L.A. Trippin’

“Wanna come out and play?” Sandy gasped through the receiver.

The eerie perspective added to the girl’s drool almost had me puking on the bedspread. She sounded about as sultry as our sweaty lovesick priest back in Belgium. I often used to spy on him when he was taking confessions, especially on Thursdays when he did Madame Bouchon, our neighbor at the time. Nobody made him run for the booth the way she did. The second she stepped in he got pulled over as if on an invisible leash. I truly felt sorry for the guy, the way he always ended up sticking to the bars like a piece of spit out bubble gum, while silently moaning, sometimes even groping for the Bouchon woman. Completely unimpressed, without even lifting her head an inch, she continued pushing one hot affair after another into the fellow’s face.

Not that  I had anything even remotely juicy to tell. Since my sister Lucy practically knocked Tim out right in the middle of the schoolyard the townfolks more or less treated us like outcasts. On top of that we hadn’t had a single drop of rain in three months and my throat felt sore.

            “Naaa,” I said, trying my best to stay polite. “You know I got to help out my parents tonight.”

            “Oh Damon, you’re such a bore,”  she said, instantly forgetting about the panting.

            That really got me angry. I was only trying to be nice but she just didn’t get it. Think whatever you want just don’t feel sorry for the broad. She’s one ugly bitch. Just wait till you catch a glimpse. I’d bet my sister’s life you’d call the two spider like wires she has jumping from her mouth to pull the teeth back into place the good part. The rest is about as ugly as the priest’s sweaty ass. Zits all over, a huge nose jumping at you left from the middle heaving a pair of glasses that make her eyes pop out like some mutant owl’s. But hey, I’m not complaining. When it comes to pussy, she’d still be my first choice. The others were worse.

Guess why I was still a virgin.

            “Hey Sandy, I need to get going, o.k.? See you in class tomorrow.”

            “Why  can’t you just for once be straight with me, prick?!” she yelled through the receiver. “Damn, grow some balls, Damon! Just say it, say you can’t stand me because of my braces.”

            “Hey, now wait a minute,” I tried.

As if it were just the braces - the stupid bitch really didn’t get a thing.

Too late, the line was dead.

            Just when I was about to think about a way to change my stupid life, without the slightest sign of a warning Lucy jumped right into my misery.

            “Hey, sissy, how about a knock? Just for once try to respect my privacy!”

            “Oh shut up, bro’. Better take a look at what I found,” she said as she threw the sorry remains of some leather bag onto the bed.

            “THAT’S IT!!!” I yelled. “OUT!”

            “Ssssshhhh,” she said, holding up her index finger. “Wait for the dust to settle and take a look inside.”

            “But I don’t care and I don’t want to look, not at your trash collection - or did my sweet and oh so clever sister happen to find some long lost hidden treasure in the desert? PLEASE don’t give me that kind of crap. I don’t give a damn about the contents!” I yelled. “What bird has shit on your head, huh? Look at the mess! My bed – it looks like … oh damn!! I want this cleaned up now. When I get back later I don’t want to see anything reminding me of this dumb scene. Who do you think I am, your trashcan or something?”

While we were busy fighting the dust had settled somewhat so that after a little while something that looked like the remains of the Mummy’s leather bag appeared out of the grey.

“I just found it stuffed inside Ol’Georgy’s horse.”

“I don’t give a shit where you got it from, even if fuckin’ George has turned into a zombie and would have carried it onto your doorstep himslef. This is my bed, my room - so you keep your trash out of here, got that?!”

“O.k., if you’re that stupid, I’ll keep it all to myself.”

“Yeah, please do. Be happy and rich. Congratulations! But while you’re dreaming your time away, don’t forget to clean things up in here while I’m helping out Dad.”

“Yeah yeah. Just never forget I asked you first,” she said as she slammed the door.

“I won’t, sissy, I WON’T!!!”

A nice start for an evening …

Another ring.

What does she want this time, I thought, more or less expecting Sandy to apologize or something, just to smoothe me in between her sheets.

“MADONNA, Damon! What’s taking you?!”

That sure wasn’t Sandy. It was Dad hitting my eardrum. I wondered if I’d ever get to meet people able to discuss things in a civilized way.

“You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago. Get your lazy ass out of there NOW and hurry over PRONTO!!!”

“Yeah yeah yeah, Dad, calm down will ya. I’m on my way.”

“CALM DOWN?!?! Don’t pull the shrink on me, boy! I want you here NOW, GOT THAT?!”

If I had known then what I do now I’d instantly left the entire madhouse behind.

But I didn’t.

I didn’t know my sister just pulled fifty grand out of a rotten leather bag she found stuffed away deep inside our lost town’s only statue. And still don’t know why it had to be her, not me. I mean, it had been lying there for years, right under our very eyes. She lost her ring while sitting on the copper horse. As she was grabbing for it she happened to find the bag instead of the stupid ring. Although over the ages most of the money had turned to dust, the remaining ten grand was more than enough to pull her out of the dump.

She never found out who put it there, though. Lucky for her nobody ever showed up to claim it. Maybe that someone had long turned into a set of rambling bones himself, buried away in a rotten coffin some three feet under the burning sand.

So - guess what I did; I got up and on my way.  Through the empty trailor park, past the blinking billboard showing the way to ‘Dick’s Valley Motors – we buy anything that got wheels’  and the cinema where they never got tired of showing Casablanca (yeah that’s right, fucking Bogey Casablanca) over to my parents’ restaurant. Needless to say, Dad greeted me with an instant shout the moment I entered the place.

The grand total for the entire evening was us having six guests, a family of four and two single freaks which resulted in a $5.00 tip for me.

I’d had it.

I got back in late but man was I surprised to find my room shiny like any of Dick’s cars. Like new - but don’t peek under the hood. I checked under the bedspread, nothing, just clean sheets. She’d even stowed away the Batman books I’d been reading. Very suspicious. What kind of bug had bitten my sister?!

I needed to find out before she’d be going into one of her impulse modes again. We’d had  enough of those lately.

So I walked over to her room and knocked – she still had her lights on.

“It’s me, I just wanted …..”

“Now what?!” She’d ripped the door open before I could do as much as breathe. “Are we having a sudden change of mind?”

“Yeah well, eh … no,” I said. “I came to thank you for cleaning up the mess, that’s all.”

“And you don’t want to know about the bag? Ow come on, bro’. Give in, will ya. Why can’t you admit you just showed up cause you want to know the details. How and where your oh so brilliant sister found exactly what, her plans and all.”

She was leaning against the doorframe showing off her t-shirt and all that it contained.

“Isn’t that what you’re really interested in, little brother, huh?”

I let her have that one.

“Hey Lucy, I’m just tired of it all, Dad, Sandy, tonight’s work, everything. Now please stop playing around and tell me what’s going on here. You wanna quit town or what?”