The Funny Jacket

By John Rickel

Set in El Paso, Texas - The Funny Jacket - is the quintessential dystopian love story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543914085

Book preview

The Funny Jacket

Copyright © 2017 John Rickel

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54391-408-5

For Shelley

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Dedication

The Funny Jacket

Feeling cursed by responsibility and fatherhood, Richard Battaglia murmurs Goddammit! nearly inaudibly while he stews on the myriad of—all—the numerous and potentially undesirable outcomes his current situation holds.

His hands run over his seven-year-old son Joel’s shoulder blades.

Sensing a discord in the vibrations of his father’s touch that ricochets like jolts of lightening throughout his small frame, Joel responds to this discomfort by quickly turning around to read his father’s facial expression.

Joel’s face contorts with expression as his mouth mimics and enunciates words atonally, the best he can, while rapidly moving his fingers into signs that clearly speak his mind: What’s wrong dad?

There is a slight pause.

Richard’s body stiffens from the question.

His gaze remains fixed out the raised garage door of his modest upholstery shop, into the Chihuahuan Desert, while his right forefinger and thumb begin to meditatively comb his weathered frown lines that have developed rapidly, over twenty-three years of exposure to the unrelenting Texan sun and the gravity of keeping company with an abysmal and troublesome woman, Joel’s mother, whose behavior could prematurely age anyone.

Richard strains to catch a deep inhalation of hot air in an attempt to fill his lungs to calm his mind down.

Our perspective changes as we zoom upward turning from the father and son duo.

Atop a street lamp a muscular male vulture sits perched, surveying both Richard and Joel.

A large tumbleweed somersaults across the desert road, catching on a rattlesnake’s rattle that’s stopped in the middle of the hot paved roadway.

Who is the predator and who is the prey? Richard wonders.

Panning on Richard’s sweaty face we lock on a single bead of sweat and freeze it in a slow-motion frame-by-frame to watch its decent to the ground outside his upholstery shop that sits on a rural road near the outskirts of El Paso, Texas.

A Texan summer can leave one senseless.

Time remains frozen from his son’s simple question and with having hindsight of: police reports, infidelity, deaths, hospitals, prison, and mounting debt the tsunami of history vomits from his hippocampus out onto the screen.

Richard still holds his son’s shoulders, incapable of answering his simple question.

Los Tigres sits on a lonesome road called Doniphan Drive and is the only bar for miles, the only anything for that matter, on the far east side of El Paso, Texas.

Inside the bar, we pan full screen onto a set of fuchsia glossy fingernails that illuminate a dainty porcelain white female hand intent on grasping a shot glass filled to the brim with tequila while the sounds of Sammy Davis Jr. singing The Candy Man emit from the jukebox that sits next to the pool table in the south-east corner of the wood paneled dive bar.

The woman tosses back the poison at a velocity that makes her hand look blurry.

As the heat of the liquor hits the back of her throat we pull back from the close-up and see a scantily clad dressed young woman flanked by two unsavory white trash biker types.

Woman laughing, "I just don’t care Charlie! You mean you’re trying to tell me that the last time I was in here…I was carrying on about moving to Boca Raton and leaving my ole man and kid behind—pfffffftttt—please…go and leave all this opulence behind?"

Charlie the bartender smiles as all bartenders do in situations like these especially in bars like this one, and particularly to women like Gloria.

Gloria, you are nothing but trouble, says Charlie.

Gloria leans up and over the bar-top to give Charlie a kiss on his left cheek.

"I know, but what would ‘a do around here for entertainment without me?"

The man on Gloria’s left makes eye-contact with her and motions towards his nose with his right forefinger giving her a cue that’s— ‘junky-code’—for holding, and one that implies he’s looking to share that good time with her.

Gloria instantly acknowledges the cue and does not want to miss a beat.

She quickly stands and congratulatory pats the man on the back who is sitting to her right and nods to the fella who’s holding the party favors.

"Charlie this round will be on ole ‘Bub’ right here."

Gloria smiles at the man who isn’t the proprietor of the fun stuff, while still patting his back.

What-cha gunna do? Charlie says to Bub while shrugging his shoulders.

How can you say no to a woman like that? Bub replies while making eye-contact with Charlie and then smiling at Gloria.

"Go-on-ahead and be gone with-ya, girl you ain’t nothing but a whole whooping handful of trouble no-how…but next time I’ll sure have what-cha-lookin-fer!" Bub says as he lifts his glass to salute the crew.

You guys are the best! Gloria shrilly ekes.

Taking the arm of her chosen man, "Now let’s blow this popsicle stand and go turn it up a notch Sugar Bear."

Sugar Bear and Gloria exit the Cantina and walk towards a dusty black Ford pick-up truck that’s been parked in the gravel parking lot for some time.

"My good lady—follow—me if you please," Sugar Bear says while congenially walking Gloria around to the passenger side of his truck to open the door for her.

"Well ain’t you just the gentleman and all," Gloria replies in kind.

Sugar Bear leans in for a deep kiss while putting his hands on Gloria’s ass.

After a deep mouth-lock and exchanging cotton-mouthed ashtray dipped liquor soaked tongues, Sugar Bear smacks Gloria on her ass prompting her to hop up into the passenger seat.

Sugar Bear closes the door behind Gloria and begins whistling Dixie as he walks back around the truck to the driver side, claiming his seat behind the wheel.

Once inside the vehicle (and now with both the doors closed) one’s olfactory senses are smacked from an intense chemical hue of methamphetamines that perspire like white-trash-pollen throughout the interior cab.

For the untrained sniffer, the truck’s interior cab smells as if someone had pulled the truck up to a gas pump, opened both the doors and sprayed petrol all over the inside of the truck.

"Mmm mmm boy does it sure smell like fun up-in-here Sugar Bear!" Gloria says gleefully.

"Well darlin that is one thing you’re always gunna get with me—F-U-N!"

Sugar Bear extends his right pointer finger out and gently swipes Gloria’s nose and she responds as women like her do, in situations like these, with a little giggle.

The glove box of the truck is opened and Sugar Bear retrieves one of many baggies that’s filled with gak.

A large tightly wrapped plastic package with supporting layers of duct tape, that must weigh at least a pound, catches Gloria’s eye.

Oh, my! Is that all for me?

Sugar Bear laughs. "Now don’t’chu worry darlin there’s plenty more where that came from."

Gloria continues to giggle and begins to clap in anticipation as she watches.

After Sugar Bear sets a few little baggies on the dash board next to the steering wheel he then reaches back into the large glove box to grab a hand-held crafted turquoise slab designed for special moments like these. ¬¬

Entertaining with panache is his key to success and is how Sugar Bear chooses to impress the ladies, moreover, there is also a very pragmatic functional angle to his set-up, which he feels speaks to his intelligence.

The functional utility of his hand-crafted slab allows for its contents to be contained, crushed, cut, and lined-up without spilling a granule. There’s also a grooved sliver cut in the marble where a three-inch-long thin gold plated hollowed-out tube rests (tooter) and another spot where a gold-plated razor blade fits deep enough into the slab allowing it to stand erect ready to be grabbed.

"Now would ‘a looky right here…ain’t this purdy darlin?"

Sugar Bear gleams while holding up this delicately handcrafted turquoise party contraption.

Gloria’s eyes bug-out of her head as her mouth falls agape allowing a noticeable line of drool to drip from her lower lip (a response caused by her brain being visually stimulated by watching Sugar Bear pour the contents from a baggy down onto the slab).

"Why it’s ab-so-lute-ly—the most beautiful and precious thing I’ve ever laid eyes on Sugar Bear!"

Sugar Bear prepares two fat lines of powder—parting and shaping them with his gold-platted razor blade at a hallucinating speed that makes Gloria’s vision blur.

Sugar Bear then sets the platter on his right thigh near his crotch and removes the gold-plated tooter and hands it to Gloria.

"Ladies first darlin."

Gloria giggles, "You’re so classy Sugar Bear. I just love a man with manners."

"And—that I have plenty of darlin—in spades.

Gloria leans down to snort her first set of lines.

Sugar Bear reaches to turn the nob of the radio on.

That Cat Is High by The Ink Spots plays.

"Oh, shit! I love this song Sugar Bear! This is the jam!" Gloria says while holding her burning right nasal passage before she leans back down to snort her other line at a speed that impresses Sugar Bear.

"It’s sure-as-shit a hell of a good ditty…I can tell ‘a that much. Hell, it’s bout as good of a ditty you’re gunna get! And how apropos for a beautiful night like tonight?"

Sugar Bear winks at Gloria.

Sugar Bear emphatically and enthusiastically points at the inanimate object (radio) playing the track sending it an ethereal acknowledgment as he bobs his head and moves his hand to the beat of the tune.

You’re up Sugar Bear.

"Indeed—I am."

Reaching back across the cab into the glove box, completing a subtle, yet obvious, boob swipe.

Sugar Bear’s right hand has reentered the glove box that seems to be an infinite bag-of-holding, and retrieves a turquoise marble mortar and pestle, along with a new baggie that’s contents aren’t as dirty yellow but are more like thick clear crystal shards.

Sugar Bear sets the paraphernalia between both he and Gloria and shifts his body to face Gloria and dramatically takes up both her hands.

"Darlin…I do sincerely apologize for not being a proper host."

Gloria dramatically removes her hands from Sugar Bear’s grasp and lifts them to her mouth barely covering her smile, making her look like the speak-no-evil monkey.

"Whaddya go and do now—Sugar Bear?"

"Well darlin I am, if nothing else, a man of refined taste."

"I can see that."

Gloria giggles.

"Looky-here…see—Gloria I am a tad bit of what you might consider an enthusiast, if you will, of, and, or for—the clandestine refinery of ritualizing the usage of my narcotics, which I intend on inhalin into my precious temple that is this very body that was blessed upon me by the good Lord Jesus Christ! I mean nothing but the crème da la crème refined powder—shot straight up into the ole cabezon if you catch my drift."

Sugar bear wipes the drips from his nostrils with his right sleeve.

"Goddamn it! Darlin…I just realized that I hadn’t showed you precisely how I go about making all this dream-like magic happen. I do sincerely apologize and without further ado I shall—now—demonstrate for you, my very revered guest, precisely how I go from A—to—Z with my operation that is second to none—I can tell you that much!" He points to his crotch where the mortar and pestle has eventually come to rest.

"Right’cheer—this nifty-lil contraption is not only for flash but, it is…in and of itself, a very—very practical contraption that helps me, us, rather, refine our booty."

Sugar Bear takes his right pointer finger and swipes the tip of Gloria’s nose and winks at her.

"Now…I am not just all razzle dazzle darlin, oh no, I am also a true-blue scientist!"

Gloria giggles.

"Without further ado and from your very