Austin and Emily Read online

  Austin and Emily

  Frank Turner Hollon

  Dzanc Books

  Dzanc Books

  1334 Woodbourne Street

  Westland, MI 48186

  www.dzancbooks.org

  Copyright © 2012 by Frank Turner Hollon

  All rights reserved, except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher.

  Published 2017 by Dzanc Books

  A Dzanc Books rEprint Series Selection

  eBooks ISBN-13: 978-1-945814-37-2

  eBook Cover by Awarding Book Covers

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author unless noted by author on the next page.

  For the Olympic boys: Mike, Kip, Kevin, Schroeder, Tim, Cary, and Bobby

  When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look into the reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with those we love, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.

  —Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddist Monk

  Part One

  AUSTIN McADOO

  “Faults are beauties in a lover’s eye.” —Theocritus

  CHAPTER 1

  Emily Dooley was a twenty-three-year-old stripper. She was good at it. Always smiling while she danced, standing up, turning around, bending over and looking between her open legs, her brown hair hanging down, a hand on each ass cheek, dollar bills scattered around her high-heeled shoes. She had become morally ambiguous. Barely able to separate right from wrong, and too busy to try.

  “Why would a man want to sit there and just stare at my privates?” she would say. Not just one demented, lonely, nasty man with a glass eye and greasy hair, but seemingly every man. Married men. College boys. Old grandpas with chicken necks. They gathered around the stage drinking overpriced watered-down bourbon and Coke.

  All she had to do was pick one out, look in his direction a few extra times, and the stupid bastard would believe he was special. The trick was to pick the guys willing to pay for the attention. The guys who handed out crisp ten and twenty dollar bills instead of balled-up moist one dollar bills tossed on the stage like peanuts to a monkey.

  Fat guys were usually good. They didn’t get much attention in the real world. They were willing to pay for the things that good-looking guys got for free. Sometimes they would close their eyes during a lap dance and Emily would wonder what they were thinking about. She felt no guilt when she threw away the little pieces of paper with phone numbers scrawled in blue ink. Her dance name was Vanessa. They all called her Vanessa. It was just a name she liked.

  Working at the club was more than a job. It was a way of life. A way of life almost everyone there said they hated, but almost no one left. The money was too easy. What could be easier than being paid to be looked at? Just stand up, take off your clothes, wiggle around, and stick the cash in your pocket at three in the morning. The girls talked about saving money and going to college. But almost nobody saved any money, and nobody went to college. They just got drunk for free, danced naked, and rubbed their bare asses into the crotches of strangers. Complete strangers who paid money to simulate intimate acts with other strangers with fake names.

  There were always regulars, of course. Men who would ask about the weekly schedule and show up on a particular night for a particular girl. Vanessa would talk to some of these men like real people, but she was very careful not to become friends. A man desperate enough to seek friendship with a stripper is not a man to be trusted, Emily believed.

  She kept herself clean and exercised at the gym three times a week. Everything was the same until the day she fell in love with Austin McAdoo.

  Austin McAdoo. Three hundred forty-seven pounds. Six feet four, three hundred forty-seven pounds, not an ounce of muscle. His pants were specially made. He wasn’t particularly friendly, and was born with a small sense of humor, although he was a huge fan of The Three Stooges.

  Austin McAdoo came into the club on a Thursday night. He was a businessman staying at the motel down the avenue, looking for a place to have a drink. He ended up at a local strip joint sitting alone at the bar ordering a milk punch. Austin McAdoo turned his head around to the stage, locked eyes with naked Vanessa, and turned back to his milk punch like nothing had happened. In fact, he sat at the bar for thirty minutes and never turned his head again.

  It was a slow night. Vanessa was intrigued by the well-dressed fat man, an obvious target from across the room. She sat down next to him at the bar. Austin McAdoo, with his jet black hair and walnut eyes, turned to Vanessa and said, “Is there a problem, young lady?”

  His head was large like a melon. His eyebrows were thick and bushy. He stuck his tongue out slightly into the glass held to his lips, touching the cold ice cubes with his red, meaty cow tongue. Emily was amazed by the massive features.

  Softly she said, “No, problem.”

  Austin McAdoo swivelled his melon head back toward the girl. With his sausage-like fingers he picked up a nickel from the bar. Austin was accustomed to attacking his fellow man in the name of subliminal self-protection.

  “Do you see this nickel?”

  “Yes,” Emily answered.

  “I’ll give you one hundred dollars to put this nickel in your ass. One hundred dollars. You have to leave it in there for five minutes.”

  Emily looked at the nickel held between the fat fingers. It looked so small in comparison to the big white thumbnail. She thought about the question.

  “Are you some type of giant?” Emily asked. She was naked from the waist up. Her well-formed tan breasts went unnoticed.

  “Don’t change the subject. Yes or no? Nickel in the ass for five minutes, one hundred dollars. No nickel in the ass for five minutes, no one hundred dollars. Yes or no? Would you like to see the one hundred dollars? Laboratory rats need to see the prize before they gnaw off their own teats.”

  It was a slow night. Emily could use the one hundred dollars. She pondered the specifics of the question, and then noticed the ears on Austin McAdoo. They were the size of china tea saucers. Much like a regular ear, except bigger. Emily Dooley felt a lightness. It was wonderful and odd at the same time. She saw herself having the children of the enormous man holding the nickel.

  People talk about love at first sight. It’s been written about since the beginning of time. It’s very rare, but it does happen. And when it happens, there are no boundaries. The rules of gravity no longer apply. Physics is useless. Vanessa, Emily, whatever the hell her name was, felt herself pulled into orbit around Austin McAdoo, the largest man she had ever seen.

  Emily said, “If I put that nickel in my ass for one hundred dollars, then I guess I’m just a whore. But if I give you one hundred dollars for that nickel, and then I put the nickel in my ass anyway, then I guess you’re the whore.”

  Austin McAdoo followed the words. He squinted his eyes as if to size up the person in the chair next to him who he hadn’t really noticed before. His eyes glanced down to her naked breasts and then back up to the face.

  “I guess you’re right,” he said, and then smiled. His mouth was the size of a horse’s mouth, the teeth like big ivory chunks. Emily leaned over and kissed Austin McAdoo on the lips. It was th
e first time she’d kissed a man on the lips since Ernie Sullivan in high school.

  It was soft. He was a delicate kisser. They both kept their eyes open, and Emily reached her hand up to the big man’s cheek, touching his oily skin gently with her thin fingers like a butterfly. For a moment, they were weightless. He was not himself, and she was ready to leave.

  The kiss ended.

  Austin McAdoo said, “I was wondering, would you like to leave this place forever?”

  “Yes. I would.”

  “Is there anything here you need to get?”

  “No.”

  “Can you fit everything you own in a suitcase?”

  “Maybe two suitcases,” she said.

  Austin McAdoo began the process of getting off the barstool. He used his arms to lift a portion of his weight from the chair and then pushed back slightly to gain some space in between. His incredible buttocks rose, and then he was standing. Emily caught the stool as it teetered and started to tip over. Austin McAdoo put the nickel in his pocket.

  “You can stay with me this evening at the motel. My room has two double beds. You should be quite comfortable. In the morning, we’ll be leaving at 7:00 a.m. We can go to your place now to pack.”

  “O.K.,” Emily said.

  Austin removed his mammoth jacket from the back of the stool and draped it over Emily’s shoulders as she turned around. He retrieved a large overstuffed wallet from his back pocket and left a crisp twenty dollar bill on the bar. The large man turned and stood facing Emily. The bartender looked and then looked back again. It was like an optical illusion.

  “What’s your name?” Austin asked.

  “Emily. Emily Dooley.” She smiled. It felt nice to say it out loud.

  “What’s your name?” Emily asked.

  “Austin. Austin McAdoo.”

  “That’s a good name,” Emily said.

  She put out her hand, and Austin McAdoo covered her hand with his. It was a perfect fit.

  CHAPTER 2

  They walked out the door into the rainy Tampa, Florida night. No one ran after her and yelled, “Hey, you can’t just quit. You can’t just walk away.” On the other hand, there was no dramatic round of applause. Nobody said, “I’m so happy for you, Vanessa. I’m so happy you got out of this horrible place.”

  Emily pulled the huge jacket over her head and looked across the parking lot. To the left she spotted a long, white Lincoln Continental parked under the neon flashing sign. The red lights reflected off the hood. She took a step in that direction and then noticed Austin McAdoo moving toward the driver’s door of a small, red compact car directly to her right. Emily was not disappointed as she sidestepped the puddles in her silver high-heeled shoes on the way to the passenger door of the little red car. She climbed inside quickly and closed the door.

  Austin McAdoo did not hurry. He learned many years ago being in a hurry was not helpful to the process of wedging his girth into the space between the seat and the leather-covered steering wheel. He turned his back to the car, eased his bottom onto the outside edge of the seat, pushed his weight back against the middle console, and began the all-important slow clockwise twist into place. Emily was struck by the memory of seeing her Uncle Hoyt behind the wheel of a go-cart at the traveling fair when she was a child. His beer-belly pressed against the tiny black steering wheel with such pressure Uncle Hoyt was unable to negotiate a sharp turn and rammed against the stacks of car tires around the side of the go-cart track.

  Finally, Austin was able to slam the door. His clothes were soaked and water rolled from his shiny black hair. The rain fell hard on the thin metal roof of the car. Emily realized she was bare-chested under Austin’s coat, and pulled her arms in front to double-cover herself. She smiled, despite the rain, and looked at Austin McAdoo next to her.

  “I only live about a mile away,” Emily said, as she pointed north.

  Austin started the car on the first turn of the key and said in a voice above the drum of the rain, “Then we shall travel the mile in this inclement weather.”

  Emily used one hand to hold the jacket closed and the other to reach over and pull the seatbelt across her. Austin hadn’t used a seatbelt his entire life and was both morally and physically opposed to the idea. A stale odor of meat lingered inside the car.

  “What time is it?” Emily asked. She could see a wide-banded, heavy steel watch on Austin’s left wrist. The face of the watch seemed to glow blue, but she could not see the hands.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know,” Austin said as he turned onto the four-lane roadway in the direction Emily had pointed.

  “But you’re wearing a watch,” she giggled.

  “Yes, I am, but it’s rather complicated. In summary, I don’t believe in daylight savings time or geographical time zones. The time is the time. It cannot be manipulated to avoid the inconvenience of dark mornings. It cannot be juggled so people in New York can see the sunrise at the same theoretical moment, three hours later, people in San Francisco can see the sunrise. The time is the time.

  “For instance, two plus two equals four. Just because it suits our fancy, we can’t vote to make two plus two equal five. We cannot simply decide to change the laws of mathematics.”

  They passed a bank on the side of the road. The digital clock flashed 11:14.

  “Oh, it’s 11:14,” Emily said.

  “Maybe somewhere it’s 11:14. We can’t be sure.”

  Emily giggled. “You’re funny, Austin McAdoo.”

  Austin looked over at her and wiped the wetness from his forehead with his porkchop hand.

  “Take a right at the light,” she pointed.

  Austin slowed down and nimbly guided the steering wheel until the car made the complete turn.

  “What kind of job do you have?” Emily asked.

  “I’m a traveling salesman. I cover the southeastern territory for the Dixie Deluxe Canned Ham Company.” He said it matter-of-factly, slightly boastful, and without shame.

  “What do you sell?”

  “Canned ham, of course.”

  Emily thought about it and then said, “I didn’t know people still ate meat from a metal can.”

  “Well, they do. They eat our hams by the thousands. Boneless, jelly-packed, delicious canned hams. And if not for the blistering incompetence of the corporate leadership of the company, every man, woman, and child in America would be eating ham from a can right this moment, as we speak.”

  “Turn left at the next street. I live in the last apartment on the right, second floor. Do you love your job?”

  Austin had never considered such a question. He turned the car left and repeated, “Do I love my job?”

  Emily said, “I didn’t love my job, so I quit. Maybe you should quit, too.”

  “It’s not so easy,” Austin answered.

  “Yes, it is. Come upstairs. I want to show you something.”

  The rain had subsided. Emily hopped out of the car and headed up the outside staircase. Austin pushed the car door open with his arm and started the counter-clockwise rotation to remove himself from the vehicle. Emily stopped and waited, remembering again her Uncle Hoyt as the paramedics turned the green go-cart on its side to free Hoyt from the bent driver’s shaft.

  At the door to the apartment, Emily whispered to Austin, “I have a roommate. She sleeps a lot. We need to be quiet.”

  As the door opened, a pungent, invisible cloud of cat stink billowed from the room inside.

  Without thinking, Austin said, “Lord, is your roommate deceased?”

  Emily, not noticing any smell at all, responded in a whisper, “I don’t think so.”

  Austin stepped inside, cupping his bulbous nose in his hand. Two cats appeared from nowhere. He nearly tripped over the yellow one. Emily took Austin’s free hand and led him to the back bedroom. The room was covered in clothes and shoes. The bed was unmade. Austin saw a pair of red panties on the floor next to a chicken bone, a disturbing image.

  Emily pulled a small blue suitcase fro
m the closet and laid it on the bed. She looked up at Austin, who was still cupping his hand over his nose, and said, “You can quit your job.”

  She opened the suitcase to reveal a pile of money. Austin leaned over to look inside. It was all one, five, and ten dollar bills, bound by rubber bands, in loose stacks and rolls.

  “It’s almost eight thousand dollars. I’ve been setting it aside. We can drive wherever we want to go, maybe California, maybe Mexico, and you don’t have to sell hams, and I don’t have to look at men stare at my private parts.”

  Emily raised her arms, and the jacket opened just enough to reveal her breasts. Austin instinctively looked down and then back up quickly. Emily saw that he peeked and pulled her arms back to her chest. She looked ashamed.

  “What’s the matter?” Austin asked.

  “I’m embarrassed.”

  “I don’t understand. You worked at a strip joint. You stood naked in front of strangers for hours on end,” Austin said.

  Emily looked up shyly. “You’re not a stranger anymore.”

  Austin considered the situation. “I guess not,” he said. “I’ll go in the living room while you change clothes.”

  He closed the door behind him and found himself alone in the living room with the two cats. Before he could gather his bearings, the door to the second bedroom opened. A sleepy-eyed girl with short, messy red hair, in her mid-twenties, walked through the door, looked up at Austin, and said, “Oh my God, who the hell are you?”

  Austin didn’t answer.

  “Are you my dream lover?” she said sarcastically.

  “No, I am not your dream lover. My name is Austin McAdoo, and I have come to extricate Emily Dooley from this cesspool of cat urine and animal bones. What is your name?”

  The girl scratched her red head. “Cremora.”

  “Cremora?”

  She raised her voice, “Yes, you got a problem with it? You show up in my living room in the middle of the night like Andre the Giant talking about excrement and now you want to give me crap about my name?”