Tooth Or Consequences

Tooth Or Consequences

(An excerpt from Price Breaks And Heartaches)

by

Al Bruno III

It was Kevin, his newest girlfriend Sarah, who was the best friend of Alice the girl he had been going out with. Now Sarah had been going out with Corey but now Corey was going out with Alice. This wasn’t the first time they had switched off like this. It was like the pair of them were some kind of a herpes brewery. Ida was there and he and I were soon trading friendly insults, Ida’s brother Marv was there too in his leopard print Speedos, his girlfriend was with him.

Tallulah and I were near the deep end of the pool, rough housing and talking. She asked me, “Why isn’t Joanna wearing a bathing suit?”

“Maybe she’s self conscious.” I shot her a baleful glance, “I wish she’d just stayed home.”

“Why?”

I tried to shrug while treading water but it didn’t really work out, “She just bugs me. I don’t know why.”

Tallulah swam closer to me and whispered, “She still can’t take her eyes off you.”

“You’re all the girl I need.” I pulled her against me.

“What is that?”

I grinned, “It’s my water wing.”

There will be a brief pause so you can all be sick.

There.

After a while Tallulah swam over to where the girls were sitting on the pool steps and talking, I managed to reach the guys by doing a cross-legged dog paddle.

"You all right Al?" Corey asked.

"Never better." I croaked.

Marv said, "We want to get a volleyball game going here. Ida's setting up the net.

Kevin said, "Yeah its gonna be guys on girls-"

"Oh yeah... heh heh heh..."

"Marv," I said, "never brush against me again when your laughing like that again."

"So anyway," Corey said, "it is guys versus girls but Joanna isn't gonna play because she didn't want to swim today."

"A girl thing." Marv said, "If you know what I mean."

"For the love of God Marv..." I said, "Wait...won't that leave us with an advantage?"

"Nah." Ida said, "You'll just have you play on the girl's side."

"What the Hell are you insinuating?"

"You're the one wearing a pale pink bathing suit."

"It was red." I said icily,"It faded."

Marv laughed so hard he swallowed a mouthful of water, "Sure buddy."

"Look I'm not the one wearing a suit so tight we can see his circumcision scars!" My shout faded when I realized everyone was giving me that look again, "...not that I was noticed."

The volleyball game started normally but it soon ended up being multiple ball dodge ball with a net in the way. The game got more and more brutal until the girls fled the pool to the relative safety of the deck. Ida and I climbed out of the pool started running around the edge of the pool grabbing beach balls and volleyballs to throw at each other. Neither of us were very good shots and I started taunting him with my William Shatner impression.

A ball zipped past my ear and crashed into a picnic table sending plasticware flying in all directions. I shouted to him, “Like a poor marksman you-keep-missing- the target!”

“For a fat guy you move pretty fast!” Ida said.

“CANNONBALL!” Marv ran off the end of the diving board and curled into a ball. It made his bathing suit ride up in all the wrong ways.

Water splashed everywhere and drenched Joanna, she had been coxed into manning the barbecue grill and was now suffering for it. I took a moment to look at her as I ran to the other side of the pool, laughing at the fact bathing suit or not she had gotten soaking wet anyway. Her dark eyes were flashing with mock anger, the locks of her wet hair clung to the sides of her face and the moisture had made her tank top almost transparent. I was so transfixed by the sight of her nipples thrusting up against the translucent fabric that I didn’t see that lawn chair.

I went down on the ground chin first and hard.

My front tooth cracked in half, not straight of course, it was a ragged fang like edge. There was a moment when I was too stunned to feel anything and then the cold air hit the exposed nerve of my tooth.

“Oh my God Al!” Joanna shouted, “Are you Ok?”

My eyes were watering but I managed to say, “I think I just had an out of body experience.”

Tallulah and Joanna were at my side to make sure I was all right, Ida was apologizing, Kevin was on the line to his parent’s lawyer and Marv was too busy trying to fish his Speedo out of the filter to notice anything.

Hand Over Fist

Hand Over Fist

(An excerpt from Price Breaks And Heartaches)

by

Al Bruno III

His body was hairless and rubbery, water ran from his hair into his eyes as he looked at me and to top it all off he was trying to cover himself with a hand towel. “Oh hey Al,” Kevin said. “You’re a little early. Come in.”

“Actually, I’m about five minutes late.” I stayed as far outside Kevin’s apartment as I could without fleeing to the next county.

“I was just getting out of the shower.”

“I kind of figured that. Is… is this double date thing still happening?”

“You bet it is,” he said with a grin. “Come on in and give me a minute or two to get ready.”

I suggested, “Maybe I should go and get the girls.”

“You don’t know the girls.”

I mused, “I could get the movie tickets and come back.”

“We haven’t picked what we’re going to see yet.”

Then I begged, “…can I at least go get you a bigger towel?”

And with that Kevin dragged me into his apartment and I had to scramble to make sure no part of my body brushed against his nakedness.

“What lovely wallpaper this place has,” I said.

I stumbled into the living room and wondered how I could have gotten myself into this latest in a series of fine messes.

‘Double date’, an innocent pairing of words on the surface but in truth the only pair of words more likely to cause more misery for a man is ‘I do’.

After what seemed like an eternity of flipping through the dog-eared copies of ‘Playboy’ and ‘Soldier of Fortune’ Kevin came down the stairs wearing the exact same clothes he had worn at college that day, except that he had missed two belt loops instead of one this time.

We drove out to some campus housing in Schenectady and found a pair of girls waiting for us at the bus stop near the corner. They climbed in and we all exchanged greetings.

Alice and Sarah seemed like nice enough girls but very earthy, and by earthy I mean they smelled like patchouli and dirt. We debated which movies we could go see, but it turns out that the girls had certain parameters. They refused to see any films that had realistic or artistic acts or threats of violence and they refused to see any films in which animals or women were exploited.

And that was how I ended up paying to go see ‘Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters’ in the theater.

Well, at least the girls enjoyed it, mostly because they had begun toking up in the theater during the opening credits. Kevin joined in but I did not partake.

Yeah I know you’re snickering under your breath at that but it’s true.

After ‘Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters’ had reached its pulse-pounding conclusion I offered to take the girls back home but Kevin said we should all hang out and talk a little. The girls were all right with that as long as we picked up some snacks first.

Kevin told me that we should park someplace remote and rarely trafficked. He directed me to a disused parking lot near the Albany Airport. I recognized the spot, I had been there before.

“Couldn’t we go someplace else?” I said, “I’ve heard that high school kids like to throw eggs at the cars parked out there.”

“Nahh that’s a rumor.” Kevin said, “I used to bring Lizzie out here all the time.”

We got there and killed the engine, there was a minor Chinese fire drill when Kevin got into the back seat with Alice, Sarah climbed up front with me. Kevin and Alice started swapping spit almost immediately, I had to get out of the car and have a seat on the bumper. It was a chilly September night but that was fine, I wanted to be cold for a while.

“Hey,” Sarah sat down beside me. “Are you feeling all right?”

I smiled at the concern I saw in her plain features and single eyebrow. I wondered to myself could I kiss this girl? Should I kiss this girl? And if I did kiss this girl would I get a contact high? I had heard in more than a few places that every girl was practice until the right one came along. How could I ever hope to kick a field goal if I was still pitching in the bullpen?

Note to self. Nerds should not use sports analogies.

“I’m just…” I said. “…look you’re a nice enough girl but I just don’t…”

“Hey,” she patted my arm. “No worries, I’m not attracted to you in the least.”

I chuckled to myself, “A perfect end to a perfect evening.”

“Besides I think you’re still hurting over someone.”

“It’s not even that, I mean yes I did park here once with someone special once but that was high school, or close to it anyway...”

Sarah gave me a hug, “You sure you don’t want to smoke some weed?”

“No,” I patted her on the back.

“What about a handjob?”

I broke the hug, “I... I... What?”

“Well you guys paid for our movie and our snacks,” she explained. “It’s the least we could do.”

Everything shifted into slow motion. I turned to see the windows of my car had fogged up and I could hear Kevin K. Hanson giggling like a cartoon mouse.

I cried “Nooooooooooooo!” but that was only the first dramatic ejaculation of the night.