I should’a seen it coming.
See, there are clues, when you’re dealing with people; things that later make you think, ‘Damn, I should’a seen that coming.’
For instance, when you come across a drunk woman on a bicyle who’s wearing a full shirt (mostly see through) and has her cell phone safely tucked into the top portion of her bra and who has been calling – and yelling for – her boyfriend for the better part of an hour.
I was motoring through one of our small towns andin the distance, I saw her. She was on a bike, right down the middle of the state highway…while the semis from the local mushroom factory blasted past.
It was like watching those biology films in school where the sperms were swimming madly toward the womanly parts? ‘Member? How they swam back and forth damn near spastically? Like they were being jolted with electricity? Or were shocked at the notion that their man actually managed to get some?
Yeah, that’s how she rode her bike. Right down the state highway. At 3:00 in the morning.
With handlebars that weren’t tight so they kept slipping down and she’d have to raise them up.
And with a seat that had fallen backward so the middle portion was crammed up between her legs and which had turned slightly sideways so it was like she was getting humped from the left…I know, it’s a political joke: getting screwed from the left…blah blah blah.
So I stopped her and she was hammered. Smelled like a brewery, hair tousled and not in a sexy way, clothes rumpled, pants unzipped, shoe unsnapped. And, I kid you not, the band of her pink panties above the line of her pants on her left side. Now that ain’t nothing but sexy.
“Brent!”
“Whoa, ma’am, you gotta be quiet, you’ll wake everybody up.”
“I’m looking for Brent.”
“I heard that.”
“Brent!”
“Hey, quiet.”
A truck blasted through. Loud and fast and, honestly, a little scary. I pulled her further off the road and prayed the truckers would see my squad with all its pretty lights flashing in the darkness.
“BRENT! I’ve been calling for an hour.”
“And you’ll call from jail if you don’t quiet down.”
She explained that she and Brent had been chilling for a while and yeah, maybe they’d been drinking, but she wouldn’t confirm it. But he got mad, thought he wasn’t wanted, and walked out.
“When was that?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“Not an hour? Because you said you’d been calling for an hour.”
BOOM! Another truck.
“I know the difference between ten minutes and an hour, boy. It’s been exactly ten minutes.”
“Really. Well, we’ve been standing here for 15 minutes.”
“Okay, 15, then.”
About that time my cell phone rang and it was my partner, saying he’d dealt with this same woman the night before. She and her boyfriend – and I was assuming Brent at this point – had an argument and HE called 911. He also said –
“BRENT!!”
I hung up and went back to her. “Ma’am, one more and you’ll be wearing jailhouse orange – ”
BOOM! Another truck.
” -the rest of the night. Do you understand me?”
“But he should come live with me.”
“And what an offer that is, I’m sure. Where did he go walking?”
– Don’t forget the cellphone. Its importance is coming –
She pointed vaguely toward Mars and Pluto and maybe the Outer Ring of Planets in the Caprica System. “You’ll find him, right?”
I blinked. I hadn’t really planned on looking for ol’ lost Brent. I figured if he was lost and out of earshot, then at least one of us was relaxed. “Uh…sure…but…uh…only if you’ll go home.”
BOOM! Another truck, the smell of mushroom so pungent in its wake.
“I gotta find him.”
And I wanted to say: yeah, but you’re blitzed like London during the war and you’re falling out of your sexy pink granny panties and you’ve got this whole bike-seat-humping thing going on that I’m sure you want to get back to.
What I actually said was: “But what if Brent comes home? If you’re not there, he’s liable to leave again to come look for you. Plus, I don’t want any of those idiot truckers to hit you and hurt you.”
See, it’s transference. Put it on the truckers. Make it that they’re the dummies and I’m simply concerned for her safety.
– cell phone minus 5 –
“But you’ll find him, right? You’ll tell him he needs to come home?”
– cell phone minus 4 –
“Absolutely. I’ll find him and tell him to come home to you. What’s his name again?”
“BRENT!”
Okay, that was just me having some fun at her expense. I knew his name. Hell, everyone in town knew his name. Sheesh, they were probably hiding him in their garages, feeling sorry for the poor sap who had that woman to look forward to.
– minus 3 –
“So get on that bike and get on home so you’re there when he calls.”
Yeah, that was my mistake, mentioning the cell phone.
– minus 2 –
Her eyes lit up. “I should call him.”
– minus 1 –
“That’s a great idea.”
– blast off –
She yanks her see-through shirt up and her bra down. Out pops the cell phone and –
There it is, Ladies and Gentlemen, staring right at me like the Eye of the Universe.
The single hairiest nipple I’ve ever seen.
Just staring at me. Like some 4-year old kid in the seat in front of you on a plane. Staring and staring and staring. And then?
Winking.
Swear to all that’s holy. It winked. Trying to be seductive but instead reminding me of a drunk hillbilly with no teeth at a bar saying to the ladies ‘betchoo ain’t seen nothing like me a’fore, have ya?’
What I wanted to say: “Uh, ma’am, can you holster that thing back up?”
Or, “Can you stuff that back in your sock?”
What actually happened was I was so shocked I simply turned away, stared up the highway as though I saw Brent, and said, “Yeah, well, you get home and I’ll go find him.”
Bet you’re expecting another truck right now, aren’t you? Well, it would have been perfect; a truck slamming through, driver laying on the horn at the nekkidness. But it didn’t happen that way. More’s the pity, I guess.
Instead, she put her cell phone back in her bra/shirt, climbed none to gazelle-like on to the bike, and stuttered off into the night. I listened for a few minutes but never heard a crash or a yell so I assumed she made it home okay. I did actually spend a pretty good amount of time looking for Brent, but never found him. He found himself a great hiding place and wasn’t coming up for air no how no way.
I found out later that when we dealt with her the night before, the boyfriend’s name was Raymond or something. It certainly wasn’t Brent. So she had a couple stallions in the paddock.
At least until she unsheathed the Eye of the Universe.