Charlie Huston - The Shotgun Rule

– Well, I tell ya what, baby, you want us to be close, you want to ever have a chance of getting closer, you ever want to score another pill off me ever, you need to tell me where you got the fucking idea I might be holding crank.

She frees her hand from his and swings away, dropping her feet to the floor, halting the chair.

– Now, Jeff.

He looks at the floor, shakes his head, takes out the cigarette and lights it.

– Nice, Amy, nice way to be with a friend.

– Right now, you’re barely a customer. You want to be my friend again, do something to show me that you are.

Jeff nudges the beanbag with his boot.

– Fucking.

– Jeff.

– Yeah, I heard you. Just, look, don’t make a big deal out of this.

– Jeff.

He kicks the beanbag.

– Geezer. OK? Geezer said something about you and that he thought you were maybe dealing a little crank.

She points a chipped red fingernail at him.

– You fucker.

– Hey!

– You weren’t gonna tell me. You knew that, and you weren’t gonna warn me.

– That’s not.

– You came in here. Um, shucks, got any crank? Wait a minute…

– Whoa, Amy.

– You. Are you here for him? Did he send you over here too?

– No. No way. No fucking way. You know me better than that.

– Do I?

She stands, the top of her head at his chin, a finger in his face.

– OK. OK. You tell, him, that fat fucking slob, you tell him no fucking way. I am not dealing crank. No. You tell him, tell him to stay away from me. Tell him, he comes around here, he comes, I see him on my lawn, tell him I’m calling every old man I ever had. Tell him I’m gonna have every biker in the Tri Valley on his ass. Tell him to stay away. Tell him to leave me alone, just leave me alone.

Jeff tries to touch her face, to wipe away some of the tears pouring over her cheeks.

She jerks away, stomps her foot, exhales and drops back into her chair. Head hanging, arms and legs limp.

– Geezer.

She pulls her legs up into the chair and wraps her arms around them.

– Oh fuck. Ohfuckohfuckohfuck.

– Let me borrow a shirt.

George looks down into the drawer of carefully folded concert Ts. He’s standing in his underwear, his arms held away from his sides so he won’t start sweating again.

– Why?

Paul pulls off his own shirt.

– Got bean dip all over mine.

George takes out a Stones shirt from their “Face Dances” gig at the Cow Palace.

– So go home and get one.

Paul lies back down on the sleeping bag spread on the floor.

– Fucking never mind.

George puts on the Stones T.

– Dude, don’t be a girl, borrowing my clothes all the time. Go get a clean shirt.

– Don’t be a rag, fucking lend me one.

George closes the drawer.

– No way, you get bean dip on your own shirts, not on mine.

– Yeah, now who’s the girl?

He gets up and goes to the dresser and opens the drawer.

– Look at this, man, you wash these things in Woolite or what?

– Fuck you.

– They’re just shirts, man. You wear them, that’s what they’re for.

– It’s a collection, OK? It’s a collection of shirts from concerts I’ve gone to and paid money for the shirts and taken good care of them because I want to keep them around and wear them. You five finger discount every concert shirt you ever had. No wonder you don’t give a fuck if they get thrashed.

Paul takes a step back.

– Whoa. Sorry. Didn’t realize I was talking to your dad here.

George pulls on his favorite cutoffs.

– Fuck you, man.

He grabs his smokes and lighter and shades and walks out.

– Do whatever you want, take whatever you want.

Paul stands alone in the room.

Fucking George. No joke, the guy can get like infected with his dad sometimes. Not that that should be a big deal. They all make jokes about how uptight Mr. Whelan is, but he’s far and away the coolest dad any of them know. George doesn’t know how good he has it, how easy.

He looks at the shirts, picks up the one from the Blue Oyster Cult show last December. He unfolds the shirt and looks at the front, the ankh and the reaper in a night sky, the tour dates listed down the back.

George loves his shirts, doesn’t mean he has to be a dick about it. Knows how much it sucks to go home after staying out all night.

You OK? Everything all right? I wish you would call if you’re going to stay out all night. Something is going to happen one night and I won’t even know to be worried or to look for you. All you have to do is pick up the phone and call. Even if you need a ride. Especially if you need a ride. Don’t ever get in a car with a drunk driver. If you’ve been drinking that’s one thing, but don’t get in a car with someone who’s been drinking themselves.

George can’t lend him one cocksucking shirt so he doesn’t have to deal with that? They been friends how long? Jesus. Just ever since The Fight, that’s all.

It happened a couple days after Paul and his family moved into the neighborhood. George was the local hero, eight years old, wearing jeans and boots and a pearl button shirt like his dad. What a fag he looked like. And coming on all cowboy tough, giving Paul shit about the hippie stuff his mom found for him at the Salvation Army store.

They fought for so long the kids watching started to cry. They were so scared one of them was gonna kill the other one. They beat the living shit out of each other. Went on for hours. Seemed that way. Anyway, didn’t stop till Mr. Whelan drove home and saw them punching each other on the Phelps’ front lawn. Pulled to the curb and came over and got a handful of their hair in each hand and yanked them apart.

That was a great fucking fight, man.

Next day they ran into each other on the sidewalk and talked about it and showed each other their bruises and scrapes and scabby knuckles.

He crams the shirt back in the drawer. Fuck this, man. Got cash on hand. Go down to Galaxy Records and buy a brand new shirt. Get that black Ozzy T with the red jersey sleeves. Yeah, man, cut the sleeves off, that’ll look cool as hell.

He climbs into his shredded jeans and the dirty T and pulls on Jeff’s Harley cap.

– George!

He heads down the stairs to the kitchen.

– George, let’s cruise over to Galaxy, check out some tunes, there’s a shirt I like on the wall over there.

Andy walks around the empty house.

It’s after twelve. The thermometer on the back porch is hitting ninety. Mom and dad left for work first thing. Who knows when George and Paul and Hector took off.

He goes to the bathroom and brushes his teeth and fills a plastic cup with water from the tap and drinks it standing at the sink. He looks at himself in the mirror. Skin and bones and greasy, tangled hair. Mostly bones and hair. No wonder no girls like him.

Paul says he’d do better if he was bigger. Chicks dig muscles, he says, and flexes. Chicks like Paul OK, dig his muscles, until they get to know him. Then they get scared of his temper.

Hector says Andy needs to be himself. Chicks don’t dig him when he’s being himself, then fuck them anyway, he says. Chicks used to be into Hector, until he went punk and started wearing the mohawk last year. There are a couple that are still into him, funky ones with tons of black eye shadow and black nail polish and shit.

George says he just needs to be cool, not dig the chicks too much. Just do your own thing and they’ll come around. And it works for him. Like most things work for George. He’s the one chicks come around to talk to, trailing a couple friends. Paul and Hector get the friends. Andy gets told to go home.