Who is Jerry Holiday? Chapter 4

We start learning the day we’re born. We learn that if we cry, our mothers will always be there to comfort us. We learn to make sounds and then talk. We learn to stand, take steps, and then walk. We learn to sing, to dance. To draw and write. We learn to pee and poop in a toilet. And we go to school and learn math and reading and art and science.

We learn social skills. We learn how to make friends. And how to make enemies. How to look up to the popular kids. How to ridicule the outcasts. How to bully and torment and fight. How to like and play and love.

And we keep learning as we grow older. We read and experience nature. We go to new places, try new things. We explore new roads, sail new seas, fly new skies. Like astronauts, explorers, setting out to the far reaches of space, the vast unknown. We are always trying to make the unknown known.

And space waits in lighted darkness. A vast expanse of black with distant stars, lights like tiny pinpoints. Planets, balls of land and water and gas spinning and circling bright shining suns. Black holes that suck in everything, including light. Places where time doesn’t exist. Places where time and space fold in on themselves and become some strange unspeakable thing that’s impossible to understand, impossible to know. The great unknown.

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This is emptiness. Lack of matter, lack of liquid, earth, gas, and air. A supreme nothingness that goes on into infinity. Until it reaches shining stars, nuclear explosions filling the void with light. Until the stars implode in on themselves and collapse into infinite darkness contained in an infinitely small space, sucking in all matter, air, and light. Or some stars are circled by balls of rock and water and ice and gas. Huge spheres spinning with awesome majesty. Huge and massive beyond comprehension. And of all of these spheres, one has insects and fish and dogs and cats, lions and elephants, and humans with all their buildings and roads and cars and airplanes. One has beings capable of writing these words and of reading them.

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Megan stared out the window at the stars and the moon. “You think there’s anything out there?” she asked. “I mean, like aliens or anything like that?”

“If there are I bet they don’t fuck like you do,” the naked man in the bed said. She tried to remember his name. Was it Fred? Or Bill? No Bill was the guy from a few hours ago. But maybe this guy was Bill too. Who the fuck cared anyway?

She smiled. “Thanks.”

“How much more time we got?” he asked.

“20 minutes.”

“Well,” he said, “why don’t you stop starin’ out the window and get over here and suck my cock? You’re wastin’ my money.”

He was an asshole. Some guys actually tried to make sure she was enjoying herself. Some guys even tried to give her orgasms. A few were even successful. There were two kinds of guys in the world. Gentlemen and assholes. This guy was definitely an asshole. Still, he paid her. So she walked over to him, got on her knees, and sucked his tiny, skinny little dick.

When she was done, he fucked her doggy style one more time and left before she had the chance to check his wallet, which she only did with the assholes. He’d been a real mother fucker. She was a mother after all, so that actually did make him a mother fucker. She’d put her kid up for adoption but she still considered herself a mother. Biological, anyway. She wondered if her daughter would ever come to try to find her. Hopefully she’d have a real job by then.

She pulled up her black thong, put her black bra back on, slipped into her little black dress, walked over to the bathroom, and looked in the mirror. Her lipstick needed to be redone so she took care of that. She brushed her teeth out of respect for the next guy, and she needed to fix her long blonde hair so she did that. The last guy pulled the shit out of it, and not in a good way. She looked into her pretty blue eyes. All the guys loved her eyes. She wasn’t so drunk they were bloodshot, which was a good thing.

She checked her schedule on her phone and noticed she had a break for an hour before she had to fuck the next guy. Her eleven o’clock chickened out. Maybe he was a married guy who’d had second thoughts about cheating on his wife. Or maybe he was just scared. Who knew? Who cared? She’d lose a little money but she didn’t mind having a little break after that last asshole. At least he didn’t try to fuck her in the ass with that tiny little dick of his.

She sat at her desk and poured some vodka into her glass. She swigged it as she looked at the box on the floor. Some crap she’d bought at a yard sale. She mainly got the box for the cool lamp that was in it, which was now on her desk. A mermaid holding a pearl which was the light. Really cool. At least she thought so. And sexy in a way. Perfect for her room.

There was other stuff in the box, though. A pair of black maracas. She thought those could be fun somehow. Maybe she could find some sexy dance she could do with them online somewhere. Or maybe she could just have a party and invite a bunch of her musician friends. There was a math book. Too bad she’d dropped out of school. And a Teddy Bear.

She reached in and grabbed the bear. Reminded her of her childhood. It was small and tan, with a blue sweater, and shiny green eyes. Somebody wrote their name on his foot. Jerry Holiday. Was that their name or the bear’s name? Maybe both.

She pictured Jerry Holiday as a little toddler boy holding the bear. Playing with the bear and talking to the bear. Maybe he didn’t have any real friends and the bear was the only one he could talk to. Maybe his parents neglected him because they were junkies and the bear was his only real friend. She realized she was projecting her own childhood onto his. She thought about her daughter. She wondered what her name was. She wondered how her childhood was. It was probably great. She had parents who really wanted a kid. Why else would they adopt?

She thought a little more about little toddler Jerry Holiday, hugged the bear and laughed. She put it back in the box and chugged the rest of the vodka, then looked out the window at the stars. She found the brightest star, the wishing star, and smiled. “I wish my daughter is having a great childhood and will grow up to be a great woman.” She frowned. “And that she’ll come find me some day. Some day when the sun shines a little brighter.” That was a lot of wishes.

There was a knock on the door. It was midnight. Next customer. This was another first timer. She wondered if it would be a gentleman or an asshole. She looked at the wishing star again. “Let this one be a nice guy,” she whispered. She frowned. “This is how I’m gonna die. One of these assholes is gonna kill me one day.”