2.
It was two days before the onslaught of spring break and the high school and college kids descended on their little beach town.
Tony and Pruett were stacking the Girls Gone Wild t-shirts into a footlocker at the rear of the van. The scent of a powerful air-freshener hung cloyingly in the warm air of the van. The air-conditioner was broken. They had Ernie Zimbaugh's promise that it would be running by the following day. It had taken a promise of their own to get him to agree to fix it --- free, in return for permitting him to watch the first week's tapes. Ernie weighed in at four hundred twenty-two pounds, and was not considered a ladies' man by any stretch of the imagination.
"You sure Ernie's gonna fix that A/C for us?" Pruett asked for the seventh time that afternoon.
"Know anybody hornier than old Ernie?" Tony asked philosophically.
"Me," Pruett said with a shit-eating grin.
"You don't count," Tony said, "but I do get your point. I ain't had no pussy myself in three weeks. I could fuck a snake if it held still for me."
"Well, your dick's small enough to manage," Pruett chided.
"Say, Tony?" Pruett continued his tone serious for once.
"Yeah?"
"Um, wanna run through how we get the girls into the van, again? I mean, we pull up alongside some babe, then what?"
"Huh?" Tony asked in surprise. "What the hell do you mean, then what? We bin over that a dozen times or more."
"C'mon, tell me again," there was a pleading, whining tone in Pruett's voice, very much like a little boy.
"You're like a little fuckin' kid, I swear to God. Like I told you, we need a line, like when you go fishin', something to get them on the hook, and into the van."
"Wouldn't 'hey, baby, wanna fuck' work?"
"Not all that often, Pru; although I will admit it has worked for me once or twice," he slapped Pruett's arm playfully, and skipped lightly away. He paused, reflectively, and said, "I think a friendly hello is good for openers. Then maybe a nice compliment, not anything about her tits, or ass, but maybe how cute she is. Then we might ask her if she likes our sign. She'll have had time to read it by then, and her interest should be piquing."
"She mentions the sign, and we tell her about the t-shirt?"
"Yeah, I guess. But what I expect will happen is we'll figure out a really good opening line after talking to a couple of them.
"We're gonna cruise by the hotels on Ocean, right?" Pruett asked.
"Unless the law starts nosing around, then we pull back, find us another place to cruise," Tony said.
"Might be good if we could find a place and park, you know, let the babes come to us."
"Pruett, that's a great idea. Hobie'd let us, we give him a couple bucks."
"You think?"
"For sure; he's a greedy son-of-a-bitch, ain't he?"
"Sure is . . . I remember . . . ."
"Never mind. Check it out. There's a chick comin' down the block. We could try her out, you know, test our plan and all."
"Right on, Tony!" Pruett called out, totally elated. Pruett cranked the engine and the van roared to life, belching a thick black cloud of oil particles into the air around them.
****
Betty Ann Murchison, eighteen for all of two weeks, and a senior at the local high school, sauntered down Ocean Boulevard stopping to glance in every shop window.
She had $4.75 in her purse, a fortune to her, and she wanted to make sure she spent it on the right article. Last time she'd had any money --- about two weeks earlier --- she'd spent her money, and a couple minutes later had seen a pin that she'd absolutely fell in love with. The problem was she couldn't return the first article and get her money back. Betty Ann had been so pissed, she'd come back after dark and heaved a brick through the window of the offending store.
Muttering to herself as she remembered the events, Betty Ann didn't see or hear the van as it approached. Pruett was driving slowly, being careful not to attract the attention of the law. "Two o-clock, see her, one with the great chest?"
"Got her. Wow, good spot," he paused, drinking the girl's voluptuous figure in, and then said, "Now what?"
"Now," Tony said, "we follow the plan. Remember; don't fuck it up with one of your gag ideas. We got to be serious about this. The video will make us some serious money."
Pruett, intensely excited, nodded his head and smashed his chin into the steering wheel.
"Ow! God damn it!"
"Pru, for Christ's sake, be quiet, you'll scare her off."
"Sorry, sorry. Am I bleeding bad?"
Tony glanced over at Pruett. "Not so's I can tell, Pru. Try tasting your lip, see if there's any blood."
Tony rolled the passenger window down, leaned partly out of the van and whistled. Betty Ann turned from the window she'd been gawking into and glared at Tony.
"The fuck you want?" she growled, obviously pissed at being distracted.
"Hey, pretty momma, like the van?" he said, oblivious to her surly manner. "We're givin' away free t-shirts to all the girls that flash their titties at us. Wanna a t-shirt?"
"Fuck off, you creep," she said and began looking around for a nice sized brick to throw threw his windshield.
Undeterred, Tony held a t-shirt out the window, shook it so it unfurled and said, "Like I said, here's a genuine Girls Gone Wild t-shirt. C'mon, flash them tits for me."
"You stupid bastard," Betty Ann snarled, and since there was no brick lying about, settled for a broken broom-handle laying in the gutter at her feet. She bent to pick it up.
"Hey, now, pretty lady, you don't wanna be . . ."
But Betty Ann was beyond reasoning with, and a second later swung the broom-handle as smoothly as Mickey Mantle ever had in his long career with the New York Yankees.
A big crack appeared in the van's windshield. Pruett floored the gas pedal and the van took off before Betty Ann got to swing her broom-handle a second time.
"We got to work on our technique," Pruett said later as they worked on their second beer.
"We do," Tony agreed solemnly. "We surely do.
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