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“What about Froggy and No-Wood?” some drunk in the back yelled.

“Let them play CORNHOLERS VERSUS RECTUM REAMERS with one-man teams!” somebody else yelled.

Drunken cheering and clapping filled the room.

“Great idea,” Bones told the two scared pledges. “Here's how you play it,” he said straight-faced, like he was explaining the basic moves of chess. “You flip a coin to see who's first. That guy chooses if he's going to be the fuckee, who gets fucked or the fuckor, who does the fucking.”

Wide-eyed panic showed on both pledges' faces in the absolutely silent room. Nobody moved. Froggy and No-Wood were probably praying for somebody to tell them this was a joke. But nobody did. Time stood still. I stared down at my ruined right shoe, trying not to laugh by reliving that hellish motorcycle ride.

Involuntarily I looked up for an instant. The two pledges were rigid and speechless.

“Froggy,” Christianson yelled out. “I'm making you the fuckor. No-Wood's the fuckee.”

“100-1 they chicken out,” Bookie offered.

There were no takers.

Somebody tossed a tube of KY at No-Wood's feet. “Let's get going. Lube-up your ass.”

Neither pledge moved.

“We're counting to ten,” Christianson ordered. “Start or get out.”

“One-two-three-four-five,” the count began slowly as both pledges stood there like terrified manikins. “Six-seven-eight-nine-ten.”

Still there was no movement except No-Wood's slight shaking and Froggy's teeth-grinding.

“Both you guys,” Bones snarled, “make like a douche and get the fuck out of here!”

For about five seconds neither pledge moved. Finally Froggy's head dropped down so his chin hit his T-shirt. He swallowed slowly and did a poor job holding back his tears before he dashed out of the room and up the stairs with No-Wood red-faced behind him.

Jesus! I couldn't believe my good fortune! I felt like a lottery winner. Just like that, two more pledges were gone leaving only eleven.

“Do we all make it since there's only eleven pledges left?” Dung asked.

“Hell no,” Adams answered. “The Rule of Eleven means that no more than eleven can make it but it can be less.”

“And it will be,” Christianson said quickly. “Tomorrow's Pledge Elimination Night. And like on
Survivor
, you guys are going to vote out a member of your pledge class.”

For whatever reason, Angelo was still holding the photo of me and Jody, and was saying something to Stovepipe that I couldn't hear, showing Stovepipe the photo.

“Wait a minute,” Stovepipe snapped, rudely grabbing the
picture from Angelo's hand. “Let me see that again.” He stared at it with his raccoon eyes for a few seconds before he screamed, “That's no fucking girl! That's a drag queen! I seen her on the pier before! She works there somewhere! On one of the rides! I think the Ferris wheel or merry-go-round or roller coaster! One of them!” He paused for a second to catch his breath before smiling brightly at me through still-puffy lips. “Stafford. You just blackballed yourself out of here. You know the no gay sex rule! Your picture here proves this guy kissed your dick!” He held up the photo. “Take a close look, you guys. It's obviously a guy!”

Checking it out again, most of the crowd agreed. Then Stovepipe grabbed Batman's and Vysell's photos and examined them closely, also.

“Same guy here too,” he screamed out triumphantly. “All three of you faggot-lovers are gone!”

Instantly I yelled back. “She's a goddamn girl and I can prove it!”

“How?” Christianson demanded.

“The reason that I didn't come back with Batman and Vysell was that I stayed on the pier and fucked her. Without a rubber. You guys can smell her pussy on my dick.”

Like Jody's offer with the bloody Tampax, I knew there'd be no takers.

“I'm not smelling your dick, you son-of-a-bitch!” Stovepipe screamed defiantly, his voice hitting an octave above normal while hyperventilating a little. “But I'm going back to the pier right now and find that fucking, little faggot and either photograph his dick or bring him back here and prove he's a guy!”

“Then you'll be out of here, Stafford,” Christianson answered, almost sounding happy, “and so will the other two.”

“A hundred bucks to the first guy who finds the fucking faggot,” Bookie called out laughing.

“Fuck the money,” Stovepipe growled, rubbing his cut lips as he headed toward the front door with a Polaroid camera in one hand and the picture of me and Jody in the other hand. “I want Stafford's ass.”

“Let's take the truck and go faggot hunting!” somebody's
excited voice called out from the mob before all the actives cleared out of the room and raced outside to the truck.

_____

Even though Stovepipe and the rest of the ghouls had a five-minute lead on us, they couldn't outrun the phone lines. Batman and Vysell were huddled around me on the front lawn when Gussie's voice came on the line.

“Gussie, this is Kurt. Remember me and my two friends tonight?”

She laughed. “That was less than a hour ago. What do you think, that I got Altzheimer's?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Got a big problem though. The guys from the fraternity are heading over to the pier now to find Jody to bring him back here and prove to everybody that he's a guy so me and my friends will get kicked out of the fraternity.”

“So what?”

“So I need your help. Obviously, I don't want them finding Jody.”

“Why should I help you?”

“The guy in charge is a real asshole. He's an intern for the Parole Office. All he talks about is busting parolees and sending them back to the joint to do more time. His father's a Parole Officer too.”

“Shit, I hate every PO. Got violated once myself. Did an extra eleven months.” She paused and exhaled a long sigh, almost like a hiss. “Still got that American Express Card on you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then get back here and charge five hundred on it. My memory will fade when this guy gets here. What's he look like?”

“Tall and skinny, thin head, with puffy lips and bruised eyes. Came in second in a fight. Some parolee beat him up and escaped.”

“Good,” she snickered. “But what if some other fraternity guys come here looking for Jody?”

“The five hundred erased your memory, remember?”

“Yeah, OK.”

“What about Jody?” Vysell whispered.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “What about Jody? I need him to disappear until Sunday night. Then nothing will matter anymore. That five hundred cover him too?”

She was silent for a few seconds again. “Tonight's almost over. Say, another two hundred is enough for him to call in sick tomorrow and Sunday.”

“But what if anybody finds him anyway, without you?”

“I'll go get him now and hide him out until you get here with the card.”

“Leaving right now.”

T
HE WILD MOB OF FRATERNITY GUYS FANNING
out on the pier looking for Jody was like a sheriff's search party frantically trying to recapture an escaped murderer.

Thinking I might be followed, I aimlessly walked around the pier from one place to another, backtracking sometimes in a circular route, trying to wander like a lost soul as I slowly made my way toward Gussie's. I told Vysell and Batman to walk separately in different directions too, so as to throw off the scent.

The Felix-the-Cat clock reminded me it was a quarter to twelve, fifteen minutes before closing time, as I casually walked into the tattoo parlor.

“I'm in the back,” came Gussie's gravely voice.

I followed the sound and saw Gussie sitting on a chair facing a girl whose back was to me, with her jeans and panties pulled down to her knees.

“Turn around,” Gussie ordered her customer. “Show him my work. I'm finished now.”

This slutty-looking teen-age girl who must've poured a five-gallon jug of mousse on her stringy hair twisted around, with a smug, cocky look on her face. She pointed downward at Gussie's artwork showing a diamond-shaped, yellow highway sign with the signpost resting at the top of her crack. Black
block lettering inside the sign said PAY AS YOU ENTER.

Gussie's big, ugly smile showed a lifetime of money she saved instead of wasting it by getting dental work. “Half a dozen people were here already looking for Jody, but I didn't say nothing,” Gussie said, as the girl pulled up her pants. Gussie held out her right hand. “Give me the card.”

I anxiously handed it to her. “Hurry and run it.”

A minute later she had the approval code and I scribbled my signature on the bill.

“Leave me your phone number,” she said, lighting up a clove-smelling Kool. “In case something comes up.”

“Where's what's-his-name now?”

“Gone with the wind.”

_____

“You know Stovepipe really wants you out of here,” Grossberg said to me on the sidewalk in front of the pier after the security guards cleared the place out.

“Him and a bunch of other actives. So what? I'm still here.”

“He knows about you and the tattoo lady.”

I flinched. “What're you talking about?”

“He took the picture of you and that girl or guy or whatever-the-hell-it-is and went to every ride and booth and store on the pier. Finally he matched your picture to the inside of the tattoo place, yellow walls and drapes and everything.”

“So?”

“Since he's broke and Bookie's the only guy around here with money to throw around besides you, he made a deal with Bookie.”

I flinched again. “What do you mean?”

Grossberg stopped for dramatic effect, smiling like he really enjoyed my nervousness by telling me this story in serial form.

“What the fuck you talking about?” I persisted.

“Bookie offered that old tattoo hag a thousand bucks to tell him where the other person can be found.”

Another explosion crashed through my stomach lining. “What'd she say?”

“She agreed, but for cash only, since she's afraid that he'd cancel the charge after she told him.”

Grossberg paused for a few seconds again, still enjoying the fear that must've been splattered all over my face.

“So what the fuck happened then?” I blurted out. “Did he pay her or not?”

“Only had about seven hundred on him. Said he'll be back with the cash tomorrow when they open at eleven.”

“Shit!”

My phone rang. My hands were so shaky that I dropped the goddamn thing on the damp lawn. When I finally grabbed hold of it, it was like gripping a slimy fish in a bait tank. It rang again. It was Gussie, making no attempt to hide the thrill in her voice.

“Need fifteen hundred tomorrow before eleven.”

I twisted away from Grossberg. “But I just paid you five hundred.”

“Sonny Boy. This is like eBay. You got outbid.”

The line went dead.

“What is it?” Grossberg asked when I turned around. “Your face is white.”

I told him the whole story, except that Jody was a guy, finishing just as Vysell and Batman approached us. I gave them the bad news about Gussie.

“Tomorrow we'll be
Dead Men Walking
,” Batman mumbled correctly.

_____

Saturday, January 25

The phone rang in my apartment about two-thirty, with its shrill piercing the silence in the middle of the night like a rifle shot.

“It's Grossberg,” he said in a nervous whisper.

“What now? Am I on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List?”

“Stovepipe's witch hunt really offends me. This Jody person is being hunted like an animal only because these perverts think he might be a guy. Like what the Nazis did.”

“So what?”

“So after you left, I went back to the pier and spoke to a security guard there, at the pier office. Told him that Gussie was my aunt and I just got into town from Florida and was supposed to meet her at the tattoo place but the bus was late and everything was closed down when I got there.” His voice picked up a little enthusiasm. “Guess what he gave me?”

“A blowjob.”

He laughed. “Her address, asshole. Get a pen and write it on your dick if you've still got room.”

I grabbed a red marker and yesterday's
Times
. “What is it?”

“Few miles away. On Stewart Street. He read the address and added, Space 425, Santa Monica. Must be a trailer park.”

“Jesus, thanks a lot.”

“I'm doing it for Jody, not for you.”

_____

Vysell sped us to Gussie's trailer park, off Olympic, in ten minutes. There was plenty of street parking since the photographers and crew from
Architectural Digest
must've left this little piece of white-trash-heaven before we got there.

Like burglars, we crept around in the cold, semi-darkness looking for Space 425 until we found it near the back alley next to the freeway where buzzing cars roared-by non-stop like we were inside a beehive.

I peered into a large, dirty window that was under a makeshift awning held up by two wobbly sticks. Sure enough, sprawled out on a worn, gold couch breathing with his mouth wide open was dear-old-Jody, with his feet resting on a large, wooden crate used as a coffee table. Most of the bottle of Stoli Vanilla at the edge of the table was empty.

Batman was looking into a back window. “Gussie's passed out too,” he whispered loudly, “fully dressed, with her feet hanging sideways off a futon.”

“Back to the car,” I told both guys. “I got a plan.”

“What is it?” Vysell asked, once we were inside the warm car again.

“We'll stay here all night,” I said. “When Gussie leaves in the morning to go to the pier, Vysell, you crash your car into hers, hard enough so that she'll be hospitalized.”