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Backup Man
(Pueblo)

Roy Haymond

    All through the suspicious happenings of that weekend, Reggie had felt, even known, that Margie had to be up to something. And things were finally coming clear as he put his bags onto the bed in the New Day Inn. And with this delayed clarity came some anger, but he could hardly deny that there was even some eroticism.
    He stepped down the hall to get some ginger ale and ice from machines. Back in his room, he kicked off his shoes and stripped down to his underwear before mixing bourbon with ice and ginger ale in a tumbler. He switched on the TV set, but left the volume too low to be heard. Nursing the drink, he sat in a straight chair and propped his feet on the bed.
    The Pueblo. That was the ostensible reason he was here, a guest at Margie’s wedding. Her family wanted somebody there to remind of the old Pueblo days. That’s what they said, anyway. Margie even said as much. But, then, when Margie said something she never really said it all.
    The Pueblo was more than an apartment complex - it was a social phenomenon. The title was actually Myron Manor, but in appearance it resembled the cliff dwellings of the Pueblo Indians. Socially, it was an island: people there were too well-off to have to live in the slums, yet they were scarcely in income brackets to be acceptable to West Side neighborhoods; so people, especially kids, were reluctant to admit living in the Pueblo (like, who would have anything to do with a Pueblo kid?)
    Reggie’s family moved into the Pueblo when he was eight - Reggie, his mother, his stepfather, and his half-sister, Rosalyn. Reggie liked it there, though it was a bit crowded, with Reggie having to sleep on a couch in the room that served as a den. But it was nicer than the place they’d come from, and there was a field where kids played baseball year-round. So being among the poorer kids in the West Side schools never really mattered to Reggie.
    Almost from the first day, he was aware of Margie Willard, a slender, dark, haughty, but quite pretty girl. But she was two years his senior, and, therefore, quite superior in maturity, worldly wisdom, sophistication, and all the areas that really mattered.
    Reggie’s family lived on the second floor in a two-bedroom flat with a small balcony overlooking what was supposed to be a courtyard. And when Reggie took a seat at the railing of the balcony, he commanded a nice view of the porch that came with the Willards’ first-floor apartment. And even at eight, Reggie enjoyed looking at the superior little sylph named Margie, especially when she was in skimpy little things catching rays in a chaise lounge.
    He had lived there almost two years before he actually spoke to her. The occasion was a hot summer early afternoon an hour or so before the boys gathered on the hill to play ball. Reggie climbed down a vine on the wall by his balcony and joined the sunbathing Margie on her porch.
    Margie was twelve then, at her sophisticated best, in halter, short-shorts, sandals and reflector glasses.
    “What do you want, you little creep?” she hissed with the bored nonchalance that can only be affected by a twelve-year-old.
    “I’m Reggie Martz. I live upstairs.”
    “What do you want?”
    “Just stopped by.”
    “Well, whoopty-doo!”
    Even at ten he knew a rebuff when he saw one, and he turned to go.
    She spoke again, “Well, while you’re here, you may as well do my back...”
    For the next few minutes, he rubbed lotion into her back while she dispensed her superior worldly wisdom, sprinkled with a few obscenities and personal insults for Reggie.
    Such was his progress with Margie, watching her from his balcony, occasionally stopping by her porch to receive the barbs she was so prone to heap on such an obviously inferior being.
    He never saw her at school - he was in elementary school while she was in middle school, then junior high. But he watched her, thoroughly, when he could, watched when girl-friends stopped by, then when boys were hanging around in the afternoons, watched as she grew more beautiful, as the woman emerged, as her hips softened and the breasts budded and then bloomed.
    When she was fifteen, Margie started having ‘dates’. There was a sixteen-year-old Pueblo boy who took her to the movies, after which he sat on the porch and held her hand. Others stopped by who were not of the Pueblo but of much the same ilk.
    Then came a pronouncement to Reggie.
    “I’m sick of being a damned Pueblo girl - sick of this shit!”
    The expletive didn’t shock Reggie - most of the kids were using them as a matter of course.
    “Now, you take Daddy; let’s face it: he’s a slop, a real slop! Greasy clothes, dirty fingernails...”
    “What do you expect? He’s a mechanic. I like your daddy, and a mechanic is better than my old man...working in a tire factory...”
    “What do I expect, you ask? I expect him to be something else! But he works away at that damned Chevrolet place...and he buys those old heaps! We never have a decent car; he buys those old wrecks and works on them at night...”
    “I know - I’ve been helping him...he’s nice...”
    “Yeah. And when he gets a car looking decent, he sells it and brings home another clunker! Well, he’ll be doing this the rest of his life...and Mama’s no better, getting up before daylight to go to that damned bakery...Class, man, real class!”
    “Don’t seem so bad to me...”
    “You stupid son of a bitch! Think I want to stay in the f---ing Pueblo all my life? No! This kid’s got some ideas...”
    “You gonna run away?”
    “No, you dumb shit! No place to go. But I got plans. I got together a little money...been getting some sharp clothes. You should see the way the high school boys look me up and down, even in my old rags...”
    Reggie wanted to say he could understand this easily enough.
    “See, I’m going into the tank for a while...”
    “The tank?” asked Reggie, knowing full well his question would be considered dumb.
    “Yeah, the tank: I’m not going out any more for a while. Not a single date for the rest of the summer. Then, when school starts, I’m going to have my hair fixed, and I’m going to be all decked out in new clothes. And I’m going to move in better circles.”
    Reggie observed Margie’s abstinence, which lasted, as she had said, until the start of the school term. And she did indeed look quite different when she went to school, though Reggie didn’t think the new look was necessarily better, so taken was he with her already.
    Margie’s ‘coming out’ was the night of the Halloween Dance at the high school. A tall, clean-cut fellow showed up in a convertible. Reggie was discreetly watching from the balcony when the convertible returned with the top raised at eleven. A full ten minutes passed before Margie got out of the car and went straight inside.
    “He’s neat, real neat,” she told Reggie later, “but I can’t let him rush me...can’t let him think I’m a pushover just because I live in the Pueblo.”
    The fellow, Ronald, was back on the next Friday to take Margie to a football game. Then he was back for a movie date. Then he was seen no more.
    Reggie was coming in from playing ball on a warm November afternoon and Margie was on her porch. He stopped by and took a seat by her on the glider-swing. He wanted to ask about Ronald, but he sat quietly.
    “You’re wondering about Ronald? F--- him! I’ve had to rethink things a little.”
    “Rethink?”
    “Yeah, Reggie. I should have known all the big shots want from a Pueblo girl is an easy piece of ass! I’m going to have to wait it out - got a couple of guys interested, but they’ve got to be interested in more than just a roll in the hay...”
    She offered no further explanation about the changes she’d affect in her routine, but Reggie saw over the next few weeks from his perch on the balcony what might have been a pattern. Margie went on dates with several fellows, all clean-cut, well-dressed, uptown-looking guys, all with nice cars.
    But they all had her home by eleven. She would get out of the car immediately; then she’d allow the man of the hour to sit on the porch with her for a little while. A hedge and shadows obscured the sight of them from the courtyard, but Reggie could see them as well as the light of the moon and the beams of a distant street lamp would allow.
    Planned or not, Margie’s petting sessions were getting heavier: long, passionate kisses, unbuttoned blouses, hands under skirts; and poor Reggie, glued to his balcony, suffered through it. And on a few cold nights, Margie produced a blanket for warmth and additional privacy, while Reggie shivered.
    By spring, all the suitors had dropped away except a pudgy blondish fellow named Charley. Charley was coming around two or three times a week, and Reggie could envision their spending school recesses together, and maybe time in a soda shop after school. And the petting sessions on the porch were getting torrid.
    One afternoon as Reggie was coming in late, he found Margie waiting for him.
    “Reggie, I know you’ve been sitting up there...watching me!”
    But she said this without rancor, so Reggie neither confirmed nor denied.
    “Don’t bother to deny it, you creep - I know! But no matter; I need some help, O.K.?”
    “Sure. What do you need?”
    “Charley is getting too horny. I’m about to lose control. We’re double dating tonight...and that’s bad! We’ll be making out all night...and when he gets me home, he’ll probably make his move.”
    “What do you want me to do?”
    “Well, can you be on your balcony tonight?”
    “No problem.
    “O.K. He’ll take me to the porch...but if he stays too long, well, I might be in trouble. So, if he’s not gone in fifteen minutes, I want you to interrupt.”
    “Interrupt?”
    “Yeah. Don’t climb down the vine like you do sometimes; come through the hall door. Call out my name before you get to the porch, but don’t step on the porch, just call - and not too loud. Then you tell me Mama had to go to bed early...but that she got a call from Aunt Anna...and Aunt Anna wants me to call her back right away ...Can you remember all that?”
    “I call you, but I don’t step on the porch. I tell you your mama had to get to bed early, but you’re to call your Aunt Anna right away.”
    The scenario unfolded just as Margie had designed it - with Charley leaving almost immediately after the Aunt Anna message. Reggie got no thanks for his performance.
    Reggie saw her several days later.
    “No more Charley: he can’t stand the heat. Wants a piece of ass, but the son of a bitch won’t buy a ring!”
    So the string of suitors resumed. By summer all had dropped by the way except a ruggedly handsome fellow named Bob.
    Reggie was not quite so regular in his voyeur role - he was playing night baseball, and, though he was usually at home by the time Margie got to the porch with her boyfriend, he was often too sleepy to enjoy the vicarious pleasure of the petting below. And he seldom even stopped to speak to her because he grew tired of hearing of how rich and wonderful Bob was, and how interested he was in taking Margie away from all this.
    On a Saturday morning as Reggie was leaving for his job at A&P, Margie stopped him.
    “Reggie, will you be home tonight?”
    “Yeah, about nine...”
    “I might need you again. The old Aunt Anna routine...”
    “O.K.”
    But this time the scene didn’t unfold in the same way. The car pulled up to the curb. The two of them got out and strolled up to the porch arm-in-arm. He was carrying a fifth of vodka, and she had a bottle of Sprite and some paper cups.
    A bright moon bathed them, and Reggie was hurting from the sight of the petting below, which was quickly more amorous than usual.
    Then Bob came down with a violent case of hiccups. He picked up one of the mixed drinks by the glider and took a long drink, but the hiccups continued. Then he leaped to the railing of the porch and vomited. This completed, he wiped his face on his handkerchief and began mouthing an apology, which was punctuated by the still present hiccups. Moments later he drove off.
    Reggie stared at Margie. She stood in the moonlight and her eyes beckoned him. It took less than a minute for him to climb down from the balcony and join her.
    He took a seat beside her on the glider-swing. She mixed drinks of vodka and Sprite for both of them - Reggie didn’t want his but he took it anyway. “We went on a swimming party this afternoon - a lot of loving in the bushes, lot of drinking. Poor Bob: can’t hold his booze. He’d have got some tonight if he hadn’t got so smashed.”
    She tossed off the rest of her drink and reached for Reggie’s, draining it in one gulp.
    “Booze don’t make me drunk - just horny!”
    She sidled and wiggled her way into Reggie’s lap, kissed him lightly on his face, then becoming more violent.
    “Open your mouth, dummy!”
    He did as he was told and she swabbed him with a darting tongue. Then she guided one of his hands inside the already unbuttoned shirt over her blue jeans. Breathing was a rapid labored process for both of them.
    She pulled herself away from him and said, “Wait right here, honey; I’ll be right back,”
    She scampered into her apartment and returned in a moment. She handed Reggie some car keys.
    “Round back there’s a Buick - you’ll know it...half painted, half not...dented fender. Unlock it and let it air out a minute. I got to get something else. Be right there.”
    When she joined him at the car, she handed him a package of three condoms.
    “Had to get these from the medicine chest...know how to use them?”
    Not waiting for an answer, she peeled off her jeans and panties and climbed into the back seat of the Buick.
    “Hurry, baby: I’m so hot I could scream!”
    In the sweaty heat of the back seat, they pounded away at each other for several hours, with instinct and energy erasing any problem inexperience may have held for them.
    “It must be getting late. Mama gets up at five...gotta go...And, listen, you little snot: you tell anybody about this and I’ll cut your balls off...”
    Bob was kept at bay for a week before being allowed a contrite return. He took her to a movie and they did little more than handholding for an hour on the porch afterwards.
    On subsequent visits the petting accelerated. In a week or so, when Bob left, Margie again signaled to Reggie. This led to another couple of hours in the Buick...and later the Dodge, and then a Chevrolet...
    And Bob was exchanged for Billy, who was soon driving Margie into calling for Reggie-relief.
    And Billy was exchanged for yet another Charley, with Reggie now making waves as a scholar and a good-hitting infielder, never dating school girls, but spending his evenings at home, moving to the balcony when Margie came in from dates.
    But then they both got away from the Pueblo at almost the same time.
    Mr. Willard was fired from the Chevrolet place for too much freelancing with repairs and sales of his own cars.
    This proved to be a boon. He rented a garage and a lot and began repairing and selling on a full-time basis. The operation was an overnight success. He expanded and then was given a new-car dealership franchise. This, too, was quickly successful. So he moved his family into a plush little mansion he stole at auction.
    Reggie’s move was brought about by less auspicious circumstances. His stepfather came home from work early because of a stomachache. He found his wife in bed with a local handy man. The stepfather beat the hell out of both of them before packing up and moving out.
    Reggie’s mother took Rosalyn and moved two hundred miles away to work in her brother’s floral shop. Reggie stayed behind and lived with his baseball coach until he was graduated from high school.
    An athletic grant from a small college, plus construction work and more baseball in the summers, and Reggie became a history teacher and baseball coach at an upstate high school.
    Which led to the present, with Reggie stretched out on the bed in the motel room in underwear and socks, sipping his third drink, pondering the incongruities that led to his being at this particular place at this particular time.
    He’d had no idea that Margie or the Willards even knew of his whereabouts. But the wedding invitation had found him, accompanied by a sincere letter from Mr. Willard - he was doing fine, had come up in the world, but he’d never forgotten the folks he knew before he’d made his mark. And he very much wanted Reggie there when he gave little Margie away. Then there was a letter from Margie begging him to come to the wedding. She’d arranged for places for him to stay - he’d spend Friday night at the Anderson home; then Saturday, the wedding day, he’d stay the night at the New Day Inn, all paid for, of course.
    Margie had practically ignored him at the rehearsal party, leaving him with plain little Lena, his date for the duration.
    And none of the charade had made any sense to Reggie, not the rehearsal party on Friday, nor the groom’s luncheon on Saturday. But a short time before the five o’clock wedding ceremony, a little bit of information was dropped in his lap.
    It was little Lena who said, “It’s a damned shame about the honeymoon, isn’t it?”
    “Oh? What about the honeymoon?”
    “They had to put it off for a week...they thought of postponing the wedding, but that got too complicated...”
    “I didn’t know any of this. Why are they putting off the honeymoon?”
    “Charley has to be in court - a traffic accident a year ago. He’s being sued; thought he could get a continuance, but he couldn’t...so they’ll have to wait a week for their big cruise...”
    And, of course, Reggie knew it all then, as he watched the maturely beautiful Margie say her vows to Charley (and Reggie was not at all sure that this Charley was not one of those he’d seen years ago on the Pueblo porch!), watched her smile and gush through the short wedding reception, watched her throw the bouquet and then hop into the car with the tacky decorations.
    And in his underwear and socks, dozing a bit, the television with the picture and no sound, Reggie looked at his watch.
    “Ten-forty-five. I’ll bet on midnight.”
    He missed it by a quarter of an hour - it was twelve-fifteen when the knock on the door led to his ushering Margie into the room.
    Her face was washed clear of makeup and her hair was swept under a plain kerchief. She wore jeans, a slipover shirt and tennis shoes, not at all like a honeymooning bride.
    “Thought I’d drop in on you. Surprised?”
    She spotted his bottle and helped herself to a drink.
    “Would you believe it, Reggie? The bastard passed out on me!”
    “You seem to be navigating all right, though.”
    “Sure, baby. Booze never bothers me - you know that.”
    “Yeah.”
    “You know a lot, don’t you? Now, be honest: you’re not at all surprised I came to see you, are you?”
    “Well Margie, last night I stayed with the Andersons. I could have stayed there again tonight -they have plenty of room - but somehow in all the elaborate arrangements you made, I end up here! Then just a few hours ago, I learned that you would not be going away for a honeymoon. I somehow figured you’d be staying right here in this very motel...”
    “Yeah. That law suit thing. We went to his office and changed cars...and we have the bridal suite here. But poor Charley isn’t taking advantage of it...”
    “You don’t seem to broken up over the turn of events.”
    “No, I don’t suppose I am...but, then, you don’t seem too broken up, either!”
    “It’s not my wedding night...”
    “May as well be, baby,” she mused, moving to him, “because I intend to take care of you tonight...mind if I slip out of these things?”
    “Not at all, Margie, not at all...”
    They quickly stripped and pounced onto the bed.
    It was much later, almost dawn, when she woke Reggie by nibbling on his ear and then snuggling up to him.
    “You know, Reggie, I’ve been keeping tabs on you.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yeah. I know about your teaching and all...”
    “Not really much to keep tabs on...”
    “Well, you know Charley’s folks are influential, and so is Daddy, now...”
    “So?”
    “We could get you a teaching job here...”
    “So I could look after you?”
    “No telling when I might need you!”
    “How do you know I’ll always come when you call?”
    “Because, you dumb son of a bitch, you always come when I call. You’re always on that balcony at the Pueblo...looking down at me...lusting for me!”
    He said nothing. She ran her fingertips over his chest.
    “And I can tell your lust is gathering again...Mmmm...”
    “Don’t you think you’d better be getting back to the bridal suite?”
    “Not just yet, dummy! I may go through a dry spell!”
    “Oh, the guy will sober up today...”
    “Sure he will, but I won’t let him touch me for a while yet...”
    “You mean you’ll punish him?”
    “More like instruct...just because he bought me a ring doesn’t mean he gets an easy piece of ass!”

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