07.11.2006
Wayne sat at his desk and tried to calm himself with the white noise of the laser printer just outside of his cubicle, wondering where the hell the boss' son had gone to and how much trouble he could possibly be in. Jeffery was supposed to have come in at the same time as Wayne but had not yet appeared and Wayne's boss, the ever unhappy Mr. Sandaman, was minutes from his usual on time arrival. Wayne had once set his watch by it. He set his watch by it every morning in fact since it was an artifact of Soviet manufacture and, while a great conversational piece, it made for a very poor time keeper. He held it up to his ear to ensure that the second hand was indeed ticking.
"Fuck," Wayne mumbled. "This is stupid."
He tried Jeffery on his cell phone for the fourth time that morning and got the same result. A voicemail message that sounded like it had been recorded at a high school kegger. It had been recorded at a high school kegger if Jeffery wasn't lying, Wayne remembered. Which made sense since Jeffery Sandaman was still in high school himself.
Due to the oddities that divorce had thrust into the American family structure, Jeffery lived with his mother in Utah or Montana or Iowa or something all year and spent the summers in Westchester with his father. After years of being a country club kid though, he was finally old enough to work and his father gave him an internship in the department. He was assigned to help Wayne who was little better than an intern himself.
Having recently graduated with a lackluster education from a mediocre school in a forgettable state, Wayne relocated to New York and had managed to land a studio in the Lower East Side with a letter from his mother explaining what a nice boy he was and a check for six months worth of rent. Wayne figured it was the rent and not the letter that helped him the most since the check was cashed by the following day and the letter was handed back with disinterest. Four summers of working crap jobs while in college all spent in a single day.
Two months later he finally found employment but it, like his studio, was kind of disappointing after the first day. Sandaman had him come in early, leave late, and paid him for it all in amounts that resembled what a paperboy might be tipped. It covered the rent, sure, but only just barely and the bars and clubs on the streets around him didn't exactly extend credit. He often joked to his few friends that he got more of a New York experience from re-runs of Sex in The City than from his own existence.
Still, the worst places, the places where he had no chance of meeting someone he would actually want to date, seemed more or less forgiving to those with no money and Wayne slowly became something of a regular, giving him at least something to do outside of his four walls in the evenings. When he wasn't too exhausted by the tedium Mr. Sandaman assigned him with seeming glee.
It was with a small amount of bewilderment that Wayne welcomed Jeffery into the office. They were the closest in age of those who worked under the boy's father and Wayne had a gnawing fear that that bastard of a boss had decided to replace him with unpaid high school help. It wasn't like a minor couldn't do his work. A chimp could have done it but chimps weren't available for employment in the state of New York so Wayne had nothing to fear from them. Dubiously legal children with tufts of pubescent facial hair, on the other hand, were a different matter.
His fear dissipated over the first few hours of working with Jeffery however when he discovered that Sandaman's only beloved son was not so interested in working as discovering "where the ladies were." Clearly, his father's office was a gross disappointment as it didn't contain any of the oversexed young secretaries and bookish accounting nerdettes he had imagined office life was full of. Instead he was left with Sandra, the fifty-ish mother of four from Queens as the department's assistant, and Ted, the senior accountant who was large enough to fill his entire cubicle but with a voice like a little girl.
It just got worse after the first few weeks. They would be assigned some menial task to do together and Jeffery would complain all through it about what he wanted to see in the city. If Wayne thought he had seen too many movies before moving to New York, it was nothing compared to the young master Sandaman.
"I guess you get a different image of what New York's like in Arizona, huh," Wayne said as they collated copies together of some report that was so important no one had asked for it in days.
"I'm not from Arizona," Jeffery said. "But yeah, I thought it would be... I don't know... exciting."
"Well this is mid-town," Wayne said, reaching over the boss' son for a paperclip. "For real excitement you ought to go downtown. Like where I live."
"Yeah," Jeffery asked, lighting up. His sorting of papers suddenly picked up an excited pace. "What's down there?"
"Whatever you want man," Wayne said with a shrug. He may not have been able to experience it himself but he read The Post and knew about it at the very least. And he'd read the back of the Village Voice. In some ways it was better than The Post in that it was free. "They deliver everything in this city. Groceries, liquor, drugs, dinner, girls, you name it."
"Really," Jeffery asked, his mouth agape as though he'd just had a vision of heaven. "I mean, they can do all of that here?"
"Well," Wayne said, paper clipping the stack of copies in front of the young intern since he seemed to be in no condition to do it himself. "I mean, what's illegal in Kansas is still illegal here but yeah. Pretty much."
"I have no idea what's in Kansas but wow," Jeffery said, leaning back in his amazingly uncomfortable desk chair. The boss' son couldn't understand how something with so much padding could actually make his back hurt but he just added that to his list of disappointments with the office lifestyle.
"Yeah," Wayne said like it was old hat. He leaned back as well, desperately wishing for a trip out to the stairwell for a cigarette. "It's pretty cool."
The two of them looked over their pile of paperwork and wondered where the end of it was. They couldn't even really see the beginning. It was like starring at infinity. Jeffery looked more dismayed than Wayne but Wayne figured that was only because he was new to it. In a few weeks, he thought, he'll be as numb as me.
"So Wayne," asked the intern. "I was wondering..."
"What," Wayne asked, patting himself down in search of his cigarettes. He couldn't remember where they were and suffered from a brief moment of panic before finding them in his shirt pocket.
"I was wondering if maybe I could crash at your place," he said with a large grin that made Wayne want to shave the boy's face. "You know, maybe for a night or something. That would be way cooler than Westchester."
Wayne grunted a laugh. "Yeah," he said. "I bet."
"No. Seriously," Jeffery persisted. "What do you think?"
"What," asked Wayne. "Like my place is some kind of fucking hotel? Are you kidding me?"
"Come on," Jeffery whined. "I can totally pass for twenty-one and we can just hang out where ever you hang out. It'll be awesome."
"Awesome?" The word made Wayne chuckle again. Having the kid around made him feel like a cool older uncle even though there were maybe no more than five years difference in their ages. "Maybe."
"Seriously," Jeffery said, getting excited by the prospect. "I'll just tell my dad and he'll be cool with it."
"Hmm," Wayne grunted as he dragged an unlit cigarette across his lips. The idea of having a kid around bugging him to sneak into bars he had no business going wasn't exactly appealing to him but the boy's father was his boss and his ascent up the corporate ladder had seemed sort of stalled lately. And by stalled, what he really felt like was that he was holding it for others to climb. "Sure," Wayne said finally. "But you have to pay your own way."
"No problem," Jeffery almost shouted. "Dude, this is going to be bad ass."
"I bet," Wayne mumbled as his intern sped off at super-sonic speeds to acquire the necessary permission from the patriarch.
Once it was given, Wayne used it as an excuse to sneak out of the office before the sun went down for once and took the boy on a crowded subway ride down to the Bleecker Street station. From there they walked the ten blocks to Wayne's lower east side tenement. Jeffery couldn't have been more thrilled as he tried to discern whether various blocks had or had not appeared in the various Death Wish movies. He didn't even mind the five-floor walk up as it he seemed to think it was more authentic than the climate controlled and smooth running elevator Wayne dreamed of every time he made the trek.
If Jeffery was nonplused about anything, he didn't show it. He didn't even seem to mind the sleeping bag on the floor he was supposedly going to camp out in that night. The whole thing was an adventure in the way it could only be to someone who didn't have to live it on a regular basis.
"So when are we going to go to a bar or something," young master Sandaman asked, tossing his bag down onto the floor and into a couple bags of trash Wayne hadn't yet hauled down to the basement.
"Whenever," Wayne said with a shrug and the two headed back out, Jeffery almost skipping with glee down the stairs.
Wayne took Jeffery to the little dive he frequented about five blocks away and just enough on the periphery of gentrification that it hadn't yet been forced out by high rents and nanny community boards bitching about "quality of life" issues like drunks on the sidewalk and coke in the bathrooms. The front door was a heavy plywood construction number that had been so rotted through by ran, beer, and other substances Wayne didn't even want to think of that it had to be lifted before it could be pulled open and even then made a racket that would wake up those passed out on the bar. Jeffery's enthusiasm for the grime was so bright that it made him look even younger.
Scanning the dark little space quickly, Wayne saw a drinking acquaintance of his and maneuvered Mister Sandaman's scion over in that direction. Jeffery took a stool but bounced on it like a good boy who deserved fudge.
"What's up Tim," Wayne asked.
"Ah nothing," Tim responded, looking up from his newspaper and at Wayne's new roomie. "Is it just me or is twenty-one looking younger and younger?"
"This is my boss' son," Wayne said as an explanation. "I thought I'd show him around."
Tim laughed at the idea that anyone would bring someone to the bar on purpose and sipped from his whiskey.
The bartender came out of the bathroom with a significant amount of white around her nose and returned to her rightful place behind the bar before leaning forward to stroke Jeffery's chin. The kid acted like the prom queen had just made a pass though Wayne couldn't figure out why. She might have been cute - ten years ago - but, at the pace of her lifestyle, history of drugs, apparent lack of bras in her wardrobe, and rapidly fading tattoos, she looked more like the aunt who stayed at the party way too long.
"What'll you have cutie," she asked Jeffery.
"What ever will get me drunk the quickest," the kid responded with a hopeful grin.
The bartender let loose a witches cackle. Tim almost choked on his drink.
"He'll have a beer, same as me," Wayne corrected quickly, cringing with embarrassment.
"Are you responsible for junior here," she asked, reaching into the ice for the cheapest thing she had in a bottle. Everything was served in a can or a bottle since the bar didn't have taps. Or, it did but they hadn't worked for so long that no one even thought of them any more.
"Yeah," Wayne said. "But only recently."
"Do you want me to put it on your tab," she asked as she pushed the bottles towards Wayne and his charge.
"Mine," Wayne answered. "He'll pay for his."
"Can I start a tab," Jeffery asked, grinning again and looking all of twelve. The bar wasn't exactly known for its adherence to the drinking age but it was beginning to look like blatant disrespect for the law every moment Sandaman sat there smiling.
"Of course you can babe," the bartender said as though the kid's expression had infected her with some kind mind-numbing parasite. Before anyone could figure out what was going on, she took Jeffery's cheeks between her hands and placed a large kiss on his lips that lasted longer than Wayne felt comfortable with. When it was over, she swaggered over to the register and marked down the credits saying only, "How could I say no to someone as sweet as you?"
Wayne had to hold his head up with his hand and forcibly shut his dropped jaw. "Did I just see that," he asked quietly to Tim.
"Jesus," Tim said in a bare whisper as he made a strange sort of grimace and flipped the paper over to the other side. "I'd get him tested."
Wayne shook his head again in disbelief and a little bit of horror but Tim managed to change the subject so his friend wouldn't go mad at the concept.
Wayne and Jeffery had managed to sneak in just before the after work rush which was lucky as the bar filled up shortly there after with an odd mix of slumming bankers, Lower East Side hipsters, and just about everyone in between. Jeffery sat on his stool looking happy as could be since he paid for every drink with a kiss and chatted loudly to anyone that took a seat beside him. Wayne, for his part, kept an occasional eye on the youngster but mostly ignored him in favor the ongoing current events conversation Tim and he had every time they met.
As there wasn't a working clock in the bar, Wayne had no idea what time it was until he checked the read out of his cell phone. The witching hour had already come and gone and it was just past one. When he stood up to use the bathroom, Wayne suddenly felt the last few hours of drinking as he realized that his view of the world was just the slightest bit wobbly. He also noticed that Jeffery was gone. The bar was still full of people but Wayne couldn't see his boss' son among any of the patrons and a slight feeling of panic set it. It was outweighed by the intense need to urinate though so Wayne resolved to take care of business before mounting a search.
He emerged from the bathroom a new man and took another glance around the establishment from the back to ensure that Jeffery wasn't present. It was an unusually diverse group considering the hour. By that time the crowd normally reverted back to drunks and poor people like himself but not that night. He scanned the dark corner and finally had to do a double take when he realized that his charge was almost right next to him.
"Son of a bitch," Wayne mumbled as he lit himself a cigarette. The boy was not just kissing but totally entangled with the bartender. He had one hand up her shirt holding what Wayne could only imagine was a sloppy breast and the other up the back of her skirt, god only knew where. From Wayne's vantage point it looked as though Jeffery was being consumed alive by a woman easily twice his age.
Wayne held his cigarette, frozen in position in front of his face, unable to move it and unable to look away. It looked like a Discovery Channel documentary he had seen once on Praying Mantises where the female ate the male's head at the conclusion of festivities. Wayne wondered if she were to devour him whether Mister Sandaman would be proud that his son mated or upset that Wayne had let him do so for a mere fertilization. In an odd way, the longer he watched, the more Wayne became convinced that he was witnessing a mantis coupling than a well worn bartender and an eighteen year-old boy.
It was only because another drinker bumped into him on the way to the head that Wayne snapped out of it and enough of a sense of slight responsibility descended upon him that he decided to ensure that everything was all right.
"Hey Jeffery," Wayne called out just above the din. "Jeff."
The bartender paused her feeding frenzy long enough for the two of them to look at Wayne curiously. "What's up dude," Jeffery asked, pulling his hand out of her shirt to wipe his lips.
"Uh," Wayne said, suddenly lacking the knowledge of what to say. "Let me talk to you for a minute."
Jeffery loosed himself from the bartender and swaggered over to his dad's employee, glancing back at the woman with a quick grin. The bartender sat down on a pile of beer bottle boxes that lined the wall and returned a little wave of her hand. "What's up dude?"
"So," Wayne said, not sure how to begin. "Is everything okay?"
"Ah yeah man," Jeffery said. "Dude, she's hot and she totally wants me. Man, we don't have chicks like that back home."
"Believe me," Wayne said. "They have chicks like that everywhere."
"Yeah right," Jeffery responded with disbelief.
"How long," Wayne started and stopped. "How long have you been at it?"
"I don't know," Jeffery said with a shrug. "A little while? When her shift ended she just... you know..."
"What?"
Jeffery lowered his head and spoke in a stage whisper. "You know, shared her coke."
"You did her coke," Wayne almost screamed. "Fuck man! That's got to be half fucking battery acid!"
"Nah man, it was alright," Jeffery said like it was old hat.
The bartender slinked up behind the kid and wrapped her skinny body art covered arms around him and asked, "Is everything cool Wayne?"
"I can't believe you gave him some of your coke," Wayne said. He felt disappointed in her though he didn't know why. It wasn't like he hadn't done some of her stash here and there.
"Oh chill out Wayne," she said. "Besides, I want to keep him awake when I take him home."
"Yeah," Wayne said. "That's not going to happen."
"Come on man," Jeffery said. "Be cool."
"Look," said Wayne, giving up. He knew right then he'd never be father of the year if and when he ever had children of his own. "Just talk to me before you do anything."
"Cool," Jeffery said, bopping up and down like a buoy at sea. He turned around to the bartender. "Cool," he said again in a whisper.
"And no more fucking drugs for the kid," Wayne said, pointing at the bartender. "I'm serious."
She held up her fingers in the Boy Scout salute and promptly returned to her prey, probably forgetting about Wayne and the entire conversation. There was something about watching her hands on the kid's ass that disturbed him deeply so Wayne just gave up on making the point and returned to his stool and Tim.
"Do you have any idea what that kid is doing right now," Wayne asked incredulously with a hooked thumb over his shoulder.
"They've been at it for hours," Tim said with an uncaring shrug. He had clearly gotten used to the idea.
"I'm so fucking fired tomorrow."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Tim said, holding his empty whiskey glass up so the night shift bartender knew he wanted another.
"Dude," Jeffery said, coming suddenly out of nowhere over Wayne's left shoulder but still grasping the girl's hand tightly. "We're going to take off now."
"What," Wayne asked, looking up.
"Good for you kid," Tim said.
"Shut up man," Wayne sighed. "Jeff, you're supposed to stay at my place. Your dad's expecting you to show up with me."
"Don't worry man," Jeffery said with another age reducing grin. "I'll be there before he gets in. Promise."
"Promise," the woman on the other end of his hand echoed.
"Ah fuck," Wayne said. "Fine, but no more fucking drugs. I'm serious."
"You got it dude."
"I'm serious," Wayne said again for emphasis before adding, "And Jeff... wear a rubber."
"You got it dude," Jeffery said with an added thumbs-up before the bartender hauled him outside to who only knew where.
"You're a shitty guardian," Tim said with a chuckle.
"Fuck off," Wayne sighed.
He didn't exactly know why but the feeling of having shirked his responsibility to the youth of America and to the man who signed his bi-monthly paychecks left him with the intense desire to drink until it went away. In two hours he did a fairly admirable job at it too. Finally he lurched home alone at just after three and hauled himself up the stairs remarking, once again, how much easier they always seemed with a pleasant buzz on before collapsing onto his lumpy futon and subsequently passing out.
When his alarm went off the next morning, Wayne had only the most vague notion that something was amiss. The un-stowed sleeping bag being one indicator and the bag of belongings that weren't his being the other. The intense hangover he had prevented the necessary math from being added up until he was in the shower where he loosed a panicked call of "Oh fuck me" loud enough to wake up those who were already in the ground and that he was very much afraid of joining.
With a speed usually uncommon in his morning routine, Wayne dressed, packed his shoulder bag, grabbed the junior Sandaman's backpack, and headed out the door a full half hour earlier than was his norm. He even managed to beat Ted into the office that morning, and the accountant, for some reason, was clearly unhappy about it as he stomped past Wayne with heavy footfalls.
Wayne repeatedly checked his watch and the time on his computer's clock, hoping for Jeffery's appearance and fearing the increasingly immanent moment that his father would arrive and see that his only son was missing, somewhere in the city. Wayne hadn't even had his morning coffee, he was so alive with fear. His existence was paycheck to paycheck which was uncomfortable enough at times, he didn't want to be without that too. Not in New York with his rent and his useless degree.
When the clock struck nine o'clock exactly, Mister Walter S. Sandaman entered the office, carrying his usual briefcase, coffee, and egg sandwich. Wayne couldn't handle the pressure any longer.
"Sir," Wayne said standing up from his sort-of-cubicle-sort-of-printer-nook workspace, hoping the fear and regret showed in his eyes. "Sir, I lost your son."
"You lost my son," asked his boss.
"Yes sir," Wayne said apologetically. "I took him to a bar last night and he ended up going home with a girl."
"Huh," Mister Sandaman grunted. He set his case and sandwich down next to Wayne and pulled open the plastic tab on the safety cap of his coffee. "You took my son to a bar?"
"Yes," asked Wayne, wondering whether it was the answer he wanted to hear.
"Was he drinking?"
"A little?"
"Well," Walter Sandaman said, taking a sip from his coffee. "Was she cute?"
"Yes?" Wayne sure as hell wasn't about to tell his boss that his son went home with a drugged out bartender who looked like she had hit every bump in the road of life and was twice Jeffery's age. Wayne didn't think she was pretty in the least but hoped he could convince his boss of it. "I mean, she wasn't my thing but, yeah, she was pretty."
"Huh," his boss said with a casual shrug and small grin of fatherly pride. "Well, good for him."