Chapter 1: The Opening
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Dick Boast
Dick Boast
Volume 1
Volume 1
Chapter 1: The Opening
Chapter 1: The Opening
By: Michael David Simmons
“Tricky” Dick Boast woke up already negotiating with the ceiling.
Not praying.
Not reflecting.
Negotiating.
He lay flat on his mattress, arms folded across his chest like a disgraced statue, staring up at the wobbling fan above him. The fan had three blades. One spun too slow. One clicked every fourth rotation. The third seemed emotionally absent.
Dick narrowed his eyes at it.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “You keep spinning, I keep not replacing you.”
The fan clicked.
Dick considered this an agreement.
His full name was Richard Boast, but nobody called him Richard except bill collectors, court documents, and one former substitute teacher who had whispered it like a curse after Dick accidentally started a cafeteria rumor about her being an undercover magician.
Everybody else called him “Tricky” Dick Boast.
He liked the nickname.
He believed it implied political cunning, masculine danger, and a certain cigarette-smoke mystique.
In reality, it mostly came from the fact that nobody trusted him around vending machines, women, unpaid tabs, shared appetizers, or any game that involved keeping score.
Dick sat up and scratched himself with the grim intensity of a man digging for buried treasure. The room smelled like old laundry, bargain cologne, and a strange confidence no scientist had yet been able to isolate.
On the wall across from his bed hung a poster he had made himself from a torn pizza box and black marker.
It read:
“TRICKY” DICK BOAST:
WINNER.
DEALMAKER.
OPENING DOORS.
CAN’T FAIL.
WON’T FAIL.
DIDN’T FAIL.
THE SYSTEM FAILED ME.
He tapped the poster with two fingers.
“Today,” he told it, “I open relations.”
The poster sagged.
Dick had recently become interested in “strategy.” Not the kind involving patience, study, or humility. The better kind. The kind where a man with no plan declared everything a masterstroke after the disaster had already happened.
He had spent the previous night watching half of a documentary before falling asleep with cheese dust on his chest. He remembered one thing clearly: sometimes a man could shake one hand, smile for the cameras, and change the whole world.
Dick took this personally.
“If history can do it,” he said, “so can I.”
He stood in front of the cracked mirror on his closet door. His hair looked like it had been argued into place by three different weather systems. His beard was patchy but ambitious. His eyes had the wild glow of a man who mistook anxiety for charisma.
He winked at himself.
The wink came out wrong.
It looked like his face had lost a bet.
“Easy, tiger,” he whispered.
Then he flexed.
Nothing impressive happened, but he made a sound anyway.
“Grrah.”
A vein rose on the side of his neck.
It always did that when he got excited, angry, embarrassed, hungry, corrected, contradicted, gently questioned, or asked to provide identification. A thick, ridiculous vein pushed up under the skin like a purple garden hose full of bad decisions.
Dick called it “command presence.”
His doctor called it “a warning.”
Tonight, command presence had a mission.
Taped to the front window of Mama Lurlene’s Wash-N-Fold was a flyer for Singles Suds Night, a laundromat mixer promising “clean clothes and meaningful connection.”
Dick had read the flyer seven times.
He had underlined meaningful connection twice.
A laundromat full of single women?
Forced to remain in one place while cycles completed?
Surrounded by symbols of renewal, cleansing, rotation, and fabric dependency?
To the average man, it was a local mixer.
To “Tricky” Dick Boast, it was a geopolitical opportunity.
He opened his drawer and selected his finest shirt: a black button-up with fake gold flames crawling up both sides. Three buttons were missing, which he considered a sign of relaxed power. The shirt smelled like it had survived something.
He sprayed it with body spray until the air became a crime scene.
Then he selected his lucky jeans.
They had a rip in the back pocket, a crusted stain near the knee, and a belt loop hanging by a thread like a tiny condemned prisoner.
“Still got it,” Dick said.
He did not define “it.”
By six-thirty, he was walking toward Mama Lurlene’s with a laundry basket tucked under one arm and a diplomatic mission tucked under the other. His clothes were dirty. His confidence was dirtier.
Every few steps, he practiced lines.
“Girl, are you detergent? Because you just cleaned up my foreign policy.”
No.
“Are you a washing machine? Because you got my whole world spinning.”
Possible.
“Are you an emerging market? Because I’m ready to outsource my heart.”
He stopped.
Even he felt something wrong with that one.
His stomach gave a warning gurgle.
Around attractive women, Dick’s body behaved like a broken factory under poor management. His nerves curdled. His pride overheated. His stomach rebelled. Sometimes, under pressure, he threw up a strange milky white substance that looked like spoiled confidence and cheap coffee creamer.
The first time it happened, he was seventeen. A girl named Tessa Marble smiled at him during a Valentine’s Day assembly. Dick opened his mouth to say, “Thank you,” and instead produced a pale splash of digestive panic onto the gym floor.
The school nurse called it stress.
The student body called it “The Boast Spill.”
Dick called it “a temporary strategic setback.”
It had happened several times since.
At a bank.
At a dentist.
Once during a perfume commercial.
He now carried napkins.
The laundromat glowed ahead, bright and buzzing, its windows fogged with heat and detergent. A banner hung over the entrance.
SINGLES SUDS NIGHT!
WASH, DRY, FLIRT!
Dick stopped outside, lifted his chin, and nodded to the door.
“Tonight,” he said, “the world opens.”
A woman behind him paused.
“Are you talking to the door?”
Dick turned.
She stood with a laundry basket balanced on one hip, calm as a treaty table. She had dark hair pulled back, sharp eyes, and the composed posture of someone who read instructions before pressing buttons. Her clothes were neat. Her shoes were clean. Her expression suggested she had never once microwaved fish in a public break room.
Dick’s brain caught fire.
His throat tightened.
His stomach bubbled.
Not now.
He leaned against the window and tried to smile.
The smile looked like he was concealing evidence.
“Baby,” he said, “are you a door? Because I’m looking for an opening.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“That is not a compliment.”
“It’s a historical gesture.”
“It’s a bad sentence.”
Dick chuckled too loudly.
“I’m Dick.”
“I heard you outside.”
“Good things?”
“No.”
“Still early.”
She shifted her basket.
“My name is Lian Xu.”
Dick repeated it carefully.
“Lian Xu.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a name with clean towels.”
“What?”
“You look like you own clean towels.”
“I own clean towels because I wash them.”
“Powerful.”
She stared at him for one long second.
Dick mistook the silence for diplomatic progress.
Then she walked around him and entered the laundromat.
He watched her go.
She had spoken to him.
She had given her name.
She had not screamed.
Historic.
Dick followed.
Inside, Mama Lurlene’s Wash-N-Fold had been transformed into romance by someone with a nine-dollar decoration budget and a dangerous amount of optimism. Plastic flowers sat on folding tables. Red paper hearts had been taped to washers. A bowl of candy sat beside a jar labeled CONVERSATION STARTERS. Soft jazz played from a speaker near the change machine, though every few seconds the music was interrupted by the heavy clunk of wet denim.
Mama Lurlene herself stood behind the counter in cat-eye glasses and a pink cardigan. Her name tag read:
LURLENE — ASK ME ABOUT STAIN REMOVAL AND SECOND CHANCES.
She saw Dick and immediately lowered her glasses.
“Richard Boast.”
He spread his arms.
“History has arrived.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Still upset about last time?”
“You washed one sock, a hamburger wrapper, and a live frog.”
“First of all, the frog came out cleaner.”
“The frog belonged to a child.”
“Clean child, clean frog, clean community.”
Mama Lurlene pointed at him.
“I’m watching you.”
“Great leaders are often watched.”
“Great leaders usually pay for damages.”
Dick moved toward an empty washer, his basket bumping his hip. His walk was halfway between a saunter and a man trying to keep his jeans from falling down.
Lian Xu stood at the machine beside his. She sorted whites from colors with quiet precision.
Dick watched this with awe.
Order.
Discipline.
Long-term planning.
All things he intended to acquire by proximity.
He dumped his laundry into his washer without sorting anything. A sock bounced out and landed near Lian’s shoe.
The sock stood upright.
Lian looked down.
Then up.
“Is that sock standing?”
Dick kicked it back into the basket.
“Strong domestic production.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He shoved clothes into the washer. He did not check pockets. He did not read labels. He did not examine settings. He poured detergent until the machine looked frightened.
Lian measured hers exactly to the line inside the cap.
Dick leaned toward her.
“You always follow the instructions?”
“Yes.”
“What about instinct?”
“Instinct is how people ruin sweaters.”
He nodded like she had confirmed a theory.
“You’re disciplined.”
“You’re overfilling your washer.”
“I’m investing heavily in cleanliness.”
“You’re creating a bubble crisis.”
“I prefer the term growth.”
Lian closed her washer.
Dick slapped the start button on his machine.
It beeped.
Nothing happened.
He slapped it again.
Another beep.
Mama Lurlene called from the counter, “You have to put quarters in it.”
Dick looked at the coin slot.
“Obviously.”
It was not obvious.
He approached the change machine and dug into his pocket. He pulled out two crumpled dollars, a receipt for chicken wings, three bottle caps, and a screw that did not appear to belong to anything he owned.
He inserted the first dollar.
Rejected.
He smoothed it against his thigh and tried again.
Rejected.
The machine hummed.
Dick leaned close.
“Listen here, metallic communist.”
Mama Lurlene snapped, “Do not start politics with my change machine.”
“It started by rejecting American currency.”
“You put the dollar in upside down.”
A young man in a polo shirt stepped forward carefully.
“You have to turn it the other way.”
Dick slowly turned toward him.
The young man stepped back.
Dick flipped the dollar.
The machine accepted it immediately and dumped quarters into the tray.
A few people clapped.
Not much.
Just enough to wound him.
Dick scooped up the quarters with the dignity of a fallen empire pretending the retreat was intentional.
Back at his washer, he fed the machine and pressed start.
Water rushed in.
The clothes began to turn.
Dick watched the spin with deep seriousness.
In the glass, colors mixed into a grayish blur. Whites touched darks. Socks collided with shirts. Loose receipts dissolved. A napkin became pulp. Everything turned together, losing distinction, losing shape, becoming one damp spinning argument.
Dick smiled.
“Amalgamation,” he whispered.
Lian glanced over.
“What did you say?”
“I said I believe in connection.”
“That is not what you said.”
“Same family.”
She read one of the paper conversation starters from the jar.
Dick leaned in.
“What does yours say?”
Lian looked at the slip.
“What is something you are proud of?”
Dick puffed his chest.
“Easy. My resilience.”
“Against what?”
“Women, employers, gym memberships, unpaid parking tickets, rotating doors, and once a dog.”
“A dog rejected you?”
“It refused my energy.”
“That sounds wise.”
Dick placed a hand over his heart.
“I’ve been misunderstood by every institution I’ve ever touched.”
“Maybe you keep touching the wrong way.”
The sentence landed so cleanly that Dick nearly respected it.
His stomach bubbled again.
Lian was not flirting like he expected. She did not play along. She did not gasp at his swagger. She did not treat his ridiculousness as power. She simply observed him, corrected him, and continued existing with terrifying stability.
Dick found this intolerable.
He also found it fascinating.
Mama Lurlene clapped her hands.
“All right, singles! Time for three-minute laundry dates. Rotate when the dryer buzzes!”
People gathered at the folding tables. Name tags were passed around.
Dick wrote:
“TRICKY” DICK BOAST — WINNER
Then, beneath that:
OPEN TO TALKS
He stuck the tag to his chest crookedly.
His first date was a dental hygienist named Marcy.
She smiled politely.
“So,” she said, “what do you do?”
Dick had prepared for this.
“Currently, I’m between empires.”
“Empires?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of work are you looking for?”
“Leadership. Influence. Security. Entertainment. Maybe motivational speaking for troubled youth and men with haters.”
“That’s broad.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Marcy nodded.
“That’s nice.”
Dick leaned forward.
“Marcy, are you toothpaste?”
Her smile froze.
“Because you brighten my—”
The dryer buzzed.
Mama Lurlene shouted, “Rotate!”
Marcy stood with the speed of a woman evacuating a chemical spill.
The next woman was named Kiki. She wore glitter eyeliner and had the bored patience of someone who had survived worse men in louder shirts.
Dick cracked his knuckles.
“Kiki,” he said, “are you a parking ticket? Because you got fine written all over you.”
“That line is older than my uncle’s grill.”
“I’m warming up.”
“Don’t.”
“Are you a microwave burrito? Because you’re hot in the middle and dangerous if handled wrong.”
Kiki turned toward Mama Lurlene.
“Can I rotate early?”
“No,” Mama Lurlene said. “You signed the waiver.”
Dick grinned.
Kiki leaned across the table.
“Do you know what your problem is?”
“I intimidate joy?”
“You perform confidence instead of having a personality.”
The words hit him.
Not in the face.
Somewhere worse.
For half a second, the laundromat noise softened. Washers churned in the background. Dryers hummed. The red paper hearts fluttered slightly in the air-conditioned breeze.
Perform confidence.
Dick almost asked her what she meant.
Then pride shoved vulnerability into a closet and locked it from the outside.
“My personality is elite,” he said.
“Your name tag says winner.”
“Exactly.”
“Winners don’t usually have to label themselves.”
The dryer buzzed.
“Rotate!”
Kiki left.
Dick’s neck vein pulsed, smaller now, confused rather than furious.
Then Lian Xu sat across from him.
The table felt suddenly official.
Not romantic.
Official.
Like there should have been flags behind them and translators pretending not to judge him.
Lian placed her folded hands on the table.
“Please do not ask if I am detergent.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“I evolved.”
“Good.”
Dick swallowed.
This was the main event. The opening. The handshake. The moment after years of isolation when one man crossed the room and mistook access for destiny.
He tried to say something normal.
The effort caused visible strain.
“So,” he said, “what brought you to Singles Suds Night?”
Lian looked surprised.
“That is almost a real question.”
“I have layers.”
“Like an onion?”
“Like a victory parfait.”
She considered him.
“I moved back to town for work. Long hours. It is difficult to meet people in normal places.”
“This is normal?”
“No. But it has lights, chairs, and candy.”
“Fair.”
“What about you?” she asked.
Dick looked down at his hands.
They were rough, a little dirty around the nails. He curled them beneath the table.
“I want love,” he said.
The words escaped before he could decorate them.
Lian’s expression softened slightly.
Not much.
But enough.
Dick panicked.
Honesty had exposed its pale belly. Dangerous. He rushed to cover it with something shiny and stupid.
“I mean, obviously many women desire the Boast experience. But I am selective. I don’t just open relations with anybody. I need mutual benefit, admiration, maybe tribute.”
Lian’s face closed again.
“Tribute?”
“Emotionally.”
“That does not make it better.”
“I mean partnership.”
“You said tribute.”
“I was workshopping.”
Lian leaned back.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Ruin your own sentences.”
Dick opened his mouth.
No line came.
Around them, machines churned. People laughed. Candy wrappers crackled. Mama Lurlene refilled the conversation jar.
“I don’t know,” Dick said.
It was the truest thing he had said all night.
Lian studied him.
“Maybe you think if you make yourself ridiculous first, nobody else can expose you.”
Dick blinked.
His neck vein throbbed once.
“That sounds expensive.”
“It is free.”
“Then I don’t trust it.”
For a second, Lian almost smiled.
Then Dick’s washer exploded.
Not fully.
Not legally.
But enough.
The machine lurched forward with a heavy bang. Foam belched from the lid. Thick white bubbles poured over the sides and spread across the tile like an uprising. A pair of underwear slapped against the glass door from inside, desperate and trapped.
Mama Lurlene screamed, “What did you put in there?”
“Clothes!”
“How much detergent?”
“A growth-oriented amount!”
The machine bucked again.
Foam surged.
People jumped back.
The jazz speaker toppled into a basket. Someone slipped and shouted a word Mama Lurlene would later pretend not to hear.
Dick ran toward the washer, hit the soap-slick floor, and lost contact with reality.
His feet flew up.
His arms windmilled.
For one glorious second, he achieved the closest thing to flight his life had ever offered.
Then he crashed onto his back and slid across the tile, passing three washers, two folding tables, and Lian Xu’s shoes.
The room went silent.
Foam clung to his hair.
A pink sock rested on his forehead.
His name tag had shifted from his chest to his chin, so it now looked like his jaw had declared itself:
“TRICKY” DICK BOAST — WINNER
OPEN TO TALKS
The neck vein rose.
Huge.
Purple.
Throbbing.
Historic.
He sat up slowly.
Everyone stared.
Outside the window, a child pointed at him.
Dick felt heat flood his face. The old heat. The dangerous heat. The kind that came before shouting, blaming, bragging, rewriting history, and insisting the collapse had been a planned maneuver.
He wanted to yell at the washer.
He wanted to accuse Mama Lurlene of sabotage.
He wanted to declare victory over foam.
Instead, he saw Lian covering her mouth.
Not in disgust.
Not exactly.
She was trying not to laugh.
Then she failed.
A small laugh escaped.
Then Kiki laughed.
Then Marcy.
Then Mama Lurlene, against her own better judgment.
Soon the laundromat was laughing.
Not kindly.
But not entirely cruelly either.
Dick sat in the foam, breathing hard. His vein pulsed like a warning light. His stomach lurched.
No.
Not now.
The laughter, the women, the humiliation, Lian’s smile, the spinning machine, the detergent cloud, the impossible burden of being “Tricky” Dick Boast in public—it all rose inside him at once.
He grabbed for his napkin.
Too late.
He leaned forward and threw up a milky white splash directly into the detergent foam.
The laundromat went silent again.
The bubbles made a sad popping noise.
Mama Lurlene whispered, “Lord have mercy.”
Dick wiped his mouth.
Nobody moved.
Then Kiki picked up a clean towel and tossed it to him.
“Clean yourself up, winner.”
The word should have hurt.
It did hurt.
But there was something almost useful underneath it.
Dick caught the towel.
Lian crouched a careful distance away, avoiding the foam.
“Are you okay?”
His first instinct was to say something enormous.
Something fake.
Something that would turn failure into strategy.
I meant to do that.
Powerful men foam.
This is how empires rinse.
Instead, he looked at the ruined washer, the spreading bubbles, the silent crowd, and the sock still clinging to his forehead.
“I may have opened too much,” he said.
Lian nodded.
“Yes.”
“I thought opening was winning.”
“Opening is only opening.”
“That sounds like a trap.”
“It is reality.”
Mama Lurlene arrived with a mop and pointed it at him like a royal scepter.
“You are cleaning this entire floor.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And paying for the washer inspection.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you are banned from using more than one cap of detergent.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And stop scratching yourself in my establishment.”
Dick froze.
“I was not—”
Everyone looked at him.
He slowly lowered his hand.
“Yes, ma’am.”
For the next forty minutes, “Tricky” Dick Boast mopped foam while Singles Suds Night continued around him. People returned to conversation. Machines spun. Clothes dried. Candy disappeared. The jazz speaker resumed playing with the calm indifference of history.
As Dick pushed the mop back and forth, he watched the room.
He saw people making small agreements.
A smile for a story.
A phone number for a promise.
A laugh exchanged for a little honesty.
Nothing grand.
Nothing televised.
No banners.
No declarations.
Just ordinary exchange.
The kind that required listening.
The kind that could not be forced by calling yourself a winner.
Lian stayed until her clothes were dry.
Before leaving, she walked over to where Dick was wringing out the mop.
“You were almost normal earlier,” she said.
He leaned on the handle.
“For how long?”
“Twelve seconds.”
“My personal record.”
“You should try for thirteen.”
“Is that romantic advice?”
“No. Strategic advice.”
He nodded.
Then, with visible effort, said nothing else.
No line.
No wink.
No fake growl.
Just silence.
Lian seemed to notice.
“Goodnight, Tricky Dick.”
“Goodnight, Lian Xu.”
She left.
The bell above the door jingled.
Dick watched her through the window as she walked across the parking lot, carrying her clean laundry into a world that had not yet banned her from any major appliances.
Mama Lurlene appeared beside him.
“You like that woman?”
Dick gripped the mop.
“I respect her position.”
Mama Lurlene stared.
He sighed.
“Yes.”
“She has sense.”
“I noticed.”
“You are not ready for a woman with sense.”
“I noticed that too.”
Mama Lurlene inspected the floor.
“Keep cleaning.”
He did.
By the time the laundromat closed, his shirt was soaked, his jeans smelled like wet thunder, and his pride had been folded, dried, and shrunk two sizes too small.
He walked home beneath the moon with his laundry basket on his hip. Most of his clothes were still dirty. One sock was missing. His lucky jeans had gained a new rip. His throat burned. His stomach felt haunted.
But something strange had happened.
For twelve seconds, he had told the truth.
For twelve seconds, he had not been a winner, a dealmaker, a historic opening, or a man standing at the center of world affairs.
He had simply been lonely.
That was harder than swagger.
Harder than lying.
Harder than performing confidence under fluorescent lights while a washer exposed the whole foolish system.
Dick stopped beneath a streetlamp and looked up at the night sky.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “I renegotiate myself.”
A car passed.
Someone inside shouted, “Wash your neck!”
The vein rose instantly.
“MY NECK IS A TEMPLE!”
His shout echoed down the street.
A dog barked.
A porch light clicked off.
Dick exhaled.
Progress, he decided, was not a straight line.
It was more like a washing machine overloaded with detergent: loud, unstable, humiliating, and likely to require adult supervision.
Still, he walked on.
Because “Tricky” Dick Boast was a loser.
Because “Tricky” Dick Boast wanted love.
Because “Tricky” Dick Boast believed he could open any door, shake any hand, spin any failure, and call the whole mess destiny.
Said sarcastically, of course.
And somewhere behind him, in Mama Lurlene’s Wash-N-Fold, a single stiff sock remained standing in the corner like a monument to every bad deal he had ever made with himself.
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