“Oh, they make a special cleaner for that,” Drew tells them.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Steve, the “stuff spiller” says. “Drew seems like a good sport. I bet he would love to play The Great Swami game.”
The circle erupts into laughter and nods of approval. Everyone starts rearranging chairs so there are two in the middle of the circle, facing each other.
“The Great Swami game, you say? I’ve never heard of it,” Drew tells them.
“Oh, it’s great fun! You have to try and do everything The Great Swami does. So far, no one has been able to beat him,” Steve says excitedly.
One of the other men takes a seat in one of the chairs in the middle of the circle and a few people direct Drew to the chair opposite him.
“Bring on The Great Swami. I will totally kick his assss-ascot!” Drew cheers, catching himself just in time.
“Okay, so Eric is going to be The Great Swami,” Steve informs Drew. “All you have to do is follow along and do the exact same things he does.”
I have no idea what’s going on but it looks like a safe enough game where Drew won’t get in trouble with his mouth, and hopefully it will have something to do with having a good marriage. Eric puts both of his arms up in the air, making a 'V', and Drew does the same. Eric then touches his finger to his nose, which Drew copies immediately.
“Man, this is easy. The Great Swami is going down!” Drew exclaims as he copies every single move Eric does with his arms and hands. I’m feeling even more confident that we will at least end this evening on a good note, even if we don’t get any good marriage advice from these people.
Since Drew has his back to me, he doesn’t see one of the women sneak up behind his chair with something in her hand. I can’t see what it is since she’s hiding it in front of her, but everyone around the circle starts to giggle when they see her.
The Great Swami Eric does a few more arm movements that Drew repeats and then suddenly he stands up from of his chair. Drew immediately follows the movement, at which point, the woman sticks what I now see is a huge, sopping wet towel onto the seat of Drew’s chair.
Eric quickly sits back down onto his own chair, and Drew follows suit, smacking his ass down onto the wet towel and the puddle it makes in his chair. He quickly pops right back up and twists and turns to try and get a look at his ass while everyone around us is rolling with laughter
“SON OF A MOTHER FUCKING JESUS BITCH! WHAT THE FUCK ASS SHIT BITCH JUST FUCKING HAPPENED?!”
I can almost feel Jesus on his puffy cloud shaking his head in shame at us and saying, “You should have known better than to mix with my people. They will fuck you every time.”
We quickly gather up the kids and thank everyone for a wonderful time. Drew tells them we need to leave because Billy has explosive diarrhea just as Veronica begins singing at the top of her lungs, “SHIT POOP DIAWEEA. SHIT POOP DIAWEEA!”
The whole walk back to our house Drew complains, “Fucking stupid ass fuck Swami. Next time we’re invited over there, I’m going to fuck that Swami up.”
I’m not going to hold my breast for another invitation any time soon.
Chapter 9 – Great Head
“I can’t believe you’ve never played The Great Swami game before. I’m disappointed that you would fall for the oldest trick in the book.”
My dad, Andrew Senior, shakes his head at me in pity as we share a beer up at the local pub and watch the Browns game. I had invited my dad up here to get his take on Jenny and see if he would be up to tailing her for a few days. I’m not one hundred percent positive that she’s falsifying a workman’s comp claim since she stopped limping the day after she hurt her ankle, but I still have my doubts. Something stinks in suburbia and it’s not my balls.
“Can we get back to the topic at hand, please? Will you do this for me or not?” I ask as I signal the bartender for another drink.
“Son, I have had your back for twenty-four-”
“Thirty-four,” I supply.
“Thirty-four years. I am not about to quit you now, soldier. I will be on her like flies on shit. She doesn’t make a move without me knowing about it. I love the smell of deceit in the morning!”
My father’s enthusiasm for trying to catch my wife doing something bad doesn’t make me feel better.
My dad used to be a drill sergeant in the Marines until word got around just how scary of a mother fucker he was. The Corps had a hard time finding recruits in his area because no one wanted to be the guy crying like a baby while my dad screamed in his face. He had retired early and opened his own private investigation business. Unfortunately, he's never lost that drill sergeant mentality.
“I need to know that you’re on board with whatever I have to do to uncover the truth, is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” I mutter.
“Say it like you’ve got a set of balls, you pansy ass!”
“YES, SIR!” I shout.
My dad smacks me on the back and tells me he’ll start his recon this evening when Jenny is supposedly going to be running errands after she gets off of work.
We finish watching the Browns game while dad explains to me every few minutes what he’ll be doing to try and catch Jenny in a lie. I feel really bad about the fact that I’m going behind her back, but I need to figure out what is wrong before I can figure out how to fix it.
As the game ends and my dad and I part ways, I get in my car, turn on the radio and the song “I Would Walk 500 Miles” comes on, and I’m immediately transported back in time six years ago when Jenny and I went on our first date.
“I may have had too much to drink,” I had admitted with a big smile to Jenny as I leaned my chair back on two legs.
She had smiled back at me and the beauty of it forced me to lose my balance and start windmilling my arms as I began to tip backwards.
Jenny immediately reached out, grabbed onto the front of my shirt with her fist, and yanked my chair back on four legs. The act caused the chair to slide closer to her and suddenly for the first time that night, I was close enough to run my nose against her cheek and smell her hair.
“Did you just smell my hair?” she asked.
I pulled back and gave her a sheepish look. “That depends. If I say yes, will you stick your stiletto up my ass?”
She smiled and shook her head “No”.
“Then yes, yes I was sniffing your hair. It smells like mangoes.”
“That is so hot,” she whispered.
We stared into each other’s eyes for a few minutes, and I had to mentally smack myself out of the trance she put me in before I threw her down on the table and banged her right there in front of God and everyone.
“So, I realized I’m not even close to sober when a few minutes ago, when I piss a take…I mean took a piss, I screamed when the automatic toilet flushed. I probably won’t be able to drive you home,” I told her honestly.
“Oh my God, I hate those automatic flushers! Sometimes they flush before I’m even finished and it creeps me out. Like it knows and can see me and just wants to mess with me,” she said.
“Holy hell, I always tell people that. I really think there is a camera in the toilet bowl with some pervy little man in another room watching and laughing when he hits the button early.”
We stared at each other for a few minutes and once again, there was nothing I’d rather do right then than to lean in and do dirty things with her mouth. But that wasn't something I wanted to do in the middle of a crowded bar. When it finally happened, we needed to be alone. Preferably in a bed. Or on a picnic table in a random park.
“Come on, give me the keys, I’ll drive you home,” she said as she held her hand out in front of me. I pull the keys out of my pocket and drop them in her hand.
~
Jenny insisted on stopping at Denny’s on the way home because she was hungry and always wanted to order Moons Over My Hammy because it was funny to say. I almost asked her to marry me on the spot.
“Funny you mention ham. I have issues with ham when I’m really, really drunk,” I told her, shoveling a mouthful of scrambled eggs in my mouth. “The past few times Carter and I have gone out, we always wind up at the grocery store at the end of the night so I can go to the deli counter and order five pounds of ham.”