"I've spent my life being Dracula the Wise Guy," I told Cleo.

"Very melodramatic," he said. "You want to explain that, or you want to eat?"

"I want to explain it... but I won't keep a fat man from his dinner."

He laughed. It was a big man's laugh. A three hundred-pound football lineman's laugh, built while bench pressing four hundred or better from the time he was sixteen. The laugh was deep and from the bottom of his lungs and heart. You could put a small beer keg in there.

We went down to my van, me dancing down the stairs like a short, bald, muscular boxer, Cleo straining every wooden step until they screeched. Cleo is all mass, like a dwarf star. My old blue van tilted towards the passenger's side when he got in.

"I'm lighting up," I said.

"Do you have to?"

"It's for your own good, Cleo. I figure second hand smoke will make you lose weight."

He rolled down the window. He had to lean into me as he did.

I stared out the window and waited. "Look at the moon, Big Guy. Isn't it romantic?"

"Yeah," he huffed. "Are we in love now?"

"Maybe, but I've got a headache."

"Too much smoking," he said laughing.

I put it in drive and we limped out of the parking lot. "How much you pay for that condo?" I asked.

"Twice what your ex-wife's house costs? Something like that."

"Are you nuts?" I looked at him; a big black man stuffed into my van like a fat wad of hundred dollar bills stuffed into a sock.

"Hey, I'm happy. It's close to work. I still have to work, ya know? Housing's going up like crazy. My old apartment costs more now than this condo."

"Hmmmm." I thought it over. We pulled onto Strangline Road. Jeez, there were new restaurants everywhere. The only one's that interested us were Joe's Crab Shack and Roadhouse Ruby's. "Crabs or blues?" I asked.

"King crab, my man. Then maybe Dairy Queen?" He looked like a big old puppy.

"I know this girl you'd like," I said.

"She fat?"

"What the fuck do you care? Don't get picky on me."

"I just like thin women, Ray."

It was hard to sneer at him with all the traffic and blazing headlights. Damn Strangline had gone to six lanes, and it still wasn't enough. I had to wait my turn to pull into the Crab Shack. There was a thirty-movie complex behind them and a Mexican place next door; all new, all "the place to be". I saw a band outside the theater... some kids, maybe; free, but still cool.

"So what's with the Dracula thing?" Cleo asked.

I was watching a guy in a beat-up white station wagon trying to cut in front of me. "That's why his car looks like shit," I said. The kid driving had a buzz haircut and had bleached the sides of his hair blonde. The top of his head was nutcase brown. He didn't have enough hair on his face to make a watercolor brush.

"Women," I said. "I always suck the life out of them. And then… they get pissy and always dump my ass."

Cleo nodded. "Yeah… so?"

I said, "That's why I'm working in a massage parlor, bouncing out drunken bums..."

"I bet the girls go for you."

Buzzhead in the white shitcar was trying to run into me. I hit the horn.

"Yeah, a couple. But they're not what I'm looking for. You know me, I gotta get one to fight with who'll eat my ass alive before I'm happy."

"We're all doomed to repeat our mistakes," Cleo said. "A woman ate me up once too. Guess that's why I stay so far away."

"You stay away because you like your life as it is. Big difference."

Buzzhead was right beside me. He tried pulling into Joe's parking lot from the left hand lane and crunched my bumper. You dumbshit, I thought and stepped on the brake.

"He's driving off," Cleo said.

Sure enough, the stupid mother was pulling away fast. "Well, fuck me! Now we gotta beat him up." I stepped on the gas and weaved my way past a red Camaro Z28.

Something green whizzed by honking. I was glued to the station wagon's backside. I could see Red Camaro chasing us from behind. We zipped up a side street. "Christ, there's kids live on this street," I said.

"Well, if you hit one, I get to eat him." Cleo was holding onto the plastic handle above the window like he was afraid I was going to roll old blue or something.

The buzzhead made a quick left.

"Anyway," I said, "I keep letting women dump me and take all my stuff. That ain't right. Is it?"

Cleo was looking backwards. "What the hell's that guy in the Camaro doing?"

"Who cares?" I turned left. Cleo bumped his head. "So what's my problem?"

"Other than you're an angry bastard who's gonna beat up some kid... and it don't even bother you enough to stop your conversation? I got no problem with that. But maybe women do." He burped in the middle of the last sentence. "That's why the not-so-nice girls where you work love you, see? You got that dangerous thing going on. But the women you marry? Well, hell, they get tired of it after a while. They want someone to settle down with."

The Camaro turned left with us. He was right on my tail.

The kid ahead was giving his station wagon all it could take... fifty, maybe sixty. My van could handle that. He was going to have to try something desperate.

"Besides," Cleo said. "You're bald."

"You're fat."

The Camaro passed us. "What the fuck is he doing?" I could see a woman and kid in the car. Some normal joe-blow-husband was driving. "That guy's got a wife... what a dork!"

"You would've done that in the old days," Cleo said. He was rolling around in the passenger seat and grinning.

"So, is that it? I'm just too angry all the time?"

"Ray, my man. You could take St. John's Wort."

"Do you roll it or snort it?"

Red Camaro got between me and the buzzhead. It was like he was chasing him for me. What a retard, I thought.

We all had to hit the brakes to make the next turn. We were headed down some residential street at sixty-five and flying over bumps and potholes. "Nice people live here, Buzzhead. I'm gonna burn your ass," I screamed out the window.

"They sell St. John's Wort at Wal-Mart," Cleo said. "I'd take extra...."

"So, what you're saying is I had this wonderful job once, being the Mayor's assistant is pretty cool, right? Then, my boss gets busted, the Republicans win. I lose my job and can't ever make that much money again nor pay all the alimony she wants, and that's why I'm hiding in a massage parlor?"

"Jesus, Raymond. That's what you're saying. You just spelled it all out. Do you ever listen to yourself?"

"Not much, Clee. I never make any sense."

Buzzhead came to a cul-de-sac. He was screwed. The Camaro blocked off one side of the entrance and I slid the van around to block the other. He could drive into somebody's backyard, but the chance of hitting a fence was sixty/forty.

We just sat there waiting.

"You've made perfect sense the last five minutes," Cleo said, "except for chasing this poor kid, I mean. You ain't gonna kill him or nothing are you?"

Buzzhead came out of his smoking station wagon with a tire-iron. He had on a dirty white t-shirt and jeans. No shoes or socks.

You can't fight without shoes, I thought. I opened the door and jumped down. The Camaro guy got out too.

"What do you think, Cleo?"

He stared at me like he was saying, "I have no fucking clue."

Buzzhead looked at us and raised the tire-iron. I thought the Camaro guy was gonna rush him. "Hold on," I said. "Cleoooo!"

The passenger side door of my van swung open, squawking about it the whole time. Camaro Guy's eyes popped when Cleo got out. The van tilted. I gotta get new struts, I thought.

"See," I told Camaro Guy. "All this dork has is a tire-iron." Buzzhead gulped a couple of times and I saw the tire-iron waver.

"What is that?" Camaro Guy asked looking right at Cleo.

"Bumper jack...."

"Raymond, you peckerwood, you make me do this, three-hundred pound nigger routine once more, I swear I'll stomp your ass," Cleo said quietly. "This whole thing is why you can't stay with a woman." He was rolling his eyes and lumbering towards the white station wagon talking over his shoulder like Buzzhead wasn't worth watching.

Red Camaro Guy was about to bust a gut. He was laughing his ass off, but his wife was pitching a bitch. I wanted to tell her, "Hey shut up," but I was thinking that's what always got me in trouble.

I could hear the tire-iron on the concrete as the scared little kid dropped it. I walked over to Red Camaro Guy. I held the palm of my hand up to the woman so she'd shut her pie-hole. I was only interested in Camaro Guy. "You shouldn't drive like that with family in the car, man. You'd feel like shit if somebody got hurt." I noticed he had a thirty-day tag on his car and a two-year-old kid in the back. Bad priorities, I thought.

"I saw him drive off. I'm a witness," he said.

"Hell, you just wanted to get in a fight, Bozo."

"Hey, what do you want me to do here?" Cleo yelled. He had Buzzhead by the throat. "He says his license got suspended. That's why he ran... can't afford insurance either."

"No shit," I yelled. I could have guessed that. The trouble with Cleo was he was really a kindhearted soul. Very mystical and all that. He was into Astrology and stuff he didn't dare talk to me about... or I'd laugh in his face. In other words, he was a pussy. But then, he was happier than me. "Throw him back... I'll move the car. But get that tire-iron first. I ain't got one of those."

I saw Cleo rummaging around in the car. The kid was still in his left hand held outside the car like he was a dirty diaper or something. "Now what are you doing?" I asked.

He came out with a McDonalds sack, a warm beer, and big bright eyes. I knew the beer was warm after he popped the top and got foam all over his chin. He sputtered and said, "Gack... ugh!" His lips puckered up like they'd been pickled.

Cleo tossed the guy into the front seat and came back to the van. "You made me get out for nothing... we're going to Baskin-Robbins now!"

"Fuck you, Clee. You got something to eat."

"Well... not enough...." He wadded up the empty sack and tossed it in the back of my van... with all the other junk.

"Don't mess up my trash. I got it organized by smell."

Buzzhead drove over the curb to get around me. "Give me time to move the car, shitball!" I yelled. He gave me the finger and I wanted to chase him again, but Cleo had his arm around my shoulder and there ain't nobody gonna get away from Cleo if he don't want them to.

"Hey thanks, buddy," I yelled to Camaro Guy. He looked puzzled and I waved him over. "I got his license plate. All I need is your phone number."

He wandered over like it was nothing and I thought maybe I'd take his wallet just for fun. Cleo read my mind and said, "Don't even think about it."

"We gotta do something, Clee. You want him to end up like me?"

I held out my hand. Dumb Camaro Guy took it. Cleo was out of the van and walked between us and his wife so she wouldn't see me pull his arm around and throw him face down across the front seat. I had the Colt .45 I stole from my uncle's Korean War collection out from under the seat and upside his head before he knew he was in trouble. He probably didn't even know how I got out of the car and he got in.

"You're an agile little bastard," Cleo said.

"I teach girl's gymnastics," I joked.

He chuckled. "Have them balance on your beam do you?"

"Quit fucking around, Clee."

"Okay, okay. Raymond wants to tell you something," Cleo said softly to Camaro Guy. I knew he was smiling at the wifey.

I took the safety off. Camaro Guy heard it click but didn't flinch. Oh great, a hardass, I thought. "Nah, you better do the talking, Clee." I didn't tell him this old piece-of-shit gun could go off by accident. I kept my finger away from the trigger.

Cleo turned around and bent inside the van. It must have looked like some gay three-way going on. I pulled back the hammer. That finally got Camaro's attention.

"What do you want?" he asked politely. "Sir," he added.

"The bastard holding a gun to your head? Well, he's fifty," Cleo said, "and he has nothing. You got that? He was just like you."

"Yeah, I get the picture," the kid said. I didn't think he meant it so I bent a couple of his fingers to the break-off point. He didn't cry out but I saw tears rolling down his face. Tough kid.

"You got this hot car and a wife and kid. It don't fit, my man. You should trade Raymond for his van."

"Not my van, Clee. I love my van."

"Yeah right. The point is, you're gonna end up fifty years old and hiding from your ex-wife if you don't lose the anger...."

That was good. I wanted to tell him I'd rape his wife and shit in his car if he didn't straighten up. Cleo said it much better.

"I was gonna be your witness," Camaro Guy said.

"Shut the fuck up. Have you heard a word he's been saying?" I pressed the gun about an inch into his ear. It musta hurt like hell.

"You can be a bad ass," Cleo said. "But there will always be a bigger bad ass to whip your butt. Or you can go over there to your wife and apologize for putting her in danger and beg her forgiveness for the rest of your life... or, I suppose, we could end it all for you right now?"

The kid relaxed. "I'll apologize," he said. He knew we weren't gonna kill him... tonight.

I let him up like nothing ever happened, patted him on the back and said, "Y'all have a nice night now, ya hear?"

Cleo and I hit the seats and got the hell out of there. He was still bitching about Baskin-Robbins, and I was wondering if we'd done a good thing or not.

"So what about being Dracula, again, Ray?"

"Oh, never mind. Maybe I should have said I've spent my life jacking off?"

"Probably. But what's a redneck like you supposed to do? I figure age will mellow you." He laughed. "When you're about eighty."

"Maybe I should get a good job. I could be a decent bodyguard."

"And you could see your kids again. That wouldn't hurt." He sighed. "But I'm still hungry... let's go eat."

We sat outside on Baskin-Robbins' curb. I had a hot-fudge. Cleo had a gallon of strawberry and a couple other things I didn't recognize.

"You suppose that guy will trade in his car?" I asked Cleo. "He needs something to haul kids in, not show off for other women."

"Well, you would know." Cleo looked at me with big old strawberry lips. "I think you did good tonight," he said. "At least you tried to quit being an asshole. Its gonna take work, but Hell, you were a teacher tonight. Sorta like the Angel of Death showing mankind the error of his ways."

"You're a fucking poetic bastard," I said. "You sure you don't wanna meet this girl I know?"

"Is she fat?"

"Dammit Clee." I was gonna tell him he had no right to be picky and if he didn't straighten up, I'd shoot him in the butt. Instead I gave him my hand and he pulled me up.

"Okay," Cleo said. "What's it gonna be, crabs or blues?"

####

Gary Cadwallader lives in Kansas City, MO. Tonight, after work, he ran to pay two overdue bills, then drove an hour to see a horse. On the way back they bought fried pork rinds, which his wife calls piggy-pops. She had on overalls, he had on a suit. After he's done writing this, he'll send emails trying to save the old Art Simmons barn in Mexico, MO. If they're successful, he'll paint an oil portrait of Stonewall King and they'll turn the place into a National Saddlebred Museum. You can reach Gary at Rmcheal2@aol.com