Then it was time, time to do the deed. With his pantsunzipped, and his belt hanging open like floppy dog ears, he hesitated. Asoldier to his right yelled, "C'mon, fat boy. Let's see that truffleshuffle." The soldiers laughed at him, and his skin went from milkworm tostrawberry milk in no time at all.
"You guys are real assholes, you know that?"Amanda said.
The soldier that had said the comment looked slightlyembarrassed by Amanda's comment, but it was nothing to the embarrassment thatRudy felt as he placed his hands on the top of his pants in preparation to dothe deed.
"Go on, Rudy. I won't look," Amanda said.
Rudy watched her put a hand over her eyes, and then hebecame even more embarrassed when he realized that she was already naked.Quickly, while her eyes were covered, he shoved his pants down, exposing hiselephantine thighs and buttocks. His ginger fluff glowed in the fading daylight,and his penis was little more than an acorn.
He heard a musical laugh from his right, and he realizedhe had forgotten all about Chloe. He turned to look at her. He didn't noticeher perfect breasts or the shaved smoothness of her own nudity. All he saw wasthe amusement on her face, her hand pressed to her mouth to stifle thelaughter.
"Is that good enough?" Rudy spun in a circlefor the entire world to see.
The soldier nodded his head in a professional manner, andRudy pulled his pants up as quick as he could. He threw his shirt on over hishead, and stuffed his thick feet into his shoes, stomping on the heels as heran inside the Coliseum, his bag slung over his shoulder.
He stalked into the building, its age showing in thedated designs, cold concrete with little consideration for comfort. Theconcourse was twenty-feet wide, the ceiling was an off-white laced with pipesand cheap florescent lights that gave the entire place the feeling of a morgue.People milled around, their faces forlorn and haunted. It was a solemn place,like a library. Rudy headed immediately for the bathroom, a door-less expanselined with stainless steel troughs for urine, and stalls that were barely wideenough to accommodate Rudy's bulk.
It was his intention to live out the rest of the days ofhis life in the bathroom. He had never been so embarrassed, not when his thirdfoster mother had caught him masturbating, not when they had pulled down hispants in gym class, not when Becky Jurgenson had caught him staring dreamily ather in the middle of Mr. Patterson's social studies in middle school. This wasthe type of embarrassment that could kill a man... it could kill a Rudy evenquicker.
Rudy squeezed his eyes shut. That look. That fuckinglook on her face. The words played through his head in a loop, over andover. Tears came to his eyes, and great bursts of pent up emotion escaped histhroat in sobs, like a seal gagging on a fish. He bashed the side of the toiletstall with his hand, not minding the pain that he felt. It was better than theembarrassment.
"You alright in there?" a man asked, his voicestrained.
Rudy rolled his head to the side and looked heavenward. Couldthis day get any worse? A world full of undead, showing my little penis to thehottest woman in the world, and now crying next to some guy taking a shit.What's next? He tried to sound as if he were in command of his voice, buthe blubbered as he said, "I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine, man," the voice said."What the matter? You run out of toilet paper? Here." A brown-skinnedhand thrust a wad of toilet paper under the door.
Rudy couldn't help himself, he laughed just a little bit,wiping his snotty nose with the back of his arm. "No, I'm fine."
"Well if it ain't toilet paper, it must be family.You lose someone?"
Rudy sighed, a ragged hitching thing that somehow madeeverything not seem so bad. People out there were losing family, dying, killingloved ones, and here he was crying about someone seeing his penis. "Idon't have anyone to lose."
"Then it must be girls. That's nice. Girl problemsis much better than the problems most of us got going on right now."
"Yeah. I suppose you're right."
He heard the man straining in the stall next to him."Goddamn right I'm right."
"Thanks," Rudy said.
"No problem," the man said.
Rudy waited for the man to finish his business and leavebefore he wiped his face, and tied his shoes. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, hethought. He pushed the stall open and walked out into the concourse, the stingof the embarrassment fading. It would always be there, just like BeckyJurgenson, but he could deal with it. Rudy looked down the concourse andspotted a black man walking away, baggy pants, a shiny bald head, and heavy tanboots on his feet. He thanked him silently from a distance and went to findAmanda. If Chloe was there, well, then he would just swallow his pride and dealwith it.
Chapter 19: Dinnertime
Katie sat in the nosebleed seats of the Coliseum, herback pressed against the cold concrete wall. She sat alone staring down at thebuzz on the floor of the Coliseum. The Memorial Coliseum was home to thePortland Winterhawks, a junior hockey team that had produced some of the besttalent in the NHL, at least that's what her husband Jason had said when she hadasked him what exactly the Winterhawks were. Their
