Carl's Corner... Part V

To recap our story....

Elizabeth had shot the hell out of her own place. My guitar had given it's life at the altar of Redneckdom and Sara had decided that she wanted to take me home with her to study advanced calculus....or something.

Back To The Story....or, as Guyk calls 'em....My Lies!

Sara dropped me off at my place around noon the next day and we said our goodbye's. She was heading back to Georgia that day and said that she'd see me again in a month or so when she returned.

It's funny the things you remember about people and things years later. I remember that we had fun and that she was a really sweet girl but, etched in my memory is her laugh or whatever the hell that thing was!

She had a laugh that sounded like a Jackyl who's leg was caught in a friggin' trap!! Good Lord what a shriek!!

After hearing her laugh a couple of times, I made damned sure not to say or do anything even remotely funny! It was that bad.

As she pulled away, I headed up the stairs to my apartment. Halfway up, I heard the phone ringing. I reached it just as my answering machine picked up.

I heard the voice of my old buddy Tony.

"Damned answering machine!" he said.

I hit the button and stopped the message.

"What's up Tony? I'm here....just walked in." I said.

"Damn I'm glad I caught you! I've gotta get out of Charlotte....today!" he said.

I laughed.

"What the hell have you done now?" I asked.

"It's a long story but, the short version is Tina's new boyfriend is going to kill me if he finds me." he said breathlessly.

"Why's he gonna kill you?" I asked...almost afraid to hear the answer.

"I'll tell you when I get there." he said. "Can I stay with you for a little while?"

"My new place is like a friggin' matchbox but, we'll figure it out." I said. "Why's this guy gonna kill you Tony?" I demanded.

"Well, it's really kind of funny." he laughed "When I was clearing out my stuff from the house, I found a tape of Tina and this guy...Tom's his name...screwing their brains out."

"So?" I prompted him."Why's he gonna kill you?"

Tony was always just like a kid...you had to pull the truth out of him most of the time.

He was laughing harder now.

"He's the head football coach at the high school and his wife is the assistant principal at the same school." he was giggling now.

"Go on....what did you do?"

"I paid a kid at the school to run the fuckin' tape on the school's closed circuit system!" he was damned near hyperventilating.

"Oh shit!!" I was laughing hysterically now.

"Yeah...his wife saw it and went nuts on his ass AT SCHOOL!" he said. "It got pretty ugly when she nailed his ass with a baseball bat in the gym...broke his fuckin' jaw I think." he added.

We were both rolling.

"Oh man...that's bad. No wonder he's after you." I said.

"The worst thing is that this Tom dude is HUGE but he's got the smallest dick you ever saw in your life!" he broke up again as did I. "I've seen bigger cigarettes!!"

"Some kids at the school spray painted his car with, 'Tom's Hung Like A Thumb'!!" he said as I damned near died laughing. "He's pretty pissed."

Once I regained my composure, I told him to come on down. We'd work something out.

After hanging up, I sat there thinking about Tony. He really was a great guy but he was the laziest man I'd ever known. He was damned lucky that he was a talented musician and singer because he was qualified for absolutely no other occupation known to man.

My problem was that I really liked Tony....still do.

I heard someone knocking at my door.

It was Elizabeth.

I let her in and she grinned at me.

"Late night with that girl huh?"

"Yep....we found an all night bowling alley. We had a blast." I said.

"You're a lyin' sack of shit." she laughed.

She took a seat and asked me if I had anything to drink.

"Beer and Mountain Dew." I told her.

She made a face.

"You don't have anything else?"

"Just that and water." I informed her.

"Don't EVER drink water son....fish fuck in it!" she snapped. "My Granny taught me that!"

"Now there's a heart warming family fact." I chuckled. "Sounds like you were raised by wolves!"

"That ain't far from the truth...I'll have to tell you about it sometime." she laughed.

She looked at me seriously.

"Are you ready to talk business?" she asked.

"Sure. I'm ready." I said.

We talked for a couple of hours during which time she informed me that she was willing to spend a lot of money to turn Carl's into a money maker with the goal being to sell it in a year or so.

I told her what my ideas were and she liked most of them. I simply wanted to start slow and relatively cheap by closing the place long enough to remodel, renovate, add a back room for the pool tables, install new carpet, build a stage area and upgrade the kitchen to serve simple food.

To my surprise, she was all for it.

The biggest surprise however, came when I told her that, in addition to needing a new guitar, I didn't have a sound system which would suffice for playing a room the size of Carl's.

"Where do we get one?" she asked.

I told her of a couple of places in town and she hopped up.

"Let's go buy some stuff." she said.

"Now?" I laughed.

"Big boy....you will find that I'm a 'NOW' kinda lady." she said as she picked up her purse. "I hate to wait for anything!"

We spent the rest of the day going to different places and at every single one, she dickered with the owners of the shop in a way that I NEVER could have done. She had a friggin' gift!!

I told her about Tony coming into town and the fact that we would be playing together while I tried to put a band together so, she asked what we would need. Damned if she didn't go along with everything I asked for.

She had a freakin' ball that afternoon even though she must have spent at least five or six thousand dollars not counting my guitar.
I bought a beautiful Washburn accoustic electric which retailed for somewhere around $2000.00 which she ended up paying around $1500.00 for. Damn, she was good!

I took the guitar home with me and she arranged to have the equipment delivered to the bar the next day. She was like a kid at Christmas.

We left the last place with her giggling like a kid.

"Damn that was fun!!" she squealed.

I looked at her and laughed.

"I'll bet you never expected to own a bunch of musical equipment did you?" I asked.

"I own it now but, if you want, we can work out payments so that YOU own it." she grinned.

"Ohhhhh....I get it." I laughed. "At a small profit for you I suppose."

"Honey, it's ALL about profit but, I'll make it painless for you." she said sweetly.

"Yeah, well, we're gonna have to talk about that." I told her.

She drove me back to my place where I was supposed to meet Tony. As she dropped me off, I told her I'd meet her at Carl's after Tony showed up. She asked me to bring my new guitar.

"You gotta play for me tonight Ron...we're gonna celebrate!!" she said as she pulled off without waiting for a response.

I laughed to myself as I climbed the stairs with my new toy.

I had just gone inside and sat down with a beer to play the new guitar when I heard a knock on the door.

I opened it to find Tony standing there with a big grin on his face.
"Damn dude...I just walked in the door. I figured you'de be waiting for me when I got here...I was runnin' late." I said.

"Hell, I've been here for almost an hour!" he told me.

"I didn't see your car outside." I commented.

"Tina's got the car, the bitch." he growled. "I hitched a ride with a truck driver."

"Where were you when I pulled in?"

"I was down there talkin' to Carl.....cool old guy." he explained.

"So, where's your stuff?"

"Right here." he pointed to three giant black trash bags and a cheap, piece of crap keyboard....no case, just the keyboard. It looked like something you would buy a seven year old at Christmas.

That was typical of Tony ever since I'd known him, he had arrived with fifty bucks in his pocket, a tinker toy keyboard, no car, no job, no prospects, three bags of clothes BUT....he had a huge bag of cocaine and at least an ounce of pot.

I'll say this for him.....the man knew how to rank his friggin' priorities! He was hopeless in those days. Totally oblivious to reality but....he was one funny son of a bitch to be around.

We talked awhile and I let him know about my arrangement with Elizabeth. I could see the wheels turning in his head.

"Sounds like you got yourself a Sugar Mama big guy." he said.

"Fuck you, I'm gonna get a shower and get changed. We're goin' to the bar so you can see what we're dealin' with here." I told him.

An hour later, we pulled up to Carl's. Tony had insisted on bringing the silly little keyboard with us even though, the damned thing was ridiculous looking. How could anyone consider you a serious musician carrying around that piece of junk I asked him.

After he finished a snort of toot, he laughed and said.

"Don't worry 'bout it big guy! You forget how fuckin' good we are together..this is gonna be cool!"

Side Note:

Tony had a nasally, Elvis on valium sound to his voice for as long as I'd known him. Drunk, stoned, coked or sober...he sounded like that. He pronounced his own name..."Toe-nah" so, you can just imagine how careless he was with the rest of the English language. His side of any conversation was one long slurred mumble most of the time and his favorite response to any challenging question was......

"Mell, ahm ont no whever y' ont."

When I first met Tony, it took me quite a while before I realized that he was actually saying.

"Well, I don't know..whatever you want."

I swear to you....I ain't exaggerating. I made the little sumbitch write it down for me one time!!

I used to call him "Autistic Elvis".

What Tony lacked in diction, the son of a bitch more than made up for in self confidence! He could NOT be embarrassed, shamed, humiliated or disgraced! Those things rolled of his back like someone had scotch-guarded his ass!

Back To The Yarn.....

When we walked in to Carl's, Liz was sitting on her perch at the bar. She waved me over with a big smile on her face.

She reached out, pulled me to her, hugged me and kissed me on the cheek.

I finally pulled away and introduced her to Tony.

"Ron says you can play and sing almost as good as he does." she said.

I looked at Tony.

"She's not only as crazy as a cat shot in the ass, she's a damned liar." I told him.

"Well, at least she's good looking." he said.

Dear Lord, Elizabeth damn near swooned! She was buyin' his shit.

She looked at me.

"You didn't tell me he was so cute!" she gushed.

"That's because I think he looks like a dick with ears sitting under a dead skunk." I said.

I used to pick on Tony about his prematurely salt and pepper black, rock star wannabe, carefully maintained mullet hairstyle.

To be fair...a lot of women commented on the fact that he resembled some soap opera star named Bo or something so...I guess he was good looking but....it always amazed me that women couldn't see through his horseshit. Maybe I just knew him too well.

Elizabeth gasped at my comment on Tony's looks.

"You're mean!" she gushed like a damned school girl.

"Thank you Elizabeth...Ron's an asshole." Tony said.

Just then, she whirled around and patted the guy sitting next to her on the leg.

"Guys....I want ya'll to meet Dex...he's my nephew." she said.

We shook hands with Dex and then he looked at Tony.

"I LOVE your hair Tony...I agree with Elizabeth." he said.

I could see Tony flinch a bit and I couldn't help laughing.

"Dex is a sargeant on the police force here...he looks out for me." Elizabeth said proudly.

Dex was a big tough lookin' guy. He was in civilian clothes and he and Liz had obviously been drinking a bit.

We all sat at the bar drinking a bit for an hour or so.

A nice looking girl walked in at some point and Tony and I watched her like a hawk as she walked to the end of the bar nearest us.

I looked at Tony and Dex and said.

"That's a nice looking woman."

Tony piped in.

"Look at the rack on that chick."

Dex was next up.

"She looks like a slut."

Tony and I looked at him like he had grown a second head.

"And your point would be what?" Tony asked.

I laughed.

"Hell, I ain't lookin' for Mother Theresa." I said.

Dex just snarled.

"That's the kind of bitch that made me give up on women." he said flatly.

"Givin' up on women is like givin' up on eatin' my friend" Tony said innocently.

Dex looked at up from his drink.

"No it ain't....all you gotta do is find something different."

I looked at Tony, Tony looked at me and we both looked at Elizabeth.

She was giggling.

"I think that's Dex's way of letting you boys know that he's gay." she said.

Holy shit!

Talk about your uncomfortable moment!!

After a few moments, I finally spoke up.

"You're gay?" I asked.

"I don't like that word. I prefer "different". " he said quietly. "You gotta a problem with that?" he asked defiantly.

"Not unless that's your best pick up line!" I said.

There was a moment of tension until he started laughing his ass off.

We all laughed like crazy until Dex spoke again. Looking at Tony, he asked.

"Have you ever tried it?"

Tony's reaction was hilarious!

Here was this big, tough looking guy with no trace of feminity asking Tony if he had ever tried taking one up the ass and poor old Tony was damned near speechless so....in typical Tony fashion he mumbled incoherently!

"Nah man ah ain't nev dun nah shit lahk at." he slurred.

I felt it incumbent upon me, as one of the only living interpretors of Tony-speak to translate for Dex.

"Tony says, 'No, I ain't never done no shit like that.' " I offered.

Damned if he didn't look at ME!

"How 'bout you?" he asked. "Have you ever tried it?"

I was a bit taken aback by the direct question but, I quickly recovered.

"Listen dude, I really don't care what you do but let me tell you.....I can barely swallow an aspirin and it hurts me to FART so...you can count me out!!" I laughed nervously.

Dex just grinned.

"You don't know what you're missing boys." he said.

Tony looked at me. He had a wild eyed look about him.

"Ah ain nev herd nah shit lahk at 'fore." he mumbled.

I thought I'd die laughing.

Dex looked at me and asked me what Tony had just said.

Without missing a beat I swear I said....

"He's say's he's thinking about it!"

I thought Tony was gonna pass out!

I WISH I had a picture of Tony's face at that moment!!

To Be Continued Ya'll...........