Beefcake Pantyhose
Chapter 5. Book V ~ Edition II
The magic of new clothing and style took effect a few weeks before Christmas of 1994 while searching White Marsh Mall for a gift to buy Reins. Careful shopping for something nice but didn’t scream, “relationship” led to many store visits before a window of Star Wars toys caught the eye and caused me to enter. The Big Cartoon Store sold cartoon and movie collectibles, which held no hope of a gift for Reins but jarred my interest, especially when a young, bubbly girl bounced into my vicinity.
“Can I help you?” asked Patea.
“I’m just looking.”
“Well, what are you looking for? Something for your kid or maybe a collectible for your girlfriend?”
Shifting attention up from the toys brought the girl with smoldering eyes into view. A low-cut shirt struggled to contain her breasts while a skirt fought to cover her ass during a jab of questions that inspired the request of her phone number. Patea wrote a phone number on a receipt, which I called the next day, and the following Saturday placed us at the Hard Rock Café in Baltimore having dinner.
“Patea, is that your nickname?” I stared at her breasts.
“No, it’s my real name. My mom and dad are really religious, and it means something like carrying fish with sticks.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Yeah, I like to think my name refers to all the people carrying the fish that Jesus made jump in the nets. Do you know the story?”
“No, I don’t remember that one.”
“Do you go to church?” She beamed curiously.
“No, I stay as far away from church as possible. I didn’t have a good experience with Catholic schools as a kid.”
“Really? Church can be fun. Maybe it’s because your Catholic. I’m a Christian, but originally, I was Presbyterian. You probably just haven’t found the right church.”
“Perhaps not. How is your church?”
“I love it. Our church is so much fun. We play music and have picnics. Pastor Mike sings and gets everyone in the spirit.”
“That’s cool.”
“Do you think you might want to go?”
“To church?”
“Yeah, silly.” She took a bite of her salad.
“I don’t know; I work a lot, especially on weekends.”
Patea quickly answered, “That’s okay. My church has services seven days a week at all hours.”
“Wow. Doesn’t God rest?”
She laughed into her napkin. “Sure, on Sundays, but the rest of the week, he is working hard saving all of us. The least we can do is keep the door open.”
Already a sellout to the demands of trend and style made thoughts of attending church feel like a going-out-business-sale for the soul. Before the divorce, the uneducated, mindless, privileged, and self-righteous people like Patea inspired hatred. Now, sitting across from the symbol of all wrongness in the world forced self-incrimination. What’s next? Listening to dance music? Buying a television and watching the Real World? Staring at Patea, I cursed myself for even considering church.
The church attendance strategy began with a lie to Patea about needing to work on Sunday, thus avoiding the waste of a day off and making the need to work the next day a good excuse to leave quickly after a Tuesday evening service. A perfect strategy that promised sex after Patea witnessed my unwavering commitment to Jesus. Confidence grew in the plan when Patea told me the Tuesday church service preceded some weekly event. The assumption of a clam bake or dinner seemed less painful than a boring church service, but she refused my suggestion to skip the sermon. Picking Patea up at her apartment, the drive to church initiated immediate regret of attendance.
She fastened her seatbelt as the Jeep pulled away from the curb. “You’re going to love church. I can tell. I can see the Spirit in you.”
“What does that look like?”
“It’s your aura.”
Her words inspired distrust, and while parking in front of the church, I asked, “So, do we have to do anything during the service? Catholic church involves a lot of ritual standing and kneeling.”
“No silly, it’s just a normal Tuesday night service.”
“How long does the service last?”
She beamed with excitement. “Sometimes everyone gets filled with the spirit for hours, especially on Tuesdays because baptisms follow the service.”
Dammit! She tricked me. There’s no dinner after the service.
Exiting the Jeep, she pulled me along. “You’re going to love this church.” For the next hour and a half, people waved their hands in the air while Pastor Mike sang and played guitar like Ace Frehley opening for Jesus at the Transfiguration. Forced to stand with Patea and wave hands in the air while she sang didn’t summon the spirit but bored traumatically with Christian rock music, likening to eating mouthfuls of sugarless candy.
Praising the lord slowed as the collection plate passed, which seemed to indicate the end of service, but the error of this assumption clarified when Pastor Mike announced, “Now, is there anyone out there who would like to turn their will and life over to the care of Jesus Christ our Lord?”
Patea rubbed my forearm sensually, causing a momentary false belief in the success of the church strategy until her sudden grip of wrist shoved my arm into the air as she bounced on her toes, waving her other hand. Unable to escape without making a scene, the clergy converged, ushering to display me on stage alongside some crackheads before the hundreds of true believers.
Pastor Mike walked the line of crackheads and weirdos, stopping to hold hands and pray, which didn’t seem too bad, but being saved proved a much more involved process. The clergy ushered the neophytes into a room behind the stage containing a large hot tub, and one of the clergymen handed me a pair of swimming trunks. “You can change in the bathroom over there. Now, when you get baptized, you’re going to be born-again and filled with the spirit, so when you come out of that water, you’ll be speaking in tongues.”
“What?”
The clergyman looked slightly annoyed. “Tongues is the language of God. God is going to speak through you.”
“Okay, where’s that bathroom?”
Closing the bathroom door revealed a window too small to slip out, and with no escape, pushing through the situation as fast as possible seemed the best possible solution. Having come this far for sex with Patea, I resolved to finish the job.
The return to the line of losers, wearing white sheet-like robes and swim trunks provided the time needed to study the people ahead. Taking turns entering the hot tub and listening to the pastor’s prayer, they leaned back, submerged, and sure enough, rose from the water speaking tongues.
The lack of feeling the holy spirit recalled Langston Hughes, who lied to his church congregation, claiming he saw Jesus and afterward cried feeling guilty. Unlike Hughes, no tear would shed deceiving these people, and upon rising from the water, the language of idiots blared, “Blah, blah blah, bee, bee bee, blah!”
Afterward, the clergyman gave me some pamphlets. “Vince, would you like to show your faith in the Lord by tithing ten percent of your income?”
“I’ll have to think about that.”
The disappointed clergyman walked away, and I found Patea, who felt such joy for my rebirth, she introduced fellow church friends to me. “This is Vince. He just got saved. He spoke the best tongues. Vince is a transportation engineer.”
Patea knew I was a mover, but lacking a compelling reason to blow an opportunity to get laid, I ran with the story. Later, we left the Church and returned to her place and sat on the sofa drinking soda and talking, which soon led to making out. The passion intensified, but she placed a hand on my chest to stop our kissing and stared intensely. “I’m a virgin.”
“You’re twenty-two and never had sex?”
“No, silly. I’ve had sex, but I got saved. I’m a virgin again, and so are you.”
“Oh, if we’re both virgins, then-”
She interrupted, having heard this line before. “No, silly, we can’t have sex, but we can do other things.”
The blowjob received, for certain, did more for my salvation than that dunk in the hot tub.
Laughs and jokes about the date with Patea filled the ride in the truck, along with Sherēm shaking his head. “Man, no wonder you don’t like religion. You keep ending up in the wrong churches. That place sounds terrible.”
“Tell me about it. Afterward, she was so embarrassed by my job, she called me a transportation engineer.”
Stan cackled, “Man, maybe we should call you a Relocation Expert.”
Sissy leaned into the cab. “What about Inanimate Object Motion Specialist?”
Sherēm glanced my way. “No, no, I got it, Supreme Ultimate Master of Storage.”
“El Hombre, the Mover of Furniture, Lover of Women!” yelled Stan, who devised this suggestion with Sissy in the stupidity of believing my name was Spanish rather than Italian. I pointed my folded hump strap upwards. “Man, people hate movers. I can’t believe the stigma attached to our job. I feel like when I say, ‘I'm a mover,’ people hear, ‘I’m a barehanded toilet cleaner.’”
The guys laughed as Sherēm nodded. “Pretty much. The stigma has always been bad for working guys, but somehow, that career smirch is worse for us. Think about it; you can buy a calendar showing construction guys, police, and firemen working, but there are no calendars with guys humping furniture up three flights of stairs.”
Pulling Sissy back into the sleeper berth, Stan leaned into the cab. “Yeah, I just don’t tell women what I do.”
Sissy squeezed next to Stan. “Maybe we should just date women that work in the office or similar companies. They’d understand our jobs.”
I shot him a frown. “Man, have you seen the women working in the office at the company? They’re whales beached on the office chair of life. Fuck that.”
Sherēm shook his head in reluctant laughter. “Man, that’s terrible.”
“Yeah, but you know it’s true.”
Stan turned to me. “Yeah, man, that’s fucked up.”
“I’ll tell you what’s fucked up, Stan. The quality of woman I fuck is proportionate to my job title, cost of clothing, and the car I drive.”
Everyone laughed, but Patea never called me again for the likely reason that dating a mover didn’t appeal to her. Taking Stan’s advice spawned a new rule forbidding the mention of job titles and work, which felt like another brick stacked in materialism’s mausoleum entombing me.
Not having an ear for music, the discernment for what qualifies as superior violin performance held no meaning beyond the inspiration and emotion known when Reins performed. Lounging on the living room floor as Reins sat on the sofa playing the violin, the instrument sang in a familiar way like a memory always present but difficult to access. She moved her body rhythmically with the instrument, and her accent disappeared as she sang in French to the lite jazz. Her voice flooded the room with the violin's play, cleansing the world of everything bad. Pushed into the realm Reins spoke from the vernacular of beauty, life’s worries drowned in a fluidic melody containing no syntax for negativity in any form.
With the opening of eyes, music’s ethereal dimension departed, leaving my Southie muse with her violin held close, staring at the high hopper window. Her placid countenance revealed true love as Reins’ affair with her violin completed her in a way no person could, and clearly, she longed for those moments between the resurgences of life.
“You still got it.” I watched her.
Beaming, she placed the violin in its case. “Yeah, maybe I still do.”
She fell to knees then smashed into me with her frame forcing me to grunt. “Dammit. How does someone so small manage to feel like a linebacker?”
“Fahck you.”
I kissed her. “You don’t mind coming to my company party tonight?”
Reins stared at me inquisitively. “Nah, it should be fun, but people might think you have a girlfriend.”
A deep kiss avoided the question of us.
Theo stepped on the back of the trailer from the warehouse dock to help Heavy and me fold moving blankets. “So tomorrow we’re going to the gym. You need to get in shape.”
“Dude, I’m not fat or out of shape. Why are we going to the gym?”
“No, you ain’t out of shape, but you need to build up some muscle. Look, when you go to the steakhouse, you don’t order the steak filled with fat that tastes bad. No, you order the filet mignon, right? Being a little ripped, having some muscles in your arms or six-pack abs, is like being the filet mignon. You know bitches ain’t ordering the meatloaf. Check it out.”
Theo pulled up his work shirt showing a flat stomach and six-pack abs. I nodded. “Damn. That must take a lot of working out.”
He dropped his shirt. “Some, but it’s a lot about diet. If you get to the right weight, it makes it easier to get the abs. Let me tell you: chicks dig a flat stomach and muscles. If you get a bit ripped out, you’ll get all kinds of hoes throwing pussy at you.”
Heavy, whose real name was Al Chisel nudged my arm. “Yeah, man, you should come to the gym and box with me. Girls like a guy that’s in shape and got some arms. I need a new sparring partner since Taco quit going to the gym.”
Heavy was Taco’s uncle, and they worked on Heavy’s truck before the company hired Taco to work in the warehouse. Rather than eating his way into a name, Heavy’s name came from fellow boxers who claimed his heavy hands felt like being hit with cement gloves. Although quiet and reserved, Heavy was a sleeping tiger nobody poked. In his late thirties, he still boxed, and although he never competed professionally, I felt sure of his ability to be a contender under different circumstances.
Whispers of Heavy being gay circulated, and despite working in an industry and culture defined by masculinity in overdrive, Heavy lived unapologetically using trained fists to enforce freedom to live life on his terms. Even the most homophobic of movers gave the man respect. Heavy also took care of the husband, the girl he got pregnant at eighteen, and his daughter by driving and humping furniture for twenty years. Holding a tremendous liking and respect for Heavy led to weekly boxing after that day. He was a good guy who helped many and taught much about fighting and life.
Sissy stepped onto the truck carrying pads and motioned to Theo and me because cowardice made him too much of a punk to talk to Heavy this way, “You guys are fucking gay. I’ve never seen two guys worried about their appearance the way you guys are unless they’re sucking each other’s dicks. You sound like a couple of bitches getting ready for a date.”
Theo laughed and freed his Baltimoron. “Man, I bet the ugliest girl I fucked drunk is hotter than the best-looking girl you ever bought. The best you’re going to get is some biker trash or whore hanging outside a bar. Look at you, man; you’re a slob.”
“Fuck you. You’re just some punk kid. You don’t know shit.”
Theo pointed at Sissy. “Look at you, man. You can’t dress, you’re out of shape, and what the fuck is up with those teeth? Oh, I’m sorry; you got summer teeth. Summer here and summer there. Fucking crackhead.”
Heavy and I laughed as Sissy dropped the stack of pads. “Fuck you, man. You want to roll with me?”
Theo kept folding pads casually. “Don’t be stupid, man. You got no game. You don’t want to get your ass beat and embarrass yourself.”
Sissy glared at Theo and stormed off the truck as I shook my head. “Dude, so harsh.”
Theo motioned his head in Sissy’s direction. “Man, that Essex piece of shit is a fucking punk. I hate phony, punk bitches like him. That crackhead thinks he's cool because he gets lucky every now and then or because he blows all his paycheck on whores. I don’t pay for ass, and I fuck fine bitches. That fool probably wakes up watching some fat cunt stretching her beefcake pantyhose or some toothless crack whore trying to brush her two teeth.”
Everyone laughed, not knowing how close to the truth Theo spoke.
The gym’s value became apparent on the first visit with Theo. Theo bench pressed with a fellow gym rat spotting and yelling, “Don’t cheat your body, donut!” Theo pushed the iron upwards with veins popping on the forehead as a gorgeous yoga instructor approached. Finished lifting, the group conversed in a lively and animated way with the yoga girl gripping each of their biceps, smiling as if to say, lookin’ good guys, and yes, I will fuck you.
Theo finished bantering with the yoga girl and approached my workout station. “Looks like you’re in a routine now.”
“Yeah, this is great, man,” I glanced to the yoga girl. “I can see why you come here.”
“Dude, the gym is fucking awesome for meeting women, but it takes time and practice. Most guys come here thinking they’re going to pick up bitches, and they fail miserably.”
“Why is that?” I set the dumbbell on the floor.
“They don’t understand gym women. Fit hot chicks with rocking bodies are the most difficult to fuck. Think of all the dudes that yoga girl can choose to date. Average guys come here thinking they’re going to scoop a hot chick only to get shut down quick. Imagine a scale of zero to ten with aerobics or yoga instructors being tens and new desperate fat people at zero. You got to be pretty ripped up to get one of those tens; you know what I mean?”
“For sure.”
“You also gotta think about timing. Most people go to the gym to work out, not to be hit on. Most of these women need to get to work or have a schedule. If you’re going to get their attention, you need serious game and be in top shape.”
Lifting the dumbbell to perform more curls, I started laughing, and Theo looked at me. “What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking about all that crap you hear growing up like beauty is only skin deep. Seems like a lot of BS now.”
“Dude, that’s all bullshit. Look around. There ain’t no fat whores or man-pigs talking shit like, it’s better to be beautiful on the inside than on the outside. Motherfuckers in here build their relationships on sweat, strength, and endurance.”
Gym attendance became a new rule as well as a central theme in life.