Page 29 of My Thursday Throwback

“So is his IQ.” She said when the driver stopped the car. “You two be safe.”

Michael jumped out first, calling for Pip. He sang her name all the way up the elevator until he reached the fourth floor.

“Baby! Bay....Bay! Persephone, I love you! Marry me,” Michael yelled.

Zelda opened the door to see a pissy pants, Scott, staggering along beside her drunken brother. Pip, who had been waiting in the hotel room with her, blinked furiously, trying to understand what she was seeing. The two men, hugged up together, holding each other up as they staggered down the hall.

“Michael, we have been waiting for you two to come back. Zelda and I called, hoping we would go out for dinner or something tonight, but neither of you answered your phones,” she said.

Scott pulled two mini sausages and some squished meatballs from his pocket. “We brought snacks!”

Michael, teetering, fell into Pip, holding her, trying to kiss her face. His breath prevented the exchange as she turned her head to the side, avoiding the sour stench emanating from his mouth.

“Persephone, I don’t want to fuck my sister,” Michael told her. “I love her with all my heart, but the only woman I want to stick my wee-wee in for the rest of my life is you.”

“Wow, so romantic,” Pip said, looking at Zelda, whose eyebrows were arched in surprise at Michael’s words.

“I’m drunk. I can’t be romantic when I’m drunk! I can say what is on my mind, and I love you. I want you to be my wife. I brought you a ring that I was going to bring to Cincinnati, but all that talk about your Mama was scary. Then the hurricane. I have it in my bag, but I am sleepy and my ass hurts,” he said.

Scott, on the other hand, took a more direct route.

“Zelpa! Dammit!” he said. “You are my woman and I need you to break up with Michael so you can be free to love me.”

“I do love you, you big idiot,” she said, still trying to piece everything together between what her brother was saying and Scott mispronouncing her name.

“This is what we are going to do. I’m going home. While I’m gone, you are going to get some counseling. You get the first session free. Go to every mu-fuc...wait, bad words in front of ladies is a no-no,” Scott said reaching for the couch, missing, landing on the floor.

He continued his king of the castle decree, “You shall go to every headshrinker in Vegas to unwind the pizzle. Talk it out, get clear.”

“You think that will work?” Zelda asked, questioning the clarity of his drunken mind.

“It’s better than doing nothing, Baby. It’s better than writing your anger on pages no one sees or reads. When this Vegas thing is over, you are going to meet my family, then we are going to set a date, and you are gonna...we gonna get married,” he said, the Kentucky accent roaming free. “I love you and this mu-fuc...oops bad word, the room is spinning.”

“I love you as well, Scott,” she said.

“Good. We have a plan and I want a cookie,” he said, leaning his head back on the couch, falling asleep with squished meatballs in his hand, urine soaked pants and covered in some form of grease all over his arms. To Zelda, her big hairy man he had never looked more lovable.

“Zelda, I’m going to take Michael to my suite,” Pip said, placing her arm around him while using her hand to grab his luggage.

“Good night, Pip,” Zelda said, struggling with a six foot two, two hundred and twenty-five-pound man. After a few minutes, she opted instead to remove the damp clothing, put a pillow under his head, and let him sleep where he lay. As he once told her, sometimes, you have to let sleeping dogs lie.

She would take care of him in the morning.

---