14

I woke up in the morning to a splitting headache and the sound of relentless pounding on my front door. I rose out of bed slowly, dodging a number of scattering insects and the clothes I wore the previous night, all of which had been tossed around the room like a salad. The pounding continued as I slipped a pair of pants over my naked bottom half and marched through the house to the living room where I opened the front door and was greeted by a pair of police officers, one husky guy with a dark beard and a tall cop in his early twenties that seemed fresh out of the academy.

“Morning, officers,” I said, squinting my eyes as the sun filtered into them, magnified by my heavy hangover.
The rookie asked me what my name was and I happily obliged with the information, figuring they were there to follow up on the green ooze that had been dumped on Jimmy’s lawn. Without warning, the husky cop ordered me out of the house and once outside on the porch floor, he spun me around against the wall, cuffed me and read my rights.
“Wait!” I pleaded. “What’s this all about?”
“You’re under arrest for the rape and aggravated assault of Jillian Burnell,” the rookie told me.
As they marched me down the walkway towards the parked cruiser, I saw Jennifer watching the scene unfold from her aunt’s yard where she hovered over the plant I had given her two days before. She had a watering can in her hand and a concerned, yet disappointed look on her face. My heart sunk to my knees. I knew

The husky cop opened the back door of the cruiser and pushed me inside. The car itself must have belonged to one of the K-9 units because the backseat was covered in multicolored dog hair and smelled like a wet Golden Retriever after a long day of fetch in the ocean. My mind started to spin, fearful of being interrogated for rape with long yellow hairs now all over my clothes due to the canine cop that usually sat back there. Could I go to jail even though I was innocent? Did I really do anything wrong? Did Jill plan this all along? Could Rooster be involved?

After a short drive downtown, the rookie driver pulled into the police station and I was escorted into the building, more specifically a tiny room with two wooden chairs and a circular table that looked suitable for a card game. After a few panicked minutes of sitting by myself, the metal door opened and a middle-aged man dressed in a suit entered.

“My name is Detective Atwater,” the serious lawman informed me. “Needless to say, I have a few questions to ask you and I expect you to answer them.”

“This is ridiculous!” I howled. “I didn’t do anything wrong!” “Yeah, ’cause I’ve never heard that one before.”
“Are you mocking me? I am an innocent man, damn it!” “Were you or were you not in the presence of Jill Burnell last

night?”
“I think I should have a lawyer present,” I said, sinking down
into my uncomfortable wooden chair.
“Why would an innocent man need a lawyer?” he asked me
smugly.
“Because I’ve seen guys like me get railroaded by guys like you
plenty of times before. I don’t know what Jill told you, but the truth
is that I was fixed up with her through my business partner’s wife. I picked her up at her apartment last night, we went to dinner, we had a few glasses of wine, and then we ended up back at her place where we had consensual sex. That’s how the night played out and
that’s the God’s honest truth.”
“So you went back to her place and shagged after a night out on
the town? What I’m not getting is, if that was the case, how come
she’s accusing you of rape now? If you ask me, it seems kind of silly
for two consenting adults to go through. Did you do anything to
upset her during the evening?”
“It’s ridiculous, but yes.”
“I’ve heard plenty of ridiculous things on the job, so try me.” “After we had sex, I went to the bathroom,” I said hesitantly.
“She got upset when she walked in on me washing my dick.” “Washing your dick?” he asked, both surprised and confused by
my response.
“I’ve been seeing this new girl and, after I had sex with Jill I felt
really guilty about it and went into the bathroom to—I don’t
know—wash away my sins, I guess. She opened the door when I
was rinsing antibacterial soap off of my penis and she went ballistic.”
“And at what point in the night did you call her a slut?” he asked,
checking over his notes.
I was sweating heavily as I shifted in the chair, trying whatever I
could to find a comfortable position as the world around me caved
in. Detective Atwater was writing down bits and pieces of what I
was saying, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. He had no reason
to. An accused rapist is labeled a rapist forever, whether he’s guilty
or not. My life was over.
“I never called her a slut!” I told him as I slammed my hand
down on the table. “She just thought I did.”
“What did you call her then?”
“I didn’t call her anything. When she came into the bathroom,
she started ranting about how I was washing my dick off because I
thought she was a slut, but I never said anything like that. She just
assumed I thought she was a slut.”
“So do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you think she’s a slut?” he asked me, jotting something
down in his notes.
“No! I think she’s a bitch for screwing me over like this, but I
never thought she was a slut. All I wanted to do was wash my penis
off and she took offense to that.”
“Okay, calm down. I still have a few more questions to ask you.
First off, when exactly did you throw the woman down on the
sofa?”
I sighed and leaned my head back, staring up at the bright light
that hung from the ceiling.
“I never threw her on the sofa, she threw me. And secondly, that
thing can’t even be classified as a sofa because it’s too damn small
and uncomfortable. I know because I had my back pressed up
against it as she pounced on top of me!”
“Did you take her clothes off before the two of you made it to
the sofa?”
“I don’t understand,” I told him.
“Was she NAKED before you got down on the sofa?” he
demanded, raising his voice and half making me shit myself. “I’m not going to answer any more of your questions until I’ve
talked to a lawyer.”
“Fine, it’s your funeral,” he threatened, rising from his chair and
closing his notepad.
A heavyset African American cop saved me from the suffocating
room and booked me two doors down, collecting my fingerprints,
snapping my photograph, and even confiscating my belt in case I was a suicide risk. As I stood there cuffed and in awe of what was happening, Rose walked by the room and spotted me, doing a double take to make sure she was not seeing things. I have no idea why she was there that day, but her appearance meant doom for my life and I tried to salvage my future by smiling and saying hello to her. She ignored me, staring at me with my black ink covered fingertips and turned to the person she was with whispering, “And I thought he was such a nice boy.” My guess was that there were be no more
homemade breads given to me from that old snatch.
After all of the arresting procedures were performed on me, I was
led to a telephone where I was allowed to call my personal lawyer.
Hank assured me that I had nothing to worry about and that he
would take care of everything. For some reason his hollow assurances didn’t make me feel any better.
I was relieved to learn that I was the only criminal occupying the
jail cell where I was being held, especially after watching several seasons of the HBO prison drama “Oz.” At first I had a great curiosity
about my unfamiliar surroundings, even wishing I had a camera
hidden in my asshole so that I could dig it out and snap photos so I
could share them with the grandkids someday. I knocked my fist
lightly on the thick, clear plastic door and wondered if it was bullet
proof. Next, I removed the sheets on the rickety cot and searched
for the infamous mattress tag, which I had seen appear as a comedic
punch line in so many movies in the past. Somebody must have
torn it off during his stay there, because it was nowhere to be found.
I gave up my search by flopping down on the bed, practically breaking my spine on the uncomfortable, paper-thin mattress. I laid there motionless, staring at graffiti that had been etched
into the wall using a sharp tool or fingernail. Anger swelled inside
me and I felt my face and ears grow hot as the blood rushed
upwards. At first I felt intense hatred towards not only Jill, but the
police and the system as well. I consoled my anger by thinking that I would get revenge on each of the perpetrators once the revolution started, only to stop myself with the realization that perhaps a revolution was never going to happen in the first place. At best maybe a few rebel college students would burn their American Express cards, or a handful of Microsoft employees who had been replaced by efficient robots would toss stones at one of Bill Gates’ mansions, but how much worse than that could it possibly get? Who was I to put a righteous stake in the ground, especially after I had been abusing
and milking the same system for years?
It only took a few hours for me to be released from jail. Hank
arrived at the station and paid the bail bondsman and I soon found
myself in his cushy, secure Lincoln Town Car. Hank was a short,
stocky man who was always hunched over and who spent the majority of his free time rubbing the edges of his coarse beard. He had all
of the mannerisms of an agitated gorilla. He was unfriendly,
unhappy and unpleasant. He was excruciatingly unlikable, but
when it came down to it, he was the perfect lawyer for all of those
same reasons.
“I didn’t do it,” I told him.
Hank’s dark brown eyes were large, unsympathetic loopholes. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’re going to have to make a
deal.”
“What deal? With who?”
“The girl who accused you and the lawyer she called in to represent her.”
“Are you kidding me?” I shrieked. “I’m innocent!”
“Right now it’s her word against yours and at the end of the day,
people tend to side with the victim.”
“Victim? She isn’t the victim! I am!”
“Listen, a trial is going to be costly,” Hank told me, doing his
best to come off like he actually cared. “If the State charges you, and I think they will, you’re looking at—at the very least—fifty grand to
defend your word against hers.”
I collapsed against the window of the Lincoln Town Car, smashing my forehead into the glass, hoping that my head would split
open and the ridiculousness would pour out.
“What do you suggest?” I asked. I prayed for mercy in his
response.
“If it’s money that she’s after, and I think it is, I say we just make
a deal with her lawyer and get this off of your plate as quickly as possible.”
“How much is it going to cost me?”
“I’m ballparking it at twenty-five thousand dollars.” “TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND!” I screamed. “All I did was
have dinner with the bitch and then had the worst sex of my
life—consensual I might add! And you’re telling me that’s worth
twenty-five thousand dollars?”
“Sorry,” Hank shrugged, tugging at his beard.
“This is just a payoff. Isn’t that illegal?”
“Technically, no. You would be agreeing to pay her therapy
bills.”
“For what?”
“So she won’t testify against you.”
“How is she going to recant what she already told the police?” “These things happen all of the time and nobody thinks anything of it. It will disappear as quickly as it manifested itself.” “This is wrong, Hank,” I told him as I rested my tired head in
my hands. “I didn’t rape the woman! Are we even sure that they’ll
go through with pressing charges?”
“Her lawyer isn’t in the business of bluffing. He’s got the nuts
against you and you need to decide if you want to go all in with
him, or fold and return to play another hand another day.” I thought about the risks in going to trial and the possibility of it
winding up in the papers. It would ruin me, the business and everyone else that counted on me in that office, including the families of
those in my employ.
“I’m screwed, aren’t I?”
“As your legal council you know I can’t just come right out and
tell you that, but as your friend, I wouldn’t disagree with your statement.”
“Okay, but what about offering them like ten thousand to start?
How did you get to twenty-five thousand?”
“Because her lawyer knows that it costs fifty thousand to seventyfive thousand to take a case like this to trial,” he informed me.
“Twenty-five is half of fifty and ten is just chicken shit.” “Fine,” I told him in defeat. “I guess just go ahead with it then.
You know what you’re doing.”
I turned and stared out the window, watching life pass me by at a
speed of forty miles per hour. Hank was taking me home and I
thought about going to see Jennifer when I arrived, spilling the
beans on everything that happened between Jill and the events that
transpired following our drunken tryst. I figured honesty was the
best approach, but I also knew that things would never be the same
between us. I had destroyed the mutual sanctuary that we built. I
had let the world inside.
Hank dropped me off in front of my house and assured me that
he would make it all disappear. I pinched myself as I took the walk
of shame up to my porch, but I wasn’t dreaming and I didn’t wake
up. Instead, I was greeted by Louie and Mikey, both sitting amongst
a pile of smoked cigarettes and eager for me to return home. “Did she squeal like a pig?” Louie blurted out.
“Shut the fuck up, you fat fuck!” Mikey said, looking at me with
inquiring eyes. “What the hell is going on, man? Rose said she saw you at the police station and the rumor around the neighborhood is
that you raped some woman!”
“It’s about money,” I told him. “Nothing more than that.” “The broad is just trying to shake you down for dough?” “Something like that.”
“How much is she asking for?” Louie asked.
“What the fuck is the difference?” Mikey protested. “It’s none of
your fucking business. He didn’t rape the broad anyway, so it
doesn’t matter.”
“Hey, I know plenty of guys who didn’t do the deed, but ended
up having to pay or do time.”
“I’m sure he’s got a good lawyer anyway. You do got a good lawyer, right?”
I nodded my head yes, trying to block out their voices. “Is he Jewish?” Louie asked.
“Does that really matter?” Mikey shouted. “You’re out of control, Louie. I should have kicked your ass when you sold that bum
dryer to Rose.”
“I’m just saying, everybody knows that Jews make the best lawyers.”
“What’s wrong with you? What were you breast fed by the cleaning lady?”
“We didn’t have no cleaning lady Pepé Le Pew.”
“I thought I told you not to call me that,” Mikey said angrily. “Why Pepé Le Pew?” I asked.
“Because he farts more than anyone else on the planet. He’s a
human skunk!”
“At least I don’t go around kissing hookers.”
According to Mikey, he saw Clea get in Louie’s wagon the other
day and the evidence of a close encounter was creeping up on his
lower lip in the form of a newborn cold sore.
“I mean who goes around making out with hookers in this part
of town anyway?” Mikey continued. “I’d rather have oral sex with a
toilet bowl than that ice cream jingling broad.”
“I told you a car door hit me in the lip,” Louie insisted. “You might want ice that thing, Louie,” I said.
“You’re going to need the gigantic Costco package of chapstick
as well,” Mikey told him. “That’s where I get my condoms. It’s the
only place I know where you can get a box of condoms with a handle on it. It’s fucking great. If ever I go to Thailand, that box of rubbers is going to be my carry-on luggage.”
Getman walked by us with his usual murderous glare. He was
nursing a serious black eye and a fat jaw from the beating he took
from the cops. I barked at him when he passed by and he turned to
all three of us, snarling at us with his swollen face and giving us the
bird.
“Why don’t you shove that finger up your ass and smoke it, Getman?” Mikey yelled.
Louie and I stared and Mikey, confused by his choice of insults. “What the hell was that supposed to mean?” I asked him. “Who the fuck cares?” Mikey said. “It sounded tough, and that’s
all that matters. Nobody cares what an insult means, just that it
sounds scary when you say it.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Mikey.”
Louie pointed across my yard toward Mrs. Fazzino’s house. “Heads up,” he said. “Mrs. Fazzino is heading this way.” I turned and watched as Mrs. Fazzino tiptoed over to the fence
that separated our yards and leaned against it. Like a hawk soaring
in the sky for an afternoon snack, her eyes settled on a ketchup stain
on Louie’s shirt.
“I heard them again last night,” she hooted, looking especially
like a bag lady that day.
“Who, Mrs. Fazzino?” Mikey questioned.
“The birds are pulling the nails out of my house. One by one,
they will be removed and it will fall to the ground on top of me!” “They’d need steel beaks to do that,” Mikey explained, sympathetic to the craziness attacking the old woman’s brain. “They are trying to bring down my house!” she howled. “I’ll be
crushed!”
“Mrs. Fazzino, if you want, I’ll get the ladder from Rose’s garage
and hammer the nails back in. Will that help?”
Without warning, Mrs. Fazzino ran into her house, slamming
the screen door on her way inside. A few minutes passed as we all sat
in silence, staring in the direction of her house as if waiting to see a
crow or sparrow fly off with a carpenter’s nail. It never happened,
but Mrs. Fazzino did eventually return, this time carrying a paper
bag. She handed it to Mikey without saying a word and then disappeared back into the house. Mikey reached his hand inside the bag
and pulled out a mystery item wrapped in tin foil. Louie and I
looked on with great curiosity as he unwrapped the gift. Mikey gasped for air when he caught his first glimpse and whiff
of what was inside.
“It’s chicken,” he moaned. “It’s at least a month old, but it’s
chicken.”
“Let me smell it,” Louie demanded as he hovered his nose over
the rotten piece of meat.
Louie turned his head after a brief smell of the chicken and dry
heaved as he attempted to up his breakfast.
“It’s rotten,” he announced between gags.
“No kidding,” Mikey said sarcastically. “You’re as smart as a
whip, Louie!”
“What are you going to do with it?” I asked Mikey.
He made a motion to throw Mrs. Fazzino’s present into my yard
and I stopped his hand before he could release the putrefied poultry. “Whoa!” I shouted. “Not in my yard. It will kill all of the good
bacteria that occupy this space. With those big arms of yours, I bet
you can reach Getman’s driveway if you put a little heart and muscle into it.”
With a mischievous grin pasted to his face, Mikey lunged back,
cocking his arm like a slingshot. Resembling a professional baseball
pitcher, he hurled the spoiled breast in the air, throwing it down
onto the blacktop of Getman’s driveway, just inches from the savage
pit bull that emotionally terrorized the neighborhood.
“How’s that for a shot?” he boasted.
Driven by hunger and curiosity, the dog wandered over to the
piece of chicken, sniffing it briefly before engulfing the entire package, tin foil and all.
“Look, it’s eating it!” Louie blurted out.
“The way Getman trains that thing to hate the world, it probably
hasn’t been fed in a month,” I said.
We watched as the dog started to hack on its impromptu meal. “I think it’s choking,” I told them.
“IT IS!” Louie panicked.
“Does anyone know the Heimlich maneuver?” I asked. “I ain’t doing no Heimlich on a pit bull,” Mikey proclaimed.
“Besides, the fucking beast deserves a slow, painful death.” The dog walked in circles as it furiously tried to expel the lodged
piece of Mrs. Fazzino’s killer chicken. Even though it was covered in
fur, I could have sworn I saw the pit bull’s face turn blue and before
we knew it, its legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground. We
watched as its stomach pulsated a few times, the last signs of life
before the dog went still.
“I always knew that dog was going to die young,” I said. “How can we be sure it’s dead?” Mikey asked. “Maybe we should
send Louie over to check its pulse.”
“To hell with you,” Louie barked. “I’m no animal doctor, but
that thing is as dead as a dead dog can get.”
“Look,” I said, interrupting all of the dog talk. “Here comes
Jimmy.”
Jimmy parked his car in front of his house and made his way
over to us carrying a big bag with Colonel Sanders’ image on it. He
reached in, pulled out a crispy leg and tore a piece of flesh from the
bone using his choppers.
“There a party going on over here or something?” Jimmy asked.
“If so, I got some KFC to contribute. They had a special on a twelve
piece today. So who wants some?”
We were all silent.
“What, my chicken not good enough for you slackers?” “I just ate,” Louie told him.
“Yeah, me too, but thanks anyway,” Mikey said.
“I’m allergic,” I announced.
Jimmy looked at the three of us suspiciously.
“Um, okay. I’ll be on my porch if anybody changes their mind
then.”
Jimmy walked down the street, past Mrs. Fazzino’s house, to his
porch, not noticing the dead dog sprawled out in Getman’s driveway.
“Do you think we should tell him?” Louie asked.
“Nah,” Mikey said. “Jimmy knows how to defend himself if shit
goes down.”
“But Getman’s psycho.”
“So is Jimmy. The guy doesn’t have any teeth!”
We watched as Jimmy relaxed on his front steps eating his finger
lickin’ good chicken. You could sense the tension in the air that
afternoon and you knew there was a good chance the pot could boil
over.
“This is going to get ugly,” Louie said.
“Yeah, it’s been a real pleasure, but I should get going,” Mikey
announced as he stretched. “I’ve got some stuff that needs to get
done.”
“Me too,” Louie chimed in. “I gotta get to my mother’s.” Louie ran to his wagon and sped away, leaving a skid mark on
the pavement in front of my house.
“By the way, I’ve got something to tell you,” Mikey said before
leaving. “I heard Rose on the phone this morning talking to Jennifer’s aunt. They were talking about you and how she saw you at the
police station. Jennifer knows, man.”
My shoulders slumped and I looked down at my feet. My fantasy
life was over before it ever began.
“I’m sorry, man, but you’re never going to see that girl again.” “Nope, I’m really not, but it’s my own fault. I did this to
myself.”
Mikey started to walk towards Rose’s place.
“Let me know how everything works out, okay?” Mikey told me
as he left me to my thoughts.
I stepped inside the house, collapsing onto the couch and sitting
in complete silence. The reality that I would never be with Jennifer
again hit me like a ton of bricks. The entire neighborhood, including Jennifer, knew that I had slept with Jill. She no doubt thought
of me as a liar and a con man and I knew rebuilding her trust in me
would be impossible. Even if she felt no anger towards me whatsoever and only sadness, I couldn’t mend what was already broken. It
was officially over.
Suddenly my silence was interrupted by horrific screaming and I
poked my head onto the porch to see what was going on. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY DOG?” Getman screamed as
he walked towards Jimmy. “YOU KILLED MY FUCKING
DOG!”
Jimmy looked over at the expired pit bull, wiped the chicken off
of his face and yelled back, “I DIDN’T KILL NO DOG, YA
PRICK!”
“WHAT’S ALL OF YOUR CHICKEN DOING ALL OVER
MY DRIVEWAY THEN, JIMMY BOY? ANSWER ME THAT?” “IT AIN’T MY CHICKEN, NUMB NUTS!”
Furious, Getman stopped his march towards Jimmy and
retreated back to his house, stepping into his garage and reappearing
with a shovel in his hands.
“MAYBE A GOOD WHACK ON YOUR HEAD WILL
REFRESH YOUR MEMORY!” Getman yelled.
“ARE YOU THREATENING ME, GETMAN?”
Jimmy put down his chicken and headed for his own garage,
reappearing a few minutes later with a rumbling weed whacker. The
two heated men pushed their way towards each other and a small
crowd had already started to gather.
“YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME! WELL YOU’VE GOT IT!”
Jimmy screamed.
I rushed down the stairs of my porch and ran into the street, getting between Jimmy and Getman. They would have killed each
other had I not