Merlot Read online

  She was a teller from the bank. The one he always tried to talk with. The one who always seemed to turn the other way or was busy whenever he stopped in. Hell, she’s just a regular old party girl from the looks of things.

  * * *

  Things couldn’t have worked out better, Merlot thought. He got the information he wanted, and Cindy was too embarrassed to ever see him again. Which left only one problem. He wanted to see her.

  She’s an adult, he reasoned driving home, if she makes a habit of getting drunk all the time, well, who needs that in their life? Still he had to take 49 percent of the blame. It’s tough to count your drinks when someone is working to make sure your glass is never empty. He might call her later, but right now he had to get showered and cleaned up for his Sunday brunch crowd.

  * * *

  Cindy dropped her purse, missed the dining-room table by a good six inches. She was too tired to look or care. She slipped off her shoes, tossed her ruined dress in the general direction of a closet. Pulled the shades and was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  Osborne paced back and forth across his office floor while Milton kept his nose buried in the middle of the sports section. None of the dancers had reported for work. Customers stared at an empty stage for Sunday’s ‘Brunch and Buns’.

  “What is the point of clever promotion if none of your employees arrive for work? Just who do they think is going to entertain that rabble down there coming to view female anatomy with their scrambled eggs?”

  It was a question Milton hoped was merely rhetorical. He grasped the newspaper a little tighter. His right hand felt stiff and hot this morning. The bite wound puffy and raw, with a broader purplish tinge.

  “Milton, get up to the Fat Farm, have six of them go down there and dance while I get this situation straightened out.”

  “Dancers? From the Fat Farm? Are you sure…?”

  “Will you please cooperate! I’m losing money by the minute here and no one, no one seems to care. Will you please, please not think, Milton. Just do as I ask, for God’s sake.”

  When Milton returned twenty minutes later he held no doubts as to the wisdom of Osborne’s decision. One minute into Daphne from the Fat Farm dancing and the place had cleared out.

  “And?” Osborne asked, standing imperiously behind his desk.

  Milton shook his large head, aware of a new throbbing in his swollen, purple hand.

  “Whatever do you mean? Speak!”

  “Everyone just ran out. They left.”

  “Ran out?”

  “Yeah, they ran out the door, left drinks on the table, food on their plates. There’s still two guys sitting close to the stage, but I think they’re just waiting for a cab to show up. Otherwise there’s no one down there, cept them fat broads. Oh yeah, and your bartenders.”

  Osborne seemed to deflate on the spot.

  “Find me this Sassie’s phone number,” he said disgustedly.

  * * *

  Billy Truesdale was as good as his word and was lying low all day. He promised himself he wasn’t going to give one thought to the week from hell waiting for him tomorrow when they began hauling the fair cash to Central. He set down a plate of French bread next to a bucket filled with ice and three nonalcoholic beers. He stretched his feet out in front of the portable television he had just dragged onto the sun porch.

  The grass was cut, the sidewalk swept, two salmon steaks were thawing in the kitchen. There was nothing for a guy to do but drink cold beer and watch the game in air-conditioned comfort. He’d tested his blood sugar then grabbed the remote.

  He had a feeling this was the Vikings year. Of course he felt that every year. Talk of a home town rookie had the preseason cranked up. Purple pride baby, he thought, sipping his beer. Time again for purple pride.

  * * *

  Every Sunday for years, DiMento’s had an all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch. Merlot’s father had started it, turning an otherwise flat business day into a lucrative event, and in the process guaranteeing that he would have to work seven days a week.

  Merlot had been working the brunch crowd, bussing tables, seating folks, glad-handing people, asking about kids and grandkids, checking the buffet lines. The brunch went from 11:00 until 2:00, and his eyes were continually checking the clock, willing the thing to move faster so he could get home and squeeze in a decent nap this afternoon.

  A little past noon, he made his way through the all-you-can-eat crowd, thinking, come on clock, tick!

  “Merlot, you forget about purple pride?” Dickie yelled from a Lounge booth. Wiener and Victor along with a blind attorney, Andrew, sat with him. Smothered by Dickie’s massive size, Wiener was crammed into the far corner of the booth. His shoulders squeezed together, he looked like he was fighting for oxygen.

  Dickie wasn’t just dressed, he was costumed in plaid shorts and perhaps the largest purple jersey Merlot had ever seen, number thirty-five. A good eighty pounds of Dickie’s right side hung dangerously into the aisle.

  “Oh no,” Merlot groaned.

  “You didn’t forget again, did you?” Victor asked.

  “Hi Andrew,” Merlot said grabbing Andrew’s hand. “We met before, I’m…”

  “Yeah, I know, Merlot. Hey, I’m only blind, not deaf. Recognize your voice, how’s it going?” directing his head about two feet to Merlot’s left.

  “Good Andrew, really good,” he lied.

  “So, did you forget we’ve got tickets to the game, dipshit?” Dickie shouted.

  “No, I didn’t forget,” wondering how in the hell he could have forgotten.

  In Dickie’s mind the final preseason game had taken on a life of its own, one of those major occurrences in life by which time and events become forever measured. Oh, that was before the final preseason game or, that was just after the final preseason game.

  The reason was Dickie’s third or fourth cousin, Jerry Cardy Jr. from Chisholm, Minnesota. He was making his debut as a rookie wide receiver for the Vikings. And to hear Dickie, you would have thought he had personally coached the kid for the past twenty-four years.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, local sports media came up with a name, dubbing him the ‘Wild Card’. Dickie had taken up the chant to a nauseating level.

  “The Wild Card is gonna deal us into the Super Bowl. The Wild Card is gonna run the table. The Wild Card is gonna stack the deck in our favor.”

  It went on and on, and they all promised to go to the final preseason game for the Wild Card’s debut if only Dickie promised not to mention him for the two weeks preceding the game.

  Two weeks officially ended last night at midnight and so, wasting no time, Dickie said, “Come on Merlot, let’s get going. The Wild Card is gonna trump Seattle’s ass today, baby.”

  Across the aisle, a grandmother surrounded by her extended family looked over with eyes shooting daggers. Two guys, probably her sons, smiled into their coffee cups.

  “Let’s hope so, Dickie. Let me just finish a couple of things here and we can take off.” Merlot answered weakly.

  “Well, don’t take too damn long, I want to get there on time, you know what a pain in the ass traffic is gonna be. Hey, while we’re waitin’ who’s up for a couple more?”

  Merlot felt the slightest twinge of impending disaster.

  * * *

  Lucerne woke, too hung-over to search for the remote and turn off the television preacher harping on the ravages of sin. He groaned and pulled a pillow over his head, beer cans clattered to the floor. He was aware of Mendel’s heavy breathing on the other side of the bed and an irregular grunt from the walk in closet where Elvis had passed out.

  Hungover, flat broke and out of beer. Hell of a way to start a Sunday.

  * * *

  Cindy groped her way back from the bathroom. She tossed a discarded top over her digital clock and pulled the covers back up over her head. Maybe by 5:00 she might be ready for a bath, hot soup and a very quiet night

  * * *


  Otto was pulling away from the bank parking lot after placing another deposit in the night-drop slot. The day was going better than he’d planned, and if things kept up at this rate he would have to make another bacon and batter run about mid-afternoon.

  He was taking his time driving back to the handicap lot, listening to Johnny Cash sing about Sunday morning. His feet felt fine, his stands were busy, and he thought that bank teller must sure like to party. Yep, things were looking up and Otto sang a duet with Johnny about the beer he had for breakfast.

  * * *

  “Woo, hoo, hoo, purple pride baby! Purple pride!” Dickie yelled out the window of Victor’s Escalade as they drove west on I-94 into Minneapolis. Seated directly behind Victor, the Escalade leaned heavily to the left.

  He was yelling out the window to anyone they passed, currently two women in the next lane.

  “Purple pride, you cute little thing. You hear me baby? It’s the big man talking, purple pride!” slapping the outside of the car door with a gargantuan paw.

  Merlot could read the woman’s lips in the passenger seat. She stared at Dickie in his gigantic purple jersey, blond hair and chins fluttering in the seventy-five-mile- per-hour breeze. A look of utter disbelief or was it just fear?

  “Oh my God, what a fucking idiot,” her lips formed as they quickly accelerated and left Dickie in the dust.

  Victor began slowing, putting his blinker on after bypassing four or five miles of bumper to bumper game traffic crawling toward the same exit.

  “Yeah, baby, woo, hoo, hoo, Wild Card, honey. Deal me in, baby. The Wild Card!”

  “Dickie! Don’t dent the damn door and settle down,” Victor cautioned.

  “Wild Card,” Dickie sang to the tune of “Wild Thing”, the old Trogs classic, pounding a semblance of the beat on Victor’s car roof,

  “you make my, err, ahh, um…”

  Sputtering, not coming up with anything that rhymed, before beginning anew.

  ‘Wild Card, you make dick hard,

  You make everything groovy!

  Come on, come on, Wild Card!’

  “Okay, Dickie, that’s enough now, just settle down big boy.”

  “Here,” Andrew said, pulling a handicapped sticker from his pocket thrusting it in Victor’s general direction, “hang this on the rearview mirror. I’ve got a card to get us into handicap parking so we don’t have to pay. Just take the Fifth Street exit, then where the road T’s, you make a sharp right and haul ass all the way across the main lot and into the blue zone. We can park right next to the stadium for free.”

  Merlot wondered how a blind guy knew street directions.

  * * *

  “How about some brewskis, boys?” Dickie yelled plowing through the crowd. He was three paces ahead and clearing a broad path as he waddled in his plaid shorts and tent sized jersey. The four of them followed in his massive wake.

  Andrew held Victor by his left hand, with the white cane in his right. Wiener and Merlot walked behind them, watching people’s reaction to Dickie, number thirty-five, steaming his way to the nearest beer stand.

  “Hey, hey thirty-five,” some guy called, jumping out of Dickie’s path. “Jerry Cardy, man, Minnesota proud!” as if Dickie needed any encouragement.

  “Eight beers,” Dickie said, throwing down a hundred dollar bill.

  “I’ll carry Andrew’s” Merlot volunteered.

  Dickie drank a twenty ounce cup standing at the counter. Poured it down never taking the cup away from his lips.

  Their seats, compliments of Victor and Andrew’s law firm, were on the fifty yard line, about six rows up.

  “Dickie, you’re in the end seat,” Victor yelled back as they filed into the first five seats, nodding to ensure the wide-eyed woman in seat number six that everything was under control, for the moment.

  * * *

  “Oh my God, camera one, get a shot of the huge guy on the fifty-yard line. Six or seven rows up, see him, in the Vikings jersey, number thirty-five? Man, look at that guy,” the pregame ground director said into his mouthpiece.

  “See him? Look at the size of that guy! You can’t miss him!”

  “Yeah, yeah, I got him.”

  “Okay, and main shot on camera one, it’s all yours” he said, glancing around a wall of monitors.

  They focused in on the thirty-five of Dickie’s jersey, then gradually pulled back for a larger shot just as Dickie drained another beer on television screens across the nation.

  “That is one big boy!”

  “Hey Dickie, look, up on the monitor, it’s you!” Weiner yelled.

  Dickie followed Wiener’s outstretched arm until his eyes rested on his twenty foot image.

  “Purple pride, baby,” Dickie screamed rising to his feet. Multiple images on the giant screens around the dome flashed his image.

  “Come on, come on, Wild Card, you make…”

  “No, Dickie, we don’t need you on national TV singing that, okay, these are the firm’s seats,” screamed Victor.

  “Yeah, yeah okay, Victor, I know.” He raised a meaty paw over his head and screamed “Wild Card, Wild Card!”

  The sold-out crowd rose to their feet as a half dozen Dickie images waved them on.

  “Wild Card, Wild Card!” he screamed.

  “Do you believe this shit?” Wiener yelled into Merlot’s ear.

  “Christ!” whined Merlot.

  “Well they’re certainly ready up here in Minnesota to play football this afternoon.” The voice over said as the camera switched off Dickie’s fifteen seconds of fame, refocused on a pair of sultry blondes chanting “Wild Card” to each other.

  “Everyone’s here this afternoon at the Minneapolis Metrodome screaming Wild Card. That’s a reference to rookie wide receiver Jerry Cardy, the Viking’s number thirty-five out of the University of Colorado and a local Chisholm, Minnesota, native. So we wish Jerry Cardy and the Vikings all the best this afternoon, and we’ll be back with the kick off, after this message. It’s the Minnesota Vikings versus the Seattle Seahawks in today’s final preseason NFL Sunday game.”

  * * *

  “You see that fat bastard,” Lucerne rolled halfway over to face Mendel on the bed. He sipped a warm Colt 45 from the night before.

  “By rights you ought to share that, you know,” Mendel reasoned, furious at himself for not checking under the bed for the can.

  “Share? Hell, you coulda grabbed her yourself, you just didn’t have the brains to look around and now that’s my problem? I don’t think so,” he slurped.

  * * *

  It was a painful first seven minutes of the game. Seattle marched down the field in increments of five and ten yards, scored a touchdown, then an extra point, before Minnesota native and rookie Jerry Cardy, the Wild Card, took the field.

  Number thirty-five, Jerry Cardy Jr. strutted onto the field for his first appearance as a Minnesota Viking. Number thirty-five, Dickie, rose to his feet, and got the stadium chanting once again.

  “Wild Card, Wild Card.” Dickie and the crowd roared in unison and young Jerry Cardy Jr. began raising his arms in unison with Dickie and his stadium of followers. “Wild Card, Wild Card!” the chant thundered round.

  “Hey, hey,” Dickie called, then whistled to the beer vendor, “any of you guys ready?” Knowing no one was more than half way through their beer.

  “Just give me two.” Things pretty much went downhill from there.

  While Jerry Cardy was quick and had a definite talent for outwitting his defenders, there was one slight problem; he couldn’t catch. It was on the third Viking possession that things turned from unpleasant to downright ugly.

  Twenty-one to nothing, toward the end of the first quarter. The Vikings back on their own twelve-yard line. It was third and twenty-six, and the play called for a screen pass to number thirty-five. Seattle more than willing to allow a few yards, were playing deep. Truth be known, Seattle wasn’t really covering Jerry Cardy anymore. He’d already become a nonfactor.

  The s
ignals were called, everyone made their assignments with just enough of a performance to give one hope that maybe, just maybe, the boys had finally shaken the preseason jitters. The quarterback stepped into the pocket, looked around, spied number thirty-five open and drilled him, right on the numbers. Jerry Cardy, the Wild Card, hung on, spun full around, set his jaw, put his head down, and ran.

  They were in pursuit, Seattle players to the left and right. Jerry Cardy, with no one to depend on but himself, kicked it into overdrive, and ran like he’d never run before. He was vaguely aware of the roar of the crowd, and he couldn’t believe how quickly he had been able to cover the ground. He dashed toward the end zone and tossed the ball up into the air just as he crossed the line, freeing both hands so he could begin his dance.

  Unfortunately, after Jerry caught the screen pass he had spun around. A full three hundred and sixty degrees. He ran like he’d never run before. In the wrong direction. But the worst was yet to come, he hadn’t quite crossed into the end zone when he threw the ball into the air to begin his dance. Seattle’s defensive end, Marcus Beedle, caught Jerry Cardy’s discarded ball. He stepped into the end zone directly behind Jerry, adding an additional six points onto what would later become the worst defeat in the Viking’s history.

  Jerry was barely into his touchdown dance when the first purple jersey, number nine, slammed into him full force. That was just before the Wild Card blacked out, thinking, “Gee, they sure pile on rough in this league”. It took the referees and players from both teams to stop the blood frenzy as Viking players viciously attacked their teammate. Jerry was still unconscious when they carried him from the field. The sold out crowd rose to their feet again, this time screaming for blood.

  That was the beginning of the end for Dickie. He grabbed the nearest beer vendor, handed him a crisp fifty.

  “Stick with me,” he said, and began drinking beers as fast as the guy could open and pour.

  “You guys want any beers,” he yelled from the bottom of another empty cup, oblivious to the catcalls and debris beginning to be fired in his direction.

  “Maybe we should leave?” Victor suggested. The couple next to him stood and crawled in the opposite direction down the length of the row, excusing themselves past twenty-five complete strangers rather than walk ten feet past Dickie.