Description: With Glenn Sabine tied up on stage at the Miss Teenager pageant, Pike Setter reflects backstage on his life of imbecility and things he basically doesn’t regret. Meanwhile, from a pay phone in the alley next door, Julie tries to get through to someone who can relay her message to Glenn Sabine.
Bright Lights, Big Dreams. PART 9.
It hadn’t actually escaped the attention of Glenn Sabine’s assistant that people had begun calling him Punk Setter behind his back. In fact, he very well knew he was a punk. Since his prepubescent teenage years, he was aware that there was something off in his own personality. His practical jokes often consisted of a kind of humor known only to the most ruthless of men, laughing at the weaker kids he bullied and going right along with the older classmates’ peer pressure to be the guy that dumped melted cheese over the poor weakling’s head.
That was just the way things were. It was then that he had started hanging out with the wrong crowd in the wrong neighborhood, kissing the wrong kinds of girls, eating the wrong kinds of foods, drinking the wrong kinds of drinks, and munching on the wrong kinds of midnight snacks. A so-called friend had introduced him to smoking and pretty soon just one smoke a day to soothe his inner hostility became three, then four, then a whole pack, and another, until stopping was something only chumps did.
Now look at him. He was ashamed even to look in the mirror, for he knew that if he did, he would have to face a man whose middle name was deceive-somebody-and-get-something-for-nothing. Just like he was doing with the Jones girl. Juliet. Even the name had a Shakespearean ring to it. The fact that she was a mayor did nothing but make him want her more. She was someone to conquer, and to conquer a dame who carried such an important title was proverbial icing on the proverbial cake. And he was all about proverbial anything.
Yes, the nickname punk suited him just fine, for that’s what he had become. All on his own. Whereas weak Glenn Sabine had come to the same realization and reformed his wicked ways, Punk Setter was just fine staying a punk. He would have his cake and eat it, too. Or have his mayor and… well, whatever he could get. He only needed to figure out a way to get back into her good graces, or more to the point, a way to subdue her into submission while dodging her wicked left hand.
He rubbed the left side of his face. He would never forget that left hand of hers that had come out of nowhere and made him literally see stars and bluebirds whirling around his head. Oh, yes, he would never forget. He was never one to let sleeping dogs just lie there. The next time he saw her would be payback.
Just then, his luck came full circle. As he stood backstage on his perpetual smoke break, staring into proverbial space, the sound of the person calling on the backstage phone sounded oddly familiar, as if a ghost of the distant past was creeping back into his life.
The backstage manager was yelling into the phone like the caller was dense and needed further explanation. “I said you can’t talk to Mr. Sabine,” he shouted, his left hand on the receiver and his right hand’s index finger plugged in his ear. “He’s on stage. But here’s his assistant.” Then he covered the speaker with his right hand and whispered at Pike. “Hey, Mr. Setter!”
