Crazy Little Thing (3 page)

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

Ollie
and Claire stood on the sidewalk and watched Scarlet walk a wide circle around
the van, studying it from every angle. Scarlet read aloud each bumper sticker:
Surfers
do it standing up. Honk if you’re horny. Vagina is for lovers. I brake for
boobs. Butthole Surfers.

Scarlet
raised an eyebrow at Ollie. “Quite a collection.”

Ollie
smiled proudly. “Thank you. It’s my quest to get a bumper sticker from every
state I drive through.”

“Quest?”

“Yeah,
you know how most people get a fridge magnet from where they visit. I’m
collecting bumper stickers.”

“It’s
an admirable goal,” Claire said.

Ollie
couldn’t tell if Claire was mocking her or not. She felt like a little kid
around Claire. Why was it that she felt responsible and grown-up until she was
face-to-face with Claire? Then she felt like a twelve-year-old boy with a
hard-on. The hard-on part was okay. The twelve-year-old part not so much.

G-Ray
joined Ollie on the sidewalk. “Has it passed inspection?”

“Not
yet,” Ollie said.

“I
still need to look inside,” Claire said.

“It
smells like corn nuts and gym socks in there,” G-Ray said helpfully. “But you
get used to it after a couple of miles.”

Ollie
poked him in the ribs with her elbow. “Shhhh.”

Claire
slid open the door and leaned inside, her butt aimed right at Ollie. Ollie took
a moment to appreciate the sight. Other people traveled the world over to
admire the Great Wall of China or the Great Pyramids of Giza. Ollie didn’t even
have to leave her hometown to admire the Great Ass of Claire.

G-Ray
knew a money shot when he saw one.  He quickly turned on his camera and zoomed
in on Claire’s ass sticking out of the van.

Ollie
saw where the camera was aimed and made a slashing motion across her throat at
G-Ray. He smiled sheepishly and moved the camera’s focus to the tower of
suitcases stacked on the sidewalk.

Oscar
barked from inside the van.

Claire
straightened and looked over her shoulder at Ollie. “Please tell me that’s not
a dog I just saw.”

Ollie
smiled. “That’s not a dog you just saw.”

Oscar
yipped.

Ollie
shrugged. “What I meant to say is, that’s no ordinary dog. It’s Oscar. He’s my
baby.”

At
the sound of Ollie’s voice, Oscar bounded out of the van and leaped into
Ollie’s outstretched arms. He licked Ollie’s cheek.

“Your
baby is wearing a hefty bag,” Scarlet observed.

“It’s
not a hefty bag,” Ollie said. “It’s a home-made rain coat.”

Scarlet
was not amused. She cocked an eyebrow at Ollie. “Color me dumb, but why is the
dog wearing a raincoat?”

G-Ray
jumped in with the answer. “It’s not so much a raincoat as it is a condom.
Like, a doggie condom. So what’s inside can’t get out.”

“Oh
my God,” Scarlet muttered, “What usually comes out of that dog?”

“Claire
is allergic to dogs, right?” Ollie said. “So, this was my solution. It keeps
the doggie dander in.”

“How
do you know what I’m allergic to?” Claire asked.

Ollie
pulled a sheet of paper out of her back pocket. Neat lines of printed
handwriting were scrawled on the front and back. “Scarlet wrote out this list
and had it couriered over to me,” Ollie began to read from the top: “
Things
Claire is allergic to
… Here we go, right here,
Doughnuts. Dander. Dandruff.
Daffodils. Dogs. Dildos. Dumb jokes. Ducks. Dill pickles…”

Claire
ripped the paper out of Ollie’s hands. “Let me see that!”

“And
that’s just the Ds,” Ollie said.

“You
gave this to her?” Claire asked Scarlet.

Scarlet
nodded. “As your current fiancé it is in my best interest to make sure your
well-being is… being well.”

Claire
made a deep guttural sound, furiously wadded up the paper and shoved it into
her mouth. And chewed. Ollie and G-Ray stared curiously. Oscar barked.

“Spit
that out right now!” Scarlet shrieked. She turned to Ollie and said, “She’s
allergic to paper! Make her spit it out before she has an allergic reaction.”

“I
can’t do anything,” Ollie said. “She’s the mistress of her own destiny.”

Scarlet
held her palm in front of Claire’s nose. “Spit it out. Spit it out now.”

Claire
shook her head and gulped three times. “All gone.”

Scarlet
whipped around to Ollie and pointed one long, red fingernail at her. “This is
all your fault. If she dies from intestinal blockage, I’ll hold you
responsible.”

“I’m
not going to die,” Claire said. “Now help me get all these suitcases loaded.”

“Um…
about that,” Ollie said. “We only have room for one suitcase per person.”

“If
my luggage doesn’t go, I don’t go.”

“You
don’t understand, Claire. There’s not enough room.”

Claire
crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Ollie. “Then something is going
to have to go.”

“Wake
me up before you go-go!” a voice exclaimed from the direction of the van.

Everyone
turned. EZ stood grinning in the open door. Ollie and G-Ray shouted simultaneously,
“Wham!” They high-fived each other.

“Whatever
happened to George Michael anyway? I mean after he was arrested for giving
blowjobs in the men’s bathroom,” G-Ray said.

“I always
thought he was gay,” Ollie said.

“It was the
hair. That was definitely a gay man’s hair-do,” G-Ray added.

“He’s
gay? He’s arrested? When?” EZ asked.

“Like
1998,” Claire said. “Who are you?”

“1998?”
EZ’s smile wilted. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled to the
floor of the van, snoring deeply.

 “Who
the hell was that?
What
the hell was that?” Scarlet asked.

“That’s
EZ. We’re giving her a co-producer credit so she’s on the payroll,” G-Ray said.
“She’s a narcoleptic.”

“I
hope she’s not driving,” Scarlet said.

“Nah,
she mostly sleeps. We had to bring her with us cause we couldn’t find a
babysitter,” G-Ray said.

“A
babysitter?” Scarlet said.

“She’s
our roommate,” Ollie explained.

Claire
put her hands on her hips and faced Ollie. “Now about my luggage…?”

EZ’s
sudden entrance and exit had given Ollie an idea. One that would make Claire
happy and, by extension, everyone else happy, too.

“I
think I can make room in the van,” Ollie said.

*

Half
an hour later they were on the road. Ollie was driving. Oscar,
sans
raincoat/condom,
was in Ollie’s lap. Claire sat shotgun. G-Ray was hunkered over the tiny
fold-down table playing back the footage he had shot. The bed was heaped with
Claire’s suitcases.

On
top of the van, stretched out across Ollie’s surfboard, was EZ. She was wrapped
in a hefty bag like a big plastic burrito and secured in place by bungee cords.
She was sleeping like a baby.

Everyone
was happy.

The First Two Hundred Miles

At
the twenty mile marker:

“I’m
sorry about Scarlet’s behavior,” Claire said from the passenger seat. “She can
be a bit overbearing until you get to know her.”

“And
after you get to know her she’s just a bitch?” Ollie asked.

*

At
the fifty mile marker:

“Why
did you bring your surfboard with you? Last I heard Des Moines is landlocked,”
Claire said.

Ollie
let go of the steering wheel, squinted her eyes, teepee’d her hands under her
chin and said with a bad Confucius accent, “Ahso… surfboard isn’t always
surfboard. Sometimes is more than surfboard.”

*

At
the one hundred mile marker:

Claire
squirmed in her seat, trying to discreetly scratch her bottom.

“You
know what I think?” Ollie said. “I think you’re not allergic to all that stuff.
I think it’s all in your head.”

Claire
harrumphed the idea. “Tell that to my butt. It’s covered in hives.”

Ollie
turned loose of the steering wheel, cupped her hands around her mouth, and
leaned down towards Claire’s butt. She yelled, “Excuse me, Claire’s butt? This
is Ollie. Remember me? Yes, I miss you, too. So listen, enough with the hives
already. The hives are psychosomatic.”

“Drive!”
Claire yelled.

Ollie
grabbed the wheel and swerved just in time to avoid running off the road.

*

At the one hundred twenty mile marker
:

Ollie whisper-shouted back to G-Ray, “Hey!  Get your
camera rolling. I want this on tape.” She pointed over at Claire.

G-Ray leapt into action. He crouched near Claire’s
bucket seat and aimed the camera at her. Claire was sleeping against the door,
her head vibrating against the window. Oscar slept in her lap. A small drip of
saliva oozed out of the corner of Claire’s mouth.

“She’s going to kill me when she sees this,” G-Ray
said.

“No, she won’t,” Ollie said. “She’ll kill me.”

*

At the two hundred mile marker:

A sports car pulled up to within inches of the van’s
bumper and blasted its horn three times. Ollie peered into her rearview mirror.
She dropped off the accelerator and veered as far right as she could. She
rolled down her window, stuck her arm out and waved for the car to go around
her, saying, “C’mon and pass me, if you’re in such an all-fired hurry.”

Claire sat up straight in her seat and gave the car
the evil eye as it passed them. She leaned over and glanced at the speedometer.
“What’s the rush? Fifty-five not fast enough for them?”

The sports car passed them and beeped their horn
twice in thanks. It was dragging a length of tin cans from its rear bumper.
Soaped across the back window were the words “Just married.”

Ollie and Claire stared straight ahead as the just-married
couple raced to their honeymoon, obviously anxious to start their new life
together.

G-Ray caught the whole thing on tape.  He shut off
the camera and said, “Doods… That was, like, irony. Am I right? Film-matic
irony at its best.”

Neither Ollie nor Claire responded.

*

At the two hundred and fifty mile
marker:

Claire rummaged around in the glove box. She
victoriously pulled out a CD. “Aha! At last! Civilized music.”

She ejected the Butthole Surfers CD and stuck in the
new one. After a few seconds, Elvis began singing about a hound dog crying all
the time.

“I didn’t know you liked Elvis,” Ollie said.

Claire responded, “There are lots of things you
don’t know about me.” She turned the music up so loud that talking became
impossible and an air of infectious high spirits overtook them. Ollie played
the drums on her steering wheel. Claire sang at the top of her lungs. G-Ray
strummed air guitar and did the world’s worst Elvis impersonation.

Even Oscar wasn’t immune. He sat up straight in
Claire’s lap, stretched out his neck and howled along with them.

Scarlet Speaks

Scarlet stared at the camera without blinking. “I’m not
liking this. I’m not liking this at all. This was not on my list. You want to
see my list? I have it right here. I never go anywhere without it.”

Scarlet held up a spiral notebook close to the
camera’s lens. The notebook had a picture of a rainbow and a unicorn on the
front cover and was covered with sparkles.

“I’ve had this notebook since the seventh grade. I
still love unicorns. They’re my signature animal.”

She opened the notebook and flipped through the pages.
“Here it is. My list. It is entitled
My Dream Life and How to Achieve It in
Seven Steps
.”

She cleared her throat and read with an air of reverence,
“Number One: Graduate High School.
”

She ticked off an imaginary box in the air, saying,
“Check.”

Scarlet alternated reading from the list and
checking off air-boxes. “
Number Two: Graduate College
. Check.
Number
Three: Travel Europe and experiment with hashish and hot European chicks.
Check.
Number Four: Get job that pays extremely well.
Check.
Number
Five: Get liposuction as necessary
. Check.
Number Six: Buy house and red
convertible
. Check.
Number Seven: Get married to older woman who has a
great job by the time I am thirty
.”

She slapped the notebook closed and glared at the
camera. “Number Seven is not checked and I will be thirty in less than six
months. And why isn’t it checked? Because this Ollie person who doesn’t even
own a pair of long pants or have an IRA is married to the woman I love!”

She wrapped her well-manicured fingers around her
own throat and acted like she was strangling herself. “Aaaarrrrggghhhh!”

She took a deep breath and collected herself. After
three deep breaths, she squinted at the camera and growled, “Nothing stops
Scarlet Luann Bronson from getting what she wants.” She shook her fist at the
camera and said in a tone reminiscent of her namesake from
Gone with the
Wind
, “With God as my witness, I shall never go hungry again.”

She settled back in her chair and lifted her chin
triumphantly. “A little FYI on me… I once performed Farrah Fawcett’s monologue
from
The Burning Bed
in the talent portion of the Miss Houston Beauty
Pageant. I won second runner up and was awarded a trophy and a year’s supply of
frozen mountain oysters.”

Scarlet picked up a stuffed lavender unicorn and
snuggled her face into it. She said in high-pitched baby-talk, “Isn’t that
right, Bubbles? Nothing stops us from getting what we want.” She kissed Bubbles
the Unicorn on the nose.

The camera turned off.