Futile Efforts by Tom Piccirilli Page B

stirring inside him, the jealousy about any woman he even looked at.   He brought the glass up to his mouth but it was empty.
    One of the flat- chested dancers walked across the stage and tried to make eyes.   She swung around the pole and jiggled what little meat she had.   You could count every rib if you wanted, and her nostrils were pink with flaring busted capillaries.   Bony but with stretch marks around her nipples.   Another coke head with a couple of kids being taken care of by her parents.   She used pancake to cover over the bruises on her legs, but left the rug burns on her knees for everyone to see.   Maybe it was supposed to be a turn on.   Vin was usually confused about shit like that.
    The waitress moved by him on the run and said, "I'll get your beer in a sec."
    "Okay."
    The stripper didn't appreciate his lack of interest and really started doing her best slap and grind.   It was so pathetic that he nearly laughed, until he realized what he must look like from the other side of the stage.
    A graying middle-aged guy with his own scars and pock-marks, stubbled and squinting, the wrinkled around his eyes deep enough that they needed to be dusted.   In a dive like this on a Friday night, with an overflowing ashtray and a couple of empty shot glasses in front of him, sitting around and waiting for money or happiness or fate to fall through the ceiling and into his fucking arms.
    He handed her a five dollar bill and she gave him the imitation smile and wandered off down the stage.
    She did the same shimmy in front of the jocks and the boys roared.   There had been three just like them in college with Vin, twenty years ago.   Del, Philly, and Bent. He was the bookworm anchor to their boisterous clique, and for a long while he'd admired them with a strange joy, sick with envy.   Until one by one they'd all fallen away to pregnant girlfriends, factory jobs, and jail time.
    Now here they were again, alternate versions of Del, Philly, and Bent, but so much like them in subtle mannerisms, down to their sharp movements and the near-hysteria in their laughter.
    The German Shepherd swung its snout towards Vin and gazed at him with sorrowful eyes.
    Still waiting for his beer, he looked down and saw that not only had the waitress already brought it to him, but he'd finished more than half the bottle.
    Christ, just like Dad.
    He took out a ten and left it for her, spun from his seat and moved towards the door.   A growing anxiety kicked him along.   As he passed the German Shepherd, he held his hand out and the dog licked his wrist, folding its ears back and cringing as the noise surged again.
    The blind man was no longer smiling.   He said a few quiet words Vin couldn't pick up, and then his lips appeared to weld together forming a bloodless line.   His chest heaved as his breathing became rapid.   The waitress came by with more drinks and the boys sucked them down, and another burned out dancer commenced to stick it in front of them.
    Vin got outside and the sudden cool air and silence was such a relief that he let out a gasp.
    He stepped onto the sidewalk and crossed the street, looking at the cramped houses that lined the area.   Once he could've named everyone who lived in each of them: the Danetellos , the Martinis, the Ganuccis , and the Rorigans .   He'd play stickball here with the rest of the kids, got into fights up the alley.    The month he learned to drive he picked up his first lay, Jennie Bishop, right at the end of the road, and took her a mile down to the pier.   It had been a reckless, mad night that ended with the challenge of manhood.
    Maybe it had proven to be too great an ordeal.   Vin walked back to his place but didn't want to go in yet.   There wasn't anything for him inside.   Not even a goldfish.   Nothing that needed his attention or affection.   No work that had to be taken care of.   No real hobbies to consume the hours.   No family left.   Most of his friends had