Big Yellow Taxi

Nothin' clean to wear

Picking up a rumpled shirt from the floor, Daniel held it to his face and sniffed at it.  An action he immediately regretted. The shirt smelled like sweat and stale beer. He swore under his breath and tossed the offending piece of clothing into the corner of his room.  

Daniel pulled the towel from his waist and lifted it up to rub at his hair where it was still damp from the hurried shower he had taken.  Then he began digging through the clothing on his floor as fast as possible, tossing the items that were far too dirty to wear into the corner with his stinky shirt.  Marv was waiting for him. And Daniel knew the longer he made Marv wait, the drunker his brother was going to get. The drunker Marv got the louder he got. And Daniel had no desire to be publicly humiliated.  Especially not in front of the woman he had met at the market earlier. She was not like the women his brother usually attracted. This one wasn't some slutty barfly. She was kind and sweet. He could tell. And nice girls didn't often appreciate his brother's drunken antics.  

Doing the laundry never seemed to rank high on Daniel's list of priorities.  The man usually didn’t have anyone to impress. He hadn't done his wash in weeks.  Which meant he was now standing naked in his room, staring at a pile full of filthy clothes that smelled like dirt and looked even worse.  He didn't even have any clean socks. While he didn't consider himself any sort of expert on women, Daniel was pretty sure most of them preferred men who bathed and wore clean clothes.  

In the back of his mostly empty dresser, Daniel found a pair of boxers.  The waistband was frayed and they were a size smaller than he liked, but at least they were clean.  He pulled them on just as his bedroom door was unceremoniously kicked in. Marv was fully dressed, standing in the doorway of his room with one of the mason jars they used for drinking glasses in his hand.  From the smell of it, he was drinking a strong glass of whiskey and coke that was already most of the way gone.  

"It's six thirty fucker," Marv announced.  Daniel turned his back before he rolled his eyes.  Of all the random things to be anal about, Marv absolutely hated being late.  Being on time was one of the few disciplines that had stuck with the man after his time in the service.  "Why the f**k ain't ya dressed?"

Daniel briefly considered telling his brother to f**k off and go without him.  He wanted to go. Badly. But the more time that ticked by was more time that Daniel was spending convincing himself that there was no way that girl really liked him.  She was probably just being nice and he had taken it the wrong way. Having nothing that didn't smell like hunting stink to wear was the last terrible straw in the giant pile of s**t he felt like he was slowly wading into.  

"Ain't got nothin' clean ta wear do ya?," Marv asked him with a laugh.  Daniel squared up his shoulders, expecting the insults that were about to follow his brother's comment.  But instead he felt the glass Marv was drinking from being thrust into his hand. "Drink up," Marv told him.  Daniel considered the dark liquid sloshing around in the mason jar he was holding. Then he lifted the glass and slurped it down, immediately grateful for the warm calming sensation that came with a cold drink.  

Marv disappeared and Daniel could hear the man rustling around in his own bedroom.  Then his brother reappeared, shoving a stack of clothes into him so hard that it made the air whoof out of Daniel's lungs.  Marv smacked him on the back, the loud crack of his palm on Daniel's back echoing through the trailer.  

"Hurry yer fuckin' sissy ass up," Marv ordered, adding with flourish that the sooner they got going the sooner he was going to get him some p***y.  Daniel thought about cursing at the older man for hitting with the pile of clothes and then smacking him on his bare back.  But he quickly changed his mind, deciding that having clean clothes to wear was more than worth the miniscule amount of abuse he had to withstand in order to get them.  Daniel pulled on the jeans, then threaded his own black leather belt through the loopholes. Marv had given him jeans and a black t-shirt to wear, which were of course much nicer quality and fit better than the cheap k-mart clothes Daniel bought for himself.  He hurried into what passed for their living room to put his boots on, relieved to note that Marv had gone outside for a smoke instead of going back into the kitchen and chugging another glass of whiskey down.  

Daniel grabbed his leather jacket from the chair by the door and pulled it on as he headed out the door and onto the rickety set of half rotten wooden steps that was still clinging to the side of their trailer by one remaining rusty nail.  The neighboring trailer was home to a mother and her slutty teenage daughter. As he came down the steps Daniel was unhappy to note that the trashy daughter in question was in his driveway, smoking one of his brother's cigarettes. Marv was nodding along to whatever idiotic story she was telling him as he stared at the way her jail bait n*****s were poking at the cheap fabric of her thin tight white tank top.  

"Time to go," Daniel announced loudly, giving the girl a wide berth as he headed around her to fire up his bike.  

"Where ya goin'?," the girl asked hopefully.  Before Marv could answer her, her drunk mother swung the screen door of their trailer open with a loud clap.  

"Tracy!  Get yer ass in here now," the woman slurred.  Her daughter rolled her eyes but thankfully did as her mother asked and headed back towards her own trailer.  The mother made sure her precious daughter was inside before she pointed a finger at Marv. "You stay away from my daughter," she told him.  Marv just laughed at the woman, but her words made Daniel angry. He had told that little w***e a thousand times to stay out of his yard. The last thing he needed to deal with was having his brother get arrested again.  And that little slut wasn't on the verge of being old enough as she liked to pretend. Daniel had seen her lying ass climbing onto the bus that said Senoia Middle School on the side of it. Getting caught with a girl her age would earn his brother hard prison time.

"Keep yer w***e daughter off my fuckin' property!," Daniel spit back at the woman.  The way she was acting was like Marv had gone over there looking for her daughter, which was not the case.  Not this time anyway. He and his brother were just going to have to move. Again. Daniel had been thinking it the last time he had seen that girl coming onto his brother, and now he was even more determined.  This f*****g trailer park was full of stray cats anyway. Daniel had secret dreams of renting a cabin in the woods. By himself. But that was never going to happen. Not while Marv was around.  But they could at least find another trailer to rent. And this time Daniel was going to check out who the neighbors were first.  

The drunken woman screamed a few more choice words.  This time they were directed at Daniel. He fired up his bike and revved the engine a few times to drown her out.  Marv hurled his lit cigarette butt at her, sending the dumb b***h scurrying for cover back inside her house. Then he fired up his own bike and headed out of the crunchy gravel driveway with Daniel behind him.