Advice from Keaton

I was over at Keaton’s eating Wingstop and watching the Dodgers lose to the As on Tuesday night. That a was a couple nights after I’d turned down the Apple watch Joyce bought for me…and I’d called myself her boyfriend for the first time.

I’d had a Longboard or two too many, so I needed to hang out and sober up a little before getting in the car. No problem there, since it gave me a chance for me to tell Keaton about the watch and the boyfriend thing.

Y’all know about my bashful smile. Keaton has a smirk.

“So you’re not a whore after all.”

“When was I a whore??”

“Rich older woman. Expensive dinners. Expensive presents. Paying her back with your notorious good looks and your other talents…”

“Hold on, man. There was only one expensive present. Months ago. And that wasn’t when we started…”

“Started what?” Big smirk.

“We… You know.”

“Bubba, you never had any trouble saying that you and Monica were fucking. You certainly have no trouble saying that you and Candy are fucking. How come you can’t say that you and Joyce are fucking.”

“Dude!”

Even bigger smirk.

“Are you willing to say started having sex? Or do we need to use some stupidass expression like doing the horizontal mambo?”

“What’s a mambo?”

“Some kind of dance, I think. It’s something Mom used to say.”

“I didn’t know you talked about that kind of stuff with your mom.”

“No…that’s something you’re only supposed to discuss with your mamaw.”

“Would you stop fuckin being right all the time?”

“As soon as you stop being wrong. Ok, so y’all didn’t start having sex when Joyce gave you the phone. It was months later when she cooked you dinner and got you hammered.”

“It was the time we got together after that. Any reason we shouldn’t have?”

“Fuck no. I think it’s a great idea. I was all for it back when she gave you the phone. Even if it meant you were being a whore.

“But it turns out you’re not a whore and you gave the two thousand dollar watch back and finally told her you were her boyfriend. By the way, bubba, do you have any plans to tell her she’s your girlfriend…or are you going to let her figure that out by herself?”

“Give me a break, man. Boyfriend was hard enough. It just fell out.”

“I’m glad it did. You’re not cut out to be a whore.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me, bubba. I know about being a whore.”

“Are you going to tell me you were one?”

“Hell yeah. In Amsterdam, after I knocked my faggot billionaire boss out cold for making a grab at my dick. I got my ass fired for that, and I had to do something for money. I was stuck in a foreign country and wasn’t going to be able to get a regular job in the EU with my American passport. The faggot billionaire was paying me under the table just so he could have me as his bodyguard.”

“You knew he was hot for you when you took the job.”

“That’s how I got the job. That and him seeing me KO a dude. I never liked it that he probably was jacking off thinking about me in the next room, but he was paying me a shitload of money. Living in a super rich dude’s apartment in Amsterdam sounded a hell of a lot more exciting than working on the docks in Galveston. And it was. Until he fucked it all up and I had to start whoring myself out.

“Lucky for me there are a lot of bored wives of super rich dudes in Amsterdam who have a thing for cowboys.”

“But didn’t you become a cowboy after you got back to the States?”

“Yeah. But I looked and sounded like one. I kept my Texas accent even in Dutch. I was real popular for a while. Paid well, but it wasn’t a good time. You’re not cut out for it.”

“Maybe I am.”

“You’re way too nice a guy to use chicks that way.”

“What about 30 chicks in 30 days?”

“Way different. That was using chicks, but it wasn’t using chicks and gettin paid for it. Even if you’re selling your ass for a thousand euros a night, you’re still being a whore and you know it. So does the chauffeur when he smirks at you in the rear-view mirror when he’s driving you home. You’d want to make friends with the chauffeur and let him let you drive the limo.” He smirked some. “That’s one of the things I like about you, bubba.

“If you were cut out to be a whore, you’d have kept the watch and sold it on eBay. And not started worrying about breaking up with that bitch who’s fucked in the head who you’ve been calling your girlfriend for almost a year now.”

Just once I’d like Keaton to be wrong about something.

I didn’t want to discuss Monica. And I really wanted to hear how Keaton got out of being a cowboy gigolo.

“I wasn’t a gigolo, bubba. I was a whore. I didn’t go out with them. I just fucked ‘em. Shit, man…those rich chicks couldn’t have paid me enough to sit and listen to them talk. And my Dutch was too good by that point for me to ignore them. Besides, I wanted cash, not watches and expensive gayass clothes.”

“So what did you do?”

“You know: I went back to bein a bodyguard. For those high class drug dealers.”

Every time Keaton mentions that part of his life, he makes it super clear that he never touched or had anything to do with actual drugs. He reckoned he was safer that way in case they got busted. Keaton may be a badass, but he’s not a criminal. He even says he’s never thrown the first punch. (That puts him one up on me lol.)

So it turns out that one of the rich chicks who was paying him had a huge cocaine habit, and he met her dealer one night he was over fucking her. The dealer recognized him as that gayass billionaire’s bodyguard. He may have gotten fired, but he’d built up a reputation for himself.

“The gig wasn’t a thousand euros a night, but I’d rather protect criminals than fuck old Dutch bitches while they yell ride ‘em cowboy!.”

“They fuckin didn’t…”

“There was one that did. And don’t forget that the hardest thing about being a male whore is that you can’t fake anything. Chick whores have it way easier.

“So what about Monica, bubba? When are you breakin up with the crazy bitch?”

I told him that I hadn’t even texted her since I walked out on her in the restaurant.

“So text her batshit crazy ass and meet her for a drink so you can dump her.”

Keaton was right. Again. I promised myself (and him) that I’d text her in the morning.

I needed a beer after all that talking.

Keaton went to the refrigerator and handed me a cold Longboard.

“Take this with you and drink it when you get home. I don’t want you passing out in the beanbag. You ok to drive?”

I was. I also knew Keaton wouldn’t let me anywhere near the shitbox if I wasn’t. I’m not absolutely positive, but I reckon he might kill me dead for getting a DUI before Dad had the time to fly out to LA to do it himself.