3
Post workday, pants speckled with paint, I’m sitting at the table with Prince eating peanuts and Leon comes running into Jimmy’s Place. He’s sweating like a dying hog, and breathing gusts of wind out everywhere.
He’s so worked up I almost laugh. “What the—” but that’s all I get out. Leon holds up one giant paw and the other goes to his knee. He stays like this for a minute, catching his breath with his hand up to command silence. So dramatic. Beads of sweat run down his bare head and face. I try again. “Did you sprint here—” but he stops me again as it appears, at last, he is ready.
“Just, shut up for a second. Christ. Yeah, I ran. Just a few blocks from the factory corner, the property there, Matchbox is fucked.”
Matchbox is one of those guys who isn’t so much a buddy, per se, but more a buddy of a buddy who just so happened to be around sometimes. He’s this scrawny little skeleton man who does way too much coke and loves Zeppelin more than most, which is saying a lot because we fucking all love Zeppelin. Matchbox works for Leon’s construction company, and Leon has a soft spot for him, though he kind of has that for everybody.
“He was talking all this shit to Deangelo at break, somethin ’bout Lyla or some shit, like he fuckin, yeah, fucked Lyla or some shit, I don’t know. Anyway, Deangelo said when the day was done he was gonna fuckin kill him, so Matchbox is, I kid you not, locked in a Porta Potti right on the site. He’s locked himself in there, and Deangelo and a few of his crew are just waiting him out man, right outside the thing.”
I start laughing now, and Prince chuckles too. I can’t help but nearly lose it thinking of this poor bastard Matchbox in a Porta Potti scared shitless as this group of Johnston woodworkers wait furiously outside, ready to, quoting Leon, kill him . Of course, Leon didn’t find any of this funny.
“What are you laughing about?”
Let it be known that Leon is unbelievably, ridiculously sincere in not only his telling of the story, but in his genuine love for us humans as a whole. He cares, man. He really cares.
“Oh come on, it’s fuckin funny—”
“I don’t see what’s funny about it—”
“Leon, he’s trapped in a Porta—”
“Yeah, yeah alright, ha ha ha, he’s in a Porta Potti. You think it’s all one big circus, huh? Some backward ass harmless entertainment, nothing on the line, whatever. You didn’t see Deangelo, Cash. He wants to kill the guy, I’m serious, kill—”
“Really? Kill him? Relax.”
“Would you stop? Fuckin—we need to head back over there and sort this out—”
“Why do we gotta go?”
“You’re the only one here that really even knows Deangelo—”
“You work with him!”
“I rarely speak to him.”
“Besides, I don’t know Deangelo. We had the same babysitter in grade school—”
“Don’t matter. Let’s go.” I look at Prince and he shrugs.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—fine.”
“Thank you.”
Leon heads back out the same way he came. As I stand to follow, I say something to Prince about him not backing me up and generally being lame as fuck lately to which he just shrugs and doesn’t pay much mind. As we’re heading out, I pop one last peanut into my mouth and feel a bit of adrenaline. The door to the bar opens and without warning, the world spins. There she is, walking in, silhouetted by the late afternoon behind her. She passes and her deep green eyes meet mine, nearly stopping my lonesome heart. There’s a constellation of freckles on her cheeks. We have only a second and she’s on, determined and moving to the bar. Head turned to her, transfixed, I follow Prince through the door even though everything tells me to stay. I can’t believe it.
She’s back in Jimmy’s Place and I’m coerced to deal-making with Deangelo.
Out in the sun, Leon jogs away and Prince goes, “Hey, wasn’t that your girl?”