Funkytown

By Daddy X

This is the first chapter of a WIP (with emphasis on the IP, going back five years, Gulp.) that I’ve posted in lieu of other excerpts considered and dismissed because they all take on religion. Others have done such a good job in that direction, I’d as soon not embarrass myself.

This piece has never seen an editor. If nothing else, it’ll show just how much I need Lisabet, who has edited 90% of my published material.

Dragging It Up

Here we go again. In the same shithole bar in the same shithole street in the same shithole town where we were both brought up. Some say we were drug up. Drug up out of the red steel scale that used to coat all the cars around here, along with everything else in this god forsaken purgatory. Dust swirled as well in the air we breathed, rendering us dirty, inside and out. All of us. How did I get here? Again.

What I couldn’t believe was that I’d agreed to this. Agreed to meet him (now, with a buzz on) right where I met him (with a buzz on) 25 years ago. We were taken with each other from the start. If I only knew then, about Frankie, what he was.

Frankie was so handsome. Hailed from an old union family. His father, Frank Brazoli Sr. presided over Local 521 for more years than appropriate. Frankie Jr. is said to have “inherited by election” the position when his father retired.

Where we lived wasn’t like the prestigious Management homes on the other side of the river, where company men lived with their scrubbed families. The prevailing winds blew the smoke and filth over to our side, just as planned when this company town was built.

Sure, Croyden was coal mining country back then. Before they cut off all the mountaintops in the area to scrape the anthracite from the earth. They only resorted to a steel economy when it proved less expensive than sending men down holes some never came out of. The ones that did manage to come home every day mostly died of the black lung before turning fifty.

A steel company, figuring the miners, whose livelihoods damn near approached used up, having extracted all the coal that was profitable, would be desperate for work. So they built the mill. They were right. Men flocked to it like fish to bait. Nearly every family in town owed something to the mill. They owed their lives—which the mill was more than happy to take.

Those who came of age after the coal ran out didn’t have to worry about black lung anymore. Instead they died of cigarettes, emphysema and lung cancer. That and nothing to do.

But even in towns like this, action could be found if one cared to look.

Frankie had been Croyden’s town hustler. He bought us beer when we were too young to buy it on our own. He could find pot before it was hip to smoke pot. He could get in trouble because of his father. Well, not exactly because of his father, but for whatever trouble Frankie wound up in, his daddy could certainly finagle him out. That gave Frankie a great deal of confidence; confidence he wore like camouflage to disguise a weak soul. He would take advantage of anybody. I fell for the camouflage. And he sure took advantage of me. 

The pool table—that’s a newer one over there now, I’d imagine. But they’re all alike anyway, pool tables.

“Pool tables are made to fuck on,” he’d shout over the din of the bar. He’d see if he got a rise from any chippies hanging around. Often there would be a girl drunk enough, infatuated enough with his sideburns and thick chest. All the more impressive in a white tee, the word LUCKY in a red ring twisted under the rolled up sleeve. Wavy hair, long lashes and the cigarette hanging from the bow of his fleshy lips made him appear a lot dumber than he was. 

Yeah, they’d sidle up. They’d press a tit on his arm while reaching for the chalk, pretending it’s somehow an accident. Soon he’d be dry-humping her over the table, the horny young thing’s cunt pressed over a corner pocket, his pelvis shoved tight against her ass, everyone watching the girl of the night humiliate herself. Frankie grinding a circular how-do-you-do as her eyes sagged. They all lost whatever comportment they were born with … we were born with. They’d moan in feigned emotion, we would.

The first time he ever talked me into doing anything for money was the time he told me he’d give me five bucks to fuck my ass. I was so in love, already fucking and sucking him for weeks, so I figured a few bucks on the side wouldn’t be so bad. After all, I was poor; I did love him, and ultimately, all of me already belonged to Frankie.

Or so I thought at that young age. But every time we did it there, he’d stick a rolled up five dollar bill up my ass afterwards. He’d push it home with his thumb before my sphincter had a chance to close back up. At first it annoyed me, the rude way he did it, but like everything else, I wound up getting used to that too.

I washed out the bills and mother spent them for our family table, since Dad had perished in a crane accident at the mill when I was nine. Of course I never told her told her how the money came into my possession. I would secret the bills in her purse without her knowledge. She was always good at stretching a dollar.

It hurt. Hurt like hell. Frankie was big as the dickens and not very sympathetic to screams. He refused to allow that others’ discomfort was genuine pain; he insisted they were screams of pleasure. A guy like Frankie wouldn’t allow for conflicting opinions. But, if that was what it took to keep him, I figured I’d get over it. The same way I’d gotten over the pain of him tearing my cherry.   

It really got started with guys at the mill. The hooking. Frankie worked graveyard, and we’d set a designated time to meet at the factory’s fenced-in dock near the greasy river that runs by the factory. I’d back my ass against the cyclone fence and he’d fuck me that way in one of my holes. We’d laugh about the patterns the wire fence made on my pale buttocks. Sometimes he had me suck him off through the fence. He’d poke it through for me. We called it my midnight snack. When we did it like that, he’d satisfy me after with his fingers as I faced him, panties long gone. I’d hook my toes in the fence up above my waist in my short summer dress. Pressing my pussy against the hard steel wire, mouths together in a 3x3 kiss, his fingers working inside my slick channel, driving me to distracted ecstasy. I’d scream in delight to his insistent manipulations.

Unlike the other screams.

One warm, still, summer night, over a glass-like river, my screams were heard. The ass screams. We were sharing a beer through the fence after. I was holding the can so he could suck out the contents. Something like I’d suck jizz from his dick.

Then suddenly- a booming voice:

“Ok, Brazoli- You wanna get fired for ditching work? For drinking on the job? Or for fucking some chick’s ass while on duty? … Your choice.”

Frankie, in addition to having an important father, was also grievance rep for his department, always a management target. If they can fuck over the grievance man, maybe they can get one of the brown-nosers who aspired to foreman jobs in his place. At least, they wouldn’t be likely to get somebody as tough as Frankie. Or as slick.

“Jesus, Sam,” Frankie said. “Can’t something be worked out here? A little quid pro quo for a guy? There’s that grievance coming up. The one where Killian’s seniority got skipped over for the hot crane job?”

The job was never posted; a foreman’s son had usurped the job instead.

Frankie beckoned to me. I thought he wanted to touch hands through the fence to appeal to the guy’s sensibilities. 

“Yeah, Killian’s an idiot,” said the foreman. “That’s why the fucker didn’t get the hot job. He’d burn himself up—or get somebody killed. Fuckin’ jerk. Doesn’t have two IQ’s to rub together.”

“We’ll put him on hold,” said Frankie. I’ll tell the asshole it’s ‘in committee’. Killian won’t know what that means, or for how long. Chances are he’ll forget if I don’t remind him. And I won’t.”

“What she doin’ here?” Sam smirked. “Oh yes- that’s right. I saw why she’s here, didn’t I?”

“That’s my girl.”

“Hi, I’m Sharon.”

“I know who the fuck you are. Folks run the hardware store. You’re Bill Snyder’s kid.”

Although part of the community, none of our family ever worked at the mill. There were, of course, lots of people who didn’t depend directly on the mill for their livelihood. We were considered somehow outsiders, even though all the resources came ultimately from one pot.  

 C’mere, baby,” said Frankie. “Turn around, up against the fence. Pull up the skirt.”

My panties still lay bunched on the ground. With my ass pressed to the wires, Frankie pried out the five-dollar bill, the one he had so recently inserted. He unrolled it and waved it at the foreman:

“Here, Fred. This make us even?” It was, of course many years ago, and five bucks was plenty for a six-pack and smokes.

“That and a blow job.”

And so it began.

“Another one, lady?” The pockmarked bartender nodded at my empty martini glass.

“No. No thanks,” I said, torn from my reverie. “Just a Perrier, please. I’d better go to a table.”

“Watch your step.”

Can’t fall off the stool. I shouldn’t have come so early. Sure, a pop or two before he gets here. Shit, I really wanted to be on my toes for this.

I found an empty table and sat facing the door.

I didn’t recognize him at first. Then the letdown. I really wanted him to be beat up, flabby belly and bald. I wanted to look better than he did, but although he had filled out from the last I saw him, he didn’t look so bad for this town. Or for anywhere.

He was graying for sure, but in such a way that accented rather than detracted from his dashing profile; the fenders of once Vasolined hair now mimicked light feathers curling past his well-scrubbed ears. He stood tall, not the immature slouch, so much a part of his character back then. His eyes lit on mine and it sparked an involuntary smile in both of us. My first reaction to my own reaction was disgust at how compelling his appeal. The feel of it. I wanted to be acting cordial. Cordial but aloof. After all, I had probably done as well financially as he. What I saw in those eyes was a benevolent smile, not the sneer I remembered from so long ago. It was hard to hate this man.

After all, he had gotten me started in my career.

It seemed that to keep the foreman happy, I had to extend certain favors whenever Frankie asked me to. It wasn’t long before Frankie owed other favors to other people. It became up to me to take care of those ‘problems’ as well. Then it was money. Money he owed to all of them, it seemed. Of course, he’d give me a cut. In fact, he said he split it fifty-fifty. I’d get five—he’d get five. 

I was in such a delirium of love and lust. Frankie was pimping me and I didn’t even know. I was so young and infatuated. One day I ran into a steelworker who I had sucked off recently and he offered me what he called “The same twenty-five bucks I paid last week. Y’know—through the fence.” Frankie was holding back on me. Typical pimp.

I needed to wise up. Frankie didn’t love me. So I pooled my five-dollar bills and bought a one-way ticket out.

                                                                    . . . .