CHAPTER EIGHT
The red Mazda slipped easily in and out of traffic along Dundas Street. Music blared from the radio. Wind swept through the car, tossing Johnny’s hair back and forth. Wiggy looked at Johnny and wondered if he shouldn’t let his own hair grow. Perhaps his image was too severe.
Chicks weren’t deep. They didn’t see into you. Don’t want to look. I’m too deep. Brooding chicks don’t like brooding. Maybe he should grow his hair long. He hated his hair, hated the color, hated the receding hairline. I ain’t going bald! Wished he could shave his head like a bowling ball. A brush cut just wasn’t short enough. Wasn’t worth thinking too much about yourself. Too much to worry about. What about the chicks? Johnny never seemed to be short of women. He had that light wispy blond hair that flowed over his shoulders. Girls were always asking to touch it.
What else did they want to touch? There ain’t anything else. Just chicks and cars and rock’n’roll. Johnny turned up the radio. Beach Boys. Johnny smiled and continued to talk. Wiggy couldn’t hear a thing he said. It was better that way. Johnny never had anything very important to say. What did Terry know? Writing his stories. Talking about the meaning of life. What difference did it make? Wiggy smiled. It was comforting to think that the chicks didn’t listen to Johnny either. Johnny just had to be Johnny and the chicks came running. He was like Mecca for chicks. They don’t want deep. Johnny leaned against the driver’s door, one arm along the back of the seat, the other straddling the window, a couple of fingers steering the Mazda. Wiggy shook his head. Johnny is just too cool. He smiled at Wiggy.
He was always smiling. How could you not like the guy?
“I can’t hear you,” Wiggy yelled.
The car slid onto a ramp and sped up as they moved north onto the Johnny turned the music down. “Don’t you just love The Beach Boys?
Sun, sand, and babes. Man, that’s the life.” 73
“Ya, that’s the life.” Wiggy nodded, leaning back in the seat, taking in the sun. “Where are we going?”
Johnny grinned, tapping the steering wheel with one of the two fingers that was steering. “What difference does it make where we’re going?
You can’t get all caught up in destinations. You’ve got to focus on the journey.”
Wiggy never understood Johnny’s philosophizing but it seemed to make Johnny happy that he listened.
“Your old man let you drive his car?” Wiggy asked.
“It’s my old lady’s,” Johnny yelled, his voice still barely audible over the wind. “Dad won’t let me near his BMW. Oh man, you should feel that thing move. It’s like sitting in your living room couch in a wind tunnel. I want to take it up to Wasaga. You could get any babe you want with a car like that. They love to feel their bare asses on the leather upholstery.”
Wiggy laughed. “Bet you got a lot of pussy at college, eh?” Johnny smiled and pointed at Wiggy. “Believe it,” he said.
“How do you do it?” Wiggy asked. “Attract so many babes, I mean.” Johnny laughed. “Good breath,” he said.
“It can’t be that easy,” Wiggy responded. “I brush my teeth half a dozen times a day. I set my alarm so that I can wake up in the middle of the night and brush them. And I’m very conscious of body odor as well.
I heard that chicks can smell you coming from a mile away. It’s some kind of evolutionary skill. I shower constantly. My folks are always complaining that I use up all the hot water. And I always carry around a stick of deodorant.” Wiggy took a small plastic container from his back pocket. “I figure I smell as good as the next guy. Frank says that you have to change your clothes a lot, that clothes carry your stink as well.
I’m always changing my clothes. I got more underwear than Zellers.” Johnny laughed at Wiggy, leaning over to push in the lighter. With one hand on the steering wheel, he retrieved a package of cigarettes from his pocket and jiggled a cigarette out of the pack and into his mouth. A moment later, he grabbed the lighter and lit up.
“Motivation,” Johnny said, turning his head from Wiggy to the road and back again as he talked. “You’ve got to figure out why girls are where they are. If a chick is at the beach with her parents then you can be pretty sure that you ain’t going to become more than acquaintances. But if she’s with a girlfriend then your chances improve as long as you are with a buddy. If she’s with a group of girls then she’s either a tourist or she’s looking for it. Understand?”
“Ya, well, I keep running into tourists,” Wiggy said, keeping his eyes on the road. He wished that Johnny would slow down when he talked.
“And,” Johnny turned to point at Wiggy, “you’ve got to read messages. Chicks are always giving off messages. If a chick is on a bar stool sitting beside some dude and she keeps swiveling on her stool then you know she wants to be rescued. If she’s smoking a cigarette, she wants to talk. If you make eye contact then she wants you.”
“I guess I’m illiterate, man. I think I’m a pretty decent-looking guy, with average intelligence, no genius but average intelligence, funny, charming. I don’t know what it is but I’m in a real slump. I had a girlfriend for a while. Well, not actually a girlfriend. We fooled around a bit but her parents got too upset so she got grounded. They said I was too old for her. She looked sixteen.”
“How old was she?” Johnny laughed.
Wiggy looked puzzled. “What?”
Johnny pushed a button to roll up the windows.
“How old was she?”
“Lisa? Thirteen,” Wiggy cried.
“Jail bait!” Johnny laughed.
Wiggy continued. “She’s got a twin sister, Lilly. Those girls are wild.
Always hanging out at Plantation Bowl. Terry told me that they were giving blowjobs in the back parking lot one Saturday afternoon. I was working that day. Can you imagine the luck? I can’t buy a break.” Johnny nodded. “He was jerking you around. I know that guy. He’s always jerking people around.”
Wiggy responded. “He’s a friend.”
“Who needs friends like that?” Johnny rolled down the window, spit, then flicked his cigarette out. “Where are you working?”
“McCall’s Bakery. I make doughnuts and meat pies.” Wiggy laughed.
“We cook the meat in big pans in the ovens and let it cool off outside the back door. One day I saw a dog come up and piss in the stew. I laughed my ass off.”
Johnny laughed. “You’re kidding. You had to throw it all out, eh?” Wiggy shook his head. “No way, man. I wasn’t going to make that shit again. Fuck old man McCall anyway. I’m underpaid. People sure love those pies.”
Johnny choked on his laughter. When he recovered he asked Wiggy if there was any chance of getting a job in the bakeshop.
“You need a job?” Wiggy asked.
Johnny nodded.
“I’ll ask. Old man McCall has been pissed off recently. Him and his wife aren’t getting along. They work beside each other all day and hardly speak. I’ll tell you one thing, I ain’t ever getting married. All the married people I meet seem pissed off with each other. Who needs it?”
“It wouldn’t be so bad,” Johnny responded. “You’d have someone to cook for you and you’d have sex any time you wanted it.” Wiggy laughed. “You haven’t met my parents. And my mom cooks like shit. She burns everything. Terrified of food poisoning. My old man ends up doing most of the housework. She has her volunteer work. I think she just wants to get away from the house. My old man’s always threatening to walk out on us. Mom says that if he walks out, he leaves with nothing but the shirt on his back. That’s why my sisters moved out.
They couldn’t take it anymore.”
“You have sisters?”
“Two. Ugly as sin. Monica is a dike. She’s built like one. Gwen moved to Vancouver so who knows what she’s up to.”
“Didn’t Terry’s old man walk out on them?” Johnny asked.
Wiggy nodded. “That was years ago, man. Why you asking about Terry?”