Dastardly

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

 

 

As the hands on a neon-lit John F. Kennedy clock ground out the last minutes until midnight, the balls at the pool table in The Empress Bar and Grill clacked less frequently, and a vintage Doris Day movie ended with her singing joyously in a pink negligee. It was then that the smokers fled the horseshoe-shaped bar for the confines of an outdoor patio where they shared snide comments about the two strange patrons, who were not Empress regulars and who remained at the bar, engrossed in their conversation.

Marc Viglietti, always known as Vig, turned toward his companion and struggled to admit what had been on his mind all night. “So there’s this new thing, Rod, um, which I wanted to tell you in person. Actually, it's something really new for me because I never thought it would happen. You might just be the person who can advise me…I don’t know how to say it. Prepare for a shock. It's pretty damn...I don't know...horrible or something. Blech.” Vig shivered and the creepy clown head on the back of his black T shirt winked and grimaced.

“Just go ahead, bro,” said Vig’s friend Rodney Monet. "I'm listening."  Rodney's puffy face smiled like a perturbed otter and he tried putting his hands in the pockets of his orange Chubbie shorts. When this failed, he brought them back up to the bar and adjusted the cocktail napkin beneath his beer. "Hit me with it, bro."

“Okay. I suppose the best thing is to come straight out with it then. Oh crap. It’s, it's love, Rodney. Marsha Dell has it bad for me. She's crushing on me.  I mean she's fucking obsessed.”

Rodney drew back from Vig and raised his bushy brows in horror at this monstrous 411 unleased by his friend. “Whaaaat? Marsha? Loves who? You? Are you delusional again? Did you get some peyote from that girl with the greenhouse job?” 

“I wish you’d drop that fascination with the girl from the greenhouse. I do not plan to give you her phone number, by the way.  I know it’s astonishing but,” Vig continued, “Marsha’s gone mad for me. Little old me. It’s all pretty fucking amazing. She's obsessed. And I thought you would say I was crazy."

"Yeah. Well...you thought right."  Rod looked down at his deck shoes without socks and watched them paddling in the air as he listened to Vig.

"Okay, uh, let me tell you the whole thing happens to be very fucking awkward for me. And I thought why not toss it about, bounce it off the wall with old Rodney, my old friend Rod. I should have known you'd be a douche. I’m telling you I'm sure she’s in love with me. I don’t know how to nip this in the bud! She has to stop caring for somebody like me; I’d be terrible for her.”

Drawing back up slowly, Rodney shook his head. “Vig, ah, there is absolutely nothing to nip in the bud. You are out of your fucking mind. She doesn't love you. She barely tolerates you."

Vig swept a section of his hair behind his ear. Vig’s long blonde hair had been dyed oddly; black at the ends with the black blending into the blonde so that a section of greenish-gray hair showed between the blonde top and the black bottom.  He directed his cold gray eyes at his friend. “Marsha Dell does love me. She just happens to practically love me. Practically.” Vig finished his margarita quickly. His pale freckled fingers sported rings with skulls and hunks of turqouise.  

“I don’t know how to tell you this--” began Rodney.

“Yeah?”

“--except to come right out with the fucking truth. You, sir, are the most fucking obnoxious tool I have ever known. Everybody knows it for a fact. Jeez. And you lie. And you’re not very good-looking. If Marsha humors you at all, it’s because you have one good quality which is you are a reliable babysitter for Brooke.”