LOWLIFE HIGHLIGHTS
NOTHING BUT TROUBLE - Part Two - Dede
Summertime is here and I need some time off so I’m running a rerun in four parts, and this is part 2. It’s a favorite of mine and if you read it before maybe you’ll want to read it again. I’ve had a few new subscribers lately so I guess it will be new to them.
NOTHING BUT TROUBLE - Part Two - Dede
Her name is Dede and inside the apartment the television is tuned to Hollywood Squares with the sound turned down. A Rolling Stones record spins and it adds a bounce to my step. The apartment lacks color except for an orange shag rug. I set down my sales paraphernalia and take a seat on the couch.
A preteen girl in cotton H.R. Pufnstuf pajamas sits half in, half out of a Barbie sleeping bag on the floor. Her name is Dot. An older girl around my age comes into to room from the kitchen. She is holding a large mixing bowl and a wooden spoon stirring brownie mix. Her name is Dilly. She’s beautiful and she looks smart and untouchable and I don’t think I could talk to her without stuttering.
Dede joins me on the couch. She is barefoot in hotpants and a bikini top. She has a surfer girl body with an Ivory Soap face. She has a chipped front tooth and light blue eyes. She scoots close and asks me what I’m selling, and I tell her I’m supposed to be selling memories, but I think I’m going to take a break. Maybe I’ll make some memories of my own. I tell her I’m a photographer but don’t have a camera at the moment and I’m going to be a writer someday and write stories about my life.
Dede asks do I ever take pictures like in Playboy Magazine.
I have a dawning; pictures for Playboy, photographing naked chicks. I grew up in my father’s photography studio. I’ve been taking pictures since I was thirteen—portraits and gimmicks, weddings and groups. How have I never thought of naked girl pictures?
“Yeah,” I tell Dede. “Of course I make nudes. Is that like, something you would want to do? When I get a camera?”
Dede says yeah, out-of-sight, of course she would do pictures like that.
Now, she asks me if when going from door to door I ever meet anybody that I’d like to be with? Like, someone I’m like automatically attracted to?
I say well, I haven’t before but I guess I might, you know, if I meet someone who is really pretty. I look into her eyes, and she doesn’t blush but I kind of do.
From the floor, Dot says she thinks she’s going to puke and Dilly, still stirring brownie mix, says maybe us lovebirds should take it to the other room. Dede says okay and takes me by the hand and walks us into the bedroom.
A while later I’m naked in the adjoining bathroom with a hand mirror in front of the medicine cabinet mirror admiring the scratches on my back and thinking I must be a really good fuck. My logic in thinking scratches on the back signifies a good fuck is based on a Rolling Stones song, Stray Cat Blues.
Around six, I’m standing naked on the bed with a bouncy erection. Dede, also naked, is showing me poses she would do for Playboy Magazine while I pretend to take pictures. I say click, click, click, oh yeah do that one again. Yeah, that’s beautiful. Click, click, click. She looks at me and licks her lips like a hungry she-wolf. I imitate a motor drive, click-click-click-click-click, and I wish I had a real camera.
I think this must be love. I’ve missed my ride home, as I’m sure Cash and crew have come and gone, but I don’t care, I’m happy to stay here for the rest of my life.
Dede and I shower together, and I get on my knees and give her head while the water sprays and she jerks and moans and holds my head in her hands. I have water pouring down my face and it’s hard to see and I notice just above her pubis, at the edge of the hairline, she has a small blue homemade tattoo, Property of Rank Frank. I close my eyes and tell myself maybe I didn’t really see what I saw. I hope I didn’t really see what I think I saw, but I don’t look again. When Dede climaxes, she screams out and pushes against me and for a moment my nose is squished into her flesh, and I can’t breathe. Afterwards we dry and dress and go out to the kitchen where the sisters are having pizza.
*
Dede and her sisters are busy with dishes and cleanup and I’m looking at the books in the bookcase which include Jerzy Kosiński, Terry Southern, and Doris Lessing. Dot the youngest of the girls, still in her H.R. Pufnstuf pajamas, tells me those books are Dilly’s, she’s the smart one.
I say yeah, these are cool books. On the kitchen table is a copy of The Tin Drum, which I pick up. Dilly, who I find intimidating, asks me if I’ve read it and I say no but I’m going to first chance I get. I ask her if she has read Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, but then I’m embarrassed because I think I mispronounced his name.
Dilly says yes she has read three books by HESS-uh and Steppenwolf was her favorite. Dot jumps into the conversation and says she bets I can’t guess what their father does for a living.
“I don’t know, a policeman?”
“You guessed it first try.”
“Yeah, but I was just kidding, you’re just kidding, right?”
“Nope, he’s a cop and he carries a gun, and he comes around here a lot to make sure we’re all right.”
“Oh, that’s okay, right? I mean I’m here, but it’s not like I’m breaking any laws or anything.”
“Can you guess how old Dede is?”
Now Dede is back and takes my hand and tells me don’t pay any attention to Dot, she’s just a troublemaker. She drags me back to the bedroom. I can hear Dot still talking.
“Ask Dede if she has a boyfriend.”
*
It’s midnight and I’m in bed with Dede and her sister Dilly, who came in earlier telling us she needs to go to sleep and this is a shared bedroom. She climbed in with us and ignored us and read a book for a while. I wanted to talk to her about books and writers, but I didn’t and then she went to sleep.
The radio is playing the theme from Summer Place which is the most romantic piece of music ever written. I haven’t asked Dede how old she is or does she already have a boyfriend and what’s the deal with the tattoo? I don’t want to know about those things, why would I? I’m in love.
I wonder if I should move to Santa Ana. I have a boner again and Dede holds it and strokes it. I fall asleep and I dream Dede is giving me a blow job and I come long and hard and I open my eyes and Dede is close and smiling and she has a dollop of sperm on her chin. It’s the best wakeup call I’ve ever had. I look into her eyes and I tell her I love her. She says What?! That’s really stupid. She sure as hell is not in love with me, she already has a boyfriend and he’s probably going to come over at the end of his shift and it’s already one in the morning, so it was fun but I need to go home now.
Next to me on the other side of the bed Dilly wakes and yawns and tells me, “Sorry Charlie, it’s been nice knowing you.” I’m putting on my pants and Dilly hands me a slip of paper then rolls over under the covers and goes back to sleep. I put it in my pants pocket.
In the living room, Dot, is on the floor in her pink Barbie sleeping bag watching an old Tarzan movie.
“Looks like you got the boot,” she says. “Did Dede tell you her boyfriend is big as an ape and he’s a biker and his name is Rank Frank?”
“Uh, no. Not really. I think maybe I saw the name.”
“Yeah, you probably saw his signature. You don’t want to mess with Rank Frank. He knocks everyone around. He’s not a nice person.”
“You want me to stay, make sure everything is copacetic?”
“I think Rank Frank would probably throw you through a window. Don’t worry about us. If he gets near me, I’ll call my dad, and he’s a policeman and he’s even crazier than Rank Frank. He’ll throw the fucker through the window.”
“Can I borrow your sleeping bag? I’ll put it by the front door in the morning.”
“Okay.” Dot says. “But don’t do anything gross in it.”
I tell Dot thank you and I won’t do anything gross. I pick up a book from the bookcase and promise to return it as well.
Outside, I walk around for a while and find a hedge and a stand of thick bushes in the front yard of an apartment complex. I crawl between and behind the shrubbery and into the sleeping bag. There is enough light from a streetlamp to read. I smoke a joint and read a few chapters of the book, The Onion Eaters by J. P. Donleavy. I sleep, fitfully, and a little paranoid through the long night.
At eight in the morning the sprinkler system turns on and sprinkles me awake. I walk back to Dede’s place and don’t see any motorcycles around. I put Dot’s sleeping bag on the porch but keep the book. I consider knocking but don’t and as I am walking away a big biker on a chopper pulls up and parks at the curb. He looks like his name would be Rank Frank. I’m on the sidewalk trying to look nonchalant, lighting a Kool, and Rank Frank yells at me, “Hey you, who are you?”
“Hey, man, I’m nobody. I’m not even here, I’m just your fucking imagination. Forget about me, man. I’m not even real.”
Rank Frank looks at me and shrugs and gets off his bike. He walks to me and he says, “You fuck her?”
“What? No man. What? Fuck her, fuck who, man? I don’t know you. I don’t know anyone. I’m not even here.”
Rank Frank is laughing. He says, “Just fuckin with you, Dude.”
“Oh, yeah. Funny. I’ll probably laugh about it later. See you around, Man.”
I’m walking quickly away, my back to Rank Frank.
“Hey, Dude,” he calls after me. “How come you had Dot’s sleeping bag?”
I stop and turn. “Sleeping bag? Oh, you mean that one over there?”
“Yeah, that’s the one, Dude.”
“Oh yeah. I saw it there and I was thinking about maybe I’d take it, you know. It’d be handy if I was camping on the beach. I’ve been thinking about camping on the beach. The grunion are running.”
“The what? What the fuck are you talking about, Dude? What’s a grunion?”
“They’re kind of like sardines, except bigger, or maybe smaller, and when it’s a full moon or something like that, they wash up with the tide by the thousands and they put their tails in the sand and lay eggs and sometimes they glow.”
“So then why didn’t you take Dot’s sleeping bag?”
“I don’t know, man, I figured it probably belongs to somebody. Maybe some guy named Dot, or whatever. I guess I would have felt guilty. Besides, it’s Barbie. I’m not much of a Barbie fan. I gotta go, Man, I’ll see you around.”
“Might be best we don’t see each other around.”
“Okay, sure, fine with me. I’ll not see you around. So long.”
Now I’m walking away quickly and Rank Frank yells at me. “Was it good? Did you fuck her good?”
I keep walking and I’m not going to turn around and I keep walking and I don’t turn around and I get to the end of the street and I turn the corner and I keep walking.