Edward Lee: Family Tradition

So here were the Morrone brothers in a rather large nutshell. Both were unsocialized, both were obese, and both carried egos larger than their belt size. Both, too, were intolerable snobs. But they were rich…so they must be doing something right.

“Yeah, she’s a beaut, all right,” Ashton commented of Bob’s brand new thirty-foot zinc-white Winnebago. The vanity license plate read #4 AT MS, while a glittery bumper sticker read THE LOVE WAGON. “You dog, you,” Ashton added, chuckling. “Hey, let me ask you something. How many times did you stick it to Sheryl last night?”

“It’s Carol,” Bob corrected, “and I gotta admit, even stud-muffins like me can’t be a machine every night. I only bagged her twice. Usually it’s three or four.”

“You dog, you!” Ashton chuckled. “My problem is I wear Sheree out on the first go-round. Gets so she just can’t come anymore.”

“Wow,” Bob said in a hush, impressed.

“Big men like us, we gotta give our bitches a break sometimes, right?”

Bob slapped Ashton on the back. “Damn straight, brother.”

“But I’ll tell ya—last night? I gave her two more pops…just because I felt like it!”

Both men brayed laughter as they meandered toward the Winnebago’s rear. There, hooked via ball hitch, was a brand-new sixteen-foot outboard SeaRay. “Hell, we’re rich men,” Bob pointed out. “We don’t rent boats to go fishing; that would be…” He flicked a pinkie. “…low class. And since I couldn’t fit my sixty-foot yacht on the trailer, I bought this.”

Ashton’s fat face beamed in glee. “This is great! We’ll be hauling those Crackjaw eels in one after another.”

“You sure this lake’s got ’em?”

“Well,,,yeah.” Ashton had previously explained not only his recent embarrassment at the hands of rival restauranteur M. Gerald James but also the overseas marketing potential. “It says so in an old book I found printed in the ’50s.”

Bob didn’t seem as convinced but why be a spoilsport? “Well, hell, even if we don’t find a treasure trove of eel waiting for us…just think of all the poontang we’re gonna have!”

A hard slap to bother Bobby’s back. “Damn straight, brother!”

“We’ll be dippin’ our willies!”

Both men brayed laughter in front of Ashton’s condo building. “Speaking of poontang,” Ashton said, looking at his Cartier diamond-studded watch, “where are the girls?”

Scuffing sounds could be heard, then, as Sheree and Carol lugged heavy suitcases down the steps at the front of the building. “Oh, that’s okay, guys,” Sheree said sarcastically. “We don’t need any help.”

“Yeah,” Carol added. “We’re not really human beings—we’re fucking forklifts! ”

Ashton and Bob brayed laughter. “We’ll take it from here, girls,” Bob offered. The men took the heavy suitcases and walked them the remaining three feet to the Winnebago.

Ashton winked at Sheree. “Can’t have the two hottest numbers in the city wearing their pretty little selves out, now can we?”

“We sure can’t, good brother,” Bob accentuated. “Just think of all the red-hot lovin’ they’d miss!”

The men barked more laughter. Sheree and Carol exchanged weary glances which said, This is going to be a LONG trip…

««—»»

A long trip indeed. Bob drove while Ashton sat up front next to him; the girls sat facing each other in passenger seats mounted on the vehicle’s sidewalls, their long, pretty legs crossed. Each dressed for a road trip: sneakers and tube tops, Sheree in cut-off jeans and Carol in a short denim skirt. It didn’t take long for them to both get the shared gist. Up front, Bob yakked about his grand job at Microsoft, Ashton yakked about his grand restaurant and tv show, and in between yakking, they both laughed uproariously at their own bad jokes.

“Hey,” Ashton asked. “What do you get when you fuck a bottle of Coke?”

“What?” Bob asked.

“Burpees!”

Ashton and Bob rocked laughter. Bob’s fat face jerked back to Sheree and Carol. “Get it girls? Burp ees?”

“Yeah, we got it,” Carol said, and shot a quick frown to Sheree. Sheree leaned forward and mouthed Fat dicks to Carol. Carol snorted a tiny laugh herself.

Behind them the luxury Winnebago stretched deep. A full kitchen, a full bath and shower, a double bed built over the cab and another that could be pulled down in the rear. Not to mention a 200-watt Alpine stereo with a dozen satellite speakers mounted in the walls, and a 27-inch television linked to a dish on the roof. Cases of beer— snob beer: Holsten—had been brought along, and so had a full dozen bottles of Clos du Val 1990 Pinot Noir, which Ashton insisted was “pre-eminent” with freshwater fish. At the very least, Sheree could expect to get a good load on during this very peculiar outing. In the back, Bob had an auxiliary refrigerator hooked up, for all this eel they thought they were going to catch.

They’d taken the ferry from Seattle across to Bainbridge, then cruised up over the Hood Canal, and shortly thereafter found themselves on Route 101, which traced the peninsula around the Olympic Mountain Range. The scenery was beautiful. But as far as Sheree was concerned, better scenery could just as easily be found in National Geographic and it didn’t require her to spend an entire weekend with two overweight nerds . To the left, the mountains loomed, spiring high into dense clouds. To the right: the Strait of San Juan, across which they could see Canada with binoculars after Ashton’s enthused bidding. But then it occurred to Sheree that she had no real reason to want to see Canada. Big deal, she thought. A chunk of land that happens to be another country. Big deal.

The two fat men up front reveled at the rush of scenery, Ashton snapping picture after picture. Eventually, Sheree and Carol settled into their doldrums, sipping beers from foam-rubber sheaths.

“So, Carol,” Sheree asked. “What do you do?”

“I—” She paused over her beer, her breasts thrusting beneath the tight tea-rose-pink tube top. Then she shrugged. “I live off of Bob.”

“Damn straight,” Bob cackled. “Pig-shit rich and a great lay. What woman in her right mind would turn that down?”

Ashton cracked similar laughter.

“What about you?” Carol made the same query to Sheree. “What do you do?”

Ashton’s fat, bearded face shot back over his shoulder, his grin blaring.

“I live off of Ashton,” Sheree admitted. “Because he’s pig-shit rich and a great lay.”

Ashton and Bob, to no surprise, brayed laughter. Sheree and Carol rolled their eyes at each other.

More bad jokes from up front cursed the trip: “Have you heard about the teacher who was fired for being cross-eyed?” “She couldn’t control her pupils.” “What do you give sick birds?” “Tweetment.”

Sheree considered suicide as an alternative to this—Ashton, she knew, was a supreme asshole, but in league with his brother? He was ten assholes. At least the “trip” wouldn’t last forever. Eventually she’d be back at the luxury suite, driving her Bimmer, spending Ashton’s cash where and whenever she saw fit, and even copping a stray lay now and again. Sure, she cheated on Ashton; he was too busy braising rosemary racks of lamb and flambeeing Divers Scallops in Gingered Sesame Sauce to keep a total track of her. She remembered the last guy she’d picked up, at the Four Seas bar in Chinatown. Looked like fuckin’ Gary Oldman with long hair and tattoos, and a pound of potatoes in his pants. That pound turned to two or three once she’d gotten him back to the motel. It was so big even Sheree’s porn-seasoned pussy about exploded when he stuck it all in. She came once a minute for an hour, felt damn near retarded when he was finally finished. Sheree was actually blowing spit-bubbles on the last round, then he pulled out, jerked the rest of it off, and whipped her face with lash after lash of hot cum.