I guess I was mad too. People just can’t talk about things, important things. Taylor explained all that to me when he walked me out. My neck hurt where his buddy yanked me into his face.
Taylor tried to calm me down, but it didn’t stop my shaking. “Burt’s always a hot head. No one talks real stuff there. Too much beer.”
It was about 10:00, and the table was filled with slopped beer and food mess. I must have been a bit drunk when I spoke up ‘cause I had had only chips and horrible chicken wings with the beer. I’m not used to it, but everybody was drinking, and it seemed like everyone was yelling because you had to fight to get above the Western music. I guess mine was a real fight, but it was one-sided. I lost.
What I was doing with those guys I’m not sure. I guess it was because I told Taylor, who is everybody’s best friend, about my interest in the girl in marketing division. She’s ideal, Clarisse; I’ve noticed her long dark hair and her amazing dark eyes. And she has…well…a kind of a glow about her. Really, it was OK to be interested because she is in a totally different department, Marketing Outreach, so if she would, I could take her out. Yah, right!
It’s really hard to break the ice, so I had been really nice to her, even though I don’t even think she knew my name. Well, maybe, but she had never used it. All she said was, “Hi,” a couple of times but never with a smile or a nod or friendly “How ya doin’, Bobby?”
One time at the bus stop it was raining really hard, and I handed her my umbrella. She got on her bus with it. She did thank me, without a smile. No smile. I thought I had been really nice, ‘cause I got soaked. She gave it back, though, next day. She didn’t forget. That was OK.
So, one time I was eating my tuna sandwiches with Taylor from the lab at the sunny end of the cafeteria, and he told me what a jerk I was. Eating stinky sandwiches and being such a nerd about Clarisse were social ‘’no-no’s.”
“What if she sat down near you, and you had that stinky fish breath. Jesus, Bobby, plan for surprises.” He didn’t know that was paradoxical.
But he really meant it. I wish had hadn’t told him about Clarisse because he gave me grief for being so nervous about talking to another human being. “Christ, she’s only a woman.”
I didn’t bother correcting the gender bias. I know he didn’t believe that.
But he’s not mean. He was trying to give me some cojones as he called them. Just talk and joke with her. I felt stupid, but it was easy for him. Girls liked him, and he was always telling jokes to his buddies. I don’t know any.
He told me I had to care more about myself than anyone else. Ha! Advice is not necessary. He doesn’t know I’ve saved all my money, and I have a big bank account, and I could buy a house for cash even in this city, just for me. Besides, I do what I want, and I like my privacy. I even bought a new TV with Netflix and Crave for my room so that I don’t have to watch what Mom has on downstairs—enough of Alex Trebek. Furthermore, I take great trips, like to Thailand for that old culture. No, I didn’t visit the seamy side. Those guys don’t travel except to the Caribbean for all-expense-paid packages with daiquiris included. I’d rather do my own thing.
I do care about me. He kinda hurt my feelings, but I think he thought he was doing me good.
So, Friday night was going to be different, a first. I’m supposed to get out of myself, according to him. Wednesday in the lunch line, Taylor said, “Come have a drink with us, Friday night, at Stacey’s Sports Bar,” the local pub. He put his arm around me when I was beside him, his big strong left arm, and pulled me to him. It felt really good, sorta buddy-like. I hadn’t had much of that, but he does it all the time with everyone. I admit I envied it just a little. So, I really wanted to go; it was like an initiation.
So, Friday morning, I tossed the bow tie and white shirt back into my closet, and wore a red, plaid shirt that I usually wear gardening on weekends, and I dragged out an old pair of black chinos that had been in the bottom of my drawer since I had taken my mother to the Santa Claus parade. We still go.
She’s sixty-five, but she never misses. It reminds her of when we were really young when Daddy would put me on his shoulders so I could see. He died when I was thirteen, thirty years ago. And that finished Mom. Then, she stopped work at the school board ‘cause we had lots of money from the insurance company and the investments her father had left her five years before. But, jeez, she just stays in the house cleaning it all the time ‘cause she thinks the virus that got Dad will get her and me. Or something. She’s depressed, but I take care of her. Taylor says he admires my loyalty, but he always raises an eyebrow on it.
Anyway, I’ve tried to look like I could blend in on pub night, but they’re kinda big and brawny now that they’re middle-aged. Not easy. I checked myself out in the mirror. I’m kinda pale and thin; ya see, my cheeks make hollows. I’m trying to grow a moustache with my bright, red hair, but it just looks like a scrawny, burnt caterpillar now that the hair is going grey. I don’t look like them. So, I tried to dress the part.
Taylor teased me when I got to work. He caught up to me before he changed for this lab job. “Hey, Bobby, what happened to the accountant? No tie? I thought it was tattooed on.” He have a big chuckle and said, “There’s no dress-down code for a fucking pub.” He laughed, hugged again and then kinda pushed me away. His language was always awful.
Then something weird happened; I couldn’t wait to tell Taylor in the pub. About 10:30 that Friday morning, I had to get some ledgers from the book keeper in marketing. I tried to take the friendly advice and “butch it up” as I walked by Clarisse’s desk, but just as I passed she got up and bumped into me. She staggered back a bit and knocked a book on the floor. I picked it up.
“Sorry,” she said. “You’re so quiet I didn’t hear you.” Taylor always accused me of that.
“My fault, Clarisse,” I stammered as she stepped closer. It was the eyes. They were deep. And there was a scent, not a sweet perfume but like organic and musky.
“You know my name?”
I panicked and grabbed at the first straw. “I do accounts and payroll stuff. I know everybody’s.”
“Ah, and yours?”
My breath sucked in a little too loudly. “I’m Bobby Stanford.” I gave her a smile in the silence. “Guess I better collect those files,” I said as I turned to go.
“Well, hi, Bobby, but I’d like my book back.” She frowned as she said, “After all, I gave you back your umbrella.”
I held the book out as I read the cover. I know my eyes went wide, for I saw her looking hard at me.
“Jeez, Clarisse, I saw this at that little bookstore, Athena’s Palace, and it looked really good.” There it was. First Nations’ Resistance by Reginald Wapachee. “It’s stuff about indigenous peoples’ struggle for autonomy, broken treaties and the Transmountain pipeline, isn’t it?”
“That’s where I got it. Last copy.” It was the first smile she ever gave me. It held me but she went on. “I’ve just finished it. You can borrow it after my brother reads it.” It was almost a conversation.
Hey, I was so flustered, as I told Taylor over the din of “Achy Breaky Heart,” that I dropped the book again. I picked it up and handed to her. “Sure, thanks.” I scrammed. She was even friendly. The smile was unforgettable.
I raved about her over my third beer. “She reads,” I said. “Good stuff. Important stuff. About the treatment of indigenous people. Wow! Those big eyes and brains too!”
“That’s it, Bobby, now you’re looking after yourself. Take charge.” I almost lost a mouthful of beer with the slap on the back. He laughed, “You can go to lectures at the university together.”
“Yah, there are some good ones coming up on the economy and the petrodollar.” His face fell and he went back to teasing Burt.
There was a lot of that stuff. He and Burt stood up and shadow boxed over Colin Kaepernick. Wonderful man, I thought. Not Burt, Colin. Real guts in front of millions. Burt didn’t think so. How could you sacrifice a football career for a bunch of liberals? I swigged on my fourth beer. Taylor actually cared a little about the issue, but it was more about egging Burt on. There was no conversation, just razzing. I think it qualified as a pissing contest. It was Friday at the pub.
My big mistake was on my fifth beer. After Burt announced America was the greatest democracy in the world, I interrupted him. I just don’t know how to do pissing contests with the boys. Serious speeches with historical references don’t work.
I said something about regime changes in Latin America.
“You want them all to go communist?” His tone was flat.
That damned beer makes you feel so sure of yourself. Kaepernick didn’t need it; he used silence while my volume matched his as I answered. As I peeled of some horrible examples, even Dolly Parton’s “It’s All Wrong, but It’s Alright” couldn’t quell the rising, red flood in both our faces and voices. This wasn’t all right.
I have to admit I was as bad as he was, for whatever civil exchange of ideas I always strove for was shredded. When we got to Reagan and Nicaragua, I even think some spittle landed on his shirt. It got pretty intense over Bush’s Iraq invasion. I couldn’t get through to this guy, all he did was mock me with “commie” and “libtard” and “Russian bot.”
He knew nada, rien, nothing. Fuck all, there I go like Taylor, but he wouldn’t listen to anything.
So, I yelled, “The United States of America is the most dangerous terrorist state on the planet.” We were standing, just as Taylor and Burt had done, but they had ended in roars of laughter; Taylor knew the art.
Jeez, he grabbed me by shirt collar and twisted it tight, very tight and shook me like a rag doll. As fear flooded my chest, I couldn’t breathe. “This is for my Yankee mother, Asshole.” He pushed me.
Taylor jumped in; I landed on my chair; Burt settled for a minute and strode to the washroom. “Get that little fucker out of here.”
As Taylor walked me to the front door through the gathered waiters, I kept apologizing, “Sorry, Taylor, it was the booze and-”
“It wasn’t your fault; he can be an asshole sometimes.” His arm was around me as we stepped into the warm summer air. The humidity and heat were suffocating in the parking lot, and I was shaking. I knew Taylor was being so very, very kind that it would be my last invitation. The Uber got me home. A sleeping pill knocked me out. Thank God.
Swilling coffee the next day in a non-descript Starbucks on Campbell Street close to downtown, I stared at the grey drizzle outside in silence. Grudgingly, I acknowledged the friendly pair beside me when they gave me a cheery greeting. My nod would suffice.
I had blown it. My being so right had got the best of me; I tried to teach someone something, something important. It had dissolved into a shouting match. Ya know, maybe it’s better to lose a pissing contest rather than piss everybody off, if you want their company. What Taylor had explained before he loaded me into the Uber was that it was entertainment, not anything else. “Lighten up,” he said, “we watch games, we share a few beer and tell jokes.” That was it! I hadn’t learned the group code in the club.
Echoes of “Pox Americana and its hubris” targeted at Burt resounded. It had been all puff and blow last night, personal; I had recorded everything. I thought you weren’t supposed to remember anything the morning after, but I the venom in his tone still stung. And maybe even mine.
Setting the coffee aside on that dull Saturday morning, I mulled in the fake leather tub chair propping my elbow on the arm rest with my head supported by my hand, looking down. Someone had dropped chocolate icing on the grey tile. Ugh.
I picked up a stray section of the house newspaper.
There was a pounding in my head and a hum in the café, but I had pulled away from it into my own cerebral drumming, or whatever that was. Probably hangover. Stupid to come to Starbucks, but I didn’t want to be alone, and I didn’t want to be with anyone. And mother was cleaning again. The Arts and Culture section distracted.
However, as my eyes perused page two, a title in the book reviews caught me. “What’s so Bad about Bad?” was the lead review of a new publication by Dr. Naomi Anastasia Khodorovsky with credentials longer than her name. I began reading, but not for long.
“Mister, mister,” a tiny, soprano voice said as a little hand tugged on my shirt sleeve. “You look sad. Why are you all by yourself?”
I held fast staring at the newspaper. Flashed a smile and a “hi,” and returned to the page. Sweet, but I wasn’t up for children.
“Mister, mister.” The little hand tugged harder.
I turned slowly to an avatar of Shirley Temple. “Maddy,” the velvet voice of sun-burned adult said, “don’t bother the man. Just say ‘hello’ and come back to your juice.”
I nodded a civil “thank you.”
Maddy stood her ground. In a sparkling white shirt and soft grey short pants, Maddy, ignoring the order, stared, rapt, with a pout. “But mister, are you sad?”
Too cute to ignore, I answered her intrusion. “Don’t I look happy?” I gave her a five second smile.
The little one shook her head emphatically giving waves to a mass of uncontrolled curls. “Don’t you have any friends?”
“Thanks, sweetheart, I’m just reading here.” I added for the adult’s benefit, “Just on my own.” I smiled. The grey cloud surrounding me as the drumming continued in my head had offered me no protection.
As she toddled back to her mother, she chirped, “Mommy, that man should sit with us.”
Wallowing in my own grey damp, I refocused on “Bad.”
As the little four-year-old footsteps retreated to welcoming arms, I landed on the word “evil.”
The good Dr. Khodorovsky contended that evil comes from the detached man whose ego is everything to him, who assumes he can make his world as he wants it “just because.” While only being responsible to and for himself, the overweening, thanks Bard, pride becomes totally isolated and dominant over his whole world. Well, that’s what it said: Iago or Dracula. The expert wrote that the only world the evil man has is in his own mind. Examples roared through my head, the big ones. You know who they are. But there were little big egos too. I felt guilty.
I could taste the poison from last night. Angry and frustrated and desperate and selfish, I had raced out of control. Nothing like that whole stupid event had ever happened to me or by me before. In retrospect, it scared me.
I stared at my black Grande Bold avoiding every pair of eyes in the coffee shop filled with the chatter of a score of people, all being social. The little one was directing her charms to a delighted senior lady, perhaps rescuing her from isolation. Having had such hopes for camaraderie to “get me out,” I had dressed up, being so thankful to Taylor so that for once I could be a joiner. And I fucked up, to use his slang. I had made it all about me, and Taylor wouldn’t do it again.
That jerk called me an asshole. I hate that language.
“What was that?” a bearded gentleman with the walker across the table said to me.
“Oh, sorry, I must have been muttering.” I gave a force smile. “Things on my-“
He leaned in. “You just called somebody an asshole.”
“Oh, dear.” I blushed. “Thanks.” He turned his head to his book as I was caught by the mute news channel on the TV. Throngs of people, I recognized the place.
Placards were carried aloft by a mob of hundreds at city hall. Protests. A tall man with a feathered head dress was speaking, but although the TV was on mute, his passion was obvious. The headline scrolled something about British Columbia, the federal government and the native resistance. And Transmountain pipeline. The signs made it clear.
The name of the speaker flashed on the screen: Reginald Wapachee.
Tossing my half-full coffee cup in the recycle bin, I darted from the coffee shop, ordered an Uber by typing in “city hall” hoping I would arrive on time to hear him, and hoping I would find a dark-haired beauty chanting, “The people united will never be defeated.” Arriving, I jumped out of the car and jogged into the melee of activists. Reginald’s voice rode above the welcome din of the restive crowd. The mid-day drizzle washed over me like a soft mist as I scanned for a pair of dark eyes, flashing teeth and long raven hair.
Burt, the yelling, the throat, the vulgarities, the rancour, the pride had become so blank that I shouldn’t even have written this last line.