My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

“No, I don’t,” I say. “I’m just getting to know little Virginia here.”

Amity turns around, naked, her hair in rollers, barely any makeup on, and somehow looks like the most elegant woman on Earth. “And little Virginia is quite pleased to know you,” she answers with gracious esteem.

We’re heading down Mockingbird, in my dented but paid-off BMW (another benefit from Mom’s generously written check), on our way to Central Expressway, and I ask Amity, “Did you read that the House of Representatives passed legislation that cuts federal money to states who have drinking ages below twenty-one?” Texas’s legal drinking age is nineteen. “So they say Texas is going to probably raise the drinking age.”

“That’s not fair!” Amity whines, toking on a joint. She’s wearing a dark maroon floor-length velvet dress that has a slit up the side. “How are young drivers going to cope with Suicide Express?” “They could drink lots of 3.2 beer.”

“That’s not good enough, Harry. You need a shot of whiskey to get on this bad boy.”

“Amity, that’s a great idea! We should set up a series of HA Roadside Whiskey Stands at every on ramp. Sell little shots of Jack Daniel’s to people about to enter the expressway.”

“Yes!” Yay-yus.t “And give them little pep talks like, “Y’all are great!” and “Go git ‘em!” “

“And sell double shots to those fat, fraidy-cat housewives in those tan ky station wagons, and give advice like, “Punch the shit out of the accelerator and close your eyes!” “

We quit joking, have a moment of silence, as we approach the expressway.

“Get ready,” Amity whispers, pretending to straighten up. Our mission is to catapult onto Suicide Express, head south, and somehow arrive downtown alive. I’m behind the wheel, but Amity’ s hair is so jacked up it’ spractically blocking my sight. “Move your hair,” I order.

“I’d need a crane,” she answers.

There’s a car sitting on my tail, which makes me even more nervous than usual. The air conditioner is blasting. I call to Amity to turn it off for extra power.

“Air off!” she calls, my copilot. “Take a hit, baby. Take a hit,” she encourages, holding the joint to my lips.

I suck in. All the way. Gun the engine. Pop the clutch. Jettison the Beamer into traffic and exhale the smoke.

“Yay!” Amity yells. “We’re alive!” She accidentally drops the joint, and by the time we find it there’s a hole burned in the vanilla-colored leather seat.

We’re stoned out of reality, riding up the escalator to the ball room, both of us grinning at the high cheese factor of the big event. On the escalator, she slips one leg through the slit on her dress and hikes it onto the step above her. Her legs are so tanned and smooth she doesn’t have to wear panty hose. “Squirrel shot!” she yells,

showing me her bare crotch. We roll off the escalator laughing so hard that everyone in proximity stares. We stop first at a table where they give Amity her five-year service pin a 747 that’s rising for takeoff. Amity pins it on so that it’s pointing downward toward her breast a 747 crashing into a mountain. Then she’s handed two drink tickets that entitle us to one cocktail each. Any more and we’ll have to pay. Tacky. We know we’re “Couple of the Month” for the moment the Texas Babe and the Gay Yankee so we play it to the hilt, going table to table, as if we’re the President and the First Lady at a fund-raiser, while various Southern belles scream with delight at seeing Amity and carefully hug her while stabbing her with a dull kitchen knife in the truth of their imaginations. Amity’s hair gets caught in another stewardess’s hair clip, and everyone gets a good laugh when the women are unable to separate. The guys shake my hand, hard, and slap me on the back, I presume, because I’m the gent lucky enough to land Amity Stone, former Slut of the Month.

I wander off to get us our two free drinks, and when I return she’s not there. And I can’t locate her in the crowd. So here I am, among these straight guys some with ill-fitting polyester suits over their big bellies and horse shit on the heels of their cowboy boots; others looking downright elegant, like male models in tuxes and tails; and all of them highly heterosexual.

Some guy about a foot taller than I am nods, strikes up a conversation. “Did you watch the game yesterday?”

Was there a figure skating competition on TV?

“Nolan Ryan is the man,” he continues, not waiting for me to answer. “They can’t pay that guy enough as far as I’m concerned.”

I stand there with a glass of champagne in one hand, my dark rum and soda with a twist in the other. “Definitely.”

“Who’s your favorite team in the American League?”

“The 49ers.”

He looks at me as if I’ve cut a fart. “That’s football.”

“Right.”

“I’m talking about baseball.”

“Oh!” I have to think quick. “I thought you were talking about Nolan Cromwell.” I know Nolan Cromwell is a football player because he’s a local Kansas boy who made good by going on to be a star in the NFL. But that was with Los Angeles, I think. The Rams. “I just heard the name Nolan, and that’s why I thought you were talking about football,” I explain.

“It’s June,” the guy says. “Football season is over.” “Right,” I say. “It’s too hot for them to wear those outfits.”

He sort of frowns, swills the spit back at the bottom of his beer bottle, and says, “Excuse me.”

Strike one. That’s baseball, right? I slam my rum and soda, set it down. Fuck the coupon. I’ll pay for another one.

I start to head for a couple of flight attendants I recognize, but before I reach them, an operations agent who recognizes me calls out, “Hey, Harry, I didn’t know you were dating Amity Stone.” He’s never said two words to me at the airline, but