Exciting news everyone - American Grunt is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and a few other sites in both paperback and eBook editions! 

And honestly, it wouldn't have happened without all of you. You all bought a book that you wouldn't receive for nine months without any recommendations or reviews or assurances that it'd be any good. And because of that, a great publisher became interested. So I just want to once again say thank you. I will always, always appreciate your kindness and generosity.

Ballast has the list of addresses and I'm meeting with them later this week to discuss the initial print run and distribution/order fulfillment for the books you all ordered. 

Here's one more cut story about washing rental cars that I hated to leave out, but it was similar enough to a few others that made the final manuscript that I decided to slash it.

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I normally left work at 6:00. At 7:30, I drove back with our final car, absolutely fried from the twelve-hour pre-holiday circus I’d just endured. As soon as I stepped in the door, my manager, a thirty-year old new mom named Jamie gives me the puppy dog eyes from behind the counter. I remembered that look from Allie and Cindy all those years ago. If the manager was resorting to flirting with her car prep, nothing good was going to follow.

“Cramer, I know it’s been a long day,” she said, “but we have one more pickup.”

“Ah, Jesus, Jamie, it’s after seven o’clock.”

“No, it’s fine. You don’t have to do it. It’s just that everyone else went home and I’m the only one here and this woman is stranded on the side of the road in Penn Hills with her three-month old baby. But go home. It’s ok. Don’t worry about the tiny little infant that’s cold and shivering.”

I grunted and stuck my hand out for the keys. The last vehicle on our lot was a giant Chevy Suburban, which I drove fifteen minutes down the Parkway to meet this poor lady and her child who were stranded in front of the Dunkin’ Donuts. Truthfully, I was anticipating a woman who looked like a Latvian refugee desperately trying to protect a newborn from the elements. Upon seeing me show up, she’d smile and with a calm breath of exhausted gratitude say, “Thank you. I know it’s late, but you saved us, sir.”

The woman who smashed open the door to the Dunkin' Donuts was not that person. She was in her late 40’s and had the voice of a cigarette. She had a three-month old baby all right. What nobody mentioned were her seven other kids. Before I even got to ask her any questions, she yells, “Someone shoot me in the fuckin’ head!” And her other kids materialized like goblins. All of them were between three and ten except for a fourteen-year old girl who you could immediately tell was counting down the seconds until she could legally escape.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s get everyone loaded in. There should be enough seats for…”

“I ain’t going nowhere!” the woman yelled. “My husband is on his way from the South Hills because you assholes won’t let me rent a car without showing my driver’s license!”

Of course. Why would you have to prove you bought a ticket to the concert when the venue can just take your word for it? But she assured me that her husband was only five minutes away, so I sat in the Suburban watching her boys sack-tap each other in the parking lot. Meanwhile the teenage girl snuck into the backseat in an attempt to find a quiet place to read a book.

“Don’t tell my mom I’m in here,” she said with quiet desperation.

I gave the girl a silent thumbs up as she curled up trying to hide. Five minutes went by. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. And I’m still there waiting on this dude to show up with his wife’s license. At twenty minutes I finally got fed up and told the lady, “Hey, I was supposed to be off work two and a half hours ago. Call your husband and tell him to meet you at our office.”

“Well he’s not going to be happy about that! Oh, he’s gonna throw a absolute fit!”

“Look, I’m leaving,” I snapped back. “You can come with me or not.”

This led to a cussing cascade and an eventual mass transfer of all the kids’ stuff from the back of their broken down van into the Suburban – a process that took another fifteen minutes while the mom is screaming for her daughter, who is sinking lower and lower in the back seat to avoid detection. Finally, the mom sees her and yells, “Crystal, get your ass out here and help!”

“But mom, I have homework.”

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt as sorry for anyone as I did when her mom answered, “Fuck your homework, get these boxes of Kool-Aid out of the van and put them in the rental!” And the girl died inside and slunk out of the seat to go carry snacks while her brothers punched each other.

Forty-five minutes after I arrived, all of the kids were finally in their seats, all their precious cargo had been transferred, and I graciously pulled out onto the road. I’d gotten about fifty feet when the woman yelled, “Oh shit! Go back! Go back!” I pulled over and put the hazards on, assuming she’d had a Home Alone moment and left one of her kids behind. But nope. This woman was the devil. “I forgot my gun!”

Before I could say, “Uh-no,” and throw it into drive, the woman slammed the door open and hustled through the parking lot to retrieve it. This left me two options. One, I could either drive off and risk eight counts of kidnapping - or I could roll down the Parkway next to a crazy bitch with a pistol. I chose option number two. Maybe she’d just shoot me and put me out of my misery.

The entire ride back the baby is screaming bloody murder and the woman is shouting, “Crystal, you have the bottle! Feed the fucking baby!” as Crystal is desperately trying to finish a book report. Meanwhile her brothers are singing Jingle Bells Batman Smells and the one creepy six-year old is just shrieking, “Everyone suck on your wieners! Suck on your wieners!” I seriously thought about taking one for the team and accelerating into a bridge abutment. When we got back, she told the kids to stay in the car and stormed into the office to meet her agitated husband.

Guess who left her gun on the front seat with the kids inside? 

Unfortunately, none of them found it. 

(Wait, I meant fortunately. Fortunately. Not sure why I put that prefix in there. Total accident. Just a run of the mill typo.)

As a side note, I’d give anything to find out that four years later, unbeknownst to her family, Crystal got a full ride to Dartmouth, bought a bus ticket to New Hampshire and never looked back. And her mom didn’t find out until no one was around to move the Capri Suns.

When I walked in the office, I kept my eyes down just in case Jamie was trying to puppy dog me again. I slapped the keys on the counter as I slid toward the back exit.

“Cramer, I know it’s really, really late but is there any way you could…”

“No,” I answered. And I didn’t turn around until I’d gotten home.