Phone Call

You don't tell the bartender that  the guy your wife's fucking with is in this hotel right now waiting for her to show up. You know it's true—you hacked into her e-mail a month ago. They've had this meeting planned for weeks. You know the exact time she'll arrive.

You sit at the hotel's plush bar, alternately staring at the Miller Lite clock above the back bar, then into the bottom of your drink. You rotate the glass between the palms of your hands and you think of the bitch. Your gut hurts. You could crush the glass in your hand. But why waste the booze? You gulp the drink down.

You feel the bartender's eyes on you, and when he sets the second double Scotch in front of you he says, "Hey, ain't you Mean Maxie Malone? Played pro ball for the Bears, couple of years back? Linebacker?"

You raise your head. You try to be friendly. You smile. "Yeah, man. That's me."

"You the same guy who tore them up in the league with them blasts through the offensive line to crunch the quarterback? Season after season?"

You nod. "Yeah, man. "

He gets excited. He grins from ear to ear. "I'll never forget that Sunday afternoon a couple of years back when you killed the Packers. I mean, killed them single-handed. You must've laid out six of them. A wide receiver, a defensive end, and their quarterback, for sure."

"Had a good day," you say, remembering especially how you drilled the quarterback.

The guy's short, pudgy, red-faced. Toothy smile. He pours another double. "On the house," he says, and slides the drink across the bar. "Chirst, I always thought your were the greatest—right up there with the best of 'em. Including Butkus. Must've been great to make it in the pros." And he rattles on how he played only second string in high school but still loved the game.

You don't tell him how it really is with you. How you grew up with an old lady and old man who were drunks. You don't tell him how your old lady never cooked a decent meal in her life and your old man beat the shit out of you whenever he got drunk and never provided you with decent house or clothes. Or how you took out your anger and frustrations on the football field and wrestling matt. That you were so dedicated to getting even with the world—so mean—Mean Maxie Malone—that you earned scholarships from everywhere for both sports, but you chose football because of the money, but you only made it through high school and college with the help of a bunch tutors. You don't tell him about the concussions, the torn ligaments, the cracked ribs, the fractured collarbones, the twisted ankles.

And you don't tell him how after twelve years with the pros you thought you'd mellowed out. You'd proved your point. You'd almost become jovial. Now you got some money saved, you make motivational speeches at high schools and colleges all across the country, and you got a taste of the good life. Except you got a wife who's fucking around when you're gone.

You don't tell the bartender that the guy your wife's fucking with is in this hotel right now waiting for her to show up. You know it's true—you hacked into her e-mail a month ago. They've had this meeting planned for weeks. You know the exact time she'll arrive. You know his room number. You don't tell the pudgy, red-faced bartender that the guy you're wife's fucking is a writer who ghost wrote your success story—Mean Maxie Malone Mellows Out. The book'll hit bookstores in hardback first of the year. You got a hundred-thousand-dollar advance. And there's talk of a movie deal.

You keep it all inside and it ties your stomach in knots, and when you see it's nearly eight o'clock you cut the bartender off. "Got to make a phone call," you tell him.

He lays a napkin on the bar, gives you a pen, and asks you for your autograph. "Sure," you tell him with a smile, and scribble your name across the napkin.

"I remember the time," he says, "in the Pro Bowl when you intercepted a pass and ran it back eight-five yards for a TD."

"Excuse me," you say. "Got to make a call. You have a great evening, man."

"Maxie Malone," he says, wiping the bar. "My god, I got Mean Maxie Malone's autograph."

You keep it all inside and it burns like fire. You shamble out of the bar, pushing the swinging half-doors aside, and step into the hotel lobby. You sink your six-four, 240-pound body—only ten pounds over your playing weight—into a chair where you can see the hotel's front door. You whip out your cell phone, call the hotel, and ask the clerk to connect you with room 331. It rings twice, then a click, a voice: "Hey, babe! Where are you?"

The words churn up a gallon of acid in your stomach, but you keep your cool. Making your voice smile, you say, "Artie! It's me, Maxie Malone. How you doing, man?"

"Who—?"

"Maxie Malone, man! Ain't seen or heard from you for a while? How you doing, Artie?"

Silence. Then a struggle for words. "Oh, h-hi, Maxie. Great to hear your voice again. How you doing?"

"Just got home early from being on the road. Couple of speeches in Tennessee. Ginger told me you'd called and said you're passing through. Got an email from my agent. Says the movie deal for the book is looking good. She tell you that? Thought you'd like to know. How you doing, Artie?"

His voice cracks.  "I—I'm just great, Maxie."

"I was just telling Ginger we ain't seen you for ages. Not since we wrapped up the book, actually. We shouldn't let an awesome partnership like this die."

"Yeah...it's been a while."

You partially cup your hand over the cell phone, muffling your voice, and call off to the side: "Ginger, sweetheart, how long's it been since we seen Artie Townsend?"

"What?" Artie says.

You wait a second, then speak: "Talking to Ginger, Artie. She says the last time she saw you was here in town at the Country Club's New Year's Eve party. What? Three months ago. We'd finished the book, but you hadn't left town—I had a gig in Chicago."

"Look, Maxie—"

"Remember? I couldn't make it to the party.  Flight snowed in at O'Hara. Ginger bitched about me being gone so much and her having to stay home all the time I told her to go with you."

"Yeah," Artie says. "We had a good time—it was a nice party."

"Ginger never told me this, but the word gets around, you know. She never told me—"

"Look, Maxie—"

 "—about her getting so smashed, you practically had to carry her out of the joint, draped all over you."

He says quickly, "People exaggerate, Maxie. She was just tired. That's all. Just tired. People make a big deal out of nothing. They exaggerate, you know?"

"She used to do that a lot, get smashed, but I thought she was over that. She'd reformed. Dried out. I never got a chance to thank you for taking care of her, Artie. You left the next day. Before I got home."

"It was really nothing. Believe me."

"Don't say that, Artie." The phone trembles in your hand. "It was everything. I owe you, man. No telling what kind of trouble she might've got herself into."

"Maxie—"

"Look, Artie...Ginger says I should ask what you're doing tonight?"

A long silence follows until Artie clears his throat. "Um...nothing. But listen, Maxie—"

You turn your head, muffle your voice with your hand. "He says he's doing nothing tonight, Ginger."

"What—?"

"I was just telling my lovely wife you were doing nothing tonight, Artie.  She says how about if we all go out?"

His voice suddenly seems scratchy, like his throat is sandpaper. "I'm not feeling well, Maxie. Upset stomach. And I got this early flight in the morning. I just called earlier to say hello."

"Hell, you can make it, Artie. Tough guy like you."

"Honest, Maxie. I can't."

"For old times? Celebrate the movie deal?"

"I swear—"

"For Ginger's sake? She'd love to see you."

He coughs again. "Max, no lie...I'm not feeling well. And I got this early flight in the morning."

You turn you head again and muffle your voice. "He can't make it, sweetheart. He's not feeling too good. And he's got an early flight."

"What—?"

"I was just telling Ginger you couldn't make it because you're not feeling too good and you got an early flight."

"I'm sorry, Maxie."

You been watching the lobby door, and finally she struts in. You grip the phone harder, and your knuckles turn white. She's tall and leggy in a red clingy dress, cut low around the neck and cut short around the knees. Her red hair's piled high on her head in curls. Long gold ear rings with circles on the end dangle from her ears.

Her lips are curved in a half-smile as she scurries to the elevator, looking neither left nor right. She pokes the button and then taps the toe of a spiked red shoe on the tiled floor in front of the elevator. You wonder if she remembers she was nothing but a cheap bar slut with a long history of one-night stands until you found her and felt sorry for her because her life as a kid mirrored yours. You sobered her up. You dressed her in fancy clothes, gave her money and jewelry, and promised her the good life. She promised to be faithful, loving, and sober. But then a fucking writer shows up—a high-class guy—and she kicks your fucking ass to the sidelines.

Your lips tremble in rage. You can hardly stop your voice from breaking. "Artie, Ginger says I got to get my ass in gear if we're going out. Man, she's hot. She's wearing this clingy, slinky red dress. Boobs and legs to die for."

"Sure, Maxie. You better get ready."

"I'll call you. Keep you posted about them movie rights."

"You do that."

As she steps onto the elevator, you snap your cell phone closed and jam it into your pants pocket. You feel like a raging animal inside—like it's first down, one yard to go for the opposing team to score the winning TD, but you're going to pulverize their running back and make him cough up the football.

You march across the lobby into the bar. The pudgy, red-faced bartender smiles his toothy smile. "Another Scotch?"

"Make it a double."

You figure to give her just enough time to rap on his door and step inside his room for a second or two.

The bartender sets up your drink and starts in again. "Looks like you're still in shape," he says. "Like you could still rip an entire offensive line apart."

You swallow the drink down in a single gulp and wipe your lips with the back of your hand. You think of the panic that must be on the bastard's face this instant—because he's opened the door and sees her standing there dressed in a slinky red dress, cleavage and legs gleaming.

"Still in shape," you tell the bartender, and smile for the first time. "And feeling like my old self. Mean as hell—Mean Maxie Malone." You push quickly through the bar's swinging half-doors and step into the lobby again. Then you cross to the carpeted stairs that lead to the hotel's third floor and take them three at a time...

The End

Getting Even

Her body's a bunch of soft curves, Charlie. A bunch of hills and valleys. While she rubs the towel back and forth across the back of her shoulders, her boobs bounce—their cherry-red nipples alive.

How about a drink, Charlie? You ain't closed, are you? Christ, I was afraid I'd be too late. Alone? Good. Almost dark in here, only them beer-sign lights on.

No Scotch, just a mug of beer.

No, things ain't so good with me, Charlie. It's a long story. You know how it is with wives, especially jealous ones. Real bitches. They never forget or forgive.

Yeah, that's right. I've been gone for a while. Navy, you know. Two-year deployment on a destroyer, bouncing around in the Mediterranean Sea. Life's a bitch, ain't it? Got seven days leave, though. Not much time. Got to make the best of it.

Beer's nice and cold, Charlie. Give me another—first one went down like nothing. Thanks, Charlie.

Nice place you got here, The Vanishing Point. Laura and me always liked it. Clean. Good food. Cold drinks. See you ain't changed it none. Yeah, I give up Scotch. You got a minute while you check the register? Good. Need to talk to someone.

Plane all the way from San Diego brought a bunch of us guys in. Laura met me at the airport about five-thirty. Some chick, ain't she? I always could pick 'em—hell, you know that. Well, I ain't seen her in a goddamned while, and we didn't get along too good before I left, not after she caught me with that redhead, one of her friends. Alicia. An ex-friend now. But Laura and me, we decided to work things out. You know, give it a try. Even though it was stupid of me to cheat on her.

Anyway, when I get my luggage at the airport, she's there waiting for me, a real blonde, blonde right down to the roots with a shape that'll burn your eyeballs. She's all over me with hugs and kisses. I laugh and think maybe if I'm lucky I'll get seduced right here in the airport on the baggage carousel. I'm thinking, Eddie, your wife's got a new spark. Absence has definitely made her heart grow fonder. And I can't wait till I get her home.

But she wants to see the town. We ain't been out together, like, forever. Man, her silky, red T-dress with a plunging neckline clings to her—lots of cleavage—and hugs her butt like nothing you ever seen. And shows off her killer legs from mid-thigh down.

She drives us to this fancy place out by the lake. I've never been there, but she seems to know all about it. We sit on the deck so we can smell the pine trees all around the lake and see the sun sink behind them. The sky all purple and scarlet. Just like looking at a freakin' picture.

I get a feeling that Laura's not my wife but some sexy, high-class chick I'm playing around with, and she's crazy about me. We sip a couple of martinis and devour rare steaks with a bottle of wine. I don't know where she got her taste for rare steaks—she never liked them before—but I forget it and think, Eddie, your wife's hotter than ever, dude! Freakin' hot.

All the time, she's a couple of drinks ahead of me. Her eyes are lit up. She's in horny mood. Then she takes another sip of wine and asks me this stupid question about did I know any chicks aboard ship. I mean, Charlie, we got Navy chicks now aboard ships that serve right along with guys. I ain't saying it's right or wrong. It's just the way things are, and a guy's got to live with it. We got maybe twenty of them aboard my ship, some of them not bad to look at. Some pretty ugly.

I ask Laura what does she mean did I know any Navy chicks.

Her eyes dart toward me—not horny anymore—but narrow and sharp—and she says she means did I go to bed with any of them.

I know she's thinking about her redheaded ex-friend Alicia.

"Christ," I tell her, "hell no!" I mean, a couple of guys messed around. Bound to happen—you throw guys and chicks aboard the same ship. Buy I didn't mess around at all. None. A guy could find his ass in the brig on bread and water."

And then she wants to know how about when I pulled liberty did I mess around. She knows my battle group's sailing around the Mediterranean—off the shores of Libya and Egypt—and we pull liberty in Barcelona and Palermo. Lot of hot-blooded chicks in Spain and Sicily, Charlie. Olive skin, dark eyes and hair. Boobs and butt that can drive a man wild. They'll gladly do anything money. Not that much money, either.

I’m a little nervous. My knees start to jiggle. I don't know what to make of it, Laura kissing and hugging me, then asking me questions like that. Then I think maybe she's getting pretty drunk and just joking with me. I tell her hell, yes, a lot of guys messed around with them chicks. Lot of them got the clap, too, and gonorrhea, their peckers falling off. But not me. And then I'm thinking, Eddie, you better get your bitch home and show her what kind of man you still are. Before she asks you more questions. Or before she passes out.

Home in the condo, she's in the shower, sobering up a bit, I hope, while I'm unpacking my things in the bedroom. I yell at her where can I put this souvenir pistol I brought home. I bought it off an Arab—a shiny Russian gun with plenty of bullets. I nice little conversation piece to show off.  She can't hear me, so she swings open the bathroom door wide, and she's standing naked in front of me, swaying a bit, still a little drunk, drying herself with a big white towel and says I can put the gun and shells in my drawer under my underwear and stuff. Same drawer I've always had. Don't shoot myself.

At the sight of her, my heart jumps and slams into my throat.

Her body's a bunch of soft curves, Charlie. A bunch of hills and valleys. While she rubs the towel back and forth across the back of her shoulders, her boobs bounce—their cherry-red nipples alive. And then my heart, still stuck in my throat, nearly chokes me. She's shaved her pussy, man. Shaved it!  The tangle of silky blonde hair I used to gladly lick my way through is gone. It was never like that before.

Gimme another beer, will you, Charlie? I'm talking so goddamned much and so fast, getting all wound up, I'm forgetting my mug is empty. How about you? Good. See you're still drinking that same off-beat rum you always liked. Never could stomach them tropical drinks myself. Never liked that shit.

Hmmm, good cold beer, Charlie. Thanks.

Well, seeing Laura like that standing stark naked in front of me, a feeling I want to bury my face between her hot boobs and jam my cock into her shaved pussy sweeps over me—you now what I mean?

She climbs into the sack first. I shower and by the time I crawl in next to her I'm in a sweat, my hard-on a flagpole. But when I bury her lips with mine, she clenches her mouth shut. And when I run my hand down her belly toward her pussy expecting her to clutch me, moan, and beg me to hurry up, she just lays there, an iceberg that's floated into our bed from the North Atlantic.

Then she rolls away from me, her backside facing me.

What the fuck!

I can't believe it.

"What the hell's wrong?" I yell at her.

Not looking at me, talking at the wall on her side of the bed, she asks if I'm asking her to believe that everyone else played around at sea, but I didn't. I tell her again, "Hell, no I didn't mess around. Just because a lot of guys did, doesn't mean I did, too."

But she doesn't believe me. I lied to her once before, you know. About Alicia.

I lose my head. I lose my patience. I burn up. I sit up in bed. I try to reason with her. I tell her it's a man's nature to get fucked when he can, just like a ship belongs at sea. He's got to have some once in a while. He can't go months at a time without any. I remind her that I'm a First Class Gunners Mate aboard a ship that's in danger night and day, sailing in the most dangerous seas in the world, protecting our country and our fighting men in Afghanistan and Iraq—lots of stress involved. Messing around doesn’t mean a guy doesn't love his wife. I try to laugh now, hoping she's convinced. I pat her tender-like on the ass and tell her she's the only woman in the whole universe that I love.

But she leaps out of bed ands wraps herself in pink, silky negligee that you can see through and leaves her legs bare. I wonder where she got that—I never seen it before.

She marches into the living room. I jump into my robe, belt it, and stalk after her. She pours herself a drink from a decanter marked HERS. There's a second one marked HIS. They're a set, a wedding present from six years ago.

She gulps her drink down and then wants to know if it isn't the same with chicks. They need to get fucked when they can, too. They've got to have some once in a while. It doesn't mean a chick doesn't love her husband. She reminds me that she's a blackjack dealer at a casino, and she meets lots of studs, some of them with lots of money they're willing to spend on a chick. Sometimes it's hard to say no. Even if you're married.

I feel funny inside, Charlie. Like I'm falling apart, and I need a drink. I pour myself a stiff one from the decanter marked HIS and make a face. I expect it to be Scotch because that's what I like—she knows that. I start to say, "What the fuck is—?"

But she wants to know don't I agree with her about chicks. A million pictures flash through my mind—pictures of her fucking another guy. I'm dizzy like a sailor in a rowboat lost at sea in a storm, my little boat rolling and heaving over gigantic waves. "Yes! Yes! Fuck yes!," I tell her. "It's the same with chicks." Then I ask her what the fuck's going on. Is she so drunk tonight she's forgetting how much we mean to each other. Forgetting the good times we've had—she seems to remember all the bad shit.

She throws her blonde head back and laughs. Her nipples make red points under he negligee. She says, yes, she's a little drunk tonight and maybe a little forgetful, but she remembers I cheated on her and she remembers there's something she needs to tell me.

I clench my fists. I know I'm not going to like this.

She tells me she's been having a million laughs with some guy since right after I shipped out for the Mediterranean. She wants a divorce. She wants to marry him. She tells me she planned this whole evening to get even, Charlie—because of her redheaded friend Alicia that I fucked. And a few others she found out about while I was gone.

That's right, Charlie, it was all a plan to get even—her dressing sexy that way, her loving me up, letting me see her naked in the bathroom, then cutting me off when I climbed into the sack with her, making me admit things about what I did when at sea. That joint where we had steaks—it's the same joint her and that asshole she met went to the first time they fucked.

And then she tells me if I don't like it, get the hell out. She'll never tell me who the guy is. And I'll never guess. When the divorce is final and I go back to sea, they got plans to marry and disappear.

Christ, I'm raving mad, Charlie. I'm out of my mind. My hand whips out and slaps her across the face, a wicked backhanded shot. I feel her mouth go soft under my knuckles. She drops to the floor, kicking around, and blood trickles from the corner of her mouth. She's crying and suddenly I'm crying and I'm telling her I'm sorry—I never hit women—never in my life—I'll make it up to her. Just give me a chance. Please give me a chance. But she screams at me to get the fuck out and leave her alone. She buries her face in her hands and sobs.

The sight kills me, Charlie. I mean, I really love her.

 I can hardly breathe. I can hardly stand. The deck's rolling under my feet. I feel like I'm being washed overboard in a hurricane, like I'm tumbling over the side of my ship, but I can't grab anything to save myself. And I'm thinking, Why does this have to happen to me? Why me? Lots of guys mess around, but this doesn't happen to them. With shaky hands I pour myself another drink from the HIS decanter.

I make a face.

That's right, Charlie. It tastes like some off-beat rum. Shit I never liked. My forgetful drunken wife—who forgot all about me and her and the good times—forgot what was in my decanter.

This pistol's loaded, Charlie.

The End