Ernie is an ex-con and a janitor.
Descriptions
Ernie was in his late forties and kinda dirty — everybody said he smoked crack, but he told Anthony he’d been clean two years. He was bizarre though, and he had powerful arms. Anthony really wanted to touch his biceps, which seemed bigger than he was — Ernie was short, especially for a black guy, and everybody called him skinny. He wasn’t, he was more ropy.
A ropy-muscled black man pushed in. He snarled at Graham or perhaps he just snarled in general and Graham was the nearest possible target. He had a swayey way of standing — drunk, most likely, maybe on something harsher. His face was harsh too, perpetually in shadow even though the closet was well lit by the bare bulb overhead.
From Graham the Lover
Except for Ernie, of course. He was the janitor, and he slept in a little backroom. He was a dim older black man, short, scrawny but powerful and punchy, darkskin, early 50s, mustache and scruff combined, sunk eyes, like a lump of coal got turned into a bodybuilder but ran out of magic a third of the way through.
Ernie held a bottle of malt liquor in one hand and a mop in the other. He wore only a sleeveless tee shirt that was much too large for him. It probably fit him when it was new and he was more muscular, some twenty years ago. But he was wiry now, and he sloshed around drunkenly like the mop was keeping him upright.
From Wayne the Ex-Cop
Ernie was the janitor, and Simon was scared of him.
He was black, middle-aged and beardy, with a wild streak and a crack addiction. Ernie didn’t even live in a house, he lived in a shelter, or that was what the dancers said anyway. He was skinny but wiry, with withered muscles, meager joints and cracked, blistered skin, dark brown like rotting wood by nature but ashy-gray, chapped and chafed in parts.
A lot of times, he was ranting about people following him, and he had been caught smoking crack at Lipsweet once. Simon once spied him in an alley stabbing shadows and shouting at invisible attackers. That was why Simon was intimidated by him.
Ernie’s sudsy arms were somehow both muscular and scrawny, and his salt and pepper hair was threadbare. He had a sandpapery voice, which was hushing under something vituperative about the cooks cleaning up the stovetops and countertops nearby.
From Desmond Seeks Alphas
Ernie was a helter-skelter kinda homeboy, all ropy limbs and taut muscles. He was skinny as diet pie though.
From Buck the Dumbass
Teddy’s had never liked being around the janitor — it didn’t surprise him to learn that Ernie smoked crack. He often acted erratically, with jumpy, jerky movements. He was jet-black, lean and ropy-muscled, gruff, with a deep voice and a raspy tone. He often talked to the girls even though they made it clear they thought he was gross, and he openly played with himself sometimes until Buck told him to quit it.
From Aroused by Ex-Cons
He was a middle-aged man, wiry, slim, balding, ashy and gray, with a dense kinky beard that looked and smelled like a rat nest. His lean and lanky body got a jangly gait and a half-kneed way of carrying hisself, like his joints was falling apart. His chest was pulled tight and taut, pockmarked with sores. His skinny fingers was thickly callused and scorched from smoking crack with improvised materials. He smelled like a wet dog… He had a rough-tinged voice, like his throat was clogged with razorblades and the words got cut up on they way out… He walked like a hobo, all janky and jittery, slooped and stoopy, one leg drooping like drapes, the other stiff as steel. His sunken eyes was yellowed like a stray cat… His wiry body tottered, his kinky beard hairs absorbing the sound of his harsh, heavy breathing.
From Tyrell the Ex-Con
Ernie was a brother, dark as a park at night, ropy like a sac of string, squatting like a long-timer and sipping sips outta bottle of malt liquor.
Ernie was the janitor, and he was a dirty drunk, that was the problem. He ain’t even try to act proper. He was a middle-aged black man, short and balding and both scrawny and powerfully built somehow, and he was always — always — piss-drunk. He usually smelled like either whiskey or urine. Tonight, it was whiskey.
“How’sh you rawckin’, Rrrrrrawcky?” Ernie said, cracking up at his own joke like he ain’t said that a million times before. He stood there with a mop and a mop bucket, and it was obvious as hell he ain’t been doing no mopping. He was looking to peep on the waitresses, most certainly. He got dingle-brown pants on, scuffed and tore up and marked with gray and pale bleach stains. His hat was offside. He looked like he was proud of being a rotgut drunk. “You one stocky boxer, Rocky-” He was rapping drunkenly now. “Flocks of talky niggas balkin’.” He play-punched Rocky in the belly. “Box wit’ me, foxy Rocky, c’mon.”
From Rocky the Ex-Con
He had met Ernie Collard days ago, when he first arrived. Ernie was a hobo, that was clear. He had been locked up for a couple years, but he still had that wild hobo beard, gray-streaked and patchy in parts, and he still had a jabby half-fro of thinning unkempt frizzle. He was kind of skinny but had a little paunch and long ropy arms. His body was pockmarked with old sores and wrinkled cellulite, skin deep brown but with rashes of gray on his knees and elbows and chin.
The other guys treated Ernie strangely, that was why he had caught Buck’s attention. Sometimes they treated him like they hated him, like he was a disgusting rapist or something. They tripped him, made him the butt of jokes and forced him to do their laundry. But then another time, Buck saw Jamal Bradshaw bring him a fruit cup for seemingly no reason, even though Jamal had slapped him in line after lunch (also for seemingly no reason).
From The Redneck Ex-Con
Content
- The worst thing a man can do to a woman is respond to her provocationsThat was the whole point of filling a cantina with beautiful women in skimpy clothes, after all. They were here to tantalize and tease. Ernie was a deadbeat not because he stared but because he did not hide it. The worst thing a man can do to a woman is respond to her provocations.
Pictures
