William Rose - The Seven Habits

What d’ya mean, how so? Fuckin’ Ocean, man. It’s like the universe was sending me a message through that bit of bumper sticker philosophy. ‘Cause just thinkin’ about what I had in mind still made me nervous, dig? I wasn’t used to all this cloak and dagger shit. Hell, I encode envelopes for a living. I sit at this little desk for hours on end, looking at these pictures on my monitor where people have scrawled the address so bad the computer can’t read it. I type shit like PE and three states away this piece of mail gets sprayed with a barcode and goes on its merry fuckin’ way. Might just be a day in the life for guys like you… but for me it was foreign territory, right?

So it was like that sticker was reminding me that Ocean wasn’t an option, dig? That she was going to be born and the quality of her life could very well depend on how I handled this Clarice Hudson situation. And it was already too late for that chick, anyhow, there’s no cure for what she had, ya know?

See, this was what went through my head while I was sittin’ outside her apartment. I was half-listening to some right wing windbag on the radio, watchin’ her windows, checking the time every five fuckin’ minutes, tryin’ to figure out exactly how to do it.

Now see, man… when you call it pre-meditated it tells me that you’re still not understanding. You’re still confusing habeas corpus with doing the right thing, and a lot of time—as I believe I’ve mentioned before—those two concepts can run afoul of each other. I mean, give me credit, man. I didn’t go marchin’ up there to do the dirty deed just because she had two fuckin’ signs. Now that woulda been criminal, ya know?

So anways, it’s gotten dark and I’m thinkin’ maybe it’s time to piss on the fire and call in the dogs. Pack it up for the night and head on home, right? And just as I’m about to turn the key, what happens? Her front door opens, man.

She comes traipsin’ down the sidewalk in this low cut, white blouse that’s clingin’ to those tits of hers like a needy lover. Got this tiny skirt that barely covers the cheeks of her ass, black heels and matching bag, hair teased like a geek in a locker room. I mean, this bitch looks hot. Both figuratively and literally, ‘cause even from my car, I can see that sheen of sweat, man. That byproduct of contagion.

I follow her downtown and find myself in this little hole in the wall called Blue Moon. Not the Blue Moon, mind you… just Blue Moon. This is the type of joint that’s got Bob Seeger on heavy jukebox rotation, little Christmas lights all strung along the ceiling, and cans of Vienna Sausages for sale right alongside the overpriced Bics and antacids. Couple of pool tables in the back…

She’s down at the end of the bar by the video poker machines, kinda leanin’ over it like her bosom’s tryin’ to get a good look at all the bottles lined along the back mirror. The bartender’s this short, blonde chick with frizzy hair and she lines five shot glasses in front of Clarice fuckin’ Hudson and starts fillin’ ‘em up with something or other. Don’t ask me what, ‘cause I’m a beer man, myself.

Well, the leading lady in this here little drama throws those shots back like a sailor on leave. Bam, bam, bam. Hardly takes time to breathe between each one. She holds up three fingers and, after the bartender brought me a piss warm Bud, knocks back another trio.

You can bet your ass that by this time she’s caught the eye of every dude in this joint. The pool balls have stopped clackin’ around, there’s this chick throwin’ daggers at her boyfriend with her eyes, an old man who’s not too shy to sit there massagin’ his nutsack while he drinks her in.

This guy who looks like he’s probably in the place on a forged ID plops a few quarters into the juke but his eyes are all over Ms. Hudson when he’s selectin’ the songs. I figure he was probably goin’ for Lynrd Skynrd or some shit but got so distracted by this hard drinkin’ hottie that he somehow queued up Lady Gaga. Bad Romance , it was.

So the music really kicks in after that little Vedic sounding chant at the beginning and the bass is thumpin’ so loud that you can’t even hear the chirps and bleeps from the poker machines. Now our dear Clarice must’ve been a little monster, because she’s out there just gettin’ down. She’s movin’ her body to the rhythm like she was born to work the pole—tossin’ her head back, gyrating those hips as her hands trail along the curves of her body. She’s got her eyes half-closed and in the dim light it almost seemed like I was watchin’ a woman fuck the shit out of an invisible lover.

Now, you know these little dives. Their idea of air conditioning is a ceiling fan hidden up in the rafters that moves slower than a herd of turtles in tar. These places are stagnant, man, which is why they always got that ghost of old beer and stale cigarette smoke hauntin’ the air. No circulation at all.

You better believe by the time the songs fades into the next, this chick is drenched. I mean, her hair’s literally drippin’ with sweat, right, and her blouse looks like wet tissue paper that’s been plastered to her body. You can see right through that shit, too. Those pink nubs sittin’ in the center of these dark aerolas… you could see it all. If I didn’t suspect she was a weapon of mass destruction, I probably woulda shot my load right then and there.

So she starts walking toward my end of the bar, right? And she’s not so much as even a little off kilter, I mean, this chick coulda passed every sobriety test you guys threw her way.

I look down into my suds, tryin’ to play it off like maybe I can find the answers to all my problems somewhere in the bottom of that mug, but my heart’s just poundin’ away like a rabbit on crack. I’m startin’ to sweat a little myself and I want to take a sip of that beer so bad… to calm my nerves, ya know? But I’m afraid if I so much as lift it from that scarred counter, my hands will tremble so bad that it’ll slosh all over the place.

Just be cool, I tell myself. She’ll go to the juke, pick of a few songs, and then wander back down to the other end. Just stay cool, dude.

I could smell her before she even got close to where I was sittin’. It was this heady combination of perfume and deodorant mixed with the slightly sour smack of body odor, but, for some reason, that smell is kinda sexy on a woman, ya know? Why the hell is that? One whiff of a chick’s sweat and most guys pop a boner—or at least a semi—on the spot. I had to keep picturin’ these fuzzy little virons swimming around in all that perspiration, like minnows in a stream, to keep that shit in check.

Then I get this creepy feeling. You know how you can just sense when someone is lookin’ over your shoulder, man? It’s not like they’re touching you or anything, but you know they’re there. Almost like you can feel them rubbin’ up against your aura or something. Most times, it’s nothing but an annoyance, but when it happened at that little bar? I felt the hairs on the back of neck bristle and I just sat there for a moment, watching the bubbles pop on the head of my beer as this hard little lump formed in the back of my throat.

She musta still been a little winded from dancing, cause I could hear her breathing, too… and all I could think was what if this shit is airborne, man?

I realized, for some reason, that she just wasn’t gonna go away. So I looked up at her. Kept thinkin’ about all those nasty little buggers running amuck in her body to keep my eyes from simply stopping at chest level. By this point, I feel like I just wanna bolt out through the door and keep on runnin’ ‘til the sun came up. At the same time, though, it’s like every muscle in my body was suddenly petrified. Even felt like stone, now that I think about it. Cold and hard, immovable as a fuckin’ boulder.