SERIES: Andy’s Song

AUTHOR: Missy

EMAIL: lasfic@yahoo.com

PART: 1 of 1

RATING:  PG (Adult content)

PAIRING(s): Some L/L; Squiggy-centric

DISTRIBUTION: To Myself  so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine.  Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MISTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!

CATEGORY: SOL, Romance

FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!

SETTING IN TIMELINE: alternate timeline; takes place approximately in Season 5 Milwaukee. 

SPOILLER/SUMMARY: "Go Home To Your Wife" (Squiggy Solo Piece)

NOTES: Written for Cheshyre, on the occasion of her heading off to Dragon*Con 

***

The copulating ladybugs were too wrapped up in their erotic dance to notice the furry black hand until it cupped over them.   In his grip they were safely escorted out of the Veteran’s Memorial Hall and deposited in a small patch of dandelions outside of the tent.

"There you go," Andrew Squiggman muttered to the bugs as he settled them down on a sun-dotted dandelion.  The bugs didn't give him even flutter of their wings in acknowledgement, and he huffed, "I guess no one taught you no manners!"

"Andrew?"

The sound of his name caused Squiggy to turn around in surprise.  Carefully parting the brambled branches and outlined in the dying sun, Shirley Feeney looked like a fairytale in her blue chiffon maxi-skirted birdesmaid dress. 

"I've been looking for you.  Lenny and Laverne are ready to leave, but he wants to say goodbye before they go."

Colorlessly, Squiggy said, "yeah, hold on."

Her small hand caressed the sleeve of his good leather jacket.  "I know you're taking this hard, Squiggy.  If you need someone to talk to, you can always come see me."

She pitied him!  No one pitied Andrew Sqiggman, even the hottest short dame in East Milwaukee.  "I'm okay," he said flatly.  "Come on, you don't wanna get eaten by Bigfoot."

Shirley rejected his hand but followed him up the long path to the wedding party.  Squiggy felt like he had been hit by a truck as he remembered the past year of his life.

It had begun the way all of Lenny's attempts on Laverne's virtue had begun; with a good deed and a leer.  Laverne had been exceptionally lonely that month - Squiggy's guess - or Lenny had been exceptionally charming - you can bet whose guess that was - but she had accepted his advances.  Things had snowballed, gotten serious and before Squiggy knew it Lenny had dragged him to one of Milwaukee's finest pawn shops to buy Laverne a ring.

Squiggy had lain back and allowed Lenny to pursue things, mostly because he knew it wouldn't get serious.  When the wedding plans accelerated, he stayed quiet because he was sure Lenny would come to his senses.  As they said their vows that morning in Saint Bridgets', he waited for Laverne to turn tails and run, just like she had with Sal Malina a few years ago.  But somehow they'd managed to get married...

His eyes narrowed; it wasn't gonna last.  Sure, they'd go on their honeymoon, have a little fun, but as soon as they got back they'd break up and Lenny would move back in with his REAL friend, his ONLY friend.

The groom himself came up and grabbed Squiggy in a hug - and never noticed his tension.  "Have a good time," Squiggy said into Lenny's shoulder.

"Huh, I better," Lenny smirked.  "You gonna be okay alone?"

"Sure - I was born alone, weren't I?" Squiggy responded.

"'Cause you know Shirl's right downstairs if you need something.."

"I'll be okay," Squiggy pushed him away.  "Go have fun with your wife."

"Hee, my wife..."

Lenny danced away from Squiggy and grabbed the hand of his bride.  Through the hail of rice  he watched his best friend leave with the new center of his universe and tried to figure out what to do with the next two weeks of his life.

***

It happened a lot sooner than Squiggy had hoped;  two weeks after Lenny had taken off on his honeymoon he

returned, tanned, well-rested and happy.

And ready to move out.

Squiggy stood in his Shotz cover-alls in the center of the room and watched as Lenny neatly folded his

clothing into a suitcase - not offering to help, of course, only girls and Lennys did domestic

.  When Lenny picked up Jeffery and put him on top of his good shirt and old chinos, Squiggy

realized that what was happening was actually happening.

"Why're you taking Jeffery?"

Lenny looked over his shoulder and frowned.  "You said I could keep him," he whined. 

"But back then I didn't think you was gonna take him away," Squiggy said, refusing to let his voice express

the emotion wavering in his voice. 

Lenny looked down at Jeffery, then back at Squiggy. He offered the lizard to Squiggy.  "It's okay, Squig. He was yours first."

Squiggy pushed away Jeffery angrily.  "Do you gotta take ALL of your stuff?"

In a surprisingly patient tone, Lenny said, "I'm living with Laverne now, Squig.  I can’t come over here every time I wanna talk to him..."

Squiggy rolled his eyes.  "Since when do you talk to Jeffrey in front of Laverne?”

“Since I caught her talking to Mr. Pony last week,” Lenny grinned. 

Squiggy sighed.  “You poor sap!  It's gonna take twice as long to get all your stuff and move it

back here!"

Lenny frowned.  "Squig...doncha understand?  I ain't coming back."

"That's whatcha say; it ‘s what they all say, but people get different when they’re together – people change.."

"Whatt’re you talking about, stupid?  You was there when I got married!"

"People break up all the time," Squiggy said defensively.

"It ain't gonna happen to me," he said, grabbing his suitcase and heading for the door.  "Me and Laverne

are gonna last!"

Squiggy stuck out his jaw.   When Lenny passed by, he shoved Jeffery toward him.  "Keep it.  Who

wants a dead skinny pig?"

"Squig..."

"Go home to your wife," Squiggy said coldly, shoving his nearly-almost-former best friend into the hallway

and slamming the door in his face.

***

"Did I tell you 'bout this cute thing Laverne did yesterday?"

Squiggy's teeth scraped together at Lenny's fond words as they climbed into the truck.  

"We was putting sheets on the bed in our new place, and she was tellin' me I was doing the corners wrong. 

Shirl does these hospital corner thingies but we usually just toss them on and...yanno...anyway, we got

into this fight and..."

You broke up?  Squiggy was almost too excited to hear what happened.

"...she stomped on my foot, so I kicked her in the shins, then she tackled me and started tickling on my

sides..."

And?  Squiggy was almost licking his lips in anticipation of the good stuff.

"So she wiggles all over me and says 'you know where I always wanted to do it?  out by the lake.'  So we drove out to the lake - in the middle of winter while it was snowing - and did it!"

Squigy stared at his best friend dumbly.  "So?"

Lenny frowned.  "A coupla months ago you would've begged me to tell you about that!  Anyway, 'cause of that Laverne's got a cold, so I gotta cut work early and bring her some Vicks Vap-O-Rub."

Squiggy muttered something he hoped Lenny couldn't

understand while he gunned the engine.

But he did hear it, and Squiggy was suddenly dragged out of his seat by his lapels.  "DON'T YOU EVER CALL

LAVERNE A NAME LIKE THAT!"

Mustering all of his dignity, Squiggy said, "It's hard to be nice to a girl who steals your best friend like 

a...thief!"

Lenny glared at Squig.  "Whatt're you talking about?  I see you all the time!"

Squiggy shook his head.  "At work.  I don't see you at the Pizza Bowl, or at Moby Dominick's - we don't hang out or watch games're nothing."  I don't got nobody to play with, he thought but didn't say out loud.

"But that's the way it's supposed to work.  Things are different now..."

"'Things're different now!'" He mocked in a high-pitched voice.  "That's all I ever hear!  You was  my best friend before you was her guy!"

"You just don't get it," Lenny said, his blue eyes glazed with depression.

"I don't get you no more.  You changed, Len - and I don't like it."

Lenny let go of his best friend and sat back in the seat.  "I like the way I am now, Squig.  I ain't gonna change back."

Squiggy knew that tone of voice - the 'I ain't your friend no more' pitch; the one he'd heard after accidentally knocking Lenny out of a window. But something inside of Andrew Squiggman had knocked loose.  He was suddenly too angry to care if Lenny never wanted to be friends again.  He put the truck in gear and silently drove Lenny to the Woolworth's on fifteenth street.

"Go home to your wife, then," he retorted.

The second he climbed out,  Squiggy drove away,  leaving Lenny to bellow his outrage on the curb.  

***

The two weeks that followed were acted out in a stony pantomime of what had once been a close friendship.  Squiggy was mainly standoffish with everyone, and the time he was forced to spend alone with Lenny on his route was acted out in silence. 

Firmly ignoring Lenny wasn’t something he’d ever had to do before, but whenever he saw his best friend with his wife – having dinner at the Pizza Bowl or snuggled up at the break room table in Shotz – he turned up his nose and sat down with Fat Dave.

By the end of the second week, he knew all about Fat Dave’s gallbladder surgery.  It made him feel a little less sick than thinking of Lenny and that she-devil.

He stubbornly put his nose to the grindstone, taking extra routes to makeup for Len’s absent salary and spending any extra time he had left at the peep shows and comic shops of lower East Milwaukee.  He had, in fact, been in the middle of a brand-new edition of The Adventures of the Black Scorpion when someone came knocking on his door.

“Unless you’re a broad, go away!” he yelled, dispensing with all manners as he tried to find out his hero’s next step.

“It’s Laverne,” the voice whined, “I gotta talk to you.”

Squiggy glared at the door and battled with his declared logic.  She counted as a broad, but she was The Enemy… “Who says I want anything to do with you?”

“Squig…” she jostled the knob until it turned – damn it, he thought it was locked…”Call a truce.  Len’s been a mess all week ‘cause he thinks you don’t wanna be his friend anymore!”

“He thinks right,” Squiggy said, his jaw iron.

“Squiggy,” Laverne said sharply, in a tone of voice that usually scared the hell out of him.  “You don’t mean that. ”

“I do.”

Laverne stared into his eyes and he felt a sick sense of emotional pain.  “How can you?  Lenny’s the best friend you got,” she said.

“Used to got.  Since he got hitched up to you he don’t got the time of day for me,” Squiggy retorted.  

She shook her head, “Aww, come on, Squig.  He’s been crying all week ‘cause he thinks you hate him!”

“I don’t hate him!” Squiggy barked, “I hate you!”

This obviously shocked her.  “Huh?!” Laverne gaped.

“’Cause you’re gonna hurt him,” Squiggy said, “the way you always hurt him.” Squiggy said in a voice so low he hoped Laverne wouldn’t hear him.  He was embarrassed to have spoken them.

“Squig..” he heard the sympathy in her voice and hated it.  “I love Lenny.  I’m never gonna hurt him again.”

“But you used to,” he said.  Women always hurt you over and over – it was their way, no matter how far away you crawled from them.

 “Yeah, I did – I used to be a rotten person to him.  But things changed.  You gotta understand-“

“I don’t gotta understand anything,” Squiggy responded.  He decided to test her.  “If  I gave you a hundred bucks, would you go away?”

Laverne shook her head.  “No.”

“What if I had a million- and I’d give it all to you if you’d leave Lenny?”

She was visibly appalled.   “NO.”  His face must have fallen, because her sympathetic expression had returned.  “Squig, I know you miss having Len around all the time…”

“I DON’T MISS HIM!” Squiggy thundered.  “There’s just stuff up on the high shelves I can’t reach…”

She backed up a little, watching his face curiously. “You just dunno what it’s like being married.”

“That’s what I hear,” Squiggy said flatly, opening the door and shoving her back out into the hallway.  “Go home.”

***

It was another two weeks before Laverne begged Shirley to intervene for her.  This being the first time Laverne had spoken to Shirley since she’d come back from her honeymoon, Shirley was reluctant to do her errant friend the favor in her jealousy.  Then she saw Squiggy, his eyes ringed with red, and felt enough worry to check in on the little guy herself.

She finally cornered him in the break room a few hours before quitting time, bought him a cup of coffee and a chocolate bar, and asked him how he was.

“Fine,” he said.

“You look awful,” she responded.

“You ain’t no spring chicken,” Squiggy retorted.

Desperately striving for politeness, Shirley said, “Andrew, we all know you’re taking Lenny’s moving out hard.”

“I said I’m fine,” Squiggy growled. 

“Andrew…”

“WOMAN!”

“Would it make you feel better to know I’m not doing well, either?”

He tilted his head, eyes squinting at her.  “You look okay,” he said.

“Yes, but inside I’m not,” she admitted.  “I’ve never had to live alone before, and it’s harder than I thought.  I do miss Laverne and it does makes me sad; and, Squiggy, if you miss Lenny and it makes you sad there’s nothing wrong with that.”

He  gestured, searching blindly for words – his hairy hand moved over the table blindly.  “I’m…lonely…” the words came out in a pathetic voice, and that was when his nose started sweating.

Shirley couldn’t quite bring herself to crush Squiggy to her breast as Laverne had done for Lenny many times over, but she patted his hands until he could compose himself. 

“All right?”

Squiggy nodded and blew his nose on his sleeve.

She grimaced in disgust.  “You could have asked me for a Kleenex!”

“What’z this, the Ritz?”

Shirley smiled, despite herself.  “Yanno, I never really hated Laverne.  I was just mad that she took him away from me.”

“She didn’t mean to come between you – she was so broken up about it when we talked today.”

“I guess I ain’t good at sharing.  Just ask Carmine.”

Shirley shook her head and pushed away his amorous advance.  “Someday we’ll know what it’s like to be in love like that.  But until then we’ve got the best friends we could ask for.”

 “Yeah, thanks.  You ain’t gonna tell no one I sweatted all over you, right?”

“My lips are sealed.   Now go home!”

***

Squiggy found his almost-best-friend-again on Knapp Street, sporting his porkpie hat and carrying a sack of groceries.  Standing on the stoop, they locked eyes and walked tentatively up to each other. 

“Squig?”

“Len?”

As Shirley suggested, he made his the first move and reached out for his friend’s hand.  Suddenly they were laughing, calling each other Stupid Idiot.  It had always been that simple between them.

“Hey,” Lenny said, recovering a little bit, “you wanna go play some pool at Dominick’s tonight?”

Squiggy frowned.  “You don’t wanna be with Laverne?”

“She’n Shirl are gonna go to the movies,” Lenny shrugged and tucked his hands into his pants, “we’re really sorry for ignoring you guys.”

Squiggy prepared himself to spill his guts about everything – how bad he had felt, how sure he had been that his friend’s marriage would fall apart – but someone tall and blonde caught his eye as she headed to the bus stop.   “Maybe tomorrow.”

“But me n’ Laverne are gonna go to her Pop’s for dinner!  How about Sunday?”

“Yeah,” he said distractedly.  “Sunday.”

“I’m glad you ain’t mad at me no more, Squig,” he said, turning and heading into the apartment building.  “I dunno what I’d do without you.”

“Get laid,” Squiggy called over his shoulder, getting the requisite laugh that still made him smile.  Squiggy was grinning by the time he caught up with the blonde in the halter top.

She was settled in the bus shelter, her pedal-pushers a bright red that contrasted with her ivory skin.  Squiggy sidled on over and sat to her right, waiting for acknowledgement.

She looked up from filing her nails.  “Do you have the time?”  she asked.

“If you got the money, honey,” he retorted.

“Funny,” she remarked, as if it weren’t.

He checked his watch.  “It’s six.”

“Good.  I’ll be on time for the eight o’clock.” She tossed her file onto the curb and tucked her knees around her large pink train case.

“Yeah, the eight AM.”

“There isn’t an evening bus?”

“Nope.”

She cursed.  “Do you know the name of a good hotel?”

“I do know one place – it’s called the Chez Squiggman.”

“Do they have a vacancy?”

“There ain’t much room, but I know the owner pretty good.”

“All right..”  she grabbed her bags.

“Just as long as you don’t mind snorerers…”

She was already putting her fancy black hat on.  Squiggy gulped down a sigh at the sight of her, for she looked like something out of a Barbara Stanwyke picture.  “How thin are their walls?”

“There’s only one room…”

She turned, poking him in the chest with her cases, “look here, buddy, I’m not that kind of girl…”

“Aww, you’re not?!”

She whapped him once with her train case, making him yelp, “okay!  I’m sorry!  You can stay at my place and I won’t try nothing, I swear!”

The beating stopped.  “How can I trust you?”

“Uh – I’ll sleep on the couch!  With all my clothes on…and my shoes?”

She smiled and nodded.  “You seem harmless enough.  And I could probably toss you out the window if I need to.”

“Yeah.  Where’re you heading, anyway?”

“Oh, I’m just passing through town on my way to LA.  I,” she said self-importantly, “am going to be an actress.”

Squiggy straightened out his now-ruffled hair and shirt.  “I’m gonna be a millionaire, but what I really wanna do is direct.”

“Oh?” she purred.  “What do you call yourself?”

“Andrew.  But my real name is Squiggy,” before she could respond he added, “So, you got a name?  S’it something I’ll know it when I see you?”

Suddenly, she was a megawatt, dazzling light.  “It’s Rhonda Lee.”

It’s Rhonda Squiggman, he thought to himself.  Suddenly, he remembered Shirley’s insistence that one day he would know what love was.

And so Andrew Squiggman smiled.  “Come on,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”