Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

 

52 - FOLLOW THE MONEY

I was at Owen Purty’s lab a day or two later and he confided, “It is my prognosis you need special assistance managing your financial portfolio, and ol’ Doc Purty is here to help.”

“Huh?”

“Partner, you don’t have to worry about nothin’ no more.  Know why?  Because me and Chuck Dookie, my stock brokering pal, are gonna take care of everything.”

“What the hell’s a Chuck Dookie?”

“What’s a Chuck Dookie?  What’s a Chuck Dookie?  Partner, he just happens to be the most famous football hero in the history of Idaho Community Junior College, that’s all.  He almost made it to the NFL where he would’a been All-Pro if wasn’t for the tragic accident.”

“That a fact?” I mumbled.  (I really didn’t want to get too acquainted with someone else’s tragedies.)

“Partner, Chuck and me are gonna give you the financial advice and expertise someone like you can afford.”

Owen shoved a cup of frothing black liquid into my hands.  It stank a lot like everything else in his place, only piping hot.  After drinking several pots of coffee at Owen’s place, followed by several hair-of-dog beer chasers and a few NyQuil™ shots, my customary hangover became a lot more manageable.  I popped for a cab over to the Kern Kounty Korner mini-mall to meet up with this stockbroker friend of Owen’s.

Owen seemed to know right where to go.  Up one flight of steps above the Pull ‘n’ Jerk 24-Hour Gym & Tattoo Parlour, across from the Woolgatherer’s Basque Family Style Restaurant (home of “The World-Famous Sheep Dip Sandwich”) and next to My Lai’s Vietnamese restaurant, we came upon an unmarked door.  An unmarked door, that is, except for a hand-lettered cardboard sign tacked to it: 

Seymore (“Chuck”) Dookie, All-Star Stockbroker

We let ourselves in.

“Morning Maggie,” Owen tipped the bill of his baseball cap with the flick of a thumb.

“Good morning to you two, too,” she smiled back.  “Go right on in.  Chuck’s expecting you.”

We entered through the flimsy pressboard door and squeezed into another mini-office.  Behind a battered gray metal desk sat a man.  He tried to brush a thick mess of hair back from his forehead without much success, and he bared the whitest teeth this side of Arnold Edwards.  Mr. Dookie reached out to say howdy without bothering to get up.

“Good to see you, men,” the broker pumped Owen’s hand.

Mr. Dookie slowly turned his electrical blue eyes on me.  “So this must be that new partner you’ve told me so much about,” he began to pump my hand.  “How ya doin’ slugger?”

Mr. Dookie then gestured with a sweeping motion of his hand, “Sit down, men, please sit down.”

The only place to sit was on hard metal folding chairs opposite the stockbroker’s desk.  My chair was as uncomfortable as it was small.  It looked like the whole office was furnished with stuff bought surplus from a grade school.  I thought with growing admiration: this guy must know a good deal when he sees one.

“Okay, partner, time to show him,” Owen smiled.

“What?”

“The certificate, the certificate,” Owen was jabbing the air.  “The stock certificate.”

“Oh, yeah.”  I reached into my sock.  “Right,” I pulled it out.

“Chuck,” Owen began earnestly, “we got this here certificate for 50,000 shares of a company called Robbins & Caruso, and we wanna know what it’s worth in cold cash.”

Easing back in his chair Mr. Dookie shouted over our heads, “Maggie, could you come in here, darling?”  Mr. Dookie chuckled as he leaned forward and whispered, “We’ll let my special administrative assistant do the investigative legwork on the matter.”

As the secretary squeezed in Chuck Dookie said, “Darling, can you find out what you can about this?”  With a nod of his head our stockbroker indicated Owen should hand over my stock certificate to his female assistant.

Mr. Dookie added, “And while you’re up, Maggie darling, how about getting us some coffee, too?”  Ms. Gato silently slipped out of the tiny office.

“She’s a great gal,” Chuck chuckled again.  “But, man oh man, it’s nothing like when I was quarterbacking back at Idaho,” he clapped his hands together.  “Man, did I make out with the chicks back then.  Oh, yeah.  Babes were just hanging all over my No. 10 jersey.  Those were the sweetest years in this old footballer’s life.”

Owen gave my arm a nudge and winked at me knowingly.

“Yeah, I had it all then,” Mr. Dookie continued talking like we was hanging onto his every word.  “Booster chicks, booster cash, booster cars, even the best booster seats in the best booster restaurant in town.  Hell, I didn’t know how good I had it,” the wattage of his blue eyes dimmed, “until it was gone.”  He shot Owen and me a sudden glance, “Ya never do when ya got it all, right men?”

Mr. Dookie didn’t hesitate for a reply.  “I’ll never forget, I was about two weeks from graduation and the pros were all set to sign me to an NFL contract, and me and my offensive line went out on the town to do a little end-zone celebration.  You know?”

He shot us another knowing glance.  “Who the fuck knew?”

(I couldn’t help but get the feeling Chuck Dookie was used to talking about himself a lot, and this story in particular was one of his classics.)

Running fingers through his thick mop of hair, Mr. Dookie continued his saga.  “I’ll never forget how me and my posse were out ripping it up, just like you’d expect us to,” he winked, “and we were riding pretty high, too.  After we gang romanced some townie chick,” his tone suddenly changed to a lower register, “we decided to do a little white-lining.”

“White lightning?” I asked.  “You fancy college boys was drinkin’ white lightnin’?”

“White-line-ing,” our broker emphasized each syllable for purposes of clarification.  You know, when you lay down on the white line in the middle of the road as cars and trucks whiz by on either side of your God-given body just to prove you’re a man.”

I believe I detected Chuck choking back some tearful remorse.  “Unfortunately,” he confided in a voice thick with emotion, “I never was too clear on the concept of parallel and perpendicular, being on athletic scholarship and all, so you can probably guess what happened.”

No one ventured a guess, so Chuck indulged us with an answer.

“Next thing I knew, this huge rig comes down the road like gangbusters and runs over me like a ten-ton tackle.”

Eyes misting over, Chuck gathered his thoughts before he continued his reminiscence.  “Men, I haven’t been able to stand up and piss like a man in over twelve years.  Much less play any serious ball.  Fate can be such a bitch.”

I could have thrown in some stories of my own.  But now that I understood why Chuck hadn’t stood up for us, I was actually beginning to feel sorry for the conceited jerk.

“Anyhow, some potato farmers huddled and formed The Chuck Dookie Boosters Club in my honor.  They raised money to pay me to leave Idaho,” his mood significantly improved.  “And they boosted me right here to Bakersfield.”

Mr. Dookie turned and yelled, “Hey, Maggie.  What’s keeping ya, damn it?”

Within moments the administrative assistant squeezed her way back into the room.  This time she was holding three coffees, my Robinson Caruso stock certificate, and now she commandeered my full attention.  Man, oh man, she was a hottie.