March 28, 1941

The boys adventure to London. *I'm not going to rate this mature, because it's really not that bad, but be wary of the end of this chapter if you're easily offended.

Hersch "

Friday, March 28, 1941

            It’s been a long, boring week. I haven’t had a minute to write anything since last Wednesday, not that there’s been much to report. The professors are keeping us loaded down with schoolwork, since graduation is apparently only three months away. Not that any of us actually care about graduating, but our Biology professor threatened to have us expelled if we botched one more lab. So we’ve all been working our asses off, since clearly I’m not the only one who isn’t dying to be sent home.

            Today, though, we finally got some good news. None of us were thrilled at the idea of enduring another “family visitation day,” which, as it turns out, takes place every other Sunday. Lucky for us, Jim, who I’m starting to think might actually be a genius, found a way to get us out of it. Apparently, those are the only days anyone is allowed off campus, I guess under the assumption that they would go visit their families. Anyway, as long as we’re back for Monday morning classes we can take the bus into London on Sunday!

The guys are excited. We’re all pretty damn sick of looking at the same four walls every day. I think they’re planning another round of girl hunting, though I doubt it will go any better than the last time.

We all got mail today, except Gabe, who seems to have less family than any of us. Jim got some fruity note from his parents all the way from the States. Erich got a letter from his brother which has had him worked up all weekend. Rebecca wrote. Said she got a job and a place to live, though she didn’t say where or what the job was. It occurred to me that I might be able to visit her if she was still living in London. I would really like to see her, but I also have no idea where she’s living. Plus I’d have to take the guys, and based on what I’ve seen, I don’t want Erich or Jim (Gabe probably wouldn’t be a problem) with a hundred miles of my sister.

Anyway, I’ve got to work on the travel plans. I’ll take the journal with me, in case we end up staying the night in the city and for I’m stupid enough to risk the guys finding it.

 

Gabe "

            After Biology on Friday, we all headed back to the dorm to relax and bask in the glory of Friday afternoon. The week had been tough. Between the four of us we had failed two Biology labs, missed an Economics test, and passed out drunk in class while writing an essay on African History (to be fair, that one was only Jim). Just about every professor, except Professor Crackers, who still didn’t know I existed, had threatened to have us suspended. That got us off our asses and into the library, and we ended up spending Thursday and Friday with our noses in books.

            So by the time four o’ clock rolled around on Friday, we were ready for a break. We ambled towards the dorms, laughing and smoking. As we made our way across the grounds, we saw big groups of guys gathering on the lawn with wooden tubs and clothes.

“What the f**k is this?” Jim eyed them suspiciously. We watched as the groups, roommates, probably, drew water from the pump near the shower building.

“I think it’s laundry day,” Hersch said.

“Laundry?” Erich asked, sounding annoyed. “I don’t know how to do f*****g laundry. That’s what you get dames for.”

“If that’s all you use them for you’ve got a problem,” Jim laughed.

“F**k off.”

“We might as well try,” I offered. I had washed clothes in Italy, but that wasn’t something I was about to share with them.

Jim sniffed his shirt tentatively, pulling back and looking disgusted. “Damn! You got that right, Moretti. Let’s go get the stuff.”

As soon as we opened the door to the dorm, Erich slipped on something. “S**t!” he yelled, looking angrily at the floor. “What the hell was that?”

Hersch bent over and picked up the papers that had been slipped under the door. “Letters!” he said, seeming happy to see them.

There were four, and for one second, I thought one might be for me. I thought someone in the world actually cared enough about me to see how I was doing away from home.

“From Christian Amery…” Hersch read, handing a letter to Erich. “From Lillian and Robert Banhart… from…” he trailed off, not reading the name of the person who had written to him, “…um, for me. And… a notice from Knight.”

Of course no one had written me. Why would they? My parents were long gone, and it was unlikely that my Aunt and Uncle would send me anything but a bomb.

Hersch dropped his letter on to the desk. Erich glared at the envelope and shoved it into his pocket. Only Jim opened his letter, grabbing a bottle of whiskey out of the boiler as he scanned the page. “Oh, boy,” he said, taking a sip, “letters from home. We’re gonna need this,” he laughed holding out the bottle.

“F**k that, Banhart,” Erich said, heading for the large wooden laundry tub, “grab your clothes and let’s get this over with. Give me a hand here, Gabe.”

I rushed over to grab the other side of tub, glad for a distraction from my lack of correspondence. I couldn’t possibly explain that the people who I had spent the last two years with wanted absolutely nothing to do with me without revealing what had happened in Italy.

Erich and I hauled the tub outside and over to the water pump while Hersch carried the huge pile of clothes and Jim read allowed from his letter.

“Dear James,” he began, mimicking his mother’s voice, “we hope this letter finds you well. All is well here. I’ve planted a victory garden to make up for the rations. The newsman says London is still under German fire. You’re not going into London are you? Are you reading your Bible? Have you made any friends?  Are you making good choices?” We all snickered at that.

“Well you can’t bloody well answer ‘yes’ to both of those, can you?” I laughed.

Jim chucked and went on. “Sending you our love and prayers, blah blah blah blah, love Mom and Dad. P.S. Jesus’ eyes are always on you.”

We all exploded with laughter at that. “Jesus, Jim!” Hersch hooted. “Sounds like your parents are a little concerned for your soul.”

“Ha! You got that right,” he said as we set the tub down under the water pump. “I guess they didn’t exactly approve of the way I lived my life back home.”

“Yeah, and they thought sending you over here with us was the way to get you on the right path,” I said sarcastically, pumping the water into the tub.

“What they don’t know doesn’t hurt them,” Jim laughed. “If I told them I was rooming with a Jew and a German and a…” he trailed off and looked at me as I willed him not to say the word he was thinking, “… whatever the hell you are, they’d probably have a heart attack.”

We all laughed as the tub filled up. It took all four of us to get it over to the lawn once it was full of water, and my hands were splintered by the time we got into the shade of the big oak tree.

“S**t!” I exclaimed, looking down at my hands.

“Don’t be a fairy, Moretti,” Erich said teasingly.

My breath caught in my throat at the word. Luckily, Hersch broke in before I had to defend myself. “Hey, what was the notice from Knight?”

Jim dropped a shirt into the water and shrugged. “Fucked if I know. Probably a reminder that we’ve all got to bow to him as he walks by.”

“Bow or bend over!” Erich snorted. I chuckled. It was easier to deal with the queer jokes if they weren’t directed at me.

“Well, let’s see,” Jim said, pulling the notice out of his pocket. He read to himself, scanning the page. Then a huge grin slid across his face.

“Holy s**t!”

“What?”

“Holy s**t!” he said again, as if that answered everything. “I’ll be right back.” He took off running towards the main building, flailing his arms like an idoit.

We just watched as he dashed away from us. “Real convenient, a*****e!” Hersch shouted after him. “If you’re not back in one minute your clothes are going in the tree!”

“Wanker,” I muttered under my breath.

“If he doesn’t come back that guy’s gonna lose some teeth,” sulked, scrubbing at a pair of pants. “F**k, don’t we have any soap?”

“What? Got some unsightly stains there, Amery?” Hersch asked teasingly. “Not getting too excited, are you?”

            Erich scoffed. “Yeah, because there’s so much to get excited about around here,” he said sarcastically. “I just can’t control myself. Gabe here just makes me so stiff.” He pounded me on the back.

            I froze. It took me a second to process what he had said, and two more to realize he was joking. I wasn’t sure what reaction he expected, but all I managed was a strangled, half-hearted laugh as I stared at the ground and lit a cigarette nervously.

            “Hey,” Hersch sounded irritated, smacked Erich on the arm, “lay off him.”

            Erich snorted fell backwards onto the ground, irritated that no one had appreciated his joke, with his hands behind his head, abandoning his pants in the laundry tub. I stifled a relieved sigh. It was getting worse. Whatever made Erich to say things like that about me wasn’t going away. Hersch seemed to be on my side, more than the other guys at least, but I couldn’t let him defend me every time. I had to show them I was tough.

Still, I threw a grateful glance at Hersch, who either didn’t see or didn’t notice. He had turned his gaze towards the main building, where Jim was tearing out the door and around the corner towards us.

“Arschloch,” Erich sat up and cursed in German under his breath.

“Just listen to him,” Hersch said, looking down into the tub and pushing his glasses up his nose. “He’s smarter than we think.”

Erich looked at him incredulously this time. “Defender of the weak and innocent today, are we?”

“F**k you.”

Erich sat up with a menacing look in his eyes, but Jim got there first. “Guys!” he was out of breath, waving the notice from Knight triumphantly over his head as he came to a stop in front of us.

“Nice try,” Erich grumbled, “there’s no way you’re leaving us to do your goddamn laundry.”

“Guys!” Jim tried again, more insistent. “Guys!”

“What?” Hersch asked, annoyed.

“Guys,” he wheezed one more time, “we’re going to London.”

 

Erich "

            Damn, was ever ready to get into London and get a real drink. The whiskey stash was exciting for about a day, but it was cheap ration stuff, and I was sick of drinking it.

            “F**k,” I said as we stepped onto the deserted bus. It was a warm Sunday evening, and after a whole day of watching families arrive on campus, I was ready to walk to London if it meant getting away from Wellington’s. Unfortunately, the bus only came by at six in the morning and five at night, mostly for the professors who escaped the school and returned to their flats in the evening.  “I’m going to the first bar I see once I get to London and if you Wankers don’t like it you can f**k off.”

            Hersch dropped his bag on a seat in the back. The rest of the guys had packed, but I had no intention of sleeping that night, and all I brought was the pack of cigarettes rolled into my shirt sleeve. “Don’t blow a fuse, Erich. We never said we wouldn’t drink with you.”

            Jim sat next to him and grinned. “I’m with Amery on this. But let’s find a bar with some call girls, huh? Maybe a couple of dancers on stage?”

            “Ha! I don’t care if they dance, just as long as they take their clothes off. Right?” I joked, elbowing Gabe as he sat down next to me. He gave me one of his weird looks and a forced, almost sarcastic laugh.

            My mood was improving for the first time all weekend. Believe me, bad quality booze wasn’t the only thing driving me to drink. Once I was alone on Friday, I had finally read the letter (though I debated throwing it out unopened) from my older brother, Chris.

            There was a second, when I first saw the name on the envelope, when I thought Führer had written me. After all, Chris was really Christian Amery the Third, named after our arrogant father who had been ecstatic to give his fist son the family name. If that had been the case, I would have not just thrown it out but burned it, buried it, and probably taken a piss on it. But when I saw it was sent from the air base, I knew who it was.

            Christian was about the second to last person in the world I wanted to hear from, after my father. I was always tempted to tell the guys, when they thought I was out of line, that my brother made me look like a saint. He was only three years older than me, but already an air bomber for the German forces. Führer was so proud.

            The letter was short, blunt, and reminded me why I never wanted to see the battered streets of Berlin again. I don’t even know how he found out where I was. No one was supposed to know.

            But, being Christian, he had figured it out. I had been running his words (in German, of course. Damn it, just when I was getting used to English he had to throw me off) over in my head all weekend until all I wanted to do was punch someone and drink.

Erich,

            Don’t be too surprised, little brother. I know where you are. You’re at that school Mom wanted to send you too last fall, when you were too busy with Brigitte to notice. She has a new boy now, by the way, Brigitte. Seems happy. Little w***e moved on pretty quickly after what happened.

Dad’s furious. But, then, when is he not? He guessed that Mama knew where you were. Pushed her around for a few weeks until he lost interest. Says you’re a disgrace to the family. Say’s to never come back. I wouldn’t come back if I were you, little brother. She’s all he’s got now, and I think he misses having someone who fights back when he hits them.

I never did get to talk to you about what happened. You’re so stupid, Erich. You didn’t have to do it like that, a*****e. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done the same, I just would have been smarter about it.

            I don’t know if this will reach you, but I’m betting it will. I’m also betting that you won’t write back. But you’re not done with me, little brother. Keep your eyes on the sky. We’re hitting London more and more every week. I might even drop in for a visit.

Pvt. Christian Amery III

            I had almost forgotten Chris’s condescension, his casual spitefulness, his ability to know exactly what he had to say to get to me. What did he care if I went back? Who the hell was he to say anything Brigitte? How could he still talk about Mama like that?

            But it wasn’t even the threat of a visit from him that really had me steamed. He may have been the youngest pilot on the force, but he didn’t control where they bombed, and there was no way in hell they would ever choose to explode a pointless place like Wellington’s.

What really got me was what he said about what had happened with Brigitte. He said he would have done the same. It made me sick. Not just the thought of how he would have done it, but the fact that he thought we had the same take on the situation. It was close to the last thing in the world I wanted to have in common with Chris, and that is saying something.

More than anything, there was the underlying implication that made me want to fly back to Berlin just to punch him in the face. Chris believed that I had done the horrible thing to Brigitte. Just like everyone else. We had never, ever gotten along, but I would have thought my own brother might believe me when it came to something like that.

“Hey,” Gabe’s voice snapped me out of my angry daze, “what are you sulking about now?”

I wasn’t about to tell them anything about Christian’s letter. “What? Nothing, don’t be stupid,” I grumbled, “just, uh, thinking about the girls we’re gonna see tonight.”

Jim wiggled his eyebrows. “You’re not the only one.”

We all laughed as the bus jolted around a corner. “Oh man,” I breathed, taking a drag from my cig, “I might die tonight if I don’t see any… any…” I couldn’t finish. I didn’t know the word in English.

Hersch looked at me confusedly, “Any what?”

I was disgusted with myself. The word I wanted was one I had said a million times in German. But it wasn’t exactly the kind of word Mama had taught me. Now I had tried to say it in front of the guys, and I was about to become the running joke of the trip. “Nothing,” I mumbled, keeping my eyes on the floor.

“Aw, come on, Amery,” Gabe said.

“Um,” there was no way out, “any…” I racked my brain for the word, and this time something came to me.

“Tats,” I said confidently, before I could think about it.

Their faces didn’t exactly reflect understanding. “What?” Gabe asked.

S**t. Was it the wrong word? I had to try. “You know,” I didn’t have any other way to show them what I meant, so I tried to demonstrate, holding my hands out from my chest, mimicking the general shape. “Tats.”

This time they got it, and all three of them exploded with laughter. All I could do was watch as I felt my face get redder and redder. Finally, between gasps of laughter, tears streaming down his face, Jim looked up at me and wheezed:

“Tits, Amery. It’s tits.”

They just kept laughing at me while I seethed in my seat. I felt my face twisting, jaw locked, teeth grinding, fists clenched. In my mind, I ordered myself to stay calm, to let it go. But I hated being embarrassed, especially in front of guys who were supposed to be below me. I could hit Gabe, scare the other ones, easy target, wouldn’t fight back…

“Hey,” I leaped out of livid silence to Gabe giving my arm a flimsy punch. “Calm down, Erich. It’s no big deal.”

I just snorted angrily at him. The other two were still laughing, but somehow knowing that someone else was on my side kept me from boiling over. “Jesus, Amery,” Jim laughed, “who the hell taught you English?”

“My mum,” I said before I could think of an answer better than the truth.

“No f*****g wonder you don’t know that word,” Hersch snorted.

“How the hell does your mom know English?” Jim asked.

Damn it. Talking about my family was even worse than being laughed at. But there was no way out. “She’s from England. Met my dad during the Great War and went back to Germany with him.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I promised myself that was all I would ever say about them. No one would ever know anything else.

“Huh,” grunted Jim, seeming to have not paid attention. “What about you, Hersch?”

“My dad,” he said, looking out the window. “Came here for school when he was about our age. Absolutely loved it. Would have stayed here forever is he hadn’t gone back to Poland after graduation for the last of his things.”

“What happened then?”

Hersch took a drag off his cig before answering. “Met my mum. Got married, had my sister and me and never saw England’s shores again.”

“Ah,” Gabe said, “what does he do now?”

“Lies six feet under the ground,” Hersch said matter-of-factly, “both of them. Dead last year.”

“How?”

“War.” He didn’t elaborate, never took his eyes off the window, and no one pressed him, though we were all thinking the same thing. Two more dead Jews in Poland shouldn’t have meant anything to me, but I felt myself biting my cheek and swallowing something that might have almost been an apology.

It was quiet for a minute. “Mine too,” Gabe said finally. “Not directly by the war, I guess. Got their auto hit by an army truck two years ago.”

“Really,” I said. For some reason I was more curious about Gabe’s life than Hersch’s. For one thing I was less scared to ask him questions. “What did you do?”

He bit his lip and looked down. “I went to Italy, to work at my uncle’s vineyard. I didn’t speak the language and didn’t know s**t about grapes.”

“I’ll bet that was fun,” Jim snorted.

Gabe scoffed. “I’m glad to be gone, that’s for sure. No matter how fucked things at Wellington’s are there’s always someplace worse I could be.” He stopped for a second, clearly afraid he had said too much. “At least for me,” he amended.

“I think we can all agree on that,” Hersch muttered.

“Hey!” Jim yelled excitedly, interrupting the awkward moment, making us all jump. “There it is!”

We all flew over to Jim’s window and pressed our nosed against the glass. The lights of London’s skyline stood right in front of us, a huge black presence looming against the orange sunset.

I couldn’t suppress my smile as I looked around at them. All weekend I had been worried that the stress from Chris’s letter would ruin my night out. But when I looked up at that skyline I knew we were going to have the time of our lives.

 

Jim "

When the bus finally came to a stop inside the city, we practically flew on to the street. I don’t know what they were expecting, but I was f*****g excited. The biggest city I had ever seen was Milwaukee, and that was nothing compared to this.

London was enormous. Absolutely, goddamn, f*****g enormous. For another thing, every other f*****g building was blown up. And apparently no one had taken the time to see how long it would take to get there, so, with all the torn up roads, it had taken almost three hours to get there. Seriously, the whole city was basically a pile of rubble, and for me that was the most goddamn exciting thing I had ever seen in my life.

We were dropped off in a dark, deserted neighborhood. I knew absolutely nothing about London and could not have told anyone where I was if my life depended on it. Nevertheless, I leaped, flailing, off the bus with a huge grin on my face. “Holy s**t!” I exclaimed, falling into a half dancing, half boxing kind of movement with Hersch, who at least humored me. “Holy s**t, guys! This place is great!”

“Yeah, it’s really something,” Erich said unexcitedly.

“Should we find a hotel or something,” Hersch asked, batting me away.

“Have you got the money for a f*****g hotel?” Erich asked sarcastically, “No, we’ll just find a bar and stay there ‘til the bus comes at five.”

“Well then let’s find it then,” Gabe said agitatedly. “I don’t know about you guys but I don’t want to be on this street after dark.”

“Aw, don’t be a fairy, Moretti,” I groaned. “We’ve got all the security we need right here,” I punched Erich in the arm, too excited to care that if he punched me back I would be drooling on the streets of London. “Right? Huh? Huh? Huh?”  I kept punching.

“Cut it, Jim,” Erich swung his arm over my head and I ducked, though I could tell he had deliberately missed. “You lived here, Moretti,” he said, giving Gabe a whack on the chest that clearly left him more winded than he let on, “where can we get hooch and girls?”

“At the same time!” I laughed

“Um…” Gabe mumbled, obviously stalling,

“Aw, Gabe won’t know where that s**t is,” Hersch said. “What we ought to do is… hey, what’s that?” Goddamn that guy could see well with those glasses. I would have walked right past the dusty sign that read Paul’s Tavern.

“Couldn’t say,” Gabe said. “Looks like a bar, though,”

“Should we start here?” Hersch asked.

“F**k yes, we should start here,” Erich exclaimed. “It says ‘Tavern,’ doesn’t it? That’s good enough for me!”

“Looks kind of shady to me…” Gabe said hesitantly.

“Well let’s just peek inside,” I urged, grabbing his wrists and yanking him inside with the rest of us.

The outside door opened into a long, dimly lit corridor with another door at the end. The four of us tiptoed down the hall, listening to the fast, unfamiliar music that came from the other side, until we were nearly leaping over each other in excitement.

We pushed the second door open just enough for the four of us to peek our heads into the room. And, damn, were we ever glad we did. The room was dark and scattered with round tables. There was a long bar to our left and a stage directly in front of us.

And on the stage a red headed broad with a huge rack stuffed in a tiny brassiere was taking her bows and gathering her clothes.

            Well, let me tell you, we had never moved faster in our lives than that split second it took us to get ourselves a table. The redhead kept bowing, swinging her enormous tits to the ground, as a husky guy in a tuxedo stepped on to the stage. “Let’s here it for the lovely Lola!” The lucky b******s who had actually seen the show exploded in applause. “The beautiful broads will be back in an hour,” he said when the ovation died, though this announcement resulted in the collective groans of the entire audience including us four, “now, now,” he held his hands up in apology. “Of course, as always, my girls are ready for gentleman callers after the show. Until then, drink up, boys, ‘cause Paul’s girls will be right back!”

            After another explosive cheer the four of us turned to each other. “Banhart,” Erich said, “this was the best f*****g idea anyone has ever had.”

            “Yeah,” Gabe agreed unenthusiastically, “I’ll go get some drinks.”

            “Oh, you wont be able to carry what I’ve got in mind by yourself,” Erich laughed, running after him.

            Once we were alone, I noticed that Hersch was looking pretty damn uncomfortable. “You’re girl would die if she knew you were here, wouldn’t she, Abrahamson?” I said after a minute.

            Hersch laughed to himself. “She would,” he said.

            “Hey,” I nudged him, “just have fun for once, why don’t you?”

            He looked down and smiled just a little, “yeah.”

            It was suddenly incredibly awkward, and I was ridiculously glad to see Erich and Gabe returning with a huge tray of drinks.

            “Holy s**t!” Hersch exclaimed. “We can’t drink all of this.”

            “Don’t worry,” Erich smiled as he settled into his chair, sliding about six of the drinks towards himself, “this half is for me.”

            I’m not going to lie; I’m really not sure what happened in that hour while we waited for the girls to come back out. I couldn’t even tell you what we drank. You see, I would never admit it to the guys, but I have never been the best at holding my liquor. All I know is that I had two glasses in the time it took Hersch and Gabe to have three and Erich to have five.

So the three of us, at least, were pretty equally fried, and boy did that make for some real fun. I know the band was playing Glenn Miller and I think I tried to teach the rest of them the dances from back home. The only thing I knew for a fact was that no one was impressed and that Erich knocked me over and I didn’t get up for several minutes.

That guy can drink like no guy I had met then or since. Six drinks in (and less than an hour after we got there) and Erich was up on his chair bellowing for the show to start. I’m pretty sure we almost got kicked out when he yanked a waitress on to his lap and tried to give her a cigarette in exchange for a f**k. I think a manager had to come explain that the waitresses were not for sale, and the ones that were for sale were not exchangeable for cigs. But, like I said, it’s possible that calmly discussed literature with Winston Churchill. I have absolutely no idea.

I sure as f**k remember when the show started back up, though. And I’m pretty damn sure it took longer than an hour. I guess they were counting on idiots like us to get tanked up and not be able to tell time. Anyway the emcee returned and the crowd descended into an uproar.

“Thank you, thank you,” as if the idiot thought anyone was clapping for him. “Now gentlemen, please welcome to Paul’s stage our newest performer. She’s a Jewish harlot on the run and eager to please… put your hands together for… Delilah!”

Before the cheering could even start up again, Hersch was up and gone, noticeably insulted. “F**k.” I got up unsteadily to follow him.

“Aw, let him go,” Erich slurred so it sounded like: ‘ahlehimgah.’ “He’ll be fine.”

I was either too stupid or too drunk to listen to him and kept walking until them music jolted to a start and a gloved hand shot out from behind the red curtain. I jumped and stopped where I was, which was right at the end of the bar. A girl appeared on the stage, a girl with long blonde hair, wearing a white fur coat and a red scarf. A girl with the most extraordinary face I had ever seen.

She carried herself across the stage in a few long strides, then dropped her coat on the drumbeat. Underneath she wore a black corset with torn stockings and high heeled slippers. She bent her knees and ran her hands down her thighs with a devilish smile on her face. Then she backed up and grabbed the stool behind her. She bent over it, grinding her a*s against the air. My dick literally shivered.

She flipped back around to face the audience and dropped backwards on the stool. She lay there on her back with her head hanging behind her and her long legs practically over her head. She rotated them in the air and her fingers trailed from her overflowing chest down to her own crotch, where she then grabbed herself and howled with the crowd.

Then she was back on her feet. She ripped away the middle of her corset and was suddenly in only a brassiere, panties, and that scarf, which she wrapped around herself suggestively.

Suddenly she was off the stage. She hopped from chair to chair until she was standing on the bar. She took three long strides, oblivious to the hands groping at her ankles, then lowered herself. She lifted her body up and down like she was f*****g the bar. The crowd around me was going crazy, but couldn’t have seen, heard, or smelled anything but her if I wanted to. She was feet away from me.

Then she was up again, walking back down the bar. Walking right towards me. She met my eyes, I was sure she did, and smiled. When she finally reached me, I extended my arms, desperate to touch her. But she kept me at a distance, pressed her foot to my forehead and pushed so I almost fell on my a*s. Her scarf dropped off her shoulders and into my hands.

I was too focused on defending my prize from jealous hands and didn’t see how she got back on the stage. But when I looked back up she was suddenly out of her bra, covering her tits with her hands and shaking her head like she wouldn’t show us anything. I swore to myself that I would commit suicide if she didn’t. Then the drum roll began and she backed up, her pout turning into a smile, and on the last notes of the song she backed up and threw her hands in the air, giving us the shortest peek in the history of mankind before the red curtain fell in front of her.

When my brain finally started working, I focused on closing my jaw, which had apparently become unhinged during the performance, while the men around me howled with disappointment. I, for one, was not howling. I didn’t care. If Erich poked my eyes out with a fork when I returned to the table (it seemed like a legitimate possibility at that point), it wouldn’t have made a difference to me. I had seen everything I would ever need to see in my entire life.

I stood in a daze for a long, long few minutes, waiting for my brain function to fully return before I head back to the guys. I never made it that far, though.  No more than two minutes after that beautiful girl stepped off the stage, that eerie, high pitched, deafening wail came seeping into the bar, drowning out the music and bringing everything to a halt.

Bomb sirens.

Then the ground started to shake.

 

Reviews

[Arianna]

ha. that was funny.
drunk boys...always entertaing.
would have been funny to see the show scene from gabes pov. :D

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.name. Arianna
.username. nerdypenguin2427
.novels. Sanctuary, Right Side Up
.status. Reader, Early Writer, Role Model
.join date. 04-03-2011

[trish420]

LOL I LOVE LOVE LOVE Jim's version of events.... you always get the most entertaining recap of eents fromt eh drunkest guy..... I keep wondering though, was Hersch offended purely on basis of race or does he know Delilah?? Just what it made me think. I'd also love to get Gabe's side of how the night went... shoudl also be pretty funny :-) As always, reads great and keeps me begging for more! One technical tip, when Jim was reading his Mom's letter "aloud" to the guys you spelled it "allowed". Other than that, great!