19390722 16:38:05

19390722 16:38:05

IA-S-1600

Three innings were completed with the Baltimore Elite Giants leading the Daron Legion six runs to one. The former team's domination shown no sign of slowing down this afternoon. Torrence was not particularly pleased to see the game already in this condition.
"Shit, this keeps up, I'm gonna insist on plus three hundred for an opening line."
"Eh, I didn't even get a lot of action on my lines going up on two fifty today. You ought to be fine." Western gave his words a pronounced end with a swig from his beer cup.
"Yeah. You know what bothers me more right now? Did I tell you about Jeff?"
"That's your wife's friend's kid, right? The jerk? Yeah, what about him now?"
"Well see it was his birthday this week, and so Tricia takes it upon herself to bake a cake for him. Makes a real nice chocolate one, thick frosting and all. The day he's set to come over for the visit, he walks in the door, and we're all sittin there in the front room, me, Trish, and Mark, right? We're sitting there and he knocks and opens the door and walks right to Mark without so much as even saying hello to me or her, without even taking his shoes off at the door, and goes right to Mark to show off some god damned baseball card he just got."
"Yeah, that sounds like a jerk thing to do."
"Right, I'd say so. Later on, Trish calls them out from Mark's room to come to the table so that we can present the cake. We gather round and sing Happy Birthday to him and he just sorta nods towards the cake like he's trying to shut us all out, and afterwards he just walks off back to Mark's room without even saying 'excuse me' or thank you to my wife for the fucking cake. Completely oblivious. And now Trish, she doesn't say so out loud to her friend while she's there, but you can see it on her face that she's saddened by that. She put in all that time to do something nice, and for what? For what?"
"Lord. Doesn't he learn any manners from anywhere? His Mom? School? Anything?"
"Seems not. Of course, his Mom says it all sweet like 'Oh he was very happy to have the cake, I can tell' and buttering it all up, but I could smell the bullshit from her mouth as she spit it out. Oh, hah, on that note. I had to light a damn cigar every time that kid was near me after he shown up. I don't know how he bathes or whatever the fuck it is, but it isn't enough."
"Man, are you serious? I guess if you live with it you can't tell, but, heh, that's just scary to think about. That reminds me." Western took up a fresh cigar from the metallic holder inside his suit pocket and held a match under it for several seconds while he dragged the tobacco to life.
"Scarier to be around, trust me. And ain't it all fucked up. All the shit we deal with respect. If that kid was just someone on the street, I'd have reason to kick his ass just for being rude to me, much less making my wife feel like shit. Kid acts like that and can't even make eye contact with me when he speaks, and he walks around with his clothes all disheveled and looking like a fucking bum and basically smelling like a fucking bum, and because you're some kid who is a friend of the family, all I can do is bite my tongue and feel myself burn up inside."
"Why don't you at least call the kid out on his shit?"
"Sometimes I do, but I can't treat it like normal. I want to keep my wife's happiness in balance, and she insists that her and her friend talk about things on the side to try to address the really bad things. That's the whole basis behind all of this. It's more her problem than mine, technically. Sooner or later, though, that won't be the case, as long as he keeps coming around my place at least. Maybe sooner. I mean, shit, it wouldn't be an issue if whatever they talk about to fix the problems actually worked."