Jack's Dead (a broken circuit story...kinda)

I never knew the guy. I was riding with Louie, taking a trip to Browntown because he’d forgotten his license at the poolhall, or at the campus library. I don’t remember which, just that he’d traveled twenty-six miles and received a phone call before coming to his senses to actually go pick up the thing.

I wasn’t up to much myself, just hanging on to the last shred of decency that was my sex life as I was about to masturbate to granny porn when the phone rang. It was Louie asking me if I wanted to tag along. I looked at the old woman, probably a little over sixty, about to get a young, creepy looking fellows mushroom tip thumped into her ass and told him yes, I would. I finished beating it, then changed my clothes. I’m pretty sure I remembered to wash my hands.

“You’re chariot awaits, senor” Louie said over my phone. I went outside, freshly dressed, newly awaken and there he was in his black Eclipse that desperately needed a wash, but the clouds overhead were sprouting gray, so he decided he’d wait another day in case they decided to spring a leak; perhaps, a few thousand leaks.

The cruise was peaceful while the stereo blasted Madonna, coming from the ipod that he’d purchased recently. He’d worked with the thing so often he’d mastered all of the extra goodness that came with it, other than just using it as a workout motivator, strapped to the arm. His car battery was saving a large amount of energy.
“I like Madonna. Fuck off,” he told me.

“What the fuck, man. I like her too. Pre-Vogue Madonna, anyway. I have her fuckin’ greatest hits.”

“Me too,” he said. “The Immaculate Collection, baby.”

We went through Material Girl, then changed it to Iron Maiden’s Somewhere In Time, starting off with Stranger in a Strange Land. Beyond that song, we ended up at the campus. That was where he’d left it. We went to the bookstore. He’d bought some book for the upcoming semester, used his credit card, flashed the i.d., got the credit card back, but left the driver’s license with his ugly mug at the register.

“Dude,” he said while waiting in line to ask for his license. “I’m so wired, right now. I’ve had enough caffeine to kill a horse. Look at me.” His hand hung in the air, shaking as a leaf would when the wind felt like being a bully.

“That’s exactly what I need,” I told him.
Recently, the bookstore had added on to it a Starbucks coffee shop. I went over, had myself a tea with some caffeine to kickstart my morning/afternoon. Louie asked if I’d buy him bottled water, but I told him he owed me some highway head on the way home. He agreed. “You are a fucking slut,” I said.

As I waited for my tea, I was admiring the young black girl behind the first counter at the bookstore. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-two, with a lovely face, kind I wouldn’t mind seeing in the middle of sex, and a body that I wouldn’t mind touching in the middle of having sex with it. The clinker for me was when she started dancing when some song with a beat came on. I can’t really say more than that. I wasn’t up on whatever Top 40 hits were out there, nor was I interested. It was nice watching her move though.

Her toes were already hitting my ceiling when the server from Starbucks announced my tea being ready. I grabbed it, then Louie and I were back on the road, jamming out to some band we’d seen in Corpus, opening for Rob Zombie. Sinnistarr. They weren’t that good, but Louie was into any band that looked evil enough, and these guys were the entire history of Nikki Sixx’s image combined into one band. The bass player reminded me of the Theater of Pain Nikki, while the guitar player was Girls, Girls, Girls, Nikki. The keyboardist was more Dr. Feelgood Nikki, and so on. All black hair, black leather, and a colorful bandanna around the wrist or leg. The singer was just balding and had dreads in the back of his head. I never understood it, and stopped trying.

We were through the third song when Louie told me. “Did you hear about Jack?”

“What Jack?” but it clicked. “Oh, Aurora’s ex?”

“Yeah.”

“No. What?”

“He’s dead.”

My eyebrows peaked. “The fuck?”

“Yup.”

“Man. The drug lords finally came after him, huh.”

Louie stopped calmed his laughter and said, “Nah. Car crash. Some drunk bastard nailed him head on.”

“Ouch,” I exclaimed.

“It turns out me and Vince are related to that fucker.”

“No shit.”

“Yeah, man. We showed up at the rosary, and my mom and dad were there, our cousins were there; it was so weird.”

“I’ll bet.” The road picked up the conversation without us, telling us that there was a gas station we could stop at that was serving tacos, and that some optometrist was offering lacic surgery.

“Jack’s dead,” I said.

“He’s dead,” Louie confirmed.

“Dude, check out this band.”

End