Blood Drips from the Drunken Pen

Bathroom

2011-06-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

Bathroom

Chloe complains about the bathroom. She complains about this room. I keep hoping that we’ll leave here and go outside. Chloe keeps promising to show me the bust of Rodin’s Balzac. She says that it sits where Boulevard Raspail meets Boulevard du Montparnasse. Boulevard Raspail makes me think of Hemingway writing The Sun Also Rises. I tell Chloe that I would like to go and see the bust. I tell her that I would like to visit the Rodin Museum and the Musee Picasso, and take a long walk along the Left Bank. We have not seen the Seine yet. Chloe has but that was years ago. She says that we will go. We will go to the museums and we will walk along the Seine. Chloe says that I will love crepes. A big man like you, she says, as I hold her cigarette while she smears Camembert on an old baguette; a big man like you will enjoy crepes. We will get crepes, Chloe says. But we have not left the room.

Chloe uses the bathroom and she complains. She says that she cannot use the bathroom in a room as small as this one. She says this to me because I booked the room and I chose to stay here. I did not know it would be as small as it is. Chloe says that I can hear her piss and shit. I tell her that I can’t and when she goes into the bathroom to do either, I turn on the television to the BBC World News, and I keep the volume up. Someone pounds on the wall of the room whenever Chloe uses the bathroom, but I am helpless. I do not want her to think that I can hear. I do not want to hear her. It is enough of a fantasy for me to imagine Chloe wiping her cunt after she pisses. I think of her squat with childlike embarrassment on the toilet bowl, skirt pulled up and panties at the ankles, legs pressed together, and one hand between them. I think of Chloe like that and it is enough.

I use the bathroom whenever Chloe is finished. She lights a cigarette and tells me that I am disgusting. What if I’d taken a shit? She asks. What if? I tell her that I cannot help it. I tell her that I’d like to leave the room when I am done in the bathroom. I have addresses in my bag, I tell Chloe, as she glares at me and smokes. I have the addresses where writers and painters lived. We can see where Picasso painted Guernica, I tell her. We can see where Beckett lived and where Henry Miller stayed. Chloe says that she has already been to Villa Seurat. But that was years ago. She says that she will take me to La Rotonde after we’ve seen the Balzac bust. Your precious Picasso drank at La Rotonde, Chloe says, between drags her on cigarette. She takes a bite on the old baguette. There is Camembert on the corner of Chloe’s mouth. I will not tell her about it. I go into the bathroom and the toilet seat is up. Chloe always leaves the toilet seat up when she is finished. She is like a man in this way. I want to say something to her about it. She will do nothing but shrug as I speak. Chloe will look at me and smoke her cigarette. When I am done speaking she will tell me that a big man like me will enjoy crepes. Then Chloe will complain about the bathroom again.

...give me just a little more time

2011-06-01T07:37:00.000-07:00

dear few of you actually reading Edwin Balder

sorry for the delay. was in Madrid and then
had a visit from the folks. also, need to go back
and read what i've written so far in order to continue
posting a very very very rough draft of The Life and Times
of Edwin Balder in the Real World.

so....most likely i'll be back with more Balder some time
next week.

JG

...On a break

2011-05-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

Blood Drips will be on a break until Tuesday,
May 24th.

Let ‘Em In

2011-05-09T03:54:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder was lying on his bed when he heard his doorbell ring. He made no move to get it. Edwin’s doorbell had ringed a few times over the last three weeks that he’d been holed up in his apartment, and he’d gotten used to the sound. Of course, most of the rings were not for him, but were people on the outside ringing the wrong apartment, or food delivery men who’d gotten confused. The exterminator had ringed twice in the same Saturday, which had been the day’s highlight for Edwin. Lawson rang once one week and then twice the next week, but he hadn’t come by to ring at all this last week of solitude, before Edwin had to get it together and get back to work, back to life, back to being Edwin Balder in a world that belonged to the Life and Times of Edward Bedoor in the Real World.

The phone had ringed as well, but Edwin let the answering machine get. Mr. Owen Chase had called a couple of times, inquiring where Edwin had been. His first phone call was full of compassion and concern, but the second was a tad bit more irritated and direct. Chase mentioned something about being AWOL which Edwin, half drunk on scotch while lying on his couch, unwashed and unshaven, covered in a pile of old McSweeny’s, thought quite amusing. How could one be AWOL from an office job? It wasn’t as if they were in Iraq or Afghanistan. Edwin pictured fat old Owen Chase trudging through the desert wearing fatigues and toting a machine gun, and the mental image made him laugh. Imagine the amount of sweat, he thought. Would Chase still be able to assault the McDonald’s Dollar Menu in Kabul? Then Edwin thought that if he and Owen Chase were in the military together, he’d frag that man for sure.

Mary rang and Edwin took the call soon after she started speaking into the answering machine. The folks in HR at the Insert-Massive-Conglomerate-Here Invoicing Company had offered him leave for mental exhaustion and stress over the coming office closure. Mary had filed the paperwork and Lawson had forged Edwin’s name, she said. Edwin didn’t speak. Mary told him that the kind folks in HR were nervous and worried about lawsuits as this juncture, and that they simply wanted to cover all pertinent bases with their employees. Mary told Edwin and his answering machine that the kind, generous folks at HR were sending additional paperwork should Edwin need to take part in the free family counseling offered as a benefit to employees of the Insert-Massive-Conglomerate-Here Invoicing Company. Mary told Edwin that he’d have to return to work in three weeks or take part in the Family Leave Act. Edwin thanked Sour Bear for all of her help, and hung up the phone. Then he went to the post office and canceled his mail for three weeks, before stopping at the Liquor store to buy a case of Duncan’s Scotch Blend in 1.75ml plastic bottles, and hitting the grocery store for a mother-load of Hot Pockets, boxed macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles, and pizza squares.

The doorbell rang again and something told Edwin to get it. The exterminator wasn’t due for another week, and it was an odd hour of the day to be ordering food. It couldn’t be Molly Brown, as they had not spoken since that fateful day in the city. They passed each other in the hallway, when Edwin left his apartment that is, like strangers, exchanging weak smiles and half-hearted waves. But they were still connected. After all, this estrangement certainly did not keep Molly Brown from stamping her feet across her floor like some Neanderthal, or jumping Matthew Joy’s bones whenever she got the chance. According to Edwin’s schedule they did it twice a day; once at nine o’clock in the morning, and once again at eleven o’clock at night. Sometimes they had a random middle of the day fuck, but this was rare. Edwin made a special effort to be in his bedroom during these trysts and had gotten quite used to and accustomed to the soothing noise of bedsprings creaking away in ecstasy.

“Who is it?” Edwin shouted at his door when his buzzer rang a third time. “I swear to you I’m armed and I’m thinking of purchasing a Pit Bull.”

“Edwin?” a muffled voice said.

“I know who I am. Who are you?”

“It’s Arlene.”

“Who?”

“Arlene Pollard.”

“What are you doing poking around here, Tybalt?”

“I came to see you,” Arlene said.

“Do I owe you money?”

“No.”

“Well, I don’t sell drugs,” Edwin said. “And I’m not going to spot you two Ecstasy pills either so that you can go and get some glow sticks, and hit a rave on the way back to Manhattan. No, I’m afraid that if you want drugs you’ll have to go and see the little hussy who lives upstairs.”

“Edwin, will you just open the goddamned door?” Arlene said.

“As you wish.”

Edwin opened the door and a beautiful brunette with ice blue eyes was on the other end. Of course, he knew that. Arlene had her hair straight to her shoulders and it had a slight curl to it at the tips. Obviously it wasn’t a natural curl, Edwin thought, but that didn’t bother him so much. He had grown used to people being false and insincere. She had on a black Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt, God awful baggy jeans, and a flannel shirt tied around her waist. Arlene was wearing a pair of green Doc Marten boots.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hello,” Edwin said. “Lollapalooza isn’t for another three months.”

“May I come in?”

“Only if you brought your Soundgarden tapes.”

Edwin stepped aside and Arlene Pollard walked into his apartment for the first time ever. If this were any other time in his life, Edwin would most assuredly be embarrassed by the state of the place. There were unwashed dishes in the sink and empty scotch bottles piled on the kitchen floor. Dried booze glasses were set randomly on counters, on the table; one glass was actually lying on its side on the floor. Edwin had thrown it after finishing The Life and Times of Edward Beddor in the Real World, not realizing the thing was plastic. The living room was a sparse mess. It seemed strange to Edwin to have hardly a book on the book shelf, nary a CD, no pictures on the wall, and still have the room look as if it were in shambles. Perhaps it was a lack of sun that made it seem so cluttered and gloomy. But the sun was over-rated, Edwin thought, as he and Arlene walked into the living room.

“This is a nice place,” Arlene said, sitting on Natalie’s old side of the couch. Despite what the novel said, Edwin had never sat on Natalie’s side of the couch. And he’d never drank red wine. Wine was for women and Italian stone masons. Everyone knew that. Of course there were a lot of discrepancies in that book. Edwin had tried to let it go but had failed miserably. Fiction was fiction, he tried to say, before falling into weeks of depression. But amongst the other transgressions that had taken place in Natalie Chappel Presley’s book, he could not live with the idea of people thinking him a wine drinker.

“Are all of you Pollard’s liars?” Edwin asked. He didn’t sit down, but began nervously straightening the few books on one of his shelves. “The place is a dump.”

“It’s double the size of my place in the city.”

“Boo hoo. Poor little Manhattanite doesn’t have everything.”

“I wasn’t complaining, just stating a fact,” Arlene said. “My close proximity to the Grassroots makes up for that.”

Edwin spun and pointed a finger at her. “Never mention that place in here again!”

“I’m sorry. I thought you liked the Grassroots.”

“Liked being the formative word.” Edwin went back over to the foyer and picked that plastic glass off of the ground. “I suppose you’ve heard all about my horrible ordeal these last few weeks.”

“Yeah,” Arlene said.

Edwin looked at her, watching as she played with her hair. “I suppose I’m the great big clown amongst the aging hipster set.”

“Let’s just say most of your old friends aren’t feeling so sorry for you.”

“You’ve come by to mock me as well?”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Selling girl scout cookies?” Edwin asked. “You’ve some to the wrong place.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“The real question is why would you want me to call you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean?”

Arlene gave Edwin a confused look. “Can I have something to drink?”

“Yes,” Edwin said. “Would you like me to draw blood as well?”

“We’ll see how the afternoon goes,” Arlene said.

Edwin went into the kitchen and grabbed two glasses off of the counter. He sniffed them. They seemed all right, but he gave them a cursory wash in the sink just to be on the safe side. He’d run out of liquid detergent weeks ago, so good old water would have to do. Then Edwin opened the fridge and pulled out one of the scotch bottles. He still had two bottles left to help him get through the next week’s return to work. He opened the bottle and took a swing on the caramel-colored liquid, before pouring two sloppy shots into the waiting glasses. Edwin opened the freezer and took out a couple of ice cubes, dropped them in the glasses, and was back in the living room in no time.

“Are you happy now?” he asked, handing Arlene her drink.

“I was thinking water or soda, but I guess this is good,” she said. Then she patted the seat on the other side of the couch. “You can sit. I don’t bite, you know.”

“I’ve been bitten enough by women lately,” Edwin said.

“So the book was that bad?”

“It massacred my soul. I’m a shell of a human being. I am, as the kids say these days, a hot mess.”

Arlene had some scotch, winced at its cheapness. “You seem okay to me, minus the scraggly beard and uncombed hair.”

“What do you know, Pollard?” Edwin said. “I ache as I’ve never ached before.”

“Well, you should’ve called me.”

“And discuss what?” Edwin had a good pull on his scotch. “My shrinking self?”

“We could’ve gone out and had fun,” Arlene said.

“What’s fun? One man’s Othello is another man’s tractor meet.”

“That makes no sense at all.”

“Look, Missy, I’m lord of this manor. It makes sense to me.”

“You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you, Balder?”

“Make what easier on you?”

“Coming by to make you feel better,” Arlene said.

“Unless you have a magnum bottle of scotch wrapped up in that flannel of yours, you’re wasting your time, girl Pollard,” Edwin said. He had some scotch.

“How about some lunch?”

“I detest food.”

“A movie?”

“The art of film is dead.”

“We could go to the MoMA.”

“I’d rather congregate with bed bugs than that crowd.”

Arlene was quiet a moment. “You could just get over that book and have a life.”

“Now why didn’t I think of that,” Edwin said. He finished his scotch with one last pull. “If that was your last attempt at cheering me up, could you go now and save us the trouble of watching you wither into yourself?”

“I know how you feel, Edwin,” Arlene said.

“I doubt it.”

She took a drink. “I do. Have you ever heard to the band Non-Fiction Diction?”

“Do I look like I’d listen to a band such as that?”

“I guess not.” Arlene bit her lip. Edwin, through his anger and torment, found it to be a subtle and cute expression. “Well, I used to date, William Bond, the lead singer of that band.”

“My condolences.”

“No kidding. Non-Fiction Diction’s last album was called, For Arlene: May She Rot.”

“So?” Edwin said.

Arlene had more scotch. “I think all of that scotch has gone to your head. I’m Arlene. The album was totally about me, and how I ruined William’s life.”

“Women will get no sympathy here,” Edwin said.

“Except I didn’t ruin his life,” Arlene said. “He ruined mine by basically sleeping with every girl that he could, including my best friend, Audrey.”

“Good Lord. This story is turning into one of those teen dramas or telanovelas that the Hispanic cashiers at the Food City are always going on about.”

“I’m just saying that I understand. The whole album went into explicit detail about what William did. He somehow turned all of it, the cheating, everything, into my fault.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Edwin said, standing, tuning and walking toward the kitchen for another drink. “I see what you’re trying to do here, Pollard, and it won’t work drawing these comparisons. My life was torn to shreds by literature, a searing work of art, and not some teeny bopper’s fantasies being played out for the thumb typing, iTunes set.”

“It’s the number one album in the country,” Arlene said. “Rolling Stone gave it a five star review….and William is married to Audrey.”

Edwin stopped in his tracks. He turned around to look at Arlene, who had her chin almost buried in her chest. In an instant, the anger of the last three weeks began to slowly slip away. “Give me thirty minutes to get ready,” he said. “Lunch is on me.”

An excerpt from The Life and Times of Edward Beddor by Natalie Chapple Presley

2011-05-03T04:32:00.000-07:00

Nora Patterson sat on the couch with a glass of red wine in her hands, letting the thick rogue of the drink shine off of the light from the lamp. She was waiting on Edward to emerge from the bedroom, and make another of his grandiose pronouncements. She could only guess what it would be this time. That he was leaving her? Or that he was making them move once the lease was up in the spring, something that Edward had threatened their whole six year run at the Castlebloom Apartments. Or perhaps he would just continue to take his wrath out on the neighbors, Nora thought. After all, Edward had been in the bedroom pouting for an hour, shouting up at the neighbor who lived above them for playing the slightest bit of music, and pounding the ceiling with a broom handle. Nora asked Edward to shut the door when he did this, as she no longer wanted to be a party to his lunacy. Besides, he had already been in the living room for an hour, pounding on the wall, shouting, and doing whatever he could to lower another neighbor’s television. Edward had no clue how he’d ruined the night, the weekend, had ruined nearly everything between them in the last few years.

It was true. Nora had finally had it with Edward. She’d had it with his paranoia and his profligate manner. She’d been putting up with it for nearly ten years. Nora took her eyes away from the glass of red wine, her only salvation in a night of arguments and distractions, and looked around the apartment. The five bookshelves were stuffed with novels that Edward had bought but had not read. There were cabinets filled with CDs. On the coffee table was a brand new laptop with one terabyte of memory that Edward was going to use to finally write his novel. Nora had seen him use the machine for writing once, when Edward had written a strongly worded letter to the Castlebloom’s management complaining about the people smoking outside their bedroom window, and complaining about the upstairs neighbor, a kindly old man named, Franz, whom Edward accused of incessantly flushing his toilet. Other than that, he’d used the machine to update his Facebook status and to troll the blogs of successful writers.

They were in debt. Again. Nora looked away from the mass of consumerist junk and focused on the pictures on the wall. There were photographs of her and Edward in London. There they were at the Tower Bridge, smiling, a moment of happiness to blot out all of the pain and boredom that had come between them. She looked at the picture she’d taken of the Eiffel Tower and smiled. Wouldn’t it be great to go back to Paris again? She thought. But she could not go, not with the debt that Edward had leveled on them. Twenty-four thousand dollars. Spent on what? Nora wondered, swirling her wine. On piles of books and music. On a laptop that he had to have, because writing for the sake of writing wasn’t good enough. On writer’s workshops and countless lectures at the 92nd Street Y that Edward attended when she taught night classes. On memberships to the MoMA and MET that he did not tell her about. On bottles of wine and single malt scotch bought to impress his new online friends. To maintain their lifestyle after he’d quit his teaching position to take a job in a warehouse, to live as a writer would live?

“What is that?’ Edward said, after he flung open the bedroom door. He pounded down the hallway and stood in the living room like a madman in his ripped boxer shorts, wine-stained t-shirt, and that broom handle still affixed in his hand. Edward hasn’t shaved in almost two weeks. Nora looked at her husband and did not know whether to laugh or cry. She chose neither. “Do you not hear it?”

Edward went over to the living room window. He pulled up the blinds and opened the window, letting in the cold air, and the noise of sanitation trucks rumbling on the street. He opened the screen and stuck his head outside.

“Edward, it’s cold,” Nora said. “Please close the window.”

“How can you sit there with that noise going on?” he asked, poking his head back inside. Edward closed the screen but did not shut the window. He left the blinds up.

“I didn’t notice it?”

“Didn’t notice? It sounds like Iraq out there.”

Nora had more wine. “How would you know? You’ve never been to Iraq.”

“I’ve seen movies,” Edward said, looking back outside the window. “There has to be at least four trucks out there.”

“They’re probably plowing the street,” Nora said. “I mean we did just have a blizzard.”

Edward looked at her with his mouth open and his eyes wide behind those pretentious, thick glasses. “It’s Sunday night!”

“It’s big city.”

“Well, well,” was all that he could say. Edward paced around the living room. He was drunk and in his drunkenness, stumbled over some piles of books that were on the floor. Edward kicked at them, sending a stack of New York Times critically acclaimed novels fanning across the floor. Nora valued their worth at around two hundred dollars. It was then that she got up off of the couch and padded over to the window. She shut it. “What are you doing?”

“I told you that I was cold,” Nora said.

“But…”

“Give it a rest, Edward.” She sat back down as he stood there looking sharply at her. “We only have a few hours before bed, and the beginning of another long week.”

“So you want to live like this? Surrounded by ignorance and noise, like some kind of dirty immigrant? Like dogs?”

“Edward, this isn’t the turn of the twentieth century here,” Nora said.
“Don’t be funny.” Edward smiled, evilly. “I swear I think you like this. You like hearing some Chinese woman’s television all day. Or some lousy Kraut flushing his toilet when you’re in the shower. It makes you feel humble, perhaps? Poor little rich girl slumming it in big, bad Brooklyn.” Edward went over to the window and opened it again. He looked back at Nora. “You like big, sweaty union heathens infesting your street with noise on a quiet Sunday night?”

“Quiet how?” Nora asked. “You haven’t shut up all day.”

“That is certainly not what I meant.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” Nora said, getting up off the couch a second time. She stepped over the scatted books to find her boots.

‘And where are you going?” Edward asked.

“I’m going to find out how long these guys are going to be on the street,” she said. “Anything to stop another argument from happening.”

“Well, I didn’t ask you to do me any favors,” Edward said.

“You never do,” Nora said, putting on her forest green hooded sweatshirt.
‘Well, you can’t go out like that.” Edward pointed at Nora’s ensemble. Aside from her hoodie, she had on her purple pajama bottoms and her boots. “They won’t take you seriously at all.”

“Like I care, Edward.”

The night was cold. The wind blew up from the estuary and Nora shivered into herself, as she passed her living room window. Edward had taken her seat on the couch and was sitting there as if nothing had just happened, sipping a glass of wine. Flakes of old snow hit her in the face as she walked up 75th Street toward the sanitation workers and plows. It had snowed almost two feet that weekend, not that Edward had noticed. He was too busy ranting and raving about the apartment, or talking about the book he was going to write. Or the play he would work on once he bought the collected Tennessee Williams, and learned how to do it correctly. Edward has spent hours commenting on blogs and buying music from iTunes, getting drunk on scotch, and complaining about his warehouse job. Nora watched the snow fall from the couch and wished that she was a little girl going out sled riding, or making snow angels in the park.

“Excuse me!” she shouted over the din of garbage trucks and plows that were busy removing mounds of ice and black snow. “Excuse me!”

A crew chief sitting in a sanitation car picked his head up from a clipboard and examined Nora. He looked right at her purple pajamas and shook his head. Goddamn you, Edward, she thought. “Yeah?”

“What are you guys doing on the street this late?”

The crew chief looked at his watch. “It’s nine o’clock.”

“It’s Sunday night,” Nora said. “You know, Sunday, the day of rest.”

“We’re removing snow.”

“Why so late?”

“It’s a big city, sweetheart,” the crew chief said.

Nora cursed Edward again. “Well, when will you be done?”

The crew chief pointed at his clipboard. “Says here we can be out here until eleven.”

“Eleven? But there are kids on this street. People have to get up for work.”

The crew chief smiled at Nora. “Look, little lady. Why don’t you go on home and make yourself a nice cup of hot chocolate and watch Desperate Housewives. Let us take care of all of the angry neighbors, okay?”

“But,” Nora began.

“Have a good one,” the crew chief said. He rolled up the window on his sanitation car.

Nora backed away and took a look at the action on the street. The plows were big and orange and were using their claws to throw snow into a huge bin that stood stock still in the middle of 75th Street. Cop cars blocked off both ends of the block, and garbage trucks picked up the trash that had been hidden under piles of snow for days. Some neighbors were on the street, walking their dogs, or watching the cleanup effort. Unlike Nora, they were dressed for the weather. A couple walked by, a redhead and her bearded boyfriend. Nora knew them from the Castlebloom. They were enemies of Edward’s for no reason other than he didn’t like the way they looked. Edward hated the couple, called them hipsters, and accused them of gentrifying the neighborhood. As if he really liked Bay Ridge in the first place. As if Edward weren’t a hipster himself with his tight clothing, his books and laptops, and lack of essential ambition. Edward Beddor was the quintessential pot calling the quintessential kettle black.

Nora began to cry as she walked the few paces back to the apartment. When she got to their place she looked inside, and there was Edward, still in her place on the couch, drinking her wine, and laughing at a cartoon on the Fox Network. In an instant she felt nothing but hatred for him. It was a cold and blinding hatred, the sort of hatred typically reserved for the tax man or international terrorists. In a phrase, Nora did not love Edward Beddor anymore. She knew this. She had known this. Her friends knew this. Hell, Edward’s friends knew this; Gregory Paladin had even offered Nora his couch if she needed it. The only person who was still living under the delusion of marital bliss and harmony was Edward Beddor himself. And it wasn’t even bliss or harmony, Nora thought, so much as regiment and ritual. It was the dinners he loved, the coming home and having everything be as it should. Edward had no passion left in him. Whatever passion he had went to buying material things, or arguing with the neighbors. Edward would never write a novel or a play. Nora would never fulfill her own dreams living this way. She knew it. Something had to be done once and for all.

“So did you make a complete fool out of yourself,” Edward said when she was back in the apartment.

Nora stood there staring at her husband on their couch, perhaps for one of the last times like that. “They can be on the street until eleven.”

Edward rose and went over to the window. He pulled up the blinds and lifted the window and screen. “Why that’s preposterous! I was thinking of getting up and working on some notes for my novel tomorrow morning. Early. If I can’t get to bed at a reasonable hour I won’t be able to work.”

Nora shrugged. “What do you want me to tell you?”

“Well, did you tell them that?”

“I didn’t know that you wanted to get up early,” she said

“I only have a bloody laptop sitting right there,” Edward said, pointing toward the machine. “I only bought it to write in the mornings.”

“That was four months ago.”

Edward shook his head. It was a final disappointment, Nora thought. “Did you say anything of value to those heathens?”

“There wasn’t much to say,” Nora said.

“Then what good are you?” Edward asked.

“No good, I guess.” Nora shrugged a second time and then walked down the hallway toward their bedroom. She dressed quickly and packed a bag. Actually she’d had a bag half-packed for about a month. It held a pair of her jeans, some underwear, and travel packages of essential toiletries. When she came back into the living room, Edward still had his head out the window as if staring at the sanitation workers would make them go away. “Edward.”

“Not now, I’m preparing to shout some obscenities at these men, and I need to be prepared to shut the window quite quickly.”

“Edward, I’m leaving,” Nora said.

Edward Beddor took his head out of the window and looked at Nora’s bag. “Again?”

“For good.”

Edward sighed and closed the window in total. He pulled down the blinds and walked over to the couch, pouring a final glass of wine from the bottle. “And what did I do this time?”

“It’s not just you,” Nora said, trying to be diplomatic. “It’s me too. I’m….I’m just unhappy.”

“Well, welcome to twenty-first century America, dear,” Edward said, smiling.

“That’s not funny.”

“I didn’t mean it in jest. I simply meant that you can’t run away when the going gets tough.”

“The goings been tough for a long time, Edward,” Nora said.

“And whose fault is that?”

“Yours, actually.”

“Mine?” Edward said.

Nora went to set her bag down but thought better of it. She wanted to be able to leave within a moment’s notice. “Yes, Edward.”

“I don’t see how.”

“You don’t? You don’t see the lunacy in smacking a broom against your ceiling? or buying all of this crap that you’re not even using?”

“There’s nothing wrong with buying books in music,” Edward said.

“Within reason,” Nora said. “We’re twenty-four thousand dollars in debt.”

“I don’t want to hear that.” Edward drank down half of his wine. “My purchases were all essential.”

“To what?”

“To my sanity! To waking up every day into a miserable world. To suffering jobs and people, and conversation.”

“Me?”

“You played a very small part in it, I want you to know,” Edward said.

“Fine.” Nora went for the door. “There’s no talking to you.”

“If you go, I swear I’ll have those locks changed within a week.”

“You do what you want to do.”

“And I’ll begin dating younger women. You’ll see,” Edward said. “I’ll have a younger version of you in no time.”

“I’m sure you’ll wear her out just as easily,” Nora said.

“And just wait until I write that novel,” Edward said. “One of these days you’ll be walking down some miserable street with some inadequate new lover, and you’ll pass a bookstore and my face will be staring back at you.”

“I wish nothing but the best for you,” Nora said. She opened the door and Edward got up from the couch.

“What about all of this stuff?”

“You keep it,” Nora said. She looked over at the picture of the Eiffel Tower and pointed. “When I get set up, you can mail that to me.”

“I’ll throw it away the minute you leave,” Edward said.

Nora smiled. “That’s okay. I plan on going back.”

“But where will you go tonight?” he said.

“To a friend’s apartment,” Nora said. “And then I’m going home for a bit.”

“Back to mommy and daddy, I presume?”

“You know everything, Edward.”

“More than you, I’m sure.”

“I know,” Nora said. “And you never get tired of telling me that.”

Nora left the apartment and shut the door. She heard a wine glass break and began walking faster so as to not have a confrontation with Edward in the hallway. Back outside, the cold hit her harder than before. Nora began walking up 75th Street. She passed the sanitation crew chief in his little sanitation car, but he did not look up. Nora felt sad and happy at the same time. She always thought emotions such as those were clichéd. But that was exactly how she felt.

“Nora!” a voice called up to her. She turned around and saw Edward standing out in the cold in nothing but his t-shirt and boxer shorts, and boots. From her vantage point he looked so small and pathetic. Weak. Time and old emotions tugged at her heart. Oh God please don’t let him say the right thing, right now, Nora thought.

But, “You’ll be sorry,” was all that Edward Beddor had to offer his wife, before he bent over and began making snowballs with the dirty snow and ice. Then he began throwing them at the plows and garbage trucks on the street. The sanitation crew chief got out of his car and began shouting at Edward to stop. Edward shouted back as snowballs plunked the huge removal vehicles. Nora just turned around and began walking up toward the next block.

Hinterlude

2011-04-26T04:31:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder staggered down 75th Street with the wind from the estuary blowing in his sore, swelling face. When he reached the Salmon awning of the CrestSeal, there were people outside smoking; an elderly woman and a middle-aged man. Edwin hated them. He hated listening to their inane conversations as they blew smoke into his living room or bedroom window. He referred to the couple as May/December because of their awkward age difference. But what in the hell were they doing out at this hour? How late was it? Edwin wondered. He removed a hand from his face and checked his watch. It was only nine o’clock at night. Good Lord that mugger sure worked the early shift, Edwin thought. He must be high up in the union. How does one get a gig like that? Edwin laughed. He had no choice but to laugh. What else could one do when the private contents of their life had been put on display publically, and they’d been mugged twice in just over a month?

“Good evening,” May said. Edwin looked at the man’s red checkered hat, and his dirty, brown Member’s Only jacket, and wondered how many years he’d get for manslaughter. Of course it would be involuntary manslaughter. After all, Edwin would be doing a service to all and sundry at the CrestSeal and most probably society as a whole.

“May I ask you a question?” Edwin said.

“Sure,” May said, taking a drag on his cigarette.

“Can you tell time?”

May looked at December. He looked confused. “Sure.”

“What time is it?”

He looked at his watch. “Around nine-fifteen.”

“Precisely,” Edwin said. “A tad bit too late for good evenings, isn’t it?”

“He was being nice, young man,” December said.

“Oh really? Do you know what nice would be? At least my definition of the word this fine evening?”

“Huh?”

“Judging by that ancient blank look on your face, you don’t. So I’ll tell you.” Edwin walked closer to the couple but not too close. He was certain that December would smell of rusted canisters of Ensure, and May already reeked of desperation and loneliness, and Edwin had enough of that scent on him already. “Nice, to me at least, would be you two tobacco conglomerate sycophants finishing up you cancerous pow-wow and removing yourselves from outside my bedroom window. I’ve had a long and arduous day, which I’m sure neither of you could possibly understand, what, with the unemployment checks and Social Security money rolling in at a steady rate.”

“Hey,” May said.

“Correct me if I am wrong.”

They both fell silent.

“I’ll bid you a good night then,” Edwin said, before opening the first set of glass doors and walking into the foyer which smelled of dog shit and more cigarette smoke.

“What happened to his face?” Edwin heard May ask December.

“Probably alcohol related,” December said. “Did you smell his breath?”

Edwin shuttered and walked slowly down the hall to his apartment, as his face and leg were both hurting him quite considerably. He just had the key in the door when the superintendent’s wife came around the corner with a push broom and a bucket of gray, soapy water hooked into her elbow.

“Good evening, Meester Balder,” she said.

“Great,” Edwin said to himself. “More of the time challenged. Good night, Mrs. Sheppard.” He made to go inside of his apartment.

“Edween, did you see the letter from the management?”

“The one that so eloquently addressed the pideon problem that we’ve been having?” Mrs. Sheppard gave him a confused look. “I’ve not perused my own copy yet, but the new light-footed upstairs neighbor, Molly Brown, was kind enough to bring me down her copy to look over.”

“They are looking for the marijuana,” Mrs. Sheppard said. Then she was quiet, staring at Edwin.

“Well, surely they don’t think that I have any of it.”

“Meester Sheppard saw you on the steps last night. And he heard music coming from the girl’s apartment,” Mrs. Sheppard said. She set her bucket down and moved the push broom back and forth as a matter of course. “And Meester Gerhardt came by this morning.”

“As if you should believe that sociopath,” Edwin said. “The man has a scatological obsession.”

“He said that he saw you in front of the girl’s apartment early in the morning.”

Edwin sighed and took the key out of the door. He smiled at Mrs. Sheppard, even though it hurt his face to do so. Poor, lowly immigrant Mrs. Sheppard, Edwin thought. So simple in her tasks, and in her station in life. She really had no business playing detective. “Mrs. Sheppard, let me assure you that I was not upstairs smoking marijuana with Ms. Brown and her houseboy last night. To be quite frank, they were making noise, and I went up there to register a complaint. I knocked on the door and there was no answer, so I went about my business, determining that it was more a matter for the police to handle. That was when Mr. Gerhardt came out and saw me. He began making a ruckus, shouting about toilets and the like, and in an effort to get away from him I descended down the steps, tripping on the last few.”

“You fell?” Mrs. Sheppard asked.

“I fell quite hard,” Edwin said. He rubbed his left thigh. “In fact, I’ve just returned from consulting with my lawyer about this matter.”

“Oh, Meester Balder!”

“Oh, is right, Mrs. Sheppard. I pay too high a rent to be worrying about my safety on those steps.”

‘I didn’t know,” Mrs. Sheppard said.

“Well, of course not,” Edwin said. “You Roma can’t be expected to read into everything, not with all of the housework and begging to do.” Edwin turned and placed his key back into the lock on his door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He held up his Strand bag. “I have intellectual pursuits to attend to.”

Edwin stepped inside his apartment, slamming the door just as Mrs. Sheppard had begun assaulting his sensibilities with another sentence structured in broken, immigrant English. He put his Strand bag on the table and looked around the place. It was sad and empty, just as he liked it. There was his couch, his radio, a lamp, three near empty bookshelves, and one picture hanging on the wall. Nails still hung in the spots were old pictures had hung, the ones that Natalie had taken with her when she left. The bookshelves were empty from Edwin selling off most of what he and Natalie had owned. She never took a book when she left, and he no longer wanted them around as reminders of their old life together. The apartment was better with less clutter anyway.

Edwin walked down the hall and into the bedroom. It too was empty and sad, as befit the last two years of his life. There was a bed. There were navy blue curtains to keep out the streetlights. There was an unused desk, the top of which was covered in liquor store and Food City receipts. Nails hung crookedly in the sea green painted walls.

Edwin sighed and sat on the bed. These were the times when he felt as if he were seeing his apartment and his current life for the first time. It was as if Edwin expected to walk in and find Natalie reading a book, a glass of red wine at her side. Or he imagined she’d be in the kitchen with one of her R&B singers in the iPod dock, singing away to some song from the 1990s, making an elaborate meal for them to linger over. His stomach growled at the thought. Edwin didn’t even want to think about the goings on in the bedroom because the idea depressed him too much, because now Charles Ramsdell, that old hack, was enjoying a lost Sunday with his Natalie, post-coitous, caught in the afterglow, listening to the classical station as they sipped wine and let the day go to waste, before rising to make something deliciously devoid of preservatives.

He needed a drink. Edwin rose off of the bed and stormed into the kitchen. He grabbed the Pimm’s bottle and poured the rest of it into a semi-clean pint glass. It crested the top. Edwin sipped until his could fit an ice cube in the pint. Then he grabbed the Strand bag from off of the table, and went back into the bedroom. There was noise from upstairs. Voices. Faint music. Edwin was thankful that Molly was taking him into consideration today. Perhaps she pitied him. But then the sex started. Molly’s bedsprings began squeaking. Bounce, bounce, hunka-bounce. Bounce, bounce, hunka-bounce. Molly screamed. Matthew Joy moaned. In two minutes it ended, and everything was silent once again.

Edwin put his drink on his nightstand. He sat on the bed and took of his shoes and coat, tossing them against the wall underneath his window. He lay on the bed, stretched out and sighed. He leaned over and picked up the pint, having a tall pull on the Pimm’s. Edwin took The Life and Times of Edward Beddor in the Real World by Natalie Chappel Presley out of his Strand bag. He looked at the red and white cover for a moment. And then he began to read.

Mugging : the Sequel

2011-04-25T04:45:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder realized that he was very drunk around the time that he turned off of 3rd Avenue, and began the longish decent down 75th Street. He had drunk too many scotches and made quite an ass out of himself once again. It was that damned Lawson, Edwin thought. If only Lawson had leveled with him about Natalie Chappel Presley then they could have a peaceful evening at the joint; and if Lawson knew nothing, as he’d claimed, the least he could’ve done was join Edwin at his low level instead of espousing such tawdry optimism. At least Ivan and Benny were there to soften the blow of strained friendships and deceitful ex-lovers. Ivan and Benny couldn’t care less about Natalie Chappel Presley and The Life and Times of Edward Beddor in the Real World. Edward Beddor, my ass! Edwin shouted, shaking his Strand bag into the cool night. He tried emulating Ivan’s new dance, knee slaps, arm rolls and all. Edwin stopped dancing. He sighed, looked at dark, milky Gotham sky (it had, in fact, drizzled a little bit), and started walking back to his apartment.

It was at Ridge Avenue that someone crudely took ahold of Edwin’s arm. Then he felt a knife in his back. “Is that you again, Mr. Mugger?”

“Don’t look back at me, don’t say a word,” the mugger said. In that moment, Edwin knew that he was in the presence of his old, brutal friend. To say nothing else of the moment, he was excited to have such a drama bestowed on him twice. “Just move.”

The mugger lead Edwin half way down the block and then turned him left into that familiar, small alleyway between apartment buildings. He turned Edwin around but between the dark and shadows of the alleyway, the streetlights casting a glare, Edwin could still not make out the mugger’s face. He wondered if anyone had found his wallet from the previous mugging.

“Are you going to mug me again?” Edwin asked.

“Again? Shit. Wait, I said don’t say a word,” the mugger said. He leaned in. “Damn, what have you been drinking?”

“A little of this and a little of that.”

“A ham and cheese Hot Pocket again?”

Edwin chuckled. “I do believe I’ve forgotten to eat a proper meal today. It’s a good thing Ivan bought all of that beef jerky from the corner bodega.”

“Veganism is the way to go, nigga,” the mugger said.

“Oh please,” Edwin said. “As if your precious soy-based cuisine wasn’t responsible for killing field mice and crows."

The mugger pushed him into the cold brick and alley wall, smacking the back of Edwin’s head a little rougher than he’d have liked. “At least I’m not roasting them.”

“A death is a death,” Edwin said.

“Are you calling me a murderer?”

“Well, you started it with all of that veganism business. Honestly, you vegans are like Democrats. Why can’t you be quiet about your causes and let us regular people get on with the business of living?”

“Because the world is an imperfect place, motherfucker,” the mugger said. “And if we don’t change it then who will? You know, we didn’t inherit the world from our parents. We’re borrowing it from our children."

“Fantastic soliloquy,” Edwin said. He shook his Strand bag. “Now could we get on with the mugging because I have important legal business to attend to.”

The mugger put the blade up to Edwin’s face. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk?”

“You addressed me first.”

“Did not.”

“Did too,” Edwin said. “You asked me if I’d been drinking again.”

The mugger was quiet a moment. “Yeah, but you said is that you, Mr. Mugger.”

“That was a salutation and does not count in terms of conversation.”

“You spoke first.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“Fine, but I’m telling you to be quiet now.”

“As you wish,” Edwin said.

The mugger withdrew his knife a little bit, and began to pat down Edwin Balder in the alleyway. He opened the buttons on Edwin’s pea coat and searched the pockets. He patted Edwin’s pants until he found his new wallet and took it out. Then the mugger backed away into the darkness of the alley to check the wallet’s contents.

“Dag,” he said, coming back into the shadows and light. “You have like two hundred dollars in here.”

“I just got paid,” Edwin said. “Sorry it’s all in twenties, but you know how those ATM machines are”

“You know it’s not safe to carry around this kind of cash,” the mugger said. “Especially in this city.”

“Obviously. But I’m old fashioned. I refuse to be a slave to the debit card.”

The mugger hit Edwin in his stomach twice, and Edwin fell to the ground. This sort of brutality was expected from such a heathen as this mugger. Sure, he wouldn’t eat a lousy cow but he’d beat a man to a pulp two blocks away from his apartment. Humans had such skewed logic. Oh why did everyone have to be so pompous in their ignorance in this country? Perhaps Europe was better. Edwin wondered if they had invoice processors in Madrid. Then he went to rub his stomach but the mugger kicked his hand away.

“Get up,” he said. Edwin slowly rose until he was face to face with the black void that stood in for the mugger’s visage. “I suppose I shouldn’t even ask you about a cell phone?”

“I think you know the answer to that one,” Edwin said. “By the way did you ever get your Android?”

“Last week. I took it from some Chinese kid who was walking down 86th with his head buried in it.”

“Don’t you just hate that? The ignorance.”

“The little fucker almost knocked into me. Don’t get me wrong, I love my cell phones,” the mugger said. “But people just don’t know how to act sometimes.” He pushed Edwin into the wall again, this time a little bit harder than the last. Edwin wanted to clasp the back of his head, for he feared eventual brain damage from these continued assaults, but the mugger made him put his hands above his head while he frisked Edwin once again. “What’s in the bag?”

“A legal matter not worth discussing with you,” Edwin said.

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t know the parties involved. Also, it’s embarrassing.”

“It looks like a Strand bag” the mugger asked.

“I’m impressed,” Edwin said.

“Why? I know how to fucking read. Plus Strand is the bomb. It has like eight…”

“….miles of books. Yes, I know. But I don’t quite care for the place myself.”

The mugger slapped Edwin across the face. Edwin squealed like an excited child, although he didn’t mean to. “That was for dissin’ Strand.”

“Pardon me,” Edwin said, struggling to recover his masculine composure.

“Anyway, so what’s the book about,” the mugger said.

“If you must know it’s about me.”

“You?”

“Yes. My former paramour has written a tell-all in the guise of a work of fiction.”

“Your girl wrote a book about you,” the mugger said. “That’s harsh, bro.”

“Harsher than you think,” Edwin said.

“Is it any good?”

“First of all, I don’t know. I was on my way home to read it until this pleasant encounter took place.

“What’s it called?”

Edwin sighed. “The Life and Times of Edward Beddor in the Real World.” The mugger was silent a moment, as if ingesting the title for future reference. “I suppose you’ll be taking it along with the contents of my wallet?”

“Nah,” the mugger said. “I’ll wait and see what the New York Times Book Review has to say about it.”

“You’re supposing that whore will get a review in the Times.”

The mugger raised his hand again but thought better of it. “Just because the woman sold you out doesn’t mean you have to call her a whore.”

“Why not?” Edwin said. “Perhaps you’d feel differently if someone wrote a book about you.”

“Damn right,” the mugger said. “Come to think of it, I’m changing my opinion. I think it might be cool.”

“So is walking home from the pub without being assaulted….twice.”

“I’d be like a celebrity.”

“I’m sure all of your hommies would get a kick out of it,” Edwin said. “Now can we end this transaction?”

“What’s the author’s name,” the mugger said. “I like to read new authors.”

“Natalie Chappel Presley,” Edwin said. “Tell you what, as soon as I get an angle on her address I’ll give it to you and you can go and mug her for her royalty money. In the meantime, I hope the entirety of my spending cash helps you out in all of your other endeavors.”

“I might actually go and visit my parents,” the mugger said, stuffing the cash in his pocket.

“At least yours don’t live on separate hippy communes.”

“Hippies?”

“Ever been to Slab City, Mr. Mugger?”

“No. But even if my folks did live on hippy communes I’d visit them,” the mugger said. “A man has to visit his folks.”

“I suppose,” Edwin said. “So can I at least have my wallet back? It’s new.”

“Sure,” the mugger said. “If you can find it.”

He turned and tossed Edwin’s wallet down the dark alleyway. Then the mugger turned back and punched Edwin twice in the face. The first time he caught Edwin off guard and this time knocked his glasses off, but with the second blow he was able to put up his hands and block the mugger’s punch. The second punch got Edwin on his wrist again, and it hurt like hell. He dropped the Strand bag. The punch must’ve hurt the mugger too, because he yelped and backed away in pain, shaking his right hand. Then he righted himself, and kicked Edwin so hard in the stomach that he thought the scotch and beef jerky would come streaming out at any moment. Edwin hit the pavement and lay there on the cold concrete. It was as good as any bed to him.

“Happy reading, motherfucker,” the mugger said, leaning down to Edwin’s ear, before taking off.

It’s the Joint

2011-04-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder sat slumped over his stool in Rooney’s, his glass of scotch untouched in front of him. After seeing Natalie Chapple Presley making out with Charles Ramsdell at the intersection of Broadway and Lafayette Street, Edwin had wanted to do little else but go home and sulk in what was becoming the only place on Earth where he could find any comfort or solace. Clearly, he was not over Natalie, despite her heinous act of betrayal. Seeing her making out with Charles Ramsdell had only made matters worse.

Ramsdell of all people, Edwin thought, as his drink sat there. Natalie could’ve taken up with anyone. Why did it have to be their old literary mentor? Edwin slammed his fist onto the bar. Molly Brown, who’d given up trying to communicate with Edwin about an hour ago, sat still with her vodka and soda, texting Matthew Joy on her smart phone device. Earlier, when she’d asked Edwin if he wanted to talk, he waved her off, and said he’d be damned if he told his tale of woe to a woman. He said that if she wanted to be a credit to her inferior, malicious species, the least she could do was do him a favor and call a certain Lawson Thomas. Molly, feeling pity rather than anger toward Edwin Balder, took the number and did as requested. They had been silent ever since.

The thick, humid door on Rooney’s pulled open, and Lawson Thomas walked in with his usual look of caution. Of course, heads turned. Many of the denizens were of the beefy, racist persuasion but hardly ever saw an honest to goodness African-American in the flesh. They had to rely on the news blotters and their singular, condescend hatred of the current President of the United States in order to keep the fires of prejudice burning in their loins.

“Are you the friend?” Molly Brown asked Lawson, barely lifting her eyes from the illuminated screen on her phone.

“Depends on the day,” Lawson said. “Lawson Thomas.” He extended his hand which Molly took limply.

“Molly.”

Lawson gave Edwin a look. Edwin shrugged and then waved him off when he smiled. It was his second chance to wave someone off, yet with the circumstances at hand, Edwin was unable to enjoy either of them.

“So are you guys cool?” Molly asked. Before Lawson or Edwin could answer, she downed the rest of her drink and got off of her stool to put on her plastic hot pink coat. “Take it easy, Edwin.”

The entirety of Rooney’s watched as Molly Brown exited the bar, allowing a small sliver of gray light to enter their dim, orange gloom, before they all fell into quiet conversations about the value and loss of a young “piece of ass,” as Edwin had hear her being referred to during Molly’s short time at the joint. A better man would’ve defended her. But Edwin Balder was less than a man at that time than he’d ever been before.

Lawson Thomas sat down and the bartender, some hobbling drunkard who worked the day shift, came down and took his drink order. “So Ramsdell, huh?”

“Must you say his name?” Edwin said, before slumping back toward the bar.

“It could be worse.”

“Natalie Chapple Presley has written a tell-all novel about me, and is dating my former literary mentor. How could it be worse?”

“I don’t know,” Lawson said. “Mary has me on this optimism kick and I thought that I’d test it out on you.”

“Consider it a failure,” Edwin said, as the bartender slammed down Lawson’s cranberry and vodka. He had a pull on his own scotch and water. “If you and Dr. Sour Bear plan on working on any other social experiments please leave yours truly out of them.”

“Duly noted.” Lawson had some of his drink. It was more cranberry than vodka. He looked down the bar at the bartender, in order to express his disproval, but Lawson’s eyes were met with several others starting back at him. “Lousy crackers,” he muttered, before turning back to Edwin.

“How did this happen?”

“They both teach at NYU now.”

“So? I get on the bus every day with the same toothless, old Russian hag,” Edwin said. “You don’t see me squiring her about Brooklyn, do you?”

“That’s different,” Lawson said. “Ramsdell and Natalie have a past. They’re colleagues now. Peers.”

“Don’t give me that hooey about peers,” Edwin said. He had more scotch. “Natalie Presley is a first, and most probably only time, novelist, and Charles Ramsdell is a washed up third-rate pugilist with the word. His plots are Mailer-light. His characters are fifth-rate Hemingway, and his prose is on par with Bukowski on a bender.”

“Yet he’s your literary mentor,” Lawson said.

“Was,” Edwin said. “Pardon my misuse of tense.”

Lawson had a pull on his drink. “Man, I don’t ever remember you liking Charles Ramsdell. In fact, if I think back on it, I get a sense of déjà vu in what you just said about him.”

“He was a teacher and I was a student. Is that not enough for mentorship? His services were there if I wanted them to be.”

“Didn’t you once say that reading Charles Ramsdell was like reading a bar drunk’s grocery list.”

“Yes,” Edwin said. “I believe that issue of the Washington Square News won awards.”

“It almost got you suspended,” Lawson said.

“Truth tellers always bear the burden of censorship in this backward thinking nation.” Edwin had more scotch. Then he laughed. “Of course, who’s the drunkard now?”

“I heard Ramsdell’s clean.”

“Of course,” Edwin said. “I’m sure that he’s found God as well. They all do in the end. The worst become the most moral. In fact, I’m willing to bet that Natalie and Ramsdell’s little dalliance on Lafayette was just a brief moment of religious revelry before they both headed off toward Saturday evening services.”

“Didn’t he give you a C,” Lawson asked.

“Are you here to help or hinder me?”

“He gave me a B minus.”

“Good for you, teacher’s pet,” Edwin said. He finished off his scotch, raised his glass, and shook it. “Barkeep! Another round over here!”

The bartender glared at Edwin but hobbled down the length of the bar. On the television the evening sporting events were getting started. Basketball. Hockey. It was hard for Edwin to tell which one was which. “Around here, we say please and thank you,” he said.

“To the roaches or the mice?”

The bartender pointed. “Don’t be a smart ass, or I’ll have you and your…friend…put out of here for the evening.”

“He’s sorry, sir,” Lawson said to the bartender. “It’s been a bad day.”

“Bad day, bad year, bad decade,” Edwin said. The bartender shuffled off to fix a new round of drinks. Edwin turned to Lawson. “Did you know about this?”

“What? Am I Natalie’s publicist? I’m your friend, dickhead. I haven’t talked to Natalie in almost two years.”

“Surely you know people.”

“I know the same people as you do,” Lawson said. “And I see them almost as regularly.”

“Oh, what am I to do?” Edwin put his head in his hands.

“Did you even get the book yet?” Edwin reached down and picked his bag up off the floor. “Strand. Cool.”

“Yes, too cool.”

“Have you read any yet?”

“I’d planned to tonight,” Edwin said. “If you hadn’t noticed, I was in the presence of a lady when you came in this joint. We were all set to have a fine afternoon in Manhattan when I came across that lustful scene on the street and it ruined everything.”

“So that was Molly Brown?”

“The very same.”

“What’s she like?” Lawson asked.

“She’s a little tart. But she was good company today,” Edwin said, as the bartender slammed down his new drink. Edwin took a good pull on it. “We’ll probably never speak again.”

Lawson had some more of his drink. “So what’s the game plan, man? You just going to go home and read the book, and let this go, like you should?”

“That’s exactly what I’m not going to do,” Edwin said. “I plan on reading the book, yes. I plan on reading the book so closely that Natalie Chapple Presley’s lawyers won’t know what hit them when I come a-barreling down the old street.”

“I don’t think you have a lawsuit,” Lawson said.

“Why not, Patrick Henry?”

“Because she’s changed it up enough. It doesn’t even take place in New York City.”

“Edward Beddor?”

Lawson chuckled. “She doesn’t treat you that badly. In fact, I’d say she gives it to you both pretty evenly.”

“And you’ve read the entire book then?” Edwin asked.

“Enough of it.”

“And?”

“And it’s a decent first novel, Edwin,” Lawson said. “It won’t win any prizes, but Natalie’s got talent.”

“Well, it’ll certainly have the lion’s share of litigation attached to it.”

“Why don’t you just let it go?” Lawson said.

“What!” Edwin shouted, attracting the attention of several bar denizens.

“Have you even called Arlene?”

“Do I look like a man who has the time to make house calls right now? My sanity hangs in the balance of destroying this book.”

“To what end?” Lawson asked. “The book is already out there. You and Natalie are the past. She’s with Ramsdell now. Shouldn’t you be trying to do you, brother?”

“Don’t swirl your ebonical sayings at me, brother,” Edwin said.

It was then that the door to Rooney’s swung open and Benny and Ivan stepped inside. Both were dressed in their New York Rangers hats and jackets. Ivan’s face was as redder than usual, and Benny’s eyes were slits. The two looked as if they’d already spent half of their Saturday drinking in one of the other drab public houses that lined 3rd Avenue.

“Hey, Eddie,” Ivan said. He staggered onto a stool to the left of Edwin. Ivan looked down at Lawson. “Was’up, bro?”

Edwin turned to Lawson. “Look, bro. A fellow traveler where dialogue is concerned. Should I leave and let you two converse in your native tongue?

“Shut up, Edwin,” Lawson said. “I’m not hanging around if you’re going to get belligerent.”

“Belligerent? I’m just tryin’ta be down, bro,” Edwin said. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Hey, guys,” Benny said, coming over. He slapped Edwin on the shoulder then staggered back and pulled a few dollars out of his wallet. “Anyone want to hear some jukebox music?” Benny tapped Lawson on the shoulder. “What about you, bro?”

“I’m cool,” Lawson said, sinking down into his drink.

“I’ll play you something anyway.” Benny staggered over to the jukebox and began feeding dollar bills into the machine.

“This place creeps me out,” Lawson said to Edwin. “Let’s go get a couple of tallboys and go back to your apartment.”

“For what purpose?” Edwin asked. “So that we can stare at Natalie’s book? Take in my sparse surroundings? Or perhaps we could listen to Molly Brown ride her little boyfriend like a show horse, all to a hippity-hop symphony?” Edwin finished off his scotch and raised his glass toward the bartender for another. “I’d rather stay here and rot.”

Music came from the jukebox. Rap. 2Pac. “Yeah, bro!” Benny shouted to Lawson as he continued pumping dollars into the machine.

Lawson shot down the rest of his drink and got up from his stool. “I’m leaving. This scene is tired, man.”

“I’m staying,” Edwin said. “I have a new drink coming and my friends have arrived.”

“Suit yourself.” Lawson put his coat on. “You can’t let it get this way, man. The past is the past. Live now. Call Arlene.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” The bartender slammed Edwin’s new drink down and he took a long pull. “Give my regards to Sour Bear.”

Lawson left the bar, as Benny staggered back over. Voices murmured and subtle slurs were thrown around. “What’s that dude’s problem?” Ivan said. “We like everyone in here.”

“Yeah,” Benny said, taking Lawson’s seat. “We’re open minded.”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell him,” Edwin said.

Then they all had a drink.

Seeing The Real You At Last

2011-04-19T05:05:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder and Molly Brown got off of the R Train at Union Square. As a rule Edwin did not like people very much, and Union Square was filled with people. But there was something about the hustle and bustle (yes, Edwin occasionally used hustle and bustle to describe action) of the place that made him feel somewhat decent inside, as if he would not drown in one of the dirty rivers or backed up sewers in the city. Edwin liked walking amongst the street performers and the artists selling their hackneyed works of art to unsuspecting, simple tourists who managed to make their way down Broadway from the glowing hell lights of Midtown and Times Square. He liked walking through the farmer’s market even though it was full of aging hipsters such as himself, buying arugula and freshly packed tofu for whatever ungodly vegan dinner they were concocting. Edwin liked stopping at street corners around the edges of the Square to listen to the Jews and Arabs argue about Israel and Palestine as if they were real places, or he liked to watch the Falun Gong practitioners do dances and exercises that he didn’t understand, as they held signs railing against the Chinese Government. Molly seemed to like them too because she got choked up at the pictures of people seemingly beaten to a pulp by that repressive regime. Edwin wondered if he could buy her a cup of Wonton soup to soothe her soul.

He was in Manhattan. Being in Manhattan made Edwin feel as though he were really in New York City, wherein living in Brooklyn just made him think that he’d made some bad financial choices throughout his life. And wasn’t that the truth? Edwin thought, laughing as Molly stopped to look at a kiosk full of cheap jewelry. Edwin thought about Arlene and how he had yet to give her a call. After all, she was back in the picture now that Natalie had become anathema to his very being. Of course, there was, again, the possibility of Molly Brown. It was not quite a May/December relationship, so he didn’t feel like a silly old man chasing a young girl. But Molly seemed prone to outbursts of tears. Plus there was the ghost of Matthew Joy to consider. And Arlene, despite her penchant for early 1990s fashion, had been kind to him that evening of the party. It had been a long time since a woman had been kind to Edwin Balder.

But it didn’t matter. Arlene was out of Edwin’s reach. He’d forgotten where it was that she actually lived in the city, or perhaps she’d never told him. No, she had. Edwin was just never good at remembering anything women told him. Natalie Presley, that opportunist shrew, had, close to the end of their relationship, accused Edwin of being a misogynist. She said that she was surprised it had taken her this long to realize it. She said that Edwin valued the opinion of the dumbest male over the smartest woman, something that he vehemently disagreed with. Edwin had plenty of smart female friends, he told Natalie. When she reminded him that most of them were, in actuality, her friends, Edwin accused Natalie of being on “the rag” as the lower classes were so fond of saying. Edwin Balder ate dinner alone for the next three nights after that.

“Where do you want to go and look for the book?” Molly asked Edwin, as she purchased a cheap Jade knockoff of a Buddha from one of the artists in the Square.

“What book?” Edwin asked, looking around, and then settling on a group of break dancers surrounded by throngs of tourists in New York City hats, carrying New York City bags.

“The one your ex wrote about you.”

“Of course!”

“We could either go to Strand or to the Barnes and Noble.”

“Which do you prefer?” Edwin asked.

“I like Strand,” Molly said. “I like to shop locally and act globally.”

“I like to leave people to their own foolish and reckless devices,” Edwin said. “But Strand is as good as anywhere else.”

They walked toward 14th street. Memory after memory shot at Edwin Balder so quickly that he barely had time to duck. He saw himself and Lawson as college students, hanging around the area, trying to figure out where it was that Warhol had his Factory. Edwin remembered drinking at Cedar Tavern with their gang, thinking that they were big shots for hanging around a place of such literary significance, until a wiser old timer told them that the original artists’ hangout had been demolished and that this one was new. Edwin remembered the many Saturdays that he and Natalie had spent going through the long aisles at the Virgin Megastore as loud music rained down on them, giving them a headache, and how they never bought anything that they intended to buy because they could not think straight. It seemed fitting that the store closed the same year that he and Natalie split up. It was a bank now. And a Duane Reade drugstore.

“Are you all right?” Molly asked Edwin, as they made their way toward the big Red signs of Strand.

“I’m fine,” Edwin said. “I was just admiring your jacket. How does one find that shade of hot pink?”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious,” he said.

“I could ask you the same thing about your tight pants and thick glasses,” Molly said. She smiled at Edwin. “Hipster chic was so 2010.”

“So I’ve been told,” Edwin said, thinking of Arlene.

Edwin Balder and Molly Brown entered Strand. Edwin realized how much he didn’t like the store. It was always packed and hot, even in the dead of winter, no matter the time of day. Plus the place was too big for its own good. It wasn’t that he got lost in Strand’s so-called eighteen miles of books so much as he could not stand the store’s layout. Philosophy belonged with literature, he always thought, for one always lead to the other. Edwin hated the clientele and its snotty staff. Yes, yes, you work in a world famous bookstore, but you make seven dollars an hour hocking the work of has-beens and never-weres to tourists and denizens with nowhere better to shop. True, the occasional celebrity came in, some cable television hack most likely looking to get recognized instead of being just out and about getting the new Lethem novel. Plus Edwin was still mad that Strand had not hired him when he was in college. You confuse George Elliot and George Bernard Shaw in an interview, and that suddenly makes you ineligible to shelve Anne Rice and Danielle Steele books? Perhaps he would try again now that the old invoice shop was closing its doors.

“What’s her name?” Molly asked.

“Who?” Edwin said.

“Your ex. What’s with you today, Edwin?”

“I’m sorry. I’m having acid flashbacks. Or the mid nineteen-nineties, early two thousands version of an acid flashback.”

“Huh?”

“These are my old stomping grounds, you see. I went to college at NYU.”

“Fan-cy!”

“Is it?”

“It’s only like one of the best schools in the country,” Molly said. “I wish that I went to NYU.”

“Where do you go?” Edwin asked, to be kind. He could already feel the sweat on his brown form the heat of Strand.

“Stupid Brooklyn College.”

“I’m sure it perfectly suits your needs.”

“Whatever,” Molly said. Edwin followed her over to a table full of new books. “What’s her name? And I swear if you say ‘who’ this time, I’m going to knee you in the nuts.”

“Ah, that would be Natalie Presley,” Edwin said, making sure that his testicles were protected.

Molly scanned the books on the table while Edwin watched a female Strand clerk bend over to pick up a pile of books. Her khaki pants fell low in the back exposing the top of her thong. It was called a Whales’ Tale, as George Pollard Jr. had told them all one night. “Here it is!”

“Let me see that,” Edwin said, grabbing the book from Molly’s hands.

The cover was a pale red with the title The Life and Times of Edward Beddor in the Real World scrawled in a ghastly white and black with the name of the author, Natalie Chappel Presley, in the bottom right hand corner. Edwin opened up the back flap to see the author picture, and suddenly there was Natalie’s image looking back at him. It was a color photo. How tacky, Edwin thought. The hard-up publishing house was probably playing up Natalie’s looks, as her youth had been taken by time. And she did look good. She still had those rich brown eyes that glowed, and that angular, tan face with a chin that came to a definite point at the end. Natalie’s hair hung to her shoulders with brand new (at least to Edwin) bangs that edged toward the left side of her face. She looked professional and happy, and Edwin was sure that he hated her for real.

“She’s very pretty,” Molly said, looking at the author photo over Edwin’s shoulder.”

“She’s a dog,” Edwin said. He snapped the book shut. “And she’s going to be paying me a lot of money when I’m through with her.”

“So the book is really about you?”

Edwin looked at the cover again. “Supposedly. I guess I’m this Edward Beddor character. What a stupid, unoriginal name. I could come up with a better name in my sleep.”

“She didn’t seem to stray too far from the source,” Molly said.

“She stayed too close to the source,” Edwin said. “A bad move as now I can get her on libel or slander, or whatever it is that lets the world know that Edwin Balder will not stand for this kind of treatment! And to think that she assaulted me with a book! One of my favorite tangible articles in this cruel world!” He held the book up and shook it. “This is a blood purchase! A blood purchase!”

“Edwin, calm down,” Molly said. She tried to take the book away from him but he snatched it away. “People are beginning to look.”

“Let them! Let them see what true violation looks like! Let these cows, the walking blobs of flesh and blood and bone see what true pain and agony looks like! Edwin lowered the book and glared around the bookstore. No one was looking except for the old security guard, and even he appeared bored. Still, the sight of a uniformed protector of the law calmed Edwin down.

“Why don’t we buy the book, and then we can look at it over a few drinks,” Molly said, taking the novel from Edwin.

“Edward Beddor!” Edwin started again, but quickly quieted down. “Why not Evan Spelndor? Or Eden Tender? Or some other trite name?”

“I don’t know, Edwin,” Molly said, heading toward the long, ubiquitous line toward the cash register. “The world is a strange place.”

“Its slop,” Edwin said, falling in behind her. He looked at the people in line. Most of them were carrying boring run-of-the-mill best sellers at discount prices. A few were trying to look smart with their history books. Some were holding classics that they’d never read; that dusty copy of Moby Dick that would be acting as a coaster in under a month. Edwin hated everyone, and he felt as if he were going to be sick. At least none of them were carrying a copy of The Life and Times of Edward Beddor in the Real World by Natalie Chappel Presley. Chappel? Where did she come up with that one? “I need to step outside.”

Molly touched his sleeve. “Okay. I’ll take care of this.”

Edwin stepped outside of Strand, but not before the security guard gave him a steely-eyed glare. It was cool outside, but a bit warm for late March. Spring was coming, Edwin observed, although thanks to Natalie Presley it would be the winter of his discontent. But why not spring? Edwin hated spring anyway. He hated seeing people going back outside, skateboarding, jogging, or just loafing on the corner. Edwin hated the dog walkers and all of their dog shit on the concrete. He hated kids eating ice cream cones, and big, dumb Italian men walking down the street with flopping slices of pizza on stained paper plates. Edwin hated the people in his building, lingering in front of the apartment, smoking, and telling the stupidest stories about their boring little lives. If nothing else, none of the denizens at the CrestSeal apartments had a book written about them.

“Here you go,” Molly said, handing Edwin a red and white Strand bag. He hated those two colors for sure now.

“What do I owe you?” he asked.

“Nothing. Consider it a gift.”

“But you hardly know me.”

Molly smiled. “Then consider it a thank you for making me feel better this afternoon.”

“Okay,” Edwin said.

“And just think you didn’t have to actually buy the book.”

“That’s true,” Edwin said. They were silent a moment. “May I buy you a drink or two?”

“Sure,” Molly said. She took out her cell phone, checked it quickly, and frowned. “It’s not as though I have anyone to go home to.”

“I’ll try not to take that the wrong way.”

“Please don’t.”

Edwin Balder and Molly Brown began walking down Broadway toward Astor Place. Edwin decided that he would take Molly to one of his favorite taverns, The Grassroots. Sure, it was another place full of old memories, but he reasoned maybe today he could make a few new ones. And Edwin needed some good nostalgia for a change.

He looked at Molly, dressed in her plastic pink coat, and smiled. May/December, perhaps. She looked back at him and smiled too. Then Molly put her arm in Edwin’s and the two of them strolled down Broadway like young lovers. Well, youngish in Edwin’s case. Soon they were turning down 8th. It would become St. Marks Place and Edwin decided to tell Molly everything that he knew about the musical and artistic history of the area. Maybe she would like it, he thought. But then they passed a diner where two people were outside kissing. It was a raven haired woman and bulky man with sparkling, silver hair. Normally Edwin couldn’t care less about such brazen displays of PDA, but this time he stopped short and clutched his stomach. It was as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

“Edwin, are you okay?” Molly asked.

Edwin pointed at the couple, who had now separated and were walking hand and hand down Lafayette Street. “Natalie.”

“Huh?”

“Natalie. With Charles Ramsdell,” was all he could say.

DO NOT FEED PIDEONS

2011-04-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder heard the pounding on his front door but did not go to it immediately. He turned to his right side and looked at the alarm clock. It read two in the afternoon. It couldn’t be, Edwin thought. He raised his head and it still hurt a little bit. How much had he drunk the night before? Judging by what welcomed him in the kitchen earlier in the day, a lot. The Plastic jug of scotch that Edwin had bought only lasted two days where it typically lasted a week, and there were two or three beer cans strewn about, random cans found in the back of the refrigerator after crawling back into his apartment from that fall. Edwin felt the side of his left leg. It was tender. The bruise was shaped like Australia and was black with a yellow-orange center. When Edwin saw it in the mirror he vomited and then went back to bed.

Someone pounded on the door again. Edwin put his pillow over his puffy, alcohol soaked face to drown out the sound, but he knew that he could not hide forever. Edwin had to get up and get himself directly to a bookstore, to find out what it was exactly that Natalie Presley had written about their life together. That conniving tramp! Edwin thought, tossing the pillow away and slowly rising from his mattress. How could she? Had he really been that bad to her? That deceitful? That untruthful? Enough to write an entire novel about him? Plus she’d beaten Edwin to the punch. True, he’d had his notes and character sketches done up for his own “break-up” novel, and Lord knows he entertained his fantasies of writing some massive Proustian or David Foster Wallace tome to the full extent. Edwin had his delusions of grandeur of setting the literary world ablaze, and making enough money to get out of his work situation (pre-corporate asset liquidation, of course). But it had come to nothing.

The knock on the door came again, urgent. Edwin assumed that it was some faceless, soulless representative of the building management come to serve him an eviction notice for the shenanigans that had taken place during the early morning hours, so he took his time dragging his wounded leg down the hallway. Edwin reasoned that if the building management was intent on tossing him to the streets, so be it. But he would not go down without taking Molly Brown and Gerhardt with him.

Edwin opened his door and Molly Brown was standing there holding a letter. Her hair was pulled back and tied with one of those retro “scrunchies.” She had hardly a stitch of make-up on and looked as though she’d been crying. Seeing Molly’s appearance this bare and pale, Edwin noticed just how pronounced her nose was on her face. Still, he felt a rumbling in his loins. Once again, Molly was wearing that “Brooklyn Girls Do It Better,” t-shirt and a pair of jeans that did not cover her mid-drift. Obviously the outfit was a popular one with Ms. Brown, Edwin thought. Or Matthew Joyless liked seeing her dress up like a 3rd Avenue hussy with an open invitation to free and proper fornication plastered across her small chest.

“Yes,” Edwin said, formally, of course.

“Edwin can I come in?”

“Now is not the time for me to be entertaining guests.”

“Please,” Molly said. And then she began to cry.

Edwin let her into his apartment and guided her toward his couch. He had Molly sit on the end the cockroaches typically stayed away from, and went into the kitchen to get her a drink while she sobbed. Edwin looked around and noticed a bottle of Pimm’s that he hadn't gotten to in his drunken state. He’d bought it over at Astor Wines in the city when on a New Orleans kick last summer. Edwin was going to learn how to make the world’s best Pimm’s Cup, but had never gotten around to buying the other drink components. He usually ended up taking a nip on the Pimm’s when he ran out of scotch. Two Pimm’s it would be, Edwin said to himself. He opened the refrigerator and there was not an ice cube to be found. Two Pimm’s neat, Edwin re-stated, throwing a shot into two glasses that may or may not have been entirely clean.

Edwin came back into the living room. He put the drinks on the coffee table and then sat on the other end of the couch while Molly continued to cry. He had no clue what to do. Edwin hated when women cried. Their tears made him nervous. Whenever Natalie cried Edwin had to leave the room. Sometimes he had to leave the apartment. If he was the one responsible for Natalie’s tears, Edwin often got on the R Train for a couple of days of male bonding with Lawson, never fully shaking the sight of his beloved’s crying, hoping she’d get over whatever he’d done and wouldn’t tear up anew when he returned home. And now this virtual stranger, this aching sex kitten, was sobbing in his apartment, on his side of the couch, where issues of McSweeny’s were read in comfort and Hot Pockets were consumed with the careless glee of a bachelor on the prowl.

“Molly, what is it?” Edwin asked, while trying to maintain his distance. The Chinese woman’s television blared through the walls, so he had something else to focus on. Thank goodness, Edwin said to himself, while pounding on the walls. Still, once the old hag turned down the television Edwin would still be left with the crying strumpet on his couch.

She held out the letter. “Did you get one of these?”

“I haven’t gotten my mail yet,” Edwin said.

“Here.”

Edwin took the letter and read it:

Dear Residents of the CrestSeal Apartments,

There have been some on-going issues with occupants in the building. We would like to address this issues and make sure everyone is aware of the policies and the consequences for violating these policies.

First off, we have received notice from the NYC Health Department about a complaint made regarding allege an unsanitary condition and pubic nuisance caused by pideon waste existing at the building. Residents must not allow pideons to create nuisance condition on private or pubic property. There violations can result in fines ranging from $300 to $3,500 per violation. We ask that you please DO NOT FEED PIDEONS.

A major concern we have is drugs. Their have been reports of residents smoking marijuana from specific apartments. No DRUGS of any kind will be tolerated. If it continues, the police will be notified and you WILL BE EVICTED. This is a final warning regarding this matter.

Edwin folded up the letter and handed it back to Molly.

“What do you think of it?” she said.

“I think that letter was written by an absolute illiterate,” Edwin said, sipping his Pimm’s. The alcohol turned his stomach a bit. “Not only should this person not have a job, they should be paraded around the city and beaten with thick, bamboo sticks.”

“I don’t even know what a pideon is,” Molly said. Then she began crying again.

“I’m sure it’s another word for homeless or vagrant. They seem to mill about more in the later winter, early spring.” Edwin had more Pimm’s. “Nevertheless, be careful whom you share your Egg McMuffins with would be my advice.”

“But what about the drugs, Edwin?” Molly said. through tears.

“Shhhh,” Edwin said. “Do you want them to raid us right now?”

“Matt and I were smoking marijuana last night.”

“Surely I don’t want to know anything about that,” Edwin said, rubbing his thigh.

Molly shook the letter. “Someone does!”

“Do you honestly believe that someone from the building management smelled your marijuana smoke, raced home and composed this letter last night?”

“They could have.”

“True. And judging by the prose it’s quite likely that they did. But I highly doubt that some corporate shill was lurking outside your door at four in the morning.”

“How did you know that we were smoking at four in the morning?” Molly asked.

Edwin took a long pull on his Pimm’s. Molly hadn’t touched hers. “I picked a random hour.” He was silent a moment. “Plus….well…I heard you.”

“You heard us?”

“Yes.”

“Everything?”

Edwin nodded and Molly began to cry again. He moved closer and tried his best to be comforting. Edwin patted Molly on the knee but all it did was give him a slight erection. “There, there, it’s not so bad.”

“I’m so embarrassed.” Molly looked up at Edwin. Her face was red and tear-stained. She had snot coming out of her nose, and Edwin thought that he was going to be sick again. To try and quell his shaky stomach, he got up and went back into the kitchen. Edwin got a paper towel for Molly, and a generous refill on the Pimm’s for himself.

“Really, you have to allow for these small embarrassments in apartments,” Edwin said, thinking back to the old upstairs neighbor who used to pound a broom handle on Edwin’s ceiling whenever he and Natalie made love, or, later, when Edwin was drunk, alone, and loud.

“I had a fight with Matt today as soon as I saw this letter,” Molly said.

“What was it over? His PS3?”

“No.” She gave Edwin an irritated look. “It was over the pot, Edwin.”

“Of course!” Edwin had more Pimm’s. “And did you send Mr. Joyle…Joy packing as was your right?”

“Matt doesn’t smoke pot,” Molly said. “I do.”

“I’m sure we can frame him,” Edwin said. “Make it look as though he took advantage of you.”

“I don’t want to frame him. He’s mad at me because I won’t stop. I lit up a J after we….and he started yelling at me.”

“Hence the rap music on full tilt?”

“I’m so sorry about that,” Molly said.

“Well, as they say in the game, life ain’t nothin’ but bitches and money.”

Molly smiled a little and then turned sad. “He left like right after the fight. It was still dark out. That creep, Gerhardt, was in the hallway. He started yelling at Matt about the scent of marijuana and about flushing toilets. It took forever for him to go back inside his place.”

“Talk about a man I’d like to frame and send up the river,” Edwin said.

“And I haven’t heard from Matt since he left,” Molly said. She started crying again. “I don’t know if he got home safe or what.”

Edwin looked at his watch. It was nearly three in the afternoon and he hadn’t even showered or ranted in his journal. “Dear, what you must do is go back to your apartment and call this Matthew Joy.”

“Matt.”

“Yes…Matt. You need to call him and straighten this business out right now.”

“You sound like you’re trying to get rid of me,” Molly said. She stood up from Edwin’s couch.

“I’m not,” Edwin said. “After all, we have a standing date to listen to Gershwin. It’s just….it’s just that this cruel woman has written a book about me, and I must get to a bookstore and get a copy so that I can begin building my legal defense.”

“Someone wrote a book about you?” Molly said. Her face brightened. Edwin was not surprised. The young these days were easily tempted by the slightest bit of celebrity. He thought perhaps to use this to his gain, but decided against it in Molly Brown’s delicate shape.

“My ex-girlfriend.”

“Cool.”

“I highly doubt that,” Edwin said.

Molly was quiet a moment. “Can I come to the bookstore with you?”

“I…”

“Please. I’m having such a bad day, and I really could use the company.”

“I…I guess so,” Edwin said. He motioned for Molly to sit back down on the couch. She did. “You stay here. Take in the ambiance while I shower and get myself ready.”

“I have to say, you look terrible today, Edwin,” Molly said. She finally picked up her Pimm’s and had a drink.

Edwin smiled. “And I don’t see much chance for improving as the hours wane.”

“I hope you know that I was kidding.”

Edwin went over and looked at himself in the mirror. “No you weren’t dear.”

They were silent a moment and then Molly Brown leaped up off the couch. “Pigeons!”

“What?”

“That’s what they meant in the letter,” Molly said. “Pideons are Pigeons!”

“Obviously,” Edwin said. And then he went into the bathroom, closed the door, and began running the hottest shower that he could stand.

Mr. Telephone Man

2011-04-15T04:08:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder staggered into his bedroom, turned on the light, and fell onto the bed. What a night, he thought, before he was able to take in the cacophony of sound that surrounded him at such an ungodly hour as this. It wasn’t rap that Molly Brown had playing this time, but some kind of screeching metal music with wailing guitars and the kind of bass that might as well make it your standard hip-hop song. To make matters worse, Molly’s bedsprings began vibrating and pounding down on Edwin’s ceiling in a torrent of sound. Bounce, bounce, bounce-wacka-bounce. Bounce, bounce, bounce-wacka-bounce. He heard Molly scream and Matt Joyless moan as if someone were beating him instead of copulating with him. Edwin had no choice but to put his pillow over his head and wait for it to stop, which it did, in less than two minutes. Then the music stopped and he heard voices, the muted, banal conversation of the unsatisfied. Edwin heard Molly get out of bed and pound across her room as was her fashion. There was a brief silence and then her toilet flushed. Edwin felt as though he were going to be sick.

He managed to get back out of bed and stumble into the living room. The Chinese woman’s television was on low, so it only hummed. Edwin heard bedsprings above him again and felt as though he were being taunted by some cruel spirit, but it was only Gerhardt turning in his lonely, sexless bed. Edwin sighed. It had been quite a night, he thought a second time, as he picked his ancient, cordless phone up off its stand. He dialed Lawson Thomas’ number as he walked into the kitchen, intent on fixing himself one last scotch before it was time to retire from the horror show that had been this day.

“Hello?’ Lawson said in a muffled, exhausted voice.

“Don’t hello me, Benedict Arnold!” Edwin spat into the phone. He took a sip on his scotch and water, and hoped that he had been loud enough.

“Mom?"

“Don’t mom me. You know damned well who this is, you lousy Tory.”

“Edwin, what in the hell do you want? It’s…” Lawson was silent a moment. “It’s almost four in the morning.”

“As good as any a time to call my back stabbing ex-best friend.”

“I have to get up in an hour to jog.”

“Not my concern,” Edwin said, taking his phone and his drink into the living room. “At least you slept this evening. I just got home and I was forced to listen to wild kingdom raining down on me in my bedroom.”

“What?”

“Never you mind, Benedict. It was a pathetic display of underdeveloped machismo anyway. I hope the harlot was left unsatisfied and embarrassed in her musical choice.”

“Huh?”

“Rap would’ve been so much more preferable,” Edwin said.

“Look, man, I have no clue what you’re talking about. If you don’t get to the point I’m hanging the fuck up,” Lawson said.

Edwin stopped short. Lawson rarely swore at him. He usually kept his invective reserved for The Man. “You know exactly what I mean.”

“I assure you that I don’t.”

Edwin has more scotch. “When were you going to tell me that Natalie was back in town and working at Hunter College? The next time I stopped by for one of those cafeteria lunches that you’re always bragging about?”

Lawson sighed. Edwin could almost picture him on the other end of the phone, hunched over the side of his bed, head in his hands, and acting the role of martyr. “You’re assuming that I knew that Natalie was back.”

“She works with you, does she not? You two are colleagues.”

“Where did you come up with that?”

“I had a deep and fruitful discussion with my two new friends, Benny and Ivan, and we came to the conclusion that you’ve been holding out on me, Benedict Arnold. You’ve kept this vital information stored in that head of yours all this time.”

“You discussed this with two bar drunks,” Lawson said.

“They’ve been hurt, all right. And don’t you slander my friends that way,” Edwin said. “Explain yourself, man!”

“Can’t we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow I’ll have forgotten your small existence.”

“Edwin.”

“Benedict.”

“Stop calling me that,” Lawson said. He was awake and probably pacing around his bedroom now, Edwin thought. Good.

“I’ll stop calling you that when you begin flapping your gums, and start spilling those beans of yours.

“I told you that I didn’t know Natalie was back.”

Edwin finished off his scotch. “But you know now.”

“Can we talk about this tomorrow, please, Edwin,” Lawson said.

“Now,” Edwin said.

“Who is that?” Edwin heard a voice say.

“It’s Edwin,” Lawson said to the voice.

“Is that Sour Bear?” Edwin asked.

“Mary’s here,” Lawson said. “You woke her up too.”

“It’s just as well. You artsy Brooklyn animals just can’t wait to get into the sack with the next so and so.”

“We’re dating. Exclusively.”

“Tell the little strumpet that playtime is over for the night.”

“That’s it I’m hanging up,” Lawson said.

“You do and it’ll be the last time we talk, sir!”

“Hold on.”

The other line went dead for a moment or so. Edwin thought that Lawson had hung up on him, and got up off his couch and began pacing his living room. Cars drove by. Buses roared up the street. Edwin looked out of his cracked, wooden blind, at the bright streetlights on 75th Street, and seriously considered moving out of New York City for the first time. There’s simply no peace here, Edwin said. To live in New York was to live with the dregs of society. Maybe it was just Brooklyn. It had to be better in Manhattan, he thought. Then Arlene came to him; beautiful Arlene with her black hair and blue eyes. Edwin suppressed the very idea of her, for it was Natalie that he still wanted. Still, it was a pity that nothing would ever happen between he and Arlene.

“Are you there, asshole?” Lawson asked.

“Well, haven’t we developed the keenest of vocabulary,” Edwin said. “Is that Sour Bear’s influence, or are you watching some urban crime thriller?”

“I was sleeping. But you want to talk, so let’s talk.”

“Fine,” Edwin said. “It’s always right down to business with you, isn’t it, Mr. Teacher?”

“You called me,” Lawson said.

“Oh did I?”

“Yes.”

Edwin was silent a moment. “If you say so. Now tell me what you know about Natalie.”

“All I know is that she moved back at the end of the summer, and that she started teaching creative writing at NYU in the fall.”

“Ah Ha! So you do work together!” Edwin shouted. But then he remembered that Lawson taught at Hunter College.

“There’s more,” Lawson said. He was silent a moment. So silent for such a moment that Edwin’s heart began to beat faster.

“Spit it out,” he demanded.

“Natalie’s written a book.”

“So? I’ve written ten books in my head.”

“Yeah, but this one’s been published. On paper,” Lawson said. “Or you can download it on an E-reader.” Edwin said nothing. He took the phone back into the kitchen and poured himself another scotch and water. He opened the fridge but there were no ice cubes left. “Edwin?”

“Well, I’m not surprised,” he finally said. “Natalie was always creative and she had quite an intellect when she wasn’t so bogged down in being a woman. If anyone other than myself was to do anything on a creative level, I expected it to be Natalie.”

“I have four books out there,” Lawson said.

“Theory books,” Edwin laughed. “On college presses.”

“Thanks.”

“So where can I get her book? The campus bookstore?”

“Mary and I downloaded it from the Sony Reader Store,” Lawson said.

“How twenty-first century of you,” Edwin said. “And was it worth it? What did she write about? The trappings of being a modern woman with infinite choices?”

“That’s the thing, Edwin.” Lawson paused. “The book is about you.”

“All flattering I assume.”

“It’s about your relationship with Natalie.”

“That’s…” Edwin stopped himself. “She wrote about that?”

“All of it,” Lawson said.

“I…”

“Look, man, I didn’t want to tell you this over the phone, not at this hour. I was going to call you tomorrow, or I was going to stop by.”

“How much of me is in there?”

“Enough, Edwin,” Lawson said.

Edwin downed his scotch and water in one gulp. Then he staggered into his bedroom and fell upon his bed a second time. He could hear the television from up in Molly Brown’s apartment, and she and Matthew Joy laughing at some stoner comedy that the networks only had the gall to play after the witching hour.

“Edwin,” Lawson said.

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know what to say right now,” Edwin said.

“Are you all right?”

“I…I just don’t know how I missed this. I mean I keep close attention to new authors. I have a standing subscription to McSweeny’s. I’m on the up and up with this sort of thing. I make it my hobby, if you will. Not only am I offended that Natalie Presley, for that’s how I’m forever refereeing to her, in the formal only, has taken to writing a tome about me, but I’m angry as an avid watcher of new literary talent, for not being first out the box in discovering her.” Edwin slumped into his pillow. “This is quite a load to carry, Lawson.”

“I know, Edwin,” Lawson said. “I’m going to come over tomorrow and we’ll talk or something. I’ll bring the E-reader if you want.”

“Don’t bother,” Edwin said. “And I mean that in the kindest of ways. You and your devil device, please spend the day with Sour Bear. I plan on being at the Barnes and Noble quite early tomorrow to pick up this slanderous piece of fiction. And then we’ll see whether or not I have a lawsuit.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Edwin said. “You are free to go about your business.”

“All right, man.”

“And to think I was going to give her a second chance.”

Lawson hung up and Edwin lay back in his bed, feeling repulsed by the very idea that Natalie Presley had written a book about their relationship. True, Edwin had often had flights of fancy where fame was concerned. He’d imagined writing a popular yet edgy novel numerous times, and seeing his name in all of the journals. In his head, Edwin has been interviewed dozens of times, and had squired and bedded so many young starlets that it would make the common man’s head spin. He’d even once imagined himself the lead singer in a famous rock and roll band or two. But these delusions, for as Edwin got older he knew that’s what they were, were always on his terms. They were not dictated by someone else. But now with this book people would know. They’d know all about him. Old friends would know more than they should. Acquaintances would be able to make assumptions. Of course strangers wouldn’t know a thing, but that wouldn’t stop Edwin from thinking that they were looking at him as he passed them on the street.

Oh how he both hated and loved Natalie Presley in that moment. Oh how he wanted to cry. But there was no time for that. From Molly Brown’s apartment the music started again. It was rap for real this time. What sort of callous little hussy played rap at four o’clock in the morning? Then the bedsprings started squeaking. Bounce, bounce, bounce-wacka-bounce. And Edwin got out of his bed determined to kill someone.

By some miracle, or by sheer alcoholic adrenaline alone, he reached the second floor of the apartment and Molly Brown’s hellish red door. The hallway smelt of marijuana smoke and you could hear the gross, sweating animalistic moans and grunts going on inside. The rap music thumped with power, and Edwin was truly surprised that he was the only neighbor in the building poised to knock on the door and create a scene. Had everyone else given up? Did no on care for the sanctity of peace and quiet? Edwin always had to go it alone with these community saving endeavors. He should just give up and let it all go to hell, he thought. He was just about ready to knock on the door when the panting, moaning, bouncing, and rap music stopped. Quickly he backed away.

“I heard youse!” Gerhardt shouted from his doorway. The old curmudgeon was already fully dressed. Gerhardt pointed at Edwin and sniffed. “Is that dope? I smelled youse smoking dope!”

“Surely, you don’t think that was me in there with that hooker?” Edwin said to his only other known enemy. “I was merely coming up here to complain.”

“You’re a drunk!” Gerhardt shouted. “A drunk and I heard youse having sex, and smelled youse smoking dope. I heard youse flushing your toilets and listening to Gershwin, and I’m going to call the landlord about all of youse!”

Edwin had no recourse but to run before someone heard Gerhardt shouting. He made it around the bend and down half a flight of stairs, before he realized that if no one heard the racket that Molly Brown was making, then no one would hear Gerhardt shouting. Unless it was reality television or some smoker’s dull soliloquy on the front stoop of the building, the denizens of this apartment were deaf to their surroundings. Edwin tried to stop running, but in his inebriated state he could not. So he tripped and rolled down the other half of a flight of stairs, landing on the very last step. For a moment he laid there. Edwin’s hip and thigh were burning. His knee on his left leg was throbbing. He wondered if this night would ever end. Then the super, Mr. Isaiah Sheppard, came by pushing a broom. He sniffed. Edwin knew that he could smell the marijuana.

“What are you doing on them steps at this hour?” Sheppard asked. “Meditating?”

Benny and Ivan Explain it All Part: 2

2011-04-12T04:13:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder had more of his scotch and watched the men playing darts, as Benny navigated his way around the jukebox. He wondered which one of them had slept with Benny’s lady friend. Was it the drunken mailman who always played game show theme songs, and bought everyone a round until he was dead broke? The racist carpenter who always stared down Lawson? The bus driver with either drank before or after his shift? Edwin wondered how Benny could come to this bar night after night and sit with that group of men having known what went on between them and his woman. Edwin could barely be in George Pollard Jr.’s apartment. He could hardly sit and talk with him without the blood rising in his veins. Edwin wondered if it were different for the lower classes. Maybe these men were more like dogs, and it didn’t matter whose bitch you slept with at any given time. Perhaps all you had to do was smell each other’s ass and buy the wounded party a drink to make amends. In that moment, Edwin wanted to call his parents and thank them for his Catholic education, even though the religion part never stuck.

“I don’t know, Benny,” Ivan suddenly said, when Benny returned. “I think you can still be hard up for someone after years go by.”

“No you can’t.”

“Tell me you don’t miss Mona.”

“She’s a bitch,” Benny said. “I hate her…but yeah, I miss her sometimes.”

“Just like me and Rachel,” Ivan said.

“Ah, not her again,” Benny said, sitting down carefully on his stool. He turned away from Ivan and sulked into his drink.

Ivan grabbed Edwin’s arm. “I was a hurricane of a man,” he said. “I used to work sanitation for the city, and I slept with so many broads that I can’t even remember how many.”

“Hmmmm…,” Edwin said. He signaled for another drink.

“But then I met her. Rachel. She was so smart and pretty.” Ivan gazed off toward the jukebox and then turned back. “She was goin’ta college, too. Science major or something. We had a good thing going for a coupla years.”

“And then he messed it all up,” Benny said, taking Edwin’s other arm. “Tell him how you messed it up, big boy.”

“Yeah, I did,” Ivan said. “I had the best woman in the world and I ruined it. I cheated on Rachel with some woman on my route. The woman got pregnant and before I knew it I was on my ass, and Rachel was leaving town with her bachelor’s degree.”

Edwin clasped Ivan’s arm. “Unbelievable. Who knew that you people lived actual lives outside of fop sweat, pratfalls, and beer hangovers?”

“No kiddin’,” Ivan said. “We were gonna get married and everything.”

“Hell,” Benny said, letting go of Edwin’s arm to wave Ivan off. Edwin liked how the men in the joint always waved each other off. He decided then and there to go home and practice waving people off. Once he got proficient enough he would try it with Mr. Owen Chase, for there was nothing to lose on the job now. “She wasn’t gonna marry you.”

“She was too.”

“You never would’ve been faithful to her.”

Ivan nodded. I guess not. And I don’t really have no regrets, right? I mean I love my kids, you know? Even the one in jail.”

“He should,” Benny said, taking Edwin’s shoulder again. “He has five of them with four different women.”

“So he’s a virile man?” Edwin said. He looked at Ivan. “I believe the children are our future. I was just expressing the same thing to an old friend this very night.”

Ivan shrugged. “I love my kids. But I loved Rachel.”

Edwin had more of his drink. By now he determined that he was drunk. But the great part was that he no longer felt self-conscious alone in Rooney’s. He felt as though he were part of a pack now. Sure, Benny and Ivan would probably get loaded and forget Edwin and this conversation the next day, as they often had. Edwin likened talking to them to meeting an infant, and each and every time was like the first time. If he came into Rooney’s tomorrow there would be Benny staggering at the jukebox, and there would be Ivan dancing, and neither of them would remember a moment of this conversation. They’d vaguely remember Edwin, tipping a beer toward him at best if he came in the bar. Still, Edwin was thankful for the companionship and talk on such a foreboding night as this one.

“I was a hurricane of a man back in the day,” Ivan said into his drink. “It’s funny we talk about this now, you know. I have a question for you, Eddie.”

“Fire away, chum,” Edwin said.

“You see, one of my kids has this Internets thing. He was showing me how I can look up people and whatever, so I put in her name. I put in Rachel Howard and all of this stuff came up on her.”

“Like F.B.I. files and a police record?”

“No. Like she teaches science at Hunter College right here in the city.”

“Interesting,” Edwin said. “On two accounts. One that you could get an educated woman to sleep with you, let alone be around you for successive years. And two that she teaches in that dump.” Edwin said this knowing full well that was where Lawson taught his philosophy of literature class.

Ivan had more beer. “It’s kinda like you, and your broad coming back to New York.”

“If apples and oranges were the same thing. But, okay, I’ll bite.”

“So I was thinking of maybe going down to the college and seeing her,” Ivan said. “You know, like surprise her or something.”

“Stalk her,” Edwin said nodding, and then having more scotch.

“Yeah, just go down and see how the years have been.”

Benny slammed down his scotch and leaned over Edwin, pointing at Ivan. He smelled of Chinese food from weeks gone by. “This dope thinks he’s got a chance with her. What’s it?” Benny began snapping his fingers in Edwin’s face. “You can’t repeat this past.”

“What do you mean you can’t repeat the past?” Ivan said. “Of course you can.”

That was a Bob Dylan lyric, Edwin thought to himself. If Lawson were here, he would’ve pointed it out. But to hell with Lawson Thomas; Edwin had new friends now.

“Oh sure,” Benny said. “You’re just going to waddle over to Hunter College and them guards are going to let you in because you’re nursing some ancient crush.”

“They got guards?”

“Big ones,” Edwin said, remembering a particular red-faced, thick-necked one who tried to kick him off campus for inciting a near riot while waiting for Lawson for lunch. Edwin couldn’t stand that modern college students had no gusto, that they walked around all day with their noses buried in devices, and he had told a few of them so.

“Well, maybe I can talk to them,” Ivan said. He had some beer, finishing his bottle off. He waved for the bartender who counted the number of drinks and began pouring a new round for their small group.

“Sure, ‘cause you can reason with cops these days,” Benny said. “Don’t you remember 9/11?”

“Oh, yeah.” Ivan took a pull on his new beer. “Still, I gotta do something.”

“Why not send flowers?” Edwin asked.

Ivan’s face lit up. “Yeah! Flowers!” He smacked Edwin in the back so hard that his stomach hit the gold rail of the bar, almost knocking the wind out of him. “I’ll go and buy some flowers at the Food City and bring them to Rachel.”

“That wasn’t what I had in mind, but…”

“And I won’t mess with no security guards. I’ll just stand outside her building and wait. I’ll stand there all day if I have to.”

“There’s like ten buildings on that campus,” Benny said. “What? Are you gonna stand outside of each one until you get it right?”

“You could look her up on the Internets,” Edwin said.

“Don’t encourage him, Eddie,” Benny said. “Besides, can you even find your way out of Brooklyn?”

“Maybe,” Ivan said. “For her I could.”

“Bah,” Benny said.

And then it hit Edwin what he had to do in regards to Natalie. He had to see her and explain himself in a way that he hadn’t two years ago. It didn’t matter what that cow Shannon Shorter had said about her not wanting to see him. Shannon Shorter had raised a juvenile delinquent, Edwin reasoned. What did she know? There could still be a chance for them, despite his past transgressions, numerous as they were, and what kind of a man would he be if he did not at least give it the old college try? Hell, even Ivan was willing to leave the safety of his darkened concave to give love a shot, provided he could find the R train station. And Edwin was certainly a much more advanced creature that Ivan. Edwin still believed in adding the “ing” at the end of the appropriate words, after all.

He had a good pull on his scotch as Benny and Ivan argued about this Rachel, and tried to figure out what to do. First, he had to find out where Natalie was working. Or where she was living. Brooklyn? Queens? Blessed Manhattan? He doubted that it was The Bronx or Staten Island. Natalie was a woman of principle and style, and wouldn’t be caught dead in either of those boroughs. Edwin tried to imagine Natalie on Staten Island, living amongst the Italians. The thought of that made his body shake. No, he knew that her home address would be harder to come by, so Edwin focused on the job. She had to be teaching as well but where? NYU? Their old stomping grounds. Brooklyn College? Could Natalie be having lunches with Seth Weeks and his special “someone?” She couldn’t be at Hunter. Lawson would’ve told him that Natalie was back at Hunter College. Unless….Edwin slammed down his drink and rose from his stool.

“Why that Benedict Arnold!” he shouted.

“Eddie, what’s tha matter?” Ivan asked.

“How much would it cost to get you boys to go and kill a man?” Edwin asked Benny and Ivan.

“What?”

“Or at least shake him down.”

“Eddie, you’re talkin’ crazy talk,” Benny said. “Sit down and finish your drink.”

“Benny, I can’t,” Edwin said, putting on his coat. “The night is still young.”

Benny tried to focus on his watch. “It’s like three in the morning.”

“Did Einstein sleep when genius struck him? I think not. Plus Ivan here has given me an idea.”

“What did I do?” Ivan asked.

Edwin patted him on the shoulder. “Ivan, I’m going to go after my old love. I’m going to win her back. Essentially, I’m going to succeed where you’re going to fail miserably with this poor, unfortunate Rachel. I’m going to triumph where you’ll probably be served with a temporary restraining order.”

“That’s great, Eddie,” Ivan said. He held up his beer bottle. Edwin lifted his scotch glass off the bar, and Benny hoisted his Jack. The three of them clinked glasses, and it was just as magical as Edwin thought it would be.

Benny and Ivan Explain it All: Part 1

2011-04-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder walked up the steps of the 77th Street station. He felt good. He shouldn’t be feeling so good, he reasoned. In one evening, Edwin had his dreams of a romance with Molly Brown shot down in flames, had argued with two ignorant little harlots on the train, had been forced to suffer his memories of Carroll Gardens and George Pollard Jr.’s apartment, had been forced to suffer the dull, sluggish faces from his past, found out that he’d been demoted or had never been second in command of the Insert-Big-Named-Corporate-Conglomerate-Invoicing-Company-Here, and that was going to lose his job come June. Plus, worst of all, Natalie was back.

Edwin felt in his left pocket. He stopped at 78th street and 4th Avenue, and took out Arlene’s cellular phone number to look at it under a streetlight. Her penmanship was impossible, Edwin thought. She wrote like a third grader. But, of course, Arlene was a Pollard. And while having her number was a brand new joy to him, a beacon, if you will, of better things to come; having Arlene Pollard’s phone number was akin to walking around the with digits of a Capulet. Edwin didn’t foresee her as a reality, not with the way her brother had most likely bounced Natalie around on his lap like she had hydraulics placed inside of her. Edwin crushed Arlene’s phone number in his hand, but instead of tossing it onto the cracked pavement he put it back in his pocket for safekeeping. Who knew? Perhaps with Natalie back in town this whole business could get straightened out. Maybe Pollard was the innocent that he and all of his useless friends claimed that he has been all along. Edwin doubted it. He began walking down 78th but he stopped again. Perhaps there was still a chance for him and Natalie to get back together. The past was the past. Correct?

Edwin went into Rooney’s Pub, despite his better judgment and the whole Pizza Night business that he’d used as a social guideline where the joint was concerned. The place was in rare form for so late. Many of the regulars were in the back of the bar playing darts as was their call and station in life to do so after a day of selling their souls to the company store. Benny, the group’s de fact leader, was stationed in front of the jukebox, clad, as always, in his Bermuda shorts and beach bar t-shirt with his Giants cap pulled down firmly, nearly covering his beady eyes. Benny was swaying and touching his old man’s goatee, trying to figure out which blast from the past to play next. Ivan, the barrel-chested, red-faced Russian, was dancing with himself as always. The Grateful Dead sounded throughout the bar. Truckin. Edwin listened and sat down alone at the other end of the bar. He realized that he needed to call his parents to see how they were doing. Had it been seven months already since his last call?

The bartender with his earring in the wrong ear set down Edwin’s scotch and water on the rocks. “How are we tonight?”

Edwin looked around. It was a little joke that he like to play whenever someone referred to an individual in the plural. “We are fine tonight.”

“That’s good.”

“Perhaps we’re a little less than fine.”

“Huh?”

“Girl trouble.”

The bartender laughed. “You should’ve seen the tits on the one that was just in here.”

“Tits,” Edwin said. “Yes.”

“Do you like tits?” the bartender asked.

Edwin took a pull on his drink, shoved his money closer so that the bartender would take it and go away. “Sure. What red-blooded male doesn’t like tits?”

“No kidding.”

“By the way, nice earring.”

The bartender winked at Edwin, took his money, and walked back down toward the men playing darts. Edwin scanned the bar. Benny was still at the jukebox but Ivan was nowhere to be found.

“Hey there, buddy,” Ivan said, sitting down next to Edwin. He smelled of meat and vodka, had a sweating bottle of Budweiser in his meaty grip. “How’s it goin’ tonight?”

“Swimmingly,” Edwin said, taking a strong pull on his drink. It was more like scotch water than a scotch and water. He wondered if he could have the bartender hanged for making that drink.

“Where’s your friend?” Ivan asked.

“Which one?’ Edwin said

Ivan squinted, most probably trying to recall Edwin with anyone other than Lawson Thomas. “The black one.”

“The black one?”

“Yeah.”

“Who knows? He’s most probably out stealing hubcaps or soiling some storefront with graffiti.”

“Nah,” Ivan said. He hoisted his beer and had a good pull on it. “He don’t seem the type.”

“Don’t let his trickery fool you,” Edwin said.

“Anyway you look sad,” Ivan said. “What’s the matter? We got booze, we got good music and darts. This ain’t the work day.” Ivan shook his arms. “This is dancing time.”

“Charlie don’t dance,” Edwin said.

“You really should, Chuck. It releases the tension.”

“My name is Edwin.”

“Okay, Eddie.”

Edwin sighed, finished his drink. He motioned toward the bartender for another. “If you must know, I’m conflicted.”

“Why?” Ivan asked.

“Girl trouble.”

“Oh. I feel you man.” Ivan finished his beer just as the bartender was setting Edwin’s new drink down. Ivan shook his beer and the bartender grabbed the empty from his hand, replacing it a second later with a fresh bottle of Budweiser. If nothing else, Edwin thought, this bartender was proficient with his lot in life. “You should talk to Benny."

“I don’t think…” Edwin started.

“Hey, Benny!” Ivan shouted.

Benny turned from the incredible task of trying to put one simple dollar in the jukebox. “What?”

“We need you over here!”

“Why?”

“Eddie’s havin’ girl troubles!”

Benny squinted and staggered forward a few steps. “Who in the hell is, Eddie?”

“You know,” Ivan said. “The clean looking kid who comes in here!”

“The one who brings the black with him?"

“Yeah.”

Benny staggered over to where Edwin and Ivan were sitting. He sat on the other side of Edwin, and there was no chance for an easy escape. The bartender came over and set Benny’s Jack on the bar. Then the three new friends, Benny, Eddie, and Ivan sat there for a moment. They were devoid of words until Benny burped and Ivan laughed.

“Now, what did youse want?” Benny asked.

“Tell him about your lady troubles,” Ivan said.

Benny had some Jack, waved his old pal off. “Nah, that’s old news. No one wants to hear it.”

“Sure they would. You wanna hear Benny’s story, right, Eddie?”

“More than I want to hear Gershwin right now,” Edwin said.

Benny had more Jack. “Basically there’s nothing to tell,” he said. “I’m fifty-five years old. I met this thirty-two year old, and we shacked up for a while. End of story.”

“Ah, the old shack-job,” Edwin said.

“It was nice,” Benny said. “You know me, I’m easy going. And me and her were good for a while. You know we’d come to the bar, play some music, and have a few drinks. Life was good.”

“Tell him what happened,” Ivan said.

Benny had more Jack and then stared forward for a moment. He looked down toward the group of guys playing darts. “Basically she fucked pretty much everyone in this bar behind my back.”

“Really?” Edwin said, taking a drink. Finally something good was happening, he thought.

“Yeah. Bitch lost her job and started hanging around here all day, drinking up the rent money. Pretty soon she was drunk and broke and going home with nearly anyone who would buy her a drink.”

“Why that harlot,” Edwin said. “That whore.”

“I never touched her,” Ivan said. He and Benny leaned over Edwin and clinked glasses. They smelled of desperation and Edwin wondered if he would smell that way once he was on the dole.

“Then what happened?” Edwin asked.

Benny shrugged. “I went nuts. I came in here out for blood. I tore this joint up, threw chairs and tore down pictures of her.” He pointed to Ivan. “I woulda killed someone if Ivan hadn’t stopped me.”

“He really woulda,” Ivan added.

“How exciting,” Edwin said. “And then what?”

Benny was quiet a moment. “And then I left her. I moved out to Jersey and stayed with my brother for a while. But I couldn’t let the bitch go, you know. So I came back. I begged her to let me stay in our old place, thinking that we could work it out. She let me sleep in the spare room. I slept on the floor while she brought a different guy home each and every night. Finally she met someone, and she moved out.”

“And what did you do?” Edwin asked.

“What could I do, Eddie?” Benny said. “I took her name off the lease and got on with the livin’.”

“Well, Benny, I didn’t realize we had so much in common. I thought that you were just a typical bar hoodlum, but now I’m beginning to think that you might just be somewhat human. You see, I too was made a cuckold of by my old friend.”

“A what?” Ivan said.

Edwin turned to him. “Ah, how to say this so you’ll understand? My boy banged my woman.”

“Shit. How long ago?”

“Two years.”

Benny nearly choked on his scotch. “That was two years ago? And you’re still hung up on her? My shit happened to me last month.” Edwin thought for a moment, remember a small period of time where no Grateful Dead played in the bar and Ivan had stopped dancing. “Come on, Eddie. Find a new bitch and move on.”

Edwin had some scotch. “I just found out tonight that she’s back in New York, and I don’t know how I feel about this. Do I contact her? Let bygones be bygones and the like?” He reached in his pants and pulled out Arlene’s number. “Plus I’ve met someone new.”

Benny took the number and looked at it. “Who’s Albert?”

“That’s Arlene,” Edwin said, taking back the paper. “She’s the sister of the man who ruined my life.”

“I say you forget the old girlfriend and bang this new chick.”

“That’s your advice?”

“Yeah. The past is the past, ain’t it?”

“I guess so, Benny,” Edwin said.

Then the three new friends got quiet. They all had a drink at the same time.

"Shit, now I'm depressed," Benny said. He finished off his drink and got up. "I'm going to play some fucking music."

The Party: Part 3

2011-04-06T07:21:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder followed his friend, Lawson Thomas, into George Pollard Jr.’s living room, a living room which used to belong to him and Natalie nearly a thousand years ago. Or it felt like a thousand years ago to Edwin. And maybe it felt as old to the other people in the room, judging by the way some of them looked; most of the people sitting on or around Pollard’s still-collegiate furniture, their faces and bodies horrendously gray and battered by life before the age of forty. Perhaps that was just Edwin’s take on them, as he'd known most when they were young and lithe, full of life and ideas, and when they hadn’t yet settled for life’s typical, daily banalities. America was such a mendacious place for having people believe that they would be forever young, Edwin thought, casting a glance around the room. But then Henry De Witt handed his drink to his wife, Mallory, another of Natalie’s friends who now hated Edwin for whatever reason that she had, and came up to shake his hand. Henry was drinking vodka and soda with a sliver of lemon. He had been doing so for at least twelve years.

“Hello, Balder,” De Witt said as he shook Edwin’s hand.

“It’s Edwin,” Edwin said, shaking De Witt’s hand back. “What is with everyone using each other’s last names at this party tonight? Have we suddenly joined a beer league?” He nodded toward Mallory who smirked and held out Henry’s drink to Edwin in a pleasant yet formal manner. It was much better than their last meeting where Mallory had told Edwin to get fucked while taking a sobbing Natalie up the stairs to the guest bedroom in their New Jersey home.

“I see you haven’t lost any of your wit,” Henry De Witt said.

“My humor spills forth like a broken nuclear reactor into the green sea.”

No one laughed at this timely yet inappropriate joke. Edwin should’ve known having been around this crowd off and on for nearly two decades. People at parties such as this did not mock world tragedies so much as sit and contemplate what they could’ve collectively done to have stopped them, as if a bunch of artsy vegans could’ve stopped the genocide in Rwanda back in 1994 with nothing but pluck, determination, and falling packages of extra-firm tofu. Ugh, Edwin hated being amongst this crowd. They made him feel old and tired. And Edwin wasn’t old, just oldish.
All the same, he didn’t like his late thirties. They were an odd kind of old. Edwin felt as though he still connected to the Molly Brown’s and Matt Joy’s of the world, when, in fact, he was becoming more and more invisible to them and their ilk by the day. Yet he certainly wasn’t ready for mahjong at the retirement home. Edwin certainly felt no connection to his peer group, this collection of has-been’s still trying to get their film projects off the ground, their music just right for popular consumption; he didn’t jell with the types who went to bars in the middle of the afternoon for mommy and baby happy hour. These people were deluding themselves, Edwin thought. He was currently standing the bastion of the deluded.

“Is that a Japan joke?” Henry asked.

“More of a dig at Three Mile Island,” Edwin said, knowing full well that there was no sea near Three Mile Island. “What can I say? It has already been confirmed this evening that I’m retro.”

“I said old,” Arlene said, coming in with Edwin’s bourbon on the rocks.

“Ah, sweet sustenance,” he said, taking the drink and having a mighty pull on it.

“Let me guess,” Henry said, “scotch and water on the rocks.”

Edwin squinted and then smiled, took his drink from his lips. He hated the informality between himself and Henry De Witt. “Actually I gave it up tonight.”

“Just tonight?”

“I am a man of whimsy, De Witt,” Edwin said. “If you cannot keep up with me, you best step aside with the other oldies in the room.”

“We didn’t have scotch,” Arlene said to Henry De Witt.

“Yes, thank you for reminding me of my unwelcome state,” Edwin said. “I’ll be sure to send my thank you card, posthaste.”

“You know I always thought that you and Natalie were going to settle down and have kids like Mallory and I did,” Henry said. Edwin cringed. Arlene cringed. Lawson Thomas cringed from where he was sitting, bookended by Mary Baldacci and Thomas Nickerson. Even Mallory cringed from her place on George Pollard Jr.’s offending couch.

“And why in God’s name would you think that?” Edwin said.

“I don’t know. You two were good together.” Edwin wondered where in the hell Henry De Witt had been for the last two years. Did he not remember that night of terror in his bland New Jersey Home?”

“We broke up….like two years ago.”

“I know.” De Witt put his hand on Edwin’s shoulder. “I was just saying.”

“Well, say something different, you soused fiend,” Edwin said, brushing De Witt’s hand off of his shoulder. “At the very least don’t wish children on me.”

“Why not? Kids are great.”

“Sure, if you have a farm to plow or a coal mine that needs to be…well…mined,” Edwin said. “Other than that, I don’t see the use for them.”

“I love my kids,” Henry said. “They fulfill me.”

“More than your paintings used to?”

“My kids are my art.”

“Good, Christ, you hoodwinked fool!” Edwin shouted. “You could put two retarded monkeys in a room together, and the chances are pretty good that they’ll conceive. But you were a painter, a damned fine painter if I say so myself.”

Arlene turned to an increasingly agitated Henry De Witt. “I’ve never seen him complement anyone.”

“Are you calling me and my wife retarded monkeys, Balder?” De Witt asked.

“There you go with the beer league speak again. Call me Edwin,” Edwin said. “And no, I was not calling you and Mallory monkeys.” He paused, took a drink on his bourbon. Oh, why not? Edwin said to himself. “I would never insult retarded monkeys in such a vile fashion.”

Henry De Witt pushed Edwin and his drink fell to the floor, just as people rose to break them up. After stumbling a little and, sadly, smacking into poor, innocent Arlene, Edwin regained his footing and laughed. Henry De Witt was so thick. He should’ve seen that joke coming from a mile away.

“Same old Edwin,” Mallory said, as she pulled her fuming husband away.

“I was joking,” Edwin said. He looked at Henry, who was now sitting on that couch, vodka and soda place firmly back in his hand. “You left yourself wide open for that one.”

“My kids are my art,” was all that Henry De Witt would say.

“I’m sure they’re a couple of Picasso paintings,” Edwin said, before Lawson Thomas grabbed his arm and pulled him over to his small cluster of friends. Arlene picked up Edwin’s drink off of the carpet but left the small bourbon stain where it was. She came over to join Edwin and company.

“You certainly have a way with people,” Arlene said.

“De Witt is a dolt,” Edwin said. “He’s been a dolt for over fifteen years. Back in the day we used to all go out for coffee, and whenever De Witt went to the restroom we would put the worst kind of things in his coffee, condiments, articles of food, chewed napkins. We did this each and every time, and each and every time poor, foolish De Witt would come back to the table and have a sip on his coffee expecting it to not be contaminated.”

“That’s gross.”

“It was funny back then. Wasn’t it, Lawson?”

Lawson laughed. “Yeah.”

Mary slapped Lawson’s arm. “I can’t believe you did that to him.”

Edwin looked at his old friend. “The old ball and chain already giving it to you, I see?”
“Shut up, Edwin,” Lawson said. He turned to Mary. “That was years ago, Sour Bear.”

“Now you’re using that as a term of affection?”

“It worked for us,” Mary said.

“Well, you have me to thank for it,” Edwin said. He turned back to Arlene. “All the same, De Witt rubs me the wrong way. All of these aging hipsters do.”

“And what are you, my man?” Lawson asked.

“Adrift. Actually I’m the assistant manager of the Insert-Massive-Conglomerate-Here invoice processing plant.”

“I’m the assistant manager, Edwin,” Mary said.

“What?” Edwin thought about it for a moment. “I thought that you were the secretary.”

“You’re the secretary.”

“Hmmm, that must be why old Chase keeps asking me if the coffee is on in the morning, and why he scours my desk for the daily mail. Who makes the coffee?"

“I do,” Mary said.

“Well, who gets the mail?”

“Yours truly.”

Edwin patted Mary on her knee without cringing or feeling sick. “You need a raise my dear.” He turned back to Arlene. “Perhaps when Ms. Baldacci here becomes manager then I can move up in the chain of command.”

“They’re closing us,” Mary said.

Edwin turned to her, aghast. “They are? Why wasn’t I told?”

“There was a memo, Edwin. A couple of people from corporate came down.”

“Where was I?” he asked.

“In the bathroom,” Mary said, “reading McSweeny’s.”

“You told her about that?” Edwin said to Lawson.

“It was obvious,” Mary said. “You keep it on your desk, and it’s always rolled up in the back of your pants.” She laughed. “I used to think it was a Playboy.”

“Now I’m offended,” Edwin said. “But are they really closing us?”

“This summer.”

“Have they no clue what the economy is like?”

“Yes,” Mary said. “That’s why they're closing us.”

“My kids are my art!” Henry De Witt screamed from across the room.

“Paint away, De Witt!” Edwin shouted back. He turned to Mary. “What ever will we do?”

“Collect unemployment?”

"I can't go on the dole," Edwin said.

“You could go back to teaching,” Lawson said.

Edwin rose. “How dare you even suggested that, you beast! How dare you even assume that I’d go back into that citadel of failure, and try to impart my knowledge upon those slobbering Philistines!”

“It was a suggestion,” Lawson said.

“Teachers disgust me.”

“I’m a teacher.”

“Consider myself disgusted with you,” Edwin said.

“Teaching is a rewarding profession,” Mary said.

“This from the assistant manager in a failing invoice processing plant,” Edwin said to Arlene. Then he looked at Thomas Nickerson, who hadn’t said a word since he’d sat down. “What do you do for a living, Cabin boy?”

“I’m a chef,” Nickerson said.

“I don’t think they call them chefs at McDonald’s,” Edwin said.

“Very funny. But, seriously, I’m a real chef.”

“Where?”

“At Hunter’s Steak and Ale house.”

“I don’t think frying up a t-bone makes one a chef.”

“We serve other things,” Nickerson said.

“Salad. Do you enjoy your work?” Edwin asked.

“Most of the time.”

“I want to kill myself when I get home,” Edwin said, which was the most honest thing he’d said to someone in a long time. It was a pity, he thought, that it had to be Thomas Nickerson of all people.

“That’s why you should listen to your friend and get back into teaching,” Arlene said, tugging on Edwin’s pants to get him to sit back down.

“Et tu, Eddie Vedder?”

“My kids are my art!” Henry De Witt shouted again. Edwin and company looked over toward the De Witt’s and saw that they were putting on their coats.

“Leaving so soon?” Edwin asked. "Or just stepping out for some coffee?"

“They’re better than any Picasso! They beat any Van Gogh!”

“I’m sure they’re regular El Grecos.”

“They’re better!” De Witt said, continuing to shout. Some of the other guests from the party crowded into the living room to watch. Edwin made special notice of the way that Charles and Shannon Shorter looked at him with contempt. Oh well, what were two more aging failures removed from his life? “My kids are like gold.”

“Your kids should be following canaries out of mines,” Edwin said. “At the very least they should be sweeping floors of a slaughterhouse.”

Henry De Witt, an ardent vegan, went for Edwin Balder a second time, but was restrained by the aging, black militant poet, Barzaillai Ray and the host and birthday boy, himself, George Pollard Jr.

“You just couldn’t behave, could you, Balder.” Pollard said.

“I yam what I yam,” Edwin said.

“Why don’t you leave, dude.”

“With pleasure.” Edwin began walking toward his hateful mob. He pictured them all with torches, for he felt like a Frankenstein monster in that moment. He felt like the only person who had any conception of the dark reality that was this long and arduous life. “Far be it from me to be anywhere that doesn’t serve scotch. Many happy returns, Pollard.”

“Go home, Edwin.”

“Nice couch,” Edwin said, as he moved through the small crowd.

“Thank you, Edwin,” Mallory shouted. “Thanks a lot for doing this to us tonight. You know the trouble we’ve had with the kids, especially Jamie.”

Edwin stopped in the archway between the living room and the bedroom of sin. A clock had once fallen on Natalie’s head in that very same spot. She had raced into the living room to tell Edwin something, something which he no longer remembered, and the pounding of her feet had unhinged the clock from the wall and it came right down on her head. “I’m sorry, Mallory. I forgot that one of your children was a juvenile delinquent.”

“She’s developmentally challenged, you asshole,” Shannon Shorter said to him.

“Whatever,” Edwin said, using the parlance of our times.

“No wonder Natalie left you.”

“Oh beat me with a dead horse why don’t you”

Shannon Shorter grew and evil smile on her face. “I'll be I know something that you don't know."

"What? That your video art is crap?"

"She’s back,” Shannon said.

“Natalie?” Edwin said, although whom else could she mean. “Back in New York?”

"There's more."

"What?"

Shannon Shorter smiled. "It's too good to tell you."

"Well, I'll just have to ask her myself."

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

“Oh.” Edwin stared once again at his collection of old friends and enemies, trying his best not to process the knowledge that Natalie Presley was back in New York, living somewhere just beyond his reach. Then he left the room.

Seth Weeks was sitting alone in the kitchen when Edwin went in there to retrieve his coat. Seth was a dumpy sort. He wore outdated glasses with thick frames and bulbous lenses. They were a good match for his receding hairline and patchy beard. Seth had always been a non-entity amongst their crowd, a silent hanger on with a high-pitched voice who never offered a comment, criticism, or judgment. He had no artistic inclinations, except a vague precludtivity toward Woody Allen films, which Edwin chalked up to Seth’s homosexual attraction toward nebbish Jews. Edwin used to like him for those very reasons but, in the moment at hand, hated Seth Weeks for his moderate disposition, and love of witty films without carrying an ounce of wit on his own person.

“Hello, Seth,” Edwin said, putting on his coat. “Seems I’m the belle of the ball once again.”

Seth did not laugh. Edwin had never seen Seth Weeks' laugh in all of the years of their forced acknowledgement of one another. “Hello, Edwin.”

“And what have you been up to?”

“Nothing.”

“Working, I presume?”

“I manage a bookstore down by Brooklyn College,” Seth Weeks said.

“Anyone special in your life?”

“I have a certain someone.”

Edwin smiled. “You know, Seth. It’s even okay to be gay in the military now.”

Seth Weeks had no reaction to this. “Natalie’s back.”

“Yes,” Edwin said. “And if you weren’t who you were, I’d be thinking that someone grew a set and was trying to get my goat.”

Edwin Balder left George Pollard Jr.’s apartment and made his way down the rickety stairs. He passed the cabbage and ass sweat smell of Isaac Cole’s apartment and made it safely outside on to the street. Edwin looked at the spot where the dog had been murdered and he started panting. He thought that he was going to pass out. Then Arlene came outside.

“Edwin,” she said. “Edwin, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Edwin said. He composed himself and turned to face her. “Tonight was par for the course for me.”

“I’m sorry about Natalie.”

“It was bound to happen. She’s like the rest of them in there,” he said, pointing up to Arlene’s brother’s apartment, “foolishly devoted to a city that has eaten her up but has yet to spit her out.”

Arlene pulled a piece of paper out of her baggy pants. “Here’s my number.”

“Why?”

“Because I like you,” she said. “I mean, I think underneath all of this mouthy business, you’re a pretty decent guy.”

“There are mounds of opinions to the contrary in that apartment behind you,” Edwin said.

“Well, Lawson likes you. And as for the rest of them…I guess I feel the way you do about them.”

“And that is?”

“Tired and old when I’m around them,” Arlene said.

Edwin smiled and took the number. “It seems you've read my mind. And I’ll be sure to call, despite your family line. Perhaps you can come by and we can have a drink and listen to Rhapsody in Blue.”

“Do you say that to all of the girls?”

“I do,” Edwin said. “I really do.”

The Party: Part 2

2011-04-05T05:12:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder took a deep breath and the rang George Pollard Jr.’s buzzer, secretly hoping that no one would hear it and that he could leave this wretched place. Edwin didn’t bother to look around his old corner, for behind him was where that dog had died. There was hardly a sound on Luquer Street, a far cry from the good old days of gang bangers and murderous Pit Bull’s. The only sound came from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the near distance, the constant clatter of commuters stuck in the constant and unforgiving traffic in New York City, a traffic whose tide never abated and never quelled; a traffic who never gave one single human soul a bit of solace on their journey from home to work and back again. New York traffic was vicious and vile, Edwin thought, standing there. Of course so were Luquer Street and George Pollard.

The solid red door of the apartment building began to open after some struggle. Well, at least they haven’t improved that yet, Edwin thought. Then it opened and before him stood a beautiful brunette woman dressed in a blue flannel shirt and baggy cargo pants. Her eyes were in ice blue yet immaculately kind. “Edwin?” she said

“Hello, Guillermo,” Edwin began. “Have the girls arrived safely?”

The flannelled woman gave him an odd look. “Excuse me?”

“Ah, you would have had to have been there.”

“Okay. What are you doing here? Lawson said that you weren’t coming.”

“Well, you know…” Edwin started. He tried to remember the woman’s name but, sadly, could not. However, he was intrigued by her retro ensemble of flannel shirt and baggy pants, and wondered if perhaps Pollard’s birthday party was some sort of costumed gig. “Do we know each other?”

“Edwin, it’s me, George’s sister, Arlene.”

“That’s it,” Edwin said, snapping his fingers. “I’d forgotten that the Pollard’s had found it necessary to spawn again. Well, long time no see.”

“That’s because you don’t come around much,” Arlene said. Then she sniffed into the night air. Edwin wondered if she was sniffing for dog. “What’s that smell?”

“Depression? Car Exhaust? The pungent remnants of sour cream and cheddar potato chips with a dash of grape cola, perhaps?”

“Edwin, have you been drinking?” Arlene said.

Edwin extended his thumb and index finger. “A smidge. But only in the spirit of the night.”

Arlene smiled at him. He liked her smile and smiled back, but let it drop when he remembered that he was fraternizing with the enemy. “Let’s go inside,” she said. “It’s cold out here.”

Arlene led Edwin into the lobby of the apartment. The neighborhood may have changed, he thought, but the building had remained just as decrepit and dilapidated as that front door. The stairwell was still a cracked, wobbling lawsuit waiting to happen, and the floors were a dusty gray and white, faded Linoleum, and Isaac Cole had his assortment of ladders and buckets stacked toward the back of the hallway just as he had in Edwin and Natalie’s heyday. He never used them to fix anything back then, and Edwin supposed that he did nothing with his assorted maintenance tools now. The lobby still smelled of cabbage and ass sweat. Edwin turned up his nose to it. Some things you just never got used to.

“It’s a pleasant odor isn’t it?” Arlene said.

“I believe they developed it in Nazi Germany,” Edwin said, causing the sister of Pollard to laugh. It was something that surprised him and made him smile.

“So where have you been keeping yourself?”

“I’ve been here and there,” Edwin said.

“Still processing invoices?” Arlene asked, although not to be smart, he noticed. Edwin reasoned that she could live.

“Yes,” he said. “I hope to be the manager soon.”

“Are you up for a promotion?”

“No. But my supervisor, Mr. Chase, is an overweight buffoon. He’s bound to choke on a chicken wing or a tub of white cheddar flavored Crisco on another of his lonely Saturday nights.”

“Gross,” Arlene said.

“May I ask you the purpose for you ensemble tonight? It’s very retro, the whole flannel shirt and baggy pants get-up.” Arlene gave a slight spin on the steps, as if modeling. “I like it.”

“But it’s not retro,” she said. “Check the fashion mags, Balder. The 90’s are coming back.”

“Had they ever gone anywhere?” Edwin asked. He liked talking to Arlene. Where they flirting? He wondered.

But then the door opened from the second floor and George Pollard Jr.’s ugly goateed face peered over the railing. “Who was at the door, Arl?” he asked.

Arlene ducked, exposing Edwin. “Good evening, Pollard,” he said.

“Hey, Edwin,” Pollard said, a little too chummy for Edwin’s liking. “Lawson said that you were busy tonight.”

“Lawson Thomas is a compulsive liar. It was my every intention to come here tonight.”

Arlene and Edwin reached the top of the stairs. Pollard tried to embrace him in one of those “bro hugs,” but Edwin wasn’t having it. He settled for the handshake instead, and then they went inside. “Can I get you a beer?”

“Scotch and water on the rocks,” Edwin said handing George his coat, as he looked around his old kitchen. Pollard had kept up the yellowed blinds, and the floor was the same gray as in the lobby. The ceiling still had that brown spot from the time the neighbor’s pipes had burst, creating brown water puddles on the kitchen floor.

“I don’t know if we have any scotch,” Pollard said, tossing the jacket the kitchen table with a pile of other coats.

Edwin sighed. “Fine. Then I’ll take a beer or a brewski, or whatever it is that you call it.”

“Arl.” Arlene rolled her eyes at her brother and then went to the fridge to fetch their new guest a beer.

Edwin looked around the apartment. People were crowding the tight rooms and the apartment felt claustrophobic, which was precisely why he and Natalie had never hosted any parties. That, and according to Natalie, which she’d told Edwin at the climax of their relationship, their friends simply did not like him anymore. If only she could see him now, Edwin thought. Back in Pollard’s apartment, surrounded by the very people whose opinion helped to break them up. Edwin began picking some of the people off in his mind. Charles Shorter and his nag of a wife, Shannon. Shannon had been good friends with Natalie, and had always hated Edwin. Well, she left the both of us, didn’t she, Edwin said to himself, making slight eye contact with the couple. And there was Seth Weeks. Poor, unlucky Seth Weeks. What was he now? Thirty-six, thirty-seven? Most probably still in the closet and living with his mother, using New York City as an excuse to keep his growth stunted. Edwin told himself that he must sit down with Weeks and get the low down on his life. That would be good for a laugh in his down time, he thought.

Arlene came back with a beer, and handed it to Edwin. Mechanically, he took a drink and then cringed. The brew was American and bland, just the sort of beer George Pollard Jr. would have at an intimate gathering of friends. It was sad that his tastes had not evolved since the college days. And Pollard with a graduate degree, Edwin thought. It just went to show that education did not account for taste and knowledge. He looked around some more, at all of his old friends and associates sitting in their tight spaces, having banal conversations and still trying to dress the part of hip, city dweller, when many of them had turned gray and had begun to wrinkle under their tired eyes. Many of them had gotten fat, or were getting fat. Why the poet, Barzillai Ray, hardly looked the part of angry, black militant anymore. He looked like an old man wearing his son’s clothing. Edwin had to laugh. Arlene took a sip on her beer too, and then clinked bottles with him, as if they were co-conspirators in the pedestrian happenings of the night. Edwin felt some kind of private connection with her in doing this. Pollard just stood there looking confused.

“So, you want a tour of the place?” he asked. Edwin looked at him. “I guess you know it pretty well.”

Edwin looked into the eyes of his estranged, old friend, and felt a new, blazing hatred. “Why not? I’m sure you’ve done loads with the place since I moved.”

“Uh, okay.”

Pollard took the lead and Edwin and Arlene followed. First it was the narrow room right off of the kitchen. Edwin had put his bookshelves and computer in that room. It was to be the writing room, the place where the magic happened. Mostly it had become a staging area for any new household furniture that had to be assembled, or where Natalie wrote out their bills every Sunday morning while Edwin paced the narrow strip of the apartment, his head in his hands, moaning that they were broke, when he knew damned well that there was plenty of money in their bank account. Edwin felt the negative drama heightened his joy when Natalie rose from her seat to inform him that they were not only not broke, but had managed to save money in abundance. Pollard had left the room a blank. He had an old couch in there, and his bike was fastened to one of the walls.

Next it was the bedroom, and Pollard hesitated in walking Edwin through there at first, which just confirmed his guilt in Edwin’s mind. To be honest, Edwin did not even want to go into that room. There were too many memories held within its sliver of walls. There were too many days wasted in bed, a bottle of wine on the floor, as Natalie and he read books or made love, or listened to the classical station instead of the neighbor’s bass. When they entered, Edwin nearly passed out.

“Are you all right?” Arlene asked.

Edwin put his cold beer to his head and turned to Pollard, motioning toward his unmade bed. The bed was so big and the room so small that the three of them had to stand sideways in the room. This had also been the case for Edwin and Natalie. “So, is this where it happened?”

“Edwin, God damn it,” Pollard said. “I knew you would do this.”

“How was she, George? Level with me. Was she desperate? Could you tell it as you rode her on this vile, soiled mattress? Did you take her with reckless abandon and make it all better?”

“Christ, Balder. You know damned well where Natalie slept when she was here.”

“Yes, in your thick, hunky arms!”

“She slept on the fucking couch, man!”

“Whoa,” Arlene said, coming between Edwin and George. “What’s going on here?”

“You’re brother made a cuckold of me with my long-term girlfriend, near fiancé, if you will.”

“George?”

“He’s lying,” Pollard said, turning to his sister. “We…we were all friends. They were having problems.” He looked at Edwin. “Problems for a long time. And Natalie was fed up. Frankly I understood why. You can only take so much lunacy in your life.”

“Ha!” Edwin said.

Pollard returned his gaze to his sister. “It’s true. Natalie left him. She had nowhere else to go, so she came here for two days. Two Goddamned days, Edwin! And she slept on the couch, before taking the train up to her folks.”

“A likely story, you philandering public servant!” Edwin said. He pointed back down to Pollard’s bed. “This bed is a bed of sin!”

“It’s not even the same bed, Edwin,” Pollard said.

“Well, I’m sure the old one was of a similar make, or it was placed as such in the room.” He took a pull on his beer; felt his face flushed, burning. “You get my drift.”

It was then that Edwin’s best, black friend, Lawson Thomas, entered the tail end of the bedroom. “I thought I heard you,” he said to Edwin. “I thought you had that thing tonight.”

Edwin turned to Lawson. “That thing came home with her rock star, skater boyfriend.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, I’m sure they’re doing ollies or fakies or grinds, or whatever it is that skaters say.”

“You’re up on you skater terminology,” Arlene said.

“Just because my clothes have suddenly become retro, doesn’t mean that I am outdated,” Edwin said to her. He turned back to Lawson. “I came here tonight to confront the damage done.”

“He’s still going on about me sleeping with Natalie,” George said. He turned back to Edwin. “I don’t know what it’s going to take to convince you that I didn’t.”

“I told you two years ago what it would take,” Edwin said.

“I’m not giving you my blood and semen, and taking a lie detector test, dude.”

“Then our relationship must continue to hang in limbo.”

“Whatever,” Pollard said. He left Edwin, Lawson, and Arlene standing over the bed, going back the way that he came, toward more understanding friends back in the kitchen.

“So that’s why I haven’t seen you around,” Arlene said to Edwin.

“That and this neighborhood you live in gives me the night sweats and tremors,” Edwin said.

“I don’t live in Brooklyn.” Arlene looked at Edwin as if he’d insulted her. “I live in Manhattan.”

“You do?” Edwin turned to Arlene. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head, as it was rare to meet a person who could actually afford to live in Manhattan. It was Edwin’s deep, dark dream to live in Manhattan. “My Manhattan.”

“If you say so.”

“Edwin fancies himself a Manhattanite in training,” Lawson added.

“What part?” Edwin asked, ignoring his friend’s comment.

“East Village.”

“Ah!” Edwin clutched his chest, for it was too much to bear.

“I pegged you for an Upper East Side kind of guy,” Arlene said.

“Why?” Edwin asked. “Don’t you know it’s not correct to presume?”

“Oh yeah? Then why are you giving my brother a hard time?”

“Because I have fact and God on my side.”

“No you don’t, Edwin,” Lawson said.

“Shut up, you!” He turned to Arlene. “Your brother was attracted to my Natalie. He said as much.”

“Yeah, when we were all like twenty and no one was dating her yet,” Lawson said.

“Still.”

“Still nothing.”

“She chose you,” Lawson said.

“And look what happened,” Edwin said. He took a pull on his beer, and tried to forget the past. “I need real alcohol this evening, if I’m going to make it.”

“I think George has some bourbon,” Arlene said. “If you promise to leave him alone, I’ll go and fix you one.”

“I’ll do more than that,” Edwin said. “I’ll even be civil toward him.”

“Good. It is his birthday, after all.”

Arlene left the bedroom, and Edwin watched her as she moved. Retro and she lives in Manhattan. If only she weren’t a Pollard, he thought.

“Do you need to sit down?” Lawson asked, motioning toward the living room, where Edwin could hear Mary Baldacci flapping her gums to another small set of Edwin’s former friends.

“I believe I do,” Edwin said.

Lawson smiled and put his arm around his best, white friend. “Come on then.”

The Party: Part 1

2011-04-04T04:44:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder rode the subway up to George Pollard’s apartment. It was a terrible subway ride. All Edwin wanted was to be alone with his anger and his thoughts, but the two Hispanic girls who got on the R train at 69th Street had made it nearly impossible for him to do so. Edwin had made the mistake of sitting in the middle seat of a three seat bench, as he hated sitting on the corner seats, getting crushed into the metal pole when one of the many and varied obese denizens of New York City got on the train and sat next to him. If Edwin was going to be crushed by American girth, it was going to be on his own terms, he reasoned. That said, he didn’t expect two Hispanic girls to get on the subway, sit on either side of him, and begin a loud and boisterous debate about which one of them was going “get their’s” tonight by a man named Guillermo.

Edwin put up with the girls for as long as he could. He put up with their shouting and cackling, the potato chip scent of their breath, their sweat and perfume plastered flesh, and their inane conversation in the spirit of diversity. Edwin tried to focus on Molly Brown and Matthew Joy doing “whatever,” to use the parlance of our times, in her apartment. They were mostly probably fixing that God awful Italian meal, he thought, blasting rap music and dancing around the apartment, stopping only to kiss and grope in the way that young idiots had learned to do by watching their club videos and assorted PG-13 party films. Edwin couldn’t stand the thought of it. Still, the idea of kissing and groping Molly Brown made him break out in a slight sweat. Edwin closed his eyes amidst the babble of the Hispanic girls and imagined himself in Matthew Joy’s shoes. He felt his loins rise at the thought, and he grew embarrassed. Then one of the girls cackled and burped. The smell was vile, a mixture of potato chip, breath, and some kind of flavored soda. Edwin was all for diversity but this was too much. He stood up.

“You don’t even say excuse me,” he said to the offending girl.

“What?” she said, her lips pursed, her face belligerent. Edwin wanted to grab one of the girl’s large, golden earrings and rip it out of her ear. “What did you say?”

“You have no respect.”

‘Why I gotta respect you, nigga?”

“I’m not…” Edwin started. “You’re not…”

The girls laughed at him.

“Animals,” Edwin said.

“What?”

“You heard me, you deaf little minx.” Edwin decided to take a portion of his anger out on these she-beasts. “Who do you think you are, sitting on an evening train, burping and farting, and talking about ‘getting yours’ from someone named Guillermo.”

“Who am I?” the girl said. “Who are you, nigga?”

“Stop using that word,” Edwin said. “Let’s all make a conscious effort to stop using that word.”

“Fuck you.”

“Much better,” Edwin said. “I’m willing to bet that you’re tops in your class.”

“Look at you, faggot,” the girl said.

“At least I respect my elders, young lady.”

“You ain’t respectin’ her,” the other girl said.

Edwin looked at her. She was dressed head to toe in a pink velvet jumpsuit. Edwin knew that you couldn’t argue with someone dressed to the nines in pink velvet. You just couldn’t argue with those types, he thought. Of course, Edwin felt guilty for thinking that. Teasing Lawson was one thing, but entertaining a wholly stereotypical and, let’s face it, racist point of view, even for a moment, was not a road that he wanted to go down. Edwin Balder refused to be associated with discrimination in any form, even if he was in the right. So he turned and walked to the other end of the subway car, as the girls laughed at him and then forgot all about his existence, going back to Guillermo and who was going to “get it” harder that night.

Edwin transferred to the F train at 9th Street, walking the seemingly endless flight of stairs that led up to the train platform. He was happy that he was in such fitful shape. Edwin passed several people on their way up the steps, and simply assumed that many of them would die before they reached the top. One old man looked at Edwin and held out his hand, as if they were both fleeing refugees in an old war movie. Edwin didn’t know whether to help the old man, or to scold him for not keeping himself in decent enough shape to tackle this monster of a subway station. What was he? Seventy? Life Expectancy was now up to eighty-one, he thought. This old man had no excuse to reach out to a stranger for help. Shame on him! The older generation was getting to be just as bad as the younger one. No wonder young girls found it commonplace to discuss their sex lives on the subway, to burp into someone’s face, and then demand respect. Edwin shook his head. This certainly wasn’t the country our Founding Fathers had created.

He got off at the Carroll Street station. Edwin always got an eerie feeling getting off the F train at this stop, and he was glad that he and Pollard weren’t close anymore so that he didn’t have to make the trip too frequently or at all for that matter. Edwin had once lived in this neighborhood with Natalie. They lived in Carroll Gardens when it wasn’t trendy to do so. Edwin and Natalie had lived in a red-bricked railroad apartment on Luquer Street, and to really think back to those two years of hell should’ve been enough to send him running back to the F train. But Edwin was in a mood already, so he figured why not. As he walked to Pollard’s he thought about the cockroaches that used to scale the walls and cover the doors. Edwin remembered the sound of bass, from the upstairs neighbor, pounding down on him and Natalie as they tried to read or watch a movie. He thought about the super, a Mr. Isaac Cole, who was over three hundred pounds and smelled of cabbage and ass sweat. Edwin remembered the gang members on the street, this group of Hispanic kids that all dressed in red. Natalie called them the Flaming Red Dragons, so as to make them seem less scary. It worked sometimes, Edwin thought.

He thought about that last winter they’d spent in the apartment before fleeing to Bay Ridge, and a better peace of mind. Edwin remembered President’s Day weekend almost a decade ago. He remembered killing an unseasonably warm Sunday eating bagels and reading the Times, and making love in the bedroom barely big enough to hold the bed. Edwin remembered opening the first of two bottles of Muscadet, and telling Natalie how the grapes grew near the sea on the Loire Valley, which paired the wine really well with seafood. Natalie laughed and told Edwin too bad that he didn’t like seafood. He’d put on some Tom Waits, agreeing with her through smile. It was turning out to be the best day they’d ever spent in that apartment. There was nary a cockroach in sight. There was no bass raining down on them. Then the barking and squealing started.

It was deathly, Edwin thought, as he walked Court Street, passing their old bars and restaurants, a favorite pizza joint, reminding himself of the old times. It was enough of a racket that he and Natalie stopped their little game of paring wines up with cuisine. Edwin turned down the Tom Waits and looked out the window. He expected an injured child at best, the barking from an anxious and concerned dog. What he saw would stay with him for the rest of his existence, and would be the final tainted memory that ruined the apartment for good.

There was a German Sheppard, owned by this old codger, chained up across the street. The dog was a minor bother. It often barked but not enough to send Edwin and Natalie into a tizzy, as the Flaming Red Dragons playing dominoes and blasting rap music into the night were much worse. The German Sheppard was howling and crying because a Pit Bull had attached its jaws to the dog’s neck, and was pulling and tugging on the old beast. Blood was everywhere. The old codger was doing his best to beat away the Pit Bull but it was to no avail. The dog simply would not budge, its white coat pink colored from the blood pouring out of the German Sheppard. Neighbors were screaming. Street kids were crying. The Flaming Red Dragons came out of their den to see what the fuss was all about. The German Sheppard wailed and cried until it had nothing left. It fell limp and the Pit Bull tugged and pulled on the animal until it was no more. Then it simply let go of the Sheppard’s neck, and trotted off down Luquer Street as if it were nothing but another passing moment in his dog day.

Edwin and Natalie subletted that apartment to George Pollard, and were living in Bay Ridge by the middle of March. Pollard was moving back to Brooklyn after losing his librarian job in Philadelphia, and was intrigued by the idea of living on a gritty street where dogs were murdered by other dogs, and gang members played dominoes by the light of the moon. But that was George Pollard in a nutshell, Edwin thought, making the familiar right turn off of Court Street and down Luquer. Pollard was an overeducated wannabe thug. He grew up a wealthy suburban, New Jersey clam-head moron with an overactive imagination brought on by too many gangster rap albums from the early 1990s. He was a white home boy with a master’s degree and a cushy city job to boot.

Still, Edwin had to give Pollard credit for sticking it out in this neighborhood, putting up with Pit Bulls and gang members until fleets of posh hipsters came to the rescue and gentrified the living hell out of the street, out of the whole of Carroll Gardens. Now Luquer Street was brand new condos and refurbished red-bricked buildings with price tags beyond human reach. Carroll Gardens was Thai restaurants, Tapas bars, and gourmet markets with enough aristocratic cheese to clog the arteries of a whole French fleet. It was wine bars and import beer emporiums for everyone in this little corner of the world. Edwin stood in front of George Pollard’s apartment building, his and Natalie’s old apartment building, the building where they’d conspired and made a cuckold out of him, and he listened to the noise coming from that familiar second floor apartment. He was drunkish and he wanted to leave. But Edwin recognized Lawson’s voice above the cacophony of human sound, and he felt somewhat at ease. It was a beacon of friendship in an otherwise cruel and foreign land. Plus he’d come all of this way, and really needed a scotch and water on the rocks.

Return

2011-03-30T06:42:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder sat in his sparsely decorated living room, flipping anxiously through his copy of McSweeny’s, and listening to the Chinese woman’s television as it sounded through the walls. Edwin wandered what she was watching that evening. It was probably one of those ubiquitous cop dramas that took place in locales such as Los Angeles or Miami. He listened in closer but could not make out the show to save his life. Whatever, Edwin thought. He didn’t watch television except for professional soccer at the English Pub on 3rd Avenue, or the occasional episode of Mad Men that he rented from the local library. That said, the Chinese woman’s television was annoying. That constant buzz could drive a man nuts. Edwin once tried being neighborly, going over to the woman’s door, and asking her to turn down the sound on the television, but she began waving her arms and squawking at him so loudly in Chinese that Edwin had no choice but to flee back into his apartment before one of the neighbors accused him of assault. He’d established his own détente with the sound since then.

Edwin looked around the apartment. There were four bookshelves full of classic novels that he’d never read, travel books for places that he’d never gone to, and art books full of the work of artists whom he’d never cared about. The only books shelf that he used was the one holding all of his current literary greats. It was filled with the likes of Michael, Jonathan, Jhumpa, David, Jonathan, Zatie, Jonathan, and Jonathan. There was one green couch in the apartment and this sort of hammock chair that Edwin had picked up during one of his runs to Ikea. He had a coffee table, a lamp, and the radio across the room, resting on an old telephone stand, was set on the classical station. The walls were asylum white. Edwin had always meant to paint them some kind of outrageous color, but he reasoned that living in New York City was sort of like living in an insane asylum, so why not keep the walls white. He had one photo hanging on the wall.

Edwin sat there looking at his apartment, holding his copy of McSweeny’s as the Chinese woman’s television bellowed through the walls, thinking that he really should fix the place up. He tossed the magazine on the coffee table and rose. Edwin grabbed his glass of scotch and took a macho slug from it, finishing it off. He felt like Marlon Brando. Brando would slug scotch like that, he thought. Or else he’d eat a dozen cheeseburgers. Edwin looked around his place with his hands on his hips, determined to create a new look. Joy rested deep inside of him. It was silly to think something like that, that joy rested deep. But that was how Edwin Balder felt in that moment. A deep joy. Who needed Molly Brown? Although he hoped that she was all right. Who needed Lawson, ugly Mary, and that ridiculous birthday party for that backstabbing failure, George Pollard Jr.? Edwin sure as hell didn’t. All he needed was the classical music, the Chinese woman’s television coming through the walls, and some interior design initiative. He also needed another scotch.

It was when Edwin was in the kitchen, humming a Gershwin tune and cracking a few ice cubes for his next drink that he heard a car pull up. Immediately he put the ice cube tray down and ran over to the window in his kitchen. Edwin pulled back the dirty, white blinds to see the long, black car parked in front of his apartment building. Molly had returned! Edwin shouted aloud. I wonder if the police know, he thought. I should contact them as soon as possible. Edwin shut the blinds so as to not seem such a nosy neighbor, but he could not contain his happiness. He smiled and squealed and did a triumphant dance all over the apartment. Edwin mimicked Ivan’s chicken dance from that night at the bar.

It felt good to really feel joy. It felt so good. It was better than the false joy that he got from momentarily trying to enhance his station in life by remodeling. Let suburban housewives remodel, Edwin thought, having his new scotch straight from the shot glass. One didn’t need to remodel when one was youngish and in love, okay infatuated, okay curious in a way that could possibly be infatuation or maybe just intense interest. Was it really infatuation or was it like? But like was a strong word. Of course Edwin has just used love, so like was kind of a step down from that. Were his feeling fading already? What in the hell did Molly look like again? Edwin shook his thoughts off. One didn’t need to remodel or think or give themselves a cheap, dime store analysis when one lived in the same city as Molly Brown.

Edwin Balder heard the lock click in the hallway and then the echoing of voices, and the sound of bags being dragged through the hallway. He wanted to burst right out of his apartment but thought that might seem pushy. It had to be casual. But how casual could one be. Edwin checked himself in the foyer mirror. Tight plaid shirt? Check. Trendy tight jeans? Check. Glasses on straight? Check. Trendy, wavy gray hair? Definitely Check. Grayish stubble from his four day old beard experiment? Check…ish. Edwin was mostly satisfied with himself. I look like one of the literary Jonathans, he thought, before patting himself down and opening his apartment door.

“Oh…hi,” Molly said when Edwin poked his head out of the door. She seemed semi-happy and surprised to see him, he thought. But who in the hell was that with her?

“Hello,” Edwin said. “I was just getting the mail. I see that you’re home. Not quite eleven days, but home nonetheless.”

Molly gave Edwin an odd look. “Oh, eleven days. Yeah, I stayed one day extra. Traded in my plane ticket for someone on standby, and got a good deal on a flight the next day.”

“A rarity in these troubled times.”

“Yeah. It was cool. I was able to spend more time with my family,” Molly said. She looked away from Edwin toward the turn in the hallway that lead to the stairway and elevator that constantly broke. “I see your face has healed.”

“Yes,” Edwin said. And then he remembered the mugging. “Oh, YES! Us Balders heal very well.”

“Edwin was mugged the night I left,” Molly said to the young man standing next to her. Edwin looked at him. He was thin, almost concave, and had long, greasy hair. You could tell that it was dyed black. He wore a t-shirt from some ancient band that never had a prime, and looked as though he had pimples on his face.

“And who is this, Molly?” Edwin asked.

“Um,” Molly began. She looked at the boy next to her and then back at Edwin, not making eye contact. “Matt.”

“The boyfriend!” Edwin shouted with false happiness. He shook Matthew’s hand. “Good to meet you, Matthew.”

“It’s Matt,” Matt said. Edwin withdrew his hand, as if recoiling from some gross terror, for he hated name truncation, unless one of his literary heroes chose to bestow a truncation upon himself. Also, Matthe…Matt’s hand was cold and clammy. “Matt Joy.”

“Ah,” Edwin said, thinking he’d never use to word joy to describe his emotions ever again. He looked the youngling over. Matt Joy was sullen looking, and seemed to have no emotion other than boredom. He was the antithesis of joy. He was walking irony. “And are you a student as well?”

“Matt’s in a band,” Molly said, as Mr. Joy (personified) put his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground.

“Of course,” Edwin said.

He felt his face reddening. Suddenly all of the feelings that he had for Molly Brown began to shrink. She dates a boy in a band, he said to himself. The kid probably skateboards as well. And he had expected so much more from Molly. She was a college student, after all; a soul engaged in higher education. But then Edwin remembered that she was a business major, which explained the skateboarding boy in a band. Plus Molly didn’t look like Babs Streisand. Babs was much more attractive, even at damn near seventy years old. Let’s see Molly Brown look hot at seventy. Let’s see her get out there and sing Somwhere nearly a dozen times a year at that age. It was official, Edwin thought, standing there silently, making Molly and Mathe…Matt more uncomfortable with each passing second. He disliked Molly Brown for sure. He hated Matt Joy for certain, obvious reasons. And he would masturbate to Barbra Streisand effective immediately.

“Well,” Molly said. “I’m kinda tired.”

“Sure,” Edwin said. “Well, goodnight.”

Molly squinted. “Weren’t you going to get the mail?”

“Ah, I forgot how perceptive you college kids were.” Edwin stepped out into the hallway, letting his whole trendy ensemble decorate the first floor of the apartment. He looked to see if Molly was impressed. It was his last attempt. She wasn’t. “Guess I’ll get the mail.”

He walked ahead of Molly and Matt JoyLESS, sure that she was checking out his behind in those tight jeans. Edwin made a show of it. He went around the corner and down the three steps to where the mail slots were. Of course he didn’t have his key, so he could not complete the rouse.

“Well, goodnight again,” Edwin called up to Molly and Matt as they began walking up the staircase.

“Goodnight, Edwin,” Molly said. She sounded tired and annoyed, whispered something to Matt that Edwin couldn’t make out.

“Nice meeting you, Matthew,” Edwin said.

“It’s Matt,” Matt said.

“Of course it is.”

Edwin waited until the pounding of their feet stopped (good Christ, that girl’s feet were like cement weights), and Molly and Joyless were safe inside her apartment, before returning to his. He got inside and just stood in the foyer, one hand resting on his kitchen table. Edwin felt nothing but hatred, humiliation, and sadness. He was devoid of joy, and would be for quite some time, or at least until the new issue of McSweeny’s arrived in the mail. What to do with the evening now? He looked around the apartment. To the right was the living room, holding the faint sound of the Chinese woman’s television. Also, Guitarzan had started plucking away on his guitar. When it rained it poured, Edwin thought. To the left was the bedroom, and the elephant footsteps of that harlot, Molly Brown, and her morose paramour. Edwin went straight ahead. He went into the kitchen and poured himself another scotch. The ice cubes were starting to melt, as he’d left them out, but that was okay. Imperfection suffocated the night. Edwin stood in his kitchen and drank.

He had to do something. He had to get out of this sweltering hell for the evening. But go where? Rooney’s? But it wasn’t even pizza night. Edwin only went to Rooney’s alone on pizza night. It was a treat to himself to have a few beers amongst those cloudy denizens and then head up to Vesuvio’s for a small pie. Pizza night was Edwin’s treat for putting up with Mr. Owen Chase, those like him, his neighbors, and for suffering the world at large. He’d originally concocted the idea of pizza night as a treat for buckling down and writing all week. Edwin had yet to start writing. And it wasn’t Wednesday night yet, so Rooney’s was out of the question.

Then Edwin remembered. He remembered Pollard’s Party. Sure, going there wouldn’t brighten Edwin’s mood any. In fact, it would probably add to his current malaise. But if one couldn’t spread…er…joy around, then spreading misery was the next best thing. Edwin smiled to himself. He felt like a super villain in one of his Marvel Comic books. Then he finished his scotch, looked at himself and the mirror again, and prepared for a night on the town with old friends.

12 Days Later

2011-03-29T04:15:00.000-07:00

“Balder!”

Edwin Balder was sitting in his usual stall in the bathroom of the singular office outpost of the Insert Multinational Conglomerate Here Invoicing Company (not its real name), reading the latest edition of McSweeny’s, when he heard his boss, one Mr. Owen Chase, call to him with such a passion that his voice reverberated heavily against the bathroom walls. Edwin hadn’t heard Chase call for him since that day when the tile had fallen on Mary’s head, and all hell had broken loose. That was twelve days ago, Edwin thought, flipping through McSweeny’s and glancing at the latest article by Michael Chabon concerning his long, lost novel. That was the day that I met Molly Brown, Edwin thought, again, flipping the pages and waiting for Owen Chase’s next bellowing call. Had it really been twelve days since such a fateful meeting? Was the meeting even fateful? Molly had been due back in Brooklyn yesterday by Edwin’s best estimation, which was an exact actuality in terms of the passage of time. But she had not arrived home. Molly’s floor and Edwin’s ceiling had made no sound. And no planes had crashed from what Edwin Balder gathered from the ceaseless babbling on the nightly network news. Where was Molly? He thought, before Chase called to him again.

“Balder!”

Edwin sighed. He closed the issue of McSweeny’s and rose off of the cold toilet seat, his backside a tad bit numb from the time he’d spent in there. There’d be no rest for the weary, Edwin thought. Where could a man go and make a living where he didn’t actually have to go and make a living? Such a ponderous question for a Tuesday. Was it even Tuesday? Time had ceased to exist the moment Molly Brown got into that long, black car and drove off toward the Rust Belt and out of his life. It had ceased moving. The ebb and flow of life had come to a complete standstill for Edwin Balder. It took all of his energy to make the slightest bit of conversation, to “nuke” his evening meals, as the hooligans at Rooney’s Pub referred to the art of fine dining, or to even come to this job on a daily basis. What if Molly was not coming back? Edwin would not allow for such a silly thought to truly penetrate his mind.

“Who is that?” Mr. Owen Chase said, the minute Edwin appeared at his side, the copy of McSweeny’s discretely rolled up and shoved down the back of his tight and trendy pants. Edwin looked beyond Chase’s sweat stained armpits to the jovial black man sitting on the edge of Mary’s desk and talking very closely to her. “Balder?”

“Mandingo, Sir?” Edwin said.

“What?”

“The White Man’s Burden?”

Chase looked at Edwin. “Talk sense, son!”

“That’s Mary’s new man.”

“Really?”

“I’m as surprised as you,” Edwin said. “Seems our mousy little harlot has finished with the drunken masses of the club scene, and has moved on to bigger, darker meat.”

“I don’t like him sitting on the desk,” Chase said.

“Of course not, Sir. It’s bad for business.”

Again Chase looked at Edwin. Edwin removed his eyes from Mary’s desk, where his friend, Lawson Thomas, had been moving himself closer and closer to her by the second. “And what’s with all of this ‘Sir’ business, Balder?”

“Something that I’m trying out,” Edwin said.

“I can’t tell whether or not I like it,” Chase said.

“Neither can I. Shall I call security and have the Negro removed?”

“I don’t think you can say Negro these days, Balder. And if he’s a friend of Mary’s, I don’t want to cause too much of a problem. It could be construed as harassment if I went over there and asked that man to leave.”

“Not to mention the racial entanglement of you calling him a Negro,” Edwin said.

“I…” Chase started.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Edwin walked over to Mary and Lawson under the watchful glare of Owen Chase. The ceiling above Mary’s desk was still missing a tile, and there was nothing but a black void and the faint traces of piping and wire. Many a moment during these twelve days of longing and misery did Edwin look up into that void, fancying it an escape route from this hell, a pathway to salvation. Of course, when the rat fell out of the ceiling and stood frozen on Mary’s desk before scurrying off into the hinterlands of the corporate Gulag, as she screamed bloody murder and nearly collapsed on the floor in a panic, Edwin decided that this hole in the ceiling would not be a proper escape route after all.

“Tell your boss to quit looking at me,” Lawson said, after Edwin came over. They gave each other a masculine hug and then Edwin turned to Mr. Owen Chase and winked, before Chase stomped off to his office and slammed the door. “I’ve only been coming here to see you for years now.”

“I think he thinks you’re going to rob the place,” Edwin said.

“There’s nothing to take.”

“Pens,” Mary said. “We have pens.”

“Why are you here?” Edwin asked.

“I’m taking Mary to lunch,” Lawson said.

“Again?”

“Yeah.”

Edwin swallowed, trying to keep down his breakfast Hot Pocket. Off all the nothingness that had abounded in his life these last twelve days, the one harsh slap in the face of change had been the budding relationship between his best friend, Lawson Thomas, and his co-worker, Mary Baldacci. Who knew that a couple innocent comments to Mary about Lawson’s interest would lead to this? It would be the last time Edwin would ever again make small talk with someone while soliciting an aspirin to nurse his hangover. He was sure of it. But a couple of kind words and a phone call to Lawson had resulted in over a week of constant companionship for these two lovebirds. They were like high school children. Didn’t either of them realize that the key to dating in the twenty-first century was an ironic disposition and a cold calculated hand and dealing with the feelings of others? Hell, Edwin thought. Those two were like dimwits in some romantic comedy, so free with their gaudy feelings that it made him ill. Plus he was in the middle of it, fielding evening phone calls from Lawson, gushing about Mary, or listening to Mary talk Lawson talk all day at work, in between her bouts of staring at the ceiling, waiting for the next rodent to descend from the heavens. Edwin was sick off all of this love, and he has a good mind to tell them both off.

“Don’t you have a job?” Edwin asked suddenly.

“If you listened to anything that I said, you’d know that the kids have spring break this week,” Lawson said, taking ahold of Mary’s hand.

“And what does that have to do with you?”

“I’m a lit teacher.”

“Oh that business again,” Edwin said. “Well, maybe if you spent more time talking to me about something other than my co-worker, I’d retain a bit more information.”

Mary looked up at Lawson with her wide almond eyes. “You talk about me?”

Lawson blushed. “Well…”

“Incessantly,” Edwin said. “The man is like an idiot savant. In fact, I watched Rainman again last night and saw a distinct similarity between Raymond and Mr. Thomas here.”

“That’s so sweet,” Mary said.

“It’s disturbing,” Edwin said.

“Don’t be such a sour bear.”

Edwin turned to Lawson. “Did you hear that? You date someone who says phrases such as ‘sour bear’.”

“So?” Lawson said. “You’re being a sour bear.”

“Et tu, Brute?”

“You don’t even read Shakespeare,” Lawson said.

“Maybe you should ask out that girl from your apartment building,” Mary said.

“Oh, now Ms. Sour Bear is giving advice on love,” Edwin said. “In case you didn’t know, and judging by that lovelorn, drooling gaze, you hadn’t, the girl from my apartment building has gone missing.”

“Missing?” Lawson said.

“Yes. She was due back yesterday and has yet to return.”

“I didn’t know that,” Mary said.

“Well, you should have,” Edwin said. “I was only on the phone with the police for thirty minutes this morning, trying to get them to do a missing person’s report on her.”

“Isn’t that a bit extreme?” Lawson said.

Edwin turned angrily to his old friend. “I have a heart and I care. Sue me.”

“Maybe she just stayed an extra day,” Mary offered.

“It’s always so simple with you, isn’t it? Ms. Sour Bear,” Edwin said.

“All the same we need to get you out of that apartment.”

“Do we?”

“Why don’t you come with us tonight?” Mary said.

Edwin stepped back from Mary’s desk, giving her a traumatized look. Then he looked at Lawson. “How dare she even suggest that! Have you no heart, Ms. Sour Bear!”

“I…I just thought it would be fun,” Mary said, looking nervously from Edwin to Lawson.

“Has your girlfriend no sense of history?” Edwin asked Lawson. “No sense of virtue? Of good versus evil?”

Lawson, who had his head buried in his hands, lifted and looked at Edwin. “It’s just a birthday party for Pollard. This isn’t some moral platform.”

“Not for you, it’s not,” Edwin said. “But for me, he and I might as well be Roman combatants.”

“You were invited,” Lawson said. “Despite your attitude.”

“I refuse,” Edwin said, storming back toward his desk. He sat down and immediately grabbed his vintage Hulk doll for security purposes. “Even if I had something to wear I wouldn’t go.”

“It’s his birthday,” Mary said. “Isn’t George your friend?”

“For your information, Ms. Sour Bear, Pollard and I are no longer friends.”

“Stop calling her Ms. Sour Bear,” Lawson said. “And you two are friends.”

“Well, I refuse to enter into his den of sin,” Edwin said.

“Nothing happened between George and Natalie.” Lawson stroked Mary’s hair and then hopped off the edge of her desk. This caused Mr. Owen Chase to rise from his chair and look out his glass window. Lawson waved to him and then walked over to Edwin’s desk. “Besides, it’s not even the same apartment.”

“It’s the idea that counts,” Edwin said. “The memory.”

“You’re memory is clouded,” Lawson said.

Edwin put his Hulk doll down. “All the same, I refuse. I’d rather sit in my apartment all night, listening to a police radio in case something comes over the wire about Molly.”

Lawson shrugged. “Suit yourself, man.” He turned to Mary. “You ready, Babe?”

“Babe,” Edwin mocked Lawson. “There’s irony for you.”

Lawson slammed his fist on Edwin’s desk, causing Mary to jump as she went for her coat. “Shut up, Edwin.”

Lawson walked over to Mary and put an arm around her. “I hope you change your mind,” Mary said to Edwin.

“I’m a stubborn man,” Edwin said. “Enjoy your lunch with the militant, Ms. Sour Bear.”

With that Lawson and Mary left the office, and Edwin sat at his desk. He felt something poking him in the backside. It was the copy of McSweeny’s. Edwin reached behind him and pulled it out. He stared at the cover. He read the names of all those important writers, and imagined that he was one of them. Edwin saw himself in Northern Brooklyn again. He saw the crowds flocking into his reading. He saw himself and Molly at some pretentious restaurant, laughing over expensive food that no one really wanted to eat, drinking wine that was probably dyed horse piss, and generally having a good time. If only Edwin remembered exactly what Molly looked like. For now he’d just picture Barbra Streisand.

“Balder!” Chase shouted, coming out of his office. “Is the coast clear?”

“I don’t know,” Edwin said. “That man was dangerous. You saw him man handled me, right? Then he stood there speaking in the basest form of Ebonics that I’ve ever heard, before slamming his meaty fist on my desk!”

“Where’s Mary?” Chase asked.

“He took her.”

“Oh my God! Should we be informing someone?”

Edwin nodded down toward his phone. “I’ve got the FBI on hold right now, Sir.”

Good Night

2011-03-18T03:08:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder stumbled back to his apartment building, the wind from the estuary blowing in his face the whole time. Edwin hated the wind. It burned the sore spots on his face where the mugger had punched and slapped him. His stomach hurt too. What once had been pangs of hunger had turned into good old pain. Edwin had, by his own estimation, had enough of the day. But the day had just begun, he reasoned. Fine. Then he’d had enough of the previous day, and certainly wasn’t getting on very well with the new one. Edwin stopped in front of his building and looked up into the night sky. The single star was gone. Fucking helicopter, he thought. Then he took out his key and walked into the foyer, which smelled of cigarette smoke. Fucking Superintendent Isaiah Sheppard.

“Oh my God, Edwin are you all right,” Molly Brown said. Edwin looked up and there she sat on a pink marble bench. Molly had a long black coat on and her hair was pulled back. He looked at her long nose. She looked nothing like Barbra Streisand, Edwin thought. Not that Babs was a bad looking lady at damn near seventy. Edwin Balder could admit freely to himself a small amount of jealousy toward one James Brolin.

“I’m fine,” Edwin said. Still, Molly got up from the bench and took ahold of Edwin’s arm. His first reaction was to pull back; too many immediate memories of Ivan and the mugger. But when he realized that it was only the unsinkable Molly Brown, Edwin loosened his body and let her help him up to the pink bench.

“Who did this to you?”

“Oswald Spengler.”

“Huh?”

“I was mugged,” Edwin said.

“Where?”

“Up the street.”

Molly sat next to Edwin. She pulled her coat tighter, as if it were a blanket. “Really? I thought that this neighborhood was safe.”

“It isn’t,” Edwin said. “Nowhere is safe in Idiot America.”

“Jesus.”

Edwin turned to Molly. “I don’t mean to scare you. It was nothing. It was random. My glasses didn’t even fall off.”

“What did he take?” Molly said.

“Seven dollars. And then he berated me for not having a cellular phone.”

“You don’t have a cell phone?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Edwin shrugged. “I couldn’t even tell you at this point. Stubbornness? A general distaste for the current zeitgeist?”

“Have you seen what some of those phones can do?” Molly said.

“Oh cruel night!” Edwin shouted into the near empty hallway. He turned away from Molly Brown, bent over, and put his head in his hands.

“Edwin, can I get you anything?” He felt Molly put a hand on his back. “Like water or a drink?”

Edwin lifted his head, his mood instantly brightened. Molly removed her hand from his back. “Do you want to come inside and listen to Gershwin? I think I still have some scotch left.”

Molly smiled a sad smile. “I can’t. I’m leaving.”

“For good?”
“No, silly. I just moved here. I’m going away to visit my family.”

“Where do they live?” Edwin asked.

“Rochester,” Molly said.

“My God! Why would anyone willingly travel there? It’s damned good that you got away from that place. Don’t go back, Molly. They’ll suck you in with all of their folksy Rust Belt voodoo and then you won’t know Knut Hamsun from D.H. Lawrence.”

“I don’t know them now.” Molly smiled at Edwin. “Rochester is nice. It’s home. Don’t you miss home, Edwin?”

“Maybe,” Edwin said. “When a Jefferson Airplane songs comes on the jukebox, or I catch Easy Rider on the television.”

“So you understand what I mean.”

“I understand most everything to a degree,” Edwin said. “How long will you be gone?”

“Eleven days,” Molly said.

“Eleven days? Is there some kind of mathematical code in the arbitrary set of days that you’ve chosen?”

Molly laughed. “You crack me up.”

“I’m serious. I love mathematical codes. I’ve watched Good Will Hunting more times that I can count.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“How could you not?” Edwin said. “Ben Affleck. Matt Damon. Surely you had some sort of crush on them.”

“They’re old,” Molly said.

“They’re in my relative age group. They’re not old.”

“Well, how old are you, Edwin?”’

“I refuse to say now,” Edwin said. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one,” Molly said.

“My God!” Edwin shouted for the second time in the near empty hallway. “You’re a child.”

“I’m an adult.”

“Theoretically.”

“I can drink,” Molly said.

“You can’t even rent a car.”

“So. That’s why I call for cars.”

“I thought you were at least twenty-two. Twenty-three tops.”

“As if that would make a difference,” Molly said. She put her hand on Edwin’s. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-eight,” Edwin said, sadly.

“You don’t look thirty-eight.”

“I have gray hair.”

“True,” Molly said. “But it’s wavy and kind of trendy.”

“That’s exactly the look I was going for!”

“Well, you’ve achieved it.”

They were silent a moment. “What about school?” Edwin asked. “Won’t you miss school while you’re in Rochester?”

“Just a couple of classes,” Molly said. “I’ve already spoken to the professors, and I have work that I’ll be doing up there.”

“What do you study?”

“Business.”

“Ah, preparing to take Wall Street by storm, are you?” Edwin said.

“Something like that.” Molly looked at Edwin. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“What? These bruises? It takes more than some technocrat with a knife to wound Edwin Balder.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“What about the boyfriend, Molly. Won’t you miss him?”

“Matthew? I…we need some time away from each other.”

“I thought that was the reason for the apartment.”

“I mean geographically away from each other,” Molly said.

Just then a car pulled up in front of the building. It was long and black, not a limo, but not far from it. The driver didn’t honk, just idled there.

“That’s for me,” Molly said.

“Very fancy,” Edwin said.

“Yeah.” Molly stood up and grabbed her bag. It had been resting to the left of her, and Edwin had not noticed it until that moment.

He stood. “Well, I guess this is goodbye then.”

“For eleven days,” Molly said.

“Eleven. Fascinating!”

She leaned in and gave him a quick hug. “Take care of yourself while I’m gone, Edwin Balder.”

“I will,” Edwin said.

Molly grabbed her bag and walked toward the first set of glass doors. Edwin, though sore, ran ahead and opened it for her. He watched as Molly walked down the steps and out the second set of glass doors. She turned to Edwin and waved, and then turned back and walked over to the long, black car. A faceless driver was there to greet her. He was a shroud as well, Edwin thought, as he continued to stand there. Perhaps Molly would turn back and wave a second time. But she did not. The driver opened up the backdoor on the passenger side, and Molly Brown got in. Then the driver got in and they drove away, leaving Edwin Balder in the brightly lit foyer, the one still smelling a bit like cigarette smoke.

Blood Drips will be on a break until monday march 28th....aproximately 11 days from now.

Mugging (A Comedic Interlude)

2011-03-17T03:47:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder realized that he was very drunk around the time that he turned off of 3rd Avenue, and began the longish decent down 75th Street. He had drunk too many scotches and made quite an ass out of himself once again. It was that damned Pollard, Edwin thought. If only Lawson would quite bringing that Benedict Arnold, two-faced librarian around then they could have a peaceful evening at the joint; at least as peaceful as that Geritol swilling den could get. How long had he been mad at George Pollard Jr.? At least two years. Of course, two years! Edwin shouted into the cold night. He tried emulating Ivan’s dance, chicken arms and all. Edwin stopped dancing. He sighed, looked at the one star shining in the Gotham sky (it was, in fact, a helicopter lingering over the bay), and started walking back to his apartment.

It was at Ridge Avenue that someone crudely took ahold of Edwin’s arm. Instantly he thought of Ivan and that lousy chicken dance, wanting to do it again. But when Edwin felt what seemed like a knife in his back, he began along a much different line of thought.

“Don’t look back at me, don’t say a word,” the mugger said. In that moment, Edwin knew that this was going to be an old fashioned, classic New York mugging. If he wasn’t so scared he’d be excited by the honor. “Just move.”

The mugger lead Edwin half way down the block and then turned him left into a small alleyway between apartment buildings. He turned Edwin around but between the dark and shadows of the alleyway, the streetlights casting a glare, Edwin could not make out the mugger’s face. What he saw was a shroud in a hooded sweatshirt.

“Are you going to mug me?” Edwin asked.

“I said don’t say a word,” the mugger said. He leaned in. “Damn, what have you been drinking?”

“Scotch and water…and I had a Hot Pocket earlier this evening.”

“A ham and cheese Hot Pocket?”

“Yes.”

“You need to brush your teeth, nigga,” the mugger said.

“As soon as we conclude this transaction, my nigga,” Edwin said.

The mugger pushed him into the cold brick and alley wall, smacking the back of Edwin’s head a little rougher than he’d have liked. “Who you calling a nigga?”

“It’s a term of friendship,” Edwin said.

“It’s racist. And I’m not your friend.”

“Well, you said it first. Plus we’re standing in a dark alleyway together a few short hours before the witching one, so I’d say we’re at least intimate.”

“What are you? Some kind of fag?”

“Fag? Nice. Now who’s being vulgar?” Edwin said. “I was merely pointing out a fact.”

The mugger put the blade up to Edwin’s face. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk?”

“You addressed me first.”

“Did not.”

“Did too,” Edwin said. “You asked me what I had been drinking.”

The mugger was quiet a moment. “Right, right. The whole Hot Pocket and scotch thing.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, I’m telling you to be quiet now.”

“As you wish,” Edwin said.

The mugger withdrew his knife a little bit, and began to pat down Edwin Balder in the alleyway. He opened the buttons on Edwin’s pea coat and searched the pockets. He patted Edwin’s pants until he found his wallet and took it out. Then the mugger backed away into the darkness of the alley to check the wallet’s contents.

“Seven dollars,” he said, coming back into the shadows and light. “You only have seven goddamned dollars.”

“It’s the twenty-first century,” Edwin said. “What did you expect that I’d have on me, a stack of Benjamins?”

“I expected more than seven dollars,” the mugger said.

“Well, Rooney’s doesn’t accept credit cards. I’m just putting that out there.”

The mugger hit Edwin in his stomach twice, and Edwin fell to the ground. This was an unexpected turn of events. Edwin thought that the witty repartee that he was in the midst of establishing with his assailant would have prevented any random act of violence. He was wrong. Oh why did everyone have to be so violent and base in this country? Edwin went to rub his stomach but the mugger kicked his hand away.

“Get up,” he said. Edwin slowly rose until he was face to face with the black void that stood in for the mugger’s visage. “Where’s your phone?”

“I don’t carry one,” Edwin said.

“Bullshit. Show me your phone.”

“I told you that I do not carry a cellular phone.”

“Everyone carries a cell phone,” the mugger said. He pushed Edwin into the wall again, this time a little bit harder than the last. Edwin wanted to clasp the back of his head, for he feared eventual brain damage from this prolonged assault, but the mugger made him put his hands above his head while he frisked Edwin once again. “Shit.”

“I told you I don’t have a cell phone,” Edwin said., for the third time.

“Why not?”

“I don’t like them.”

“What’s not to like?” the mugger asked.

“I don’t see the need to be in constant contact with the world like most of these thumb typing philistines do.”

“Have you seen what some of these phones can do?”

“Yes. And I don’t care.”

The mugger slapped Edwin across the face. Edwin screamed like a woman, although he didn’t mean to. “Fucking Luddite.”

“What did you call me?” Edwin said, recovering his masculine composure.

“I called you a fucking Luddite, bitch,” the mugger said. “How can you not have a cell phone?”

“I…I just don’t.”

“What if there’s an emergency?”

“Like this?”

“Yeah,” the mugger said. “Or something else.”

“Then I guess I lose,” Edwin said.

“What if something happened to your boyfriend or your parents?”

“First of all, I’m not gay. Second, I guess I’d find out in good time, the way we used to find out before the world was infested with those brain cancer causing devices.”

“That hasn’t been proven yet,” the mugger said. “The whole brain cancer thing.”

“Well, when you’re all talking gibberish and I’m your supreme ruler, you can come back and tell me I’m right. I’ll happily accept you apology. In fact, I won’t even say I told you so.”

The mugger raised his hand again but thought better of it. “You know the iPhone has like a way to talk to people so that they can see your face.”

“Why would I want that,” Edwin said. “What in anything that I’ve said bespeaks me wanting something as silly as that?”

“Because it’s cool,” the mugger said.

“So is walking home from the pub without being assaulted.”

“It’s like Star Trek.”

“And if I had one it would be yours now,” Edwin said. “And where would that leave me, Captain Kirk?"

“I already have a couple iPhones,” the mugger said. “What I’m really in the market for is an Android.”

“Well, I hope my seven dollars helps you out in getting one,” Edwin said. “Or I guess you could take my credit card for a one time purchase.”

“Yeah, right,” the mugger said. “You’ll have this card cancelled before I even get three blocks.”
“Like hell I will. Have you ever tried calling to get a credit card cancelled? Aside from the language barrier, those credit card reps ask you more questions than can be found on an SAT test.”

“Still,” the mugger said.

“You don’t want to take the risk,” Edwin said. “So can I have my wallet back?”

“Sure,” the mugger said. “If you can find it.”

He turned and tossed Edwin’s wallet down the dark alleyway. Then the mugger turned back and punched Edwin twice in the face. The first time he caught Edwin off guard, but with the second blow he was able to put up his hands and block the mugger’s punch. The second punch got Edwin on his wrist, and it hurt like hell. It must’ve hurt the mugger too, because he yelped and backed away in pain, shaking his right hand. The mugger looked as if he were doing one of Ivan’s dances. His movements made Edwin smile a little bit through the pain. But then the mugger righted himself, and came charging back. He kicked Edwin so hard in the stomach that he thought the scotch and Hot Pocket would come streaming out at any moment. Edwin hit the pavement and lay there on the cold concrete. It was as good as any bed to him.

“Get with the times, motherfucker,” the mugger said, leaning down to Edwin’s ear. Edwin could smell his breath. It was no picnic either.

Edwin Balder Vs. George Pollard Jr.

2011-03-15T04:59:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder tried to right himself in front of the urinal at Rooney’s Pub. How much had he drunk that evening? He wondered. Edwin unzipped and aimed as best as he could at a urinal full of ice cubes that were meant to quell the smell of stale urine, because the good people at Rooney’s had been lax in fixing the urinal for over two years now. Edwin held his breath and let her rip. He thought that if it didn’t smell so badly, he could stay in the bathroom the entire night. It would save him from the obnoxious ranting of George Pollard Jr., and the way Thomas Nickerson and Lawson Thomas sat there shaking their heads in agreement, laughing at everything that Pollard had to say, and agreeing with his every insufferable soliloquy. Edwin never laughed at him, or thought him brilliant. He never laughed and Pollard and company accused him of being sour or bitter because he did not have a woman. As if the two were even interrelated. Pollard simply was not funny, Edwin reasoned, or intelligent. Quoting raunchy comedies, David Sedaris, and late night talk show hosts didn’t make one a humorous or informed individual. It made them a crank, a con-artist, and a rip off. Edwin finished pissing and decided to hate George Pollard for the rest of the evening.

When he left the bathroom, someone grabbed him by the arm. Ivan.

“Wanna see my new dance?” Ivan asked.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Edwin said, his terror-based niceties toward these bar denizens deadening with each successive drink. “Dancing?”

“Yeah,” Ivan said. “I do dances. I’m a great dancer. You know, sometimes I watch that show on television, Dancin’ with the Stars. You ever watch that?”

“No. I believe I’m trying to commit Hari Kari at that time of night.”

“The old baseball announcer?”

“The very same,” Edwin said. “I believe you mentioned something about a dance.”

Ivan’s face lit up. “Oh, oh. Yeah so I do this dance.”

Ivan began moving his arms up and down as if doing the Chicken Dance. Then he started stomping his feet and clapping his hands, spinning in a circle as all of the guys playing darts began to hoot and holler, and Edwin stood there like a, to use a cliché, deer caught in the headlights. Edwin wondered why Ivan had picked him to dace for. Was it some kind of sick joke? A ritual for the newish patrons of the bar? A mating dance? Christ, perhaps this was a gay bar after all. Edwin didn’t like the idea, as his opinions on the homosexual community were very inchoate at this stage in his life. He had often been accused of being a homosexual as a child, and this may have added to his bias, made him slow to come around to the causes of the gay community. Sure, Edwin was liberal to a degree. But he wasn’t so sure that he wanted some big, red faced Russian shaking his ass for him in a local tavern, expecting some kind of quid pro quo once the joint had closed for the night. Edwin stood there for as long as he could, smiling, while Ivan danced and the men in the bar clapped and shouted. Then he gave up all pretense of enjoying this act, and went back to down the bar to join Lawson and the Captain and the Cabin Boy.

“Is this what you gentlemen do on an evening out together?” Edwin asked when he reached his friends. Each of his comrades were sitting there, silent, their drinks untouched, their faces buried in digital devices, and their faces lit by the horrid glow of the black lit screen.

“We were waiting for you to finish up dancing with your new friends,” Lawson said, not even lifting his head from his so-called “smart” phone.

“Oh, is that right?” Edwin ran a hand through his trendy, wavy gray hair. “I have the good mind to confiscate each and every one of those machines and hold them until our evening is done.”

“You’re just jealous because you don’t have one,” Pollard said.

“Right. I’m jealous.” Edwin went to reach for his drink but found it empty. He snapped for the bartender who came down without a moment’s hesitation and took his empty glass. “Yes, I’m so jealous of your wonder devices. So jealous that I can’t update my Facebook status every moment of the day. I can just picture yours now, Pollard: Chillin’ in the bar with my hommies. What wisdom! It amazes me that the whole world isn’t waiting on bated breath for your next haiku.”

George Pollard Jr. looked up from his device and rolled his eyes. “Because yours is so much better: Met the hottest chick in the world tonight. Did you mean that guy dancing back there, or someone else?”

“I refuse to discuss her with you,” Edwin said. “How can a man who does not understand refined modern literature, know anything about the foibles of modern love?”

“So you admit there is a woman?”

“I’ll admit nothing to you, you half-wit.”

“Edwin, back off,” Lawson said, just as the bartender had placed a new drink in front of Edwin.

“See, at least this nigga got my back,” Pollard said.

“Nigga?” Edwin said. He turned to Lawson. “How does it feel to be George Pollard Jr.’s….nigga?”

“It’s just a term of friendship now,” Pollard said. “Everyone uses it.”

“I’m sure Emmett Till would be happy to hear the news.”

“It’s not like that,” Thomas Nickerson added.

“Or Dr. King for that matter,” Edwin continued. “I’m sure that’s exactly what he meant by I have a dream. I’m sure it was his deep hope that one day in the future a mixed group of races could sit in a bar together, playing on mind-numbing devices, and calling each other a bunch of niggas.”

“You’re always so literal, Edwin,” Pollard said.

“Yeah? And you’re ugly.”

“What the fuck man?” Pollard slammed his drink down, stood up, and got in Edwin’s face. Edwin could smell the evening meal on him, spaghetti, most probably out of a can. It amazed him that George Pollard Jr. had an undergraduate degree let alone a Master’s degree. “Why are you always pushing my buttons? What in the hell did I ever do to you, Balder?”

“Balder?” Edwin said. “So we’ve resorted to last name calling?”

Pollard shook his head and pulled back. “You’re fucking unreal, man.” He sat back in his stool and had a pull on his bottle of Coors Light. “A guy just tries to talk to you, and he gets shit for it.”
“Conversation is over-rated,” Edwin said. He took a long drink on his scotch, feeling less and less like Dick Burton as the night moved on.

“Maybe you should chill with that stuff,” Lawson said.

“Chill? Maybe I should chill, my nigga.”

“Man.”

“Doesn’t sound so good, does it?” Edwin said.

“It just sounds stupid coming from you,” Lawson said.

“That’s me. Stupidity incarnate. At least I don’t type with my thumbs.” Edwin had more scotch.
“Do you know what I don’t like about you, Pollard?”

“Enlighten me,” Pollard said.

“You act all high and mighty, as if being a glorified public servant is a religious calling.”

“I like what I do. Is that so wrong?”

“It wouldn’t be if you weren’t such an absolute asshole about it,” Edwin said, blushing at using such profanity on a weeknight. “Oh, I’m a librarian. I do this. And I do that. And I help the public find James fucking Patterson novels. Just for the record, even subtle nuance of your job does not make for interesting conversation.”

“Yeah, I guess processing invoices is so much better,” Pollard said.

“You couldn’t do my job for an hour,” Edwin said. “I remember before you had your cushy little job. I remember you working at warehouses or in that grocery store. I remember you doing data entry and failing at it. In fact, you failed at all of those jobs. If you were the captain of a ship, you’d probably sink that as well.”

“Right, because you haven’t failed.” Pollard took a pull on his beer. “Should I even mention Natalie?”

Edwin finished the rest of his drink. “You do and I’ll strike you with this glass.”

“Gee, look at the time,” Lawson said, standing. He put his hand on Edwin’s shoulder and gave him a rub. “I got to get to work tomorrow, if you know what I mean.”

“Me too,” Nickerson said.

“And I don’t think I like the company tonight,” Pollard said.

“That makes two of us,” Edwin said. “Barbarian.”

“Sure, Edwin. I’m the Barbarian.”

Edwin Balder and his friends left Rooney’s Pub and stepped out into the cold night. Edwin went up to the corner of 3rd Avenue and 77th Street and waited alone while Lawson said goodbye to George Pollard Jr. and Thomas Nickerson. He tried not to think back to the time when he, Pollard, and Lawson had been nearly inseparable all those years ago. He tried not to think back to when they were just three students at NYU, hanging around the last vestiges of bohemia in the West and East Villages, trying to sneak into the Grassroots Tavern on St. Mark’s Place, and drinking more coffee than was humanly possible. He tried not to think about how time and circumstances could rip people apart, or make them mostly foreign to each other. Most of all, Edwin Balder tried not to think of Natalie.

“You want to tell me what all of that shit was about tonight?” Lawson said when he reached Edwin. “I thought we were just going out to have fun.”

“It’s impossible to have fun with George Pollard Jr.,” Edwin said.

“You used to be close.”

“Our friendship was a humbug.”

“Humbug?” Lawson said.

“Why’d he have to mention her?”

“You egged him on.”

“And what’s with this Thomas Nickerson? When did he enter the picture? Where does Thomas Nickerson fit in our timeline?”

“Are you even listening to me, Edwin?”

“Sho’ my nigga,” Edwin said.

“Stop that shit.”

“Sorry. Drunk.”

“You are a sorry drunk.” Lawson said. “But you’re my friend.”

“Care for a nightcap?’ Edwin motioned back down toward Rooney’s Pub.

“No. I think we’ve both had enough.” Lawson hunched his shoulders, and rubbed the sleeves on his thick, flannel coat. “Besides, man, I got to catch the R train before it turns into a pumpkin. I don’t want to get stuck in this neighborhood once the racial profiling begins.”

“We’re very tolerant here in Bay Ridge,” Edwin said. “We have a strong Muslim population which is a feat in and of itself in post-9/11 New York City.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll take my chances on the subway.” Lawson and Edwin were quiet for a moment. “You okay?”

“Aside from listening to you gush about my foul co-worker and having to drink with George Pollard all evening, I’d say I’m doing fine.”

“George is all right,” Lawson said. “He’s your friend.”

“No, Law. He’s your friend. He used to be my friend.”

“You have a skewed sense of history.”

“Perhaps,” Edwin said, simply, “that time and chance have ruined me.”

“Are you okay getting home?” Lawson asked.

“I’m the perfect specimen of soused manhood,” Edwin said. “Plus I only live a few blocks away.”

Lawson gave Edwin a man hug. “Drink some water before you go to bed. And eat something.”

“I was thinking water and a second Hot Pocket were the order of the night. But thank you for the advice and concern, mother.”

“You’re crazy, Edwin,” Lawson said.

“I know.”

Lawson Thomas began walking down 3rd Avenue, leaving Edwin Balder to stand alone in the electric white light of a bodega. “Tell Mary good things about me.”

“I’ll tell her that you’re hung like a horse,” Edwin shouted to a few stares of the remaining people on the street.

Lawson shrugged. “I’m black. She already knows that. Tell her something else.”

He crossed the street. Edwin watched his friend until he disappeared; the two of them waving like old lovers until Lawson passed behind a closed Middle Eastern restaurant. It was their ritual to wave as such. Then Edwin turned up the collar on his Pea Coat and began the short yet lonely walk home, hoping he’d hear Molly pound around upstairs before he fell into a thick, drunken slumber.

The Captain and the Cabin Boy

2011-03-14T04:26:00.000-07:00

Edwin Balder sat on his stool in Rooney’s Pub, drinking scotch and waters, and listening to his friend, Lawson Thomas, discuss the merits of one Mary Baldacci, Edwin’s semi-literate co-worker. The way Lawson continued to gush over Mary made Edwin sick. It made him drink. In the time that it took Lawson to discuss how the world would stop spinning on its pinprick access should Mary somehow fall off of it, Edwin had managed to drink two more scotch and waters and one short beer, which the bartender with the earring in the wrong ear had given him for free with a wink. He tried thinking about Molly Brown, his attractive, if somewhat plodding and uncouth, upstairs neighbor. Edwin tried not thinking about the bartender with the earring in one ear giving him a wink. He wondered what Molly was doing right then and there. Probably watching television as most American philistines did with their evening. But he remembered that Molly was a student, and this excited Edwin. Perhaps she was spending her evening studying. He looked at Lawson, who was still deep into his Mary-themed filibuster, and then he got up.

“Where are you going?” Lawson asked.

“To play some music,” Edwin said. “I’m inspired.”

“By Mary?”

Edwin gave Lawson a flabbergasted look. “If I had my stiletto on me, I’d stab you for saying what you just said, not to mention inviting Pollard and Nickerson into our winter of discontent this evening.”

“You knew that they were coming,” Lawson said.

“Oh, did I, Law? Did I?”

Edwin went over to the digital jukebox and put two dollars in. Two dollars would give him two songs. Edwin remembered when you could get six or eight songs out of the old jukeboxes. Songs weren’t worth a dollar each. Most music, unless it was Antonin Dvorak or Niccolo Paganini, wasn’t worth the time it took to record it. But something had to be done. The heathens in this joint had controlled the jukebox for too long. They had gone from mockingly playing rap music into seriously playing a litany of acid soaked music from their Baby Boomer heyday. Edwin couldn’t stand Baby Boomers. His parents were Baby Boomers, liberal Robert Kennedy and George McGovern people. His mother had actually cried when Bill Clinton and Barry Obama were elected. They lived for the hippie dreck currently coming out of the jukebox in this decaying old bar. Edwin didn’t want to spend the evening listening to music that reminded him of his parents, not when he was getting blotto on scotch and waters and thinking about the unsinkable Molly Brown. He found George Gershwin and put on Rhapsody and Blue. Then he went back to his stool, hoping that Lawson had gotten Mary completely out of his system, so that they could have a civilized conversation before Pollard and Nickerson showed up to urinate on the night.

The squealing clarinet of Rhapsody in Blue began just as Edwin sat down.

“Did you play this?” Lawson asked.

“Of course.”

“Oh man.”

A unified groan came from the men playing darts in the back of the bar.

“What in the hell is this?” Benny said. Benny was the ringleader of the men in the bar. He had beady eyes and a goatee, wore nothing but New York Giants clothing. Benny wore shorts and sandals year round, as if he were hoping to be called off to the beach at a moment’s notice. Edwin was scared of Benny. He had been scared of him for the three years that he’d been coming into this joint. “Who played this shit? Was it you?” Benny pointed up toward Lawson.

“I don’t listen to his shit, man,” Lawson said. Still, Benny began to walk up toward where Edwin and Lawson were sitting.

“I’m just bustin’ your balls,” Benny said. He smelled of processed meat and Jack Daniels. Edwin prayed for an oxygen mask to come falling from the sky. “I like this music. You see, we’re a bunch of ex-hippies in this joint. So I guess we play a lot of Grateful Dead.”

“Dead’s cool,” Lawson said. Edwin gave him a look. He wanted to tell Lawson to stop playing house Negro for these men.

“Yes, we love the Dead,” Edwin said. “In fact, I thought that I was playing a Dead song. I must’ve gotten it wrong.”

Benny looked at Edwin. His beady eyes were red. Benny looked severely intoxicated. He put a hand on Edwin’s shoulder. “The Dead are the best.”

“I believe they were called the only band that matters.” Edwin said.

“I thought that was The Clash,” Lawson said.

“Shut up, fool,” Edwin hissed.

“I’m not much for punk,” Benny said.

“Who is?”

Benny took his hand off of Edwin’s shoulder. Edwin checked it for grease of fop sweat. “What’s your names again? I see youse guys in here a lot.”

“I’m Edwin Balder,” Edwin said. “This is my friend, Tom Collins.”

“Hey, Tom,” Benny said to Lawson.

“You can call me Lawson,” Lawson said, eyeing Edwin.

“Hey, man, whatever.” Benny took a pull on his Jack Daniels. “I’m Benny. This is a great bar.”

“Sure is,” Edwin said.

“Well, you guys have a good night.”

Benny staggered back down to his group of cronies. Edwin and Lawson watched him leave. As soon as Benny returned to his group, Ivan took him by the hand and the two of them began dancing to the Gershwin.

“I’m half convinced this is a gay bar,” Edwin said.

Lawson turned to him. “Why do you always have to start with that Tom Collins shit?”

“Are you or are you not a fan of Rent? Do you or do you not cry every time we go and see the play? Watch the movie?”

Lawson had some vodka and cranberry. “That’s beside the point. Do you realize that half the people we know call me Tom Collins?”

“Half the people we know aren’t worth the oxygen they’ve been syphoning from the atmosphere since their birth.”

“Still.”

It was then that the bell shook on Rooney’s Pub’s front door and in walked George Pollard Jr., and Thomas Nickerson. Pollard wore his hair shaved down almost to the scalp and had an obnoxious goatee that he let grow to the point where he was able to braid it or put rubber bands in the thing. Edwin, of course, thought the goatee looked foolish, and couldn’t help but stare at any and every morsel of food, spittle, and whatever else that got caught in it. Pollard loved to talk about 1960s soul music, and whatever boring 19th century “page turner” was currently queued up on his E-reader, courtesy of Google Books. If Edwin tried to engage Pollard in a discussion of modern literature, David Foster Wallace for example, Pollard tended to curl up his nose as if disgusted. Edwin wanted to see George Pollard Jr. write a novel of over one-thousand pages with footnotes to boot.

Pollard was a public librarian. He was high and mighty about it, often referring to the job as a calling, even though he’d dropped out of the program twice before in the past. On the rare occasion that Edwin had nothing else to do in the world he visited Pollard at his local branch of public servitude, curious as to see what aspects of the job could be construed as “calling” worth, for Edwin was always in the market for a new career. But after hanging around the reference desk, watching Pollard as he served the public, helping them with tax forms or where the keys to bathrooms were locates, Edwin decided that public librarianship was not for him. Plus you needed a Master’s Degree for the job, and Edwin was already $200,000 dollars in debt (interest included) for the three undergraduate degrees that he had in Medieval Literature, Oceanography, and Theater.

Nobody had a clue what Thomas Nickerson did. The last time Edwin had wasted precious moment of his life inquiring about Nickerson’s employment status; Nickerson smiled and said that it wasn't polite to ask people what they did for a living. He said doing so was a very American thing to do. And Edwin would be damned if anyone accused him of being or doing something so typically American.

“Gentlemen,” Pollard said, as they came over to join Edwin and Lawson.

“What up, Junior,” Lawson said, taking Pollard’s hand and giving it a tug. What up? Edwin thought. He hated it when Lawson tried to get down verbally. “Nickerson.”

“What up, Law,” Nickerson said. Nickerson wore his hair close cropped as well, but at least his goatee was manageable. Edwin stared between him and George Pollard Jr. If only Lewis Carroll were here to make sense of those two, he thought. “Edwin.”

Edwin had a slug on his scotch and water, resigning himself to the utter boredom that was to be the rest of his night. Two white boys and an educated black man trying to be down by talking in street slang. He just hoped that this joint took credit cards. “Well, if it isn’t the Captain and the Cabin Boy.”

Lawson Thomas: An Edwin Balder story

2011-03-11T04:21:00.000-08:00

Edwin Balder was late meeting his friend, Lawson Thomas, for a few drinks at the local bar. After he’d left the apartment of Ms. Molly Brown, Edwin had spent the next two hours sitting in silent revelry, thinking about Molly, the possible softness of her hair, her long nose, those green eyes, and whether or not she’d bought her nail polish in this part of Brooklyn. Edwin had lost track of time. He’d finally gotten hungry and decided to make a meal similar to the one he saw Molly eating out of that pot, like an inbred heathen. He remembered the ingredients as being something along the lines of elbow noodles, sauce, and meat. After tearing apart his kitchen, Edwin came up with the noodles from a box of macaroni and cheese, a small can of Hunt’s no salt sauce, and an old bag of TVP crumbles that had been in the back of his freezer since 2007. Just as he resolved to cook the meal using those ingredients, to be closer to Molly, Lawson called Edwin on his cell phone. He left a message. Lawson sounded scared and pissed off, and that’s when Edwin realized that he was late to meet him at the bar. The noodle and sauce dish would have to wait. Edwin tossed a ham and cheese Hot Pocket in the microwave, and then ate it walking up 75th street, washing it down with an old, flat can of Coke.

The bar had been Edwin’s idea. He’d called Lawson during the work day, just after the tile had fallen on Mary’s head, soaking her. He needed someone to laugh about this with, and since Lawson was his best friend, he was always Edwin’s first choice. But Lawson hadn’t found the tale of Mary’s woe too humorous. In fact, he’d gotten angry at Edwin for getting such a kick out of it. Lawson scolded him like a child, his voice angrily rising to Mary’s defense. Was he still nursing that ungodly crush for her? Edwin thought. How gross! Lawson’s attitude had angered Edwin and might have attributed, at least in some subconscious manner, to his arriving late at the bar.
The bar was on 3rd Avenue and was what many people told Edwin, an old man bar. At thirty-eight and thirty-seven, respectfully, Edwin Balder and Lawson Thomas were often the youngest men in the joint, for “joint” was the word that Edwin used to describe the place. Lawson called it a racist dump, a hotbed for the systematic dumbing down of America. Edwin had to agree that he was most probably right, as the men in the bar maintained a certain penchant for blaming the various minority races for the ills and woes of America. They held a special hatred for members of the Muslim race, often invoking the tired, clichéd invective of September 11, 2001 in order to get their point across. A tattered flag hung over the bar along with one from Ireland. Images of 9/11 were plastered on the greasy walls, along with a photo of former President George W. Bush, and a photo collages of many of the bar denizens participating in cookouts or birthday parties that had taken place at joint. When the television was on and the newish, black president came on, the words socialist and nigger were tossed around the old bar. Still, the beers were cheap. So was the scotch. And if one of the men in the bar used a racial epitaph in the presence of Lawson, they were sure to apologize and claim not a racist bone in their body.

There was nary a woman in sight in the joint, and if there was a woman, she was typically some hapless bar whore, content to plant her behind on one of the many old, ass-sweat-soaked stools, and slowly drink her gin and tonics all day, until one of the many soused losers offered to walk her home in exchange for a brief tryst in an alleyway or between a few sturdy garbage cans. Edwin wondered what it was like to watch two drunken, closed-minded idiots go at it in the cold night. It bothered him, at least somewhat, that this pack of cretins were seeing more action on a regular basis than he’d seen in two years, unless he counted his hand, which loneliness had forced him do to somewhere around Christmas the previous year.

Edwin looked in the window of the bar, peering between the Miller Light and Budweiser neon signs to get a better look. There was Lawson, alone, at the head of the bar, sipping his vodka and cranberry, anxiously watching the television, as the rest of the men in the bar huddled toward the back playing darts, or drunkenly dancing to what was most probably a Grateful Dead song playing on the jukebox. For even though the joint was filled with the worst kind of hack conservative minds, many of the bar regulars proudly maintained that they were once proud hippies, charter members of the Tune-in, Turn-on, Drop-out generation. Until Reagan arrived on the scene, that is. Now the only way their freak flag was flown was if one of the guys had forgotten to get his monthly, standard issue, right-wing dullard haircut, or if someone discussed the possibility of same-sex marriage without one of the guys getting off of his stool, staggering about the bar, and claiming that he was going to be sick. Again, the drinks were cheap in this joint.

“What in the hell took you so long?” Lawson hissed, when Edwin got over to him. Before he answered, Edwin took a listen. It was not the Grateful Dead playing on the digital jukebox, but Marcy Project’s own Jay-Z.

“Cherchez la femme,” Edwin said, sitting down. The bartender, who had an earring in the wrong ear, although it was never questioned, came half way down the bar and began fixing Edwin his scotch and water on the rocks. “Great musical selection. Did you play it?”

“Yeah, right. Because I have a death wish.” Lawson sucked down the rest of his vodka and cranberry and then looked back toward the assortment of men in the bar, middle-aged white men wearing the hats and jerseys of their favorite sports teams, and watched them pump their fists and dance to the rap music. “Ivan played it.”

“The big Russian with the bulbous red nose?” Edwin asked.

“The very one,” Lawson said, turning back around. He took off his thick, black framed glasses and rubbed his face. “He put the Jay-Z on, came over to me, and said, this one’s for you, buddy.”
“So shines a good deed in a weary world.”

“Don’t quote Shakespeare at me.” Lawson looked down at the bartender, shook his glass, and with a sullen resignation the bartender set about fixing his drink as well. “Good deed, my ass.”

“I thought I was quoting Willy Wonka,” Edwin said. “Maybe it was a friendly gesture. You’re always so angry. You typify the angry black man.”

“Don’t start, Edwin. I’m already pissed about you being late.”

“I have a good reason.”

“Yeah?” The bartender set the drinks in front of Lawson and Edwin, made small talk about the size of the evening newscasters breasts, and then grabbed a short stack of money in front of the pile Lawson had sitting there. “Start talking.”

“Remember how I told you about my new neighbor?”

“I think I recall you mentioning something about a whore with the cadence of a Neanderthal moving about above you.”

“Don’t remind me of that,” Edwin said. “I’ve put her footsteps out of my mind.”

“So you met her?” Lawson asked, taking more of his drink. He put his glasses back on and stroked his goatee.

“I did. I went up to complain about the noise, and when she opened up the door I was confronted with such a vision of beauty that I could barely speak for a moment. Were she not slurping her food out of a pot, I would’ve been completely smitten.”

“What’s she look like?” Lawson asked, as the Jay-Z song ended. “Thank God.”

“How to describe perfect beauty,” Edwin wondered aloud. “I’ll be base. She had long brown hair parted in the middle, green eyes, and a wonderfully elongated and full nose.”

“Did Barbra Streisand move in above you?”

“Are you accusing her of being a Jew?” Edwin rose and pointed angrily into his friend’s chest. “Because if you are, I’ll have you know that my mother was one-fourth Jew.”

“I wasn’t accusing her of anything,” Lawson said. “I don’t care if she’s Jewish.”

“We were all Jews in Hitler’s eyes.” Edwin sat down and had a sip on his drink, feeling like Dick Burton. “Now do you want to hear about her or not?”

“Yes. What does she do?”

“She’s a student.”

“Studying?”

“I don’t know.”

“How old is she?”

“Does age really matter?”

“So you didn’t ask.”

“No.”

“Does she have a job?”

“I don’t remember. I think she works several, like a Jamaican.”

“Is she from here?”

“Beats me,” Edwin said. “Although she had the queerest t-shirt on. It said Brooklyn Girls Do It, or some kind of braggadocio nonsense.”

“Sounds like you two have the world in common,” Lawson said.

“Are you being sarcastic?” Edwin asked. He had more of his scotch. “Because it sounds like you are. I’ll have you know that Molly and I had a wonderful conversation about life, about where we’d come from and where we were going, and I don’t need to sit here and have you belittle it, you third-rate Proust scholar and music snob.”

“How am I a music snob?” Lawson asked.

Edwin pointed toward the men in the back of the bar, singling out Ivan, a large Russian with a tuft of white hair, a red face with that previously mentioned bulbous nose, and a belly the size and shape of a beer barrel. “That man was kind enough to play you a tune, one written and performed by a valuable member of your community, and all you did was sit here, sulking, calling him a racist.”

“I didn’t call him a racist.”

“Not today.”

“Edwin…”

“What can I say? “ Edwin said. “I’m insulted and mad.”

“I don’t understand why,” Lawson said. “I didn’t say anything to the contrary.”

“You berated me about Mary.”

“You were being mean.”

“Well, she’s ugly.”

“No she’s not,” Lawson said.

“You’re just saying that because you have a horrible bout of jungle fever.”

“Jungle fever? What year are you still living in?”

“I live in a world where I don’t want my best black friend dating some insolent, half-retarded secretary in a faceless invoice processing plant.”

“Did you know Mary studies French Literature?” Lawson said.

“I doubt it,” Edwin said.

“We talk about Proust whenever I come by to meet you.”

Edwin had another long drink on his scotch. “How does a black man become a Proust scholar anyway? What? While all of your hommies were out pimping and thugging, you sat alone in your public housing bedroom dreaming of madelines?”’

“I’ve never had a madeline.”

“Madelines, Oreo cookies, whatever,” Edwin said. “Same thing. Why don’t you just bone Mary and get this horrible fixation over with so that we can move on, and I can deal with the awkward repercussions of that.”

“Now who’s being mean?” Lawson took a sip on his vodka and cranberry and got up from his stool. “She’s a nice person.”

“She’s ugly and dumb. And where are you going?”

“I have to piss.”

“I’m not being mean, just so you know.”

Lawson looked back at the pack of men in the bar. The bathrooms were across from the dart board, where everyone seemed to be huddled. “If I make it back here alive, how about you and I start over?”

“Agreed,” Edwin said.

“And you can tell me more about this chick. We’ll hash her out before Pollard and Nickerson get here.”

“They’re coming tonight?”

“Don’t act like you didn’t know,” Lawson said.

“I guess with all of the tragedy and joy mixed into today, I simply forgot that those two wunderkinds would be joining us.”

“They’re good guys.”

“I’m sure people said the same thing about Mussolini and Gandhi,” Edwin said.

“Gandhi was a man of peace,” Lawson said.

“Well, sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.”

“That’s Bob Dylan.”

Lawson walked toward the back of the bar, as Edwin watched. Before he got to the bathroom, he was accosted by Ivan, who put a hand on Lawson’s thick, flannel shirt, and held him there. Oh, Christ, Edwin thought. A bar fight. But nothing happened. Ivan held Lawson there for only a moment then smiled, and tapped him on the back. Lawson disappeared into the bathroom, and Ivan looked up at Edwin and gave him a wave. Edwin had a final pull on his scotch and water, and waited for Lawson to come back to order another one. He looked around the bar at the photos of Ireland, America, and everything else, thinking that it was such a bad place after all. Maybe he’d take Molly here and brighten up the joint.

Unsinkable: Edwin Balder Part III

2011-03-09T04:28:00.000-08:00

Edwin was slow to walk up to the second floor. In fact, he hated the second floor. It often smelled of boxed meals and desperation. Plus Gerhardt lived on the second floor. He lived in the apartment right next to the rap playing hussy whom Edwin was hell bent on confronting. Gerhardt had problems. He’d lived in the apartment building since the dawn of mankind, alone, of course, and was on heavy medication most of the time. At least that’s what Edwin thought. Why else would the man pound on the ceiling or ring the doorbell, accusing Edwin of flushing his toilet several times in a row, on purpose, in order to get back at his old upstairs neighbor. It made no sense. Edwin had tons of others ways to get back at his old upstairs neighbor. Of course, the old neighbor had moved out before any of his plans had time to reach fruition, but Edwin thought, walking slowly up the steps, that many of the plans could now be used on this new urban harlot whose music was currently causing small fissures in his bedroom walls.

He reached the offending apartment. Edwin reached three offending apartments at once. They were all there, clustered together: Trixie’s studio apartment to the left with the ricocheting noise of rap music pouring out into the hallway, set right above Edwin’s bedroom; Gerhardt’s hole of a studio apartment in the middle, quiet, ready to strike at any moment, and set ominously above Edwin’s living room; Guitarzan’s apartment was on the right, like an dormant enemy lying in wait. Edwin had no real problem with Guitarzan. His apartment was mostly above the Chinese woman’s apartment situated to next door to Edwin’s. Occasionally faint guitar noises came through the ceiling, just above the couch where Edwin usually read his latest issue of McSweeny’s, or some tome by the next writer anointed genius by the New York Times. Edwin didn’t mind the guitar music. It was no match for the Chinese woman’s television. However, since he left that note on Guitarzan’s door, the one mentioning several places in the southern Brooklyn area where one could receive adequate guitar lessons, the playing from above had taken an indefinite hiatus.

Edwin sneaked passed Gerhardt’s door and placed himself in front of the new neighbor’s glossy red one. He listened to the noise of the music, something about getting out there and getting money. He listened to her pacing around her overpriced cage. Edwin looked through the peephole but could not see inside, always forgetting that peepholes only worked one way. He took a deep breath and raised his left hand. There was no turning back now, Edwin thought. He lifted his hand up higher and knocked with thunderous verve.

The pacing stopped but the rap music did not. Edwin waited for what felt like an eternity as his new nemesis shuffled across her domicile to answer the door. He heard the small, metal cover on the peephole move one way and then swing the other way. Edwin ran a hand through his wavy, trendy gray hair and coughed, as his neighbor began unlatching locks. He counted them: one, two, three, four locks. Where did this chick think she lived? He thought. Libya? And how did she get three locks? Edwin had one lock. He had one lock and one deadbolt that Nazi Sheppard had screwed in crookedly. He made a mental note to add a few locks to the litany of apartment repairs that he was set to present to the Sheppards any day now. But then the door opened and before Edwin stood the prettiest woman he’d ever seen: a brown haired goddess with a long nose and bright green eyes, dressed in low riding jeans, her belly poking out between the denim and a tight black t-shirt that read “Brooklyn Girls Do it Better.” She had purple painted toenails, and in her hand was a pot holding some ethnic sludge that Edwin took to be a kind of vulgar pasta dish popular with college students and lonely single trolls like Gerhardt.

“Yes?” the girl said

Edwin tried to look into her apartment but she moved closer between him and the door. “Good evening,” he said.

“Hi.”

“I’m your neighbor. From downstairs.”

“Do you have a name?” the girl asked. Then she took a wooden spoon from the pot. It had a small mound of food on it, beef, elbow noodles, and tomato sauce, from what Edwin could gather in the second before she put the offending mixture in her mouth.

“Edwin.”

She finished chewing. “Molly. I’m Molly Brown.”

“Ah. I don’t believe we have another Molly living in this building.”

“It’s a big building, Edwin. How would you know?” Molly asked.

“Precisely.”

Molly put a hand on her hip and gave a sly smile. “What can I do for you tonight?”
“Well,” Edwin began. “It’s actually just a small thing. In fact, I’m a bit embarrassed even coming up here. You see I was at work today and there was a terrible nautical accident that happened to one of my co-workers. She nearly drowned.”

“Oh my God! That’s terrible,” Molly said. “What do you do for a living?”

“I process invoices,” Edwin said.

“I thought the accident was nautical.”

“It was. In nature. A ceiling tile fell on my co-worker’s head this afternoon. It was full of briny water and it soaked the poor girl.”

“Is she okay?’ Molly asked, before taking another spoonful of the goop. The rap music blared stronger in the background with the door open. Edwin eyed Gerhardt’s door just waiting for that bastard to come out.

“We don’t know,” Edwin said. “I mean it certainly won’t improve her looks or her luck with men. Perhaps the tragedy will give her a stronger constitution.”

“Yeah. I hate work.”

“What do you do?”

“Bartend. Waitress. Sell pot,” Molly said.

“Hmmm, I once had to work two jobs.”

Molly smiled again. “Now, what did you say you needed?”

Edwin blushed. “It’s quite silly actually. See, after the tragedy at work I came home to my apartment, traumatized of course, and decided to go right to bed, skipping dinner and all sundry evening activities. I figured I’d rest, maybe read a novel, and try to shake off the heartbreak of seeing poor Mary humiliated at work.”

“Is Mary her name?” Molly asked. She had more of her Italian goop. It was beginning to make Edwin hungry. Or maybe sick. He couldn’t tell as hunger and sickness were the same thing to Edwin Balder.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s some ritualistic Catholic name.” He leaned in and Molly did not move back, which was a promising opening to their relationship. “But if you ask me, Mary doesn’t take the Catholic thing too seriously, especially after a lonely night at one of those singles clubs she frequents. Let’s just say she’s not too choosy of a woman.”

“I have a friend who’s a ho,” Molly said.

“So we understand each other,” Edwin said. “But let me get to the point. Distraught, I laid down in my bed prepared to read, drift off to sleep, and otherwise fast, when, and I don’t mean this as a criticism, your music began to rain down on me.”

“Rain?” Molly said.

“Or pour,” Edwin added, “volley, shower, fall, hail, torrent, or deluge if you will.”

“Christ I’m sorry.” Molly left her doorway and went off into the distance. Edwin tried to peek into her apartment but when the music shut off he got spooked and backed out into the hallway. Then Molly came back to the door without her food. Edwin missed it. “You never realize how loud things are.”

“It’s an old building,” Edwin said, relieved that the music was gone. He could feel his heart rate return to normal, hear birds begin to sing, and the world basically spin back on its axis. “Truthfully I thought you were a black person.”

“Why?”

“The music.”

“Everyone listens to rap these days,” Molly said.

“True.” Edwin thought for a moment. “Of course, I have a black friend who distains rap music.”

“That’s cool.”

“His name is Lawson Thomas. He’s a philosopher, a budding Proust scholar, and a classical music aficionado when not affixing a hipster persona and listening to Jazz.”

“That’s a tall order,” Molly said.

“When I thought you were black, I was going to try and fix the two of you up,” Edwin said. “I thought maybe you’d help get Lawson out of the malaise of Asian and Puerto Rican woman he seems caught in these days.”

“So your friend gets around?” Molly asked.

“Like a vacuum salesman.”

“Anyway, I’m really sorry about the music,” she said. “I put it on to unwind and I just didn’t realize how loud it was.”

“You listen to that to unwind?” Edwin asked.

“Yeah. What do you listen to?”

“Usually the Chinese woman’s television murmuring through my living room walls, but occasionally I enjoy the classical music station.”

“Very classy,” Molly said.

“It’s Lawson’s influence,” Edwin said. “Perhaps I should still introduce the two of you.”

“That would be cool, but I kind of have a boyfriend.”

“Kind of?”

“We’re having problems right now,” Molly said. “Maybe we’re not even together anymore. That’s why I moved here.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah.” Both Edwin and Molly were quiet for a moment. “Anyway I should get back to making dinner.”

“Yes,” Edwin said. “I believe I’m getting hungry myself.”

“No more fast for Marry?”

“Huh?”

“Your co-worker? The one who almost drowned?”

“Oh,” Edwin said. “Her. The hell with her.” He extended a hand and Molly took it. Her hand were soft. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” she said. “I’ll try to keep the music down.”

“Thank you,” Edwin said. “Perhaps I can buy you a drink some time, or invite you down to listen to Rhapsody in Blue.”

“I’d like that.”

“Well.”

“Well.”

“Goodnight,” Edwin said.

“Goodnight,” Molly said. And then she closed the door.

Edwin Balder stood in the hallway for a few seconds more. It wasn’t exactly love that he was feeling for Molly Brown, or even a craving. But he felt something warm and peaceful inside of himself for having met her. I like this pounding Neanderthal of a girl, Edwin said to himself, as he moved away from her door. He backed away smiling like a man smitten with the sunset or his bank statement. But then he heard the knob turn on Gerhardt’s door and it all turned to darkness.

“Yes,” Edwin said, once Gerhardt’s boney old face poked out into the hallway.

Gerhardt pointed a finger. “I heard yeahs. I heard yeahs talking and playing that music.”

“And?”

“And I don’t want youse starting nothing”

“Nothing is starting, Gerhardt,” Edwin said.

“I heard yeahs flushing your toilets!”

“Whatever.” Edwin turned and walked away. He descended to the first floor with a spring in his step, thinking that no ancient, toilet obsessed lunatic was going to ruin such a serendipitous evening as this one. Edwin resolved to flush his toilet at least four times once safely back in his apartment, before returning to his bedroom for a little self-love. For he had found his muse, and her name was Molly Brown.

“I swear I heard yeahs!” Gerhardt shouted one last time, before he slammed his door,
and Edwin opened his.

Opening Salvo

2011-03-08T04:25:00.000-08:00

Edwin Balder had trouble getting his key into the lock of his building. This was a common problem. Someone, Edwin had his suspicions as to the culprit, always turned the keyhole downward, making it hard for people to simply stick their key into the lock, turn, and enter the building. In truth, this was a minor inconvenience, one that took maybe an extra ten seconds out of Edwin’s day. But, not being currently involved with anyone, Edwin had plenty of time to sit in his bedroom, listening as his new upstairs neighbor pounded her Neanderthal feet across the floor and rap music rained down on him, contemplating just how much actual time he’d wasted on that lock. It had to be years at this point. Edwin thought about confronting the superintendent about it, but the super still hadn’t come by to fix his window, toilet, bathroom door, kitchen floor tile, leaky sink pipe, and the stains developing on his living room ceiling. Edwin was beginning to think his concerns were falling on deaf ears.

“I’m…I’m the boss,” Edwin said to himself, mocking the words of his boss, as he got the key in the door. He couldn’t stop thinking about the traumatized look on Mr. Owen Chase’s face when it was even remotely suggested that he give up his office so that poor Mary wouldn’t be threatened by sitting underneath that pregnant tile ceiling. Well, we all knew how that one turned out. Edwin snickered. Then he made his way down to his apartment.

“Meester Balder,” a voice said, just as Edwin was set to unlock his door. He recognized it as the super’s wife, a squat raven-haired Slavic, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Turkish whatever women who seemed to do all of the grunt work that the super was supposed to do. The super was good at smoking cigarettes in undesignated places, and shoveling snow at obscene hours. He smoked cigarettes in the small latch elevator, and talked Edwin’s ear off about how everyone kept breaking the front door lock. Edwin almost had a heart attack that day. Plus he felt that the super was singling him out. He smelled of generic cigarettes for hours the encounter. “Meester Balder! Edween!”

Edwin sighed, hating the eastern European cadence of her voice. “Yes, Mrs. Sheppard?”

“Deed you make sure to turn back de lock?”

“I always make sure to turn back the lock.”

“Very good,” Mrs. Sheppard said. “De lock is very tricky.”

“So is getting something fixed in this place, Edwin said, quietly.

“Yes?”

He turned to Mrs. Sheppard and she shuffled toward him. The woman was barely five feet tall, and looked like she’d be more at home waiting in a Russian bread line. “Actually I do have a question for you.”

“Yes?”

“What’s the story with the new neighbor living above my bedroom?”

Mrs. Sheppard’s face dropped. “Why? Is problem.”

Edwin smiled, thought about growing a beard and how bored he was with this conversation already. “No problem. I mean I love the sound of dead bodies being dragged across the floor.”

The super’s wife gave a confused look. Note to self, Edwin thought, cut the sarcasm. “She is student.”

“Ah.” Edwin’s disposition brightened. “A student? We have a scholar amongst our ragtag tribe.” Immediately he took the new neighbor for some kind of philosophy major, pouring over the works of Kant or Schopenhauer, or another one of those sunny types. But then gloom set in. Edwin recalled rap music blaring down on him, and quickly assumed that the new neighbor was most probably a psychology major or a business major, or attending one of the various trade schools advertised on late night television.

“She goes to university,” Mrs. Sheppard said.

“Good,” Edwin said. He stared down at the super’s wife, broom forever in her hand, and tried to smile. But something about her glaring peasant-ness stopped him dead. “Well, that’ll be all.” He opened his apartment door. “Please remind your husband to come and see me about the escalating tally of repairs I’ve been keeping in regards to my apartment.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Sheppard said. “But he is very very busy. He…”

But Edwin had already shut the door and was safely inside his apartment should a band of Cossacks arrive and haul Mrs. Sheppard away.

The heat in the apartment was overwhelming, like a blast furnace from some steel mill located in one of those whiny rust belt cities. Edwin couldn’t understand it. He kept no heating vents open. He did not court the heat. Yet he had to open the windows wide in the dead of winter, or wear shorts as he navigated around the apartment. Forget about reading for prolonged periods of time in the bathroom with how hot it was in there. Edwin even slept with three fans on him. They were initially bought as year-round white noise machines to block out the neighbors and the neighborhood dogs, but Edwin found that he needed the fans just to keep him from sweating in the middle of January on the east coast.

As a safety measure he immediately took his coat and suit coat off, and set his copy of McSweeny’s on the table. Edwin stormed into the living room to open the two big windows. It would be a two window day, which meant that he had to retrieve his Webster’s Dictionary to prop open the other window. The book had been given to Edwin years ago by his long-dead grandmother. It was a high school graduation gift. Edwin had wanted fifty dollars but he got a dictionary. He’d had no use for it in almost twenty years, that is, until he moved in under the Superintendent Sheppard regime. Now a book, a fork, a spoon, or a bucket could make all the difference in a single, working man’s home repair life.

Edwin thought about getting the mail. But what would be in the mail, he thought. Bills? Student loan balances? What a drag. Besides he could still hear Mrs. Sheppard out there, talking to herself, or singing some old Bolshevik song, and he didn’t want to go through the uncomfortable processes of having to communicate with her again. What to do? He thought. Edwin always hated the moments where his work life transferred into his home life. The short time span always made him feel bad, unproductive, and entirely un-American. He never knew what to do. Usually he masturbated.

Edwin fixed a drink, a scotch and water. Drinking scotch always made him feel like he was in an Edward Albee play or a Douglas Coupland novel. Edwin had a good drink on the scotch. He thought about Mary at work, ugly and soaked from the water from the tile that split open on her. When he came into the office after his break, she was just standing there all tight, shivering, while that big baboon Chase was red-faced and yelling into the soaking wet phone on her desk. Mary looked like Sissy Spacek in Carrie after they’d doused her with pig’s blood. Edwin had made it like he was going back into the bathroom to get paper towels to help clean Mary off, but really he went back in there to laugh.

He went into the bedroom. The neighbor upstairs was pounding along. She must do nothing all day but pace the room, Edwin thought. He went over to his bed and set his drink on the nightstand and then lay down. He unzipped his pants and put a hand down there. Edwin was going to masturbate for sure. He just needed someone good to think about. He thought about famous actresses, but they never really worked for him. Edwin liked their bodies and loved their nude scenes, but in the end realized that he simply wasn’t in the same tax bracket as most (ha! any) of those starlets, and how could you masturbate to someone that you couldn’t keep up with financially? His parents had the same problem. Edwin’s mom came from money but his dad came from eastern European working class stock, ala the Sheppards. They divorced when Edwin was five.

It would have to be Mary again. Edwin sighed. If only he could masturbate to Michael Chabon’s words. Mary. She was so ugly and now he pictured her looking like a drowned rat. Still, there was no one else. Edwin had tried masturbating to Mrs. Sheppard but he couldn’t finish. He just kept picturing her sweeping his floor nude and that made him think about all of the stuff in the apartment that Mr. Sheppard hadn’t fixed, and instead of masturbating Edwin had spent that night in his bed drinking scotch, shouting “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” until his old upstairs neighbor pounded on his ceiling. He didn’t want to have to go through that again. So it would be Mary. It would be poor, ugly emaciated Mary riding Edwin as if the two of them were in some melodramatic indie film, filmed in black and white, where their pathetic sex act was being played for a morose symbolism.

But before Edwin could begin, the pounding upstairs stopped for a moment. Then the rap music came on. It came on loudly. Bass and garbled vocals vibrated through the ceiling. Edwin took his hand out of his pants and just laid there on the bed. He had some more of his scotch and water, and seethed. A working man deserved more than this! He shouted out to no one. A working man deserved more than some community college whore shaking her ass to ghetto anthems in the apartment above him. She probably dates black men. Christ! What if she is black? Perhaps Edwin could fix her up with his black friend, Lawson Thomas.

Oh why had the old neighbor moved out? Had he really been that bad? Edwin thought. He finished off his scotch and water, as the bass and vocals worked to give him a minor seizure. Edwin zipped up his pants and sprung up off of his bed. He knew what he had to do if ever this was to end. He looked up at the ceiling where the offending noise kept charging at him like an advancing army. Edwin was going to have to go up there and mix it up with this broad. He was going to have to confront this student, his assailant, this woman, face to face.

Deluge: An Edwin Balder Story

2011-03-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

“Balder!”

Edwin Balder heard Mr. Chase shout his name but tried to ignore it. Edwin was hiding in the bathroom again, reading his copy of McSweeny’s, and imagining that he was best friends with Dave Eggers and Michael Chabon, instead of processing invoices for Mr. Chase in some hole deep in the southern end of Brooklyn. There’s just no civilization down here, Edwin was thinking, before Chase called his name. Why couldn’t I live up in northern Brooklyn where all of the artists lived? Edwin had been up to northern Brooklyn only a few weeks before. He’d been to a poetry reading in bar down on Grand Street, and fell in love with the grittiness of the place. Edwin fell in love with all of the thin artist types, their wispy scarves and tight jeans. He loved the way they seemed to flit from one bar to another, blowing cash on crafted beers, as if money grew on trees. They never got drunk. They never ran out of cash and had to hit the ATM hoping to make it until payday. No one in northern Brooklyn worked processing invoices for a fat slob like Thomas Chase, and went to bed to the sound of old Chinese ladies picking through garbage for recyclable cans and bottles.

“Balder!” Chase called again.

Edwin sighed and took his Strand bookmark out of shirt pocket. He placed it in the McSweeny’s and closed the magazine. Michael Chabon, you’re just going to have to wait, he thought. Then Edwin left the stall to check out his reflection in the mirror: lime green shirt, tight black pants, and a tight suit coat to match. Edwin adjusted his thick glasses and tousled his hair. Not too gray, he thought. My hair is a trendy kind of gray. He left the bathroom.

“There you are, Balder!” Mr. Chase said, waddling over to where Edwin came to a stop. Everything about Thomas Chase disgusted him, from his bald head with those pathetic patches of hair on the side, to Chase’s short little moustache, to the yellow pockets of ancient sweat underneath his arms. Edwin felt that Thomas Chase typified the anti-intellectual, Cro-Magnon, right wing, racist philosophy of everyone living down in this end of Brooklyn. Chase certainly never read a single issue of McSweeny’s. “Where were you?”

Edwin coughed into his hand. “Bathroom.”

“That’s what you always say,” Chase said.

“That’s where I usually am,” Edwin said. Where else would he go? There was nowhere to go to escape the single room with the four long rows of fluorescent lights, the two warped, wooden desks, the box-like private office, and the patchwork ceiling full of Thomas Chase-like armpit stained ceiling tiles.

“We got a major problem,” Chase said.

Yes, I’m sure the world hangs in the balance, Edwin thought. “We do?”

“Come here.” Chase led Edwin away from the small hallway near the bathroom, and into the office. He still had that piece of toilet paper sticking out of the back of his pants. Edwin and Mary, Chase’s assistant, spent hours laughing over that hanging toilet paper. Sadly, the bathroom still smelt faintly of Chase’s time in there, and made Edwin’s reading of McSweeny’s a less than pleasurable experience.

“Do you see this?” Chase said

“I’m still adjusting my eyes to these horrid lights,” Edwin said, squinting. But when he came to and was able to see in total again, Edwin saw that one of the old ceiling tiles had crumbled and fallen to the floor near Mary’s desk. There was water everywhere, and the pieces of tile looked like crackers that had floated too long in a cup of soup. Edwin’s belly growled and he thought about that great bowl of Gazpacho he got up in northern Brooklyn a few weeks ago.

“Well?” Chase said.

“A ceiling tile fell,” Edwin said.

“I see that. How did it happen?”

“It filled with water from the leak we have, and it finally burst.”

“Why do we still have a leak?”

“Because corporate won’t send anyone to fix it?”

Chase nodded his head. He stared at the wreckage of the ceiling tile for what seemed an eternity. Edwin looked at the top of Thomas Chase’s head, at the way the reflecting fluorescent light seemed to bounce on his scalp. Edwin had at least six inches on Mr. Chase.

“That’s right,” Chase said. “And do you know why?”

“Because you didn’t call and ask them to come down here?”

Chase gave Edwin a hard look. “No, Balder. I called. I called dozens of times. They won’t send anyone down here because they are trying to push us out.”

“Oh,” Edwin said.

“Oh.” Chase’s eyes bulged out of his head. Edwin looked at his boss and wondered how miserable sex was for Mrs. Chase having to look up into the eyes of that balding beast as he pumped away at her. Of course this was contingent upon the Chases still having sex. “Is that all you can say, Balder?”

“Oh crap?”

“Don’t be funny.”

Edwin looked around. “Hey, where’s Mary?” He wished that Mary was in the office so that the two of them could make secret faces about the toilet paper stuck in Mr. Chase’s pants while Chase worked himself up about leaky ceiling tiles.

“She’s hiding in the bathroom.”

“Why?”

“Because of the goddamned ceiling tile, Balder,” Chase said. “It almost hit her.”

“Not even,” Edwin said, walking over to the mess on the floor. He looked up at the ceiling, felt the fluorescent lights sucking his will to live. “That tile right above her desk is much worse.”
“What?” Chase came over to where Edwin was standing. The two of them looked up at a pregnant ceiling tile that was nearly ready to burst.

“Maybe we should move Mary’s desk?” Edwin said.

“Move it where, Balder?” Chase said. They looked around their small space. There was nowhere to go. There was practically no room to move. You had to walk sideways in certain areas of the office.

“Well, we can’t just have Mary sit underneath that tile. I mean it’s going to break.” It was Edwin’s turn to give Mr. Chase a hard stare. He felt good, chivalrous. Edwin thought that Mary would like it, him standing up for her. Too bad she was a brunette and not Edwin’s type at all.

“Why don’t you switch desks with her, Balder?” Chase said. “At least until I can get this fixed.”

“Me?” Edwin thought about sitting under that pregnant ceiling tile, and how it could burst at any moment, soaking him and all of the knickknacks on his desk. Edwin imagined that dirty water raining down on his vintage Hulk action figure, and him suing the pants off of Thomas Chase and the corporation. Could Edwin sue Chase? He wondered.

“Well, I can’t move,” Edwin said. “I have all of those invoices to process. What about you?”

“Me?” Chase’s face grew red with anger. “I can’t move. I’m…I’m the boss. I have an office.” Chase pointed to his little enclosed glass cage of an office, no bigger than a supply closet. And I also have all of those invoices to process. What does Mary have?” They both peered over at the contents of her desk. “She has a rolodex and some scribbles. It’s all replaceable stuff, Balder.”

“I agree,” Edwin said, letting chivalry fly out of the window. “I’m sure corporate will have someone down here to fix the tiles in no time.”

“Oh, you bet they will,” Chase said. He pointed a finger into Edwin’s chest. “Just wait until I get done with them.” With that, Chase waddled off toward his office. “Balder, be sure you and Mary clean up that tile. No, no leave it! Let’s let those corporate schmucks see what we have to deal with.” Chase shut his door.

“Whatever,” Edwin said. He sat at his desk and looked at his vintage Hulk action figure. Then he reopened his copy of McSweeny’s and started reading, as Chase’s voice echoed from his tiny office.

“Is everything okay?”

Edwin looked up and Mary was standing in the little hallway between the bathrooms and the office. Her face was white as a ghost, and it made her look unattractive up against the winning combo of black dress and black hair.

“Coast is clear,” Edwin said, taking a quick glance at the tile above Mary’s desk. “Chase is on the phone with corporate.”

“It was disgusting,” Mary said, looking down at the broken tile and puddle of water. “The water was brown.”

“I’ll bet,” Edwin said. “It was probably trapped in there for months.”

Mary sat at her desk and began fiddling with her rolodex.

“Chase still has that tp stuck in his pants,” Edwin said. Mary smiled but didn’t say anything else. Guess the joke is over, Edwin thought. “Anyway, I’m going to go on my break now.”

Edwin got up from his desk, his nose buried in his copy of McSweeny’s, and headed toward the bathroom. He found his stall, went in, locked the door, sat on the cold porcelain of the toilet, and began to read. Michael Chabon had an article in there this month about an old failed novel of his. They published excerpts of the novel along with Chabon’s comments. Edwin wished that he could write something nearly as good as this literary giant’s failed masterpiece.

He sat there and imagined himself a famous poet and novelist. Edwin fantasized about living in northern Brooklyn and doing poetry readings on Grand Street every weekend. He’d get himself a scarf and drink crafted beer, and never have to worry about hitting the ATM. Edwin imagined associating with all of the new literary greats. He’d call them all by their first names: Dave, Michael, Colson, Jhumpa, Jonathan, and even the other Jonathan. They’d call him Edwin, Ed, or Eddie, and they’d love every word that he wrote. McSweeny’s would do monthly features on Edwin’s art. He’d never have to process another invoice for a baboon like Thomas Chase ever again.

Edwin felt good thinking this way. He closed his copy of McSweeny’s and rested his head against the cool tile of the bathroom wall. He was content, if only for a moment, in the calculated hell that was his work day. But then there was a noise and crash, something that sounded like the fierce rush of water. Mary screamed and Chase started calling “Balder! Balder! It broke over her head! Great Christ, the tile broke all over Mary’s head! But Edwin just opened his eyes, checked his watch, and told himself that there was still ten minutes left on his break.

Crybabies

2011-02-23T04:22:00.000-08:00

Crybabies

I hate when there’s nothing to do but watch television, especially when I’m feeling this way. I mean if there’s something good on, fine, but when I’m just flipping around the channels, restless and killing time until I can think of something else to do, that’s when I start hating television and the seventy-dollar a month bill that I pay just to maintain basic cable. Talk about your highway robberies. I wish that I was smart enough or industrious enough to get me one of those internet conversion boxes, or whatever they are, and just watch the television using the internet. That way I could just watch the one or two programs that I like, and not drop seventy bucks a month for channels full of shit that I can’t stand. Or maybe get a laptop or one of those iPads and just rest it on my belly, crack a beer, and catch a ballgame or two. Anything but this. This ceaseless, endless flipping through the sea of the cultural wasteland, it’s just too much for me. Watching television makes me feel like I’m downing in toxic waste.

I land on this twenty-four hour news station. Sometimes they are good for a laugh. They’re much funnier than the jerkoffs playing at fake newscasters on the Comedy Network. Of course I can never tell the channel that’s liberal from the one that’s supposedly conservative. CNN or Fox? I just like to watch the one that puts blondes in short skirts on the air. All of the sadness and misery of mankind goes down a hell of a lot smoother when there’s some broad in a miniskirt crossing her legs, giving you hope for an upskirt glimpse, and looking all serious into the camera. But either station can be funny. The Democrats and Republicans go at each other for a while, and then the pundits come on and make it worse. I can barely remember a world without the twenty-four hour news networks, without some slobbering idiot screaming into the camera about big government or little government. Something tells me the world was better before the proliferation of twenty-four hour news networks. My grandmother was alive back then, so I know that it was better.

Anyway there’s this interview on with this politician. He’s the new Speaker of the House or some shit like that. I mean I know who he is, but I just don’t feel like mulling over all the boring details about him. He’s one of those backdoor politicians, a corporate special interest jockey; one of those politicians who have lobbyists coming out of his ass when he takes a shit. But he tries to play it real. He’s always going on about how he came from nothing, and rose up through the ranks. He’s always going on about growing up working in his old man’s bar. A real red, white, and blue American, if you ask the people from his hometown. Big fucking deal. When I got old enough I worked in my old man’s bar. I worked there for years. Then my brother and I sold the thing a few months after he died, and we both bought big screen televisions with the money our mom gave us. Working in a bar doesn’t make you the stuff of true grit. It just means that you have a high tolerance for the company of bigots and assholes. Hey, maybe that’s why Mr. Politician likes to spend so much time with lobbyists.

He’s got a funny name too, like Boner, or Bone, or something like that. But he doesn’t say it that way. He calls himself Bon-er, or Bon-e, or something French that doesn’t make any sense but is probably a direct result of getting his ass reamed with insults on the playground. He plays golf with his lobbyist pals. I hate golf. I hate golf and tennis. They’re not sports. They’re recreational activities. Every once in a while I’ll go and drive golf balls with my buddies, but it’s really just an excuse to get drunk at the bar next door. We usually drink a few pitchers before sundown and then get kicked off the range because one of us geniuses starts picking up golf balls and using the club to hit them as if we were taking a round of batting practice. Shit, we haven’t done that in a while. I really should’ve called the guys instead of sitting here flipping through the channels, feeling bad about today. But I already went to the bar this afternoon, and I think I’m going to try and make it into work after all tomorrow morning. Besides I got plenty of beer here, and you have to be in the mood to want to get kicked off a driving range.

This Boner or Bon-er likes to cry. It’s like his defining characteristic or something. He’ll be on the House floor or one some talk show, or, hell, on the golf course or somewhere, and some reporter will get him going about the troops in the Middle East or his old man’s bar, and good old Boner will well up with tears and start crying. He seems to really like to cry when there’s a national audience. I swear once Boner was on the TV giving the rebuttal to the President’s budget, and the motherfucker started bawling right then and there. He was crying about the deficit. Shit, he reminded me of my mother, crying about money like that. It was like Boner set it up the whole time. Staged tears, man. I wondered if Boner was an actor or something. I wanted to look it up on Wikipedia, but my PC was in the other room, and I’m old school so I have to plug the damned thing in if I want to go on the internet. See, this is where a laptop or an iPad would come in handy.

I just sat there with a beer and watched Boner cry his eyes out like a goddamned baby. I’ll tell you, it’s strange watching a grown man cry. Women crying? That’s easy. Women cry over a well-prepared dinner or a rude comment at a family gathering. But a man crying? I guess maybe an athlete has to die or something to get a man to cry. I think some comedian said that on the Comedy Network. I hate comedians but he was probably right on that one. My old man cried when Walter Payton died. When my old man died I didn’t cry at his wake, his funeral, or nothing. I spent the whole time running around making sure my mom was okay, talking to all of my parent’s friends, and making sure shit was going smoothly with the funeral director and the people at the cemetery. My brother bawled the whole time. I couldn’t even look at him.
So I’m watching this interview with Boner and waiting for him to start crying. It’s going to come soon. I finish my beer and I get another one. I’m feeling kind of loose, you know, bored and somewhat sentimental. The reason I’m all sad and restless is because of my grandmother. It would’ve been her birthday today, and I always get a little bit maudlin on grandmother’s birthday. She practically raised my brother and me while my folks slaved at that fucking bar. She was good us when no one else gave a shit. She was a tough broad too, smoked and drank whiskey, and cursed at her neighbors a lot. It was hard to see that way that cancer just ripped the goddamned life out of her. When I think of my grandmother I always think of those last few days when she was out of it and breathing heavy, and my brother and I just stood around her like a couple of clueless assholes, waiting on the end, while my mom kept rubbing her mouth with a warm towel. I kept thinking she’d just get up out of that bed; ask us what in the hell we were all looking so sad about, and to go in the kitchen to get her a beer and the salt shaker. I hate thinking about those last days of her life. That’s why I skipped work and went drinking. It was good to go to the bar and take my mind off of things, even though that place is full of loud mouthed bigots. Of course my brother is going to call at any minute, and this sadness is only going to get worse.

Boner starts crying. The blonde, leggy reporter ( I must be watching Fox) gets him going on growing up working in his old man’s bar, being poor, and cleaning up after hapless, blue collar drunks. Boner talks slowly about his family and the bar, like he’s trying not to do what everyone in the country expects him to do. But the man can’t hold it for long. Soon his eyes get red, and then a couple of tear drops come. Boner’s body starts shaking, and he has to lower his head and weep into the cup of his hand. The leggy, blonde reporter looks all weepy too, like she’s thinking about her old man too. She waits for Boner to compose himself so that they can get on with the interview.

And wouldn’t you know it? I’m crying along with him. I could feel it coming when I started thinking about my grandmother again. I could feel my throat tighten, and each pull on the beer becoming harder and harder to get down. Goddamn. I’m sitting here crying over my dead grandmother, and Boner is on the television crying about his old man and his old man’s bar. Mr. Backdoor Dealmaker and Mr. Whatever-in-the-hell-I-am-anymore. Me and Boner. We couldn’t be more different. He’s a Republican and I don’t care anymore. But right now we’re two peas in a pod sitting here crying. A couple of pathetic grown men. Crybabies. What a pair we must make on another lost night in America.

I lean over a grab the remote off the coffee table. Man, I want to shut this shit off and get myself together. But Boner hasn’t lifted his head out of his hands yet. He’s still crying. And this is the best thing that’s been on the television all night. I might as well sit here and shed some tears with the guy. I think after I talk to my brother maybe I’ll call my buddies, have a few more, shut my aching brain off, and go driving golf balls. I think I’ll put this night behind me, pretend I never started bawling along with Boner. But I can’t turn away from the guy right now. I can’t leave him hanging. I don’t want to because I kind of like the way I’m feeling right now. I feel liberated, less anxious and antsy. I don’t feel so maudlin anymore because I’m crying tears of remembrance and joy. I feel a great weight lifted from off of me, if that makes any sense. Hell, I didn’t even cry at my grandmother’s funeral. But I’ve been crying ever since. I should at least keep this interview on until Boner is done crying. That would be the right thing to do, I’m sure of it.

Yesterday's Papers

2011-01-18T06:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday’s Papers

Ford held the box up to the light, examined it, and put it right back down on the desk. The box was too large to be the old yearbook that he requested back from Sharon. He took a pull on his beer and decided that he better open the thing. Ford used his mailbox key to open the package. When he got the box open all he could see were balls and balls of crumpled up and yellowed newspaper. He unrolled one ball and read the date on it; December 31, 1999. What in the hell? He thought. Where had Sharon gotten a newspaper this goddamned old, and from the so-called last day of the 20th Century?

Ford thought about that day. He remembered going to the bar with Sharon. They had to go all over the city to find one that was open, or that wasn’t having a private party. They settled on a sports bar. It wasn’t much of a bar, just a couple of pool tables and ESPN playing on two televisions. The joint was new. It hadn’t built up any clientele yet. Ford remembered Sharon taking a long pull on her beer, leaning in so close that her breath was hot on his right ear, and saying wouldn’t it be funny if they became regulars in a place like this? Dinner was a plate of hot wings and fried clams. The entertainment was a table with too bored looking guys tying two helium balloons to a paper cup of complimentary pretzels, seeing if they could get the contraption to sail over the few denizens in the bar. Ford had called the one guy, the bald one with the goatee, Professor. Sharon called him Bill Nye the Science Guy, from these shows she watched as a kid, but that he’d never seen.

The brunette at the bar would give everyone a free glass of champagne at midnight. Ford remembered the champagne being sweet. It was spumante, the bartender said. Her name was Carla. Spumante was Carla’s favorite but Ford didn’t think much about it. Still, he went to the liquor store and got her a bottle of it every year after that, in order for them to ring in the New Year together. It was the least he could do, Ford thought.

As for Sharon, well, Ford guessed that she was still holding a small grudge after all of those years and two children together. It didn’t matter that she’d moved on, and found a second husband of her own, one who made her laugh and was in the process of buying her that big house in the suburbs that she’d always wanted. Time never moved on for a spurned woman, Ford thought. He’d always be a heel in her eyes, even after a decade apart. Ford dug into the box. There was no yearbook in there. Carla would have to wait to see that picture of him playing Fullback on the football team. Ford held up a new ball of the yellowed newspaper from the so-called last day of the last century. He thought about sailing pretzels and the sugary taste of spumante. Then he wished he’d taken his collection of rare and valuable newspapers with him when he’d left Sharon all of those years ago.

Whatever It Takes

2010-01-07T09:06:00.000-08:00

Whatever It Takes

A couple of hours before all of this some Arab kid had called Jeff a “motherfucker.” Jeff had thrown the kid out of the library because the kid had been asking for it all day. He’d been pounding on the keyboard of his computers, and playing these obnoxious video games with the sound on. Patrons had complained. When Jeff walked up the stairs into the children’s room to warn the kids they basically brushed him off. He could hear the Arab boy’s laughter as he walked down the steps back to his desk in the adult room. Then came the kid’s voice again. The shouting. The noise from the video game. Jeff let it go for a little bit longer. It was Saturday and he just wanted to get through the workday, come home to Ariel, and have some wine on the couch. It wasn’t so hard to get through a day, was it.

Jeff watched the snow as it fell outside of the library in between helping patrons find books by the latest best-selling authors. They were calling for nearly a foot by the evening. Kids were already out playing in it, laughing and hitting each other with wet snowballs. Jeff smiled to himself and then checked the weather on his computer. Yep. A foot was coming. He looked up, thinking about old snowfalls from his youth. That’s when a couple of girls came running down from the kids room. One of them was crying. They both looked wet.

“They hit us,” the one girl said. “They went outside and got snowballs and hit us.”

“Who?” Jeff asked.

“They did,” the crying girl said. She pointed up to the children’s room, and the loud noise of boys playing video games.

“God damn, “ Jeff said, getting up.

The two girls took off back up the steps as Jeff followed them. He didn’t need this, he thought. The snow was coming. It would be one-foot by nightfall. He just wanted to be home in the warm apartment with Ariel having some of that wine and talking about her day. Not this. Not kids. He didn’t want to deal with kids on a Saturday like this.

“What happened?” Jeff asked.

“They did it!” the girls both shouted. They pointed to a group of boys who had their heads slumped at the computers. In the middle of them was the Arab boy.

“Okay I warned you,” Jeff started. He looked at the floor in the children’s room. It was wet in various spots. “Who threw a snowball?”

“If you were really serious about kicking us out you would’ve done it already,” the Arab boy said. He kept his eyes focused on the video game in front of him. “You would’ve done it.”

“You can go,” Jeff said.

“But I didn’t throw a snowball.”

“I don’t care. You want to be smart. You want to leave the library you can go.”

“I was just saying,” the Arab boy started, whining a little bit.

“Well, you can say it outside,” Jeff said. He glared at the boy. Everyone always told Jeff that he was intimidating, especially when he had his goatee and shaved his head. Jeff’s superintendent at the apartment called him big man. “Get out.”

The Arab kid looked up at Jeff and smirked. “I’m playing a game.”

“Yeah, well learn how to play outside.” Jeff walked over the kid’s computer and shut it off. “There’s nearly a foot of snow out there.”

“This is bullshit,” the Arab boy said, getting up. “I didn’t throw anything.”

“You don’t need to talk like that,” Jeff said. He waited for the Arab boy to get up. The rest of the boys sitting at the computers were stone silent. He followed him down the stairs, and then held the door open for him.

“I can come back next week, right?” the Arab boy asked.

“We’ll see,” Jeff said.

The kid put on his hat and walked out into the snow. He stood defiantly in front of the library. Jeff watched him for a second and then figured the hell with it. Let him stand there all goddamned day in the snow. Jeff went and sat back down at his desk, and checked the weather again. It still said one-foot of snow. He looked up at the children’s room. It was quiet up there. The boys were quiet and the girls who were crying and wet were quiet. The Arab boy was outside. Jeff just had to glide through the last few hours and then he would be home free. He could taste the wine already. He smiled and thought maybe he’d taste Ariel as well. That’s when the Arab boy came back into the library and called Jeff a “motherfucker,” before running back out into the snow.

There might’ve been six inches on the ground already by the time the library closed for the day. Jeff let all of the clerical people go, and then he shut off the lights, set the alarm and locked the building up. No one was on the street and it was only five in the afternoon. Cars crawled. The streetlights and storefront lights illuminated the swirling and falling snow. Everything had an ugly yellow look to it.

Jeff began walking down 14th Avenue, and then he made a right onto 6th. He walked past the coffee shop and it was still filled with most of the old guys from the morning. They’d been talking about football when he was in there, about the old Buffalo Bills and New York Jets. Jeff was more of a baseball fan anyway. Bu he listened to these two guys go back and forth about Namath and O.J. Simpson, as he had his morning cup of coffee and moaned over the coming work day. A Saturday. One foot of snow expected. It was really coming down now, he thought. All he had to do was take that long B4 bus ride and he’d be home and warm with Ariel and wine, the snow safely left outside. It made him smile to think it.

There was hardly any room to stand at the bus stop. People were crowded in tightly between the two partitions of glass. Jeff usually stood outside of this barrier because he didn’t want to deal with people after a day spent talking to them, catering to their questions and needs, but with the snow and wind howling the way they were he had no choice. Jeff squeezed in between an old man and good-looking brunette waiting for her bus. Next to her was a woman speaking in a thick Russian accent. She had packages at her feet that were taking up a lot of the room. She had a child with her, a boy who was bundled up with a maroon jacket and a forest green snowcap. He was moving around the small space, singing, and bouncing up and down. Jeff thought that if the woman could hold one of her packages and get the boy to stop moving around so much, they wouldn’t be so damned cramped at the bus stop. There’d be room for all of them. He was going to say something to the woman, but then a bus came around the corner.

It wasn’t Jeff’s B4. It was a B49. The old man and the good-looking brunette got on the bus, and suddenly there was room. Jeff spread out a little. He felt less and less claustrophobic between the glass partitions. He didn’t even mind that the Russian woman still had her packages on the ground. Jeff didn’t mind the snow either, or the ugly yellow tint of the late afternoon. He didn’t mind anything in that moment because it had been a long day and he was going home.

The boy moved outside of the partition and began walking around in the wind and heavily falling snow. He stomped on the pavement and snow kicked up. It blew around. A little of it got on Jeff’s jacket, splattered on his goatee. Okay, he thought. Just a few more moments of this before I say something. The boy kept it up. He began stomping and stomping, moving around in circles and kicking up snow. It blew between the glass partitions. It went all over Jeff. It went all over his green Army coat and all over his Steelers snowcap. It hit the Russian woman as well. Snow was on her packages.

“Lady,” Jeff said.

The Russian woman stared straight ahead for a moment. “Yuri,” she finally said to the boy. Her accent was very thick. It bothered Jeff because he spent all day dealing with Arab and Russian people, dealing with people like this lady, her son, and that little bastard who called him a name.

Yuri looked up at his mother. He smiled in the ugly yellow tint of the late afternoon and then stomped some more. “It’s snowing! It’s snowing!”

“I know a boy who vill not get his presents,” the lady said.

“No you don’t, no you don’t,” Yuri said. He spoke perfect English. He stomped up and down in the snow. It kicked up in the wind and a cold rush of it came back and hit Jeff in the face.

“Lady, goddamn it,” Jeff said. “God damn!”

“Vat would you like I should do?” the lady asked him.

“Control your kid. Whatever it takes!”

“But he’s excited. They call for a foot of snow.” The lady and Jeff watched Yuri run around in circles outside the bus stop. “A whole foot.”

“That’s fine,” Jeff said. “I understand. But he’s kicking it up all over the place.”
“Yuri,” the woman called to the boy. Yuri stopped running in circles for a second. “You vill not get.”

“But I want it!” Yuri said. He stomped up and down, and snow went everywhere. “I’m not doing anything!”

“Christ,” Jeff said to himself. He wiped the snow off of his jacket. He tried to think about home and Ariel and the wine, but this kid and his mother were pissing him off. He thought about that Arab boy, and Jeff realized he’d been having one fucker of a day. Sure, others had it worse. But this was Jeff’s life. This was his fucker of a day. “Just make him stop, Lady!”

The Russian women turned to face Jeff. She smiled apologetically. He glared. He wondered if the glare was still strong enough with his shaved head covered. Jeff spread out his shoulders to seem broader. He felt bad doing this to a woman on a cold and snowy afternoon, but he really wanted to the kid to stop.

“He is boy,” she said. “It is snow and he is just excited.”

“Take him to the park,” Jeff spat. “This is a bus stop. Let him run around and stomp in the snow at the park. That’s what my old man used to do with me.”

“Yuri,” she called to the boy. Yuri bounced and stomped and got snow on everyone. Finally the woman came out of the glass partition and grabbed the boy by the arm. Yuri squealed in mock pain, as she dragged him back between the pieces of glass. “You vill stand still!”

“But I can’t, I can’t, mom,” Yuri said.

“You vill. You vill. You vill stand still. You vill do whatever it takes to stand still.”

Jeff watched them argue for a moment, the woman pathetically giving demands and Yuri bouncing in place. Fuck it, he thought. The bus would be here soon. Jeff turned away from the woman and her son to look down the street. Snow swirled in the yellow streetlights. Cars continued to crawl. In the distance he could see two, large white lights approaching. Jeff could make out the sign on the digital marquee. B4 it said. He rubbed his hands in anticipation. Jeff thought about home and Ariel and wine. Then he felt a spray of cold mist hit him on the side of his face.

“Yuri!” the Russian woman screeched. “Yuri! no!”

Jeff turned when more mist hit him. He turned and the cold mist got him square in the face. It covered his glasses with a fine spray and it got in his goatee. Through the tiny droplets of water Jeff could see Yuri. He had his back to him. Yuri had his hands in front of his pants, and a puddle of water was on the ground. It was running down and seeping into the bags holding his mother’s packages.

“Lady he’s pissing!” Jeff shouted, as more spray hit him.

“Yuri! Yuri no!” the Russian woman continued to shout.

Yuri turned to face her. He looked at his mom and then he looked at Jeff, just as the B4 got to the bus stop. “Mom our bus here,” he said.

“Yuri. Yuri no!” the woman shouted again.

“But you said to stand still. You said to do whatever it takes to stand still.” Yuri shook himself dry and zipped up. “I did it. I did whatever it takes to stand still, mom.”

“But Yuri,” the Russian woman said.

She looked at Jeff for help. She looked at Jeff for something. But Jeff just took off his glasses. He felt sick. He wiped the glasses on his jacket, and then pulled out his wallet to retrieve his bus pass. He got on the bus and found a seat toward the back. Jeff sat next to a group of Arab boys who weren’t the boys from the library. It didn’t matter. He glared at them anyway. He could smell Yuri’s piss on him, and wondered if anyone else could. Then Jeff just sat there as the bus idled at the cold and snowy stop. He didn’t want to read or think about anything. They all waited there, Jeff and the Arab boys. They waited as the Russian woman slowly picked up all of her packages. They waited as Yuri stood by her patiently waiting to get on the bus.

Bobby's Notebook

2010-01-05T02:32:00.000-08:00

Bobby’s Notebook

Bobby slammed the door to his bedroom just as Nick was coming out of the bathroom. Nick looked at the door. He waited until he heard movement. Then he heard the television come on, and soon Bobby was laughing at whatever was playing. Nick thought about opening the door and saying something about the television. He didn’t like how much television Bobby was watching. He was too old for cartoons. Nick didn’t understand Bobby’s attraction to all of the old sitcoms that played on the cable channels. Plus, wasn’t it a school night?

“He’s watching TV again,” Nick said, coming into the kitchen.

Amanda was putting the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. She had the kitchen sink running in order to wash off the bigger plates. But the water was just running. Nick looked at the faucet and then he shut the water off. “Hey.”

“He’s watching TV again.”

“What would you like me to do, Nick?” Amanda asked.

“I don’t know,” Nick said. He sat down at the kitchen table as Amanda continued putting dishes and silverware into the dishwasher. He grabbed the glass of wine sitting there and had a drink. “Do you have any cigarettes?”

“You’re going to have to go out for them,” Amanda said. She opened a cabinet underneath the sink and took out the dishwashing liquid. It came in a green and gold container, the colors of the sports team at Bobby’s school.

“How much TV does he watch?” Nick asked.

“A little after school. Then he does his homework and watches the shows at night.”

“He’s a C student.”

“He has a few B’s and A’s too,” Amanda added.

“Bobby got a C in math,” Nick said.

“Well, we were both bad at math.”

Amanda poured the dishwashing liquid into the dishwasher. She closed the compartment and then slammed the door. Nick cringed. The dishwasher had cost a lot. It had cost their tax return money and then some. Nick had thought about buying a home stereo system complete with a Blu-Ray DVD player, and maybe some sports stuff for Bobby with that tax return. But then the goddamned dishwasher broke. Amanda said that he had overstuffed the machine and that’s why it happened. Nick had yet to touch the new machine.

“It’s the TV,” Nick said. He finished off the wine. “We shouldn’t have bought him that TV for Christmas.”

“It was inexpensive,” Amanda said. She took the wine bottle from the counter and refilled Nick’s glass. She didn’t get herself one. “It’s not even a flat-screen.”

“Aren’t you having any?” Nick asked, after having a bit of wine.

“I had two glasses already. I need to be sharp.”

“For?”

“The book club is coming over,” Amanda said.

“Oh Christ, when?”

“I don’t have my watch on.”

There was a noise upstairs, a hard pound on the floor and then movement back and forth. The TV was turned up and then came the sound of a large weight landing. It shook the light fixture in the kitchen. “How much did he eat tonight?” Nick asked.

“You were there,” Amanda said.

“Was it two plates?”

“Leave him alone, Nick,” Amanda said. “I think he had a bad day.”

“Kids don’t have bad days,” Nick said. “Kids go to school.”

“Well, don’t you sound like your father?”

“My mother overfed me when I was a kid. I got fat,” Nick said. He stopped talking for a moment. They listened to the sound of the new dishwasher as it cleaned up their mess. “She fed me two or three portions. It took me until the age of seventeen to lose it. I didn’t even date until I was in college. I didn’t have sex until I turned almost twenty.”

“Bobby likes a girl in his science class,” Amanda said.

“What does it matter if he keeps eating this way?”

“Her name is Katherine. Katie.”

“He eats and he watches too much TV,” Nick said. “Or he plays those games.”

“You bought him that game system,” Amanda said. “Remember I said wait a year or so.”
“My father took my TV away. He took it away and told me I could have it back when my math grade improved.”

“Did it?”

“No. But I didn’t care. I decided to lose weight. I went out and jogged, and I lifted weights with my friend, Mitchell.”

“How’s Mitchell’s divorce going?” Amanda asked.

Nick waved her off and had more wine. “You really already had two glasses of this?”

“I’m going to have more when everyone arrives.”

“What are you reading?”

“Patterson.”

Nick laughed. “What kind of wine is this?”

“It’s French,” Amanda said. “It goes down smooth, doesn’t it? It never gives you a headache. You know how red wine gives me a headache.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick said. “Sulfates.”

“Anyway,” Amanda said, sitting down across from him, “I think Bobby had a bad day.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I got home and he was just sitting in the living room. He was just sitting there on the couch.”

Nick nodded. “The TV wasn’t on?”

“Yeah, it was on.” Amanda took his wine glass and had a small drink. “It goes down smooth, doesn’t it?”

“See, he needs to stop watching television.” Nick had some wine then he gave the glass back to Amanda. “When I was a kid I had a paper route. He should get a paper route. That would take the weight off of him.”

“They don’t let kids deliver papers anymore,” Amanda said. She finished the wine.

“They should.”

“Did you lose weight delivering papers?”

“He’ll never meet a girl looking like that,” Nick said. He got up from the table and went over to the mantle. The mantle separated the kitchen from the dining room, and it was made of black-painted wood. “Are you sure there’s no cigarettes?”

“There might be one at the bottom of my purse,” Amanda said. Nick went over to the dining room table and opened her purse. He dug around and found a wilted smoke at the bottom of the bag. “Am I right or am I right?”

“There’s only one.”

“Let’s share it.”

Nick came back into the kitchen. He took a pack of matches off of the windowsill and lit the smoke, as Amanda watched him. The dishwasher whirled and rumbled. From upstairs there came another thump, and then something that sounded like a bowling ball smacked off of the floor. Nick turned his head up toward the ceiling and then sat back down across from Amanda. He handed her the cigarette.

“I have to get ready,” she said.

“But you don’t know when they are coming over,” Nick said. “Where’s your watch?”

“It’s upstairs,” Amanda said.

“I’ll get it.” Nick got up from his chair.

“Wait. Something happened to Bobby today.”

“What happened? What?”

“I don’t know,” Amanda said. “But he was just sitting there when I came in. I think it might be the kids at school.”

Nick shook his head. “You shouldn’t feed him so much. What does Bobby need with two plates of spaghetti? And all of that bread?”

“I thought you didn’t know what he ate.”

“I know.”

“He said he was hungry,” Amanda said. “I don’t think he eats at school because of the kids.”

Suddenly Nick got angry. He thought he didn’t know why but he did. He pictured his son starving himself at school, and then coming home to raid the refrigerator, to attack the food cabinets. All that junk: the pastries, the cheese-flavored crackers and the cheese that came in a can; all of those bags of potato chips. All those bastard kids in his class. It never changed. Once when Nick was in high school this kid named Jamie Jackson got up in front of the class and started playing Duck, Duck, Goose. When he got to Nick he put his thick, black hand on Nick’s head and shouted “cow.” The whole class laughed. Nick had never wanted to kill a man until that happened. But what could he do? Jackson played Wide Receiver on the team.

“We need to take his TV away,” Nick said. “We’ll take it away until he gets that math grade up.”

Amanda had a deep pull on the cigarette. “You do it. I’m not doing that to Bobby.”

“Fine. I’ll do it now.” Nick made for the stairs.

“Here,” Amanda said. “Bobby left his notebook downstairs.” She handed it to him.

“His notebook?”

“Yeah. He was writing in it before dinner. I don’t know.”

Nick held the notebook in his hands. He looked at it. It was red and on the cover Bobby had written “Private” in thick, black marker. “I’ll see about this notebook.”

Nick pounded up the stair. He was intent to put a stop to this. He wanted to put a stop to something. He stopped at Bobby’s door and listened. There was no sound but the TV set. Nick figured he’d just go in there and unplug the thing. He’d tell Bobby that it was for his own good. It was just until he got the math grade up to a B. Nick would keep the TV in their bedroom until then. Bobby could watch his shows downstairs in the living room, only after he finished his homework.

Nick looked at Bobby’s notebook. He looked at the word “Private” written on the cover, and then he opened it. Nick’s dad used to come in his room without even knocking. Inside the notebook were little poems and stories. Bad stuff, Nick thought. It rhymed. He wondered why in the hell Bobby was writing stories and poems in a private notebook. He wished that kids still delivered papers in the morning or after school. Delivering papers would take that weight off of Bobby. Nick knew it.

On the inside cover of the notebook Bobby had written his name and Katie’s name. He gave Katie his last name. Mrs. Katie Whitman. Mrs. Katherine Whitman. It was written over and over again. Robert and Katherine Whitman. Nick cringed. It seemed like something that a girl would do. He read more. At the bottom of the inside cover Bobby wrote something else. He wrote: Bobby loves Katie but Katie could never love Bobby because Bobby is fat. Nick read it over and over. And then he read it again. Katie could never love Bobby and he knew it.

There came a loud thump from Bobby’s bedroom again, and then the sound of footsteps. Nick stiffened in the hallway. He waited but Bobby only turned the TV up and sat back down on the bed. Nick could hear the springs tense up. There was a sitcom playing. It was a television show that Nick recognized from his youth. He had loved that show once. Nick listened. He closed Bobby’s notebook and he listened. Nick put his ear to the door, and then he held a hand up to touch the cold wood. Someone on the show spoke loudly, animated. The laugh track reverberated through the door. And then Bobby laughed.

But What About A Baby?

2009-12-30T03:25:00.000-08:00

But What About A Baby?

Art hadn’t seen Larry in a few months. It was unlike the brothers to go this long, but a lot of things got in the way. Art and Jennifer were trying again for one thing. They’d been close before, almost four weeks to be exact, until Jennifer woke up one morning in August with horrible cramps. When the blood came they knew. It disappointed Art for sure, but Jennifer took it the worst. She did nothing but cry for a week. Every time Art tried to console her she’d start crying again. She’d tell him, “Art, I had it in me but I lost it.” He tried telling her that they were in it together, but his comfort had no effect on her well-being. Art called his mother and she said to give it some time. Art called Larry and cancelled their weekly bullshit sessions over beer at The Moose. He said he had to cancel everything indefinitely. Larry told Art to do what he needed to do, that he and Denise would be there for them if they needed it. Art was thankful for this. Larry always came through for him.

“So just like that she got over it?” Larry said, sitting down with a new pitcher of beer.

“It wasn’t just like that,” Art said, pouring Larry a draft and then himself one. “It took time.”

“But she’s okay now?”

“Jen is doing fine. She wants to try again.”

“And you?”

“Sure.” Art looked around The Moose. “This place is ugly.”

Larry laughed, had some beer. “It’s always been ugly.”

“Yes. But do you remember when it didn’t bother us?”

“It still doesn’t bother me.”

“Because you don’t think about things,” Art said. He lit a cigarette but then put it out. He remembered the new smoking ban inside of bars and restaurants. “Anyway, I have Carla on my back as well.”

“I think,” Larry said. “I just don’t worry the way you do.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Art asked. He had more beer.

“I thought you ended that.”

“I did. But after Jen lost the thing I got confused and all tangled again.”

“And now what?”

“Now I have two of them on my back,” Art said.

Larry took a long pull on his beer and nodded. Someone played The Dead on the jukebox. It was the same old story in this bar. Someone always played The Dead. The joint was filled with a bunch of old castoffs from the 1960s, guys who could be Larry and Art’s father, but could never be. Their father was a conservative man. He wore ties when he didn’t have to anymore. The guys in The Moose kept their hair long and wore earrings. Larry was somewhere in the middle of this. He kept earrings and his hair was turning gray, but he kept it short. Art liked to dress like their father. Not a tie all of the time, but he enjoyed wearing them. He had a collection of ties with baseball teams and cities and famous paintings on them.

“This place really is ugly,” Art said.

“A baby,” Larry said.

“I know.”

“How soon ago was it?”

Art thought for a moment. “About four months since it happened.”

“We haven’t been out in four months?”

“Jen waited for the doctor’s okay,” Art said. “I thought she’d wait longer but here we are.”

“Have you tried again?” Larry asked. He had more beer and looked around The Moose. The bartender was huddled in the corner having a shot with a coke dealer. They were both smoking cigarettes. “It might be okay to light up now.”

“Huh?” Art said.

“A cigarette.” Art handed Larry one mechanically. “I meant you. I quit.”

“When?” Art asked, putting the new smoke in his mouth. This time he lit it and smoked without reserve.

“Last month. I didn’t want to tell you because you were going through it with Jen, but it damn near killed me. It killed me,” Larry said. He shook his head and thought about it. The Dead ended on the jukebox and a few of the guys at the bar grumbled. Sammy got up from his stool to play another. “I almost ran Denise off, I was so miserable.”

“What worked?” Art asked. He took a drag on his smoke then placed his cigarette hand underneath the table.”

“I stared at a wall for the entire day,” Larry said.

“That worked?”

“No, I got that bad.” Larry finished off his draft and poured another. The pitcher was empty. “I had to go on the patch, you see?” He pulled up a sleeve revealing a small, beige colored patch on his shoulder. “I still need the nicotine.”

“Remember when dad quit?” Art asked.

“It was while mom was pregnant with Gayle,” Larry said.

“Was it?”

“See, you don’t really remember.”

“I do. I was five back then.”

“But you don’t remember,” Larry said. “You don’t remember like I do because I was eight.”

“I remember locusts,” Art said. “There were locusts that summer.”

“Yes, there were,” Larry said. He signaled over to Kenny at the bar. Kenny grabbed another pitcher and began filling it, as another Dead song came on the jukebox. “Do you remember playing with Kurt and his cousin Samantha?”

“Of course I remember Kurt,” Art said. “Kurt was my friend.”

“And Samantha?” Larry asked. He got up to get the new pitcher of beer from Kenny then came back. “Do you remember Samantha?”

“Where were we living?” Art asked. He took a last pull on his smoke then put it out on the floor.

“Buffalo,” Larry said, pouring them more beer.

“It was that year?”

“Around that year.”

“I think I remember Samantha.”

“You do or you don’t,” Larry said.

“I was five. I remember her.” Art had some beer. “What does this have to do with Gayle or dad’s smoking? What does this have to do with them?”

“Mom was miserable that year. She never wanted to leave Cleveland.” Larry picked up Art’s pack of smokes and fondled it before putting it down. “She didn’t do anything that year but cry and fight with dad. Dad took that job in Buffalo and we moved there.”

“I remember.”

“She was miserable and we moved there. She did nothing but cry. She cried and we watched television together most of that summer.”

“Where was I?” Art asked.

“You were five,” Larry said, having some beer. “Mom had you over at Kurt’s.”

“Why weren’t you there?”

“He was your friend,” Larry said. “I came over after Samantha showed up.”

“Samantha was a brunette, right?”

“Blonde. She had short blonde hair,” Larry said.

“Just like Denise,” Art said.

“Denise dyes her hair.”

Larry had more beer. Art picked up his pack of smokes and fondled it. He took one out. “Do you mind?”

“I’ve got the patch.”

Art lit a smoke and shook the match until the sulfur smell was gone. The Dead ended on the jukebox again but this time a Hot Tuna song came on. “Does the patch really work?”

“Do you remember Samantha’s dad?” Larry asked.

“I don’t really remember Samantha,” Art said. “I was five. I remember Kurt and the locusts.”

“Samantha and her dad came to live with Kurt’s family for about a month or so. He was a strange guy do you remember?” Art shook his head. “He was really thin and had a head of shaggy hair. He wore sunglasses all of the time and had a beard with flecks of gray in it.”

Art took a drag on his smoke and looked around. “Like the guys in here?”

“He wasn’t like dad at all,” Larry said, having some more beer. He looked at Art’s pack of cigarettes. “The patch doesn’t work as well as I’d like. But it keeps Denise and I on decent terms.”

“I’m going to have to quit if Jen gets pregnant this time?” Art said.

“And Carla?”

“She doesn’t smoke.”

“Charlie,” Larry said, suddenly. “See, I didn’t think I’d remember his name. I thought I’d have to call him Samantha’s father but his name is Charlie.”

“Charlie who was nothing like dad,” Art said. He took a drag on his smoke and a long pull on his beer. “What’s with Charlie?”

“Charlie came over to our house a lot that summer after Kurt’s mom introduced him to our mom,” Larry said.

“Oh,” Art said. “He came into our house with his sunglasses and beard?”

“Yes. You see, you don’t remember,” Larry said.

“I remember...”

“...Kurt and locusts. And you think Samantha was a brunette.”

“Okay,” Art said. He finished his beer and got up. “Have it your way, bro. Tell me about Charlie.”

Art went to the bathroom as the Hot Tuna song was ending. Larry sat there and had some more beer. He touched Art’s pack of cigarettes and then rubbed the patch underneath his sleeve. On the television there was a hockey game on. Larry had hated hockey ever since Buffalo. He pulled out his cell phone and checked the messages. There was one from Art that he never listened to, and another three from Denise. Larry had more beer and decided to check them later.

“Okay, so tell me about this Charlie,” Art said, sitting down.

Larry poured them both some more beer. “Mom was miserable that year.”

“I know. Because dad moved us to Buffalo.”

“She was miserable before then as well,” Larry said.

“But why?”

“Charlie made mom laugh. I remember once we were all in Kurt’s yard with the locusts signing and Samantha did that belly flop on the Slip’n’Slide.”

Art’s eyes lit up. “I remember that! She was a brunette!”

“No, no, you’re thinking of someone else,” Larry said. “You were only five.” Art nodded and fumbled with his cigarette pack. “Oh, let me have one of those, for Christ’s sake.”

“But Denise,” Art began.

“She won’t know,” Larry said. Art gave him a cigarette and offered a light. Larry declined. He just held on to the smoke and listened as Tom Petty played on the jukebox now. “She won’t have a clue.”

“Carla wants me to quit smoking,” Art said. “She’s always on me.”

“But what does she matter?” Larry asked.

“Come on and tell me about funny Charlie.”

Larry coughed and had some more beer. He held onto the cigarette. “Samantha did that big belly flop on the Slip’n’Slide. Remember that Kurt’s mom wasn’t home and we weren’t supposed to be in the yard when she wasn’t there. Charlie was watching us but he wasn’t there.”

“Where was he?” Art asked.

Larry gave him a look. “Where do you think he was?”

“No. Funny Charlie was with mom?”

“I don’t know what they were doing,” Larry said. He had more beer. He put the cigarette in his mouth but did not light it. Then he took it out. Art watched him the whole time. “I went next door. I went home to get Charlie because Samantha did that belly flop on the Slip’n’Slide and she was crying.”

“What did you see?” Art asked. He had more beer. Larry said nothing but drank his draft. “Jesus Christ, tell me. What were mom and funny Charlie doing?”

“They were sitting at a table,” Larry said.

Art fell back in his seat. “Oh. That’s all?”

“You were too young, you don’t remember. They were sitting at a table. Mom was crying but she was laughing at the same time. Charlie had his sunglasses on but you could see that his face was red too.” Larry had more beer. He fondled the smoke. “Hey, give me a light, okay?”

“Can you smoke that with the patch?” Art asked.

“I don’t know.” Larry rolled up his sleeve and took the patch off of his arm. “Give me a light, okay?”

Art gave Larry a light. Larry sucked in on the smoke. He took a deep drag and then chased it with some beer. “Be careful,” Art said.

“They were sitting at a table laughing and crying,” Larry continued. “Mom and funny Charlie.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Larry said. “And when I came in the door they acted like nothing had happened.”

“Because nothing did happen,” Art said, pouring the last of the new pitcher. “Nothing happened.”

“You don’t remember,” Larry said. “You were only five.”

“Okay, smart ass. What happened?”

“We moved back to Cleveland for one thing,” Larry said. “Dad put in his notice with the new job after the school year and was able to get back into the place he used to work. After we got back mom got pregnant with Gayle.”

“And dad quit smoking!” Art nearly shouted. “See, I do remember some things!”

“Yes. Dad quit smoking after we moved back to Cleveland.”

“Have you talked to Gayle lately?” Art asked.

“No. Have you?”

“She and Regis are trying too.”

“That’s good,” Larry said.

“What happened to Samantha? And good old funny Charlie?” Art asked.

“I don’t know,” Larry said. He took another deep pull on his smoke and then his phone rang. It was Denise. “I have to take this.”

Larry got up and went outside the bar. Art lit another cigarette and tried to remember that year in Buffalo. He couldn’t picture funny Charlie and he was still set on Samantha being a brunette. Mom was miserable that whole year, he thought, only Art didn’t remember misery. He just remembered Kurt and the locusts. The Tom Petty song ended and suddenly the bar was quiet. Larry came back in looking green.

“Is it Denise?” Art asked.

“No. The cigarette is making me sick,” Larry said. “I shouldn’t have.”

“We should go,” Art said, taking the last of his draft.

“But what are you going to do?” Larry asked.

“Something always happens,” Art said.

The brothers said goodbye in the parking lot. They promised to meet next week for another couple rounds, or the week after if something got in the way. Larry went over to his car and just stood there for a few moments. To Art he still looked green. Art waited for Larry to open his door and pull out before he made a move. Then he walked over to his car and got inside.

The whole ride home he thought about his mother and funny Charlie. He thought about what Larry saw that day in the window, laughing and crying and holding hands. Art tried to imagine himself in Larry’s place. He tried to imagine what he would’ve seen had he been the one who’d come home to get Charlie instead of Larry. He imagined coming home and stepping up to the window, seeing his mother somewhere between grief and joy. He pictured Charlie. Sunglasses and a beard flecked with gray. Art knew he wasn’t picturing the real Charlie, but just an amalgamation of all of the guys in The Moose. Charlie was nothing like their father. Art imagined being the one to come upon that scene, laughter and tears, and then the weight of it hit him like a ton of bricks. He wished he could remember more.

The living room was dark when Art got home, but the television was on. Jennifer was watching that show again, the one that Art hated. That was why he picked Wednesday nights to go out with Larry. He picked that night because he wouldn’t have to stay home with Jen and that goddamned show. He picked that night because Carla worked Wednesday nights. Art thought about Carla and his mother and funny Charlie. Then he got himself a beer out of the refrigerator.

“Hey,” Jen said, coming into the kitchen. She was wearing a burgundy robe that went just above the knees. He long, black hair looked tussled, as if she’d just gotten out of bed. Art drank his beer and watched his wife, trying his hardest to suppress all desire. “How was it?”

“It was fine,” Art said.

“How was Larry?”

“Larry quit smoking,” Art said. He took another pull on his beer. He finished it and then went into the fridge for another one. Art took a large pull on that beer as well.”

“Careful,” Jen said. And then she smiled devilishly. “Don’t get too, too drunk. Someone is ovulating tonight.”

Art pulled the beer away from his mouth. A sickness welled deep inside of him. Something was coming up, bile, or beer, or something else. He was beginning to remember. Art was beginning to remember all of it. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Not that. Not tonight.”

“But what about a baby?” Jen asked. “What are we going to do about a baby?”

A Knock on the Door

2009-12-02T03:51:00.000-08:00

A Knock on the Door

There was a knock on the door.

Marie had been in the bathroom the whole time. There was a knock on the door, and then someone tried to push it open. She’d been in there before she heard the shots. Marcel had cut her break short, and she had to go. She told Dara that she had to go. Dara said to go, that she’d cover Marie’s tables. So she went. Marie got in the bathroom and sat on the toilet. She’d just finished going and was thinking about her next paycheck, looking down at an old pair of underwear when the first three shots came. They came quick. Bam. Bam. Bam. And then there was silence. Then there was screaming. Dara. Maybe someone else. Marie was sure it was a woman’s voice. Then another two shots came. Bam. Bam. And then the silence was deafening.

Then there was a knock on the door. Someone tried to open it, but of course it was locked. They tried to push it open but it wouldn’t budge. Marie did her best to stay stone silent. She didn’t even want to breathe. She heard them talking outside the door. One of them asked who was in there, as if they’d know if she told them. One of them pushed on the door again. Marie huddled into herself. She felt embarrassed more than scared. What if they knocked in the door, and she was still sitting there with those old underwear around her ankles? What if she died like that? Old underwear wrapped around her tired ankles. Marie didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about anything. Was that Dara who screamed?

There was a knock on the door. They told Marie they wouldn’t hurt her if she opened up. They told her all they wanted was the money. Marie thought that it was odd that they didn’t just take the money and go. After all, she hadn’t seen them. She’d been in the bathroom because she had to go. And if she didn’t see them then she couldn’t identify them. Why would she even come out of the bathroom with them still there? Marie resolved that she wasn’t coming out of the bathroom until she heard sirens and a cop shoved his badge underneath the door. That’s when she’d come out. Then she’d find Marcel and Dara. She’d tell the cops she didn’t see a damned thing, and then she’d get the hell out of that restaurant and never come back. She’d tell Davis it was time to get off of his ass and go find a job, bad economy or not. She was staying home with the kids now. Marie would say and do all of those things once she got outside the bathroom door. She knew for sure that she would.

There was a knock on the door. Marie knew that she could wait it out.

The Whore of Calcutta

2009-12-01T04:04:00.000-08:00

The Whore of Calcutta

Bob missed the express train home. He sat on a small wooden bench on the platform and took out a book. No point in being pissed off, he thought. She wouldn’t be there again tonight anyway. It had been like this for two weeks ever since Anne took that secretarial job. Life was late nights and more late nights, dinner out of a box, and going to bed alone. Bob hated Anne’s new job. Anne told him too bad. She said that with the economy being what it was, he had no right to hate her job. There were millions of people who would be envious for her job, or hadn’t he watched the news, read a paper, lately. Maybe Bob should work a little bit harder at getting a job for himself.

Of course he hadn’t. He wouldn’t. Bob had wasted six months of his life on a fruitless job search. He’d wasted months waking up at five or six, having two cursory cups of coffee, and then hitting the online job banks for something, anything. There wasn’t anything. Nothing but a trail of jobs in the finance sector that about ten to eleven other qualified, most times better qualified, people all clamored for at the same time. Plus Bob was bad at interviews. He sweated a lot, stuttered, asked the interviewer to repeat certain questions over and over again because he sat there worrying about how much he was sweating and stuttering. It was a horror to interview in his eyes. That was one of the reasons why Bob kept with Harrison & Whitman even though the work was terrible, and the hours were long. How they were long? It was less than a year ago that Anne was in his position, waiting up until odd hours, cooking dinner alone, and ultimately going to bed by herself. Now the job was gone. Now it was his turn to wait.

Bob hated Anne’s boss, Dale, as well. When he saw Anne it was Dale this and Dale that. Dale has an apartment on the Upper West Side. Dale wants me to get a Blackberry. Dale eats lobster every Saturday night. We should get lobster sometime, Bob. It’s been since the beach since I had a lobster. Bob pictured Dale often. He imagined him as some tall, blonde, muscular type; one of the ones you see running on a treadmill on a Friday night in the window of one of those overpriced gyms, after you’ve just shoved down a plate of wings with a pitcher of beer. He bet Dale told Anne all about the gym. It made Bob jealous. Anne wasn’t the youngest thing out there, but she was still a good-looking woman. Anne had kept herself in decent shape by walking and eating like a bird. She still had that long, jet-black Italian hair and those big almond-shaped eyes. Bob often told her that she looked like that actress from that television show everyone was going nuts about on cable. Anne blushed when he told her this.

Bob heard the train come rumbling down the track. He put his book back in his bag and then stood on the platform and waited. He’d done nothing that day except wander around the museum again, and have a few beers over at Muldoon’s. Muldoon’s was a force of habit. That’s where Bob used to go to unwind after a day at Harrison & Whitman’s. He went for happy hour and to talk with his colleagues and the blonde bartender from Ireland. He loved hearing her accent, the way she joked around with all of the other suits getting their fix of booze on the cheap, before going home to face the hell of their domestic life. Bob had kissed her once, briefly. It happened during the office’s Christmas party at Muldoon’s. It happened right by the women’s bathroom. She walked out and made a joke, something about office drunks, and Bob just planted one on her. He thought she liked it. After all, the woman did smile at him all of the time. She didn’t really like it, however, and soon after the kiss, Bob went home to Anne.

He took his book out on the train and stared at it. Bob could never remember where he was at in the thing. It was some book about the French and Indian War, written by some authority on the subject. Bob knew nothing about the French and Indian War, and decided that with Anne gone so often maybe he’d learn something about something. But it was hard reading the book. It was hard keeping up with forts and generals, and what England was doing to France, how the American Colonies fit it and such. The book was more trouble than it was worth. It was hard to lug around too. Bob thought maybe he’d just leave it on a seat on this train, let someone else take up the burden of history, but he decided against it. The book had been a gift from Anne, something to get Bob motivated toward a goal, any kind of goal.

At Atlantic the train became packed with passengers transferring. An old woman got on lugging one of those metal carts. It was full of plastic grocery bags. Bob only had another three stops to go, so he gave up the seat to the woman. She didn’t even say thanks but grumbled something, and sat her fat ass down on his warm seat. Then there was Bob pressed up against the rest of humanity like a goddamned sardine. Most days he couldn’t believe this was one of the biggest cities in the world. It felt like Calcutta, riding on packed trains like this. It felt like being a passenger in the Third World. Anne hated when Bob used to come home yelling about the trains. She’d fix him a drink and tell him to forget it. Bob thought Anne was nuts. How can you just forget a constant indignity like the rush hour train? When Anne got her secretarial job she came home raving about the trains. Bob would pour her a drink as she went off about how the city had the best public transportation in all of America. When Bob remarked that Anne took the train during off-peak hours she said nothing, started in talking about Dale.

“This is something,” an old man said to Bob. Bob looked at the man. He was barely hanging on to his pole; he was so short and shriveled. All around them sat younger people with their noses buried in electronic books or in digital phones, playing useless digital games. Not one of them could give up a seat to the old man? Bob looked over at the old lady he’d given up his seat to. She was already asleep.

“This is hell,” Bob said back to the old man. “This is what it’s like in Calcutta.”

A tall redhead gave Bob a dirty look after he said the bit about Calcutta. Christ, he thought, another one of those PC types. They make the world so difficult sometimes; you have to watch what you say even amongst the salivating masses. He couldn’t stand people like that, these vegan, yoga types. He couldn’t stand uppity bitches who had nothing better to get angry about other than the abuse of farm animals or which belabored country we weren’t helping out this week. People needed help in America, Bob thought. He gave her a look back. He smiled smugly and raised an eyebrow. He winked at her. Yeah, baby, Bob thought. I’m one of those types. The redhead turned away in disgust.

Then an idea came to him after the next stop. Bob inched a little bit closer to the redhead, as they made their way toward his station. Bob began breathing heavily, blowing his hot breath on the woman’s neck. She tried not paying attention to him, keeping her nose buried in some drab magazine, but Bob knew he was getting to her. How could he not? Blowing hot breath on her neck. A couple of times she brushed the blow of wind away, as if it were a bug or something. She tried inching forward but there was nowhere to go. She had no room to look back, that’s how close Bob had gotten to her. She was his captive, his little whore of Calcutta.

When the train reached the next station, Bob hesitated just a second. The doors on the train opened and before anyone could make a move, he reached out and grabbed a handful of the redhead’s ass. It was fit and bony, but Bob got a nice chunk of it. The woman screamed, tried to twirl around but there still wasn’t enough room, what, with the rush of people heading toward the exit doors. Bob held on, pinched again, and then turned to head out of the train doors just as the redhead was able to spin around.

“Hey!” was all she screamed, as the influx of people getting on the train stopped her from saying any more.

“See ya!” Bob shouted, standing on the platform. He waved at the redhead as the doors closed. She gave him one last angry look, before the train barreled out of the station and down into the dark depths of the tunnel. Bob stood there and watched it until the thing was gone.

He was one stop away from where he should’ve gotten off the train, but it was worth it just to see the look on that woman’s face. His little whore of Calcutta. Bob laughed as he walked along the crowded evening street. He stopped in a bar, not his regular one, and had a couple of beers with a hamburger, as the evening news played on a huge television in the corner of the room. Bob ate the burger voraciously. He was happy that it didn’t come out of a box. When he was done the bartender took his plate away with a smile. She was another blonde. Bob imagined kissing her too, but decided to have a third beer instead.

It wasn’t a bad walk home. Winter was coming again, and the evenings were getting his kind of cold. Most people bundled up in this weather, but not Bob. Bob could go deep into December before he had to pull out the winter coat and hat. Sometimes he made it to January, he thought, stopping to look at sundry items in the many stores that lined the street. Maybe he’d pick up a little something for Anne, like a bottle of wine for when she got home. Yes, Bob thought. He went into a liquor store and bought a big bottle of red, enough for the two of them to get silly on.

There were voices in the apartment. Bob could hear them from down the hall. There was chatter and then laughter. A male voice he didn’t recognize was raised in the most dramatic fashion. What the hell? Bob thought. He could smell food cooking too, one of the dishes that Anne used to make before she got the job. Bob took in a huge huff of the smell and then reached into his pants to dig for his keys. But as soon as they dangled in the lock, the door opened. Anne saw him and smiled.

“Hey,” she said.

“I got the wine,” Bob said. “I thought you’d be working late.”

He stepped inside the apartment. In the kitchen was a short, balding man with a salt and pepper colored goatee. Bob eyed him and then scanned the living room. Sitting on his couch, on his seat, was the redhead from the train. She was drinking a glass of his good bourbon, watching the evening news on his television set. Bob gave her a dumb smile, which the redhead met with a dark glare. She put her glass of bourbon down and got off of the couch.

“Bob, this is Dale,” Anne said, directing Bob toward the bald man. Bob shook his hand but watched in the living room as the redhead reached for her coat.

“Yes,” Bob said, putting the wine on the kitchen table. Then the three of them watched as the redhead put on her coat and reached for her purse.

“And that’s Linda,” Anne said, an awkward look on her face. Bob had never heard about Linda. She put her purse on her shoulder and began walking toward them.

“Hello,” Bob said to the advancing woman.

“We were going to work from home tonight, if you don’t mind,” Anne said.

Autograph Session

2009-11-17T03:03:00.000-08:00

Autograph Session

Frankie’s old man pulled the car over by Gate C, which was just about at left field, and not even close to Gate A, which was where everyone seemed to be getting into the stadium on that particular day.

“I’ll pick you up here in a couple of hours,” he said.

Frankie looked at the short distance ahead of him, at packs of kids and their fathers all heading toward Gate A, the proper gate. “You can’t pull up a little bit more.”

Frankie’s dad surveyed the scene. Lines of cars with other fathers dropping their kids off, a mess of traffic that was sure to delay his getting over to Sal’s for an early round. At least from Gate C his old man could back the car up a little bit and head right down Spring Way without getting caught in any of that miserable shit. “No.”

“Fine,” Frankie said. He grabbed his satchel and go out of the car.

“Two hours.”

“Gate C.” Then his old man backed up the car, cut it quickly right, honked once, and was gone down the lonely, narrow street. “Lousy drunk.” Frankie wasn’t sure if this was true or not, if his old man was, in fact, a lousy drunk, but he’d certainly heard his mother call his dad one enough to believe there might be some level of truth to the statement.

Frankie stopped over by a vacant hot dog stand, for no vendor felt that being stationed up at Gate C, left field entrance, was worth his time on a day like this, and checked his satchel. Three National League issue baseballs. Check. A color 8x10 photo of Roberto Morris going deep on a Rawlings. Check. One glossy Ticket to the Crusaders All-Day Autograph Bash. Check. Frankie put it all back in the satchel and nodded proudly. He’d been waiting months for this. Crusaders All-Day Autograph Bash. It happened once a year. All the Crusader players sat in groups of three around the stadium, and fans lined up to get autographs and their pictures taken with their favorites.

Frankie had one favorite, Roberto Morris, AKA, Bobby Mo. Bobby Mo was the Crusaders to Frankie. The lone hero on a team that was destined to lose ninety games this season, for the third straight year. Bobby Mo had a .380 batting average at the All-Star break, and people were already throwing his name around with Teddy Ballgame, and the immortal mark of .400. He’d just made a splash at the big game in New York last week, going 3-4, and hitting in the final three runs on the deepest triple anyone had ever seen on television. Of course all the television announcers could talk about was how Bobby Mo’s free agent season was coming up, and that chances were good that triple was the first in a long line of big moments for him in New York. Screw that, Frankie thought. Bobby Mo came up with the Crusaders. He defined the Crusaders. This town wouldn’t be shit without Bobby Mo.

Of course, Frankie’s old man hated Bobby Mo. He called him a hot dog; said Bobby didn’t hustle for the ball out there in right field. Frankie’s old man said that Bobby threw like a girl, and wasn’t worth all the money those goddamned owners were going to throw at him once the season was over and he realized that he could get out of this shit town for a brighter skyline. It pissed Frankie off to hear this, so much so that he quit watching the games with his old man. He’d go down to Mickey’s house and together they’d watch the games with Mickey’s old man, a guy who loved Bobby Mo, and could appreciate a .380 batting average in July. Mickey’s dad said that Bobby’s arm was average for right field, and that some girls threw an awful lot harder than we fellows thought. Frankie’s dad said that Mickey’s dad probably threw like a girl too.

Frankie made his way toward Gate A, and the throngs of people working to get in. He felt the baseballs in his satchel, and wished that he didn’t have to do this alone. Mickey was supposed to come. It was supposed to be the two of them, but Mickey’s goddamned mother had to go into labor that morning, and Mickey’s grandmother had to be in town to stop him from going. One of the baseballs was for Mickey, for sure. The other was for Mickey’s dad. Frankie already had a shiny new ball holder at home for his baseball. It came with an extra slot for a baseball card as well. Frankie had already selected the card; Bobby Mo’s rookie card. Now all he needed was that third ball signed. The glossy 8x10 was going on his wall of fame, third wall in the room, covered with Crusader pennants and used game tickets. The Bobby Mo photo would be the centerpiece.

“You got your ticket, kid,” the usher at Gate A asked.

“Um.” Frankie fumbled around in his atchel and pulled out the ticket. It was only a little bit bent. “Here.” The usher scanned it and handed it back. Then he sent Frankie through the gate with the other excited masses.

It was like being at a regular Crusaders game, Frankie thought. All of the concessions were open. You could smell hot dogs and popcorn, and even some stale beer. The team gift shop was open and there were tons of people inside, buying souvenirs, and getting last minute things for the players to sign. Frankie walked over toward a row of box seats, and looked out onto the field. He sighed. The field looked beautiful and green, like a real diamond out there. The scoreboard even looked better from this vantage point.

Frankie looked to right field and imagined Bobby Mo firing one in to home plate. He cringed. Well, at least he could picture Bobby Mo lobbing one to the cut-off man at second. Then he touched one of the dark, plastic seats in front of him. He never got to sit in the box seats. They were too expensive his old man said. When they went to the game they sat in the nosebleeds and Frankie’s old man bought him a hot dog and a soda, and sucked down three beers for himself with a thing of nachos. Just once Frankie would’ve forgone the six-dollar hot dog and three-dollar soda, for a chance to sit so close to the action. He would’ve gladly eaten at home.

Then his cell phone rang. “You lucky bastard,” Mickey said.

“I know,” Frankie answered, still looking around the place with awe. “I wish your gram would’ve let you come.”

“I told you not to tell her your dad was driving.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Nothing,” Mickey said. “Anyway you still got my ball?”

“Yep.”

“Get him to sign it on the sweet spot.”

“No doubt.”

Mickey sighed. “Bobby Mo written right on the sweet spot.”

“You’re goddamned right about that,” Frankie said, trying to sound like his old man.

“Are you getting a picture with him?”

“I don’t have anyone to take my picture. That was your job.”

“Damn,” Mickey said.

“How’s your mom?” Frankie asked.

“Who cares?” Then Mickey’s grandmother began yelling in the background. “I have to go.”
Frankie hung up the phone and looked around the stadium, trying to figure out where the players were. Around the Taco Hut he found the first group of them: Charlie Grissom, Mark Presley, and fireball relief pitcher Neal Rivera. Charlie Grissom was the big stud rookie who’d just come up in May. The sportswriters called him the future of the franchise. He was currently batting about .235, and had yet to knock one out of the park. Presley was good, and Rivera had been good in his day. Frankie liked them all as much as he liked all the Crusaders, but Grissom, Presley, and Rivera were no Bobby Mo. No one was Bobby Mo. Frankie looked further in the distance, at another batch of players, but could make out whom they were. Finally an usher walked by. Frankie grabbed his arm, and the guy gave him a gruff brush.

“Excuse me,” Frankie called to him.

“What, kid?”

“Where’s Bobby Mo?”

The usher groaned then pulled a sheet of paper out of his back pocket, examining it as if it contained vital information. Frankie knew that it did. “He’s down that way.” The usher pointed in the opposite direction of the Taco Hut. “Down toward Left Field.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You shoulda used Gate C.”

“Shit,” Frankie said to himself. He began the long walk back toward Gate C.

There was a huge line. Of course there was. You couldn’t even see where the players were sitting. The line was filled with guys like himself, boys carrying satchels full of memorabilia, and old men with big, graying caterpillar moustaches, sports merchandise peddlers, holding stacks of glossy 8x10s. They all smelled of cheap cigars and beer. Last year one of the peddlers tried to pay Frankie and Mickey to go into lines, and get some of the stuff signed, but they refused because of all the security guards standing around. There wasn’t even enough time for themselves to get autographs, even with Bobby Mo missing the big session due to a groin injury.
Frankie stood on this toes and craned his neck. In the deep distance, he could see him. Bobby Mo was sitting on the left side of the table, signing things, and talking to a guy standing to his right. The guy was wearing a suit, had sunglasses on, and his gray hair was slicked back. It was Sean Horton, the big sports agent. Everyone knew about him. He was the agent for most of the big stars in the game. Frankie looked at Horton talking to Bobby Mo and then into his cell phone, and a small surge of hatred well up inside of him. Frankie’s old man thought that Horton was a genius. He said Horton was going to get Bobby Mo out of the city by hook or crook next season. He had it all worked out on the down low with one of those teams in New York. If only something could be done about Sean Horton, Frankie thought.

“Are you a big Bobby Mo fan?” some kid asked. Frankie took his hateful gaze away from Sean Horton, and looked at the kid standing in front of him in line. He was some fat loser with blonde hair and glasses that were too small for his face. He had a replica Bobby Mo jersey on. The jersey didn’t even fit him right.

“Yeah,” Frankie said, hesitantly.

“What do you have?” the kid asked, trying to look down into Frankie’s satchel.

“Some balls and stuff.”

The kid nodded. He was holding a replica Crusaders helmet, so Frankie didn’t bother asking him what he was getting signed. “They’re only signing like one thing.”

“Bullshit,” Frankie said.

The kid’s eyes widened like he never heard the word before. “No, it’s true. My brother got Charlie Grissom’s autograph, and the guy before him had like a stack of things to sign, and they wouldn’t let him.”

“That’s because he’s one of those sports merchandise guys,” Frankie said. “They never let those guys get more than one thing signed. We’re just kids.”

“Well, I’m just telling you what my brother said,” the kid said.

“Well, I don’t care what your brother said.”

Frankie turned away from the fat kid and looked back up toward Bobby Mo. He was still signing away and talking to Sean Horton. This line will take forever, Frankie thought. He wanted to throw down his stuff and shout at the people around him, get things moving a little bit. He hated waiting. Waiting was all that Frankie did. He waited for his mother to get home from work to make dinner. He waited for his old man to finish dinner, before he’d toss him a few pop flies in the backyard. He waited for Mickey, waited countless hours for Mickey, to get done digesting food before they could play wiffle ball in the street. He waited until almost seven every night for the Crusaders game to come on, and for the announcer Jim Farrington to say, “Sounds like some hits to me,” when Bobby Mo came to bat. Life was one big, goddamned wait to Frankie. His old man told him to get used to it. He said get used to waiting and back pain, whatever that meant.
Then he heard shouts behind him. Frankie looked back. Some younger kids were crying and people were shouting at a small pack of ushers.

“What’s going on?” Frankie asked the fat kid.

“They closed off the line,” he said. “Sucks.”

Frankie breathed in deeply, suddenly happy for his long wait in line. “No kidding.”

It took a long time, over an hour, and there’d be no time to get anyone else’s autograph before his old man was waiting back at Gate C, but Frankie didn’t care. He was less than four people away from his hero. He looked at Bobby Mo. Bobby looked bigger in person than he did on television. The navy colored short-sleeve shirt that he was wearing made his muscles bulge. Frankie wanted muscles like that. He and Mickey spent hours lifting weights in his basement, and then holding a baseball bat the way that Bobby Mo did, taking swings, pretending to knock the stuffing off of a Rawlings. Mickey had even perfected doing that thing Bobby Mo did whenever he missed a ball. Bobby Mo would walk out of the batter’s box, clasp the bat with both hands, take in a deep breath and look up at the sky as if praying to God, before lighly tapping his helmet with the bat and stepping back in the box. Mickey had it down pat. Frankie always missed the intake of breath, so his Bobby Mo was less than perfect.

He was next. The fat kid stepped up to the table, and set his helmet down. Bobby Mo didn’t even look at it, as he signed. He kept his head turned toward Sean Horton, talking to him in between Horton’s cell phone call. The fat kid kept trying to talk to Bobby, but Bobby would answer him. He spoke only to Horton. Bobby Mo won’t do this. Bobby Mo won’t pay that. Bobby Mo won’t play there next season, unless they’re serious about winning. Frankie heard all of this talk and his heart dropped. But then he thought maybe the fat kid was just a drag. Bobby Mo better be getting paid that, or they can find someone else.

The fat kid was gone. Frankie took in a deep breath, the way Bobby Mo did it, and stepped up to the table. He figured he’d ask Bobby about his .380 batting average and what it felt like chasing Teddy Ballgame. He reached into his satchel and pulled out the first ball. Bobby Mo took it without looking at him, and signed that ball underneath the table. Frankie couldn’t see where he signed the thing.

“Bobby Mo wants at least a mil,” Bobby Mo said to Horton while he signed Frankie’s ball under the table. Horton turned away from his phone and nodded. “I’m serious, Sean.”

“Mr. Morris,” Frankie started. But Bobby Mo didn’t even acknowledge him.

He gave the ball back to Frankie. Actually Bobby Mo set it on the table and let it roll. Frankie grabbed the ball and looked at it. He hadn’t even signed it on the sweet spot, and the signature was smudged. Damn it, Frankie thought. His heart raced. He could feel the sweat collecting underneath his Crusader’s hat. Bobby Mo wants at least a mil. Quickly he grabbed his second baseball and tried to hand it to his idol.

“Bobby,” Frankie started again.

“Kid,” an usher said. It was a woman, some tall, lanky chick. It felt like she came out of nowhere. “The players can only sign one thing.”

“But,” Frankie looked at Bobby Mo for some help, but Bobby Mo was asking Sean Horton about his car commercial deal. “I have some more stuff.”

“Everyone has more stuff,” the usher said. “One item per person.” And then she pointed at the huge line behind Frankie as if to get her point across.

“Can’t I just to one more thing?” Frankie asked. The ball for Mickey, or maybe the glossy 8x10. Again he appealed to Bobby Mo, but he was talking to Sean Horton about his deal with Pepsi.

“No,” the usher said. “There’s still time to get someone else’s autograph. How about Charlie Grissom?”

“I..”

“Come on, kid,” another usher said, some pimple-faced college student this time, taking Frankie by the arm and pulling him out of the line.

Frankie sulked up against a wall. He watched Bobby Mo sign for a few more minutes, stupefied, as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. One goddamned item? But it was true. Nearly every person that came up after him had to be told the same thing. Kids with baseball cards and pictures were turned away after one signature. Sports peddlers were berated by the ushers, and escorted promptly out of line by security guards if they got too loud. Sean Horton even made it a point to interrupt one of his phone calls to yell at a guy. Bobby Mo didn’t say anything to anybody except Horton. He didn’t even say anything to the blonde usher when she handed him a cup of water. He just kept on saying Bobby Mo this and Bobby Mo that. Frankie’s world felt crushed. He looked at his one signed baseball, the smudged signature that was not even on the sweet spot, tossed it in his satchel, and he headed out of Gate C.

There was a garbage can right by the unused hot dog vending cart. Frankie opened his satchel and took out the glossy 8x10. He took one last look at Bobby Mo going psycho on a Rawlings before he ripped the picture and tossed it into the trash. Then he took the two unsigned baseballs and threw them away as well. Lastly he came to the signed baseball, the tainted jewel that had a ball holder waiting for it at home. Frankie looked at the signature. It didn’t even look like Bobby Mo’s signature, at least not the way he wrote his name on all of the balls that they had for sale at the sports store in the mall. Tears welled in Frankie’s eyes. He brushed them away, feeling like a fool. He was just about to throw the signed baseball in the garbage can when he heard his old man’s horn honk.

“Two hours, right on time,” his old man said, pulling up to the curb. Frankie got in the car and stared straight ahead. “So was it everything you hoped it would be?”

“Yeah,” Frankie said, quietly.

“Well, let me see them.”

“It.”

“Huh?” the old man said.

“They would only let me get one thing signed.”

Frankie handed the baseball to his old man, and his dad examined it. “Didn’t even sign it on the sweet spot, did he?”

“No,” Frankie said. His old man tried to give the ball back, but Frankie wouldn’t take it. So his old man leaned over and put the ball back into the satchel. “Bobby Mo doesn’t sign on the sweet spot.”

“I see,” his old man said. Then they were silent a while, the car still idling outside of the stadium, as happy kids and their fathers walked by. Frankie breathed in deeply, the way Bobby Mo did. The whole car smelled of sweat and stale beer.

“Can we just go?” Frankie finally asked.

“Sure,” his old man said, pulling the car back out onto the street. He made a left and took them down Spring Way. “How about a burger and a Coke at Sal’s?”

“Fine,” Frankie said, quietly. He felt serious hunger pains in his belly. Or maybe it was something else.

“He still throws like a girl,” Frankie’s old man said. Frankie looked up at his old man. He wanted to be angry at him, to cry, but instead he laughed. His old man seemed shocked at first, but then he laughed too. He took off Frankie’s hat and tussled his sweaty mop of hair. Then the two of them kept on down Spring Way, until you couldn’t see the stadium anymore, just houses and houses full of people doing ordinary and common things on a summer afternoon.

Born Here, Die Here

2009-11-06T03:57:00.000-08:00

Born Here, Die Here

Regis had just finished his drink when Davy came in pushing Gino in a wheelchair. All the guys in the bar made a loud roar, and Gino waved like the fucking president before Davy set him over at a table by the television. A couple of the guys left their stools and came over to slap Gino on the back, lean down and talk to him for a little bit, before going back and hunching over their drinks again. Some continued yelling and laughing. It was like a goddamned resurrection, the most interesting thing to happen in the bar in weeks.

“Christ, Skip, can you get me another one?” Regis said, shaking his glass.

Skip took the glass then nodded over toward the table. “How long’s he been gone for?”

“About a month, give or take some days.”

“What happened?”
Regis shook his head and gave Skip a look. “You don’t know? Shit, you been bartendin’ here for fifteen years. Gino comes in every day.”

“Yeah.”

“His wife died last month.”

“I know that part, genius. Why’s he in a wheelchair?” Skip asked, setting down Regis’ new draft.

“Had a mild stroke about three weeks ago.”

“And he’s in a bar?”

“Yeah,” Regis said. “Ain’t his money any good?”

“To each their own,” Skip answered.

Davy came over to the bar. Regis didn’t like Davy. They’d known each other since grade school. They’d both worked for Gino in the corner store during high school and college; Davy sweeping floors while Regis ran the deli and innocently flirted with Francesca. They’d both sat at Gino’s table drinking jug wine and talking about football while slurping down plates full of Francesca’s prized carbonera pasta. They’d both been married around the same time, but didn’t attend each other’s weddings. Regis was happy to hear about Davy’s divorce, and then felt chagrined nine months later when Paula dropped the bomb on him. Davy’s life seemed to run parallel to Regis’ in some perverted manner. And here they were almost thirty years later, out of love and luck, sucking away the lonesome hours at the same bar their fathers and uncles used to drink at after their jobs at the brewery. Regis didn’t like Davy because he’d grown into the bar kiss-ass, the guy who went on sandwich runs for pocket change, who drove you home if you had more than him; Davy was the kind of asshole who picked you up at the hospital after you had a mild stroke. He was a good guy and everybody said so, and that was another reason why Regis didn’t like him.

“Hey guys,” Davy said. He nodded over toward Gino, who was vacantly staring at the television. “See what the old man can do?”

“He’s a wonder of mankind,” Regis said.

“That he is, Reg. Two weeks ago he was still laid up. But now we got him this wheelchair and it seems to be working.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me and a couple of the guys.”

Regis grunted.

“You should’ve come by the hospital to see him,” Davy said.

“I got hired on this job and....”

“That’s nice.”

“How’s he doing, you know, with Francesca and all?”

“He still can’t talk about it.”

Regis nodded. He always liked Francesca. Back then she’d been a beautiful olive-skinned woman in solid colored, round-necked dresses, a New World woman playing the part of Old World bella for her husband, who could please the lady customers with gossip at the cash register, and flirt with the male customers coming in to get something that their wives forgot. In the bar she could put them down with the best of the guys. Scotch, whiskey, shooters of beer; it didn’t matter. Francesca would drink booze and laugh while Gino talked with bookies and other bar flies, pumping quarters in the jukebox to hear her Louis Prima songs or her blessed Dean Martin. Most of the time she was the only woman in a place full of old blue collar men drinking away the hours after work, teaching their underage sons how to do the same. Regis’ dad called Francesca the grand dame of Liberty Avenue.

Regis looked over at the Power Poker machine. Later on, it was Francesca’s favorite tavern diversion, something to drown out the monotony that she said was life with Gino after he closed the corner shop and retired. She used to spend hours playing it while Gino held court with the group of them, talking about the old days Lawrenceville and the characters that used to walk into the store off the street, a time when the baseball team wasn’t so bad, and the city was still covered in soot. Gino loved to talk about the old names: Frankie Kunkle, Jimmy Wrobleski, and all of the others who were gone.

Francesca called them dumb ghosts. Regis figured that Gino’s diarrhea of the mouth was another reason why she spent so much time alone at that machine. It kept her sanity. And after Francesca died, Regis played that machine for two hours straight just thinking about her, about the past, losing forty dollars in the process. He couldn’t bring himself to go and see Gino, even though he’d been like a father, well, maybe an uncle to him. He couldn’t bear to see Francesca cold and lifeless in her casket. There was enough lifelessness sitting in the bar, or out on the street. Regis skipped the wake and the funeral too, opting to spend the day in the ‘Round Corner with Skip talking his ear off about the horses, going home when he knew the regulars, and maybe Gino, would come. Regis couldn’t rectify the past with the present. He missed the Gino and Francesca that he knew. They added something to the bar, he always thought. It wasn’t class. Nah, this joint was beyond class. They added kindness.

“Have you heard from Paula?” Davy asked. The name still stung Regis. Why ask that? He thought. He and Paula had been divorced for three years and had no kids. Why would he hear from her?

“I think she’s living in Harrisburg,” Regis said mechanically, looking through Davy to where Gino sat almost motionless.

Davy glanced back. “Maybe he’ll talk to you about things.”

“Nah,” Regis said, taking a pull on his drink. “You know, Gino. He’ll talk about everything except what he’s got buried in the basement.”

“Still, you should go over and sit with him for a few.” Regis looked over at the poker machine and then turned to meet Davy eye to eye. Christ, how he hated him. Who made Davy McNally, Gino’s benefactor anyway. “He’s been asking about you since the hospital.”

“Yeah, I’ll probably stop over,” Regis said.

Skip handed Davy two tall drafts. “Good,” Davy said, then walked back over to the table to sit with Gino. Then there was two of them staring blankly at the television.

“That fucking guy,” Regis said.

“Davy?” Skip said. “Davy’s all right.”

“You don’t know him like I know him.”

“He does things for people. Things he don’t have to do. I know that. And it makes him okay in my book.”

“Sure. We got our own Jesus Christ right here at the ‘Round Corner.”

Skip leaned over the bar. “You don’t have to say that. You don’t need to take his name like that.”

“Right, Skip. Because you’re so religious. That’s why you’re open on a Sunday afternoon.”

“Hey, I went to church this morning. What did you do, Reg?”

Regis finished his draft. “I cleaned a fucking bank all night, so that I could come here and spend my dough and keep you and your wife in the lap of luxury.” He threw down a few more dollars and pushed his glass toward Skip.

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m getting so wealthy on you drinking all of this green beer,” Skip said, refilling the pint. “I think I’ll go and buy that yacht now.”

“Good,” Regis said taking his pint. He took a good pull and then walked over toward the poker machine. He thought about putting a dollar in and starting up a game, but money was scarce. And if he won Skip probably wouldn’t pay out today anyway. So Regis took a couple long pulls on his pint, set the rest down on a counter, and made to leave.

“Regis,” Gino said. His voice already thick from Italy sounded garbled with whatever stress the stroke had put on him.

Regis turned to look, and there was Davy beckoning him over. “Sit down, man.”

Regis sat and no one spoke. Davy nursed his draft and Gino let his sit, content to stare up at the game on the television. The voices of the announcers boomed down on Regis’ head. They came at him like echoes, distant, hollow voices, saying nothing of value. He looked at the scratched wood of the table. If nothing else, Regis thought, he should’ve gone to the funeral. The cask would’ve been closed at the funeral. Suddenly, desperately, Regis needed another drink. But when he got up, Gino lightly grabbed his hand.

“She said she didn’t want to be burned,” he started. “She said, Gino, I was born here and now I’m gonna die here.” He paused for a few minutes, his face contorting, searching for words that had been lost. “She said be sure you put me somewhere nice.”

“And did you?” Regis asked, his voice growing tighter.

Gino nodded. “I found a big oak tree in the cemetery. She’s there.”

“That’s great.” Regis patted Gino’s hand and then rose. He walked over to the bar, his body feeling like lead. When he got there, Skip eyed him up. “Another draft, Skip.”

“Where’s your glass?”

Regis just shook his head. Skip sighed and grabbed a new pint from a row of glasses then set about filling the new draft. “How about a shot of Imperial as well.”

Skip nodded and got Regis a shot. He set them both down and took a few more dollars from Regis’ pile of bills. He held a five up and winked. “Now I can get that new wing put on the mansion as well.”

Laundry Day

2009-10-26T04:27:00.000-07:00

I came in the laundry room, and there she was taking all of my clothes out of the washing machine that I’d been using.

“Jesus Christ,” I said to her. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t even look at me but jumped a little bit. “You scared me.”

“What are you doing?”

“These clothes have been sitting in the washing machine for longer than a half hour. I have every right to take them out.”

“Lady, they’ve been in the machine for thirty-five minutes,” I said. I looked around the room. “Besides, there are four other machines in here.”

“This is my favorite machine,” she said, tossing pieces of my clothing into a corroded cart. She stopped to examine a few of my wine stained t-shirts, shakes her head, and then tosses them too.

“Do you mind?” I said.

“I have my rights.” She pointed to a sign posted on the wall. The sign said that other tenants reserve the right to remove clothing out of the washers and dryers should they be in the machines for thirty minutes after their cycle is done.

“But it’s only been five extra minutes,” I said.

“How do I know that?” she said, tossing the last of my clothing in the cart. She pushed the cart toward me without a thought and then began to load her laundry into my machine. “They could’ve been here all day.”

“It’s nine-thirty in the morning,” I said.

“Some of us have been up for hours,” she said.

“It’s been five minutes, lady,” I said. “I went to take out the trash with one minute remaining on the machine. And then I came back.” I stepped closer to her.

“Don’t you come any closer to me!” she said. “I don’t know you.”

“I live here,” I said.

“I don’t know that. You could be someone off the street. You could be a rapist.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said.

“What?”

I started looking through my cart. “You didn’t even let these clothes spin.”

“What did you say?”

“What are you some kind of washing Nazi? Did you wait until I left, and then just pounce on my machine.”

She stopped putting her clothing in the machine. “I’m getting the super. I’m calling the landlord. You can’t talk to me that way.”

I pushed the corroded cart over to a dryer and began unloading my clothes in it. Then I stopped. “This isn’t your favorite dryer, is it?” I ask.

“Keep it up,” she said. “You’ll be out on the street.”

“It’s just that I don’t want to use this dryer if it’s your absolute favorite,” I said. “If it has some sentimental value to you.”

“You have a smart mouth,” she said.

I picked up the rest of my clothing and tossed them into the machine while she continued to bitch at me. I pumped the machine full of quarters and thought about how I was going to leave the clothing in it all day while I sat at the bar and got drunk on two-dollar cans of silver bullet. “Lady, I don’t think you could pick smart out of a police line-up.”

“You’ll be on the street,” she repeated. “You’ll be out there in the cold with the rest of the bums.”

I bowed to her. “And a good day to you too, m’lady.”

Then I left the laundry room and began walking down the hall. The super had just put in these new timer lights that were supposed to turn on when it sensed human motion. The lights failed often for me.

“You could’ve been a rapist!” I heard her shout.

Then I reached the elevator and pushed the button for my floor, wondering what tasks in this world were actually simple, and why could I never find those to do on a rainy Saturday morning with the wine bottle empty and the bars not yet open for the day.

Mistaken Identity

2009-10-21T04:58:00.000-07:00

“What is that?” Jake asked, breathlessly sitting down across from Martin. As usual Martin had Jake’s beer waiting, a Stella Artois.

“Oh, do you mean this?” Martin said pointing at the rash on his neck, and the ones going down both of his arms. “This would be a rash brought on by using that spray and starch shit that you left out for me.”

“I didn’t tell you to douse yourself in it, man,” Jake said fidgeting, staring out the beer-sign slathered window, before taking a pull on his beer. He gave no money to Martin for the drink, par for the course as well. “How much did you use?”

“Not much,” Martin said, wincing. Then he scratched both arms. “I sprayed it on my shirt and on the suit pants.”

“Good God, man. You should see a doctor.”

“Don’t start. You know how I feel about....”

“Listen,” Jake interrupted. “Something happened to me today.”

“What now?” Martin asked, having some of his own beer. He tried not to scratch his neck, but the tickle underneath the skin was too much.

Jake poured down half of his pint. “You know that girl that I was telling you about? The one who comes into the center for my poetry class?”

“You mean the sixteen-year-old?”

“The very same.”

“Do I want to know about this?” Martin asked.

“No. But you need to. It affects us both.” Jake was silent a moment. He finished off his beer, as a flock of blonde administrative assistants came cackling into the bar. Jake had slept with the tall one. Martin had failed with two of the others. “I sort of slept with her.”

“How does one sort of sleep with a teenager?” Martin asked, incredulously.

“Easily,” Jake said. “You meet for coffee after the poetry class. She gushes over some of your favorite poets, she gushes over you, and then nature sort of takes its course.”

“I see. And where did this illicit encounter take place?” Martin scratched both arms then finished off his beer.

“Our apartment.”

“You brought a sixteen year-old girl to our apartment!” Martin shouted, standing up. When he realized he was making a small spectacle of himself he quickly regained his composure, and leaned in close to Jake. “You brought a child to our apartment...and fucked her?”

“If you want to be base like that, and put it in those terms,” Jake said.

“What other terms are there for statutory rape?” Martin asked, grabbing both pint glasses off the table.

“Now you’re just being crass.”

“I doubt I’m the crass one here,” Martin said. “Think about that while I’m gone.” Then he went and grabbed two more pints from the bar.

While Martin waited for the beer, another set of pints that he would pay for, he watched Jake. Jake sat there like he hadn’t a care in the world, smiling at a few of the blonde women then fiddling with his cell phone. How had this happened? Martin thought. No one should get an apartment with someone they don’t really know, no matter how desperate the situation. But it had been desperate. Elaine had left him with a note. Two years together and she couldn’t even level with him in person. Had he been that bad? Martin wondered. Had he been that horrid to her? A rough time finding a job, a few bouts with the bottle, and Elaine was down for the count. Rumor had it that she was living over in Hoboken with a dentist. A dentist. And here was Martin left with the Jake the kid fucker.

“Your beers,” the bartender said, breaking Martin out of his thoughts.

“Thanks,” he said, throwing a ten on the bar.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Jake said, when Martin sat back down. He took his draft and had a good pull on it.

“Of course you are,” Martin said, scratching his neck, watching his roommate suck down the free suds. “If memory serves me correctly, you mentioned that this little tryst with the child affects both of us.”

“You really should buy some cream for that rash,” Jake said, coming up for air from his pint. “It looks really red.”

“Never mind that. The girl.”

“Oh.” Jake was silent a moment. He looked outside the bar at the quickly darkening street. “There might be some complications that we’re both going to have to deal with.”

“Like?”

“Like there’s someone waiting outside our apartment right now.”

“Right now?” Martin asked. Frustration welled inside of him, similar to when Jake left clothes all over the place, similar to when Jake had random women over, similar to...no, no this was much worse. Way fucking worse. “Could that person be, I don’t know, the child’s father?”

“No, thank God,” Jake said. “It’s her boyfriend.”

“So there’s a sixteen year-old boy outside of our apartment waiting to exact his revenge upon you because you deflowered his girlfriend?”

“I wouldn’t say I deflowered anything,” Jake said, smiling. “And he’s seventeen. A pretty good poet too.”

“Is he in the workshop?” Martin asked, disbelieving this entire conversation. He had some beer, wondered what Elaine and her dentist were doing in that moment. Surely they weren’t discussing statutory rape.

“No, but she lets me read some of his work.”

“And?”

“It’s sappy and overly sentimental, but with the right teacher he could have a future.”

“Not his fucking poetry,” Martin spat. “I mean what are you going to do about this?”

“I was hoping he’d just go away,” Jake said. “You know teenagers. With all the technology they can’t keep their minds on anything sustainable.”

Martin nodded, looking down at Jake’s cell phone, portable video game player, and his portable music player, resting like a digital bundle on the table. “But what if he doesn’t go?”

“That’s where you come in,” Jake said.

“How?”

He took a long pull on his draft, finishing it. Martin was determined not to buy him a third. “I want you to talk to the kid.”

“Me?”

“You’re better with words than I am,” Jake said.

“You’re a published poet for Christ’s sake!” Martin said. “You have a blog. You teach a fucking class! How in the hell am I better with words than you are?”

“Soothing words.”

“What are soothing words?”

“Look,” Jake started. But then he stopped. He scratched his head and looked Martin right in the eyes. “I know what happened between you and your girlfriend. I heard you talking on the phone to her that one time, and I just thought that maybe you could relate some information to the kid, you know, like smooth things over.”

“Because my girlfriend left me?” Martin asked, before finishing off his draft in one long pull. “Because I’ve been fucked over?”

“Well, not in those words. I-I just thought you could relate to him better.”

“Of course you thought that,” Martin said, standing. He sighed then scratched the swelling red blotch on his neck.

“So you’ll do it?”

“If he’s standing outside of the building, I mean, what choice do I have? I’d like to get a peaceful night sleep, you know.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Don’t thank me for shit,” Martin said. He made to leave.

“Hey, Marty?” Jake called to him.

“Yeah?”

“Can you spot me a ten? I’m going to hang out here a bit,” Jake nodded over toward the pack of blonde administrative assistants, “and see what’s happening.”

Martin laughed bitterly, but opened his wallet and gave Jake a ten. “You and I need to talk once this is all said and done.”

“Sure thing.” Jake held up the bill. “Thanks.”

Outside the bar there was a decent wind, and Martin huddled into himself. He was underdressed, a symptom of the rash. He couldn’t handle clothing touching his red and welted skin. A light rain began to fall. It figured. Light rain always fell during dooming moments such as this one. Light rain fell the day Martin came home to a half-empty apartment, and a quickly scrawled “Dear John” letter from Elaine. Light rain was the blight on Martin’s world.

Around the corner he saw a tall, lanky figure hanging in front of the building. The light from the lamppost made him look imposing, and Martin wondered if it wasn’t, in fact, the girl’s father. He braced himself, walked a little bit gingerly in the rain. As he got closer Martin loosened up. It wasn’t the girl’s father. It was the boyfriend, an awkward kid with a matt of wet hair, and cheeks that looked rosy and newborn. He almost looked pathetic. Martin put on his kind smile and approached.

“Hey kid,” He began. But the boy charged him.

“No, you listen!” he shouted. “I don’t know what kind of a teacher you are, or what. But how? How could you, dude? She was my girlfriend!”

Martin backed away a little bit, and the boy didn’t pursue. “But I’m not...”

“I should’ve known too,” The kid interrupted. “She kept talking and talking about this poetry class at the center, kept saying how cool you were, and what a great writer you were. Then she came home with one of your books, right? It was even signed. She kept telling me I had to read it, like you were the greatest poet or something. And you know what, dude?” The kid stopped for a moment, and tussled his wet, sticking hair. “You suck as a poet! My little brother writes better poems than you.”

Martin couldn’t help but smile at that.

“You think that’s funny?” The kid asked. “I guess you got it all figured out, huh? Living in this big place, banging a bunch of chicks because they think you’re all smart. Having some rash all over your neck.” The kid got a crooked smile on his face. “Or maybe you aren’t so slick. Yeah, maybe you’re some kind of loser who has to go around and pick up high school chicks. You know that’s illegal right, dude? You know I could go and tell her dad, and then it would be the end of you. He’s like a cop or something.”

“Is he really a cop?” Martin asked, scratching himself.

The kid glared at him. “No. But he knows some cops. Dude, you could go to jail.”

“Kid,” Martin began, but then he stopped. He looked at the kid. His hair was soaked, a dirty brown, sopping mess. And his jean jacket was damp at the shoulders. He looked like a drowned rat, to use a clichéd phrase. “You probably don’t want to hear this, especially from me, but I know how you feel.” The kid crinkled up his face at what Martin said. Martin didn’t want to continue either. But he felt he had to. “It’s true. Did you know that I was married once? Did she tell you that?"

“No.”

“Well, I was. I had...Christ, she was beautiful, man. Raven hair. The softest face. Her eyes were almost purple; they were so dark and rich. And we used to just spend hours together, doing nothing but being together. I mean we’d read or watch a movie or go for walks or something, but it was just good to be together, you know?” Martin was silent for a moment. He could feel the rain begin to weaken. “We were like that for a long time.”

“Yeah,” The kid said. He crossed his arms but seemed to calm a little bit. “And then what happened?”

“She left me.”

“Good.”

Martin paused. “She left me. I came home one day and the apartment, this big apartment, was half empty.”

“She took all your stuff?”

“No. She took her stuff. Maybe she took some of my stuff too...er...but that’s not what’s important here. What’s important is that she was gone. She left nothing but a note, kid, and not anything worth keeping. All it said was that she’d probably never loved me.” Martin took out a cigarette, the one luxury he allowed himself toward the end of the day. But he needed it now. “Do you mind?”

The kid took out his own pack of smokes, and lit one. He held the match out to Martin. “Do you mind?”

“Touché,” Martin said, cautiously lighting his smoke.

“So you got fucked over, and you go around fucking other people over. Is that what I’m supposed to get from this story?”

“No,” Martin began. “That’s not it at all. What you’re supposed to get is...is...that this shit happens to everyone, right? We all get fucked over in this game of love. Some of us get it when we’re young, like you, and thankfully you can get over it pretty quickly. And some of us.... well...some of us get it later on in life, and it takes some time, a long time to get over it.”

“So you’re not over her?” The kid asked. “I mean your wife.”

“Not even close, pal.” Martin took a drag on his smoke, and blew it out into the cold, rainy night. Then he looked at the kid. “But I hope to be one day.”

“I guess you deserve a second chance.”

“I know this doesn’t mean anything to you,” Martin said. “But I’m sorry. And I am a loser. I’m a huge loser who has no business being with teenaged girls. But I didn’t know she had a boyfriend until things got too complicated. And when I found out I stopped it. I guess that’s why she told you.”

“She didn’t tell me,” The kid said. “I found some poem that she wrote about you. Then I looked you up on the Internet, and found your address.”

“The Internet?”

“You don’t know the Internet?”

“Of course I do. I just didn’t think my address was up on it.”

“Everything’s up on the Internet,” the kid said.

“So she didn’t tell you anything?” Martin asked. “You just assumed something happened between us.”

“I read her poem.”

Martin laughed out loud in spite of himself.

“What’s so funny?” The kid asked.

“Humanity,” Martin answered. “My advice to you, kid, is to get yourself another girlfriend. You’re young. And there’s got to be some little poetess out there who only wants to write poems about you.”

The kid took a drag on his smoke and considered the advice. “I guess.”

Martin tossed his smoke and made toward his front door. “I’m going to go inside now, get out of this rain. You should go home too.”

“Okay,” The kid said, tossing his smoke.

“And kid,” Martin began. “Keep writing. It’ll all work out in the end.”

“Yeah. You too. And get some cream for that rash, dude.”

“I will.”

Martin watched the kid cross the street and run over to a small car that was parked next to a fire hydrant. Then he scratched his arms until they burned. Martin saw the amber of another match being struck and then the kid fired up his car. Horrible bass music permeated the street, and then the headlights made a flood that poured onto the next block. The kid revved his engine a couple of times, and pulled out slowly. Then he was gone. And Martin went inside to fix himself some dinner and a stiff drink, before Jake stumbled in from the bar.