I pull the door closed just as Benoit turns into the living room, his head down. He’s carrying a rolled up Chicago Tribune, which he tosses onto the coffee table.
“What are you doing?” he asks when he finally looks up and finds me standing outside his bedroom door, flustered and short of breath.
“What are you doing?” I retort, finding it best to succumb to echolalia when confronted with questions I don’t want to answer.
“I was out having a coffee. Got the paper,” he says, pointing to it on the coffee table. “Thought you might want it before I throw it out.”
“Oh. Um, thanks.” I stride into the living room and make a huge gesture of stretching. “I, uh, just, um, woke up.”
“Yeah. I can see that,” he says, tapping a zippered pocket on the breast of his black tracksuit. Having confirmed it’s there, he pulls out a pack of Camel Lights and shakes out a cigarette.
“Benoit?” I say, incredulous.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“There’s no smoking in here.”
“Really?” he asks, flinging the white stick between his teeth.
“Really,” I tell him, crossing and uncrossing my arms. The morning light through the living room windows makes this a dreamy scene.
SSNNIP
He flicks his Bic lighter, holds the flame close to the cigarette, but doesn’t light it. Instead, he stops, aims his eyes upward at me, and says, “Why?”
“Well… for starters. It’s against the rules. This is a non-smoking building. All of it. No smoking inside. At all. It says so very clearly on the lease. Secondly, I wouldn’t allow it even if the lease hadn’t made it against the rules. It’s a disgusting, filthy habit.”
I sort of nod at him as if I just made a magnificent declaration that I’m proud to stand behind.
“You wouldn’t allow it?” he snickers. The flame goes out in the breath escaping his lips.
“Um… no?” I say then take a step backward even though we have the couch and about six feet of space already separating us.
Benoit pockets his lighter and puts the cigarette behind his ear, his eyes on me all the while. “Well, OK. Since you put it that way, Ian,” he says, and walks into his room, closes the door.
I wait in the living room a few minutes to see if he comes bursting out of his bedroom, red-faced and shaking papers in hand to ask me if I’d been sneaking around in his things. But, he remains calm in there. Quiet as a black-eyed lamb.
So, I proceed with making my morning cup of Barry’s Irish black tea, along with marble rye toast and marmalade. After smearing marmalade on my toast, I smell smoke. Inspecting the toaster, I see nothing is burning. I check the burner on the stove beneath the kettle, and all’s clear there as well.
Flustered, I stomp as loudly as I can muster to Benoit’s door.
“Benoit?” I ask through a tight jaw.
“Yeah?” he says from behind the closed door.
“What is that I smell?”
“I don’t know, Ian.”
“Are you smoking in your room not ten minutes after I just told you it was against the rules?” I snap, my nose two inches from the door.
Silence.
Then, more silence.
“Benoit?” I say as sternly as I’m capable.
“No,” he says.
“No?”
“No, I’m not smoking in here, Ian.”
I sniff the air like a bloodhound. “But I can smell it, Benoit!”
The door flings open, a cloud of smoke billows past me, and Benoit stands there, one hand on the door, the other on the door jamb.
“No one’s smoking in here, Ian. Like I said,” he tells me, his eyes as dark as the stubble forming on his face and his shaved head.
“But, I can smell it! A cloud of smoke just escaped your room!” I say, taking a half step back.
“You’re imagining things,” Benoit utters, stares at me for two seconds as if waiting for another response, then shakes his head and closes the door.
I storm back into the narrow kitchen, my breath short and quick, and pick up my plate of toast and marmalade, and toss that into the trash bin. Then I fling the tea down the drain and the teacup slips from my grasp and shatters in the sink. I place both hands against the counter and just try to catch my breath and keep myself from crying.
CHAPTER 6.
I meet my friends usually once a week on Wednesdays after work at this little café on the corner of Broadway and Cornelia that’s a few blocks from my apartment. Wednesday couldn’t come at a better time as I’ve been feeling down in the dumps since that last altercation with Benoit. You see, I really needed to talk it out—to explain to Benoit that I felt disrespected and lied to, and that I simply would not allow that (this was how I worded it for Madelyn). This way I can at least attempt to convince myself (when Madelyn isn’t poking around in my head) that I would have stood up for myself and told Benoit how things are going to be from now on—how they need to be. But Benoit has been absent the past few days, and, anyway, I have to admit to myself that if he had been around I likely would have remained silent and brooded and hated myself (Madelyn told me to be honest with myself).
So, I really need my friends right now, and for the past few years we’ve missed our Wednesday meetups only a handful of times—usually due to work or Comic-Con.
I get off the Red Line at Addison, bumping shoulders with Chicago’s friendliest, and stroll anxiously down the busy street beyond Wrigley Field and past brick houses until I turn onto Broadway and find my coffee shop, Latte A Lot. Walking through the glass doors I find the place mostly empty. There’s wood floors, round white tables, and a white counter the baristas work behind. Lots of early evening light comes in through the big windows, and I like to grab a table near them so I can watch the light disintegrate and people pass by on the sidewalk outside.
Grabbing an empty table, I set my shoulder bag down and approach the counter. The baristas know me by now and often will have my caramel macchiato in the works the second they spot me coming in.
With my giant blue mug of macchiato in hand, I sit at my table, wait for the beverage to cool, and take a few deep breaths, trying to garner an upbeat attitude for the sake of my friends. I look at my watch. It’s five minutes to seven. I’m here alone at the moment, but in five minutes I won’t be. In the meantime, I fire up my MacBook Air and intermittently blow across the foam of my macchiato knowing I’m doing little to alter its temperature. I also do a little people watching because I find the crowd so fascinating. There’s the yoga-pants mom bowling over pedestrians with her SUV-sized stroller, the mustachioed hipster looking smug, polite but filthy panhandlers, school kids, well-dressed and stressed professionals, and club-going homosexuals in three-hundred-dollar white pants, platform shoes, and skin-tight tops.
DING-DONG
It’s Captain Stephen Peacock. He’s always first. And he’s prideful about getting the first word.
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK has joined your private room, American BBC Fanatics.
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: Fancy seeing you here, James.
JAMES HERIOT: Well, Cpt. P., after a long day of saving the lives of creatures great and small, I needed a bit of respite and to enjoy a beverage with friends.
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: Hear hear! Walking the floor, directing the staff of that wretched department store, I must get away for a bit and unwind.
JAMES HERIOT: Where are you now?
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: At the pub, of course, enjoying a dry sherry. You, of course, are at your café uselessly blowing on your extra-hot caramel macchiato.
VYVYAN BASTERD has joined your private room, American BBC Fanatics.
JAMES HERIOT: LOL, Captain P.! You got me there!
VYVYAN BASTERD: Oye, nice to see you boring pricks here, on time, as punctual and ordinary as usual!
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: Vyvyan, hello!
JAMES HERIOT: Hey there, you ol’ basterd! Good to see ya!
VYVYAN BASTERD
: So, what’s the topic today? Where are the other two?
JAMES HERIOT: Taking cue from you, Vyvyan, and being fashionably late, it would appear.
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: Yes, we should wait for the truants to show up before spinning our yarns.
JAMES HERIOT: Good call.
VYVYAN BASTERD: Boy, you two really are a terrific pair of nerds.
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACKOCK: Pot calling the kettle black!
JAMES HERIOT: That’s the pot calling the kettle black!
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: LOL! Beat ya!
JAMES HERIOT: Damn! You beat me!
JAMES HERIOT: Damn! You beat me again!
VYVYAN BASTERD: Case in point, you proles.
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: You owe me a Coke, btw, James.
JAMES HERIOT: Sure thing, CSP, if we ever meet in person, you have my word—one Coke coming up!
CAPTAIN JACK has joined your private room, American BBC Fanatics.
CAPTAIN JACK: Oh, come now, when are we ever going to meet in person? We’ve been doing this for what, now? Three years? I don’t even know any of your real names.
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: And indeed you never will, Captain Jack! What would be the point of that? And while we’re on the topic of names I’d like to point out that having TWO captains in our group is beyond preposterous!
CAPTAIN JACK: Oh, are we really going there again?
JAMES HERIOT: O Captains! My Captains!
VYVYAN BASTERD: Careful now. Let’s not get too gay here.
CAPTAIN JACK: LOL! If I could get any gayer…
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: Speaking of. How’s your courting of David Tennant going, Captain Jack?
CAPTAIN JACK: Don’t even get me started.
DAVE LISTER has joined your private room, American BBC Fanatics.
CAPTAIN JACK: You have a problem with me, Peacock, but I’ve never heard you complain once about Mr. Dave Lister.
DAVE LISTER: Aye, and he never will! I’m too loveable!
CAPTAIN JACK: You are! But even though you’re technically a technician, you’re really a captain, by default, and yet this one’s always got a stick up his bum about not being the only captain in our friendly crew.
DAVE LISTER: Sue him for being a homophobe, Captain Jack. That’ll show him!
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: Hey! I’m not a homophobe!
JAMES HERIOT: Of course you aren’t, Peacock. Now, should we get on with business?
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: Yes. And thanks, James.
DAVE LISTER: Sure.
CAPTAIN JACK: Yep.
VYVYAN BASTERD: Carry on, you cunts.
JAMES HERIOT: OK if I go first? I’ve got a doozy.
CAPTAIN JACK: By all means.
VYVYAN BASTERD: Shoot.
CAPTAIN STEPHEN PEACOCK: Speak your mind, son.
DAVE LISTER: I’ll turn down the warp drive so I’ll have the time to hear you out, young James.
And so I let them all know about my new roommate and I mention something for the first time that I hadn’t fully realized yet: That I’m truly scared of Benoit. That I don’t know why I let him move in. And that I don’t even know my roommate’s last name.
CHAPTER 7.
“Goaaalllllllllllll!” Benoit howls, seated next to me on the couch.
I set down my controller, take a sip from the can of Old Style Benoit gave me, and feign that I’m let down by my shoddy defense.
I came home tonight to find Benoit playing my PlayStation. He was playing FIFA 16 almost one-handed as he used the other hand to pick up his cigarette or can of beer in a continuous tradeoff. When I came in, he stabbed the smoke out in a bit of cupped tinfoil set on the coffee table and apologized—said he forgot already there was no smoking in the apartment. He told me he has a terrible memory, and that I can rest assured he is not lying about that. I set my keys in the bowl and was about to make a beeline for my room without saying a word to him, but he paused his game and held out the other controller to me. I stared blankly at him, empowered by the words of my friends who encouraged me to stand up for myself only twenty or so minutes prior. Vyvyan went so far as to tell me to kick him out this very evening, and that if Benoit put up any fight all I would need to do is call property management since he isn’t on the lease. Or the police, of course.
However, I took the controller from him and he apologized for the other night. He told me he’s been having a rough time of it lately—what with the recent breakup and the limbo he’s found himself in regarding a permanent residence. He said that he’s forgotten a few things—one being that he has a permanent residence now, thanks to me; and, two, that he had already promised himself to forget all about his ex, which should be easy enough, he said, knocking on the side of his skull, given his terribly memory.
I never play FIFA. I only have it because it’s a best seller and I wanted to see what all the buzz over the last several years has been about. I still don’t get it. It’s just a sports game. Nothing special. Sports games are so prosaic. There’s no story, no plot, no character development, and no new obstacles to overcome once you’ve mastered the rudimentary skills needed in order to pass, dribble, and shoot.
I’m pretty sure those that play video games just for the sports games are half-retarded but I didn’t tell this to Benoit. I almost suggested he take the stupid game out and put Halo in so we could team up and play others online, but he seemed determined to get in a game of FIFA with me and I have to admit I was touched he wanted to, so I sat down and spent the next five minutes trying to find the best team to play with. Benoit laughed. He said I’m supposed to play with the local team, the Chicago Fire (I thought that was a TV show), and that he’d play with the team he grew up following, FC Barcelona, as there was no professional soccer team from his hometown of Buffalo. He said there was an old man his father knew that used to play for Barcelona in the 40s, and that old man would tell them stories. It was well before cable in the States started showing soccer, so watching games was impossible, but the old man was able to finagle a CB radio somehow so that they could listen to games that way. He said the old man and his father would sit around and listen to games, which the old man would have to translate since neither Benoit nor his father spoke Spanish, which, of course, was the language of FC Barcelona game broadcasts.
Though I appreciated this little story, feeling that Benoit was opening up to me in a friendly fashion, I nearly protested his team choice since FIFA rated them eighty-five and mine a paltry sixty-four. It seemed hardly fair, but then perhaps it was best to have a friendly game, and one in which Benoit can win handedly. It seemed the right thing to do in order to keep this newfound comradery copasetic. I felt something like a compulsion, actually, to do whatever it took to keep the peace.
I suddenly found it very important that Benoit like me.
“Goaaalllllllllllll!” Benoit howls right in my ear once more, then he performs some trickery on the controller and makes his player do a backflip and perform a gesture like he’s firing guns up into the air.
“I… I didn’t know you could make your players do that after a goal,” I say, feeling mystified.
“Yeah. It’s a great game. Lots of little tricks and secrets,” he says, crushing his can and reaching down into the twelve-pack set beside the couch. He pulls out another beer and cracks it open, but before he puts it to his lips he checks my can on the table, shaking it, and finds it empty, so, he hands me the freshly opened beer and digs himself out another.
“I don’t know if I should have a third beer,” I tell him.
“Why the fuck not?” he scoffs.
“I’ve got work tomorrow.”
“And that means you can’t have three lousy cans of beer?” he says, returning his attention to the game.
I pick up the beer and take a giant gulp from it.
“Whoa whoa whoa there, sport.” Benoit slaps me on the back as I begin coughing, having drank too fast. “I didn’t say you had to shotgun the damn beer.”
“
I know,” I tell him, wiping my mouth with the back of my forearm. “I’m just so… thirsty?”
“Don’t worry about that. There’s another twelver in the fridge if we polish this one off,” he says, twisting his controller, his dark eyes targeting the screen, his fingers darting all over the buttons.
“Oh. OK, then. Cool.”
“You don’t drink very much, do you, Ian?” Benoit says over a soundtrack of buttons clicking and digital people kicking, chanting, shouting, and cheering.
“Uh… I like the occasional chardonnay.”
Benoit snickers.
“What?”
“Chardonnay? Come on, man. When’s the last time you had a whiskey?”
“I… uh…”
“You don’t go out very much either, do you?”
“I was just out this evening!” I protest, looking between the TV and the side of his face. He’s not looking at me. That’s when I notice a jagged scar behind his left ear and another faint scar just under his jaw and down his neck. It’s only an inch or so long, but if it were any longer it would reach his jugular.
“Yeah, I noticed that. Figured you were stuck late at work. What were you doing?”
Sirens twirl down the streets outside.
Y Is for Fidelity Page 4
