He closed his eyes.
Someone stumbled into him and his eyelids peeled back. The gauzy peripheral vision returned. Rosie leaned on the bar, her hands as pedestal for the ugly mug she owned. Her mouth and tongue twisted, trying to get at a beer nut in some molar. He squinted, trying to X-ray what lay beneath that oversized t-shirt: mammaries that looked like days-old mylar balloons and a wide, formless stomach which gave no indication that there were ever any enviable hips. He focused down: Legs plump and dimpled. How long must have it been since this cunt was fucked? Even naked, she kept her dingy tennis shoes and ankle socks.
“Another one, please,” he said, trying to wash away his gross fantasy.
Rosie moved out of frame and then back. She was still wearing just shoes.
He got up to drink. The beer tasted like brass.
People cursed at the screen; this time it was bad.
“Jesus H.”
“First game of the season, Duck.”
“Fuck you, Sammy. It’s the second game of the season.”
“Jesus H,” he thought to himself.
The heros on his TV set were celebrating their bounty. He left to take a piss.
“Sammy, why you always piss in the stall?”
“Because I got a small prick, Richie.”
“Fuck that. I’ve seen your prick.”
“I don’t fucking know, then.”
“Hey, come out here.”
“Richie, clearly I’m still pissing.”
“Fine, I’ll be out here.”
“Jesus Christ.” In addition to Richie being a fuck, he had pissed on his shoe. “What?”
“I fucked Rosie.”
Sammy couldn’t help but be disappointed. They were two shits and he knew it, but this seemed like a new low.
“You want a congratulations? Because, honestly, that’s fucking disgusting. Not to shit on your shit or anything.”
“Fuck you. She’s good.”
“Quite the day when quitting fucking that high school chick seems like a mistake. Nice work, Rich.”
Richie swung his mouth to one side, arched his eyebrows, and walked out. Sammy finished zipping up and followed.
Richie already had one elbow on the bar and was talking with Rosie. Rosie was fucking Richie. She was still wearing those shoes.
Sammy got back to his beer and wordlessly reprimanded his best friend while John Madden pontificated on Donovan McNabb. Richie didn’t look over in his direction.
“You fucking fuck!” People half-turned away from the game. Rosie took her hand off Richie. “Motherfucker!”
“Bobby! Don’t hit the fucking machine you fucking maniac!”
“The ball’s fucking broken, Rosie!”
“The ball’s not fucking broken!”
Bobby sucked at Golden Tee, but he had found out there was a tournament with fifteen thousand and a set of real clubs as the grand prize and that was that.
Sammy arched his head back and wanted to see something just a little good. The tin ceiling was tobacco-stained.
He broke out the door because he felt like he was going to puke or pass out or hyperventilate. People walked by as he doubled over onto himself and got his breath back. He spat to get the taste out of his mouth. The brass stayed. The Lite stayed. The Winstons stayed.
Everyone was invisible, everything was blurry. A building, a car. It was cold but not freezing.
He walked a block over and took the bus south. The mullato driver had a pencil mustache that woke him up. He had gloves and impeccable posture. He asked if everything was alright and sounded genuine. Sammy dropped his fare silently, headed to the back and grabbed a sideways seat. The bus rumbled along and gave him a hard-on. He looked around to see who could be undressed. No one.
He sat back and saw a baby mama making eyes straight across the aisle. The toddler clenched at a braid, perched on her shoulder. The end of a piercing rolled across her shiny lips. Neither of them flinched. Her eyes moved down to his crotch and he practically came. The bus was empty. They fucked standing up, holding on to the metal bars overhead for support. The kid was gone. His gut was gone. The mullato was driving carefree to nowhere, an overwhelmeing glow in front of the windshield.
The bus hissed to a stop. The kid was there. The gut was there. She stood up and walked out the doors. His hard-on was gone.
Sammy stayed on for fifteen more minutes and then got out for no reason. It was far past his area but it looked the same. There were a few more blacks.
A fat white kid in a puffy jacket jabbered on to his two black friends about the Sixers. Sammy hated him. They started yelling back. He hated them, too.
Lights started to turn on. Crowds huddled around sandwich trucks. Neon from not-dead-yet electronics stores burned onto the retinas of window shoppers. A dotted arrow pointed to the door of #1 AA LIQUORS. Sammy had a destination.
The bell on a string rang harshly and Sammy had to sidestep through the narrow entrance. It smelled like corrugated cardboard, rum, and a curry. He passed by a yellow cone on the ground. The rum. While he browsed bottom-level wines, he heard the clamor of a family and some movie that he would never watch. $7.99. Not bad.
He headed to the counter. The Paki-Indian-Whatever continued reading his magazine, one hand resting on top of the dirty polo that didn’t quite finish covering his stomach.
“Seven ninety nine,” the man lucidly announced.
It was the first time it had ever happened and it felt like instinct. Sammy clutched the bottle by its neck and struck the man down across the jaw. The man took it in stride, disoriented but not desperate. He raised his head and shot Sammy a look. A cup of blood and one tooth came across the counter onto Sammy’s checked wool.
“All of it.”
The sounds from the back continued like normal. Sammy flitted his eye between the man and the door. The man was not stalling. He finished unloading and reached across the divide; Sammy backhanded his forehead with the bottle. The nagahyde bank wallet fell into his hand and the man tumbled to the floor.
Sammy stuffed the package in the front of his waist, walked out, wrapped his shirt around the bottle and then silently shattered it into the trash can. No one looked at him. He caught a bus back. No one stopped him.
This is the first result for a writing group and–while it is still just a draft–has been edited by Dan G., Dan K., and Lauren T.