Where you found them in a university burg such as this was at a place like Goldfinger’s.
Ah.
Ivor’s title was “manager,” but he mostly acted as bouncer when he wasn’t running shady errands for the proprietor of Goldfinger’s, whose name, unremarkably, was Richard, but who looked and acted so much like a gangster the guys could barely suppress their yuks whenever they noticed him slithering into and out of the back office. The boys from the Temple often accompanied Wade down to Goldfinger’s early in the evening when he went to pick up his product from Ivor. At eight or so they were practically the only customers, and the place was cavernous. But this gave them time to take in the operation, to chat with Lorna about the military ex-boyfriend who was stalking her and about whom his superiors at the base, when she complained, refused to do anything. To watch Ivor soak through his Motörhead T-shirt as he explained why AIDS was the result of a U.S. government project intended to kill off drug addicts and inner-city blacks.
“Fags was just a bonus!” Ivor would insist, eyes forever bulging. Ivor took the government’s crusade against drug addicts personally, for obvious reasons. “They said to themselves, them scientists, ‘Fags, blacks and druggies. We scored a hat trick, boys!’”
Wade only dealt with Ivor. Richard didn’t as much as look at Wade, although he sometimes eyed the group of them sitting at their table early in the evening and calling flirtatiously to Lorna.
“The term ‘greasy eye’,” muttered Kyle one such evening, after they’d all sat holding their breaths while Richard appraised them from his doorway, “has never been more appropriate.”
When the office door shut they cracked up en masse.
Wade never got invited into the back office, where the boys surmised there was a polar bear rug with the head still attached, a fireplace, a wet bar, a cache of weapons hidden behind a fake bookcase, at least two meth-addicted prostitutes, and an overflowing safe.
Richard would appear in the doorway, cast a greasy eye, then turn to the bar. “Lorna,” he would say. And he would, no word of lie, snap his fingers at her.
The guys would hold it in until she too disappeared into the office.
Then: “Lorna,” Rank would say, snapping his fingers. “I got some new product to try out and I need a pair of tits to snort it offa. Chop, chop.”
“Lorna,” Wade would say, snapping. “Blow job. While we’re young.”
It was all fun and games at this distance. The boys were of the Temple and every once in a while they came down from the Temple to visit Goldfinger’s where they would do their best to make Lorna smile and flash her bad teeth, where they would question Ivor about the great AIDS conspiracy, intent on tripping him up with some inescapable nugget of logic (it never happened — Ivor’s fantasy was airtight, and arguing with him about it just made it more so, was like slathering it in sealant) but when they had enough they could return to the Temple, down a final beer, snap their fingers at one another for a few final inebriate chuckles before passing out in their respective chairs.
It was all fun and games until Rank lost his scholarship and Ivor, inevitably one night, observed to Rank he was a “big fuckin guy.”
“Yes, I am a big fuckin guy,” agreed Rank. It was a point in the evening where all Rank was really capable of, in terms of conversation, was agreeing with what was said to him and repeating it back in a mushy voice.
“I can talk to Rich if you want,” said Ivor. “Heard you saying you’re looking for work.”
Rank didn’t believe he had said that, exactly. What he remembered was bragging loudly to the patrons of Gold-
finger’s about how big his penis was and saying he would display it “for a small donation” to any of the ladies present. The music had been very loud and he didn’t think anyone beyond his table — and the women at the next table whose attention he’d been trying to get — had overheard.
“Oh gross,” says Adam, a few days later when Rank mentions Ivor’s invitation to the guys. “Don’t work at Goldfinger’s, man. You can work anywhere — don’t work there.”
“You totally have to do it!” enthuses Kyle. “We’ll finally find out what’s in the back office. You can free the meth-addicted hookers! You’ll be their hero! They can stay