The First

by Glen Kenner

-Sorry, no. Mr Smith, Mr Kingsley has invited you to dinner tonight. He has-

  -No.

  I hang up the phone. Fucking Kingsley. It rings again.

  -He has sent a car for you. It will be there in less than five minutes.

  -Fuck no.

  I hang up again. A no and a fuck no should do the job. Besides, I’m not home. The car can pull up and wait all night. I’ll just drop by Sammy’s and have a few beers and hope I don’t see Angie and her new man. Shit. I may need to find a new bar.

  I walk two more blocks, cut through one of the wide alleys, come out at the parking lot and walk to my truck. Just as I put my key in the door lock, a limo pulls up and stops behind my truck, blocking it in. Mother fucker. This better not be Kingsley. I will rip his arm off and beat him with it before I shove it up his goddamn blueblood ass.

  The passenger door opens and out steps Luca Agnelli, the owner of Luca’s, the priciest restaurant in town and apparently Kingsley’s favorite place to eat in St Louis. Only, I’ve been in St Louis since 1924 and I am not aware that Kingsley has ever visited.

  -Mr Agnelli, you are not at all as timid as your name would suggest.

  -You speak Italian, Mr Smith? Mr Kingsley didn’t tell me.

  -I haven’t spoken Italian in a very long time, Mr Agnelli. I’m sure the language has changed a bit. At any rate, if you could let the driver know to pull forward, I’ll just get in my truck and head home. I have some cheap beer and Chef Boyardee ravioli, the little fucking mini ones that I really love, waiting for me.

  -Ha! Mr Kingsley did tell me that you have a wonderful sense of humor. He was right! Please, get in the car and let me prepare you dinner tonight, Mr Smith. It would be my pleasure. I promise it will be as good as, perhaps even better than, your Chef Boyardee mini ravioli. Please?

  He steps around and opens the back door of the limo. Fuck. It would be nice to have a real meal. And I could never afford to eat at Luca’s on my own dime.

  -Kingsley is picking up the tab, right? I mean, I know your restaurant’s reputation and I’m sure it’s worth it, but I’m on a tight budget. If you put that check in front of me, I might have to dine and dash.

  -Oh, Mr Smith! Yes, yes. Tonight’s meal is compliments of Mr Kingsley.

  I walk around my truck and try to look like I am ok with this. I don’t want Luca to tell Kingsley I gave in and give him any satisfaction whatsoever.

  -Hey, Mr Agnelli.

  -Luca. Please call me Luca.

  -Luca, does Kingsley eat at your restaurant every time he’s in town?

  -I believe so, Mr Smith. Two or three times a year for the past five years, I would say.

  I step into the limo and sit back as Mr Agnelli - Luca - shuts the door. Fucking Kingsley. 15 times he’s been to St Louis without letting me know. Which is good, because I hate the bastard, but still. That fucker. And making Luca chauffeur me. What an ass. He must be doing alright in New York without me.

  Fucker.

  4 - Never Fight On A Full Stomach

  At Luca’s, Luca himself opens the limo door and then quickly walks up to the door to the restaurant to hold it open for me. I wonder what the reaction will be from the mingling rich waiting for their tables when they see the celebrated chef and owner himself open the door for a guy looking like me, maybe 20 years old, jeans, a free Cardinals t-shirt I got at a game sometime in the ‘80s, dirty slip-on Vans and no socks. Fuck socks. And then, when someone, maybe Luca himself, insists I wear a tie, because this is a tie-wearing required kind of place, I’ll throw a fit, absolutely refuse, and I’ll get kicked out. Maybe Kingsley will be forced to find a different place to dine when he visits town again, for the 16th time.

  I walk in with a shit-eating grin on my face to an empty lobby. Luca shoots around me, walks to the main dining area and points the way for me to enter. I do and it’s empty as well. Except at one table in the middle of the entire room.

  Kingsley.

  He stands up, not too quickly but probably faster than he meant to, and comes around the table and up to me. His buzz is right there, strong, and even though it’s hotly debated among Firsts whether our individual buzzes vary between each other, I think Kingsley’s sounds familiar to me, like I would recognize it if I was blindfolded and didn’t know he was standing right here. Right within my reach. He’s smiling as big as I’ve ever seen and it looks genuine.

  -Jonathan! Ah, Jonathan, I didn’t know if you’d come. Even when Luca called me to say he was on the way with you I thought, no, Jonathan will change his mind. He’ll get out when they pull up and walk away. Or he’ll simply open the door while at a stop light. Maybe he’ll just open the door and jump out on the highway and roll to safety! And hopefully not get hit by a car or two!

  Well, ain’t that fucking hilarious.

  -You… you had me run over the other night. On 40. You fucking bastard! You had me spied on and then run over. By a pickup truck! Doing fucking 70 miles an hour! I broke my fucking leg and ruined a good t-shirt!

  Kingsley shakes his head, the smile now gone.

  -No, Jonathan, I swear I didn’t. I had nothing to do with that, that, hit and run, or with this spying you keep mentioning. I swear to God, Jonathan. Your accident has been on the news all day. And now YouTube. You’re a local celebrity, even if no one has come forth with your identity.

  Luca has disappeared, it’s just me and Kingsley, and my instincts tell me to twist his neck, literally twist his neck and pop off his head, but I am so fucking confused.

  -Jonathan, please sit down. Look, sit down. I’ll show you.

  I can’t believe I sit down at the round table he has. It sits eight and he was sitting at it all by himself. And now I’ve joined him. Goddamnit. He pulls out a tablet with a fucking royal purple cover and a monogrammed K in gold and opens it, pulls up YouTube and shows me. There I am on Highway 40. A dash cam shows me airborne, flying from the far right side of the screen to the front of a small car that then hits me with it’s grill and sends me flying back right, like a human shuttlecock. One of my black and white Vans flies off screen in the opposite direction. The original video has been edited and it cuts to me right in front of the car again, this time, though blurry, you can see my face. It’s me. I look a bit shocked, my mouth set in a tight grimace. My hair still looks good, though. And I realize I’m wearing another Cardinals t-shirt, probably free from another game in the 80s.

  Damn the 80s were a good time to be a Cards fan.

  -Ok, so I got hit by a few cars. And you didn’t have anything to do with it, right? You just happen to come into town while someone is spying on me and trying to kill me with their pickup truck.

  -I’m innocent, Jonathan. I am. But apparently getting run over suits you. You look just fine. Let’s eat. I want to tell you why I’m in town. This is big. It’s important. And I need you to make it work. Alright?

  He waves and a waiter appears. I’m surprised it’s not Luca. Kingsley says nothing to the man, just nods toward me. The waiter then looks at me. I grab for the menu and have no idea what I’m looking at. Italian has changed since I lived in Rome. Shit. Fish, no. Uh…

  -Can you bring me some ravioli? Baked and toasted.

  -I’m sorry, Mr Smith. I’m the sommelier. Would the gentleman like some wine before dinner? I can suggest a red that would pair perfectly with beef. I assume you will have the steak?

  -Ah, yeah, no. No steak. How about a dessert wine? What’s the most expensive you have? You know what, I don’t care what it’s called. Or what it costs, obviously. Just bring the bottle. And I’ll be having pasta. Lots of pasta. Red and white sauce. Surprise me. And potatoes. Two or three kinds. All with garlic. I confess, I love the garlic. And no other waiters asking what I want, ok? Just the dessert wine. The bottle. With a ton of pasta, potatoes, and also plenty of fresh hot bread. Keep the bread coming all night. And the wine. Sound good?

  His face. I want to laugh out loud but it’s not his fault that he’s in this situation. So I hold it in. Poor guy. I look at K
ingsley and he shows no emotion at all. He’s harder to rattle.

  -So tell me what’s so important. We’ve got a little time before the food arrives. Because once it does, Kingsley, it’s going to have my attention. And once I’m stuffed, I’ll be all out of attention. Then it’s splitsville for Johnny. Hey, did the kids say splitsville in New York back in the 60s?

  -They did. In fact, I said it everyday myself. From ‘60 to ‘69, I was saying splitsville and groovy and getting freaked out with fine foxes all the livelong day. Alright, Jonathan? Can we be serious for just a bit, instead of playing games? I don’t remember you acting so flippant and sophomoric in New York. Can you pretend you’re in New York again and hear me out?

  Ah, fuck. I’m starting to lose it. And there it goes.

  -No, Kingsley, I fucking can’t fucking pretend I’m back in New fucking York. You know why? Because I’m never going back there again, not even in my fucking pretend imagination. So fuck you, fuck New fucking York and fuck the Mets. Not in that order. You, the Mets and then the city. Fuck you all. But not Lady Liberty. And not Central Park or the Brooklyn Bridge. Or the Met. Or Chinatown. Or Broadway. Or the natural history museum, whatever it’s called. And not the 9/11 Memorial obviously. Or the Freedom Tower. Really just you, the Mets, and most of Manhattan. Fuck all of you!

  Kingsley’s lips are smashed tight together and then they loosen a bit as he shifts his eyes to just behind me. The waiters appear. I guess they now know I’m not a Mets fan. The waiters bring first Kingsley’s steak, and then for me a plate of spaghetti alla puttanesca, a separate side of red roasted potatoes, and a long loaf of bread with a few slices cut and the knife on the board. Then a few small plates of butter and some spices that I don’t recognize and finally the sommelier with a bottle of light-colored wine and a large glass. It must pain him to serve it this way but I love it just the same. The food arrived so fast Luca must have had it waiting. I wonder what else he has ready back in the kitchen.

  We eat in silence, Kingsley cutting a piece of steak slowly and chewing it thoughtfully, taking just a few sips of water after three or four bites of steak. I eat like a man found lost at sea. After the spaghetti, a waiter appears with a ziti dish and then another spaghetti dish with small clams. More potatoes, mashed, baked and even fried, and plenty of bread. I finish the first bottle of wine and then a second and get through half of the third when it all suddenly hits.

  Ouch.

  I stop and let out a long low breath. Holy hell. I can’t remember the last time I ate like this. It certainly wasn’t in St Louis. I haven’t had the money in the last hundred years to eat this much food at one time.

  -I hope everyone enjoyed the meal?

  Luca is standing at the table between me and Kingsley. Kingsley tells him the steak was superb. Molto superbo. And then, as if I was his idiot brother, unable to speak in full sentences or use multisyllabic words, he answers for me as well.

  -Mr Smith enjoyed the food more than I have ever seen him enjoy a meal. And as I have known him for a very long time, and been his closest friend, that’s saying something.

  Luca seems genuinely happy. And then, as quickly as he had appeared, he steps back and is gone.

  -Jonathan, give me 20 minutes to show you why I needed to see you. Just 20 minutes.

  -Ten.

  -Fine. Ten.

  He puts his arm up a bit and waves his hand again, just the tips of his fingers actually, and two things happen at once. The waiters appear and remove all of the plates and glasses - though I grab the half-full bottle back and put it down in front of me - and three men in suits come from behind me and sit down in the chairs on either side. They’re not buzzing. And they’re too old anyway, the youngest, perhaps thirty with glasses, some wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and a bit of gray in his hair. The other two have to be ten years older than him.

  -These men are analysts. They are part of a team of nearly a hundred professionals, all dedicated to tracking and analyzing mothers who die in childbirth.

  He lets that sink in as if I will gasp. I don’t.

  -Through a company right here in St Louis, we run the software that gathers this data as either a stand-alone platform or as a simple plug-in to the healthcare software in 98% of hospitals and clinics in the country. Of course, we’re working hard for 100%. And then we’ll rapidly expand. Canada and Mexico, Europe, Central and South America, Africa and Asia. The world. We make it all free to the users and provide on-site training. It’s a considerable investment. Soon we’ll be able to marry another program that piggybacks onto the software used by law enforcement agencies.

  He’s getting excited now and his voice is speeding up. He would hate to know this.

  -This way we’ll be able to track reported rapes, knowing that many of the pregnancies that produce children that become Firsts are actually rapes by The Father, and create a single thread from rape to birth and then even pediatric visits.

  Now I gasp. More than fucking gasp. He’s still talking and I cut him off.

  -Kingsley, shut the fuck up.

  I look at him and then sideways glances at the men on either side of me.

  -You’re talking about… about-

  -It’s okay, Jonathan. The analysts know about us. And about The Father. They know.

  The three men are nodding their heads. They have binders out turned to pages of graphs and charts and columns of data. They know. Kingsley told a bunch of Thirds about us.

  -You have a team of a hundred Thirds that know everything?

  -Not everything. No. But enough. Enough to track the data that is produced each time an event occurs. A rape or a birth to a mother that dies during delivery. And ties them together in such a way that we can do several amazing things. Foremost, we can get to these children before First Death. Think about what that means!

  He’s excited again.

  -We can have professionals there to guide these children, to make them comfortable and console the family for the majority that don’t survive. By the way, you once told me, Jonathan, early on, that you thought 5 out of a 100 boys survived First Death. We have data, early data, limited from just a few years, that shows it’s less than 2 out of a 100. Just 1.8%. Imagine if, and this is way out there, way out in the future, but imagine if we can help boys survive. What if we can get it to that 5 out of a 100? Or 10? Or more. More Firsts are good for the rest of us. We can be open about who we-

  -Kingsley, you’re out of your fucking mind.

  I look at the analysts. I don’t know what they were expecting or what they do know. But I’m tired and I’m bloated and I want to go home.

  -You want more Firsts? Ok. Great. More Firsts like me? Huh? More tenth century Johnnys running around, strong and fast as fuck, eager for a fight and the taste, the literal taste, of blood? That’s what you want?

  -Jonathan, I understand. I do. I swear I do. But you’re thinking about the past when those days are long gone. If we get to the children before they even become Firsts, we can nurture them. Take them in, guide them. Love them. Did you have that?

  Ouch, you fucker. Why did he say that?

  -Sorry, we’ll never know your upbringing. But I didn’t have that. I was abandoned at that orphanage, starved, beaten…

  He looks down at the table. If this is an act, and it probably is, it’s good.

  -Raped. Repeatedly raped. Made to do things. You know. You found me in that god-forsaken alley and I was near death and even though I survived, for good or bad, you didn’t know that I would. You stayed with me, put your coat on me. You held my hand with your arm around my shoulders as I started to black out. I remember that. Do you?

  I just stare at him. His eyes are wet. Motherfucker.

  -I remember Kingsley. I comforted you. And you survived. Not because of me. Just because of Mother Nature’s whim. But yes, I remember.

  -And then you took me to an inn. Gave the keep a penny for me to stay. Bought me some meat stew and, the next day, found me a job cleaning out stables. That’s
what I want to make sure happens with the boys we identify who survive. Someone is there to help them. That’s it. You did that for me close to three hundred years ago. I want to do the same for kids today.

  We’re all quiet. Five minutes maybe. I don’t know. The analysts are simply afraid to speak. I can tell that. They know not to interrupt or upstage their boss. And I refuse to speak first. So we wait.

  -So I came here tonight and invited you to dinner to ask, will you help?

  -Do what? I can’t even figure out how to use my DVR. Every time I try, all I get is a different episode of Golden Girls. I don’t know shit about programs and platforms and all of this data in these binders.

  -No. Again, you’re making assumptions. You’re not trusting me with the big picture. Listen, let me tell you a story. Stay with me here. It starts off a bit dark. It wasn’t a good time for you. Or for me. But just listen. The day you left New York-

  Fuck. He better have a point here and get to it quick.

  -That day you left. I was on Fifth Avenue. I saw you pass by. I waved to you from the cab. I jumped out and waved and shouted out to you. I swore you heard me but you kept walking. I didn’t know what was wrong. I saw the crowd up ahead. There was a boy walking down the sidewalk, toward me, away from the crowd. A small African-American boy. Poor as possible. Rags for clothes. I called him over. He got scared. Thought I was going to beat him probably. But he also couldn’t refuse me, not a rich white man. He walked over. I put fifty cents in his hand and lifted his dirty chin up and faced him toward you as you walked toward Midtown. Follow that man, I said to him. Run and follow that man and come back here and tell me absolutely everything about where he goes and what he does. And there’ll be another fifty cents in it for you. Amazing how fast that boy took off. And so I waited. The police came in due time, and then a wagon. A woman from the crowd told me what happened. Who it was. I knew then why you were walking so intently, lost in your thoughts. When the boy got back, he told me you walked all the way to Grand Central. You went inside, to a window, bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. The boy glanced in your wallet the best he could and said you had at least eighty dollars on you. He had never seen so much money in his life. You then sat on a bench in the terminal and got up and walked onto the train when it arrived. You got on the third car and sat down and didn’t move. Just stared forward. Then the train pulled out and the boy ran back. Such detail, right? I hired that boy to run errands and he grew into a fine man that worked for me until the day he died. Literally, on the day he died. May 31st, 1983. Had a stroke minutes after he came into the office.