CHARLIE HEART

CHAPTER SEVEN: WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

         The next time I see Bruce he is wearing a hawaiian button down, jean shorts, and brown sandals with long black socks. He doesn't need his power symbol anymore, he suddenly has everything figured out.
         He is having a cook out just because he feels like having one.
         He treats Cindy like she is dog meat now, but she loves it.
         They live in a small house on the outside of town. His kids run through the sprinklers and belly surf on a home made slip and slide. His youngest boy finds an ant hill and takes a dump on it. I watch him as he watches the little black insects scurry while their co-workers get smothered and crushed by his waste.
         Bruce flips his steaks and the world seems peaceful. Very peaceful. I don’t care that my snake skin shoes are covered in mud.
         “You look sick, Charlie.”
         I look at Bruce.
         I try to focus my ‘zoning out’ thoughts on Ginger. A night like last night was rare for me. It was so rare that it almost didn’t feel real, and this makes me sad, depressed almost. Like the day after Christmas for young rich kids.
         My thoughts of a terrible, early, unavoidable death come sweeping in. I run my future scenarios again in my mind. I don’t see me growing old and happy, being with someone when I am eighty. With kids that jump through sprinklers and crap in the front yard.
         Recklessness, rich, miserable. I can’t help it.
         “Just a little tired,” I say.
         I think of her again, how beautiful she is. I am not looking forward to her seminar tonight, but I am looking forward to her.
         I can’t let her end up like Cassie, what ever Cassie is to me now. My room mate, my slave girl, I don’t know. I don’t really care what she is and thats my problem.
         I tell Bruce about Ginger. He says I’m an idiot for showing her every automated thing in my apartment. I tell him I was drunk, he says I should have been drunker.
         After a long moment of silence, I ask: “What would you do if you knew you were going to die soon, Bruce?”
         “I would have a cook out everyday,” he says.
         “Would you try and stop it?
         “Only if trying to stop it didn’t interfere with me cooking my steaks.”
         I think about this, I think about this long and hard.
         “What would you do if you found me dead?
         “I would eat your flesh and take a pee on your left overs, why are you asking me all these stupid questions?” He flips a bloody brown piece of meat and it sizzles. He looks at me. “It’s that Ginger chick huh? Well, they can do that to you sometimes, you just have to learn how to be a man and pull out of it. You cant let them get to you.”
         He points at Cindy who is laying out on a lawn chair bed, reading a Cosmopolitan. She has several layers of sun tan lotion on and is sporting a bathing suit that looks like it’s from the sixties. She waves, and adjusts her pink pointed shades.
         I can’t believe these words are coming out of Bruce’s mouth.
         “I just have this bad feeling and I just can’t shake it,” I say.
         He shrugs.
         “You are starting to sound like a gay Melodrama to me, buddy.”
         I nod my head and rub the bags under my eyes.
         From then on I stop asking Bruce questions and just eat my steak. I savor its juicy bloody freshness and watch his daughter stuff mash potatoes in her shirt.
         “Look Mommy, I’m like you.”
         “Honey, oh my... get inside right now, and clean yourself up.”
         I like it here in Bruce’s little corner of the world.