TRAMPLED UNDERFOOT-Another Preview

Trampled Underfoot: The Dirt on Vic and Lia

Here is another exciting preview from Chapter Two:

Vic stood underneath the doorway, lit a Marlboro Red, and checked the time on the clock overhead. Fuck! Where is that fat blonde? She’d better not stand him up again. He had to get this over with and get her out of his life once and for all. Vic went for the desk phone and dialed her number from memory.

As the call connected he heard multiple bangs on one of the overhead garage doors. He raced into the shop, lifted the door over his head, and got right to it, “What the fuck, Lorraine? What extortion
game are you playing?” He did a double-take. Whoa she’s huge! Talk about baby fat, what the hell happened to her?

Lorraine, the once pleasingly-plump but now post-pregnant porker, wearing a form-fitting purple dress with matching purple hat and purple platform shoes, gave Vic a dirty look breezing past without a word, with her high heels click-clacking the concrete floor as she went waddling like a duck into his office.

Vic followed her in, amused at the sight. She looked like a friggin’ cartoon character. Yeah, a Baby Huey in Easter drag.

She squeezed her bountiful body in his comfy, black leather chair, making herself at home behind his grey metal desk, opening and rummaging each drawer as she swiveled back and forth. “After all this time is that any way to greet the mother of your only child?” she said with exaggerated pouty lips. Lorraine peeled wrapper off Bazooka gum she’d found in a tray of paper clips and sighed with mock regret, “And to think you and I used to be such close friends. What a pity.”

“He’s not my kid, Lorraine. We’ve been down this road before and it needs to stop before you wreck my life.”

“Oh really? Ruin your life?” she said as she chewed the gum like a cow masticating its cud. “Fancy that. Well what about my life, asshole?” She blew a big bubble then sucked it back in. “Nice afro, by the way.”

Vic immediately touched his hair and smiled. “Thanks, glad you like it. Lia hates it for some reason.” He shook his head to keep focused. “I didn’t make Jon leave you, Lorraine. You did that yourself by getting caught screwing every Tom, Dick and Harry on the planet.”

Lorraine raised one eyebrow. “Hmm, sounds like someone else I know,” she said, and lifted Vic and Lia’s five-by-seven wedding photo off the desk to admire up close. She brushed sooty garage grime off the glass frame. “I suppose you’ve got your tracks covered well these days, do you?”

“Put it back,” Vic said. “Quit playing with my stuff.”

“Funny, you used to love when I played with your stuff.” She studied the photo. “This is such an endearing picture of the handsome groom and blushing bride number two.” She tapped the glass with her chubby index finger. “Hmm now Missus Lia here—wife number two, of course—is the polar opposite of wife number one, ain’t she?”

Vic’s eyes narrowed with loathing. “Fuck you, Ryan,” he said, and paced back and forth near the desk. “You’re a twerp!” He stopped pacing, took a hard drag of his cigarette, then leaned over and forcefully exhaled in her face.

She laughed while waving away smoke with the photo frame. “I’m known as Lorraine Dvorak these days, not Lorraine Ryan. But that’ll change as soon as my divorce is final.” Looking at the picture again, “I find it interesting that you first married a hardcore, gambling thief of a sinner, and then you turned around and married a God-fearing, lily-white, Holy Roller of a saint.” Smiling as she taunted him, “Hey lover boy, how’s that new JW religion working out for ya?”

Vic said nothing. He simply glared.

“Got you there, didn’t I? That’s because it’s a sick joke. We both know you’re more suited to the sinner type.”

“Go to hell, Dvorak.”

She returned the frame to its place and pointed, “It’s a pity this here sweet angel, Missus Lia Somers, has no clue who you really are.” She reclined in the chair with hands behind her curly blonde head. “What’s wife number two’s maiden name? Benedict? Or is it Benedetto?”

“None of your beeswax. Stay on topic, Lorraine. We’re here to discuss your bullshit paternity suit, nothing more.”

She sat up straight. “It’s not bullshit, Vic. You are Charley’s father and I need your support. I need money to raise our son. And since Jon left me and your father cut—”

“You can’t prove he’s mine,” he interrupted. “That kid doesn’t even look like me.”

“Oh yes I can,” she said, and slid a wallet-size photo across the desk. “Take a look at Charley’s little face and dare deny he’s yours. He has your eyes.”

Vic walked over, prepared to offer the Mach I as child support if he saw the resemblance. He crushed his smoke in the glass ashtray filled with stale butts and picked up the picture. He studied it for less than two seconds. “This kid looks nothing like me. He’s the spitting image of your dad.”

“It’s an old photo,” she said defensively. “Charley’s changed since you last saw him. Babies do that.”

A snide face, “Yeah sure. That’s why you don’t carry a current one, how very convenient.”

“I don’t have money for camera film. It’s expensive.”

“I ain’t falling for it,” Vic said. “Speaking of Duke, what went down between your old man and mine?”

“Ask yours. I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Why not? Why’re you so secretive?”

“Now look who’s changing the subject? Look, I kept my promise to meet you here because you sounded sincere this time. I thought you were ready to do right by me,” she said, and then spit her gum and stuck the wad on the photo frame. “Obviously I’m wrong. You’re taking that blood test, like it or not.”

“That sham won’t prove a thing. It’s bullshit. The only thing that test will do is rule out the possibility. Results will either be definitely negative, no way José—or it could be a yeah, could be, maybe, might be, who knows, possibly possible. An unreliable test for a fucked-up legal system.”

“You’re a lying sack o’ shit. You know you knocked me up but you’re not man enough to own up.”

“And your twat hole’s as wide as the Grand Canyon from possible fathers you’ve fucked during that time-frame. He ain’t mine,” Vic said and tossed the photo of Charley at her face. It ricocheted off her cheek and onto the floor.

She shimmied from her seat with visceral contempt in her eyes. “Look who’s calling the kettle black.” Shuffling around the desk, she got in his face pointing at his nose. “You hypocritical male whore! How dare you? I didn’t come here to be insulted.” She backed up arm’s length. “I came here in good faith, hoping that sick, perverted heart of yours would be in the right place on this Easter Sunday. But you’re worse than your father. At least he did his part for two years until—”