Chuckie stood lonely on the corner, waiting, watery March sun cool and light on his face. He shivered and pulled his thin jacket up around his neck. His blue eyes were sunken and worried and his shoes didn’t match, one was black and the other was brown. He’d been telling everyone he met that he "had another pair at home just like it, heh...heh...".
Three months ago, Digicell Solutions sales rep Chuckie Flagett had been at the top of his game. He slapped down deals like clockwork and fattened the bottom line, to the delight of DigiCell’s stockholders, and took home a paycheck most people couldn’t imagine. Harry Felkrank, CFO, had noticed him.
"Chuckie, ba-bee...", he’d say, pasting on a yellow-toothed smile and high-fiving Chuckie. "You’re a machine, ba-bee! Keep it up, and you’ll have my job, har, har!"
Yes, Chuckie was riding high, all right. He was thirty-one, financially secure, and ready now, he thought, to maybe look for a girlfriend. He didn’t have a clue how to go about it, even though he’d read "The One Minute Gigolo" cover-to-cover. He didn’t really want to be one of those, although there were some pick-up techniques described that seemed doable. In his fantasies, he saw himself as a world class alternative martial arts champion, a whipmaster, maybe, being mobbed by hordes of adoring female fans tripping over themselves just to touch him.
Back here in reality, though, Chuckie was afraid of women. Very afraid. He was also easily intimidated, and had a lifelong habit of running away tongue-tied and sweaty, whenever any girl got too close.
But that was all three months ago. Today, he was jobless, bank accounts drained, and would soon be homeless unless he could make this deal happen. All he had to do was drive a vanload of shmutz from Gypsytown to Omaha. That’s all. The money would equal his last seven months at DigiCell. At least it was something. He’d just do it this once, he told himself, until he got back up on his feet. Just this once.
Yes, that insidious substance, shmutz, had claimed another victim. Chuckie had joined the throngs of shmutz addicts that walked the funky streets of the Greater North Bergen Metro area, neither here nor there, but talking constantly. It seemed as if the entire city was a-murmer, agitated, running and couldn’t stop. That was the thing about shmutz. You couldn’t just keep quiet, and didn’t want to, either.
Chuckie was at the Cucaracha Club one night, sipping an O’Doul’s when an attractive redhead, all sinuous curves and smily lips, sidled towards him in a full frontal assault.
Chuckie couldn’t talk, hell, he couldn’t even stammer. He looked at the woman, watching her lips move, but didn’t hear anything. His heart hammered so loud in his chest, it drowned out all else. He stumbled off his barstool, dropped his glass, accidently kicked over a chair, then stepped on his own hand while trying to pick it all up.
In the brief awkwardness that followed, he somehow got some words out.
"S...s...sorry about that...uh, I’m Chuck Flagget. How do you do?"
She held out her wrist. "I’m Lydia. Why don’t you join me and my friends?" Her eyes were bright, face flushed.
"I...I...uh...
Lydia took over.
"Lance!" She knew the club manager. He sent a helper over to clean everything up. She took Chuckie’s trembling hand in hers and pulled him across the room to a candlelit booth. A willowy blond sat holding hands with a...a...honest-to-god beatnik, complete with black beret and goatee.
"Chuck, this is Lothario and Claretta."
Lothario stood, mumbled something, and offered one hand and raised the other fist in the air.
"Wh...what?" Chuckie didn’t quite catch it.
"He said he could dig it. Hi. Nice to meet you." Claretta was pleasant and genuine, and Chuckie’s jitters went away.
Lydia pulled Chuckie down beside her and motioned the waitress over. "I’ll have another blueberry schnapps,...Chuckie?
Chuckie was on the spot. He didn’t really drink, but it might be alright...yeah.... "Uh...I’ll have a Mai-Tai". He had no idea what a Mai-Tai was, and when the glass with the little pink umbrella came, he wanted to crawl under the table.
No problem. Lydia traded him glasses, and twenty minutes later, he ordered more schnapps, then asked to see the karaoke song list.
Chuckie was feeling good. Real good. His karaoke rendition of "Piece ‘O My Heart" drew a houseful of drunken applause and screams for an encore. He seized the moment and crooned his slightly off-key version of "It Had To Be You", and actually looked directly at the bar audience once or twice.
Chuckie didn’t get much applause this time. He stumbled back to the table and a beaming Lydia.
"You were fantastic!" She slid an arm around his neck and pulled his face down to hers.
"Wh...th...thanks. Uh...I always wanted to do that". Somehow he managed to get seated with Lydia hanging onto him. Chuckie was starting to loosen up now, and it felt good. He ordered another drink.
"Chuck, do you know what this is?" Lydia pulled a small glass vial from her purse and held it just below the edge of the table, where no one else but Chuckie could see. It glowed gold, effervescent contents slow boiling.
"Uh, is it....uh..."
"Yes, it is!"
"Shmutz?"
"Shhh!" She looked over her shoulder. "You have to be careful, the feds..."
