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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Desert Bloom” Down in the Dirt, v185 (the July 2021 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Lockdown’s Over the Down in the Dirt May-August 2021 issues collection book		get the 420 page May-August 2021 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Doing It

Oscar Turnbull

    I was sweaty, city sweaty. It was the kind of sweat that sucks up dirt and car exhaust and covers you in a gray paste. This wasn’t pumping-iron sweat, and it definitely wasn’t sunny-day, mowing-the-lawn, grab-a-cold-one-from-the-cooler sweat.
    Eve was giving me this look like it was my fault. Christ she was a lot. Everything had to be zip! pew! edge-of-your-seat action, seven-twenty-four, or she’d start talking about moving back to St Louis to live with her parents. That’d never happen, of course, but the days were no fun when Eve was pissed. When shit got boring, Eve got bored, and when Eve got bored, she got pissed, like she was mad at you for wasting her time on Earth, like every fucking second had to tingle. Besides, she wore tight jeans and had body like a swimsuit model, and you bet your ass there would be no horizonal tango if she was pissed, and the only sure way to put a smile on her face was to pump her heart rate over 180. You had to show her a wild time.
    We came out of 51 street station onto Lexington Avenue that was thick with black cars and rich assholes. She was still walking a few steps in front. I pushed through the people and wrapped my arm around her like a wet towel. She was about to throw it off when I pulled her over to a guy standing on the curb. He was trying to hail a cab, and boy did he need it. He was so fat it looked like his features had been doodled on a cue ball. I bet you could have used his blazer to make a black duvet cover and still have spare for black pillow cases. The same gray sweat moistened the folds under his chin flaps.
    I went British. “Pardon me, sir.” Eve got the faintest smile. She loves it when I go British.
    He turned on me with this look like I’d just asked the quickest way to his wife’s cooch.
    “Terribly sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you would give me and my friend here a recommendation.”
    Eve nodded and smiled. Her accents are shitty so she always just smiles. One time in Boston I was going Australian and I had to tell this guy she was mute just so she didn’t open her mouth and fuck the whole thing up. But don’t think that Eve can’t lie. You ask her a question and the list of possible answers behind her eyes gets sorted by how much she wants each one to be true, with zero fucks given about real, pen-and-paper truth. It’s not even lying, not really. It’s self-delusion. She wants it, so she says it, and it is.
    We ran out of cash six months ago down in North Carolina and spent two weeks crashing on this Indian guy’s couch because she told him she was a quarter Cherokee. Shit, I don’t even know if that was a lie. I don’t even know if it matters. The Indian guy was real friendly and ended up gifting her this engraved canoe paddle that she traded for a pack of cigarettes with a junky at a 7-eleven.
    “It’s our first day in the big apple,” I said to the fat guy in New York, “and we’ve always wanted to try some New York-style pizza.”
    His fuck-off-frown became a grin. “Shit, you came to the right person!”
    If Mr. Nobel had been as fat as this poor fuck then there might exist a prize for contributions to food knowledge, and 30 years in a row it would’ve gotten a tear-choked acceptance speech from this guy.
    “Three blocks that way is Old Ray’s and it’s worth a slice but he switched to a new style of crust, calls it Roman style, and it just ain’t been the same since, way too thin, nothing like Ray’s Original just five blocks that way, now that’s a place that...”.
    Even after Eve had lifted his wallet I couldn’t stop him. She even made faces over his shoulder that made me giggle fit to bursting. Hell, she could’ve peeled off his blazer and I don’t think he’d have stopped for breath.
    A cab pulled up and I stuffed him in.
    “And if you only get to try one, then it’d have to be —”
    “Thank you ever so much.” I slammed the door and the cab pulled away.
    Eve opened up the wallet which was loaded with twenties. She scooped out the notes and waved them in my face grinning something crazy.
    “Alright,” she said, “now we’re ready to have a good time.”
    I don’t remember a whole lot of what happened after that. Next thing I know, it’s one in the morning and I’m sobering up, sitting across from Eve in a mum and pop Italian place called Old Ray’s, and to be fair to the fat guy, the crust was a little on the crispy side. Eve talked all through the meal, “And the heat that came off his ass, Jesus, you could’ve fried an egg on it, and baby did you see when...”.
    We stripped his wallet and tossed the ID into a dumpster behind a Denny’s. It said his name was Brian Janklow. All through the meal, all through the long ride back to the green neon of the Hotel Jackson, even after the use-me-like-an-electric-chair sex, I thought about Brian. I thought about him patting down his fat ass telling Mrs. Janklow, well honey I might have left it in the cab, or maybe I left it over at Bill’s, but no, I had it on the way to the office so...
    I’m sitting up on the lumpy hotel bed with Eve lying beside me. She’s been out since her head hit the pillow, but now it’s four in the morning, and I’m thinking about Brian. I’m thinking about the picture of his two kids we left in the dumpster and I’m thinking, maybe, I want to buy him dinner.

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