Balls Capone

Lath and Plastered by P.N. Neville

Lath and Plastered was our band, the 4 of us.  Kurt the drummer, Barnd, on bass, myself on guitar, and our singer, Lath.  Lath lived in an old auto garage, one of those old timey oil change places with a small lobby area and one full size bay that accommodate one car at a time.  He had lived there as long as he could remember with his father, whose name we never really cared to learn.  We just knew him as Lath’s Dad.  Lath’s Dad was the definition of scumbag, when he wasn’t drinking and screaming at random objects, he was locked in the back office banging one of the neighborhood grubby girls, as we called them.  This had been the majority of Lath’s life, here in this garage with his filthy beast of a father, banging away on whatever woman might come his way.  The loud wet packing sounds from the back office, like a plunger in a freshly opened can of paint were like music to Lath’s ears, as it was the only time he got to be by himself, the only time he could have peace.  That was was usually short lived though as the office door flew open

“Lath, pay our “employee” here what she’s worth, will ya?”, shouted Lath’s Dad from the back office, slowly emerging from the darkness trying to do up his dirty pants around his big beer belly.

“I think she put in at least $150 worth today, wouldn’t you say, Carla?”, he smirked while gripping a cigar in his brown stained teeth.

Carla just stared into the distance, she always did.  There wasn’t much left in there, if there ever was anything at all.  Lath took the money out of the register and handed to Carla who walked briskly out the door, the old rusty heavy metal door slamming shut behind her.

“No practice today, boys”, bellowed Lath’s Dad, “I’ve got a customer today!”

And yes, he actually did have a few customers that dared to bring their vehicles here.  Most of them were elderly people who remembered this place back in the days of old, when it was a legitimate auto shop run by normal hard working folks.  Some of these folks had been coming here for over 60 years.  But those days were long gone and so were the minds of most of these poor people.

We would sit in the lobby and hang out while Lath’s Dad did his thing.  A car pulled up to the garage, an old 1970’s Cadillac in decent shape, mostly from disuse and its time spent in a garage.  It was Wally, of the regulars, he would show up on the same day every month like clockwork for an oil change, whether it needed it or not.  Wally was a skinny old man adorned in 1970’s golf attire, he moved slowly, and always had what was left of a six pack dangling from his left hand.  Two of the six pack he would drink on the way over to the shop, the rest he would sit and drink by himself.  Wally would shuffle in and give us a big smile, as usual he would always tell us that he had been out golfing all morning with the guys from the office, but we all knew there was no golf, no guys, and no office.  It was all in his head.  He didn’t care if anyone listened or not, he would just sit there, sipping his beers, telling stories that may or may not have actually happened.  No one was ever sure.  He loved to sit in the lobby and stare at the old heater in the corner, it seemed to give him fond memories of a life long gone.  He would look over and smile warmly at it, then look back at us like we were supposed to know what he meant.  Then reality would slowly filter in, the smile would fade from his face and he would go back to staring at the wall and sipping his beer.

Lath’s Dad was a terrible guy and he took advantage of everyone he could, he used to say that people were so stupid that they wouldn’t even check if you did anything at all and would pay you anyway.  So as long as there was liquid in the reservoirs and oil in the engine, it didn’t matter.  Most people paid him to sit and drink while they were under the impression he was servicing their car.  He found it hilarious and referred to them as “CustomTurds.”  Annoying things, customers, they just cut into your drinking time.

When Lath’s Dad felt like it had been long enough, he would come out and hand Wally his keys back.  Wally would pull out a crisp $100 bill and hand it over.

“Keep the change!”, he’d say with a smile and then slowly shuffle out to the Cadillac to dangerously motor on home to wherever it was he called home.  The man had no business driving, but who were we to judge?  Lath and his Dad drove drunk all the time, to them it wasn’t drinking and driving, it was just simply driving.

A week later we all gathered at the garage for practice, this time Lath’s Dad was nowhere to be seen, excited, we all got setup to finally play some music!  We were not good.  A sloppy strange rockish nonsense kind of band, but we had our own thing going, our own sound.  It didn’t matter that we weren’t that good, it added to the vibe of the band.  Lath and Plastered started to bring people in from the streets, randoms just walking by would stop and listen, getting a kick out of the strange behavior of Lath, our singer.  It was groovy, man.  Folks started coming from houses down the block to see what was up.  We’d finish a song and receive thunderous applause from the gathered crowd.  It really felt good.  Carla and Dixie Jean would come by dressed in their skimpy tight clothes and would shake their floppy titties in dudes faces who got a big kick out of it.

We finished up our set and had a few beers with Carla and Dixie Jean.

“Where’s your Dad?”, asked Carla.

“Who cares…..”, said Lath.

“He owes me for some “service” last night, you tell him to call me.”, said Carla.

Lath got up and headed into the back office to see if his Dad was passed out back there as usual.  Lath came out of the back and said nothing, just sat down on the shop stool and continued swigging from his bottle of Vodka.

“Well??”, snorted Carla. “He there or ain’t he?”

“He’s there”, said Lath.

So Carla got up and charged into the back, seconds later she let out a scream.

“Oh my God I think he’s dead!”, she screamed as she ran out, hands shaking and flailing.

We all went into the back office to find Lath’s Dad face down on the desk with some pinkish fluid slowly rolling around of his gaping mouth.  I didn’t believe it.  See, a few years earlier Lath’s Dad had pulled a stunt just like this and our bass player, Barnd freaked out and was trying to help him, only to have Lath’s dad suddenly jump up out of his char and hit Barnd right in the face with a fresh shit filled diaper.  Barnd lashed out in rage and shoved the old man over, falling into a tool chest knocking himself unconscious.  Maybe it was the fall, maybe it was booze, who knows.  Barnd stormed off in a rage and didn’t come back for months after that.  Lath’s Dad thought it was the funniest thing that had ever happened on the face of  the earth.  He didn’t care that Barnd had shoved him.

“I’m sure I deserved it”, he would say about the incident.

Barnd was a pretty normal dude, he didn’t indulge like the rest of us degenerates, he was clean cut and lived wit his Grandparents.  They absolutely despised our band and wanted Barnd to stop hanging out with us “Low Life”, as Grandpa called us.  They wanted him to go to school and become an accountant like Grandpa had been.  Barnd’s parents were killed in some war, both had been in the military and were explosives experts.  Well, I guess not expert enough.  Barnd went to live with his Grandparents that were very strict and would push him hard to do exactly what they wanted him to do, which only seemed to push him further in our  lowly clutches.  He was a good bass player though, so it was good to have him on the team, also a good voice of reason when Lash would go off on one of his insane tangents.

Kurt was a quiet short guy with red hair and freckles, he was the definition of ginger.  He was the product of a very abusive home life and spent every moment he could away from it.  One day the policy came and took his Dad away, he ended up being a pederast and was diddling kids at his office during the night.  Kurt was relieved but it didn’t change the damage that had already been done.  Kurt didn’t like to talk about it and would get angry if you asked him.  So we just kind of kept away from the subject.  He would really hold everything in and stomp it down as hard as he could, then put on a super happy smily face over the top.  It was a little creepy because we all knew one day it would all come blasting out like a steam locomotive ramming a mountain side at full speed.

Me, well I was basically another form of myself.  But behind this band and strange group of friends, I lived a normal life.  I had my own place across town in a much better neighborhood that didn’t stink of gasoline and shit.  It was a nice little place, wood floors, clean white pained walls.  Paintings and photos adorned the walls of a life I lived but have never actually known.  It was decently clean, a layer of dust on most things said I spent most of my time hanging out with lath and his asshole Dad down at the garage.  I don’t know what I did for money, but I knew I was retired, but I wasn’t old, in fact I was a much younger man than I am right now.  Probably 25 or 26 at the most, but I had the mind of a much older person.  I had done something to secure my financial future and didn’t need to worry about money, I was set.  But I was bored, I didn’t know what to do with myself.  So that’s when I went out and found Lath and his Dad.

Hanging out at the shop always had a dirty feeling to it, like you knew you shouldn’t really be hanging out there., like you had called in sick to work to go drink in an abandoned house with a bunch of homeless dudes.  But that was part of the experience.  Anything could happen there, there so there was always an excitement in the air.  Would today be the day Lath has another freak out and we have to pull him off the roof from throwing knives at passers by on the street?  Or would it be his Dad, drunk out of his mind smashing things with the furniture?  You never knew.

My phone began buzzing in my pocket, an intense buzzing as if something was even more urgent then normal.  It was Lath, I answered.

“Dude, come over….now.”, said Lath in a low studder.

“Okay, see you in a sec”, I said as I left my place.

I arrived at the garage to police cars.  Oh no, the cops.  This never ends well for Lath.  I waked into the open garage door and found Sgt. Williamson speaking to Lath.

“Where’s your Dad at, Lath”, asked the Sargent in a serious tone.

“We have some serious charges this time, where is he?”, he asked Lath again.

But Lath just kind of stood there staring at the wall.

“I’m talking to you shithead!”, yelled the Sargent as he pushed Lath in the chest.

Lath just pointed to the back office.

The Sargent and a couple of his men headed into the back to arrest Lath’s Dad, but not 10 seconds later Sargent Williamson came running out of the back, his hand over his mouth in horror.  He dropped to his knees on the oily shop floor and began blowing his groceries, producing volley after volley of bright orange vomit.

Lath just pointed and laughed and he said “Look guys, he decorating the place!”

“How’s that fucking orange whip taste now?”, Lath said in a heated manner.

The room went silent, all you could hear was the gurgle of the rusty floor drain as the lake of vomit streamed into it.

“Now you’re like me”, said Lath.  “Disgusting and on the ground in puddle of your own puke.”

“How’s it feel?”, asked Lath as the Sargent slowly got himself up off the floor wiping his mouth wit the sleeve of his overcoat.

“You sick little shit”, said Williamson, “Why didn’t you tell me he was dead!”

“Guess you hadda find out for yourself”, said Lath.

Williamson just looked down and walked away, still pale and sick from the grizzly scene in the back office.  The ambulances came and took Lath’s Dad away for the final time. 

“Well, what do we do now?”, I asked Lath.

Lath just smiled and screamed, “LET’S FUCKIN PARTY!”

And we did, we threw an epic rager at the garage, as all of it now belonged to Lath.  Lath never had a mother, at least not one he could ever remember, so everything belonged to him now.  Lath talked about fixing the place up and restoring the shop to its former glory and maybe actually fixing some cars for real for once, you know, do a good job.  We all knew it was just talk though, the chance of that actually happening was about 2% and Lath knew it as well.

The party raged on and on, for weeks Lath did nothing buy drink and party, it was almost like he had been possessed by the spirit of his father, as he began to act the same way.  We were all growing concerned but Lath would have none of it, it was either join the party or get the fuck out.  So we would join and try to keep up until our bodies were screaming for water and rest.  Lath was like a machine, he wanted more and more, Carla, Dixie, Melody, Janie, none of them were enough.  He wanted so much more and nothing ever seemed to satiate him.  Except for one day, one day at one of our ridiculous performances things changed.

The crowd was surrounding a young girl, heckling her and calling her names.

“Fucking girly boy”, and all sorts of other horrible slurs that dumb drunk morons can come up with.  Well, in the middle was Jenny, and Jenny was a trans-woman.  These drunken yokels didn’t care for that and would ridicule her at every turn.  Well, Lath saw what was happening and stopped the show.

“Hey, what are you guys doing?”, he screamed at the crowd.

“Don’t you hurt her, don’t mess with her neither!”, he bellowed over the mic.

“But he’s one of them perverts who thinks he’s a girl”, said one of the lowlifes in the crowd.

“And????”, said Lath.

“What, you think ya’ll can judge anyone?  Look around you, look at yourself there Ron, you steal and sniff girls panties, Wilbur over there is a Peeping Tom, George, you basically breath cocaine, Johnny over there’s been arrested for sexual assault about what?  4 times now?  How can any of you look at her and judge her?  You’re all a bunch of hypocrites.  I look around and I see drunks, perverts, gamblers, drug addicts, and scumbags galore.  Maybe you ought look inside yourself before you judge someone for wanting to be who they wanna be.  Bunch of fucking assholes, get the fuck outta here.”, said Lath as began shoving random people out the door.

There in the center of the shop floor stood Jenny, shocked at what had just happened.  She looked white as a sheet, but finally blurted out in tears, “Thank You, oh God Thank you!”, as she grabbed onto Lath.  Lath just hugged her and gave her a nod.

“You be safe getting home now”, said Lath as he vanished into the back of the shop.

Another unexpected exciting day at the old garage.

I packed up my equipment, said my goodbyes, and headed home to my dusty apartment with the strange pictures and wooden floors.  But I was happy, even surrounded by so much that would normally be vile to anyone else, it was just part of the whole experience I guess.

I saw down and popped on the TV to wind down for the night, I cracked open a beer, and sat back on my comfortable clean couch.  I pulled up a soft comforter over myself and felt the soothing feeling of relaxation fill me when something on the TV caught my eye.  It was a news report, something was on fire.  I didn’t want to know, but I already knew.  It was the garage, completely involved with flame and up on the roof was Lath, tired to a wooden pole with his arms outstretched to the universe laughing uncontrollably.  I couldn’t help but begin to laugh with him, it was just so him, his choice, his life, his death.  He didn’t stop laughing until the end, for the world had turned on their TV’s and watched him burn.  His ultimate final performance.  And what a show it was.  I continued chuckling to myself as the flames consumed him.

I hated to lose such a good friend.  But I was happy that he was finally happy too.

I flipped off the TV and fell into sleep with a smile on my face.