Me and Bobby, I say.
It’s not like that.
What’s it like?
I told you. Right or wrong it doesn’t look good, Tom.
I look out my window at the YMCA across the street. I see young women stretching in an aerobics class. Young, long brown hair, tight black leggings. Leaning to the left and then to the right, arms thrust upward. I see a woman with a boombox. She sets it down and within seconds the whole room erupts, the women shaking to tunes I can’t hear. The bright room wrapped in gold light. I feel their joy. Even Jay watches them.
I can’t stop Frank from lying about me because he’s pissed off I fired him.
Do you drink at work? McGraw asks again.
I work at work.
I hear something clatter in the hall and McGraw and I look out the door. Jay is leaning over his desk. The phone lies on the floor, two lines blinking. Jay sits back, folds his arms, and starts to laugh.
You don’t run an independent ship, Tom, McGraw says, watching Jay. You just watch yourself and watch who you hire. And you can clear more of your ranks today starting with Jay.
Jay?
Yeah. He really should be on disability.
We’re working on it.
Have him mop floors if you want but take him off the reception desk. You need someone normal answering your phones.
McGraw drags a finger over a cabinet and looks at it for dust. He notices a piece of paper with some notes on it from last week’s staff meeting and hands it to me.
You should file this.
I take it, drop it in a trash bin without a glance. McGraw shakes his head as if I’m beyond hope. Maybe I am. He goes out without another word and doesn’t close the door behind him. Pausing at Jay’s desk, he picks up the phone. Jay stops laughing and thanks him. McGraw checks for a dial tone. Then he walks down the stairs.
I look at the wall clock. Almost nine. I’ve got a few minutes to talk to Jay. Won’t take long. Maybe I’ll make mopping the floors sound like the job of the century. Maybe I’ll put him back on the phone when things settle down and McGraw won’t notice. Maybe Jay won’t care. Him and Bobby. My morning.
I rub my temples. I’m sweating. I’m definitely going to have a beer at lunch. Screw Frank. Maybe he did smell beer on my breath one day, I don’t care. So much for those grilled cheese sandwiches. Bottom line, I’m here and he’s not. I still wish Mary was with me, meeting me for lunch or something. If I call her, I’ll have to apologize for blowing her off last night and I’ll feel worse. If she says she can see me after work I’ll get home and just cancel on her again, I know it. I’ll open the fridge for a beer, just one, and then it will be two and three and that’ll be it, I won’t see her. But God it’d be nice to be with her right now. Someone. Just to be told everything will be all right. It’s so quiet. So nice and quiet. My favorite part of the day is right before we open, that and when I get home and pop open my first Bud and relax.
I let out a long breath, massage my temples again, and get up and open the door.
Jay, I got to talk to you but first I need you to go out and get me another coffee and some Advil, OK? You know what? Screw the coffee. Just the Advil. Would you do that for me please?
Walter
Matt lights a cigarette, asks me in a voice a little thick from drinking, Why do you think we come here?
This, I say and raise my beer.
He laughs, slaps my shoulder, and gets quiet. After a moment, he says, Have you heard about my condition?
I turn to him. John and Dennis, two regulars seated on the other side of Matt, expectantly face him too. The noise of a pool game drifts out from the other room.
No, I say sipping my beer. No, I haven’t heard about your condition.
I see Matt, John, and Dennis in the Comeback Club when I get my general assistance check and can pay bar prices. They come here every day, I think. I don’t have that kind of cash. I’ll be back at Fred’s buying bottles of T-bird in a few days. He lets me run a tab. Every month I pay him off cutting into the scratch I can spare to drink at the Comeback.
My condition is that I’ve got lymphoma, Matt says. Cancer.
John’s eyebrows leap up and Dennis jerks back like he’s been slapped. Matt bites his lower lip and shakes his head, a hangdog look crosses his face. He stares into his beer. I don’t know what to say. He’s a nice guy, a good guy. I feel for him, I surely do, but I don’t know him well enough to feel anything in my gut. It doesn’t matter to me if I ever see him again. I don’t even know his last name. I’ve been coming to the Comeback long enough to become familiar with some of the regulars like Matt and John and Dennis, but we’re not friends. Friends in the sense that we’d ever do something together other than drink here. I come to the Comeback not to talk as much as to get off the bricks and among people.
I’m sorry, I say.
Sorry to hear that, Matt, Dennis says.
What happened? John says.
Matt doesn’t answer. The bartender, Gail, acts like she hasn’t heard a thing. She turns the thermostat up and begins washing glasses. Warm air washes out of the ceiling vent rocking a hanging basket with dead flowers. I take off my sweatshirt. I feel like I’m going to wilt, but I’m not about to complain. One night when a guy ragged about his drink being weak, Gail pulled down her jeans and exposed her ass, one word on each cheek: kiss this.
Well, I went in for a physical a couple of days back just because I hadn’t had a physical in a long time, Matt says. Getting near fifty, that sort of thing. Then boom!
Just like that, huh? Dennis says.
Just like that. Boom! The doctor ran some tests and wouldn’t you know it, I got cancer. Was feeling fine, man. Really. Still do. Shit.
Matt’s a big guy, broad shoulders, arms thick as tree trunks. He works construction. Starts at five o’clock in the morning, clocks out midafternoon, and stops by the Comeback for a beer and then some. He’s usually half lit by the time I get here. Sometimes, I am too. He asked me what I do. Handyman, I told him. I got a sign, I’ll work for food, I tell him. He laughed, thinks I’m joking.
I stay in a financial district alley behind an Italian restaurant. The Transamerica building pokes into the sky not too far away. It would be a trip, I think, to work there as a window washer. On Tuesday mornings, when garbagemen empty the dumpster, I move my stuff to another alley behind another dumpster behind another restaurant, this one Greek. When it’s time to empty that dumpster, I go back to the Italian restaurant alley. At night, I tie one end of a tarp to the dumpster handles and weigh the other end with a cinderblock, making a kind of lean-to. Every three hours the restaurant tosses out food. Something about if it sits around that long it’s no good. A few of the kitchen staff drop the food into the dumpster instead of giving it to me, but most of them put it in takeout boxes and set it on the pavement, bending over real slow, keeping just far enough away from me like they’re feeding a stray dog that’ll bolt if they make a sudden move. There’s only so much I can eat. Sometimes I keep a box for the morning. What I can’t use I put in the dumpster. I clean up so the restaurant crew keeps giving me food. Scratch my back, scratch yours sort of deal. Every so often I want to talk, tell them I was a manager at a Lowes in Oakland. Tell them how one job can lead to another. It did me. These young kids at the restaurants, it’s easy for them to get fed up and quit. I want to tell them to hang in there. I had a few jobs before I landed at Lowes, mostly janitorial, but they gave me the experience I needed. It’s hard, though, to talk to people who are afraid you might bite them. I wasn’t always like this.
Boom, Matt says again. The fucking ax just falls. Whether you’re ready or not, here it comes, off with your head.
