Half tight and feeling his onions, he left the tavern at closing time and danced into Hank’s 24-hour Cafe half a block down the street. He smiled at the big blonde waitress as she approached his table “the prettiest smile” he thought, “on the prettiest face I’ve seen in a week … and the rest ain’t bad either.”
“Hi, Sugar. What’ll it be?”
“Coffee,” he said, “and I like it the way I like my women: blonde and sweet. So dip your finger in the cup and bring me some creamer.” He looked at the name tag on her uniform. “Gertie,” he said. “You wouldn’t be the Dirty Gertie I heard about over at the tavern?
“Could be,” she said. “A girl makes a couple of mistakes with guys who kiss and blab, and the next thing you know she’s labeled for life.”
“A couple of mistakes?” His eyes lit up like he’d just won the lottery. “How’d you like to go for three?”
“I’ll get your coffee,” she replied as she walked away. A minute later she returned with the steaming cup and set it on the table. “I didn’t get your name.” she said.
“That’s a secret known only to me and my birth certificate. My friends call me The Bulldozer. You can call me Bull.”
“Hmmm … Well, you sort of look like a bulldozer: broad shoulders, big biceps … tight buns and thick thighs, the kind of build I go for. Promise to behave and I’ll let you give me a ride home.”
“You got a deal. What time you get off?”
“Seven,” she said, “and one other thing. I also like the big thick sirloin at Rogelio’s, the other 24-hour joint down the street, so don’t forget your wallet.”
A look of disappointment briefly clouded his face. “You mean they don’t feed the help here at Hank’s?”
“Not sirloin, Honey.”
“And Rogelio’s serves sirloin at seven in the morning?
“For me they do.” She leaned forward, a cheek brushing his as she whispered, “I’m something special.”
“Well, I knew that the minute I laid eyes on you.”
She winked and moved to another table, bending over to wipe it with a damp dishtowel. He gazed admiringly at her behind for a moment, then finished his coffee, left a five- dollar bill on the table, and went to the register. He paid for the coffee and stepped out onto the sidewalk still holding his wallet. He examined the contents under the streetlight and found exactly eleven dollars, not enough for two thick sirloins. He looked at his watch. It was a little after two. A sense of desperation began to well up inside him.
He had just moved into town with a highway construction crew, and his workmates had learned the hard way that lending money to The Bulldozer was not a wise thing to do. His pickup was parked at the curb. He opened the door and tilted the seat forward to see if what he wanted was still there. It was; in the storage space behind the seat was not only a tire iron but a ski mask he’d picked up while working with a crew near Aspen. He got in and roared off toward the far side of town.
He found a convenience store that had, conveniently enough, only one vehicle in the parking lot. It probably belonged to the store clerk. He continued down the street, turned left at the corner and came back through the alley, parking far enough back that the security cameras would not be a problem. He pulled on the ski mask, and a minute later he burst through the front door of the store and stopped directly across the counter from the night clerk, the tire iron raised above his head. “Open the cash drawer and give me the money!” he shouted.
Suddenly the clerk was on his feet holding his own tire iron, and The Bulldozer saw that his intended victim was as big and muscular as he was. Both men swung at once and the irons met above the countertop with a sharp clang. The impact caused both tools to go flying, and before Bull could collect his wits, the big clerk had vaulted the counter and had him by the throat with both hands. Bull punched him in the stomach and the man let go and fell back for a brief moment but came charging back and wrapped both arms around Bull, and both men went crashing into an aisle display knocking cans and cartons onto the floor. Rolling on the floor, the two men punched, kicked, and grappled as each tried with a do-or-die fury to disable or pin down the other. Bottles and jars joined the disarray of dented cans and smashed cartons on the floor. Shelves splintered and bags of chips were crushed and ripped. Bull got up and tried to escape, but the clerk tackled him and they crashed against another shelf of merchandise. Bull got hold of a bottle and rapped the clerk across the top of the head and got a punch in the face for his trouble. It was a plastic ketchup bottle and when Bull hit the man again, the cap popped off. The ketchup shot out in a crimson spurt, and the tiles upon which they were struggling soon looked like a slaughterhouse floor. Bull groped a wine shelf and came up with a heavy glass bottle of Zinfandel. He swung again and caught the clerk in the middle of the forehead, and suddenly all was calm except for Bull’s pounding heart and gasping breaths.
He staggered around the counter to the cash drawer, emptied it into a plastic shopping bag, bulldozed the door open with a hip and shoulder and raced to his truck. He started the engine and removed the ski mask, thankful that it had not been ripped off his head in the struggle. Forty minutes later he was in the shower inside his rented trailer.
Coming out of the shower, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and stopped for a closer look. The bruises on his face were not purple yet, but were still a little too red not to be noticed. He wished for that sirloin, not cooked but raw, so he could put it on his left eye. In the refrigerator was a pound of raw hamburger, so he took it out and mashed it into a large patty and lay down on the bed holding it to the left side of his face. At 5:45 he got up and looked at himself in the mirror again. The eye was a bit better, but there were two noticeable scratches, one on his nose and one on his right cheekbone. Band-aids would be even more noticeable than these minor cuts, so he left them alone. He put on his Sunday best, and at 6:50 he waltzed into Hank’s again, his wallet bulging with cash. Gertie noticed him but didn’t come to the table until a few minutes later when the morning shift arrived and assumed its duties. Bull was sitting in a booth by a window, and she slid in on the opposite side of the table with purse in hand. “What happened to you? Don’t tell me the bulldozer met his match?
“That’ll be the day. I had a little disagreement with a guy, but I walked away on my own and he didn’t. You ready for that sirloin at Rogelio’s?
“I been ready for hours; let’s go!”
Fifteen minutes later, they were seated at a table in Rogelio’s and an hour after that they were back in the truck again. “That was good,” said Bull, “but the best is yet to come. Your place or mine?”
“How ‘bout we go to my place first so I can freshen up, and then we’ll go to your place.
“Sounds good to me, Babe; just point the way.”
Bull followed Gertie’s directions, and twenty minutes later he pulled into a narrow driveway alongside a dilapidated frame house in a run-down neighborhood. There was another pickup blocking the drive, so he parked behind it. There were two rows of rose bushes, one along the side of the house, blocking passage around the left side of the truck, and one along the fence, blocking passage around the right side. “We can’t go in the front door,” said Gertie. “My brother sleeps in the front bedroom, and I’m afraid we might wake him. I know it’s going to be hard, but we have to squeeze past those thorny roses and go in the kitchen door towards the back.”
They made it past the rose bushes with only minor scratches, and Gertie opened the sagging screen door and unlocked the inner door. They slipped quietly inside and the air was warm and muggy, so she left the inner door open for ventilation. The screen door had three hook latches: one at the top, one in the middle, and one at the bottom. She latched all three, explaining that the door was warped, and she had installed the extra hooks to keep it tightly closed so the flies wouldn’t get in. “There’s a six-pack of Bud in the fridge,” she said. “Just make yourself at home, and I’ll be back as soon as I shower and change.”
“Okay, but don’t take too long.”
She turned toward the hallway just as the hulking figure of a man in pajamas emerged and stepped into the kitchen. “I recognize that voice,” said the hulk. A bandage was taped to his forehead, and a tire iron was clenched in his right fist. Below the bandage, two eyes blazed with a lust for vengeance. Gertie watched in utter astonishment as The Bulldozer sprang to his feet and performed a feat worthy of his moniker. He ran straight through the middle of the triple-latched screen door, mowed down five rose bushes and sheared an outside mirror off her brother’s truck as he barreled toward his own. Backing out of the driveway with engine screaming, he bulldozed an old galvanized garbage can and landed on top of it as the truck bounced and jumped the curb. He cut the wheels to the right and roared off down the street with the can stuck under the truck, throwing a burgeoning shower of sparks as the can scraped the pavement beneath the accelerating vehicle.
Gertie’s brother limped to her side and placed a hand on her left shoulder. “You sure know how to pick ‘em, Sis.”
