Ridicula Read online

  “I’m doing fine,” he said with what he hoped was a convincing smile. He knew he had to act as sincere as possible so that she would not dismiss him too quickly. “It’s great to see you,” he continued with inner disgust. “We haven’t seen each other in a while. How’s everything with you? And who are your divine friends?”

  At first, Jade looked at him strangely. I guess she wasn’t expecting me to take too much interest in her and her friends. But then she gave him another smile and blinked her eyes alluringly. Oh, jeez. Does she ever stop? Now she’s trying to entice me with her eyes.

  “This is my friend Jen,” Jade was saying, still smiling. “And this is Kim and Maria….”

  “How about I buy all you ladies a drink?” he said, politely interrupting her.

  “Well, how thoughtful of you.” This time it was Maria talking.

  “How does a Malibu sound?” Kenny asked Maria attentively and then thought to include Jade. “I know you like the pineapple ones, Jade. I’ll get you each one.”

  “Yes, yes, that is my favorite,” Jade replied, and Maria remained silent. “Do you have any friends with you that would like to join us?”

  “Ahh, well.” Think fast. Come on, Kenny. Think fast. Got it! “Ahh, I just came to visit my friend Bob, the bartender. I guess you found me out. He gives me really good deals on the drinks.”

  Jade did not reply right away. She’s probably thinking about how much bullshit I’m spouting. She didn’t trust too many people, so she had to examine everything.

  Luckily, Maria spoke up for her. “Thank you. We’ll wait for you at the table.” Jade looked at her a moment. Then she shrugged her shoulders and followed Maria and the rest of her friends.

  Kenny stood there for a minute, trying to think of what he should do next. Then he walked back towards the bar and saw that George was no longer there. Shit!

  “Where’d my friend go?” he asked the bartender when he came around to take his order.

  “Not sure. He hadn’t even finished his story. He was talking about some tractor chasing his car through the grass heading towards 13 ½ street, but then he just got up and took off. He didn’t look too well though. He’s probably in the bathroom. Now, what will it be?”

  “Four Malibus with pineapple juice. To go,” he added, looking everywhere anxiously.

  “To go? We're not in the Caribbean, and we don’t serve umbrellas in our drinks. Not even when you order sissy drinks.” The bartender usually displayed hospitality, but he probably had not liked how Kenny had left him to his own devices instead of taking George and his lame story away from the bar.

  “How much?” Kenny asked, implying by his tone that he hadn’t realized that the bartender was becoming irritated by George’s tale.

  “Fifty-six dollars!” Was the bartender overcharging him? No, it was just those damned city prices.

  “Fourteen-dollars apiece for sissy drinks! Damn, what is this bar coming to?” replied Kenny and handed the bartender three twenties, hoping to make amends for the bartender listening to George’s story by leaving the four-dollar tip.

  As the bartender went to make the drinks, Kenny began to walk towards the bathroom when he was tapped on the shoulder. He whirled around to see Maria standing before him. “Just wanted to see if you needed any help bringing back the drinks.”

  “Umm, well, ah, thanks,” Kenny said, noticing for the umpteenth time tonight about how well-shaped her little figure was.

  “So how do you know Jade?” she asked.

  “Ah—umm,” Kenny replied in such a manner that made a pimple-faced nerdy teenager sound suave. Finally, Kenny was able to say three real words. “From a friend.”

  “And that’s him coming toward you?”

  “Kenny, I didn’t know you knew Maria,” George said when he reached them.

  “Oh, hi George. I didn’t recognize you at first.” Maria sounded sincere, but she looked around as if she were paranoid. Then she smiled and put her arm around George. “You know, Jade should be at the bar down the road. Maybe we should go over there. You coming, Kenny?” And she winked at him, discreetly.

  Kenny was flabbergasted at first, but then realized that Maria was trying to get George out of there before he saw Jade. He guessed she knew something about the situation. “I’ll join you both there soon.”

  Before George could say anything, Maria nearly pushed him forward, away from where Jade sat and led him through the crowd and out the door. Soon after, the bartender came back with the drinks. As he reached for the drinks, Jade came from behind and grabbed two of them. “I saw Maria leave with some guy. She’s a quick worker, isn’t she?”

  “She sure is,” Kenny Dunz replied, relieved that she hadn't immediately recognized George from such a distance.

  Maria Nova had never felt comfortable at bars. Nor dance clubs. Nor weddings. Nor large house parties. Nor most other social gatherings where she didn’t know the majority of people there. She enjoyed the company of a few close-knit friends rather than constantly meeting new people. She would rather go to a restaurant or movie or even put on those odorous rental shoes at a bowling alley as long as she was with friends she trusted.

  Now, however, she was with George Cramwell, whose company might be suspect. Yes, she was acquainted with him through Jade, so he was not a complete stranger. But what did she really know about him?

  George was Jade’s on-and-off-again “boyfriend,” currently off, and maybe this time, it would be permanent. Jade had had enough of his pandering to her every whim, putting her on a pedestal that she could never hope to attain. He was courteous and often helpful, but sometimes a girl just wanted to order her own coffee, see a movie with the gals, or have a little alone time. George didn’t have to be there ALL the time. She had tried to tell him this, but he wouldn't listen. Sometimes she would say that she needed some alone time to think about things, but he claimed that that would not be good for their relationship. To some degree, he had a point. Not giving her this time, however, only made things worse. He became even more clingy. Thus, Jade had no choice but to break up with him yet again.

  At least that was what Jade had told Maria. Although it sounded possible, Maria doubted the truth of it.

  In any case, Maria had not wanted a scene so had gotten him out of the bar before he’d seen Jade. And in all truth, she had not much wanted to be there anyway. When they got to the next bar, she had checked to be sure that Jade had not somehow made her way there and then let George have a look. Now they were trying to hail a cab to their prospective apartments. They lived only a few blocks away from each other: she on Twenty-Seventh and Lex and he on Thirty-Third and Third.

  No cabs drove by, so Maria became antsy. She wanted to go home; she had had enough of being out on the town.

  George must have noticed her mood and said, “I’ll call my cab.”

  “My cab?” Maria questioned, thinking that she had misheard.

  “Yeah, my grandma owned a cab company,” George announced with some pride.

  “Owned?”

  “Uh-huh. It’s not like we sold the company, though. It’s just that we no longer use it as a business. Still have some working cabs though.”

  “Then call Grandma and get us a taxi.” She hoped she didn’t sound too demanding, but the temperature was decreasing rapidly, and her antsiness was making her miserable.

  “Grandma doesn’t live here. She moved away from the city more than ten years ago, but the cabs are still around.” George began to fidget, as if he were starting a Zumba routine with his fingers and toes outstretched and flexing. What was that about? Would he soon be breaking to the beat of “Greased Lightning”? She hoped her own antsy behavior didn’t look like that.

  “Then how are you to call a taxi?” Maria asked.

  “Bobarino will come. You’ll see.” He pressed a button on his key ring. A flash of red, yellow, and green light displayed, like a disco ball emanating from a traffic light. Then some music played. To Maria, it sounded like a muzak versi
on of “Greased Lightning.” Go figure.

  “What are you doing?” Maria had just about enough of this. No wonder Jade had dumped him. He was acting stranger each passing moment.

  “I’m calling my buddy, Bobarino,” George replied as he shook his hands in rhythm with the muzak.

  Maria looked around. Were other people seeing this? When she saw a couple staring at them from across the street, she grimaced, embarrassed. “Will you please turn that off?”

  “Not till I know that Bobarino got my call and received the GPS signal.” Then came a loud beep. “Oh, he just got it,” and George turned the muzak off.

  “How far is he? When will he be here?” Maria was usually the patient type, but she had been reluctant to go out in the first place, had done nothing but barhopped and wandered, and now felt exhausted. Plus, she only stayed with George so that she would not be alone on a Saturday night. She half-wondered where Jade had gone but was too tired to truly care.

  George did not need to answer her, because he saw a taxicab down the street. Or was it just a coughing muffler and an engine belching smoke with a burnt smell? When Maria finally saw through the smoke, it wasn’t a yellow cab in her sight. Instead, she witnessed a blue one with brown pinstripes and cracked windshield. Or were the pinstripes rust?

  “Oh, Bobarino, that was record time,” George was saying to the driver as he opened the creaking back door. “You make those other New York cabbies seem slow.”

  Already wary of traveling in a heap of junk that George called a cab, Maria was also not impressed with how Bobarino drove like a speed demon drag car racer. In the blink of an eye, the cab had stopped in front of them, but when she had last seen it, it was blocks away. Had he also sped through a red light?

  “Let’s go,” George said to her after finishing his conversation with the driver.

  She inched her way to where George had left the door open for her. She peeked in to see and smell monstrosities: Bobarino looked like a mustached Amazonian muscle head with scars laced across his face and arms and tattoos on his neck and yes, ears; the cushions of the so-called cab were punctured from knives, pitchforks, or spears; and the taxi’s odor smelt like wet wolves in heat.

  “What’s the hold up? Hop in,” George continued.

  Maria Nova found herself getting in the cab, almost against her will, as if some magic wind was pushing her. And in any case, she did need to get home. “What the hell,” she said as she closed the door and cozied into her seat. “It won’t take long to get home.”

  Famous last words.

  ***

  What was Kenny doing? Was that supposed to be a dance move? It looked more like Big Bird from Sesame Street tripping over his own talons and bouncing back up with his butt.

  On the other hand, why would he be dancing in the street? Was he too drunk to care? Or was it that no one else paid him any attention? Jade—who preferred never to volunteer her last name—didn’t really care, either. She had seen much in the dozen years she lived in Manhattan, a place where anything went on at night. For instance, she had once seen a man taking a dump on the sidewalk in the middle of Times Square, and people just walked past him as if he weren’t there. Of course, he was homeless so seemed to disappear in the background. Nevertheless, he had done it, perhaps just to get noticed but without much success. Possibly Kenny was trying to get noticed too but was failing. And maybe her two friends, Kim and Jen, had left earlier in order to not witness Kenny’s antics any longer.

  Jade had always found that Kenny marched to the beat of his own drum. She kind of liked him for that. He worked for himself, selling over the Internet anything he could lay his hands on as well as creating web pages and the like for anyone who would pay him. He couldn’t be making much money, but he had survived the ridiculous expenses of the city for many years now so had to be doing something right.

  A Wall Street woman herself, Jade envied the free spirits of someone like Kenny. Stockbrokers did not have the reputation for anything but hard work and smart investing. At least, that could be said for an honest stockbroker. But smart investing is what had attracted her to the field, for in her youth, she was always interested in the trade market. She had secretly followed the stock market religiously in high school while also following the popular girl route: many boyfriends, average grades, and cheerleading. Eventually, however, the nerd in her had won out, and she had gone to business school.

  “Look at me. I can fly!” Kenny was saying as he jumped about an inch off the ground.

  “Bravo!” Jade replied. “You’re Superman!”

  But Superman jumped once too many times and landed on the curb, tripping over it and onto Christopher Street. At this time of night, he had seconds before the next cab came motoring down the street like an accelerated junked-up train, but Kenny had time to roll back toward the sidewalk. A half a second later, the cab stopped beside him, inches away from his face.

  To Jade, though, the strangest thing about this whole episode was that the cabbie never honked his horn, like all obnoxious drivers in New York City do. Did this taxi driver actually care that he had almost hit a drunken idiot who thought he was Superman?

  “Jade!” a familiar voice was calling to her from inside the cab. And then she recognized the vehicle as one of George’s grandmother’s cabs. It was just her luck for Kenny to fall in front of this particular cab. Was it just odd coincidence in this big city or had Kenny and George somehow set this up so that Jade had no choice but to talk to George? But how could that be the case? She must be overly paranoid again.

  Then she heard a female voice. Maria was in the cab with him! “Let’s get Kenny into the cab and get him home,” she said, and Jade saw the cab door open, revealing her friend.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay,” Kenny said, standing and jumping erratically to his feet.

  Having no real choice, Jade went with them to the cab, noticing that George had not come out to help, too. Typical man! she thought, although she knew George was not that sort.

  As soon as she stepped into the cab, she sniffed the odor of smoked fish and body odor. No one had cleaned this taxi in months. Ugh! But maybe it wasn’t the cab at all, because she recognized the driver, who was not the cleanest cabbie. “Oh, hi Bobarino.”

  “Long time, no see,” Bobarino replied.

  “Kenny’s apartment please,” said George. With a puff and a skid, Bobarino sped off before Jade had time even to shut the door, as she was the last one in.

  But they would never make it to Kenny’s or any of their homes again for quite some time.

  Chapter 3

  Freckles

  Freckles awoke to the sound of the annoying cat scratching her kitty litter. Just go already, he thought, for Freckles was not the type of dog that wasted time finding his spots to pee. When he had to go, he went. Usually, he waited till he went outside, but that was it. These grounds were his terrain. He didn’t have to show off his territory to anyone.

  Before standing and scaring off the cat, he took a look at his awesome features, as he always did in the morning. That’s why he slept near the mirror. Not that he was vain or anything.

  The humans, however, had taken forever to leave his bed near the mirror. They had decided to bring the bed there only after he’d settled on the floor next to the mirror for several weeks. Finally, the humans had gotten the hint. His humans weren’t the brightest bulbs in this doghouse.

  As a matter of fact, his humans were so dimwitted that they had named him Freckles when he didn’t have a single spot on his entire glorious body. What did they think? That he was a Dalmatian? Please! No, he was a Rottweiler. And proud of it!

  Because he was a Rottweiler, he guessed, was why some visitors of this house could initially be afraid of him. Sure, he was large and stout and might scare off the cat a time or two, but he was no Doberman; he was as friendly as could be.

  But the cat was even dumber than humans, so as soon as she was ready to go, Freckles leaped across the room until he reached the bat
hroom, both guarding the litter box and threatening the cat. She skirted away in a hurry, forgetting her need to potty. Freckles never needed to hurt the kitty nor would he ever, but frightening her could still entertain him. At least the cat was good for a few chuckles.

  Oblivious to the cat racing down the hallway, away from her kitty litter, the elderly humans walked past Freckles, who stood smirking at the bathroom door. “Dara is coming over today. We got to tidy up,” said the white-haired old man who sometimes didn’t remember his own name.

  “She isn’t coming, Harrison,” his balding wife Lana said, always reminding him of his name no matter if he needed reminding or not. “She isn’t coming today or tomorrow, nor did she come last week.”

  “Will she be coming next Wednesday?” he asked seriously.

  “No, Harrison,” Lana stated without elaborating.

  When they passed the bathroom door, Freckles proudly trotted behind them. Meanwhile, the cat was nowhere to be found.

  “Have you seen Dara?” Harrison asked Freckles as he patted him on the head. Of course, he couldn’t talk to the man, but this is what he would have said: No, she hasn’t been here in years. I was just a pup when she last stopped by. Yet, I remember. Why can’t you?

  Freckles immediately regretted thinking these words. He was not being fair. The old man obviously missed his daughter and just wanted to see her again. Maybe Freckles could make that happen someday. After all, his ability to smell someone out was uncanny even after sniffing that object for only a half-second. He was just that good.

  “Have you seen my bat?” Harrison went on to say, changing the subject or forgetting what he’d been saying. “I’m going to hit some tennis balls for our dog to fetch.”

  Our dog. Right! That’s like saying that the cat isn’t afraid of me.

  “Are you sure you can handle that right now?” his wife asked in a very unassuming way.

  “Of course, I can, Woman!” Harrison yelled back as if she had just asked him whether he could talk or not.

  “I’m not your woman! I’m your wife. Keep saying that and I’ll bat those tennis balls into your groin!”