Drowning Tucson (6 page)

He crawled through the bush, holding her leg down and trying to block her other foot from kicking his face. The girl turned to look for an escape but he pinned her down and lay on top of her, trying to wrestle the egg from her hand. It’s mine. If she’d just stop screaming and give it to me. He pushed her head into the stream then pulled it out again. She spat up water but didn’t let go of the egg. Just gimme it. Pushed her head under again. Gimme. Dunked her head again and held her down, ignoring her kicking and her hands scratching and punching at his neck and face, listening to her screams bubbling up through the water and pulling her hair harder and harder and wishing he’d gone pee before he left the house instead of wetting his pants like a baby, thinking Dad’s gonna beat me when he sees my pants, especially if I don’t come back with the egg, and then the girl finally stopped kicking and lay still and Davey thought good, she’s going to give up and maybe we can be friends. I’ll let her ride my bike and when I get too big for it, I can sell it to her for cheap and then maybe she’ll be my girlfriend, and he held her head underwater a little longer while he felt around her body with his other hand, looking for the egg, and when he located it he felt a calmness in his heart and he rubbed the egg’s sparkling surface with his thumb and crawled off the girl and crouched beneath the bushes to catch his breath and to think of a reason for having wet pants so he could bring the egg to his dad.

He watched the water running through the girl’s hair, thinking how pretty her hair looked all spread out in the stream like that. Like seaweed. Then, when he caught his breath, he scrambled out of the bush and started walking toward his dad, imagining how much fun it’s gonna be to jump the ramp on my first try and with all the kids watching.

Manny came for the tits, but now he didn’t notice them jiggling in his face. He was looking for Vinnie and thinking of the men lining the stage and the way they whooped and yelled and slapped each other’s backs and winked at the topless waitresses walking by, obviously not of the same ilk as the girls deemed worthy of baring not just their breasts but also their neatly shorn crotches in front of the hardworking men who came to the Loveboat at each day’s end. The waitresses didn’t mind getting less attention than the girls on stage, because lord knows we get our share of ass-grabbin and titty-pinchin from the airmen who come across the street from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base at the end of each day in stumbling groups yelling gonna see us some tits tonight and man, the pussy up in this bitch be finuh than hell, and laughing and bellying up to the bar before the lights dimmed and the first stripper took the stage in her ten-inch black leather stiletto go-go boots, with a hyena tattooed on her left ass cheek that laughed at everyone who wanted to touch it.

The DJ—a man with a smug face who loved his job, had even called all of his buddies up the day he landed the Loveboat gig and gloated about how he gets paid to look at naked chicks all night long—told everyone give it up for Desire, and they did, raising their beers in the air and whistling smoky ear-piercing whistles and juggling their dice in anticipation, nodding and grinning and ordering a few spare drinks to hold them over until her set was finished. They did not want to miss a thing. Not even one bead of the sweat dripping between her jugs or
along the small of her back, teasing them, dancing on the edge of her thong, threatening at any moment to dive into the miraculous cavern between her ass cheeks.

By the time Manny had arrived, the Loveboat was already filled with airmen and the stench of testosterone, that overwhelming scent of sweat and smoke and alcohol seeping from a billion pores. Excitement crept down between his legs. He watched Desire hanging upside-down from a brass pole in the middle of the stage with her legs wrapped around it and her hair brushing the ground and her tits covering the bottom half of her face. He made his way to an open spot at the front and center of the stage and sat down, making sure to look directly at the stripper jiggling and slapping her cheeks while she bent over and then ran her middle finger up the length of her crack. The chair next to him was open, so he placed his jacket on the seat to reserve it for Vinnie.

When the waitress came, Manny told her get me a Dos Equis and gave her a slap on the ass, then looked around to see who saw him do it. Another patron in a leather bomber jacket made eye contact with Manny and winked and nodded—the universal look that said we’re paying customers here and we gotta let em know who’s boss.

Manny settled into his seat, laying his head back for a moment, closing his eyes and breathing deeply to regulate his excitable heart. The shouting and laughing sounded more like the men were at a boxing match than a place where they came to admire young, tight, naked women. Boy was Vinnie missing out. Earlier Manny had heard him ribbing some guy at the base, telling him be sure to come out to the Boat tonight, wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea if you keep turning down invitations. Manny hadn’t exactly been invited, but he was sure Vinnie knew him well enough that if he said hi or offered him a beer he’d probably stop and talk to him.

A man behind him talked about how I fucked Yolanda and she’s a freak, man, lets me do all typa crazy shit, the other guy not believing him, saying man, you aint got to fuckin lie about that bitch, and laughing and giving each other some dap then silence while they drank from their beers. To Manny’s left, two black airmen said we’ve got to find us some hoes, ya know, new tail, not this old airbase pussy running around
here on the weekends. Yeah, I’m tired of useless bitches like Vicki pushin her babies down Kolb, hopin to find a daddy for them kids, all used up and lookin for a joint to smoke. Yeah, we can bounce, but first let’s get an eyeful of some of this prime college ass.

Manny covered a smirk with his beer. What do these Air Force punks know about women? Thinking they have them all figured out when they’re just kids themselves. He saw guys like these every day in his office, re-class pilots from other branches of the service who’d seen
Top Gun
one time too many in high school. Didn’t they even know the
Top Gun
pilots were Navy? These chumps parading around as grown men when they’re kids, really, with dreams of showing up in a club like this one and making girls swoon as soon as they see the flashy wings on their bomber jackets. He knew most of them didn’t understand that even during peacetime a good soldier tries to move up in rank. As he had done. With rank comes respect—and women, if that’s the only reason these jokers wear the uniform. A couple flyovers in Honduras, a few classified missions near the Philippines, and they might be able to land a nice commissioned officer post.

Like Vinnie. Now he does the Air Force uniform proud. Ever since his arrival at the base a couple months before, he’d turned heads with the way he made the dull brass on his uniform shine. People often wondered whether he went straight home after work and polished those wings until he passed out. Although he was a first sergeant for a separate company, Manny still admired him from afar, envying the way he managed to look relaxed and formal when he walked, his perfect posture, the way his shoes shone. Immaculate. He wondered how Vinnie would look under the colorful lighting of the Loveboat.

Manny saw the club lights from beneath his closed eyelids every time they passed over his face. After he acclimated himself to the place, he felt ready to look at Desire again, knowing he only had a couple hours before he should get home to Stella and his two boys, thinking at least she thinks I’m out with my officers having dinner, planning promotions and field tests for new planes, which usually means a few drinks afterwards. Even though he knew he would reek of stripper—the distinct flowery smell that wouldn’t wash off completely for days—Stella
would ignore it when he crawled into bed and pretended to be exhausted whispering baby, you’d think I’d get used to dealing with it, but with defense cuts and people always coming into my office to see if their jobs are in danger, the stress is wearing me out, keeping his back to her while she rubbed her foot against his calf and her ass against his back, thinking she was turning him on, Manny closing his eyes and trying to feel sorry for his naked wife behind him, who had been home alone all day getting the house in order and shopping and picking up the kids and making the bed and changing into some sexy clothes she thought he liked, and she persisted, as she always did, slowly sliding her hand across his back and over his chest and down his stomach, rubbing lightly back and forth, and then she would twirl a little tuft of his pubes between her fingers and search around for his cock until she found it resting on his left thigh and she would wiggle it a little bit and giggle in his ear and play with the head, rolling it between her fingers until she felt the slightest reaction, the dimmest pulse of blood, and then she would be reaffirmed and whisper I love you, Manny, and giggle some more as he grew in her hand and he, still trying to ignore her, could not stop his body from reacting to her skillful taunting, growing harder while she coaxed him over onto his back and climbed on top of him, telling him I want you, Manny, I’ve missed you, maneuvering her hips above him to where she could grab his shaft and hold it upright while she slowly eased herself down onto him, a little at a time until he was fully inside her, and she would groan and throw her head back and bob slowly, slowly, talking real sweet to him and smiling until they got into a nice rhythm and he would grab her hips and shove her down on him harder and speed up, doing this out of frustration and necessity, which Stella always misinterpreted as desire, until they were one organism moving and bouncing on the bed, everything around them falling into their rhythm—the bed, the clock, the swamp cooler clicking on and off—and his wife writhing on top of him and scratching his sides and leaning down to bite him on his shoulders and neck and ears over and over and over. But that would be later.

Now Manny spotted Vinnie laughing with a few guys on the other side of the stage and decided he was ready to watch Desire thrust her
tits at him, grabbing them by the nipples and swinging them around like two soggy yams covered in silver glitter. He was pleased that so many of the airmen came out tonight because it made him feel more anonymous. Helped his uniform blend in. Although it wouldn’t be so terrible if someone did notice him, since he only came here two or three times a year. He pretended to be looking for a friend, glancing across the room at Vinnie and his sharp-lined face. He had a smile that only showed his top row of teeth and made him look prestigious. Not an overly toothy smile, which could make guys look ignorant. He had one of those laughs that made Manny want to hear what had been so funny. Apparently Manny wasn’t alone. A group of men surrounding Vinnie seemed to be digesting every word he said, waiting for his punchlines, laughing in all the appropriate places. The men looked at the dancer on stage occasionally, but seemed more engrossed in Vinnie’s conversation. So Manny’s staring went unnoticed.

The next time he looked up at the stage, Desire ripped off her breakaway thong and a gasp went through the crowd. The room filled with the raging sex drive of hundreds of men wishing out loud if I could just get that bitch alone for ten minutes, wanting to touch her, to smell her, to taste her, to shout damn, woman, just gimme one lick. Manny could feel the weight of all the men longing, needing to relieve the tension. Most of the men from the airbase were privates, fresh out of basic, a few of them even virgins. They were easy enough to spot since they still tried to cover their erections with beer bottles or packs of cigarettes or by standing really close to the chairs in front of them.

Everyone on the base knew about the Loveboat, even if they had never been inside. The enormous ship with the crude cement figurehead of a nude woman was out of place on the tiny plot of desert right across from the base, as if many years earlier, when the land was covered in water and the mountains were islands, some Spaniard ran aground, ending his quest to map the ends of the world. The enormous naked torso taunted everyone leaving the gates of the base. It made mothers blush and cover their children’s eyes—though most kids still managed to peek. It caused fights between lovers when a woman noticed the slightest pause in conversation and turned to find her man’s gaze directed at the
enormous cement breasts. If it was dark enough outside, the club’s lights passed through the portholes on the sides of the boat and it looked as if oars were flapping through the air. On cloudy nights, the colossal naked woman appeared to emerge from the darkness with a vessel of lust in tow.