The two stinkbugs found some seats at the bar. They already had a good buzz going, their antennas floating lazily in the cool air. They ordered a couple of beers. Mr. V’s was the happening bar in town. Nice crowd. Cute bartenders. The kitchen was great, made a hell of a philly.
“You can’t break up and go back,” Pete explained. “That shit leads to regret. I know. Just move on.”
“She said she changed,” JC said. “And who said anything about going back?”
“Oh, god. Houston, we have a fag on our hands. When was the last time you talked to her?”
“Yesterday.”
“Jesus.”
JC couldn’t get her off his mind. Jodi. Jodi Hoff. Crazy ass. Big tits. A dynamo in bed. She came into JC’s life and worked him over. She knew the game. He didn’t. She got his pecker, then his heart, and then everything else that came with it including his wallet. By the time she was done with his sorry ass his savings account was dead and stinking, his confidence was shot out, and his heart was sick and barely alive. And worst of all: he was in love.
They played some pool. Pete was a good pool player. Something his dad taught him. Just one of the two things his father passed along. The other was having bad luck with women. In Pete’s wake hung long, sad pictures of failed relationships. Memories that weren’t good ones. Sometimes it was his fault. Sometimes it wasn’t. Didn’t matter. It was all him. He was born under a bad sign. He was born on the wrong night. Something was amiss.
Pete’s last girl broke it off because she had to move out of town to take care of her sick father. But her father wasn’t sick. Nor did he live out of town. In fact, he was in great health, doing yoga, eating tasty salads, and living it up in a gated community right down the road from Pete’s apartment. A month after she packed up and moved he ran into her at the dollar store with a basket full of miscellaneous shit. Fortune cookies. Candy. Two Jesus candles.
“So, did you even move?” he asked skeptically.
“You’ll never believe it,” she said, raising her eyes. “It was a miracle. He’s fine. But I’m still moving to Riverside in a couple of weeks. I have a job lined up and everything. I’m so excited.”
Then he ran into her at the movies. By this time he heard she had a boyfriend.
“How’s Riverside?”
“You know how things go,” she said glumly. “The economy. Hiring freeze. Maybe next month.”
Pete and JC stepped out into the hot desert night. Stars swept across the black sky. A grasshopper was passed out in the middle of the parking lot, one wing pointing up to the moon. A group of ants were playing grabass trying to rip each other’s legs off. Pete’s phone rang. It was the new girl. She was pretty, newly divorced. The only problem (he recognized) was that she was a Gemini. He knew better. He’d been down that road. But he was too high to heed the math.
“All right,” Pete said, stamping out his cigarette, trying to get straight. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”
“I won’t,” said JC, ready to jump in the fire once again.
