Rolex Club by Susan Tepper

So this guy X. Jack Matalan hires me to serve subpoenas.  He’s a lawyer in the same office building where my friend Marcie is a paralegal.  She plugged me into this new gig.  

I’d been doing the gram circuit:  balloons, eroto-grams, monkey suit — whatever.  Marcie is the one person from high school I’ve stayed in contact with.  She’s a stacked blonde (for real) who was voted most likely to succeed.  My brother Nat derides Marcie, calls her a regular US senator; but that’s out of total male frustration.  Years ago she gave him the toss for a woman.  

A lot of men wanted to marry her.  One was a guy who managed big name bands.  He blew in from LA once a month to scout talent.  Took her to rock concerts downtown.  Marcie claimed he was selfish.  Even though he bought her a Rolex watch.  She said all the guys in LA do that.  She said it’s like a Rolex Club out there.  Nothing to do with love.  Just to impress the other guys. 

I’ll admit I coveted that Rolex.  I told her I wouldn’t mind having one.  Marcie said here take mine.  She actually slid it off her wrist.  I’ll admit I was tempted.  She said the band guy was selfish with ear plugs.  Always carried only one pair for himself when they went scouting bands, dragging her into smoky clubs so loud you could hear the music a block away, she said.  And that it left a permanent ringing in her ears.  

Marcie ended up marrying a guy who walked dogs for a living.  But she always had some woman on the side.  Nat likes saying walking dogs is not a reliable source of income.  I want to tell him to grow balls.

Being no dummy to the dog walking situation, Marcie got herself paralegal training. Then became super friendly with a lawyer in the firm and got her divorce for free.  Free, I like reminding Nat.  He shrugs it off.  I like mentioning the huge sums of money it takes to get a divorce.  I know he wants to divorce Sherry.  

I’ve been bunking in their partially finished basement.  There’s a drop-ceiling with florescent tube lights underneath.  I can hear the fights that go on upstairs.  The walls and floor are rough cement painted marine gray.  Definitely not my shade but the balloon-grams add a nice color punch.  It was supposed to be a playroom for Rosalie their kid.  

By five or six the kid turned schizoid.  Rosalie cannot be left alone with the washer and dryer.  I’m not quite sure why, but it’s a house rule.  

Down in their underground dampness I can make myself scarce.  Not that I’m lonely.  I’m not even miserable.  I just feel turned around.  Like you’re meant to go one direction and find yourself in the other.  That’s significant.  East is east, west is west.  Vastly different experiences.  Marcie being the first to agree.  There’s no Rolex Club here on the east coast, she said.

Originally published in Blue Edge chapbook from Cervena Barva Press.

Susan Tepper is a twenty year writer in all genres, and the author of nine published books.  Her most recent are CONFESS (a poetry chapbook by Cervena Barva Press, 2020) and a quirky road novel WHAT DRIVES MEN (Wilderness House Press, 2019).  Currently Tepper is in pre-production of an Off-Bdwy play titled THE CROOKED HEART which she based on artist Jackson Pollock’s later years.

www.susantepper.com