Good for Nothing

by Brandon Graham

  “I was thinking, about the situation with the mortgage and house,” Flip says, after he rinses his mouth. “Your mom. She wants to be helpful. Maybe if you asked her to pay a little rent and let her move in, permanently, take care of the kids after school, it would help out. I talked to her like you asked me to, about the accident. And that went all right.”

  Lynn has one foot on the side of the tub and is drying her leg, leaning way over and shuffling the towel along her ankle. She stops moving.

  He adds, “As well as could be expected. Better than I would have thought.” Satisfied, Lynn continues working the towel up her leg.

  “But the conversation turned a little,” he continues. “Turns out that, although she’s a proud woman, doesn’t want to feel like she needs to be here for herself, she actually might need to be here. Living where she is is expensive.” He concocts a likely narrative. “And you know she would never admit it to you. But I get the impression that she’s happy to be here as long as she can tell herself, and her coffee klatsch, that she’s helping you, not the other way around. I think asking her to pay, letting her know it would help out financially, that would actually make her feel better. Would be a help for her too.”

  Lynn stands and dries her lean, hard arms and shoulders.

  “Do you think you could live with it? Having your mom around the house? If it meant keeping the house?”

  “Maybe,” she says, but it sounds like a no. “I’ve thought about it. It would be hard for me, having her here. She makes me a little nuts. You know how she is. But when I tried to bring it up, she was absolute about needing her own place.”

  Flip nods. “Like I said, she’s a proud, stubborn woman, like most of the women in your family. But if you ask the right way, I think she’ll go for it.” He watches as Lynn’s reflection holds the towel at the ends and works it down her back. God she’s beautiful. He looks away. “Also, you and Sara really need to talk. She has something to tell you. Something you need to hear. Be calm and patient with her. Okay?” Lynn stops drying and wraps the towel around her chest like a strapless dress.

  “What is it? She’s not pregnant, is she?” She says it joking as she steps from the tub, her body next to him in the too bright, tiny bathroom.

  He turns to face her. “Just talk to her. And be calm.”

  “I will. Why are you all dressed? It’s like four thirty in the morning. I didn’t mean for you to leave now.”

  “I should go,” he says. He snatches up his toiletry kit and tucks it under his arm like a football.

  “Flip. You never said how the interview went?” He stops.

  “I wouldn’t get my hopes up, if I were you,” he says. “I’m not so sure I’m even cut out for that life anymore. The interview felt good and easy in some ways. I don’t trust that kind of work anymore. Not after the way McCorkle-Smithe dropped me.” He turns to go and adds, “I guess there are limits to the kind of treatment I can suffer; some things I just can’t get over, no matter how much I want to.”

  “Flip. Thank you. It made it a lot easier that you were there last night. At the hospital with Dyl. And all of us. It really helped. I was losing it.”

  He moves slowly past the bed they used to share. “That’s what dads do. Right? And honestly, I needed to be there.” Then, before leaving the bedroom, he adds, “Be sure and hug Dylan for me. Let him know I was there with him, when he was hurt.”

  All Pent-Up

  If this is going to be his last meal, he might as well go out big. There used to be a truck stop out on Highway 55. He’d been once.

  About the time Flip was in kindergarten, Byron had a job running loads of gasoline from the local refinery to various gas stations. One day he’d taken Flip out of school, against his mother’s wishes, and let him ride along. Flip hadn’t wanted to go, but it was part of Byron’s ongoing efforts to make Flip into a man.

  It was a big climb to reach the ramshackle cab of the tanker, and Byron had grabbed Flip by his tiny hips and pitched him into the passenger’s seat. After that, Byron settled in the driver’s seat, got the rig warming up, and let it rattle them around until the heater started blowing warm air. He pulled a couple of glass Pepsi bottles out of a cooler wedged behind his seat and produced an opener, bent both metal caps back, and pitched them in the cooler. He passed an ice-cold bottle to Flip. The bottle was still wet and it made a dark circle on the thigh of his tan, corduroy pants.

  “Mom would want me to have breakfast first,” Flip’s little boy voice said. He’d wanted to chug the Pepsi down, but felt guilty enough to stop himself.

  “This is breakfast,” Byron answered. “And your momma’s not here.” He took a long pull of Pepsi and stuck the bottle between his legs. “Drink a little of that off,” he told Flip. Flip tipped it back too hard and it fizzed in his mouth, foamed, and burned in his nose.

  “Good,” Byron said. Then he demonstrated something Flip has never forgotten: he used his teeth to rip the top off a cellophane tube of salted peanuts, used one hand like a funnel over his Pepsi bottle, and poured in half the peanuts. Byron checked to see Flip got a good look at the process. “You watchin’ this, boy?”

  “Yes, sir.” Flip gawked at the pale nuts floating and bobbing like a horrible, junk food lava lamp. Byron shook his bottle to mix it, filthy suds frothed up and belched out the mouth of the bottle. Byron reached over and repeated the procedure with Flip’s Pepsi, emptying the rest of the peanuts and an extra helping of dusty, salty debris.

  “Put your thumb on the top and swirl it around, get it good and stirred up.” He demonstrated the technique. When Flip tried, his thumb was too small to cover the bottle and sticky soda splashed his shirt.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Byron said. Little Flip watched his dad take a swig and chew the peanuts that came out. “You see, that way you can eat and drink with one hand. An old trucker showed me, now I’m showing you.”

  Byron got the rig moving, working the long-armed shifter and turning the giant wheel as if he were steering a ship. He took another swig, and Flip copied him. They both chewed on their sweet, salty breakfast and listened to trucker songs on the eight-track. They didn’t talk much, just watched the traffic. Once some teenagers pumped their arms out the window and Byron told Flip to unbuckle and yank on the pull cord for the air horn.

  Flip pulled it and didn’t let go, making a long, sustained blast.

  “Enough,” Byron fussed. When Flip sat back, he must have looked scared, so Byron added, “Good job. Now you’re a trucker. You need a handle, a trucker name.”

  “I don’t know,” Flip said.

  “Well, I’m the Red Rider. Like the BB gun.”

  Flip thought a long time.

  “You can be whoever you want, Flip. That’s the fun of it. You get to make it up.”

  Flip thought some more, then said, “Little Red Rider?”

  “Sure boy. That’s fine. You can be Little Red Rider if you want. Now buckle yourself in.”

  On the way back through, after they filled the in-ground tanks at three different Sinclair stations, they had stopped at the Fifth Wheel Truck Stop and Flip had made an early dinner of a ham and cheese omelet. It was the first time he’d eaten an omelet, but Byron had assured him he’d like it. He hadn’t eaten anything else the whole day, except the trucker breakfast, so he was ravenous. It came to the table, buttery eggs overflowing the edges of a large plate. Flip ate every bite. Byron had said, “You did a man-sized job today and it gave you a man-sized appetite.” Flip still remembers it as the best meal he had in his whole damn life.

  When he takes the exit off the highway and drops down to the parking lot, he’s pleased to see the Fifth Wheel looks the same as at it did forty years earlier. He follows the signs to the four-wheeler parking area.

  Inside, a woman with an old face and a young body hustles him to a booth next to a window with a phone mounted to the wall at one end. She leaves him a pot of coffee and a plastic menu with every item illustrated with a full color picture, so n
o reading is required.

  He pours himself coffee, fixes it like he likes, clacks the spoon around inside the cup, and watches the cream swirl.

  When the woman returns, she says, “So what can I get you, honey?” He likes being called “honey.” He points to a picture on the menu and gives it a tap. She holds the pad close to her face when she writes, like she should be wearing glasses. “You want some juice or anything else, honey?” she asks.

  “No, thank you, ma’am.”

  On the day Byron pulled Flip out of school, he’d been wearing that watch, the one he left behind. A few years later, after Byron cut out, Flip found it in a dresser drawer and he stole it, hid it. He’d always pretended Byron had left it for him, a parting gift. But that was a lie he told himself, and he still chose to believe it.

  Flip thinks about Kev and hates that he gave that shithead his watch. For no good reason, it suddenly means a lot to him. If he lets himself, he feels a kind of affection or even love for his father. Maybe the reality of possibly losing his father is coloring his perspective. His father’s warped sense of honor, too, he finds endearing. Maybe his own impending death, or seeing Dylan’s tiny body bruised and helpless. Whatever the reason, he wants the watch back. If he’s going to kill himself, he wants to be wearing his father’s watch when he does it.

  “Okay, honey,” the woman says. She slides a plate with steak and two fried eggs in front of him, a side of wheat toast, and a two-egg, ham and cheese omelet on a second plate. “Can I get you anything else?” she asks.

  “I think that will do it.”

  He only eats about half his food, which is still more than enough to make him feel ill. The omelet tasted better in his memory.

  When he takes up the bill and fishes around in his pants for some cash, he realizes he’s out. He had tipped the Good China driver all of his cash. He leaves his last dress watch on the table. It ticks to 6:08 as he walks away.

  At the Drum Roaster, Flip orders a Nutty Professor from Thi, just because he has time to kill.

  “Make it to go,” he says.

  “Your wish is my command.”

  Flip pays with a card and hopes for the best. He’s surprised it goes through. Maybe Lynn put more money in the account for him, taking care of him. He watches Thi do his stuff at the espresso machine, mildly impressed. Two men in silver suits come in talking loudly about their latest cheap real estate acquisition, about how great the glut of foreclosures has been for them.

  “Be right with you,” Thi says. He slides Flip his drink. “Did you ever get a chance to . . .” he drops his voice very low and Flip leans over the counter a bit “. . . take your new purchase out for a test?”

  Flip leans back and says, “Today’s the day.”

  “Cool. Let me know how it goes,” Thi says.

  “If I get the chance,” Flip replies, “but I doubt I’ll be around for a while, Thi.”

  “Okay. Whenever you get a chance. Oh, hey. You want an apple? I bought a fresh bag yesterday.”

  “No thanks, Thi. I’m set.” He smacks the side of his belly like a bass drum.

  Flip finds himself parking in his own driveway. He turns off the car and takes his time sipping coffee. His back is sore again and he needs to pee. He takes the last two pain pills in his mouth, lets them rest on his tongue until the taste becomes bitter, then swallows them back with a little coffee. He’s proud that he timed it just right: he had just enough pills to get him through his last day. He thinks this demonstrates his inherently superior capacity for time and resource management. Those DynaTech bastards don’t know what they’re missing.

  He watches Kev’s parents leave for work, one after the other in their matching BMWs. Definitely lawyers. He leans over, pats around under the seat, and brings his hand out, his fingers wrapping around the cold grip of his Walther. When the coffee’s gone, he places the paper cup in its holder and turns it so he can read the words Drum Roaster printed around the side. He grabs the door handle and steps out of the car, closes the door, careful of the window. He sticks the gun in his waistband at his back and starts toward Kev’s house. As he passes along his car, he sees a box in the back and takes the time to carry it to his own front door, where he works the keys and goes in quietly.

  In the kitchen, which has been freshly wiped down, he unpacks the smiling pig cookie jar he picked up at Family Pawn. He sets it on the counter where the old one broke. It’s ugly, grotesque, and folksy, but a close match for the one he shattered. I owe Lynn that much. He stuffs the wrapping paper back in the box and returns it to his back seat.

  He strides straight to Kev’s front door and knocks hard. No response. He rings the bell, hears it chiming inside the house. Still nothing. He jabs the doorbell a few more times.

  To Flip’s way of thinking, it’s not possible Kev is already up and away doing something productive. Though he supposes he could still be out from the previous night. Maybe his band had a gig, but probably not on a Wednesday night. He tests the front door latch: locked.

  He’s determined not to leave without his father’s watch, so he goes around the side of the house, tests the sliding door off the deck. It slides open.

  “Hello?” he calls into the kitchen and closes the door behind him. The kitchen is large and impeccably tidy, with black lower cabinets and a matching island, stainless steel appliances, and marble countertops. I should have been an attorney.

  “Hello, Kev?” No answer. No movement. The place doesn’t feel lived-in, too clean, as if he’s broken into a model home. There is a creeping sensation of being the next victim in a horror movie: any moment a maniac with a machete might lunge out of the pantry and chop him into chunks, stuff him, piece by gory piece, down the fancy high-capacity waste disposal or into the high-end trash compacter. Of course, he knows better. He takes the gun out and holds it in his hand, just to be safe. Now I’m the dangerous maniac.

  “Kev,” he calls again at the bottom of the carpeted steps to the second floor landing. There’s no response and the house feels empty. The upstairs has been converted into a giant master suite, complete with His and Hers closets, sitting room, shower with luxury whirlpool Jacuzzi, and a separate steam room. The only other room on the floor is a dark paneled study.

  Back on the first floor, Flip passes a liquor cabinet and takes a squat bottle of Icelandic vodka. It looks expensive. The blue foil peels back easily and he balls it up and puts it in his front pocket. The vodka has a bulb-like cork, which takes some effort to pull out. He takes a mouthful and rolls it around, then swallows. It’s smooth and clean. It would be better cold. He takes another mouthful, pounds the cork back in, leaves the bottle on the kitchen counter, and continues his search for a door to the basement. He finds it at the back of the butler’s pantry, and calls down ahead of him, “Kev? You down there?”

  Flip starts down cautiously. As he nears the base of the stairs a body appears. Flip reflexively raises the gun.

  “Whoa whoa whoa, man. What the hell?” Kev says, throwing his hands up in surrender and squatting down a bit as if preparing to kneel or spring away. “Is that you, Mr. M?” He’s shirtless and in jeans that look as if he slept in them. Flip thinks he can see his heart fluttering in his pale, hairless chest.

  “It’s me.” Flip doesn’t move the gun away immediately. He just holds Kev there, enjoying the sense of power he wields over the kid. After a long moment, he lets the gun drop to his side.

  “Sorry to scare you,” Flip says, not sorry at all. “You kinda startled me.”

  “I startled you, man? How do you think I feel? What the hell you doing, creeping down my stairs with a gun?”

  “Oh. Sorry. Your folks let me in. I just dropped by to get my watch.”

  “Right on.” He drops his hands and straightens his body. “But what’s with the gun, Mr. Mellis?”

  “Oh. Don’t worry. I was just heading over to the new shooting range for some target practice. That’s all.” It’s a lame excuse, and he knows of no new shooting range, but Kev
seems satisfied.

  “Right on, man. Come on down and I’ll get it for ya. You got my cash?”

  “You bet,” Flip lies again.

  Kev reigns over an impressive, subterranean bachelor pad. The den has a wall-mounted flat screen, gaming system, pool table, wet bar, and a drum kit in one corner. An attached master suite with a beautifully remodeled bedroom is furnished with what Flip would bet is Kev’s parents’ previous king size bed, dresser, and matching floating side tables. Flip can see the expansive bathroom through the walk-in closet.

  “Wow, Kev. This beats the hell out of the Lakeside Motor Court.”

  “Right on, man,” he replies as he searches his dresser top for Flip’s watch. “My folks did all this in preparation for me moving out, after college. But I fooled them.” Kev chuckles a little at his own joke. “Here you go, man. Good as new.” He passes the watch over.

  Flip straps it on and checks the time. Almost time for my appointment with Dr. Dan. He jangles his arm and listens for the mechanical wrenching. He hears it and it gives him focus, like the presence of an old friend.

  This could be the room where Kev took advantage of his daughter. He imagines the sense of awe Sara might have felt when walking down into Kev’s kingdom. How impressed she would be, how attractive Kev would look. A cool, calculated rage starts to well up inside him, and this time, he lets it build.

  He switches the gun to his other hand and puts his fist up to bump it with Kev’s. The watch makes its mechanical sound and Flip pretends he is imbued with cyborg, super-human augmentations, like a character in a Gibson novel, or like he’s Lee Majors.

  “Thanks for looking after it,” he says.

  “Right on,” Kev says matter-of-factly.

  He wonders about the logistics of shooting Kev. He still has the gun out, so it would be easy enough. Would the sound be heard outside in the neighborhood? He supposes it would, because he can hear Kev’s drums from his own kitchen, next door. He looks around the bedroom, scopes a bong and some Zig-Zag papers. Then narrows in on the bed. Could the sound be muffled? Could he use one of those pillows? Yes, he decides, I could. If he shoots Kev, would he need to dispose of the body? Would he need to immediately shoot himself, or could that wait until finishing his appointment with Dr. Hawkins? Because he promised he’d be there. The longer he thinks about it, the heavier the gun feels, the more he wants to set it down. I don’t want to kill anyone, except myself.