Tip Rats

Part 33 - Gino

The boys headed back to the hotel to grab some essentials and give Chris one more chance to turn up. Back at the room there were no signs to suggest Chris had been back, and under the assumption that Disneyland would require a reasonably early arrival to make the trip worthwhile, the pair decided to leave. Although their previous meeting gave little reason to suggest that he would be able to provide any assistance other than as a pimp, Ned decided to swing by the hotel office and see if the leathery grub at the reception desk could help them out with a map or some directions. Ned pushed open the office door, the desk was unattended but Ned could hear chatter coming from the room behind. The door was open so Ned walked over and knocked before sticking his head around the corner. The clerk was sitting at a folding table with his back to the door, on the opposite side of the table sat Chris. The two of them were engaged in a game of dominos with a third man who was standing beside a fridge at the back of the room drinking from a tall can.

'What the fuck are you doing?' Ned asked, stunned.

'Playing dominos with Gino and Dennis' Chris replied, as though this were a perfectly normal thing for him to be doing.

'Why?'

'I came back and you boys were gone so I came down here and now I'm playing dominos'.

Ned shook his head, amazed, amused and confused. 'Well we're about to go to Disneyland, you gonna come?'

Chris stood up like a bolt, 'Yep'.

'We're going now...'

'Ok' Chris replied, not bothered by the strip club aroma that clung to him like a drowning skunk.

Gino spun his lizard head around, a pair of bifocals on a cord perched on his nose. 'You can get a bus to Disneyland from the airport, special Disneyland bus.'

Chris smiled, looking at Ned he held out two open hands towards Gino, intimating what a useful friend he had made.

'Where can we get a taxi?' Ned asked, giving Gino a chance to prove himself even more helpful. Gino raised a dirty finger towards the character at the back of the room who was peering through the venetian blinds beside the fridge. 'Dennis drives a cab.... Hey Dennis! These guys wanna go to the airport'.

Chris's smile intensified, his face now resembled that of a cheap Buddha statue, his cheeks almost touching his eyebrows. He thrust his hands forward, 'Gino!'

*

The bus from the airport to Disneyland was filled with overweight parents and their overweight children sweating and squabbling. The three boys managed to acquire the back seat which they shared with a particularly enthusiastic Japanese teenager who was studying a map of the park intently. He had the misfortune of sitting beside Chris who remained unwashed from the previous night's shenanigans and smelt like a potent mixture of booze, perfume and shit.

'You fellas missed out last night' Chris announced for the third time. His first two attempts to start a conversation about his doings were shot down, firstly in the taxi and then at the bus stop but this time he didn't give them a chance as he barrelled into his tale.

'The first thing you need to know is that I fucked her. Twice'.

'What did that set you back?' asked Andy, still clearly bothered by Charity's ruse.

'It wasn't like that mate. I paid for a lap dance but it was only because she would have gotten in trouble if I didn't, and she gave me a discount... and let me finger her. They don't normally let you do that'.

'I reckon every bloke gets told they're getting a discount' Andy replied without enthusiasm.

'I reckon every bloke slips a finger in too' Ned added dryly.

'Nah, she's not like that, she's saving for college, she wants to be a vet'.

This last revelation brought a chorus of laughter to the rear of the bus; even the Japanese kid was having a giggle.

'Serious', Chris continued insistently, 'she told me her real name and everything'.

'Oh, so her name wasn't really Charity?' Ned asked sarcastically.

'No, it's Suzy'.

'I wonder if Fabergé was only a stage name too?' Ned questioned mockingly.

Chris sulked quietly for the remainder of the bus trip. He did turn sharply to his companions with mouth open and mind racing a couple of times seemingly ready to unload a ball-busting quip, but each time he thought better of it and returned to wallowing silently in his misguided sense of achievement.

*

By the time they had negotiated the entry to Disneyland and were strolling amongst the mobility scooters that seemed to be the standard form of forward momentum for the other visitors, Chris was back on speaking terms with Ned and Andy.

'It's not as magical as I'd expected' he observed as the three of them stood in line for Pirates of the Caribbean.

'Yeah, I reckon 'the laziest place on earth' would be a better tag line', Andy remarked as they shuffled slowly forward another few steps.

The cordoned off queues that had been originally conceived for the multitude of disabled children who visit the park were jammed with obese mothers shuffling themselves along in courtesy wheelchairs or whining along on scooters, cursing the little girl with cerebral palsy who was taking forever to get out of her wheelchair and into a teacup.

Ned grabbed the 'L.A and surrounds' map that was poking out of Chris's back pocket as they walked out of the Indiana Jones Adventure ride.

'We're pretty close to Huntington Beach here, we should head there after this'.

Ned passed the map to Andy who gave it a quick going over before handing it on to Chris, 'sounds good to me'.

Chris was starting to show signs of fatigue, leaning against or sitting on anything solid and dry.

'What d'ya reckon, couple more rides and then we'll head off?' Andy asked Chris giving him a playful pat on the back. Chris nodded drowsily in agreement as he sat slumped on a fiberglass rock.

*

In front of the main gate Chris and Andy sat on the kerb while Ned walked along the row of shuttle buses asking the drivers for travel advice. His enquiries were sated by the lady driving the fifth bus in the bay whose name tag informed Ned that she was Noreen from Santa Ana, CA. Noreen sent the boys to Harbor Boulevard to wait for the 460.