Joe Lansdale - Bad Chili

“I don’t think you mean that.”

“You know, you’re right. I don’t.” Brett laughed. The laugh was as nice as her smile. “I don’t know. Not really. There’s just something about you. You remind me of a big puppy dog. I think that’s it.”

“Woof, woof,” I said.

“How about taking me to dinner? I haven’t eaten yet, and I’ve got to go to work before long. I’ve had one of those days where all I’ve had to eat is coffee.”

“Well, I’ve had one of those days too. Maybe we can cheer each other up.”

“Forty-five minutes,” she said.

We went to an expensive place called the West Coast. The place looks better than the food tastes, though the food isn’t bad. The West Coast is on a hill and has a large advertising sign out front that lists the specials of the week, most of the specials being some kind of seafood or steak.

The restaurant itself is made of great slabs of lumber and vast expanses of glass. It has well-manicured bushes and lots of parking places. For some reason, people dress up when they go there.

I dressed up a little myself. Dark slacks, dark blue sport jacket with a light blue shirt. I wiped off my shoes with a wash rag until they almost looked as if they had been polished. I had a tie in my coat pocket that I decided not to wear. It was a nice tie. Maybe later I could get it out and show it to Brett, just to give her some idea of what I might have looked like had I worn it.

When I picked up Brett, I wished I had on the tie. She looked nice. She had on a white blouse with a blue design on it, a blue skirt, dark blue shoes, and dark hose. Her makeup was spare and her hair was as lustrous as a goddess’s. The blouse revealed the tops of her breasts and she smelled so good I thought I might have to pull over to the side of the road and cry for a while.

“I hope I look all right,” she said. “I started to just shit in the face of all feminists tonight and wear an all-purpose deluxe tight-as-sin polyester screw-me-to-death outfit and no panties. I wear that, when I walk it looks like my thangamajig is shellin’ a walnut.”

All I could respond with was, “I’m sure that would have been very nice too.”

“Well, this will have to do. I didn’t want you to spring a leak on our first date.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Looks great.”

“I hope so,” she said. “Actually, it’s kind of painful. I got on one of those bras hikes your titties up. They aren’t as formfitting as the goddamn box says they are. I feel like I got a truck jack under each one of ’em.”

We made romantic small talk like that on the way over, and once inside and seated at our table, a guy dressed in a white dinner jacket stood up at an organ and played and sang in a manner so awful I thought for a moment he was a comedian. When I realized he wasn’t, I said, “I’m sorry. I could have taken you to Burger King and we could have listened to Fats Domino on the jukebox. This clown wasn’t here last time I came.”

“That must have been Christmas Eve 1984, because I been here a lot and he’s been here since I’ve been coming, and he’s never been able to carry a note in a sealed Tupperware container. He can do a damn good ‘Pop Goes the Weasel,’ though, and come Christmas he has a medley that ends with ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ that’ll break your goddamn heart.”

I smiled at her. “You are definitely different, Brett.”

“Not really,” she said. “I just put up a bold front. I’m really a chicken shit. This dating business is confusing to me. I don’t know if I want a real relationship anymore or a quick fuck. What about you?”

“I’d really hate to choose.”

“I’ll tell you a secret too. I don’t come on to every man like I did you.”

“You keep telling me that.”

“Do I?”

“Yep.”

“Well, I really do like you. If you had money I’d like you even more.”

“I like you too, but I don’t have money.”

“I didn’t think you did. You don’t look like you got more than a couple dimes to rub together.”

“Don’t worry. I can pay for the meal.”

She smiled again. Damn, I liked that smile.

“I don’t mind you don’t have money,” she said, and she reached out and placed her hand on top of mine. “I just said it would be convenient you had it. As for you liking me too, that’s good, but men like women right off if they look a certain way. And there’s some men, they go long enough and it’s late enough and they’re drunk enough, and some of them don’t even need the drink… Well, they’d fuck a three-hundred-pound cross-eyed sow in a John Deere cap.”

“You got to be proud of those old boys,” I said. “To think appearance doesn’t matter. That’s very modern, don’t you think?”

“What I think is I may not be a Playboy model, but I been around enough to know I look better than a tie rack. Figure that won’t last much longer at my age, so I better use it while I got it.”

“I may let my biology bark now and then,” I said, “but I make my final judgments with my heart, not my eyes. And just for the record, on the visual part, you’re a long way off from having ties hung on you. But that’s not the long and the short of it for me. How you look, I mean. I grew up in the sixties. I’m for equal rights and I’m for women. I even think of myself as a supporter of feminism as long as it doesn’t come across as stupid and strident as extreme machoism… Is that a word?”

“Who cares? I get your drift.”

“All right. Whatever, strident on either side wears me out. Like I said, my biology barks now and then, but when it comes down to it, I like to think I’m not the sort of guy can be pulled around by the ying-yang. I like to believe I’m made of sterner stuff than that.”

“I grew up in the sixties too,” Brett said, “but I hope there’s at least a drop of male chauvinist pig in you, or I’ve spent too much time brushin’ my hair. They still use that term, don’t they? ‘Male chauvinist pig’?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“Men and women, biology and the goddamn federal budget,” Brett said. “All a mess, isn’t it?”

I agreed it was.

Brett said, “If you’re a woman and you like sex, you’re a whore. If you don’t like it, then you’re frigid. If you use what charms you have to get sex, then the feminists hate you, and if you don’t want to marry every goddamn hard dick gives you a poke, then the men think you’re a ball breaker, or you’re back to number one again. You’re a whore.”

“It is confusing,” I said.

“And you know what?” Brett said. “I think you could be pulled around by your dick a little bit, I wanted to pull it.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I take all that bullshit back. Start pulling.”

A well-dressed waiter came by then. A good-looking college kid about nineteen. He was very polite and acted as if he couldn’t wait to give us menus, take our order, and be our food slave for the next hour or so. I caught him peeking at Brett’s titties, but I thought it might be ruder to ask him to stop than to ignore him. Besides, I couldn’t actually blame him. It’s easy to talk a line of shit about how looks don’t matter, and they shouldn’t, and as you mature they don’t matter as much, but the eyeball is connected to the crotch in men, and that is the sad way of the world, and no matter how many volumes are written on political correctness, the one-eyed snake that lives between the legs of men will not read and strives only for satisfaction.

The waiter took our drink order and went away. While I studied the menu, I found myself feeling guilty. I was having fun, about to eat a good meal, sitting there with a good-looking date, and Leonard was sitting at home with a can of tuna fish, a handful of bad TV stations, and no vanilla cookies.