I've been staring at this cell phone fuckery for twenty minutes. Where are all the goddamn buttons on this phone? Everything I touch fucks it up even more. What does this do?

"Nine-one-one operator. What is your-"

Oh, fuck! Fucking stupid hipster millennial bullshit device. I get some change for the payphone and make the call. Much better. This new woman started in the office at the school and gave me her number.

"Hello?"

Whatever you do, do not ask this woman what she's wearing. That's what fucked up your chances with the music teacher. "Lucille? It's, uh," I stammer like a boy, "Negan."

"Who?"

"Wha… uh, Negan. Coach Negan."

"Oh, the tall one?"

I roll my shoulders awkwardly. "Look, I wondered if you wanted to get together? Dinner, maybe?"

"This isn't a good time."

"What about tomorrow? Saturday? Next month? Any day ending in Y?" You desperate sorry fuck. When she laughs, I hang the goddamn phone up. The fuck would she give me her number for if she wasn't interested? As my shit fuck luck would have it, Lucille walks out of the convenient store I made the call at.

"Hello?" She looks up when she almost runs into me and laughs as she lowers her cell phone. "I thought you hung up on me. You caught me off guard. I don't really do spontaneous shit."

"How about I go to the diner tomorrow and wait? Say seven? If you don't show up," I shrug, "no harm."

"I don't even know you..."

"Tell you what. I'll bring a friend of mine. He can bring this girl he's been trying to ask out. Take the pressure off."

"Maybe," she flirts.

I'll take it.

I've never felt more like a vagina than I do when I think about how many shirts I've put on all to have back on the first one for a date that this woman probably won't even show up for.

Once I get to the diner, the hostess says there's a girl waiting on me. Damn. Where's Lucille? I'm even twenty minutes late. Fuck, I hope she didn't leave.

"What can I get you two to drink? Oh, and some guy called. Said he can't make it. I thought he was calling into work, but now it makes sense."

Tim's date doesn't seem to care either way.

"I want water," I grumble. This fucking sucks. Where is Lucille?

"You, hun?"

"I want that bending straw drink."

"That's not a drink, it's just a cup. You want just the cup?"

Christ, this isn't happening right now. "You're here to meet Tim," I ask once the waitress leaves.

"Yeah. I'm RM."

"Your name is RM? The fuck, are you fucking with me?"

"No, bitch, I ain't fucking with you. It stands for rude motherfucker."

Did she just call me a bitch? What-the-fuck-ever. "You just seem young is all. Tim is almost forty-four. What are you, like fucking eighteen? Nineteen?"

"And," she shrugs. "I'm twenty-one."

Oh, I can use her to my advantage. "Do you know, uh, how to work these pocket phones," I redden. Why the fuck am I embarrassed?

"Fuck no," she lights her cigarette, "I can't afford that future space shit."

Who the fuck doesn't have a phone? My students have phones and they're eleven and twelve. I give Lucille's first and last name to the waitress to see if maybe she's called like Tim did.

"I'll check." Her checking is her going over to another table.

"The fuck are you dressed up for? It's a diner," RM scoffs, bringing the ashtray over to her.

"Because that's what people do on dates. Not wear a shirt with arm holes cut in them and fucking ripped stockings."

"Bitch, you wish you were fucking fresh like me. If someone doesn't want to date me because of the way I dress, fuck them."

"You fucking ain't fresh smelling like an ashtray."

"I ain't trying to put my tongue down your throat, so what does it fucking matter?"

Tim does not know how lucky he is that he bailed. I've been with this girl two minutes and I'm ready to walk. In fact, why am I even sticking around?

"You look familiar."

"You've probably seen me on the news."

"Nah, I can't afford that shit either."

My eyebrow tugs upward. "The news is free. Anyway, I'm a coach."

"What's that?"

I'd ask if she's fucking with me, again, but I don't think she is. She tells me she didn't go to school. Must have been homeschooled. "What do you do for a living, RM?"

"I dance at the Velvet Clam."

"Don't you need tits to be a stripper?"

"Don't you have to have a brain to teach?"

"I'm a coach."

"So brains aren't needed for a coach. Gotcha."

"Real fucking funny." Where's that waitress? Maybe with food in her trap, RM will shut the fuck up. My eyes skim the diner to find the waitress flirting with this other table the entire time. I just wanna eat, jerk it, and pass the fuck out. At this point, I don't even care the order it happens. "Excuse me?"

"Sir, wait your turn."

I look over at RM. "Can you believe this bitch?"

"Tell her she's being a bitch. Maybe that will speed things the fuck along."

"Right, because I'm going to call the waitress a bitch."

"I'll call her a bitch right to her sweater hams."And this broad actually snaps her fingers at the waitress to do it! "...and hurry the shit up, bitch."

"You can't just fucking talk to people like that, RM."

"I do it all the time. You gotta stand up for yourself. Unless you wanna be a bitch, bitch."

"I don't know what trailer you came from, but people don't say the first thing that comes to mind."

"That's because people are pussies. No one says what the fuck they really want. It's just shit talk. Like you. But I guess I expect that for someone with a butthole on their chin. I might be trailer trash, but I ain't gonna let some fucking man get my little fried eggs in a ringer because he didn't show up."

She might not have had tits, but she had the biggest pair of balls I had ever seen. This tiny fucking girl basically telling me to go fuck myself. I mean, I'm almost two feet taller than her and I know for a fact she's barely eighty pounds. I kinda respected it. It kinda turned me on. That is until I hear the sound of snapping rubber. Now I've seen some shit, but I've never seen someone put on some nitrile gloves before they eat. "What in the actual fuck are you doing?"

"I'm putting my gloves on to eat, duh."

"Oh, right. I forgot, they started rolling that shit up next to the knife in the napkin." I shake my head when she actually checks. What is wrong with this woman? Is she all there? "Are you still high from last night?"

"I'm sober nine months today I'll have you know." She shows me her sobriety coin.

"I don't give a shit. Look, I ain't in the mood for this jackassery. Since it's obvious no one is playing with little Negan tonight, just shut the fuck up and eat."

"You call your doughy cannoli little?" She throws her head back with a guffaw. "No wonder what's her tits didn't show."

I rub my brow annoyed. I'm really starting to feel sorry for every person I've ever annoyed with my shit.

"Wait, what's a Negan?"

"…my name."

"Huh? I thought you were Lucille's husband Scott."

"What?"

"Lucille. You said her name. She used to dance at the club I work at if it's the woman I'm thinking of."

"She has a husband?"

RM starts to laugh. "Sucks for you…"

My eyes sink to food I'm not even hungry for.

"Fuck her, man. Buckle buffers are a diner dozen."

"It's a dime a dozen. And they're not when you're pushing forty." I toss a few twenty's on the table and slide from the booth.

"You didn't eat your food," RM shouts at me.

Once outside, I sink my hands into my pockets. Fuck. Christ, I'm a loser.

"Why does it matter if you're forty? If you're hot, you're hot at any age."

My eyebrow inches upward. "Did you just call me hot?"

"Are you sure you're a teacher? You're dense."

I bellow out a laugh. "Why are you such a bitch then if you think I'm hot?"

"Just because you're hot doesn't mean that you get immunity from being a fuck ass. Anyway, my name is rude motherfucker and you're asking me why I'm a bitch?"

"Your name isn't rude motherfucker."

She shrugs. "That's what mama always called me, but that's a lot of letters to remember and I can't spell real good."

I frown because that's actually really fucking sad. "It's well."

"Well what?"

"You don't say you can't spell good, it's you can't spell well. Never mind," I say when she just gives me some blank look. "So, uh, RM. What do you like to do for fun?"

"I like to go to Lost Galaxy."

"Oh, the minigolf place?"

"No, man, the alien park."

I just stare at her. "RM, people go there to play golf, not look at the decorations."

"I don't understand. The decorations are cool as shit. And what the fuck is golf? I always get in trouble because I'm not golfing. Man, fuck golf."

Honestly, I felt kinda bad for this girl. She's not dumb, she's just not… fuck, I don't even know the word. Then I remember the comment at dinner. I thought she was home schooled, not completely deprived of it.

"Tell your friend Tim I'm shaking my little pearls at the Clam tomorrow. See ya."

"RM, wait." Now, I really do not know why, but something about this girl… I dunno. I liked. I liked how she didn't give a fuck about what anyone thought, and said what's on her mind. How she called me out on my bullshit, and said I was full of shit. "Uh," I stammer. "I'll go with you. To see the aliens. I mean, if that's ok."

"Alright, dingus."

"Do you… wanna hold hands or some shit while we walk?"

"Fuck no I don't want to hold your hand. I don't do affection."

"Fine, goddamn."

This surprise date was the last thing I expected considering the one I'm with I originally wanted to strangle, but it's funny how things work out. RM she... made me laugh. I'm actually looking forward to tonight for a change.

"He gets a dollar off since he's a senior citizen," RM tells the woman at the ticket booth.

This bitch.


A/N Thanks for reading! You can check out more of Negan and RM in Beautiful Tragedy!