Son of a Biscuit

The next time I saw Penelope she was with her boyfriend, Miguel Aguilar. He was sitting next to her instead of her father who had taken up with Gertrude Elfers. Good idea too, with Kenny hot on Penelope’s trail, preening himself, trying to impress her with all his glitter, with the lights reflecting off all the fake medallions and stars on his security guard uniform.

Miguel, on the other hand, had the same shape as the Buddha inside Dave and Margo’s house though his complexion wasn’t purple. He was swarthy with a thick beard that matched his black, frizzy hair. He sat behind Penelope with his lower back pressed against the wall. He did look serene and Buddha-like, but when he moved, he winced in pain instead of the smile on Margo’s ceramic statue.

“He hurt his back on the job,” Penelope said.

Miguel nodded.

“I’m going to see my lawyer about it too. That’ll be three lawsuits in the pipeline.”

He rattled off the other two lawsuits. One against his dentist for harpooning him in his gums. The second one against a drunk on the river who knocked him out of his canoe.

“I had to think fast on that one and told him I was a nature photographer with thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment in the bottom of the river, thanks to him.”

“Some boxes at the truck terminal fell on top of him. He was lucky he wasn’t hurt any worse,” Penelope said.

“It was after lunch. I was stoned.”

Miguel grimaced.

“One of them is bound to pay off,” Penelope said.

“You might think about getting into lawsuits too. It’s a good part-time job like selling Tupperware or Amway,” Miguel said.

He stretched forward to grab a beer out of a small cooler.

“Don’t move, Miguel. You know what the doctor said. Those muscles are tensed up. I’ll bring it to you.”

Penelope opened the small ice chest and retrieved a can of beer. She popped the top for him.

“Miguel and his cousins are opening a taco business when he gets a settlement,” Penelope said. “He’s always wanted a business of his own, and he makes the best tacos I’ve ever tasted. Especially when you’re stoned off the weed he grows.”

She looked at Miguel.

“Maybe, I should get into the taco business too. Could I manage the taco stand?”

He chugged down his beer.

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

It was funny they were talking about lawsuits because that’s where I ended up that evening. It was late, almost eight o’clock when I left the store to deliver squishy, beanbag furniture and a vinyl and foam waterbed called the St. Cloud . It was for Arthur and Celeste Stuart. Arthur Stuart had billboards all over town. Personal injury lawyer. They lived in an exclusive area with manicured lawns and old, Victorian style houses that had large porches and white columns. At night, floodlights aimed at the columns cast shadows like thick, fallen trees against the houses.

I knocked on the ornate, front door. It had small wooden spirals embedded in it. I stood there with two large, yellow beanbags until a drop dead, beautiful woman with light brown hair answered the door. She invited me inside the living room that was full of dark, polished furniture.

“This way,” she said. “We’re going to the third floor with those.”

From the living room she led me to a staircase with a satin finish that sparkled like honey. We climbed to the second floor. She pointed towards another staircase, this one spiral, that corkscrewed to the third floor. I pushed the yellow beanbags, soft as marshmallows, up the narrow, spiral staircase. I looked up through the yellow, and to my surprise, she was braless. I couldn’t take my eyes off her dessert tray with two cupcakes and a cherry on top of each.

I had never been to the third floor of a house. The third floor was equally surprising and enchanting as what I had just seen. There was a skylight in the ceiling. Love seats with purple cushions bordered two dormer windows trimmed in white wood. In another corner was a complete bar with a marble top and taps for tonic water and soda. Black barstools straddled the bar. Next to the bar was a painter’s easel with a canvas on it.

“Put those over there,” she said, pointing to the love seat.

We returned to the second floor. Boxes lined the hallway leading to her bedroom where two vertical lines of lights on dark cedar paneling, like lights in an arcade, from the floor to the ceiling illuminated the room.

It didn’t take very long to put together the Saint Cloud . Its sides were made of triangular-shaped, foam-rubber cushions. The bed was one of Dave’s that rarely sold, and he was glad to get rid of it.

She looked into the bedroom where I had centered it between the lights. When she asked, I don’t know why I said it except that she appeared fragile and needed reassurance. Call it Dave’s influence, his stretching and tying the truth into various shapes like a party balloon artist taking hold.

“We sell quite a few of these,” I said. “They’re popular.”

After stretching the truth, I did the same with the water hose down to a spigot on the ground floor below. The hose curled up the back stairs through a door to their bedroom. While the mattress filled with water, she took me downstairs to the remodeled kitchen. She was excited to show me. New cabinets. New table. New refrigerator. New dishwasher. Everything. A door led outside to a terrace where a wooden walkway extended to a greenhouse covered by a Plexiglas roof.

She walked across the wooden walkway to where it was dark and humid inside the greenhouse. When we were inside she turned, and I could see her blue eyes in the darkness, staring at me like huge beacons. Just like that, I reached for her breasts that I had seen on the spiral staircase and kissed her on the lips. She slid her arms around my back. My heart clicked like a Geiger counter as I anticipated what was about to happen, the unzipping, the unraveling, the spiraling out of control, the phone ringing inside the newly remodeled kitchen. Kitchen phone interruptus.

She pulled away to go answer it.

“My husband, Arthur. He’s probably on his way. He was at the office working on a case. You better finish.”

The waterbed, or what we were just about to do?” I asked.

“The waterbed,” she replied.

She brushed her hair with her hand.

“Please. He’ll be here.”

I finished filling the waterbed. She wrote a check for the C.O.D. and handed it to me.

“This is from my remodeling account. Arthur doesn’t let me have my own checking account or an account with him,” she said, looking away.

“What?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I can’t touch my inheritance either. My grandfather left me thirty million dollars in Coca-Cola stock. Arthur put his on them after we got married. I can’t do anything without his permission.”

She followed me outside and stood on the front porch. I got inside the van and revved the engine like my heart had done a short time before in the greenhouse. She was beautiful and rich and poor at the same time. I looked over towards her and thought of a rare bird fluttering inside a gilded cage. I stepped on the gas pedal to leave.

The side of the van groaned against the slender, white column holding the roof above the driveway. I pressed the accelerator instead of the brake. It sounded like a metal fork fell down her new garbage disposal.

“Look out!” she called from the porch.

I sprang from the driver’s side. The support beam collapsed on top of the van.

“Son of a biscuit!”

I walked over to examine the damage to the van.

“Are you okay?”

Then there was uncontrollable laughter. She was doubled over holding her sides.

“That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.

I didn’t feel quite the schmuck with her laughing until she stopped abruptly. A light green Rolls Royce pulled into the drive. A tall, thin man dressed in a white shirt, loosened tie, and dark pants stepped out. His face was craggy and scarred. He threw his jacket over his shoulder and stared.

It was Arthur Stuart with another lawsuit in the pipeline.