Rocks in the Belly

by Jon Bauer

  I put the glass down harder than planned and eyes turn my way. I signal the waiter that I want a refill — staring down the other people having hushed conversations, drizzled sauce on their plates, knives and forks down while they chew.

  The other drink arrives and waiter-man takes the empty and gives me a look then waddles off again in his penguin outfit – takes up residence with the waitress hanging out at the barista machine, looking for a plate or a glass to empty like pickpockets scoping a crowd.

  I take a swig and think about the hospice. Despite the glossy pamphlet and its well-chosen adjectives, hospices are like those dirty plates of half-eaten food I can see back there waiting for the dishwasher. Hospices are where the unwanted leftovers sit congealing, until something picks them up and slides them into the bin.

  My mouth has gone a bit numb and my third drink is half empty. Or half full, depending. It’s all Patricia’s fault I’m sitting here thinking about these things.

  The name, Patricia. So nice. The ‘a’ at the end, rounding her off with this snobbish sounding ‘ah’. Partrishiaah. It’s sick is what it is. Why not Trish, Tricia? Anything that softens all that nicey-niceness out of it. But no, she introduced herself as Patrishaah. I bet she hates the shortenings.

  I order another drink and am beginning to wonder if there might be a slim chance I’m being stood up. I rearrange myself in my seat, getting my bits out from where they’ve slid under me — a nosy chick catching me rearranging but what can you do.

  The drink arrives and I make the waiter wait while I keep the empty glass held up to my mouth and have the ice bump against my lips again, those few drops of meltwater and vodka slipping into me.

  Vodka tastes like hairspray, let’s face it.

  I reluctantly give up the empty for my new fresh drink and watch as he saunters smoothly away, a snail on ice skates.

  I gulp some of my new drink then put it down on the other side of the table, far away. On a date with a drink.

  She’s LATE. Meanwhile therefore ipso facto I have to sit here thinking I should be at home with what’s left of my nemesis. Plus Trishy-poo’s retardiness is making me drunker so that I’ll be overdone when she finally deigns to arrive. Which means maybe she’s trying to get the upper hand.

  Sneaky wench.

  Right now I’m probably still just about al dente, alcoholically speaking, but I’m heading for overcooked.

  Al drunké.

  The more I think about it the more I realise she really probably is doing this on purpose. And I drink faster when I’m angry. Which makes me drunker. Which makes me angrier. Plus I’m getting a touch of hunger anger.

  I’m hangry.

  I put my drink down under my seat, smack my lips to wake them up a bit, swill some posh bubble water round my mouth instead. Straighten my clothing out again, my hair. Checking my collar covers the blemish.

  I go to get the drink from under my chair but stop myself.

  She should be here by now trying to choose her food and settle in while I babble urbane stuff at her so she has to nod and be gracious while not holding me up by taking her time deciding.

  It takes people a few minutes to actually arrive in a place so she’ll be saying things like, do you know what you want? Which is this code to make me stop talking/distracting/challenging her, and shut up and choose my food. But I’ll have already closed the menu having looked for only a few seconds. That’ll panic her more and she’ll be hurrying, seeing words but not being able to take them in: sole, wilted, seared, raspberry coulis, filet, blanched …

  You can judge a place by its adjectives.

  And yet she isn’t here, is she. And she should be. And I shouldn’t — my mum on her last legs at home.

  But I am, aren’t I. Here I am in search of comfort and approval. A prize dickhead sat here on his own with nothing but an enormous framed picture and a mobile phone for company. Everyone looking at me like I’m a ticking attaché case in an airport.

  Even my drink is staring at me from under my chair.

  Bugger-it. I reach down for the glass. When in Rome.

  You can judge a place by its adjectives. Open the menu and you know what you’re in for. If it’s one of those littered-with-adjectives menus where they can’t say simple words, they have to say feathered or tickled. Well, not either of those. The ones where it’s all, you know, stroked aromatic stuffed flowerettes, or whatever.

  That’s my drink finished again and I could cry, like I accidentally swallowed a long-lost friend. I miss my long-lost drink already.

  I put the phone to my ear and people are looking over at me on my own with an empty guess-who’s-been-stood-up seat in front of me.

  Menu adjectives are actually just a cover-up for a big kick in the balls when the bill comes. Let’s face it, adjectives replace good food.

  Or when you get your hair cut and they sit you down in one of those stupid straitjacket gowns — then it’s Can I offer you a free drink, sir?

  Free. Don’t make me laugh. So you sit there in your hairdresser straitjacket-garment thing and the drink-offering moment comes and I always just think, great. Whoo-fucking-pee — a shafting.

  One day I’m gonna say No I don’t want a drink thankyouverymuch and you can take it off the price, and while you’re at it you can stop looking at my arse.

  The door opens and in walks a couple.

  I try to click my fingers at the waiter. I give them a lick then do manage a click and waiter penguin-man looks at me but continues sashaying antarcticly over to suckle up to the new customers.

  I go to sip my friend but he’s still dead.

  My napkin is wedged between my legs in this tight sort of balled-up napkin rock. I always do this. Some people have their napkin flat and smooth when the meal’s over but mine is always like an old man’s ball sack.

  I try not to do that to my napkin because I know it’s this blatant metaphor for my psyche. I’ve tried to iron the habit out of myself but obviously I’ve failed.

  Today this is Trisha’s fault. I put my half-ironed-out scrunchedup napkin on her seat and steal the one from her side of the half-empty or half-full table — lay it elegantly in my soon to be shagged lap.

  The vodka taste makes me go for my drink again and the barista bunch see that and talk to each other with the sides of their mouths. Seems I am the main event tonight. The spectacle.

  I click my fingers at them again and wave them over. Waiter-man forgot me after he sat the couple down. Plus the man side of the couple is sitting there with his jumper draped over his shoulders. I hate that. Hate it. Put your jumper on or take it off. You’re not Batman.

  I wave at the penguins but they’re purposely not looking over here now. I wipe my lips with the back of my hand, bang a fist on the table and the cutlery jumps. Penguin looks at barista girl and she shrugs then launches off for an empty plate like a dog after a ball. Woof!

  My head feels like a Friday-night fairground.

  The waiter has his hair slicked back and a moustache — a caricature of himself. He oozes his way over towards my table and I imagine this trail of glisten left on the floor behind him, snail eyes poking up out of his hair.

  Here he is, a hand behind his slimy back, the other collecting my empty glass of hairspray. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to wait for your guest before ordering another, sir?’ He’s wearing the type of smile that leaves his eyes unchanged. ‘Or perhaps you’re hungry. I could arrange some bread and olive oil, or garlic bread. Something to tide you over?’

  ‘Perhaps you could arrange me a garlic fucking drink.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  I waft my comment away like a fart. ‘Doesn’t matter’ — hands in your lap, and sit up straighter. ‘Do I look like I couldn’t handle another drink?’

  ‘It’s not that, sir. I just thought you might be hungry, you’ve been waiting a long time.’ He gives me a knowing face as he says that.

  ‘I’m not being stood up, you know. I’m not! I am a little peckisshsh.
But I’m more thirsty than hungry. A drink, waiter-man, if you please.’

  ‘Leave it to me, sir,’ and he takes his slimy beetroots away.

  I handled that pretty bloody well.

  Just then the door opens and in comes the woman of the hour late. I go to stand, keeping my (her) nice ironed-flat napkin in my soon to be shagged lap, bumping the table a bit and a knife or fork or spoon clangs noisily on the floor for about an hour and a half.

  I sit again, not wanting to burst my bubble of slickness. Keep it cool. I pick up the knife. I’ve got about two hours to get her back to my place, check on Mum then, bingo.

  She’s looking a bit racy is Patrish. Hair done and a nice blouse thing on, a skirt, tights. Effortless effort. Little handheld handbag, big enough for a lipstick, which she’s not wearing, only lip gloss that makes her look like she’s been eating greasy chips on the way here.

  She leans down and I let her kiss my cheek. ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ she says, her perfume stroking me. And suddenly it’s fine that she’s late. It’s fine.

  She goes to sit down but picks up the balled-up napkin from her chair, holding it up between finger and thumb. I put my hand up close to my mouth to stage whisper, ‘They don’t run a very tight ship here. Shabby, very shabby.’

  Oozy the Penguin comes over and offers to take Pashrish’s coat but she declines, hands him the old man sack and he takes it from her like it’s a warm nappy.

  He gives me a particular look, then swaps my dropped knife for a clean one.

  ‘Trish, what you drinking? I’ve just ordered one.’

  The penguin gives me another, slightly different particular look while Patsy, still standing, tries to work out what she’s having.

  ‘What are you having?’ she says — that habit indecisive people have.

  ‘Hairspray.’

  ‘Er, I’ll pass on the hairspray I think. White wine — sauvignon blanc?’

  The penguin nods and backs away with the warm nappy. Meanwhile Trish sits her bits and pieces down and looks me over. I pull my collar in close against my vampired neck while she’s turned to the photographer’s big picture leant up against the wall by our table, then to me, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘Just pur-chased that, Tri — Patrishia. It’s art, apparently.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ She taps a manicured nail on my drink. ‘You’ve given yourself quite a head start.’

  ‘Tough day at the office.’

  ‘Oh, your mum. How is she?’

  While I tell her the bare minimum, Patricia is hanging her coat over the back of the seat and getting comfy. Like I said, people take a while to arrive.

  The drinks and menus come and we Cheers! then open them up to choose. I have a peek before snapping the menu closed and putting it down. I sit on my hands to refrain from drinking but my sore knuckles hurt and I need a hand free to keep checking my collar is hiding the love bite on my neck. Why do people do that? Hate it. Ugly.

  I give the other diners a smug look for thinking I was being stood up. Pah!

  My mobile phone has Home sitting on the screen and the callduration clock ticking up and up inside the darkened face. I put it on top of my thigh, imagining the phone’s radiation filling my body — Mum burning yet another hole in my heart.

  ‘What you laughing at?’ Patrish says.

  ‘Myself,’ I say, pulling myself together. ‘I’m laughing at myself,’ and wondering what other self-indulgent thoughts I don’t notice.

  I lift the phone so she can see it, charger lead and all. ‘In case Mum calls.’ I put it down on the table.

  I’m getting a bit of a sweat on, Pat talking about her day, me picking up the salient details of what she’s saying while trying not to get caught picking out the salient details of her. She looks good — saying something about the last few weeks of a course she has to do before she starts this new plush job. Neurophysysomething. Looking at brains.

  ‘… People who’ve had what your mum has, actually,’ she says, like we’re talking about the flu. The menu is open in front of her, my finger blocking the phone’s mouthpiece for a sec. She’s quite insensitive is Trish.

  ‘I see,’ I say and take a slug of drink and they’ve not given me a double but a single. Plus Batman over there still has his knitted cape on.

  ‘D’you already know what you want?’ she says, looking at me sat back trying not to down my drink. Then she’s mumbling to herself, looking at the menu — not reading it, just scanning the adjectives, freaking out.

  This cheers me up.

  Except my brain has started doing lazy forward rolls in my head, the room getting just a touch spinny. I check my collar, sit more firmly back in my seat, trying to inform my body I’m not spinning. I wish I was in her seat facing the wall instead of this whirlpool room. Plus waiter-man has got all five of his eyes on me. So has Patricia now.

  ‘You ok?’ she says from half a mile away.

  ‘Yeah. I’m good.’

  ‘What happened to your neck?’

  ‘Toilet,’ I say, stumbling to something approximating standing. ‘It’s a birthmark, Patrish. One of the ones that comes and goes. If the penguin comes can you order me …’ I look at my closed menu. ‘Order me … Shit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Forgotten … I’ll just have what you’re having?’

  ‘The caesar salad?’

  But I’m stood here looking at the second balled-up napkin I’m holding.

  I chuck it onto the table and lurch off in search of the toilet, my brain doing forward roll after forward roll in my skull.

  When you’re looking for the toilet in an unfamiliar establishment it’s genetically prohibited to stop and look round for it. You have to make an urgent, desperate stab, don’t you — keep walking at all costs. You say to yourself, that way looks the most toilety. Then you take a deep breath and hope for the best.

  I pass Batman and can’t resist tugging his jumper from his shoulders. ‘You dropped your cape, mate. Here, let me put it on the back of the chair for you.’ It takes a while to tuck it in between his back and the chair — waiter-man oozing closer, ready to pick up the pieces.

  I walk on. Don’t stop. Keep walking, keep walking.

  There’s the toilet door. Praise the Lord! And I’m through it and — outside the restaurant.

  Outside toilet?

  I head round the corner, up a cobbled little dead end and lean back against the wall.

  ‘Had too much,’ I say to the clouds, but I like the numbness.

  I should be at home. Plus Mum’s phone call and Patricia are sat in there at the table together. Bit early for her to be meeting the parents.

  I keep changing my posture to try and keep my head in the right spot. I put it against the brick and bang it a few times.

  Now my hand is rubbing at the back of my head, my stomach starting its squeezing. I swallow it all down. Taking deep breaths, thinking about Mum dying.

  And I’m thinking about grief. How frightening grief is because you don’t know how big it’s going to be. How swallowed whole it’s going to render you. I’m so scared of feelings.

  Leaning forward now, breathing, trying not to throw up. The nausea coming at me the way feelings come at you.

  And I’m thinking how much I love that there’s always suicide. Like a fire blanket on a kitchen wall, you never want to use it but it’s so important to me that suicide is there. Just in case. Something between me and being overwhelmed.

  The waiter shows up. Aren’t they supposed to wait.

  He hands me my mobile phone and charger. ‘I think it’s best you don’t come back in, sir, don’t you?’

  I breathe back the nausea. ‘No I happen not to think it’s best. I happen to be on a date with that Patrisha in there. I happen to think I have every right to come back in.’

  He shuffles on the spot. ‘I’d rather you didn’t though, sir.’

  ‘Stop calling me sir. And what’s it got to do with you whether I come in or not?’ />
  He scoffs. ‘Well, it’s my restaurant. I think I can decide.’

  ‘Bullshit it’s your restaurant.’

  ‘Well, I don’t own it but —’

  ‘No, you don’t own it.’

  He makes this tired face but something in him is heating up. You learn that working with criminals — with the dangerous. How to locate the little thread to pull, to unravel it all. But mostly it’s about knowing what to avoid.

  ‘You’re not allowed back in and that’s fucking final, sir.’

  Our bodies square to one another, our relative heights becoming apparent but Trish struggles up to us with the picture.

  I look at the waiter-penguin, then down at my phone lit up with # 9 on the screen from his clumsy bloody fins.

  ‘Whatever, Happy Feet. Whatever.’

  ‘What’s so bad about a bit of drunkenness?’ Patrish says as we’re meander-wandering down the street. ‘Did you tell him your mum was ill?’

  I shake my head. The lampposts are ruining the night with their orange, the street full of parked cars and expired meters. The photographer’s picture ungainly enough for a sober man, let alone al drunké here — Mum still hanging on the other end of the line despite the waiter’s clumsiness.

  ‘I bet he’d have a skin-full too if his mum was ill.’

  ‘I would’ve drunk less if you’d been on time,’ I say, giving her a smile, getting a gentle shoulder barge in reply that knocks me way off balance, my side steadying me against a wall. She emits a snort which she catches in her hand.

  ‘Still,’ she says eventually, ‘a few drinks isn’t criminal, is it.’

  I like her sticking up for me but I wonder if she would if she knew.

  ‘What about your dad? He still around?’

  I shake my head and look upwards. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Both my folks are still around. Still together. Sorry about your dad.’

  ‘Brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Only child.’

  ‘Same here, sort of.’

  ‘People think you get spoilt as an only child, don’t they,’ she says, becoming animated. ‘Rather than caught between your parents. What d’you mean sort of?’