The Job

Flash Fiction Friday – from http://www.flashfictionfriday.com/
Prompt – Write a ‘buddy’ story involving buddy movie stalwarts Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Dean has to be the straight suave guy and Jerry the bungling buddy.

The Job

“So where are they? Why aren’t they here – you said they’d be here!”

“Relax Jerry, I told you they’d come and they will come. Just remember everything we talked about, everything we practiced. You have to stay calm”

Jerry didn’t feel calm. What he felt was worried.

Very worried.

So much could go wrong, and so much was riding on this. Yes they had been over the plan thousands of times and he knew exactly what he had to do, but the pressure was getting to him.

But he trusted his mate, always had done ever since he had first met him at nursery all those years ago. What wasn’t to trust? Dean was everything that Jerry always wanted to be – cool, calm, good looking and clever. Almost all of Jerry’s girlfriends had come to him via Dean’s generosity as a friend. Dean could pick them up for him every time, and was never greedy. I mean yeah he kept the best looking ones for himself, but that was fair enough – it was him attracting them in the first place.

Dean was confident that their latest scheme would work, and that was good enough for Jerry, so he sat down, crushing a box as he did so and then breaking the shelf as he tried to get up.

“Jerry, for Christ’s sake will you take it easy – you are causing a scene – you’ll ruin everything!”

“I can’t help it mate – I hate this – it’s so cramped and we’ve been here ages, I can’t take it, I just can’t, the noise man – the noise! How can you take it?”

“Look, I know it’s cramped in here, but it’s the way of it, and the noise? We need that mate, without that we are in serious trouble. The noise is our friend. The noise is your friend. Love it Jerry. Love the noise.”

“No Dean I can’t love this racket – it’s awful and these boxes – why so many boxes in such a small place? There’s no room – no room man!”

Dean just smiled at his friend. Jerry had always been this way, never comfortable wherever they were; he was just so lanky and ungainly. He moved everywhere at 100 miles an hour and never actually managed to arrive. Somehow Dean always thought of Jerry as the hare in the old fable. But then… but then he was always there. He always had Dean’s back, always listened and always cared. Dean could never imagine himself loving any man as much as he loved Jerry. Everything was wrong about him except his heart, and his heart was what made him a man. Dean felt that made him a very big man indeed. Even if he was a pain in the arse sometimes.

“Okay - okay – lose the noise – I think it’s done its job now. Alright? Is that better?”

“Thanks man – thanks, I needed that”

“Lookout – see I told you – I told you! Someone’s coming now – go get them Jerry – come on, this is what we have been planning all these months, now’s your moment!”

“Oh good lord – I’m not sure I can do this – I’m just not – oh God I think he’s seen me”

“Stay calm”

Jerry wasn’t calm at all, but then suddenly it all came into focus. Everything made sense. He was ready after all. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Jerry looked down and there they were staring up at him through the window. Those eyes – those eyes! Jerry had never been stared at so intently in his life – never felt so naked and pierced. The eyes read him like he was the calorie count on a weight watcher’s chocolate bar.

He gulped slowly and deeply and with an unfortunate squeak said, “Yes?”

The eyes looked at him for just that little bit longer, long enough to force yet another bead of sweat to roll down the length of Jerry’s spine, before finally their owner spoke.

“One 99 and a Calippo lolly please mister”

While Dean coolly dipped his hand into the freezer for the lolly, Jerry stared nervously at the ice cream machine in front of him and the fragile stack of cones next to it.

Somehow he just knew that something was about to go very, very wrong…