Arlene and Lips

Arlene tended the bar at the Roadside Inn. Her husband, Lips, was the bouncer. Lips was 6-4, 300 lb., and had a bad temper, a very bad temper. He had no patience either. Arlene was the only one who could settle him when he got riled. He was nuts for her. Arlene had heard it all from drunks so she didn’t let things get to her like Lips did.

She took over the place from her father. He decided to take some money and start drinking. He wanted to drink the good stuff, not the crap he served. He considered the fact that the “good” stuff might stop his heart.

“My wife doesn’t understand me.” This was the bar-whiner.

“You know why that is, Jimmy? Because no one understands you. You’re drunk most of the time and make no sense. You make even less sense when you’re drunk. What I don’t understand is why Kate’s still with you. Now, you be quiet and drink your beer. Don’t make me call Lips over here.” That always puts an end to things. There was no drunk stupid enough to want Lips to settle his ass.”

Sometimes a new drinker would come in and say to Arlene “Say, Sweetcakes, you’re quite a looker. How about...arghh!”

“Who you calling’ a hooker, doofus. I’m going to break two or maybe three of your bones you-”, Lips said as he scooped the guy up off the bar stool. He no longer threw them through the windows after Arlene explained the costs.

“Settle, Lips. He didn’t call me a hooker. He called me looker. I still have it, right?” Arlene called out to him. Yea, to call me that is getting a bit too close but no harm meant.”

Lips thought she still had it. To a drunk she still had it. To everyone else, she looked like she once had it but it went the way of the wind.

“Oh. Does that mean I shouldn’t break any bones?” Lips was always disappointed when he couldn’t take some guy apart at least a little bit.

“No, you can’t. We’re trying to make this place better than it was.”

“Barkeep, can I get a hamburger?” another one asked.

Barkeep? Arlene told him, “Yea, go to MD’s. Hope you choke on it.”Lips heard this, reacted and dragged the guy out to his car. This was a nightly chore. Someone always got on his nerves. He used to carry them out until the night he threw one out the window.

The guy brought his booze back up hitting Lips right in the face. Lips dropped him and was going to kick him around like the idiot he was. Then he dragged him out and threw him into the back seat and took his keys away from him. Sometimes he threw them in the bushes. It depended on his attitude at the moment. He had two attitudes, bad and “Oh my God.”

He came back in to find Henry there with his duck. That duck was smelly and ugly. Henry always tried to get the duck drunk and always failed. Lips hated that duck. He hated the duck’s owner too. Arlene thought it was cute. The duck, not Henry. The duck just at there watching Henry drink. Then Henry would leave and take the duck back to the pond. It wasn’t Henry’s duck. He just liked to drink with someone dumber than he was. Since no human being was, he brought a duck with him. The duck was still better than Chalky White’s parrot.

Chalky White always brought his parrot in with him. This was a talkative parrot. What he said didn’t make a lot of sense unless, maybe, to another parrot. Chalk’s parrot had a bigger vocabulary than Chalky did and it wasn’t close.

Lips thought he should have stayed with the local police. Would have too if they hadn’t had that stupid weight limit. Lips figured the extra weight would help to settle the criminal element down. His Captain disagreed.

“How can you settle anyone if they can outrun you? Hell. They can walk away faster,” he asked Lips.

“Outrun. Can they outrun a bullet? Huh? I think not.”

“Lips, you can’t just shoot everyone. They have to have a weapon and at least try to point it at you which I doubt there is anyone that stupid. I can’t cover for you anymore for not arresting someone because you can’t catch ‘em. It’s time for you to move on to something else.”

The Cap got him a disability retirement. He used Lip’s weight to retire him. He dismissed using any thing mental out of it but would have gone for a psycho retirement if he needed to. Lips might have taken exception to it. That would have made the captain a psycho.

Thank God, Lip’s was was married to Arlene or he’d be doing time. Arlene was the only one who could settle him. He was like a puppy around her.

When Lips and Arlene were married, it was the happiest they would have even though ti wasn’t what Arlene expected but Lips wasn’t the least bit surprised. He saw a car roar by obviously speeding. Lips immediately took off after him.”

“Lips, what are you doing?”

That guy’s speeding. Can’t have that.”

“Lips, this is our wedding day!”

“He’s still speeding. You think I should let him get away with that?”

You could on a day like this.”

“Nay, I’m a cop. I can’t do that.”

Arlene knew he was a cop when she married him. Still, she always feared a bad telephone call everything he left to go on duty. One night it did.

“Arlene, this is the Chief. Lips has been hurt. No, he’s ok. He’ll be home soon so don’t come to the hospital, okay?”

When Lips got home, he looked like he’d been in a car accident. She hugged him and asked him what happened.

“Well,I had this guy in the back. He was a smart mouth little idiot. He called me a son-of-bitch. You know how I hate that kind of stuff. I turned around to tell him to shut up. Out of nowhere this tree hits me. I feel bad for the jackass in the back. He hit the screen pretty hard. Pretty is not what he’ll look like now. I’m okay.”

He was sitting at the bar one night with a bull-shitter. The guy had stories that weren’t believable. Lips thought a good story is worth some exaggeration but this guy was going way over the top.

“I think some or all, of those stories are bull-shit. The one about the fight was the one that tipped me off.”

The gut told Lips he was offended and thought Lips should apologize, Lips laughed at that one. The guy said it again. “Do it or there’s going to be some trouble.” With that he reached into his back pocket and showed lips a small revolver. Lips looked at it, then put a fist on the bar.

“Okay, let’s see who’s faster.” The guy looked at Lips , thought about a pissed-off gorilla and knew he had gone a step too far. He decided to leave while he could. As he got up to go lips told, “Leave that teeny gun here. You’re liable to hurt yourself with it.”

Being married to Lips was never dull. It was an adventure

She couldn’t be squeamish.

. “Cap, he means well. He really does. He’s like a big, over grown bear,”she once told the Captain.

“He’s like a bear? He’s like the kind of bear that has to be hunted down and shot for eating humans. That’s what he is, Arlene. I think it’s time for him to take his gun off. I don’t think he’d shoot anyone but why chance it.”

“Captain, I can’t think of a good argument against that. But, would you try to do that?”

“Well, no.”

The Captain stopped at the Roadside Tavern on occasion and Lips still called him Cap. Cap still called Lips a psycho, just not so’s Lips could hear it. Arlene might fail to settle Lips the one time and he didn’t want that one time to be him.

. “Arlene, I worked hard to make Captain. I want to retire and move to Florida. I want the retire the regular way. I don’t want to try to walk the beaches with a cane or, worse, a wheelchair. I don’t want to retire because Lips made me do it.