Bad Habits

The door to the bar was unlocked by the time I showed up. Gary or Jerry or whatever the fuck the new bartender’s name was on time… and I must have given him a key. He was already better than Phil. A rush of stale cigarette smoke mixed with stripper oil filled my nose as I pulled the door open. I had convinced myself four years earlier this was the sweet smell of success. I smiled as I told myself that same lie again. The bar was deserted and dark except for the red and blue strobes that pulsed over the two girls writhing on the stage and covered their numerous physical flaws. I knew exactly what was about to happen.

“Casper!”

I hated Blake. I let one of his whores dance here for a week and I end up with a lifelong friend. It must have been Wednesday. Every Wednesday Blake brought in his newest recruits hoping I would let them set up shop in my club.

“Blake, I told you to stay the fuck out of my club when I wasn’t around. One of your girls better not be in my office trying to get into my safe.”

“One time, Casper, I learned my lesson. Why would I steal from you?” He opened his arms like he was in a gangster movie and started to make his way across the room.

“Don’t think you’re going to get anywhere near me. I’d get back over to your table and wait.”

He stopped. “You’re calling me a thief?”

That moment epitomized every Wednesday. Blake really thought he was in a gangster movie. He thought was going to strong-arm me into letting his bitches dance at my club. He thought he was going to force me to pay some crazy amount of money for the favor of having his girls work here. And he was definitely going to be irrational and find any reason to pull his gun. We’d played this game too many times. He knew my gun was in my belt and I knew his was strapped to his leg. It was a whole lot of macho bullshit. We both knew it, and neither one of us wanted to get shot… today.

“Settle down, badass. Just give me a minute.”

He turned and headed back to his table. He made the right decision.

The new bartender was behind the bar filling the wells and beer coolers. He had nothing to say. This loser needed a job and knew he wouldn’t keep this one if he opened his mouth. He was much better than Phil. I tapped my hand on the bar as I passed.

“Gary, right?”

“Jerry.”

“Damn it. Well, you’re doing a great job, Jerry.”

I walked back to the office, which was only an office if you call a phone and desk in the bar storage room an office. Jerry had stacked the mail on my desk, none of the letters had been opened and the rubber band from the Post Office was still intact. I knew I liked Jerry. He was much better than that douche bag Phil. I looked out the door to make sure no one was standing right there. I stepped up on my chair and pushed one of the drop-down tiles up. It took a few tries but I reached the lock box. I took a second look out the door as I brought it down from its hiding spot. The safe in the office wasn’t just for show. I put the dailies in it, deposited most of it every two or three days and put the rest in the lock box. I popped it open, pulled out $1,000, counted it twice, and slid it back out of sight in the ceiling.

As soon as both feet were back on the floor, the music exploded throughout the building. My body jerked and immediately my head filled with ways to kill Markus. I had a very specific rule that the PA did not go above four until after 4:00. That’s why Markus never showed up before 4:00. I was going to kick the shit out of that wannabe Euro-trash fucker. I was so blinded by the thumping sound that I didn’t look down at my watch and notice it was only 2:30. I ran out of the office and pushed my way around the bar. I was in the middle of the room screaming at Markus until I noticed it was one of Blake’s retarded whores in the DJ booth. I stopped. My stomach quickly coughed up a small laugh and a smile even crossed my face for a second… the sweet smell of success, indeed.

I motioned to Jerry for a couple of beers. He passed them across the bar. With the music rattling the entire building, it was easy to sneak up behind Blake. I tapped him on the shoulder and sat down in the chair opposite him. He didn’t know it, but today he was in luck. I needed two more girls to cover tonight’s shifts and his whores would bring in more money than the local college skanks who needed the money to support their drug habits. As long as the cops stayed out, I could enjoy one night of hard-working sluts and the extra cash they would put in my pocket. I would give Blake the $1,000 and take 90 percent of what his girls could tease, suck and fuck out of the customers. It was a very good deal.

I sat the beers down and started to yell over the music.

Blake waved me off. It was funny watching him act like a gangster with all the jewelry, girls and attitude. He’d perfected the act over the years, and this small town afforded him the anonymity he needed to keep his suburban background secret. But we were two of the same animal and I could easily smell my own. His street cred would have been shattered had I told everyone what I knew about him. But, of course, so would mine.

Blake stood up and motioned to the girl grinding against the turntables. She quickly shut the music off and jiggled her way down the steps of the DJ booth to the floor. Her dress was draped over the far end of the stage. She grabbed it and wrapped herself as quickly as she could. The two girls on stage continued to dance like nothing had happened, too drugged up or stupid to care no doubt.

* * *

Even before I quit smoking, I had the nervous habit of chewing on my lip. It drives dentists crazy and has garnered countless referrals to brilliant oral surgeons. They would all say the same thing, “Mr. Showalter, a simple procedure can remove the excess and damaged skin and a simple mouth guard would curb your propensity to chew up your inner mouth.”

To me it sounded like my mother, “Jason, stop doing that! You’ll chew right through your goddamn mouth! What are you going to do with big hole in your lower lip?”

“I don’t know.” That was my standard answer.

“You don’t know shit!” And that was her standard response.

I’m not telling you this to get your sympathy. My mother’s abuse stopped at verbal, and she never let anyone else fuck with me. Her boyfriends kept a safe distance, knowing full well that she would gut them in their sleep if they ever had so much as a foul thought about me. If for some reason they had an inkling of doubt, she would get drunk and tell her favorite story about my dad.

“We got married so young,” the story always started the same way but where the roller coaster would go from there was the question. “And Jason came along. He was such a beautiful baby.” She had the uncanny ability to well up at the word baby.

“By the time he was three, though, he became a bit of a momma’s boy. He cried at the drop of hat. His sister would take one of his toys, tears. He would spill his juice, tears. He would trip and fall, tears. His father thought he’d failed. He thought he’d brought another sissy into the world. Felt he couldn’t make a man out of this boy. He even called him gay. Can you believe it? He called a three year-old boy gay because he cried a little.” Mom would throw her hands in the air and roll her eyes, making people think dad was a lunatic.

“That winter, just before Jason turned four, his father decided he was going to toughen the kid up a little. He was going to be that father that scares his kid into being a man.” She let out a slight cackle.

“I always said it takes a man to teach a boy how to be a man, and Jason’s dad had no chance of teaching this kid shit.” This is when she would take a dramatic pause with a long drink of her bourbon and seven, two drags of her Camel and a hard cough to clear her throat.

“The snow was deep and Suicide Hill was only a block away.” She would lower her voice to a smoky growl. “Sledding, it turned out, was going to be the proving grounds. So, he got Jason all bundled up and grabbed the old sled from the attic, you know, the rickety kind with rusty blades. Doesn’t everyone have a ‘widow maker’ in their house?”

I remembered that old piece-of-shit sled. It seemed so big. I remembered my dad making me carry it as far as I could. The whole time yelling, “C’mon, Jason, the hill’s only a block away.” I fought back tears. I knew if I started crying that I’d be in trouble. The wind was biting at my face trying to pull the tears out and the sled was awkward, trying to wiggle loose from my arms. It came free a few times, slamming on the icy sidewalk.

“Goddamnit, Jason, pick that fuckin’ sled up and get your ass over to the hill!”

By that time, we could hear the children sledding, screaming and laughing as they sped down the hill on their safety orange discs or inner tubes. When we came around the corner and I finally got a good look at Suicide Hill, I stopped dead in my tracks and dropped the sled. It was massive. How was I going to carry this beastly contraption of rusty metal and rotted wood up that hill? And once I got to the top, how was I going to force myself to jump on this death-ride to snowy hell?

My dad stood next to me with his hand on my back, bathing in the majesty of this modern sledding marvel. It was his crowning moment. He had forced his possibly-gay son to carry a shitty, old sled one block to the biggest sledding hill in the county and he was only moments from forcing him to carry it up that hill, jump on, and become a man.

I ask myself everyday exactly how sledding down this hill would have made me a man. But it was logic I didn’t understand and still have trouble with to this day.

Just as he went to take the first step up Suicide Hill, my father turned around to make sure I was in tow. His eyes immediately bulged and his skin turned as white as the snow that blanketed the city.

“Why the fuck are you crying!”

Everything stopped. The kids that were sledding quickly ditched their rides and lay in the snow as if someone had begun shooting. Some of the other dads gasped and held their breath hoping to God they weren’t going to have to intervene on my behalf. My father raised his right hand… and the tears stopped. A sigh of relief came from the three fathers that had started to take steps towards my old man.

“Alrighty, then. Let’s get that sled up the hill,” if nothing else he was enthusiastic. “Pull it up the hill. You don’t want to waste all your energy fumbling with that piece of shit.”

“No sir.”

Only then I realized that I could have been pulling the sled all along, and my dad was a sick fuck for letting me struggle with it the whole time. As I get older and hear my mom spout this story to every dick that buys her a drink, I think maybe my dad had another lesson in mind. Everything is a struggle until you reach the top of the hill. Of course, how the fuck would he know?

“You’re almost there, Jason,” he said as he stepped on the summit.

My lungs were burning from the cold air and I could feel the snot running down to my upper lip. I gave the sled a final tug and fell next to my dad’s boots. They were black and smelled like wet leather. It was a smell that I relate to this day with winter and sledding. He snatched me up off the snow and set me down on my feet. Before I could catch my breath, he had the sled perched at the top of the hill and me sitting on its deck ready to go. There was no instruction, just a hefty push to the back and the sled jumped over the tipping point… without me.

The push on my back was just enough to throw me over the front of the sled and the hill was steep enough to send me thirty or so yards in front of the sled, slamming me back-first into a small mogul the older boys had made hoping to launch themselves through the air. Like a dart, the rotted sled sliced through the snow after me. I rolled to one side hoping to escape the blades, but I was bundled up so tightly I could barely move. I had just enough time to try a second roll. As I jerked my body to the left, the front of the sled came crashing into the mogul and tore into my right arm as the blades dug deep into my leg. The snow quickly turned red with my blood and I could hear my father screaming as he ran down the hill.

“Jason, Jason!”

I remember closing my eyes just as the adults reached the bloody snow puddle that was forming under the sled.

Mom would take at least two more drags before she’d continue, “Jason was in the hospital for a week, Child Services was breathing down our necks, and all his father could say was ‘I’m sorry.’ Not good enough! This man nearly killed my little boy and he expected me to accept ‘I’m sorry.’” She would always accentuate the second “sorry” with a sarcastic heavy-tongue and turned down face. The life would empty from her eyes as she said, “He was sorry.”

“I let it go for three months. The county forgot all about his negligence and the neighbors had settled back into thinking he was an all-right guy. I’m sure he was feeling awful comfy that night.”

Mom stared into her drink, watching the ice cubes slide up and down. She was so entranced I thought she was listening to the nails-on-chalkboard sound of the ice as it forced its way from the bottom of the glass to the top. She snapped out of her dream, “he was watching re-runs of Dragnet and beginning to doze when I went to the kitchen. I grabbed the small paring knife and walked back to the family room. I sat on the couch and twirled it in my fingers for a few minutes. I thought the whole time that I was going to cut him in the same places as Jason,” Mom stopped.

At this point in her story, she would always look to see if her audience was riveted. I remember one guy who stopped listening. Somehow her cigarette burned a hole right through his coat and left a nice “reminder” on his arm.

After a quick glance she would continue, “As soon as I started cutting I changed my mind. It was clear, the only way he’d remember what he’d done was to take a finger or two. So, that’s what I did, I sliced right through his ring finger. The blade only made it halfway before he sat up screaming. But before he could do a goddamn thing, I had that finger and the top of his pinky.” She would always laugh a little to make people think it was a joke but never enough to make them question whether it was partially true. And that’s what it was, partially true.

* * *

Every time I looked at the black 1976 Harley Shovelhead sitting in my garage I remembered the years of arguments we had leading up to this purchase. Even as I signed the papers, Lauren was standing over my shoulder disgusted. She was scared that I would kill myself. She was scared of being left alone with Sam and Martha. But, most of all, she was scared this $15,000 bike was going to sit in our garage collecting dust as another trophy of my mid-life crisis.

I wasn’t going to let that happen. This was something I had wanted my entire life, and now it was finally mine. I was going to ride this bike as often as possible. Not only to prove Lauren wrong, but to fulfill my notion that this was going to be my getaway. Don’t take that the wrong way. I loved my wife and children. But no man can go without some time to himself. I needed that time, and Lauren and I had been fighting for months over my demand for that time. She felt that I was rejecting her, looking for excitement that she couldn’t provide. I tried to reassure her, but every time I made progress I would say something stupid that sent me reeling. Something like, “at least I’m not having an affair.” Trust me, it sounded stupid at the time but I couldn’t stop it from leaving my lips. To be honest, I was only trying to lighten the mood. I hated seeing her so upset. I hated seeing her cry.

On the nights when it would get the most heated, I would lie in bed and think about what it would be like without my family. If I had it to do all over again, would I follow the same path. The answer was inevitably, “no.” Some nights I would have owned a bar or strip club, become a degenerate drunk who scraped by on whatever money a hole-in-the-wall brought in. Other nights, I would have traveled the world never settling into the cliché that I’d found myself in. And still other nights, I lie there so angry that I could end up in jail for meticulously slaughtering my family. But these were not the paths I’d chosen, and I immediately felt guilty for these thoughts. I honestly couldn’t imagine not waking up next to Lauren, or playing with Sam and Martha. This was my life and at some point I was going to own it fully. And at that point, these thoughts would never cross my mind again… at least that was the dream.

This is not to say that my house was filled with constant argument. Lauren and I barely had time to speak most days. Between Sam’s soccer practice, piano recitals and karate tournaments and Martha’s harp lessons, day care and play dates, we would muster fifteen minutes or so to review each other’s day and remind one another of upcoming events. No, the really big arguments were saved for the weekends when we had time to focus on the most unimportant things in our lives.

I remember the exact moment when Lauren let down her guard and gave me just enough room to force the motorcycle issue. We were at dinner with three other couples, long-time friends that knew what they were getting into when they accepted the invitation. Right after the salads, exactly three drinks into the meal, in response to an off-hand remark about getting tattoos, Lauren said, “I don’t care what you do. You’re only wasting your money.”

“So, if I were to spend my money on… say… a motorcycle, you wouldn’t care?” I said it as a joke and our friends laughed knowing the on-going dispute.

Lauren got nervous and tried to smile. She thought I was seriously calling her out. I could see it in her eyes. “Sure.”

The way it came out it sounded more like a question than a definitive answer. I could feel my eyes bulging. This was not what I expected but I was going to take advantage. “Sounds like I’m getting my motorcycle tomorrow.”

Lauren was disgusted with herself, “Fine.”

I think she thought she could back out of this agreement as soon as we got home. But it was too late. The money that I’d been squirreling away in my separate savings account was going to buy me the one thing I was forbidden to possess. And although it was a bitter pill for Lauren, she’d agreed.

Getting the bike home was going to be the first obstacle. I hadn’t ridden a motorcycle in over twenty years. I decided to get some pointers from Jack, the Johnson County Sherriff that lived across the street. His Harley took the space in his garage normally reserved for his SUV. Jack had the right priorities. I knew he wouldn’t mind taking a break from his yard work to talk about my new acquisition.

“Really, I didn’t think Lauren would let you get a bike.” He chuckled under his breath.

“I guess I wore her down.”

His instruction was quick and painful. He took every opportunity to point out that I may be in over my head with this bike and might have considered something for a less experienced rider.

“I took my opportunity when I could get it,” was my only answer.

“Why don’t you take a class or something?”

“It’s not like I haven’t ridden before. It’s just been a while.”

I kept hoping he would offer up his bike for a quick refresher ride, but I knew it wasn’t likely. He let this bike take the place of his car in the garage for Christ’s sake.

“Have you gotten your license yet?” His cop voice kicked in.

“I’m going tomorrow.”

“Make sure you pass the test. I know where you live.” He tried to smile and laugh, but that’s always difficult when you aren’t joking.

“Thanks, Jack” I smiled and waved as I walked down his driveway.

Lauren was waiting in the house with her final roadblock. “I’m not taking you over to pick up your motorcycle.”

“Listen, I’ve wanted this since I was a kid and now, when I’m this close, you’re going to take that dream away from me.” My dramatics were a last resort.

“Yes. Call Doug or Scott. They can take you, but I’m not going to.”

“This is stupid. Why can’t you just be okay with this?”

“You can’t take the kids on it. And I’m definitely not getting on that thing.” She struck her most cross pose.

“Fine.” I pulled my cell out of my pocket and started dialing.

Two numbers in, she stopped me. “I’ll take you.”

“No. No. I don’t want to put you out.” I continued dialing.

“You’re an ass.” She turned to get the kids.

The silence in the car was unbearable. This was supposed to be a good thing. I was realizing one of my childhood dreams. I knew I wasn’t going to be an astronaut. I knew I wasn’t going to be a rock star. But I was going to own a motorcycle. I was going to have at least fifteen minutes of every pleasant day to ride, to be in my own head and relax. This was not something I merely wanted. It was something I absolutely had to have. I was addicted to the idea that in a matter of minutes I would have a few moments of freedom every now and again. Lauren was right. At this moment, I was a selfish ass.

* * *

As I stood over the 1976 Harley and pulled on my helmet, I remembered all the fights Lauren and I used to have over the bike. It made me smile. It only took two weeks of pouting before she was caught pretending to ride. It validated everything I told her about owning a motorcycle, and forced her to acknowledge it was just like having a third car. Granted, it was a car that only I could drive and she still wouldn’t allow Sam or Martha anywhere near it.

We’d agreed on an hour every Sunday morning be allocated as my time to ride, and every Sunday morning I envisioned the neighbors waking up to the rumble of my bike. Truth is they were probably in church, or at their kids’ soccer games and dance recitals. The neighborhood was the perfect image of suburbia and we were all trapped in it one way or another. We’d either grown up here and didn’t know any different or we wanted our kids to grow up here so that they never knew any different. Nothing was ever that bad or that magnificent. It was nice and calm, the epitome of serene.

I backed the bike out of the garage and turned out onto the street. One stop sign away from the house and I could feel the bullshit falling away. I took a deep breath sat back and watched the manicured lawns fly by. The constant rumble of the bike and the air biting at my face kept me in my stupor for the full hour. I was twenty miles from the house when I looked at my watch and realized how pissed Lauren was going to be that I was late.

I remembered her saying as I walked out the door, “Jason, you need to be back in an hour. My parents want us to come over for brunch and you’ll want to take a shower before we leave.”

I was fucked.

I immediately started to contrive excuses. For the next twenty miles, all I figured out was I had nothing. I hung my head as I pulled into the driveway. I parked the bike as quickly as I could and slammed my helmet down on the seat. I never noticed the door from the garage into the house was open. I just breezed through it.

I woke up on the kitchen floor in a warm puddle of Lauren’s blood. Two feet away she laid face down. I slid over to her, still confused by what I was seeing. I turned her over and her head fell back exposing her throat, sliced open deep enough that I could see what I thought were her tonsils. I tried to scream, but, like my excuses, I had nothing. I could feel tears rolling down my face, I could hear slight whimpers and sounds that I didn’t know I could make. I slipped and fell twice trying to get to the phone. Blood splashed against the oak cabinets and I smeared it all over the granite countertops.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

I screamed into the phone, “She’s dead! Get someone here, now! She’s bleeding!”

“Sir, calm down. Where are you?”

“14563 W. 92nd Terrace. She’s dead!” I dropped the phone and continued to scream.

In seconds Jack was standing over me. “What happened, Jason? Jason!”

“Jack, I don’t know! I don’t know!”

* * *

We sat there in silence for what seemed like hours. I felt like I’d been kicked repeatedly in the chest. I put my head down on the cheap table in the interrogation room and tried to make sense of what had happened. I could feel Jack’s hand wrapped around my arm as he pulled me out of my house. In the corner of my eye I saw the strobes of the cruisers. Yellow tape quickly enveloped my house and men with small brushes and black lights picked through my house only to walk out and tell me that my wife and children had been meticulously slaughtered. I fell to the street sobbing. And that’s how I stayed until Jack led me into this sterile little room.

“We just need to get your statement, Jason,” Jack said in his cop voice.

“My family’s dead.”

“There’s more to it. I have to ask, what were you doing this morning?”

“What I do every Sunday morning. Fuck, Jack, you know I take out the bike for an hour.” I was starting to get offended.

“I know, I know. So, you went for a ride? What happened when you came home?”

“I was in a shit-ton of trouble because I was late. We were going to have brunch with Lauren’s folks.” As soon as I said her name my throat began to close.

“She was pissed when you got home late?”

“She was dead when I got home late.”

“Was there anybody in the house?”

“I don’t know. I slipped in her blood and hit the kitchen floor hard. By the time I figured out where I was, I was laying next to her.” My head began to spin.

“So, you blacked out? How long?”

“I didn’t fucking kill her, Jack! You know I didn’t fucking kill her!” I screamed.

* * *

I remained the prime suspect through the funerals and the months of news coverage. Everyone from NBC to CNN interviewed Lauren’s family, and they all said the same thing, “I always had a feeling that Jason might be violent.”

They knew damn well what they were saying was insane. So, I stopped watching TV. I sold all of them with the house. I was through watching myself being kicked around in the press. My lawyer advised me to keep my mouth shut, and that’s exactly what I did. I refused all interviews, even from the police. And the second I stopped cooperating I became a monster. The community I’d given my life to now saw me as a homicidal maniac. Mothers and children either changed direction when I walked their way or, the brave few, cursed me under their breath as I passed. The men would purposefully run into me hoping to start a fight. They looked for an opportunity to beat me to death and become the hero-protector of suburbia. It was disgusting.

When it became too much to bear and the District Attorney finally admitted there was no evidence to arrest me. I decided to move. I packed one bag of clothes and left the rest. I headed north. It was only three miles out of Overland Park that I decided I was no longer Jason Showalter. I was Casper Edwards.

* * *

Jack looked like the county had only enough money to pay for him to drive the nine hours to find me.

“Megan!” I motioned for her. She was every bit of nineteen going on twenty-one, young, tight and what every asshole in my bar wanted to take in to the VIP room.

She sauntered over and put her arm around me, “What can I do for you Mr. Edwards?”

“I like the way you say that. It makes my dick hard.” I kissed her on the neck and ran my hand across her ass. “See that cop over there?” I pointed Jack out.

“He doesn’t look like a cop.”

“He’s here to arrest me, dear.”

Megan’s hand clinched my shoulder. “Now what would he do that for?”

“Why don’t you go ask him, and make sure he understands that his drinks are on me.” I smiled and took a long drink of my bourbon and seven.

I watched Megan as she tried to cuddle up to Jack. I could tell it was making him uncomfortable and I loved every minute of it. When the complimentary drinks slid across the bar, Jack immediately turned to Megan who was quick to point me out. I waved.

“So, Mr. Edwards?” Jack asked as he walked up to my booth.

“I’m just trying to start a new life, without the press banging down my door. Shit, Jack, it’d be bad for business.”

“You know we found some new evidence?” Jack didn’t want to be in my bar any longer than he had to.

“Really? Good news or bad news?” I laughed.

“Is Casper Edwards really how you wanted to turn out, Jason?” He pulled his handcuffs from his belt.

“Damn right.” The cuffs were cold and extremely uncomfortable.

No one in the place even noticed the owner was being taken out, and I was happy. It meant the girls were doing their job.

As Jack pulled out of the parking lot, he looked back and asked, “Why’d you do it?”

“Become Casper?” I asked back.

“You know what I mean.”

“The winter before I turned four, my dad decided he was going to toughen me up. In all his wisdom, he thought the best way to do this was to force me to carry rusty old sled a block to Suicide Hill. You know, the kind of crappy sled that has the sharp blades?”

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