Joe's emotional reaction to getting laid off gets him in trouble at a local bar and possibly even the police!
Brothers - Part 9
by Graham
Series: Brothers by Graham
Another week later, on an early, Friday evening, Josh and his Dad had returned home from working at the hotel. Usually, Joe was already home, but this evening, he was not. By 6:30, the rest of the family was getting ready to sit down to dinner, but Joe was still not home.
"I think maybe I’ll call his work and find out if he’s had to work late," their father mused out loud. A couple of minutes later he returned. "There’s no answer, so they must not still be working," he thought out loud.
"That boy is constantly slipping into trouble. He knows he’s to be here when we eat dinner, or call if there’s a reason he can’t."
After dinner, Josh helped their Mom clean up and put away the dishes, then turned and asked, "Is it okay if I meet some guys to go to a movie?"
"What guys, Josh?" his Dad asked.
"Just some kids from church, Dad," he began his explanation.
"Well, I hope you have better judgment than your younger brother – who, by the way, is still missing! We haven’t heard from him. Where can he be, Josh?"
"I don’t know, Dad. Maybe somebody else has heard from him. I’ll ask."
"Okay, but, anyway, not Jessica Donahoe, Josh. If she’s going to be a part of the group, then you’re not going. Understand?"
Josh was embarrassed, and a bit miffed, at his Dad setting conditions on him like he was a young teenager; but he swallowed the thoughts his pride prompted and simply replied, "Yes, sir. I don’t think she’s a part of the guys I’m going with; but I’ll remember, Dad, and if she’s there, I’ll leave and come home."
"Good boy, Josh," Ron Fischer replied. "You’re going to be a fine, young man some day, son."
"I already am a young man," Josh thought, but suppressed. 30 minutes later, he was downstairs, fresh and clean, dressed in clean jeans and a polo shirt, and emanating cologne.
"Have a good time, Josh," his mother called out.
"And, remember, ... midnight, Josh," his father reminded him.
"Thanks, Mom, Dad. I will. See you later," and he was out the door, and driving off.
At 11:40, Josh drove up into the driveway. Joe’s Bronco was not there. "Oh, oh, he thought to himself. What’s happened? Where is Joe?"
"Hi, Dad," Josh spoke as he walked in. His Mom was already in bed, but his Dad was sitting up waiting.
"Hi, Josh," his father answered. "Have you heard from Joe?"
"No, Dad, and nobody I was with has either."
"That boy is in one heavy, duty world of trouble. I’m worried, too, though. It’s not like Joe not to come home for supper at the end of a week on Friday night."
"You want me to go out looking for him?" Josh asked.
"Noooo, Josh! That would be worse. Then I’d have two sons out in the night. No, we’ll just have to wait and see."
"Okay, Dad. I’m going to bed, then," Josh responded, and headed up the stairs to the bedroom he shared with Joe.
Meanwhile, about 6:10 p.m., Joe returned to the shop to leave his completed work orders, and remaining, unused materials. He was about to leave, after depositing his work sheets and materials, when his boss came out and spoke to him directly. He explained that the economy was hurting their business, and then dropped the bomb by telling Joe he was going to be laid off.
Joe was stunned, and then upset. He offered to cut down more, to work just 3 days a week, but his employer explained that they had already tried that when they had Joe working just 4 days a week.
Now, business was so slow, they could not guarantee they could use him even 2 days a week. He explained to Joe that it was purely the economic setting, and if things began to improve, they would want him back.
Outside, in his Bronco, Joe sat dejected, feeling miserable, like he wanted to cry. He needed a job, and without one he had no ability to do anything for himself, on his own.
He knew he didn’t feel like going home and having to tell everybody he no longer had a job. As he backed out, he headed down the highway passing a restaurant and bar.
It was after 7 when he pulled into the parking lot, got out, and entered to sit at the bar. He ordered a beer, then another one, and before long the evening slipped by as Joe crumbled into a deep, despondent intoxication.
About 11:30, he had gone to the bathroom and returned to order another beer. The bartender refused, however, telling him he had already consumed more than he could handle.
Joe started to get upset, and the man signaled to a bouncer named Bill, who came over and placed his strong grip on Joe, telling him to settle down. Joe reacted irately, stating that he was going to leave if they weren’t going to serve him.
The bartender warned him he should just sit there. They would get him some coffee, before he set off to leave, since he was in no condition to drive.
That incited Joe’s stupourous condition into shouting that they couldn’t tell him what to do, and if they weren’t going to serve him, he was going to leave. The bartender told the bouncer, Bill, to get Joe’s keys and take them, not to let him get in his truck and drive.
Joe became livid, announcing in a bellowing voice that nobody was going to tell him he couldn’t drive, he was leaving now, period. He slid down off the bar stool and immediately stumbled as he lost his balance. Bill, the bouncer, pulled Joe up, helping him to get steady on his feet.
Instead of being appreciative, Joe shook his arm and yelled, "Get your hands off me!"
Bill, the bouncer, grabbed the skinny, young man and began reaching into his jeans pockets for his keys. Joe wrenched and twisted, trying to prevent the bouncer from reaching into his pockets and getting his keys.
When he grabbed Joe’s arm, twisting up behind him, Joe kicked at Bill’s leg and crotch. With piqued determination, the bouncer himself sat down on the next bar stool and pulled the unsteady, inebriated young man roughly across his knees.
Suddenly finding himself topsy turvy over the bouncer’s lap, Joe was enraged. He began struggling and shouting to let him up, let him go, that he was through with this place.
All at once, the young man felt the back waistband of his jeans pulled upward tightly, as the seat of his jeans was pulled snugly around his small, muscled mounds. The hammer of Bill, the bouncer’s, hand began descending with a barrage of hard, heavy swats against the young man’s behind.
Joe shouted and hollered more, protesting this treatment – that it couldn’t be done to him –, commanding it to stop, all the while wriggling and squirming around on the lap of the big bouncer whose large, heavy, solid hand repeatedly was administering smacks, heating up the overturned young man’s rearend. When more than 10 minutes had passed without interruption, Joe’s butt was hurting, sore and hot.
Even in his sobbing, drunken condition, he was humiliated to be turned upside down and spanked in a bar and restaurant full of customers. With loud, tearful, but inebriated speech, Joe cried out, apologizing, promising to be good, pleading for the spanking to end and to be released.
The customers, whose attention had increasingly been attracted to the initial scuffle, followed by a decidedly one-sided spanking of a young man whose loud, brash, intoxicated words had interrupted them – but whose face now reflected the painful regret that a harsh spanking inevitably produces –, watched in obviously approving silence. When the bouncer had decided for himself that the insolent, inebriated, young upstart, now upside down over his knees, had been punished appropriately and enough, he stopped, pulling the slim, young man off his lap to stand on his own stomping, bouncing feet.
Sobbing softly, but discernibly, with reddened, tear-streaked face, Joe’s arms and hands flew back, behind him, clutching and covering the heat-emanating seat of his jeans. The bouncer reached into the jeans pockets of the hopping, dancing boy, who was distracted with furiously rubbing his behind in vain to remove the hurting heat. Finding the young man’s keys, Bill pulled them out, and tossed them to the bartender.
"Do you want us to call somebody to pick you up, son?" the bartender inquired. "Or we can call a cab to take you home? Where do you live? What’s the number?"
Even in his lingering weeping, Joe realized they wanted to call his house, which definitely meant his Dad would find out – or he’d have to pay for a cab, when he was now out of work. Instead of answering, he turned and raced for the door, rushing out into the late night air, running down the parking lot, past his Bronco, to the street, and out of sight. Although the bouncer followed him out into the lot, he could not follow Joe, and quickly lost sight of him.
About 15 minutes later, Joe slipped quietly into a roadhouse, finding his way unnoticed to a corner booth in the back, where he sat down.
Some time between 5 and 6 a.m., Joe awoke. He was lying curled up on the bench of the corner booth where he sat down some 6 hours earlier.
Struggling to his feet, scraping his sore behind against the seat instantly propelled him off the hard surface, reminding him of the humiliating, hurting spanking he’d received at the restaurant-bar the preceding night. His pounding head, and the rotten taste in his mouth, were overridden by his urgent need to urinate.
The lights were out, and it was still dark inside. Except for the slanting beams of light from outside lighting shining through the windows, he slowly, but determinedly, staggered in the surrounding darkness to find the restrooms. When he felt a door handle, he pulled it open, stepped inside, felt for the light switch, and turned it on.
He relieved himself, and washed his face and hands, scooping water to rinse out his dry, rancid mouth. He combed his comparatively short hair, and walked out of the men’s room. Entering the dark restaurant from the lighted restroom, he was immediately blinded by the overwhelming darkness. He was unsure of where to go, or what to do.
With his head still pulsating and groggy, he tried to make his way towards the outside windows, where light seeped in. He banged his body into booths, partitions, and finally knocked over a bar stool.
In a few minutes, Joe eventually made his way to the entrance doors, which he found locked and unable to be opened when he pushed on them. Doing that, however, instantly set off a security alarm which resounded clamouring and loudly in his ears, making his already throbbing head more painful.
He didn’t know what to do, not knowing how to shut off the alarm, or how to get out. With his hands covering his ears, he slid down the wall onto his butt, only to turn over quickly on his side to relieve the discomfort of sitting hard on his injured bottom.
20 minutes later, with sunlight breaking on the horizon and lightening the surrounding outside, Joe was awakened from where he had dozed off, lying on his side on the floor, near the door. Sheriff’s deputies were at the door, signaling to him to stand up, which he did. They could not enter, however; and he could not leave.
After another 10 or 15 minutes, a man with keys arrived, unlocked the door, and the deputies flooded in, grabbing Joe, pulling his arms behind him, cuffing him, and forcibly marching him out of the roadhouse and into the back of a deputy’s car, to transport him to the jail.
At the jail, the ashen-faced, shaken, young man was fingerprinted, interrogated, and informed that he was being charged with unlawful, felonious, breaking and entering a commercial establishment. He was ordered to remove his clothes, which prompted some questions about the hand print marks on his buttocks and thighs. He was given orange-striped pants and pull-over shirt to wear, and told he could make one, quick phone call, before being removed to the block where he would be confined.
PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER