Poles Apart (31 page)

Damn. I needed gas. I pulled into an Exxon self-serve, pumped a tank of unleaded into my dad’s car, and then, with my head down, slipped inside the store to pay. Standing there, waiting for my change, I realized I needed to use the local facilities. The cashier pointed to the hallway at the back of the store. I saw the familiar stick figure emblazoned on the door. I entered the stall
and latched the door, as I tend to do in gas station bathroom stalls. I heard someone enter the washroom, approach the sink, and wash his hands. He was humming a happy little tune. The hand dryer was not quite loud enough to drown out the door opening and closing again as the guy left. I sat there for a while, as one does. I heard not a sound, beyond the ones I was making. I stood up, buckled up, and slid back the simple latch to release the stall door. It flew into my forehead, knocking me back onto the toilet. A big guy grabbed the front of my shirt with his club of a right hand and hoisted me up off the toilet to press me against the back wall of the stall. The flushing handle was now rather uncomfortably lodged between my butt cheeks.

I’m sure I made some kind of a noise when this was happening, but I either can’t remember what it was or am too embarrassed to note its pitch.

“Gotcha. We meet at fucking last,” he said in a calm, American voice.

He was a big, blond-haired, defensive lineman-type, with a swagger and a smirk that made him seem even more sinister. Did I mention he was big? The entire wholesome beach-boy bodybuilder look was somewhat sullied by the telltale faintly yellow-tinged eyes of a heavy steroid user. Rather than fighting my way out of the bathroom and making good my escape, I thought it would be prudent to listen to what he had to say and, you know, see what he wanted.

“What are you doing?” I managed to gurgle through the
pressure of his pile-driver fist pushed against my throat. “What do you want?”

“Don’t talk, Everett. Just listen,” he said evenly. “You’ve made someone very angry. That was not smart. Not fucking smart at all.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “Are you threatening me?”

He laughed at me, right in my face. He came in so close I could feel the air currents of his guffaw against my cheek.

“Am I threatening you, he asks? I can see this is your first rodeo,” he sighed, shaking his head. “So just to clarify, if I were threatening you, I’d be holding you upside down right now. I’d be gripping your ankle in my right hand, and your head would be partially submerged in this here toilet. I might even flush a few times to reinforce my point. Now Everett, with all your powers of deduction, do you think I could suspend you upside down by my right hand only, with your head in this here toilet bowl?”

I thought about it briefly.

“Yes, I would have to say you probably could.”

“Right. Good answer.”

He then pulled me forward and lowered me back onto the toilet so that his right fist, still clenching the front of my shirt and propped under my jaw, no longer supported my entire body weight. Again, he leaned in close, very close.

“To be fucking clear, no, I’m not threatening you. I merely offering you some friendly advice that really, and I do fucking
mean,
really
, you should take, and embrace fucking fully. In case you hadn’t noticed, I quite like the word ‘fucking.’ It’s helpful when I’m trying to be serious, or in your case, fucking serious.”

It was an unexpected relief that his breath was quite minty and fresh.

“You’re going to have a visitor in the not-too-distant future. Now I’m telling you this straight up. You should do what he asks of you. Really, you should. You’re going to want to fucking trust me on this point.”

“And if I don’t?” I asked, totally taking leave of my senses, my mind rooted in all those
TV
shows where the victim says stuff like this and always comes out okay in the end.

“You really did not just fucking ask me that. Do you really want to let that stand, or should we just forget it ever slipped out?”

“I withdraw the question.”

“Okay, then, I think we’re done here,” he said, as if we’d just cut the lawn together. “Oh, by the way, I understand your father is recovering nicely from a stroke. Glad to hear it. He’s got quite the nice fucking view from his room over at, you know, the Orlando Fucking Health Rehabilitation Institute.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Ah, ah, ah, now. Remember?” He wagged his finger at me so it stroked the tip of my nose.

“I withdraw the question.”

“Fucking right, you do.”

After he left, I felt the need to make use of the facilities a
second time. He was nowhere in sight when I emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later.

The cashier didn’t even look up when I wobbled out the door and back to the car. I raced over to the hospital, still spending more time than was safe with my eyes on the rear-view mirror.

Just like almost every other day, Yolanda was at the nurses’ station. But it didn’t really feel like every other day.

“Yolanda, is everything okay around here? Is my dad okay?”

“Hello, Master Everett. Everything is just fine now, but you did miss some excitement this morning. We had what we call a Code 22 mini-lockdown.”

“A Code 22 mini-lockdown? That doesn’t sound good. What does it mean?”

“We had an unauthorized visitor cruising the hallways, looking for someone.”

“Who was he looking for?” I asked, feeling a little queasy.

“Well, we’re still not sure, but he did spend some time with your father. Your dad pulled the patient alarm string.”

“Oh my gosh. Is Dad okay? Did the guy do anything to him?” I asked.

“If I’ve learned anything since your father arrived, it’s that you don’t mess with Billy Kane. Your dad had it all well in hand,” she explained. “Anyway, before security could get there, the guy was smiling and sauntering back out the front door like he owned the place, still humming to his big self, like nothing had happened. I
tried to speak to him, but he wasn’t in the mood for conversation.”

I hadn’t heard much after the two words “big self.”

“What did he look like?”

“He kind of looked a little like that guy who played the Joker in that Batman show?”

“Cesar Romero?”

“No, not the
TV
show, the movie.”

“Jack Nicholson?”

“No, not that movie. One of the newer ones.”

“Danny DeVito?”

“No, no. He was the Penguin, I think.”

“Right! Oh, was it Heath Ledger?”

“Bingo. That’s the one,” she said. “Hey, you’re pretty good. You should get yourself on
Jeopardy
.”

“One of the few benefits of a misspent youth in front of the
TV
,” I conceded. “So this intruder guy looked like the late, great Heath Ledger?”

“Pretty much. Except this guy was about three times the size and had a dirty mouth on him, to boot.”

“Pardon my language, Yolanda, but did he happen to say ‘fucking’ a lot?”

“Now how could you possibly know that?” Yolanda looked at me with arms crossed over her not insubstantial chest. “He didn’t say much to me, but he did use that particular word quite a bit in our brief encounter. Do you know this dude?”

“Of course not. Does he sound like the kind of guy I would be
hanging out with?” I protested. “You said yourself he had a dirty mouth. I just put two and two together. Anyway, I guess I’d better check in on my father.”

She kept her eyes on me for a minute longer before uncrossing her arms.

“He’s still in his room, hon.”

I found him propped up in his bed, flipping through the latest
Car and Driver
magazine.

“Dad! Are you okay?” I said, perhaps with a little too much concern in my voice.

“Whaddya mean, am I okay? Why wouldn’t I be? The new
C and D
just came through. The meatloaf at lunch tasted a little less like sawdust than the last batch, and I get to have a nap soon. Of course I’m okay. I’m fine.”

“Dad, I mean that big guy, that intruder, did he touch you?”

“What are you yammerin’ about? Some juiced-up Charles Atlas comes in to look around and everyone blows a head gasket,” Dad replied, returning to his magazine. “That happened like four hours ago. I’ve already moved on, and it’d be great if you would, too.”

“Well, just before we move on, what did he want? What did he say?”

“He just asked me my name, so I told him. That was about it.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, he started moving around the room, picking up stuff, and looking at it. When he grabbed the photo of you and your
mother there, and stared at it with this funny look on his face, well, that’s when I told him to shove off.”

“Dad, the guy’s huge. Why would you say something like that to him?”

“He was taking liberties and I didn’t appreciate it. So I did what I always do when people take liberties. I called him on it.”

“What did he do?”

“He just smiled and put the photo back, all gentle-like, and said ‘Whatever you say, old man.’ That kind of pissed me off so I asked him to kindly take his muscle-bound ass out of here. That’s when I pulled the call-stringy thingy.”

“And he walked out? Just like that?”

“He gave me a smirk and said we might be seeing more of each other.

“ ‘Not if I see you first,’ I told him.”

Just then, Yolanda came into the room with Beverley on her arm.

“Nobody tells me anything around here. I just heard the news. Are you all right, Billy?” Beverley asked. “Or is the more appropriate question, is the intruder all right?”

“Oh jeez, here we go again. I’m just fine. Top drawer. Couldn’t be better,” he said. “Look, nothing happened. And it’s over. I can’t tell the story again. Let’s change the subject.”

“Come on, Billy, I don’t have a lot of excitement in my life these days, not counting the pool on the timing of my own impending superstroke royale, of course. So how about cutting an old gal some slack and spilling some details.”

“Beverley, there’s nothing to tell,” Dad started. “Some cocky jerk dragged his big-ass muscles in here to rattle my cage a bit. So I just sent him and his big-ass muscles on their way. End of story.”

“That’s not nearly as exciting as Yolanda made it out to be.”

“I just calls them like I sees them,” Yolanda replied.

She settled Beverley in one of the guest chairs at the foot of the bed and stepped out of the room. I sat down in the chair nearer the head of the bed and fidgeted a bit.

“Okay, what’s going on, young Ev?” Beverley asked. “What’s happened?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Not to your father, because you don’t have a steering wheel and a turbocharged engine. But it’s obvious to me something is rotten in Denmark. How about you tell us?”

I sat there in silence for a minute or two, assessing my options. I didn’t like any of them.

“Okay, well, since I’m apparently an open book, you’re right, I have a bit of a situation on my hands. And I think it’s time I let you both in on it. I could use your help. Dad, Beverley knows part of this story already, but not the whole picture, or what’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.”

Beverley looked worried and leaned forward a little. Dad looked at his magazine and leaned back a little. Beverley slapped his right foot.

“Look alive, Billy, your son is about to tell us a story. And I think you’re going to want to hear it. I know I do.”

“Cripes, can’t an old car guy just read his new mag in peace?”

Beverley answered by shaking her head.

So he closed the magazine, folded his hands across his chest, and nodded to me.

It took me about twenty minutes to get it all out. I held my hand up twice to quell questions from Dad that I was about to answer with the next part of the story. I covered everything from stem to stern – the club, the pole, the blog, the Candace Sharpe plug, the tidal wave of readers, the money I was making from online advertising, the invitations to do major network talk shows, the book deal, Lewis, Shawna and Chloe, the protest rallies, Megan, the mysterious texts, and finally my washroom waltz with the bulked-up beach boy on the way over, who had apparently tangled with my father earlier in the day.

For the most part, neither Dad nor Beverley interrupted me, but I could tell by the way their eyes widened at certain points and Beverley’s hand shot to her mouth during the bathroom bully scene that I’d been able to hold their attention.

“Let me get this straight. The dance pole is actually in your apartment?” Dad asked.

“Your son is terrorized in a public bathroom by a blond behemoth and you ask about the dance pole?” Beverley asked him, shooting him a look of thinly veiled contempt. “That’s the part of the story you want to clarify?”

“What? He’s fine. Look at him,” Dad replied. “I’m just trying to visualize the sweet setup he’s got in his bachelor pad, that’s all.”

“Dad, the pole isn’t in my apartment. So you can dial back the mental picture of naked women swinging around my kitchen. It’s only the nut that anchors the very top of the pole to my floor that’s in my kitchen.”

He looked down and shook his head.

“Too bad.”

Beverley slapped his foot again.

“Focus, Billy. No backsliding,” she scolded. “You’ve come too far to relapse now.”

“Geez, can’t a guy just be a goddamned guy for even a couple of seconds anymore?” he complained. “Okay, so you think the jackass who joined you in the bathroom stall is the same guy who paid me a visit this morning?”

“Sounds like the same guy to me. And it clearly was no coincidence.”

“Thanks, Columbo,” Dad replied.