The Shopkeep Is Always Loaded
Where has my life gone? I once was so young. The summers were spent doing nothing but sleeping. My body worked better then. My knuckle ball used to make batters fall backwards. The rent was never due. I should have done much better than this.
“Which one do you like better?”
“The blue one.”
“Ew gross. Sara McCluskey wore the blue one to school yesterday.”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“I’m going to get the yellow one.”
“That’s fine.”
“Should I get the brown one too?”
“Yes. They match your eyes.”
“Dad,” the young girl laughed. “My eyes are green.”
Audrey released a loving chuckle as she vanished into the thicket of sales clothes that hung like corpses from a forest of metal gallows dangling from the ceiling of Urban Outfitters. Richard went back to his thoughts.
Lunch was really good today. I must go back to that noodle shop. I wonder if she did charge me for that bowl of brown rice? No, she couldn’t have. That would have brought the total close to twenty dollars. I left her a generous tip and their smiles were really big. I must go back to that noodle shop.
Richard folded the lunch receipt and stuck it back in his pocket. The store was a bustling city of flashy noise. Richard parked his size 44 Levi’s on a wooden kiosk in the middle of the third floor showroom amongst a slew of wild belts and skirts and bras and socks and naughty books and ironic attire that his daughter and all of her friends simply love. Next to his feet lay bags full of expensive shirts and shoes and jewelry from just about every shop in the mall. They even bought cookies from Mrs. Fields for the ride home.
It was Friday April 13th, 2007. Audrey needed new clothes for no reason.
“Is this dress cool or what?” Audrey asked.
“That looks like a pair of underpants.”
“Dad,” she smacked his shoulder. “This is what everyone is wearing.”
“I’m not wearing it.”
Richard dressed like a typical American dad from his light blue Polo shirt down to his socked feet in Birkenstock sandals. The sports team on his ball cap was that of the Prairie Farm Rascals, a Men’s softball league that managed to finish the 2006 season in thirteenth place.
“Are you almost done?” Richard asked.
“It might be a while,” Audrey said.
“Ugh.”
“You can just leave me your credit card.”
“Like hell,” Richard said. “I’ll wait for you at Stubbies.”
“Ok,” Audrey smiled. “But don’t drink too much.”
“Yeah yeah,” he said. “Buy something with more material.”
“I’ll meet you in front of Stubbies at six.”
“Ok oddball.”
Oddball was Richard’s nickname for his daughter, Audrey. Richard gave his girl a hug that she reciprocated with ample love. Their bond was a special one that they both anticipated every other weekend.
Stubbies was a bar inside the Prairieville Mall designed to help make the shopping experience more tolerable…for fathers of every creed color and race. All dads feel the same pain, in the wallet.
At first glance the inside of Stubbies might appear to be a gay bar leather papa bang room. But even though bags and bags of high priced fashion fatalities were strapped to every hairy wrist in the place, those men were all together as one single bored being without the life they once had.
Stubbies was full on this Saturday afternoon of former something’s, high school everything’s, and present day nothings. All of them with kids who love to spend their money. This is the weekend experience in Prairieville Pennsylvania, population 15, 783, according to the 2006 census posted in the Prairieville Pioneer, the daily that Richard sells advertising for.
“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked.
“Gimme something hard.”
“Coming right up,” the bartender said as he placed a coaster on the bar before leaving to make something hard. The bartender came back with a Stubbies special, consisting of Chartreuse liquor and a little vermouth, on the rocks with an umbrella.
“Thanks,” Richard said sarcastically as he held the glass in front of his face. “Does this come with a free Hawaiian shirt?”
Richard quipped towards the mirror behind the bar where he watched himself guzzle the fruity liquid. Richard wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and signaled the bartender for another. The barkeep did not notice Richard as he was trying to satisfy an army of lush fathers. Men dying for drink.
Richard looked at the bottom of his empty glass filled only with emerald colored ice cubes and wondered where his drink had gone. Just a minute ago his glass was full and now it is not.
He drifted back to the golden times of high school when he first was introduced to alcohol, ten miles outside of Prairieville, place run by an old coot name of Willis. Old man used to have a wandering eye that looked to your left whenever you spoke right.
“Can I see some identification?” wrinkled old Willis asked young Richie.
“You can’t even see your dick,” Richie laughed.
One week earlier, Richard Swisher threw a perfect game against the Skysound Salamanders, cross-town rivals of the Prairieville Pipers.
“Shucks,” Richie said. “You know who I am Willis. Gimme the brew.”
Old bat Willis shifted his left eye back and forth as the right one, the glass egg, remained wedged in the socket.
“That you Swisher? Strike 'em out Swisher?”
“The one and only,” Richie smiled as he grabbed for the two suitcases of Schlitz that rested on the counter.
“Why, you and your boys gave our Salamanders a nasty whooping last week.”
“Goddamn right we did.”
“Tell me why I should sell to a horned toad such as you.”
“Because you ancient bastard, if you don’t I’ll take this stiletto and gut you like a sow.”
Richie Swisher flashed the blade. He got it from somewhere, nowhere of concern. Old man Willis was concerned as his good eye locked the seven inches of steel just fine.
“You couldn’t cut yourself shaving. Now get the hell out of my store.”
With the Prairieville Pipers infield hooting and hollering in a rumbling Chevy outside in the midnight hour, Richie turned towards the elderly man and sliced all hell out of his right hand.
“Ah wah,” yelped the old dud.
“And I’ll need a few tins of Skoal. Or there’s more where that came from.”
Old ass Willis hesitantly reached for the chew. His hands shook like mad as laughter creaked from inside the rusted pickup truck of obnoxious youths who would never amount to anything of import.
Faded neon light out front read “Willis ine and pirits.”
Willis handed Richie the canned tobacco and shined a real mean smile, I’m an old man and you are just a kid, set of teeth.
“The fuck you grinning at wrinkle-prick?”
“You. You’re done for," Willis declared. "You and your dumb ass will never play in the big leagues. You'll never be anything after high school. Hell, tonight is probably the greatest night of your life.”
“Eat shit old man. You’ll be dead soon enough. And I’ll always be alive.”
A horn honked and with arms full of beer and tobacco Richie raced towards his gang of now forgotten pals who sped recklessly down Burberry Lane. Old man Willis reached under the register and pulled out a dusty shotgun that he used to blow a hole in the roof just above the exit sign on the front door that Richie Swisher, the Pennsylvania 5-A all-time strikeout leader, narrowly escaped through.
“Another Stubby special for you buddy?” asked the bartender.
“Yeah,” Richard said without looking up from the gum stained floor.
“Please.”
Jaso Anfinso / 4. 13. 07
THE SHOPKEEP IS ALWAYS LOADED.
