THE DESERT SONS CH 7 : FRESCO

[The Urbane Spaceman]

Joey rode bitch.

This is an old term that means he rode on the motorcycle and he was not operating it. Brian the Biker rode along the suburban side roads, waking all the dogs and babies with his loud bike.



Brian kept hitting the large puddles in the streets form the water sprinkler runoff of all the pretty lawns.


Joey yelled into his ear. He said, “Stop doing that! You’re getting my suit all wet!”


Brian nodded and kept doing it anyway. Joey would tell me later that he began to wonder if the biker was jealous of him.



They rumbled into the parking lot of a tiny but venerable place to eat. DiCicco’s. They served the best meatballs in town, and there were real frescoes painted upon its dining room walls.



Joey hopped off the motorcycle and looked down at his suit. It looked like he had been blasted by a mud gun. He shouted. He said, “You fucking asshole! You did this on purpose!”

Brian shouted back. He said, “I can’t hear you! The motor is too loud!” He gunned his engine, laughed and rode off into the night.



Joey took his jacket off and flapped it up and down hard to get the mud off. His wallet flew out, hit the ground, and his paper money fluttered about the parking lot. Joey growled and shouted and cursed and almost cried at one point as he chased it about, reaching under cars and in bushes. You know, he didn’t bring all of his earnings from the coke with him. That would have been foolish. But now, he might not have enough money to cover their meal. He recounted it and looked all around the parking lot one more time before going inside.

He was all sweaty.





Joey nodded at the little old man who approached him from the kitchen. “Hi Mr. DiCicco, how’s Mama DiCicco?”

Mr. DiCicco said, “Joseph! Where have you been? You used to be one of our best customers. Mama’s doing good, thank you for asking.”




Joey said, “I been busy, you know, trying to make ends meet. Is there a woman here who looks like she is waiting for someone to show up?”

Mr. DiCicco said, “You trolling for a bite from your pole? Or you expected by her, eh?” Then he winked and smiled.



Joey laughed. He said, “I been keeping her waiting. I’m kind of hot and sweaty.”

Mr. DiCicco said, “I know this woman you mean. She called to make the reservations, but she hasn’t showed up yet. Come with me now.”



Joey followed him back into the kitchen. The cook looked up and he said, “Joseph, where the heck you been you little shit?”


Joey waved back, and said, “Hey Donnie, I been f—“ then he looked at Mr. DiCicco as the old man got to the office door and turned around.

Joey said, “Uh, I been kissing your girlfriend while you work. Have a nice night!”

The cook laughed and went back to his sauces.




Inside the office, Mr. DiCicco pointed to a chair, so Joey sat in it. He looked at all of the black and white pictures in the tiny frames hanging on the walls. He said, “These all your relatives on the walls?”

Mr. DiCicco said, “Not all of them. I got many more. These are the good people, from the old country.” Then he turned around and held out a white shirt and a black suit jacket.



Joey said, “What is this?”

Mr. DiCicco said, “I always keep spares in this closet in case I get the red sauce on my suit. I can’t afford to look like a slob here. These ones are from the back of the closet. I used to be able to fit them. These are for you, on your date tonight, so that you don’t look the way you do right now.”


Joey held whistled. He said, “Wow. This is really good of you Mr. DiCicco. You have no idea.”

Mr. DiCicco said, “Ah, it’s nothing. You can bring them back, pressed, the next time you come here to eat again. Deal?”


Joey shook his hand. He said, "That’s a deal. I’ll bring my friends with me and we’ll laugh and eat a lot of food.”

Mr. DiCicco smiled and waved Joey off to go use the private washroom.



+ + + + +



Joey sat at the table inside of the wall. This is known as a secluded booth. Not many knew about this little room. It was a special place for special guests, and he never had been shown to it before. Most certainly, he’d heard about it and asked for it many times in the past because he wanted to know why it was so special, but it was always reserved for someone else.

Sometimes, Joey and his date would finish their meal and the reserved guests had not shown up. He finally accepted his fate and came to understand that there were some rules at play of which he knew very little. He also understood that if these rules were not revealed to him, then he should never ask about them.




Tonight, however, Mr. DiCicco ushered him to it. It was located behind a tapestry, and once inside, a cool breeze from air conditioning calmed his frazzled nerves. In the center of the table sat a bottle of Banfi, replete with the reed wrap halfway up the belly of the bottle. Mr. DiCicco pulled the cork out and offered that to Joey. Joey smelled it and winked back. He knew that it was going to breathe until his date arrived.




Mr. DiCicco left, and Joey looked around. On the walls, the frescoes were not faded form the bright desert sunshine. These images were of an older time; an older land, far away, and they were vibrant.


There were bright red tomatoes that glowed in green rows in a dark, rich-soiled field. The earth there looked like chocolate cake.

The ceiling was domed in this tiny room, painted blue, and a tiny recessed light glowed behind a paper circle of yellow. It represented Sol.


This light made the frescoes glow and cast their own light. It truly was a secluded world in the hidden booth.


Joey pored over his menu and felt shame. He wanted to make a good impression on his date, but some of his dirty money was gone, blowing away in the desert outside.

Maybe some poor kid would find a dollar and buy himself a candy bar. Most likely, someone else would discover it, and buy himself a bottle of cheap screw-top wine for the night. That idea made Joey chuckle. He like that one.


He looked at the child’s menu and saw that, yes, there were still tiny portions of American food offered for the little, fickle people, and this food cost much less.

He considered buying those for only a moment.

He knew that doing such a thing would insult his host.

He was at a loss. Mind you, nobody but the very wealthy had cell phones back then, and those were the size of briefcases. He was not going to call anyone to come save him form his sad state of monetary affairs. He didn’t have a credit card either. It would be years before he got one of those.



It was because of his concentration upon his own misery while sitting there in a secret place for the rich, that he jumped up when the tapestry slid away and Mr. DiCicco smiled at him. He said, “May I present to you your date.”



A young woman in a green dress came into view. It was silk, and it hugged her curvy figure. Joey looked up her thighs, across her décolletage, and up into her green eyes. Her black hair draped down across her shoulders in wavy fronds. Joey stood there and got a boner and almost knocked over his water. His glass settled back down and Joey held out his hand.


He said, “Hi there. I’m the Lion Man.”

She placed her soft hand into his and said, “I’m The Flower. Pleased to meet you.”



+ + + + +



I sat at the table in the shitty apartment and looked back on all the bad things we had been doing. What was this now, this new path?


How many more bad things would we be getting ourselves into? How many more steps on these stones, and how far away was the final destination?


My rum was all gone, mostly thanks to the biker, but there was still beer and cigarettes. That was my supper. My evening meal was beer, cigarettes and bad thoughts of evil things.



I did not want to be a party to this anymore.

It was too much.

I sat there, feeling sorry for myself.

I felt so sorry for myself that I lit a candle and I wrote by candlelight.


I wrote a letter to my grandmother. I wanted to confess to somebody, and she had never held judgement against me.


Looking back, I think that I had a sense of what it was to have unconditional love form someone.


I just didn’t know that I was lucky to have it at all.

I was an asshole to have left it back in my homeland, untended to, un-watered, to wither and wilt away.



What I did not know was that such a thing, by its very nature, will never die, even if the person who holds it for you dies.


So I sat there in the half light, feeling sorry for myself, and I wrote a letter to my grandmother.

In my drunken state, I taped loose change onto the envelope and went out to the mail drop in the quad area by the big yellow X on the lawn, and I stuffed that love letter through the slit until it fell inside and the change fell off and rolled around.

I couldn’t open the box to take it back out and fix it.


It was locked.


I butted out my cigarette on the fucking thing and staggered back in and passed out on the couch.


I didn’t know that the friggin letter made it back to my grandmother, until later. It was at the end of these tales that this fact was revealed to me.



It was the only reason that I was rescued from Fuckno.




.

[oldsmartskunk]

stood there and got a boner and almost knocked over his water.

Sounds vaguely familiar. A good way impress or repel your date! Another great story.
Sitting in a dark room, smoking and drinking while your friend tries to set up a drug deal and possibly hook up. You couldn't have had positive thoughts that night. That's when reality sets in. Gravity of the situation hits you in the anus and makes your balls shrivel.

[oettinger]

Didn`t know that urb had to be rescued outta there, always wondered about it.
Urb must have been still very young of age at the time, cause after a decade-plus of drinking etc. you don`t feel sorry for yourself anymore.
Cheers!