“I can’t believe Walmart actually sells decent furniture,” Mike exclaimed as he struggled to open up the large box in his new dining room, empty of all other furniture.
“Well if you consider a build-it-yourself liquor cabinet decent furniture, then yes, they do,” Kevin grumbled as he held the heavier end of the box.
“Hold it steady, man. I’m trying to cut this.” Mike fumbled with the box cutter and laughed as he jerked the box up and down to the chagrin of Kevin holding the other end.
Taunting Kevin jokingly, Mike said, “What, is it too heavy for you? Did someone forget to eat their spinach this morning? hahaha…”
“Fuck you, man. I am Popeye, but not when you can’t cut a fucking box open,” Kevin responded, starting to become irritated.
“I do believe you hangout at the shipyards like Popeye does, but the difference is that he has a job there, and you, well, you know…” Mike continued to tease the increasingly annoyed Kevin.
It was about a week before Mike was scheduled to officially move into his new place, but the leasing office allowed him to move some stuff in early. Kevin had offered to help Mike out at the new place, making it no secret that he had aspirations of making the new city apartment a potential crash pad after weekend festivities. Mike had bought a little dining room bar and needed Kevin’s help to assemble it and more importantly his white Ford F-150 to move the damned thing.
Kevin was Mike’s first friend in Texas, who also worked with Mike at the high school. A big burly mama’s boy with poofy brown hair and an authentic Texas accent. Kevin stood at a towering 6’4”. Although a few years older than Mike, Kevin was a loyal friend who awkwardly and frequently tried to show off at work by telling people what Mike did on the weekend. This was to the dismay of Mike who liked to keep his leisure on the down low, and especially didn’t want his coworkers in the teachers’ lounge to get the wrong impression that would tarnish his image as a young and ambitious high school teacher. It may be safe to say that Kevin had a man crush on Mike, which was realistic due to the fact that his parents were both theater majors and Kevin had never had any real lady action for the four years Mike had known him. Regardless, as long as Kevin kept a safe distance and didn’t hit on him Mike didn’t care, and was flattered in a way. Plus, Mike liked being the center of attention and the fact that Kevin had a broad range of random knowledge and talking points, a wickedly sarcastic sense of humor, and his willingness to go out just about any night of the week didn’t hurt either. One of their normal weekend routines was to hit up The Tavern sports bar in the city and play the interactive quiz games before hitting the town. The first week Mike moved down to Texas he was invited by Kevin and some of the other teachers to attend a real Texas country show at the horse track. All the stereotypes Mike expected to see when he moved to Texas were met at this destination; cowboy hats, cowboy boots, horses, trucks, and beer, not to mention the country music and fine ladies in their standard white tank tops.
It was around lunch time on a typical hot and steamy Houston Saturday afternoon in May as the two assembled the wooden bar in Mike’s dining room. In reality, it was a one man job, but the twelve pack of Lonestar Beer that was necessary with any home improvement project called for at least one other person to be present.
“So, have you met any of your new neighbors yet?” Kevin inquired.
“No, I’ve seen some of the neighbors, though. A couple of younger college aged dudes live on the first floor, a hot chick with a ring-problem lives at the bottom of the steps with what appears to be her fiancée, a fat chick who was carrying a Wendy’s bag lives next to me, a brunette with a J-Lo ass and also a cute girl with a little purse-dog live over by the leasing office, but I haven’t technically met anyone yet. But there are some pretty nice cars in the parking lot. You saw that blue Jag and just about every car in the parking lot makes my jeep look like a hand me down.”
“Well, technically it was a hand me down. You bought it used.”
As if Pavlov had rung a bell, the two were stopped midsentence by the sound of female giggling filling the air. Then more giggling. Very interested, the two stepped out onto the balcony that overlooked the pool to see what in any sense was something out of the Playboy Mansion. Three stories below them laying out at the pool was brunette hotness. One looked tall and slender, with long runner’s legs, a toned stomach, a large handful of apparently enhanced breasts barely covered by her green two piece, and shoulder length brown hair, although it probably took the two of them a few minutes to realize the hair color. With her was a group of 3 other beauties, ranging from a blonde bombshell with a blue suit, a Latina chica with a brown suit, and a dirty blonde with an orange suit.
As the two men stood on the balcony in awe, the only thing missing was a pair of binoculars and lawn chairs, for it was clearly obvious that no more work on the bar was going to be done that afternoon. The view that afternoon was one of the reasons why Mike wanted an apartment with a pool view, but he never expected to want to bulletin-text every male friend he knew in his phone with, “Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me….”
Beer after beer went down with childlike giggling as the two men high-fived each other and watched the girls paddle, splash, talk on their cell phones, and eventually notice the creepy staring.
“Oh my GOD!!!! Is that guy masturbating?!” Mike’s horror at what he thought was being discovered gawking at his new neighbors quickly changed to embarrassment as he looked over and saw Kevin innocently scratching himself down there, as he always innocently did, although to the common eye from thirty feet below it probably would have looked a little creepy to see a big redneck with a cut off T-shirt and messy hair drinking a beer, giggling, and apparently rubbing himself while peeping at the girls below.
Quickly, Mike shouted down, “HEY LADIES…don’t mind him, he just got out of prison and we’re on our way to delivering him to the halfway house.”
There was an awkward moment of silence, then a brief explosion of laughter, which quickly faded and then the girls went back to sunning, splashing, talking on their cell phones and just looking like pure hotness.
Kevin and Mike killed their twelve-pack by about three o’clock, just in time for an excuse to go down to the pool and spit some game at the ladies on the way to Kevin’s truck to buy more beer. There was plenty of alcohol-induced bravery on hand, and Mike figured that after 7 beers the girls would be impressed with what he would have to offer them, which would presumably be a new neighbor with a drinking habit and an empty twelve pack when he got down to them.
It never crossed Mike’s slightly drunken mind that the only contact he had made with them all afternoon was their accusation of a pervert jerking off on his balcony and that they had not so much as even glanced up again afterward except to note “…they’re still up there…Do you think they’re watching us?… Wow, that big guy is scary.”
As Kevin and Mike attempted to look cool walking down the three flights of steps, all of which overlooked the pool and the ladies below, an obstacle appeared. Walking up to the pool gate approached 3 dudes, all looking like calendar models for Abercrombie and Fitch, carrying a cooler of beer and bee-lining directly to the ladies at the pool.
“Hey Dale, Mark…OH GREAT, you brought Tony…” shouted the girls.
Too little, too late for Mike and Kevin, as they instead headed directly to Kevin’s truck and left, embarrassed.
A Dollar Out of Fifteen Cents 