Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale Read Online Free PDF Page B

weather is just something I mostly try to stay out
of. Actually, if the truth be told, old Jim, I do tell Lindsay that
I, you know, love her. I do make promises that I have no idea if I
mean to keep. I do toss that word around, old Jim. That awful
four-letter word. Love. Old Jim, this is between you and me and the
four walls, but boy, I’m in a real pickle.
     
    Romance, old Ralph, is a
fucken rat hole.
     
    Hey, Ralph said, what does
this business have to do with lumps, anyway? We were discussing
your lump, the last I remember.
     
    Love is like a lump,
Ralph.
     
    That’s one for the
books.
     
    Think about it,
Ralph.
     
    I don’t want to think about
it.
     
    Love can consume you, can it
not? Just like cancer. And doesn’t love have its own seven warning
signs?
     
    What warning
signs?
     
    All right, Ralph. What about
jerking off? Have you been jerking off more than usual? Even a
little more? Say, six or seven times a day? Now that’s a sure
warning sign of love.
    I’m the first one to admit I
jerk off like a monkey, Ralph said. —But I’ve been choking my
chicken six or seven times a day since I was about eight. That has
nothing to do with love.
    Ralph, you’re the kind of
poor sap whose brains are in his dick.
     
    I’d talk if I were
you.
     
    Jim picked up the nearly
empty pint bottle of vodka and killed it. A huge yellow cat jumped
on the table and began sniffing around. Ralph scooped it up and
tossed it back over his shoulder, and it hit the floor
running.
     
    Ralph, let me ask you
something. When you drink a lot, do you, you know, ever have
trouble getting the old horse out of the barn?
     
    You mean get a hard-on?
Ralph said. Ralph laughed and covered his mouth with his hand.
—Who me? No. Never. Not me. Jesus Christ. What are you talking
about, anyway?
    Never? Not once?
     
    Jesus Christ, Ralph said.
—Nope. Never. Nada.
     
    Jim took the empty
sperm-sample jar out of his shirt pocket and placed it beside the
empty pint botde on the table. Ralph lit a cigarette and squinted
through the rising smoke at the litde plastic jar. He reached out
and picked the jar up and turned it around in his hands. He read
the label. —What in the world is this? This has your name on
it?
     
    I want to ask you for a
favor, Jim said to Ralph.
     
    Listen, old Jim, I hardly
have two nickels to rub together, Ralph said, and put the jar down
on the table.
     
    It’s not money, Jim told
Ralph.
     
    In that case it’s yours,
Ralph said, and laughed and picked up the sperm jar again to look
at. —Name it. Within reason, of course. Hey, take my criminal kids.
Take my wretched dog. Take my wife. If she ever comes home again.
Take her, she’s mine. Or whatever that old joke is. Why does this
have your name on it, old Jim?
     
    I’ve always thought of you
like a brother, Jim told Ralph.
     
    —Like we’re really somehow
related, you know? Like we’re blood brothers or something who
somehow got separated at birth.
     
    Do you want me to drive you
to your doc’s appointment? Is that it? Give you some moral support.
I know how docs freak you out.
     
    Actually, that might not be
a bad idea.
     
    Hey, I’ll do it. I’ll do it.
It’s as good as done. But, hey, I’ll have to wait in the car. You
know me. I get edgy. Docs, they give me the willies,
too.
     
    Do you love your kids, old
Ralph? If you could do it all over again, would you have
kids?
    Those criminal kids steal me
blind, Ralph said. —I’ve got those kids dead to rights. I’ve caught
them red-handed time and again.
     
    But would you want kids, if
you could go back and do it all over again?
     
    Alice Ann was knocked up
when we got married, Ralph said. —But you know that.
    That doesn’t answer my
question, Jim said. —This is important to me, old dog. Would
you?
    Well, I’ll tell you, then.
You don’t know what helpless frustration is until you have kids.
Frustration and unrelieved responsibility and permanent
distraction that can make a grown man want to