Charlie “The Geriatric Gigolo” had seen better days. At 85, his once-lustrous hair had surrendered to the inevitable march of time, retreating like a bad army into the fog of his wrinkled scalp. But what he lacked in youth, he more than made up for with raw, unfiltered charm—a charm that he aimed exclusively at one man and one man only: Scott.
Scott was everything Charlie loved in a man: moderately employed, possessed of most of his teeth, and uninterested in him. Charlie’s devotion was unmatched, a beacon of desperation shining through the static of his crackling CB radio. Every night, he fired up his dusty old rig and crooned into the mic like a lovesick walrus.
“Breaker, breaker, Scotty-boy, you out there, baby? You know I got my Cadillac idlin’ outside ya house. Just say the word and I’ll take ya to Applebee’s for half-off apps.”
Scott, of course, never responded. Because Scott, like any man with an ounce of self-preservation, had Charlie blocked on every frequency.
But there was someone who was listening. Someone who had been waiting for this moment.
That someone was Dick Bulger.
Dick had been holding out hope that Charlie might—just might—take him to Monte’s Pizza. After all, wasn’t he the one who had faithfully defended Charlie when the CB boys said his Cadillac sounded like a lawnmower stuffed with squirrels? Hadn’t he been the one who reassured Charlie that the smell in his backseat was “probably just old cheese and not a decaying raccoon”?
Yet night after night, Charlie only had eyes for Scott.
“That ungrateful old bastard,” Dick muttered, crushing a Schlitz can in his fist. “I’d kill for a ride in that piece of crap Caddy, but nooo, it’s always ‘Scott this’ and ‘Scott that.’ Scott’s not even that great. His ham radio setup sucks!”
Desperate, Dick decided to up the ante. He grabbed his CB mic and, in the sultriest voice an alcoholic Bostonian could manage, sent out one last plea.
“Breaker, breaker, Big C. How ‘bout we ditch ol’ Scott and make some magic happen over at Monte’s? Just you, me, and a cheese pizza big enough to make us hate ourselves.”
There was a long silence. Then, at last, Charlie responded.
“Listen, Bulger, you’re a good guy and all, but I only got room for one man in this heart, and it ain’t you. Scott might not know it yet, but he’s mine. You? You just ain’t Scott.”
Dick sat in stunned silence, a single tear rolling down his stubbly cheek.
Somewhere in the distance, Charlie’s Cadillac backfired like a gunshot as he peeled away into the night, chasing a dream that would never come true.
And Dick? Dick was left with nothing but his radio, his roast beef sandwich, and the empty booth at Monte’s that would forever remain unfilled.
