Chapter 1
I was sitting at me and Benny’s favorite table when I saw her. Her hair was short, dark, and slicked back. She had all shiny, new patches on her jacket.
It always looks a little funny when someone’s got a new jacket on. The patches always look like they’ve been stuck on by a kindergartner who just learnt to paper mache. And then the jacket gets roughed up—you know, someone falls off the bike or gets wrestled in the mud—and then it finally starts to look right, like the patches are baked into the leather. Like it came outta the factory lookin’ like that.
Well, once Benny had to get a new jacket. He fell off his bike on the 294. Cut straight through the jacket, all the way up to his ribs. Johnny got ‘im a new one. I was hanging up the clothes and I’m thinkin’ “Where’s Benny at?” Turned around and he’s throwing his jacket in the kids’ sandbox. Stompin’ all over it with his big, dirty boots. I says, “What the hell is wrong with ya,” and he told me he’s gotta rough it up, break it in.
Anyways.
Her hair was all buzzed off and slicked back. I ain’t never seen anything like it. Brucie told her to come meet Benny, so she comes to our table, and I ask her what’s going on with the hair. I didn’t even think twice about it. Had me real curious—she wasn’t wearing no lipstick, either.
Well, Johnny thought that was real funny. Then Benny was laughin’, Cockroach was laughin’.
[She tsks.]
I says, “I’m just askin’.” Then I turn to Benny and says, “You know I’d never make a laughing stock outta nobody. That ain’t me.” He says to me, “Relax, it’s all funny business.” I says, “Everything’s a joke to you’s.”
By that time, the new lady’s already found her own seat at the bar. I look over and Sharon and her are real comfortable. Shootin’ the breeze. Drinking beers.
Later, I ran to the ladies’ room and Sharon’s tongue was down her throat. I’m thinkin’, “What the hell is goin’ on here tonight. This ain’t normal.” But I can’t say all that, and I’m in shock, so I just leave. Except before I can open the door, the new lady’s talking to me. “Hey, you got a handprint on your back,” she says. I look in the mirror, and sure enough, another crusty, dusty handprint right on the backa my jeans. It’s probably Benny, throwing his jacket into the sandbox and wearing it. I mean, I love him to death, but I’ve told him a buncha times, he smells like a pile of rocks.
He don’t like that. [She laughs.] He don’t like that one bit.
So, the bar starts clearing out damn near 3:00am. And I still feel guilty about the whole thing. Felt like I made her a laughing stock. So I go up to the new lady. Says her name is Mori. I says, “I’m real sorry. I wasn’t messing with ya. The guys are jerks sometimes. Act like everything’s funny.” She was real nice about it, real calm. Told me she was there if I ever needed something.
I took it the wrong way, told her I wasn’t interested in chics. Not like that. Not my thing. But she says she’s talkin’ ‘bout safety. If I was ever in danger, or somethin’ like that. I tells her, “Ain’t no danger in the Vandals. Not like that. The guys is like family to me. Now you’re a part of it, too. These guys look real tough, but they don’t hurt a fly.” But she got real quiet. Kept eye contact, though. Like a real sturdy fella.
I got cocky after that. I says, “So. You hittin’ it off with Sharon?”
She rolled her head to the side like someone who’s been caught. I remember her hair flipped over, though, she was all smooth-like. “We was just talkin’,” she says. And I says, “How’d ya get a word in with her tongue in your mouth ’n’ all.” She says I’m a typical woman, eyes in the backa my head. And then she says, “I ain’t talk about her business because I ain’t tryin’ to get between her and Shitty. And I ain’t a liar or nothin’, but I can’t tell her business because she’ll have to deal with the same torture.”
So, I asks her, “Whaddya mean. Torture?”
So, Mori says, “They laugh at me ‘cause they ain’t understand.”
And I thought, y’know, that’s gotta be true. Maybe it ain’t even what I said about the hair. Maybe the guys is laughing just to laugh.
I don’t know what got into me that night—it was real late and all—but I says to Mori, “Let me know if you ever want to ‘just talk’.”
And the rest is history.