Love Bites: Chapter One

Marty Jenkins meets and loses the love of his life in a heart beat.

1.

 

Marty Jenkins sat at the rear of the Empty Cup browsing a stack of loosely stapled pages unaware he’d be dead in two hours.

While his overpriced coffee cooled ignored and forgotten on the edge of the table, he browsed his collection of prose for something to read to the open-mic crowd. Not just read, of course, but something to knock the socks off everyone gathered for their low-fat chocolate muffins and expensive scones.

He was very proud of some of his work, especially a poem about flying whales he wrote in honor of the late, great Douglas Adams. He looked around him at those gathered tonight: the hippies, the beatniks, the feminist and the stoners and decided not to bother. This crowd was in the mood for their vagina monologues and deep, meaningful abstract prose, not humorous poems.  Flustered, he pushed the pages aside and grabbed his coffee. He felt like an a*s, having come to yet another open-mic to sit on his hands with his pages unread and his dignity nowhere to be found.  

He looked towards the pitiful stage at the center of the smoky Cup, lighted by a single, lonely beam of light. Standing there was a woman. She had raven black hair and wore a pair of dark rimmed glasses. Her skin was pale, face narrow, and her nose ring flickered in the light like a tiny flame. Her clothes were simple enough, just a pair of jeans and a tank top. Her exposed left shoulder revealed a massive tattoo. From where he sat, it looked tribal.

She brushed her bangs out of her face and reached towards the microphone. Once she touched it a horrible static scream reverberated throughout the Cup, causing people to cover their ears and curse angrily beneath the feedback. Like a child touching a hot stove, she retracted her hand and took a few weary steps back.

“Nice start, sweetheart,” one irritated customer shouted.

This of course caused other congregated a******s in attendance to hoot, holler, and jeer at the girl on the stage, who stared out into the darkness with her baby doe eyes swimming with fear. Marty didn’t think she deserved this, especially when you stop to consider how hard it was to step in front of strangers and open yourself up artistically. He wanted to stand up and tell all the haters to shut the f**k up, but didn’t.

Couldn’t.

If he was unable to stand upon that stage and read his prose, how could he stand up against a hateful horde of caffeine addicted artist? Instead, like a true coward, he waited for the taunts and gibes to die out on their own.

Then he spotted his friend Gail strut upon the stage behind the terrified girl and knew he wouldn’t have to wait long for a true hero had arrived on the scene. She was beautiful, but after another long, demoralizing shift at the Cup she appeared a George Romero zombie. Her blond hair was pulled back into a pony tail, which hung limply over her slender shoulder like a dead rodent. The ugly lighting overhead made the rings under her eyes more pronounced, given her face a sunken look.  Marty thought it was a shame just how many men here tonight failed to notice the splendor beneath the grime of a arduous shift.

Gail strutted over to the microphone and ripped it lose from the stand, which wobbled drunkenly side to side. In a loud commanding voice she said, “Shut up!”

And they did.

Gail locked eyes with the heckler and said, “If you think it’s so easy to come up here and spill your guts then how about you get up and have a try? No. Yeah, that’s what I thought. To the rest of you, give this girl a break. It’s not her fault we have a s****y microphone. Show her some love!”

It was funny how quick the jeers transformed into cheers. Gail returned the microphone and exited the stage as the girl reluctantly pulled a few folded pages from her back pocket and approached the microphone. After adjusting her glasses, she spoke�"her voice pleasantly buzzing through the establishment’s dozen speakers hanging haphazardly overhead.

“Thanks Gail. This is called, ‘Half Open but Mostly Dead’.”

She read her poem smoothly and with renewed assurance, but Marty failed to hear anything as his ears zoned out and his overactive imagination took over. The images came fast and heavy, one after the other in vivid detail. He saw their first kiss, a rain soaked stroll, and ending with them lying on his coach in the midst of the most carnal of acts. He shook the images away and tried to focus instead on what she was saying and managed to catch the last few lines of her poem.

“…a window half open. Somewhere a dog barks haphazardly into the night, his whelp carrying on the wind. A limp tail, shivering beneath a box, leg mangled. I weep for you,” she said sullenly, “I weep for us all. Thank you.”

That was cool, Marty thought as he clapped along with the rest. He watched as the girl took a rushed bow and darted off. Marty tried to see where she went, but couldn’t see past a smoky booth occupied by a bunch of kids decked out in turn of the century garb.

“Damn it,” he muttered finishing the last of his coffee.

“You going up tonight?”

Spinning around he saw Gail standing behind him with an empty tray in her hand. She pulled out a chair and plopped down next to him with a heavy, exhausted sigh.

“Man, my feet are killing me.”

“How much longer you got?”

“I have no idea Marty. You know Billy Bill, if someone’s ordering, he’ll be serving. Seeing as I got a stack of unpaid bills decorating my fridge like spots on a Dalmatian, I’ll be sticking around until the cows come home. You know what the sad part about all this is?”

“What’s that?”

“After this I still won’t have enough to cover all my expenses. I wish someone would have pulled me aside back when we were foolishly following our dreams and said, ‘You know you’ll never make it. When you graduate you’ll be up to your a*s in debt and working double, triple shifts just to stay afloat.’ Had someone done that Marty, I sure as s**t wouldn’t have majored in Liberal Arts. Boy,” she said rubbing the back of her neck, “did I make a huge mistake following my dreams. You ever feel that way?”

Of course he did. She wasn’t the only one swimming in debt. There wasn’t a single day that passed without some a*****e collector demanding payment for this, that, or the other. It was so bad that every time the phone rang his heart missed a beat. But he, like all writers had a dream that one day he’d be successful like J.K. Rowling or Stephen King. He’d have movies and TV mini-series, graphic novels about his work, and fans. Glorious fans! But at this point it was all a pipe dream.  Someday, the mantra of the poor and starving. He decided to change the topic rather than continue down this depressing road.

“Nice save by the way.”

“Thanks babe,” she said smiling.

“Can I get some damn service over here or what,” a big man with a Fu Manchu shouted from a nearby table. A quick glance revealed a genetic freak constructed of solid muscle mass�"s**t even his muscles had muscle. Most people when being confronted by someone of his enormous girth would adhere to his request in order to avoid the brutal beating this monstrosity would undoubtedly unleash.

But not Gail.

With her eyes firmly locked on his, her voice unwavering, she said, “How about you give me five minutes, dude. What, you gonna die if you don’t get a cup of coffee right this second?”

Marty wasn’t sure how the meathead would take being talked down to by a waitress, which is why he gathered up all his papers and got ready to get the hell out of way. Gail didn’t need his help; she was a WMD masquerading in a waitress uniform. Since she was five she had been schooled in martial arts and had already logged in dozens of hours at his father’s professional wrestling school. Fu Manchu was big and strong, but Gail was quick and knew how to fight.

She focused on Marty again, “So, you going up or what? I hate seeing you drag yourself out here just to sit here drinking overpriced coffee and doubting yourself. You’ve got talent and you should be showcasing it rather than letting people like that go,” she said gesturing towards the stage with her head.

Marty saw a man walk up there in khakis and a blue sports shirt with the word ‘Balls’ written in big, bold letters. Tucked under his arm was a vanilla folder, where he guessed the arrogant, brash, bumptious cocksucker kept his so-called prose. The guy, with his cocky grin and bad boy good looks, took to the stage like he owned it and marched up to the microphone without hesitation. Marty secretly wished he could do that and secretly hated anyone that could.  

“Why would you wear a shirt that says balls?”

“Same type of a*****e who does keg stands and likes Michael Bay films,” Gail replied as she shook her head.

Marty chuckled as his eyes searched the Cup for another glance of his raven haired beauty. He found her, leaning against the front counter near a display case full of pies, cakes, and triangle shaped sandwiches. To his surprise, she actually appeared to be interested in the current speaker’s bullshit. What does she care what this poser has to say, he wondered despairingly.

“Okay, cut the crap. Who is she?”

Marty stared at Gail, who smiled knowingly at him. He thought about lying, but knew it wouldn’t do any good since she had the ability to read him like a horny teen does a copy of his father’s Hustler.

“The girl near the counter. Black hair.”

Gail looked off into that general direction, the whole time trying to act casual. A second later, an enthusiastic Gail said, “Oh f**k.”

“What?”

“You can’t like her.”

“Why not?”

“Her name is Ann Graves, Marty, and she’s going to start work here tomorrow.”

“So.”

“So? Don’t tell me you’ve already forgot about Amber.”

Amber was a former waitress at the Cup that he had crushed on pretty heavy a few months back. He used to come in during her shifts to drink coffee and try to impress her by reading classical literature and writing on his laptop. His goal had always been to ask her on a date, but he always chickened out in the end. And then one day, she vanished. Looking at Gail he wondered what that had to do with anything, especially Ann Graves.

“What about her?”

“She quit because of you.”

“That’s insane.”

“Is it? I had to stop her from calling the cops on you, you stalker! Look, Ann Graves is off limits. If you like her, fine, ask her out. But if you start snooping around here like you did with Amber…”

“I won’t.”

“Besides, no offense, and you know I love you, but you’re kind of…ordinary. Chicks like her don’t realize your true value until they’re in their thirties and have two kids from two different guys whose names they can’t remember. ”

“What does that mean,” he asked knowing damn well what she meant. She was out of her league and he kind of already suspected as much.

“You know what you need?”

“A bullet through the brain?”

“Christ no. You just need what that guy has written on his shirt.”

“Balls?”

“Balls,” she repeated proudly. She made a fist and acted like she was squeezing something, “Big, fat balls Marty. That’s what you need, something to really grasp on to and shake.”

“Will you stop that,” he said, knocking her hand down.

“You going up or what?”

Marty stared at the jumbled stack of pages he was clutching in his sweaty hands and then back at her saying, “These just aren’t good enough.”

“Good enough for what? Marty, babe, it’s just open-mic night remember. Last week some guy got up there and read an ode to a tampon. Nobody gives a s**t. Most of the people in here pretend to know something about writing when in fact they know dick. So what are you waiting for, Marty, get up there and show Ann and me you got something in your pants worth salivating over.”

Marty shook his head as images of a humiliating reading danced gravely through his mind. He pictured everyone in the Cup pointing and cackling at him as he rushed off the stage with tears flowing and his heart broken. “I can’t,” he said dejected. “Let me write something I feel really proud of and then I’ll do it.”

“Suit yourself. I better get back to work before my boss sees me out here chatting with you. The last thing I need is to lose another job, especially during these dark economic times. Did you want anything else?”

Marty finished his coffee and handed her the mug. “Got anything with bite?”

“Need some liquid courage,” she said with a grin.

“No, I just want to numb my senses enough so I don’t feel sorry for myself. God, Gail, do I suck that bad? I mean, am I really such a coward that not only can I not read my work to complete strangers, but I can’t even strike up a conversation with a hot chick in a coffee bar. What’s wrong with me?”

“Don’t know,” she answered with a shrug. “I’ll tell you what, if you ask me politely, I might spike your coffee with a bottle of Jack I keep in the staff room.”

“Why do you have that?”

“For open-mic nights,” she said laughing. “Want some?”

Marty nodded sullenly.

She stood up and pushed in the chair, “I’ll give you just a pinch. Wouldn’t want you to stumble into your job drunk off your a*s.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

“I thought you worked tonight.”

He didn’t want to go into detail about how he got caught playing turkey bowling at the supermarket he worked nights at. Talk about all the embarrassing way to lose a job. He just shrugged.

“You got fired! What are you going to do?”

“I’ll be fine,” he lied. Truth was he didn’t have enough money to cover his bills or the rent, which was only a week away. He figured he could ask his parents for a loan to keep him a float until he found another job, but the thought of making that call made him more anxious than stepping up on the Empty Cup stage.

“Let me get you that drink babe,” she said squeezing his shoulder and then disappearing back into the crowd of writers and coffee fiends.

Though he didn’t want to do it his eyes drifted to Ann once more. It was funny she didn’t look like an Ann, maybe a Stephanie or a Delora, but definitely not an Ann. As the current reader rambled on and on about lost love, Marty became hopelessly enthralled by the girl he desperately wanted to meet, but was too afraid to approach. When Ann unexpectedly looked in his direction, he shifted his eyes from her to the now disserted stage.