Fools Paradise by Stevenson Jennifer

Author:Stevenson, Jennifer [Stevenson, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: blue collar, Chicago, fools paradise, romantic comedy, deckhands, stagehands, technical theater, jennifer stevenson, contemporary romance
Publisher: Book View Cafe

The bar was chuck full. It was a nasty little tavern on the edge of an area that the yuppies were stealing from the ghetto, so they got regulars from both communities, plus local crew and roadies from the Arena. Drunk dope dealers and drunk yuppies and drunk stagehands stood around the TV.

His father was right in the middle.

“I don’t care what fuckin’ Jack Yu says, you done good, kid,” Bobby Junior was telling Bobbert, who was three years from beer-legal.

“Showed the bitch where she can swing it and where she can’t, huh,” Bobbert said, sounding drunk.

Bobbyjay revised his original intention of messing up his cousin’s face. The kid was loaded, and a head shorter than he was.

“At least you remember your name,” Bobby Junior said.

“Didja see her puke all over me?”

Jack Yu put his elbows on the bar and the crew around the Mortons went quiet.

Bobbyjay stepped into a space that opened up between Jack and his family.

“Well?” his father said belligerently. “You got anything to say for yourself, traitor?”

Bobbyjay looked at the faces nearby. Every word of this conversation would be all over town before morning. “She could have been killed.”

“She had a harness on. She was fine.”

“Don’t you think,” Bobbyjay said carefully, “some targets are too small to bother with?”

“What?” Bobby Junior said, and his tone said that Bobbyjay had hit a nerve. “We all get it when we’re new. Thinks she’s somebody ’cause she’s Marty Dit’s granddaughter. Stealin’ our jobs. Why shouldn’t she get it like we all got it when we was new?”

The less Bobbyjay said, the more his father blustered. He would have to do something dumb to keep Dad from confessing. Bobbyjay had never felt less like playing the clown. His head felt full of twenty-four-hour sludge and rage. “She could have been killed.”

“Hey, her fuckin’ cousin duct-taped Bobbert up and stuffed him in his own road case! And Bobbert’s a real apprentice!”

“She could have been killed,” Bobbyjay said, remembering her scream, the way her ponytail slid through the bars of the cage as she lost her footing and plummetted to the limit of her lanyard. “Killed.”

“Everybody pays their dues,” his father said, getting that shiny-faced expression he got when he was cornered and he knew it and he wouldn’t back down no matter how wrong he was. “Nothin’ happened.”

“Nothing?” Bobbyjay lost it for the second time that night. “How fucking stupid are you?” he screamed at his father.

Silence descended on the bar.

Now I’ve done it. As little as Bobbyjay liked being called stupid, his Dad liked it even less. There were eight, maybe ten Local guys listening nearby. Bobbyjay stood almost a head taller than his father.

So it took self-control, more than he had ever thought it would, to stand there and let Bobby Junior haul back a drunk’s wobbling fist and punch him in the jaw.

It wasn’t the lightest punch in the world. Bobbyjay tottered and sat down on the floor. The guys might even believe he’d been knocked down by it.

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