Accidental Playboy by Leif Ueland

Author:Leif Ueland [UELAND, LEIF]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: SOC022000
ISBN: 9780759527317
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2002-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

“Please, Rich, be fair. Be human. You’ve got to give me another shot.”

It’s Raj, groveling to Rich outside the bus.

“Nope. Sorry, pal.”

Turns out he lost his wallet last night. Instead of accompanying us on our drunken excursion, he spent the evening canceling credit cards.

“We can take it out again tonight. It’ll be fun. Why not?”

“No, buddy, that was a onetime deal.”

Sophia stands next to them, videotaping the exchange.

“Rich, just one more time.”

“No can do. Last night was Hale-Bopp. Once in a lifetime.”

I stumble past, thinking Raj is lucky. Leif, you miserable, sorry excuse for a man, a threesome—a threesome with complimentary lap dances. Are you completely devoid of gray matter?

“Hey, Fearless,” Sophia says, blocking my path to the bus, zooming her camera in on my face. “Looking a little jaundiced. Anything you’d like to get off your chest?”

“No comment.”

“Leif?! Now I’m curious.”

“I’m not well. I’ve got to sit down.”

The first thing I see when I enter the bus is this big dude in expensive leather jacket and dark shades taking up the space of three women, which is odd, given the prohibition against male non-employees violating the bus’s sanctity. According to Sophia, he was once a famous football player, a larger-than-life, showboat type. He’s really our first celeb on the bus, thus a natural story for the day.

I ask him about his girlfriend, the pretty young thing emerging from the changing room.

“Her? Girlfriend? Come on! At that age, you just play. They’s playthings. She’s my plaything. One of them.”

A collective shiver overtakes the rest of us.

“Come on, baby, come here and let me see you.”

She shuffles over, rolling her eyes, looking none too comfortable.

“Yeah, baby. Why don’t you open that thing up? Show me the squirrel.”

In the immortal words of Ed McMahon: Hi-yo!

“Be good,” the plaything responds.

“Don’t be that way, child, show me some squirrel. You know you got it.”

Must he make it so hard to write a sunny story about the nice athlete we met on the bus?

“Squirrel, baby, show it. Why you being this way?”

Another candidate, just joining us after touching up her makeup, asks, “A tattoo?”

“Yeah, right, a tattoo. Heh-heh. What about you? You might have one, too. Open that robe, let’s see if you’ve got some squirrel.”

There’s uncomfortable laughter… recognition.

Still, I keep looking for a story, and for a moment it seems I’m on to something. Our guest of honor starts talking about all the public speaking he does, about his personal battle with drugs and alcohol. This is something, the human side to a conflicted character. We’re on our way to a dispatch.

Except he mentions the great pay he gets for working behind the podium. And the more he talks, the more he explains the money to be made profiting off drug and alcohol abuse—as opposed to, say, working for free with the sorts of kids who may have been nudged closer to such a life by the flashy life he led as a pro—the more depressed I become. No story here—at least, not for the site.

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