Chapter Text
“You’ve managed to get through life this far without knowing how to read, so why now?” Dee asked Charlie one night after he cornered her at Paddy’s, muttering something about needing her help so low she told him to, “Speak the fuck up.”
“Because it might make a difference.”
“Difference? What difference? Are you trying to get another job?” Not that she would blame him. Dee would’ve bolted years ago if it wasn’t for her self-destructive co-dependent relationship with the gang. That’s what her therapist called it anyway. Whatever that meant. The bitch.
“No, no, not a new job, but for the waitress,” he explained leaning over the counter Dee stood behind. “If I could read it might make me more attractive. Educated. You know, girls like that smart stuff.” He paused to affect an accent like maybe he was going for British, but it came out sounding all wrong. Anyway, she could’ve done it so much better. “I want to be a dapper gentleman about town, one worthy of m’lady the waitress’s hand.”
God not the waitress again. Dee rolled her eyes and sighed. “Charlie, you don’t actually think …” But she stopped herself because whatever seemed like a rational idea to her was probably the exact opposite for him. Might as well let Charlie live in fantasyland while she milked this for all she could. “And what exactly do I get out of helping you learn to read?” Dee asked.
“The satisfaction of helping someone you care about?” Charlie offered with one of those earnest-looking grins she just knew would be full of shit on any other guy. With Charlie though, he had a strange habit of usually saying precisely what he meant. Even when it made no sense.
“Try again,” she replied while taking a drink of the beer that was meant for the customer sitting on a nearby stool. With a sideways glance, Dee saw the old guy was busy talking with someone and quickly swiped her sleeve across the rim, removing her saliva. Good as new.
“I’ll uh, write you a song then.”
“Huh?” Dee looked up at Charlie, already having forgotten why he was there. Oh yeah, the reading thing.
“For you. I’ll write you a song.”
“Oohhh,” she said, drawing out the word before ending it on a hard, “Uh, no.”
“Come on, Dee,” Charlie whined. “I can’t ask the guys.”
“Why, ‘cause you’re embarrassed they’ll make fun of you? I promise I would be just as bad, if not worse.”
“No, because they’ll just make it all about themselves like they always do and I won’t learn anything. You’re the only one who’s got nothing going on.”
Dee scoffed, but wasn’t able to quickly counter his claim with a lie before some guy came up and accused her of taking too long. Rude! “Too long at what?” she shot back.
“Uh, I think he paid for the beer.” Charlie pointed at the bottle she’d been nursing for the last five minutes.
“Heh, I knew that.” She snorted, and offered the man a new drink after deciding another swipe of her sleeve wouldn’t get her out of this one.
“So how ‘bout it? Wanna teach your old friend some new tricks?” Charlie said after the customer walked away.
Dee finished her beer with one long chug and set it down. “Alright,” she finally relented. “But I want a good song, nothing about spiders, okay. I want it to be about me.” Charlie nodded enthusiastically and clapped his hands causing Dee to narrow her gaze. “And no mentions of birds either.”
His face fell, but he rebounded quickly. “No birds. No spiders. Only Dee. And you’ll teach me to read?”
Sure. Why not? She could treat it as a joke. Well, maybe not a joke, but it definitely would make her laugh. And really, how could she turn down the chance to hear a grown man learning how to read. It was so degrading. So humiliating. So much more interesting than her current life. Charlie was right; she really didn’t have anything going on.
“Yes, Charlie,” Dee sighed. “I will try to teach you how to read.”
He pumped his fist but lowered it after hearing Dennis arguing with Mac as they walked through the front door. “And let’s just keep this between us, okay?” Charlie said, his eyes darting towards them and then back to Dee.
“Wait a minute. I thought you weren’t embarrassed,” she replied.
“I’m not. Not about learning to read. Just that I’ll be hanging out with you so much.”
Dee made a high-pitched offended noise. “Forget the lessons then.”
Charlie frowned and ran a hand over his beard a few times. “Fine, okay. I am embarrassed,” he admitted with a defeated sigh after sinking down onto a stool. “I’d rather they make fun of me for being illiterate than taking lessons. And you know they’ll pull you into it too. Call you names, like teacher bird and I’m your little baby bird and you’re gonna show me how to fly and spread my birdy wings.” He made flapping gestures with his fingers and Dee slammed them down onto the bar with her hands.
“Enough with the bird stuff, Charlie.”
He gave one of his shoulders a little shrug and tugged his hands out from under hers. “Look, I’m just trying to protect you. And me. But mostly you.”
Dee glanced at her brother who was busy shaking his head while watching Mac demonstrate some less than stellar karate moves that upended one of the table stools. “Goddammit, Mac,” Dennis griped and picked up the fallen piece of furniture. “There is no such thing as dance-karate. And if there is, you’re awful at it.”
“And really Dee, it’s kinda your fault anyway.”
She swung her gaze back to Charlie. “What?”
“You know, what with doing all my school work for me when we were kids,” he reminded her.
The memories were old, but still fresh enough that she was able to see hazy images of them in her head. Charlie handing her a thermos filled with whiskey stolen from his mom, a typed up essay for him in return. High school had been traumatic for them both, but somehow they’d forged a system of survival. With alcohol, she could dull her sadness over being ostracized as the aluminum monster and he’d be able to stay in school because she kept him from failing.
“You were the one that came and found me asking for my help. It’s what you wanted,” Dee countered, shaking her head to pull herself back into the present. “Take some responsibility for your own actions.”
“Well, I am. Let’s fix this Charlie you created. The one who can’t read good.”
Dee decided not to correct his grammar mistake; only reading was in her contract. Actually they didn’t have a contract. Not yet anyway. She’d have to write one out tonight, otherwise he might try to get out of writing her a song, and if that’s all she was earning, she sure as hell would get it. Leaning forward, Dee lowered her voice to avoid the rest of the gang from hearing. “Okay, next time we both have off, we’ll meet at my place and you’ll get your first lesson.”
“The aluminum monster and dirtgrub together again.” Charlie smiled brightly, and Dee didn’t have the heart to berate him for calling her that awful nickname. Not when he seemed so happy.
So she just answered with an apathetic, “Yeah, whatever,” before leaving to get a closer look at Mac’s ridiculous karate dancing.