Florida Heatwave by Michael Lister Page A

dirtbags who hung out at the Wayside. We had our favorite table by the window; Bobby G., the bartender, knew just how we liked our drinks. Our home away from home. One night, the owner, Herbie Dyson, who I’d never seen before, came in and walked to our table and said to Tina, “What did I tell you about bringing your business in here?” I was thinking I’m going to have to smash my cocktail glass into his face, but Tina held my arm and said, “This isn’t business, Dyson. Elvis here is my fiancé.”
    Honest to God, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Tina had said the word, and I became the item—the fiancé. Suddenly, I was a man with a future and not just a parade of todays. Like they say in the Bible, the word was made flesh. I was so happy or dizzy or something that I bought the house a round. I kissed Tina, and I realized when she blushed that her words had cast a spell on her, too. Bobby G. told Herbie we were cool. Herbie looked at us and said, “I don’t want to see any funny business in here.”
    Tina’s waitress pal at the IHOP, Lourdes, told Tina the Hard Rock was hiring experienced waitresses, and Tina wanted to apply. I said, “What’s wrong with IHOP, Tina? She said, These Canadian snowbirds don’t tip. She said she could triple her income at the casino. But you’d be back on nights, I said. We’ll never see each other. She said, Quadruple it, even. I’m trying to improve myself, Elvis.” And that’s when I got this roller-coaster feeling in my stomach. I saw myself left behind selling smokes to jerkoffs from the homeless shelter while she’s serving cocktails to high-rollers at the poker tables. Well, she got the job. I figured to make the best of it, and I suggested we pool our money now that we’re engaged. She thought she’d open her own account, thanks. I was worried. I’d seen love turn to shit overnight before. My friend Trini’s wife left him for a woman. He said he should have known something was up when he came home from work one night and saw a newspaper article taped to the fridge with the headline “All Sex is Rape.”
    Me, I didn’t get any warning. Or maybe I missed the signs. I was working eighty to ninety hours a week. Tina told me one morning that she’d met someone. And then she turned and walked out our door. Left everything she owned. Nothing I do is ever enough. When I almost reach a pinnacle at something, it’s taken away. Always taken away. I know if I achieve a certain something, it will be snatched from me. So why bother? And that’s about the time my toothache started, the toothache I’ve had for fifteen months. I found out later from Lourdes that Tina moved to Jamaica with her boyfriend Neville. She’s never coming back. Never ever, she told Lourdes.
    The woman I assaulted yesterday, Dorie Hansen, I met a while back at the Hess. She’d been a regular customer, lived in the neighborhood. She liked her salty snacks and Diet Pepsis. I’d always talk with her about this and that, joke around. I gained her trust, you could say. When we met, I was still with Tina, so Dorie, I suppose, didn’t see me as any kind of romantic nuisance like the street vermin she was used to dealing with, who only got the one thing on their simple minds because they know that no matter how quick and indifferent the sex is, it’s still the best thing that’s going to happen to them all day. Then after Tina split, Dorie felt kind of bad for me. She’d listen to me whine and never say “Get over it” or “It is what it is” or “It’s all good” or any of that bullshit.
    And when Tina left, I have to tell you, my life went south in a New York minute. At first I didn’t know what to do with myself. There’s only so much time you can spend at the gun range, only so much time staring at the TV. By then I’d saved three grand, and I figured I’d take a long weekend, buy a ticket to the Bahamas, and enjoy myself. Even Dorie thought it was a good idea—be sweet