Fat Assassins (2 page)

“They’d probably make me start using the women’s bathroom.” Mitchell works with a rough crew over at Lower’s ammo factory and partying with a bunch of women wasn’t going to help his reputation. 

“You shouldn’t worry about what they think,” Mitsy responded. She’s sweet as iced tea with a gentle temperament, perfect for a Wal-Mart tobacco counter cashier. People always like her, even when she’s telling them they’re too young to buy cigarettes or declining WIC payment for chewing tobacco. 

Sam is the third member of our Wal-Mart triumvirate and the least diplomatic. She can’t afford to be. She’s a pharmacy tech in a region where prescription pill abuse is the number one drug problem. It’s as dangerous as security duty in Baghdad, to hear her tell it. 

“Got another one this week. Y’all want to hear the story?” 

We nodded. 

“We had a feller come into the store on Friday night wearing cami hunting overalls and a Mexican wrestling mask with his blonde goatee hanging out the bottom. He walks right past the door greeter, straight to the pharmacy, points a plastic bag at me and demands I give him some oxycodone.”

“Did you do it?” Mitchell asked. 

“Why, hell no! I could see right through the bag and it wasn’t a gun. It was just his damn hand, so I figured I’d teach him a lesson.” 

“Oh, no!” Mitsy gasped. “What did you do?”

“He was stoned outta his mind, so I gave him a big bottle of Tagamet. Told him it was generic oxycodone cause we were out of the other kind. He grabbed the bottle and ran out the door past the greeter, who thanked him for shopping at Wal-Mart.”

Mitsy gave Sam an uncertain look. “Did you kill him?”

“Lord no! It ain’t deadly. It’s used for indigestion.” Sam started laughing while the rest of us waited for her to explain. “Buuuuuttttttt it just happens to turn urine BLUE.” 

The table howled with laughter. 

“When he sobered up and realized he was pissing blue, he rushed over to the hospital. I’d already warned the hospital and police about the robbery. So, when he showed up they nabbed him and called me down to the station to ID him. Sure enough, it was George Dilford.”

“George Dilford’s been arrested again? He cain’t stay outta trouble.” Johnny appeared out of nowhere, grabbing the last open seat at the table. His lumberjack sensuality had Mitsy and Sam staring at him with undisguised lust. 

“He got arrested for stealing acid reflux pills from Wal-Mart. He thought it was oxycodone,” Ulyssa snipped. “And why are YOU here? You weren’t invited!”

“I wouldn’t miss my girl’s birthday party,” he said, giving her a wink. 

She groaned and rolled her eyes. “First off, I’m not your girl. Second, it’s Shasta’s birthday - not mine. So, you can leave now, stalker!” 

“Happy Birthday, Shasta! This round’s on me.” 

Jumping up from the table, he started taking orders before Ulyssa could protest. 

“Two Michelob Lights, one Bud Ice, one Hard Lemonade, and one Zima?” 

Everybody at the table looked at a scowling Ulyssa. 

“Fine. Glad you can profit off my stalker!” 

The table erupted in cheers and Johnny rushed off to the bar before she could change her mind. 

Bubba fired up the karaoke system while we waited on our free drinks. “Check one. Two. Three.” 

“We can hear ya fine Bubba. Git ‘er started,” a drunk yelled from the back.

“Simma down,” he joked. 

Johnny returned with a full tray of booze and we all sat enjoying our drinks, watching the first singers of the night. Tater howled about
Friends in Low Places
, while the crowd sang along. A couple songs later, Johnny took the stage, dedicating the song to Ulyssa. 

Shifting her back to the stage, she tried to ignore his rendition of
Rebel Yel
l. “I can’t wait for the festival next weekend. Y’all still going?” 

“Hell, yeah!” Mitchell responded.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Mitsy exclaimed.

Sam nodded absently, distracted by Johnny’s pelvic thrusting stage performance.

“We’ll leave bout seven and pick Sam up on the way out of town.” 

Everyone watched Johnny dancing closer to Ulyssa’s chair. 

The catcalls and whistles grew louder with each step. 

“Let’s play some pool. I need to do something before I kick Johnny’s ass for embarrassing me.” She shoved her chair backwards into him. His hips were on the backward rotation, so the chair smacked into his leg, narrowly missing his manhood.

“Okay. I don’t know how good I’ll play right now.” The pool room felt miles away as I trailed behind her. “I’ve only had a couple beers but it feels like I’ve been shooting tequila all night.” 

Everything swayed as I tried trying to lay a quarter down on the edge of the pool table to challenge the winner. After a couple of close calls, I slammed it onto the wooden frame, giggling at my accomplishment.

“Howdy girls,” a deep voice greeted us from the other end of the pool table. 

I tilted forward, staring through the glow of the billiards lamp. My breath froze as I saw the source of the greeting. “Deputy Hottie!” My hand slipped off the pool table and I careened sideways toward the floor.

“What the hell?” Ulyssa yelped, as I accidentally clotheslined her, knocking her to the floor with me. We lay on the dirty bar floor surrounded by peanut shells and beer caps. 

“It’s Deputy Hottie,” I whispered. 

Deputy Hodde leaned over us, “That looked like a bad fall. You girls okay?” 

“Helloooo, Deputy Hottie,” I slurred, staring up at him without blinking. “Where’s your uniform?” 

Damn.
 

Obviously I’d lost my tolerance for alcohol because I’m acting like a full on drunk.

“I’m off duty tonight. So, you can call me Eric,” he laughed, leaning over to help us off the floor. His strong, warm hand clasped mine as he pulled me to my feet. 

My world tilted again and everything went black.

The grating sound of a blender leaked under my door and echoed off the walls. I wish trailers didn’t carry sound so well. It’s great on rainy nights, but living in an aluminum can with a noisy roommate isn’t so relaxing.

Make it stop.
 

I tried pulling the pillow over my head, but the alcohol induced cotton-mouth smothered the breath out of me. 

Grrrrrtttttt-grt-grt-ggggrrrrttt.

Must find noise. 

I stumbled down the hallway, trying to force my eyes open.

Grrrrrtttttt-grt-grt-grt-ggggrrrrttt.

Must kill noisemaker.

I grew meaner and meaner the closer I got to the source of the noise. 

“Welllllll, hello there party girl!” Ulyssa greeted me with a plate full of toaster waffles, sausage patties, and maple syrup. “How ya feeling?”

Maybe I’ll forgive her for the blender. 

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“You were a maniac last night!”

“I can’t believe I got wasted on three beers!” I sighed as the syrup saturated my taste buds. “What time did we get home? Bout eleven?”

“You really don’t remember?” 

I shook my head. 

“3 A.M.! We partied like rock stars! You really don’t remember playing pool, singing karaoke or riding home in the police car?” 

She was starting to annoy me as much as the blender. 

My blank stare answered her questions.

She sat thinking for a few minutes before carefully asking her next question. “What was the last thing you drank before you blacked out?”

“Hhhmmm. I guess it was the beer Johnny bought us.”

“Sonofabitch! I think he roofie’d you!” She stabbed her fork into the waffle, shaking the TV tray legs and making me flinch. “I bet he was trying to roofie me and his dumb ass mixed up the beers. I’m gonna beat him senseless when I see him again!”

“I thought you passed out when someone roofie’d you?”

“No. You blackout. It makes you lose all inhibitions and do things you normally wouldn’t. That’s why it’s called the date rape drug. But that explains some of the stuff you did last night.”

That got my attention, “What stuff?”

“Well.....you were real cozy with Deputy Hodde while y’all were playing pool. You were acting like a big ol flirt while you were hustling the poor guy. You started out betting beers on the game and won us four rounds. The next game you decided the loser had to sing a karaoke song. You lost. Scratched on the eight ball because you were shooting behind your back.”

“Please tell me I didn’t sing.”

“You did and it was fan-tast-ic,” she paused to draw out my fear. “
Gimme Gimme Gimme
!” 

“Oh no,” I gasped.

“Oh yes! And you totally sex’d up your performance.” She started singing into an invisible microphone. 

I threw a pillow at her to make her stop singing, but it only made her sing louder. She jumped up and started shaking her hips to re-enact my performance. I love ABBA and found myself instinctively joining the sing-a-long.

“You WERE awesome! I’ve never seen you like that before. You were dancing like one them Coyote Ugly bartenders, doing your crazy dance moves on top of the bar. You made half the bar fall in love with you during that four minute song. Eric sure looked jealous, especially when you pulled off your sweater, sending the crowd into a frenzy.” 

I glanced down at my pink silk camisole and blushed. 

Ulyssa laughed and pointed towards the end of the couch. “Don’t worry! Deputy Hottie loaned you one of his work shirts to wear for the rest of the night.” 

I leaned over and grabbed the pile of tan material off the end of the couch. Sure enough, it was a police uniform shirt. I brought it up to my face and inhaled the intoxicating mixture of masculinity and cologne. My eyes closed as I imagined him wearing the shirt chasing down a dangerous criminal. His tall, muscled body moving with the precision of a Spartan warrior as sweat curled the edges of his brown hair against his Greco-Roman face. His eyes met mine. They were the color of ripened, Italian olives. 

I love olives. 

“Hey there bloodhound! You going to hunt him down, now that you have his scent?” 

Ulyssa brought me crashing back to reality where I’d been psychotically sniffing his shirt for an abnormal amount of time. I reluctantly lowered it from my face, pleading with her to tell me what else happened.

“After your grand performance we decided it was time for you to call it a night, so Eric offered to drive us home. You insisted we ride in the back like a couple of criminals. We spent most of the ride home trying to talk him into taking us to Waffle House for fourth meal. You got really mad when he said he wasn’t going to drive us forty-five minutes for drunken waffles. I think he wanted to kiss you when he dropped us off, but you just stomped off, mumbling about not getting waffles. All that talk about waffles last night made me crave them, so I made us some for breakfast.” 

“I’m so embarrassed,” I said, hiding my face.

“Don’t be. It was fun. You might get asked for autographs today though.”

“Whatever. I’ll just have to deal with the public embarrassment as it comes, but right now I’ve got to get ready for work.” 

Ulyssa was engrossed in some TV show, when I emerged ready for work. “I need clean clothes for work today, so I’m doing laundry, if you need me to wash anything for ya.” 

“Just my party clothes. Maybe you’ll be able to get the alcohol smell out of my favorite pants.” 

I opened the laundry room door and tossed my party clothes in the hamper. An envelope fluttered to the floor. “Oops, forgot about this. I hope it’s money cause I don’t think I’ll have enough gas to keep me going ‘til payday.” I opened the envelope and waved the scratch-off lottery ticket at Ulyssa. “Well, let’s see if turning twenty-three changed my luck at all.” 

I scratched off the metallic layers stopping at the last one. 

“Down to my last shot at the jackpot. Looks like I’ll be hitchhiking to work next week,” I snarked, clearing off the last one. A feeling of disbelief settled over me as I stood staring at the card. 

“Shasta? Shasta? You okay?” 

“I matched the Shamrocks,” I whispered.

“Shamrocks?” Ulyssa laughed. “Did you win a dollar?”

 “More like $30,000!” I said, handing her the card.

She scanned the card double checking the numbers. “Oh my gawd! You won! You really did!” 

That’s enough to pay off the trailer mortgage and my credit card, with some leftover. We started dancing around the living room and doing an ABBA encore.

I couldn’t stop car dancing during my drive to work.
I may even buy some new tires for my old Suzuki Sidekick.
I’d been putting it off for so long the rubber was threadbare in a few spots. 

I continued humming as I buttoned up my blue work vest, making a few of the off shift associates nervous. They were probably worried I was going to shoot up the store since I was usually quiet.

It’s always the quiet ones. 

Adjusting the pin that declared me an associate manager, I prepared myself for a day of troublemakers. I’m in charge of the store front end which includes the customer service department, so I have to handle all the complaints.