Peace World (eBook)

Chapter 1

In the shady dive known as Buck’s Bar the aged regulars’ conversation meandered, with much flagging, in and around their favorite themes: sex, alcohol, money, and impending death.

“Hold on, I wasn’t listening. You got that cut on your head how? Dancing?” an old guy named Doug Durn asked.

“No, dumbass,” Stan Rambis, another old guy said. “I was at a karaoke bar in Bemoings.”

“So you’re going to other bars now, Rambis?” the bartender, many years-and-wrinkles younger and prettier than any Buck’s customer in months, said. “Were their pours as generous and tasty as mine?” She blinked her eyes and moved her hands vaguely near what she thought of as her tasty parts.

“No, Belonda, no one’s pours are as generous and tasty as yours,” Rambis said. “Not even close.”

“I wish I had her pores,” an old gal named Paula Edgel said. “Small and tight.”

“I don’t mind your pores, Belonda, but you got other assets even better than your pores,” Durn said.

“Hold on, I’m all confused now,” an old guy playing by himself at the pool table said. His name was Todd Condo. “How’re you spelling that in your heads?”

“Spelling what?” an old gal named Bea Natori said.

“Pores.”

“How do you think it’s spelled?” the Bea said.

“I don’t know. Why I’m asking.”

There was a pause in the conversation as befuddlement wafted about like sad perfume. They watched Belonda slicing lemons and limes and took sips of their drinks. Steely Dan came quietly through bad speakers. Pool balls cracked behind them, and the oldsters at the counter tensed.

“Hey, break a little quieter, Condo,” Rambis said without turning to face the man at the pool table. “I’m still waking up.”

“Talk to Belonda about it,” Condo said. “I’ve been telling her she needs to get softer balls. These are too loud.”

“He’s always trying to get me to talk about how hard the balls are,” Belonda said. “Or how sticky the sticks are. Or how tight the holes are. But I don’t take the bait. I just say, ‘Huh,’ and then he forgets what he was talking about.”

“Hey what’s-your-name, I can still hear you,” Condo said.

“So why’d you go to a karaoke bar?” Durn said. “Not enough crap on tv?”

“I went to drink, and there was a guy singing a disco song. ‘I Will Survive’, I think. Or ‘Gloria’.”

“Why’d you go there? Avoiding someone here?”

Rambis raised an eyebrow. “Maybe avoiding everyone here. Except for Belonda and her generous pours.”

“Oh, I know why!” an old gal named Kay Barnes said with a smile. “He was on a date! Was it Lenora from Home Do-It?”

“No, it wasn’t Lenora,” Rambis said. “Someone else.”

“Who?” Durn asked.

“Yeah, Rambis, who’s your new sugar momma?” Belonda asked.

“Just someone I met and won’t be seeing again,” he said.

“Couldn’t get it up?” Condo said from the pool table.

“Didn’t even try. She found another ride home.”

There were knowing looks between the gals and knowing nods from the guys, and they all took meditative draughts of alcohol surmising the end of Rambis’s evening at the karaoke bar.

“So are you going to tell us what happened at the karaoke bar?” Paula asked.

“Yeah, why’d she go home with someone else?” Bea said. “Did you try to get her to pay?”

“Was it your breath?” Condo said.

“Toilet paper on your shoe?” Durn said.

“Your weird little finger?” Kay said.

“Whatever,” Rambis said then took a drink. “If you don’t want to hear what happened, then keep asking stupid questions.”

“Okay, we’ll stop,” Bea said. “I want to know where you met this lady who went home with someone else.”

“Well, I’ll need someone to buy me another drink so I don’t run out mid-story,” Rambis said.

The oldsters looked at one another, then Durn said, “Belonda, get Rambis another GT.” Then quietly he said, “And put it on Condo’s tab.”

“I heard that,” Condo said, “and I don’t care where Rambis was or who he was with or how that cut on his head makes him even uglier. Don’t put it on my tab, Belonda.”

Belonda was already in the middle of pouring Rambis’s drink, and she stopped mid-pour and gave Durn the stink eye. Then she poured the drink the rest of the way and said, “Durn, you’re paying for this.”

Durn shook his head and turned to Condo at the pool table. “How’d you even hear me, Condo? You have the ears of a five-year-old.”

“And the maturity level,” an old gal said. She accepted high fives from the gals next to her.

Rambis took a sip of his GT and began his story. “I was behind her in line at a Stoppy-Mart. She was buying smokes and breath mints, and she turned around and caught me staring at her ass. So I smiled charmingly and—“

“Show us what that looks like—the charming smile,” Bea said. “I haven’t seen that one.”

“Yeah, or the sexy one,” Paula said.

“We only ever see the one that looks like your underwear’s too tight,” Kay said.

Rambis stared coldly at them. “You want to hear the story or not?”

“Oh, just tell it,” Belonda said. “We’re waiting.”

Rambis took another sip of his GT and began again. “So I said, ‘Nice pants,’ and she said, ‘You look like one of my high school teachers,’ and I said, ‘Maybe I was. Where’d you go to school?’ and she said—“

“Okay, move it along Charles Dickens. We’re old,” Bea said.

Rambis paused to give her a cold look. “Turns out she was a former student of mine from when I was in my twenties. She asked if I wanted to go to the karaoke place.”

“Did you sing anything?” Durn asked.

“Ha. So when I got there, Sherie and her friends were at a table by the stage,” Rambis said.

“Friends?” Durn said hopefully.

“Two other women she works with at some hair place in Bemoings.”

“What place? What’s the name?” Bea asked.

“How should I know? And I thought you didn’t want the Charles Dickens version,” Rambis said.

She acknowledged his point with a nod and a “please continue” hand gesture.

“So I sit down and get a drink—which wasn’t as generous and tasty as yours, Belonda, like I said. It was drag night and all the singers had to be wearing drag to get a chance to sing. If I knew it was drag night, I would’ve—“

“You would’ve worn a dress?” Condo said.

“I would’ve stayed home,” Rambis said. “They all sang disco songs. And after the girls bought me my second drink, there’s a guy who gets up to sing, and he’s wearing a tight dress and high-heel clogs and a Tina Turner wig, and he starts singing really loud and dancing like he’s trying to make his dress fall off. I had my back to the stage because the girls left me that seat, and suddenly I hear a crash and a light goes out and then two tables away a bunch of drinks get spilled and there’s broken glass everywhere. Everyone’s looking around like, ‘What’s happening?’ and one of the girls said the guy in the Tina Turner wig kicked one of his clogs off and it flew up and broke a light and came down on that table where all the glasses broke.

“But the Tina Turner guy kept singing and dancing lopsided because his other clog was still on. Everyone was waiting for him to stop singing so they could clean up the mess, but he wouldn’t stop, just kept singing and high kicking. Then something hit my head and I woke up on the floor.”

Condo guffawed. “Was it the guy’s clog? You got knocked out by a guy-in-drag’s clog?”

Rambis nodded grimly and took a drink.

There were titters and more guffaws as Belonda and the oldsters pictured the scene.

“But I got free drinks for the rest of the night after I promised not to sue,” Rambis said.

“What happened to the Tina Turner guy?” Paula said. “Did he kiss it and make it better?”

“They said he ran out the side door,” Rambis said. “They let me keep his wig. I guess it came off when he ran away. Like I said, we got free drinks the rest of the night. They asked if I wanted to keep the clog that knocked me out, but I said no.”

“Where’s the wig?” Durn asked.

“In my truck.”

“It’s like Cinderella,” Bea said. “Now you can take the wig to all the villages in the kingdom and have every eligible bachelor try the wig on to see who it fits.”

“You...