Chapter 9

"Okay, you all cured me for sure. I will never go to another baby shower," Brian announced when they got back late that evening. "It was actually ELEVEN women and two guys there, so me and the husband–some guy I barely knew–just sat in the corner watching some basketball game drinking beer."

Heath looked at his father, wide eyed. "That bad?"

"Not sure about bad, just strange. Stupid little baby shower games. It was weird; your mother and I won three of them. But I did go play in the arcade room and win a stuffed Goofy and the pride of my own daughter."

"You did good, Daddy," Audrey agreed.

"I kicked everyone's ass at the 'bottle toss', where they fill a baby bottle to the five line with water and everyone tries to down it," Brian continued. "Probably cause I'm a professional chugger."

"How well we know," Heath said. "How many Pepsi contests and beer chugging contests have you won with Paul where you downed an entire can or two without stopping and belching?"

"Right," Brian nodded. "But then there was the stupid BABY game, oh God. It's this game where they hand everyone a little naked plastic mini baby, and you can't say the mother's name or the word 'baby' and if someone catches you, they get your baby, and the person with the most babies at the end won. Of course, the brilliant being your mother is, kicked everyone's ass cause she was sitting next to me, the idiot who could be tricked into saying it."

"And boy did he," Audrey laughed.

"Because I kept calling Mama over there 'baby' unbeknown to me so she kept calling me on it. I'm sitting there; 'I meant BABE!' Fucking hell."

"Yay Mom!" Audrey laughed again.

"Yeah, you women are sneaky. But her prize was a bunch of scratch its because they ran out of prizes. So the host's husband had to give his scratch its up, and we won twelve bucks."

"Cool," Heath nodded.

"And then there was the conversations about kids and babies. When asked how many kids we had, your mother decided to be a smart ass and say three. 'I got a thirteen year old son in addition to Audrey here, and then there is the overgrown kid; he's in the arcade room drinking beer acting like he's the Knight of the Round Table'. I was kicking ass at those games, by the way."

Audrey and Steffi both giggled. "I can't disagree with Mom on that one," Audrey said.

"Then this girl brought her two week old son and I was stuck holding him cause he fell asleep on me while all the girls 'awwwed' and took a million pictures. I was not happy in any of them," Brian sighed. "On top of that, all I'd get was 'Oh Brian, why don't you feed him? Oh Brian, why don't you change him?' 'Oh, why don't I push him up my ass and push him out for you TOO?' Jesus tap dancing Christ."

"But Mom always says how good you were with Heath and me when we were babies," Audrey pointed out.

"Yeah," Heath agreed. "I think I still got that picture somewhere that you took of me and Audi in the locker room at one of your shows after Mom said you passed me around to everyone."

"That's different," Brian answered. "If I didn't fertilize it, I ain't feeding it!"

"Nice way of putting it, Daddy," Audrey said.

"The highlight of this splendid evening was the eleven year old kid got ten bucks out of me for the arcade; never mind he didn't win jack shit, the seven year old got two bucks for a soda out of me, and of course, your mother somehow convinced me to pay half of the entire meal bill. I think my wallet's been drained. All this for the TWO pieces of pizza I ate. Lord knows whether or not I will have to file Chapter 7 when the emergency room bill comes. But I was drunk and the other guy was goading me. 'Yeah, Mr. Big Shot Wrestler, be a gentleman and cover the bill. You make 200 grand a year according to your old lady; cough it up.' Yeah, I was like 'Well, since your ass is on welfare, I'll donate to the poor.' "

"That was a low blow, Brian," Steffi scolded.

"What? He was being a dickhead that was sneaking peeks at your ass every time you got up, so I had to do something to put him in his place. And to make his pain worse, I paid with a crisp 100 dollar bill... that's how I roll."

"More like that's how you are being obnoxious," Steffi countered.

"Man's got to assert his place in society. But yeah, I won the 'poopy diaper' game and the bottle game. Your mother won the baby game before we ate cake and got the FUCK out of there because I had a two year old staring at me the entire time. So that was pretty much my night, weird as it was."

"I thought it was fun," Audrey piped in, "at least until Mom's back went out again and we had to go to the emergency room after Dad and I helped her straighten up."

"By the way," Brian smiled over at Steffi, "how is our patient?"

"I think the Vicodin kicked in," Steffi replied. "Thank God. All I did was get out of the chair and bent over to get my purse and then SNAP!"

"I told you to keep your ass put for that reason," Brian replied. "Now you're going to have to take it easy for at least two weeks. No lifting, not even a speck of dust, got it? Then you get to go to physical therapy after that. I got a temporary housekeeper in the meantime lined up; I figure with these two in school all day and me being gone at least five or six days a week, someone should be here."

"It's just for two weeks," Steffi replied.

"Of course."

Brian then turned to Heath. "So how was the game?"

"Before or after Paul and I got evicted from the arena?"

"What?! He said nothing about you being thrown out. What the hell happened?"

"Well," Heath began. "He drank a lot of beer, and it all started with him yelling really loud and cussing at that one player that recently signed this huge contract with the Jazz. Of course, other people were yelling too, so I guess that was okay. Anyway, he started checking out girls' boobs and saying what size they were, if they were real or fake, and this other guy got real mad because he thought Paul was hitting on his lady friend."

"Great," Brian sighed. "Only my own best friend would check out tits and corrupt my own son at the same time at a basketball game."

"The guy and Paul were fighting," Heath continued. "That's when we got evicted from the place. We went out to eat and then came home about the time you, Mom and Audi were due back from the baby shower, but since you guys weren't home yet, we hung out and watched movies until you called to find out where I was."

"If I'd known you two had been thrown out, I'd reamed his ass out while I was at it. Christ, can't even take my own kid on an outing without getting in trouble. No wonder Francesca bitches him out when their girls act up."

"It could have been worse," Heath shrugged. "Anyway, I'm going to bed."

"Me too," Audrey added. "I'm tired and I have to baby sit tomorrow. Anyway, Daddy, thanks for the laughs tonight. We should do it again sometime."

"Yeah," Brian nodded, "maybe when I'm ready for the old folks' home."