Years ago, I did a series of spoof “Chicken Soup” stories. Here is my favorite:
When Dino got busted and sent to Grafton Correctional, Shelly started spending most of her evenings at the “Underdog,” a local hole-in-the-wall where she and Dino met a year before. She thought it might make her feel closer to him somehow, or recreate their first boozy weeks together amid the smoke and sounds of the pinball bells. The “Underdog” was named for the cartoon character, but the only reminder of that was a faded yellow transparency of the caped hero on the window, its edges frayed and peeling from years of exposure to nicotine and ammonia. A few mixed drinks were named after characters in the cartoon, listed on a hand-lettered poster on the wall, like the “Poor Polly,” the “Riff Raff,” and the “Shoeshine Boy,” which inadvertently described most of the patrons.
The “Dog,” as its regulars affectionately called it, was a lively dive, 400 square feet of deafening clatter: a blaring jukebox, an old-fashioned pinball game, a pool table, a bowling machine, televised sporting events and shouting customers in various stages of inebriation. Draft beer, shots of Black Velvet and bottom shelf vodka were the most popular beverages, where a bottle of single malt scotch lasted six months. The Dog had no kitchen, but carried a variety of cheap packaged snacks, Slim Jim sausage, and a big jar of pink pickled eggs for those who hankered for a little nourishment. The owner, Jimbo, had recently eighty-sixed the famous “Little Nut Hut” when he discovered it had been converted into a greasy tanning booth for cockroaches.
Shelly knew most of the regulars at the Dog. She had been hanging around since moving a few years before to a Section 8 duplex around the corner, where she raised her two school-aged daughters on a meager income and less patience. When the girls fell asleep at around nine, she snuck out to the bar to allay her restlessness. Even watching football, which she cared nothing about, was better than being alone. The night she met Dino he was shooting pool (and winning) for drinks. The upside down shot glasses lined up in front of his barstool advertised his prowess. When he got tired of the lack of competition, he sat down to enjoy the spoils of victory and noticed Shelly smiling at him from across the bar. Shelly gave him a wink, and Dino, never one to turn down an invitation from a cute girl, moved to the stool next to hers and slid a few of his winnings her way in his typically suave nonchalance. Dino presented himself as a James Dean knockoff, with a grungy black leather jacket sour from wear and neglect, and a tough spiked haircut glistening with gel. He reeked of street punk, and chewed on a swizzle stick when his toothpicks ran out.
When he felt like it, Dino worked for his brother’s drywall company and hung sheet rock during the day, and at night he sold weed in rolled sandwich bags to local friends and bar patrons. Shelly found his dangerous aura exotic, and latched onto him like a new appendage. Dino moved his operation out of his parents’ basement into her apartment within a week of their first “date,” and when Shelly came home from her minimum wage job as a shipping clerk at a casting plant near the steel mill, more often than not Dino would be flopped on the couch in front of the television, and empty beer cans and Mr. Hero wrappers were strewn on the coffee table. But, at least he paid the rent and always had a fat roll of cash in his right front jeans pocket, and she didn’t have to sleep alone.
The worst day of Shelly’s life was when the cops broke down the front door and cuffed Dino in front of her kids, who wailed in terror and clung to Dino’s legs as they hauled him off to jail. She found Dino’s coffee can of 20s in the freezer and posted bail for him that night. Alas, their romance was tainted by a shadow of dread knowing the court date, postponed three times, would inevitably arrive, and Dino would probably do more time than if he shot someone at the Dog.
They sent Dino to Grafton, an overcrowded, minimum-security facility in the sticks, about an hour’s drive from Shelly’s place. For the first few months, every weekend she’d pack a picnic basket, along with magazines and letters from Dino’s family, and drag the girls into the backseat of her aging Nova to make the trip. Eventually, the girls claimed social engagements or just plain refused to go, and Shelly grew weary of the visits. She and Dino could hold hands and briefly kiss hello and goodbye, but otherwise they sat on plastic chairs around scuffed Formica tables among rowdy visitors, crying babies, and the mingling odors of taco grease and rancid melancholy. Besides, the money had dried up and Dino’s legal fees and fines would take years to pay, if he ever found legitimate work.
Humming to the sad strains of Bonnie Raitt singing, “I can’t make you love me if you don’t,” Shelly set her sights on greener pastures and positioned herself at the bar with the widest view of the room.
