Chasing The Peacock’s Tail

Short Story

 

Once I was a bartender all summer at this shitty hole in the wall bar called The G Spot. Every— fucken day, I would end up telling a whole slew of these grey haired dusters that the place wasn’t a strip club and that it was only because the owners name was Greg. It was so pathetic, many of these dirty old men would genuinely get right pissed off at me for it too. I kept telling that greasy bastard, over and over to either change the bars God damn name, start charging a cover, or seriously look at getting some strippers in the joint. He refused to listen. You’d think he had the fear of God in him, or something.

You know, I really only took that gig to try to earn a few bucks for this writing course I really wanted to take that proceeding fall. I figured fuck it—I have to search for another part-time job to pay for it anyway, so I might as well become a tapster. Besides, everyone knows bartenders always happen to stumble upon some truly fantastic stories.

Turns out, it all paid off rather beautifully and by the summers end I had met a pretty hip middle-aged couple named Trish and Roman.

Roman was an electrical engineer and Trish, I think, was a luxury travel agent, or so she said. It didn’t really matter much anyway, because I was too busy gunning her voluptuous cleavage, pouring from her slinky tank tops. Trish the dish, I secretly nicknamed her. She most certainly could’ve passed as some sort of playmate, or something. With her pencil straight brunette hair, cut perfectly to follow her elegant jaw line and the way she looked at me with those deep ocean blue eyes, she was as stunning as a winning Kentucky racehorse. I always remember her trotting gracefully over to the juke box. Oh—to see that peach of an ass, kicking back and forth passed the bar, it just gives me butterflies thinking about it. Roman, on the other hand was a mighty brute of a man. Towering nearly six foot six, he held a stern chiseled face and maintained a well groomed black beard, complementing the sheer look of certain death that unnaturally radiated from his eyes. He reminded me of some sort of special forces commando, or something, the type of man that had been thrown one too many times into the meat grinder, and surely had to blast his way out.

I vividly recall their very first impressions on me. It wasn’t long after I had started, that they barraged straight through the bars frosted glass doors, groping and fondling each other. At first, I thought it was a fight that had broken out in the street and spilled into the bar. It was only when they made their way to the piss booth in the corner, underneath the flickering Budweiser sign that I realized what was happening. I had dubbed it the piss booth, because somewhere around my first or second shift I kicked a homeless guy out of it when I caught him pissing under the table.

Over time, Trish and Roman became my Friday night regulars— well, really my only regulars all summer long. Each and every time they would bust through those doors the exact same way, always latched together and locked into a steamy heat of passion.

Often, I would catch myself sitting there with my head in my hands, studying the two of them in the first moments. Each biting and gnawing, kissing and grabbing at such forbidden regions, as if possessed by savage hyper sexual jungle apes. I wondered how they truly acted on the other side of those doors, out there in the real world. A violent place where the weasels and the werewolves roam feral, a land where the law looks to punish those that dare to cross such blurred lines. Yet, no matter how twisted these two got within those walls, they would always make it a point to leave me ridiculous amounts of cash for a tip. One day, they offered me five hundred bucks to listen to a simple story.

“Hey kid— you want to make a few bucks for scribblers school tonight?” Roman thundered over from the booth, clenching a hand full of Trish’s ass. She let out a high pitch squeal and shot away from him, smirking at me on her way over to the juke box.

I finished drying a few of their previous pint glasses and casually walked around the bar. “Pick a good tune,” I whispered to her, sauntering passed and scooting into the ratty bench across from Roman. Immediately the perfect drum line for Jefferson Airplane’s – White Rabbit, filled the silence of the bar.

“So kid, do you really want to make a quick five hundred bucks tonight or not?”

“I could use the chedda!” I replied.

Trish squeezed back down in beside Roman and nuzzled up against him, flinging off her flip flops and elegantly swinging her seductive neon pink toes onto the table. Her pinky toe appeared a little cock eyed to say the least and I asked. “What happened to that little piggy?”

“It’s quite a story,” She snapped at me. “You’ll want to listen to this, maybe you could make use of it for one of your future books.”

“It isn’t another one of those sexcapades, Fifty Shades Of Grey, types again is it,” I contested, as I slid my way back out from the booth to finish my cleaning at the bar.

“Can you please sit the fuck down,” Roman demanded. “We’re not fucking you around here, you can make some good coin for a simple five minutes kid!”

I spun a one eighty back onto the booth with a half hearted smile and a sigh.

“Have you ever heard of methamphetamine’s kid,” Roman asked peering at me with dark untamed eyes.

“Of course!” I said.

Trish snickered, then cranked her head back and peered up into Roman’s eyes, then back to me with a wink.

“We occasionally gear up on one of those kinda blue moon Sundays, do a little people watching from our condo window on the stuff,” he confessed. “It’s a real trip! Last Sunday was such a day. We both started with a fresh hot rail first thing in the morning, but just before, we like to drag every blanket, pillow and couch cushion to the window. You know those condos up on Wentworth Street, right? The new ones about two blocks down with the massive bay windows overlooking the street?”

“Yeah—they built that one last summer. Took out that awesome record shop they had in there.”

“That be the one kid!” He replied slapping his hand down on the table. “We’re the tenth floor… Anyway, we turned our window into a fucken meth nest. We like to lay in comfort, naked and gazing out at the world just fucken blasted straight to the moon… We sort’ve over did it last week though, just a little… Wouldn’t you say hun? It was all her fault, she was the one that spotted it first,” he revealed with a chuckle, then cupping her breasts as he pretended to gnaw on the top of her head.

“I…I… was heartbroken,” she stammered through a giggle and squirming out from his grip to kneel at the foot of the table.“I was in tears that someone had lost their beautiful wedding dress. To see it just blowing in the wind like that, entangled on some buildings rusty fire escape. What if that was a family heirloom? How horrible would that be?” She questioned skipping back over to the juke box.

“For like ten minutes straight, she was in a frenzy and I couldn’t see what the fuck she was wailing and jabbering on about. Finally she gripped my head and pointed me to what she was seeing. Low and behold, there it was a gleaming white wedding dress flapping in the morning breeze.”

“Why don’t you tell him how you were just going to leave it there too,” Trish chimed in from the juke box.

I melted back into the bench, I was having a hell of a time picturing these two in their fancy living room window, wrapped in blankets, tweaking out over a fucken wedding dress. “So you got it then?” I asked, not quite sure what to make of it all.

“Yes and no,” Roman remarked slugging down the last sip of his beer.

I scooped up his pint glass and slid out from the booth to replenish it from the outside of the bar. “So—what happened?” I replied from over my shoulder.

“We did the only responsible thing we could… we went after it.”

A wall mounted one hundred inch television blared the movie ‘Enchanted’ at a rather disturbing level of noise for seven thirty on a Sunday morning. The small, modernized one bedroom condo appeared like a bomb had certainly torn through it. The kitchen sink was stacked high with every dish from within the cupboards and hoards of clothing were strewn wildly in every direction, even suspended from the light fixtures. Across the open room and just passed the dusty white, glass coffee table, a wide assortment of colourful pillows and soft fluffy blankets lay stockpiled against the massive picture window. Periodically, the dune would heave up and down, as if it was alive. Underneath the heap Trish was curled up naked, uncontrollably sobbing with only her wide watery eyes exposed and gazing out towards the window. Beside her, Roman lay on his back, wrapped up like an over stuffed burrito, his neck oddly kinked backwards on the edge of a couch cushion.

“We need to save it,” Trish whispered poking her head out from under her layer of blankets.

“Affirmative!” Roman replied in an automated tone, erupting from their fortress, sending cushions and blankets hurling across the room. He stood naked for just a moment. Then dashed towards the bedroom, slipping on a pink bra and ploughing in through the bedrooms door, in one spectacular movement.

Trish now fully exposed, feverishly whipped her head from side to side, as if looking for another safe place to hide. She bee lined straight towards the kitchen in an attempt to dukes of hazard bare ass over the breakfast island. As she did, she jammed her toe off of one of the steel stools and flopped down with a solid thud onto the hardwood. “Oh—God I think I broke it Roooommmaan!” She wailed in agony, clutching her pinky toe.

Roman thrusted himself around the kitchen corner as if he were now transformed into some snake like serpent. His pupils were stretched the size of hubcaps and his face was strangely smeared with dark purple eye-shadow. “How bad is it sweetheart?” He said as he slid over to examine her.

“It’s bad—look at it, it’s all crooked and shit,”

“It’s really not that bad— but you know how these fiend doctors are… they may even try to amputate, I’d be prepared for that,” he announced, as he turned to slither back down the hallway towards the bedroom.

“We can’t go to the hospital in this state Roman, they’ll treat us like lepers,” she barked after him, gripping the breakfast island to lift herself up. Her left pinky toe was heavily contorted and stuck out some distance away from the rest of her other toes. She winched in pain as she attempted to put any weight onto it. “You’re going to have to go after that dress yourself Roman, I’ll keep watch from the window,” she hollered towards the bedroom.

“Perfect!” He bellowed.”I also found the walkie talkies… We need to keep in constant communication. I can’t have anyone trying to sneak up on me!” he roared, leaping from the bedroom and into the bathroom.

Trish hobbled slowly back to the window, collecting a few of the scattered blankets along the way. She cocooned herself within them, and rested against the glass. Thick clouds of steam could be seen bellowing out from the bathroom and when Roman emerged he was fully dressed in a clean black suit and his face was still horribly smeared with purple eye-shadow.

“Whats with the monkey suit and all that purple?” She curiously asked.

“This my dear is a highly top secret mission, it requires perfect diplomatic handling and very precise planning. Its agenda has dark overtones of extreme personal danger. I’ll need to blend in with these folk, you know, play the part!” He said, strutting over to her and placing one of the walkie talkies in her lap and kissing her fluffy blanket forehead. “Stay hidden little owl,” he said with a firm salute, then turning to march off towards the door.

“God bless!” She professed after him, blowing a kiss.

Encased in her cocoon of blankets Trish watched out the window through a small fluffy slit, she could barely see the top of Roman’s head on the sidewalk, but every so often she would catch a glimpse of him pacing nervously near the curb. She followed him as he finally jogged across the street and approached the alley, then lost him when he ducked into its shadows.

“Battle axe, x-ray, yankee, zulu this is little owl… come in,” she whispered into her walkie talkie.

“Little owl, I read you loud and clear… I see the target… contact me again when you have a visual of me.”

She waited nervously nibbling on her nails for him to reappear climbing up the steep fire escape. It was a four storey climb before she would be able to see him again and it was another three storeys before he’d reach their prize. Then as if they could smell him, a police car slowed by the alley and stopped just passed it with its lights flashing. She panicked for a moment fumbling with the walkie talkies button. “Five O, five O, five O,” she announced still not able to spot him. “Watch your back.”

“Ten four little owl… I can see them from here… I think I’m too high for them to notice me… hahahahaha… Whoa… Look at the size of that bastard… hahaha… I am going to keep moving.”

When he reemerged into her view she leaped up in excitement. “I have a visual,” she declared. “Three more levels and you’ll be there.”

“Oh shit… I think they see me,” he remarked hysterically, through the walkie talkies speaker.

Just below him two heavy set officers were now out of their car, pointing and angrily shouting up at him from the ground, before both dashing out of view and into the alleys cover.

“Roman, get the dress and get the hell outta there,” she screamed, watching him franticly scuttle up the fire escape and sprint across the buildings roof top and out of sight. Behind him one of the officers was in hot pursuit and struggled to claw his way up after him.

This was all far to much for Trish to grasp, she appeared deathly pale and visibly ill witnessing the unfolding events before her. Her eyes darted wildly as oceans of tears streamed down her face. She feverishly attempted to call him over and over again on her walkie talkie, quickly collapsing into utter mental despair. At one point she was frothing at the mouth like some rabid beast and growling as if she was a dog. In the mess of it all, one of the larger of the two officers could be seen quickly waddling back to his patrol car and speeding off up the street.

Meanwhile, the condos door slowly crept open.

“Dum Da Da Daaaaaaaa!” Roman announced as he stood arms spread by the door with a big goofy grin on his face.

“Roman, you made it… I thought you were arrested and I’d never see you again,” she cried hopping over to hug him.

“I hid in some air conditioner unit on the roof! That cop was right on top of me, then I think he got another call…”

“Did you get the dress?” She asked through a devilish grin.

“Yeah— the funny thing about that was, we were chasing the peacock’s tail… “

“What do you mean?”

“That dress… It was just a stupid white plastic bag!”

 

more by ROACH ADAMS

read Roach Adams’ blog Animals Of Progress

photograph by Mélanie Villeneuve

 

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