Mick

by Chris Lynch

  Dad tromped through the kitchen, yanked open the refrigerator, pulled out a sixpack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and plopped into his seat. He had an entire fish cake in his mouth before he noticed there were new people around him. He stopped chewing.

  “Sully?” he said, half-greeting, half-question.

  “Hi,” Sully said, waving his fork.

  Dad then turned to Toy. Stared at him as he returned to chewing. Silently, he pulled a beer off the ring and offered it to Toy, who shook his head no. He passed one to me, one to Sully, one to Ma, and cracked one for himself, leaving two beside his plate.

  “He gets to have one on special occasions, when we have company,” Ma said to Toy, remembering how old I was, remembering we had witnesses.

  I leaned and whispered to Toy. “I get to have one when we have company. I get to have four when we don’t.”

  “Sir, you wear a hat at the dinner table?” Dad asked.

  Toy looked up, surprised. “No, sir, I don’t,” he said, and reached up for it.

  Sully and I were riveted. We stared as he removed the hat.

  There he was. He let the hat drop to the floor beside him and looked around the table, a sort of, go-ahead-take-it-all-in look on his face. So I did. He had a large, strong Roman nose, olivy skin that looked somehow whiter than mine against his dark shadow beard, all of which you could see even with the hat but looked so much different now. His hair was standing up, something between a light brown and a gray, and so kinky nothing like a comb could bother it. But the stunners, the magnets, were his eyes, black. Black like marbles, black. And huge. Wide and soft, like a deer’s eyes.

  It was the eyes. Toy didn’t like them, I realized. He tried to squint them, to harden them, but it was no use.

  My father, I noticed, was looking at Toy so hard that I knew something was going to come out. I wasn’t looking forward to it. He was gesturing, pointing with his finger and nodding like when you’re trying to guess the answer to something that you know but it just won’t come. He’s a very simple man, my father, and I was terrified about what he might say.

  “You a Greek?” Dad said.

  “No,” Toy said.

  My mother interrupted. “Would you like something else to drink, Toy?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You a Jew? You ain’t a Jew, are ya?”

  “Dad,” I popped. “Cut it out.”

  “What? I’m just askin’.”

  “That’s right, Hank,” Ma said. “Toy is all right whatever he is, even if he is Jewish. You’re not, are you?”

  “Jesus, parents,” I said. “It’s no wonder I never bring anybody here. Well, he ain’t tellin’ you what he is, so how do you like that?”

  “I’ll tell you what I am,” Toy said evenly. Everyone else shut right up to hear it. Yes, I was as curious as the rest of them.

  “I’m hungry, is what I am,” he said. He stopped looking anybody in the face, concentrated on his plate. He ate some, played with his food some. He spelled ASS with his fries. My father drank down a beer in two swallows, drank another. Passed my mother another. Saw he was down to none, pulled another ring from the fridge and stuck it under his chair. Sully asked for and received another beer. I ate, tried to angle my head occasionally to get Toy to look at me, but no use.

  Now what more could a party like this use?

  Terry stumbled through the front door with a crash. We all listened to him ricochet off the walls as he made his way down the hall.

  He didn’t have to ask. A beer made its way down the table to where Terry stared blankly at Sully, then at Toy.

  “Do I know you?” Terry asked.

  Toy barely turned his face up to respond. “No.”

  “I know you,” Terry repeated.

  “No, you don’t know me,” Toy answered with a deep chill on his voice.

  Terry tipped his head back, pouring the beer in, some of it overflowing and running out of the corners of his mouth.

  “I jus’ thought I knew you, tha’s all,” Terry slurred before getting up again. “Thangs, Ma, dinner was pissa.” He bounced back down the hall, slammed the door behind him.

  “At least he doesn’t bring none of his alky friends home with him,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t mind having alcoholics over for dinner,” Ma said, sincere and generous as ever. “They can be sweet sometimes, some of them. The only thing is that they never know when to leave.”

  “Hey, I can take a hint,” Sully said, and stood up. Ma laughed and pulled him back into his seat. “You’re a cutup,” she said.

  Dad finished his fourth beer and his tenth fish cake. Those two things turned him into a much more jovial guy than the one who first sat down. “Babe, you’re a delicious cook,” he said to my mother. He reached out, took her hand, and licked her arm. “Delicious cook,” he repeated, and laughed. Ma giggled like a kid.

  Toy burrowed into his plate like they were not even there. Dad yanked one more beer for himself. “Can I have that?” I asked, pointing to the last one dangling off the ring. I wanted to bash myself in the temple with it as much as I wanted to drink it. But I drank it, of course.

  “Come on, doll, we’re gonna be late,” Dad said, and he and Ma got up from the table. “Nice ta meet ya, kid,” he said, shaking Toy’s reluctant hand.

  “We work at night, at a place called the O’Asis,” Ma said. “Do you know it? Well anyway, we’re going to own it soon.”

  “Thank you for dinner, ma’am,” Toy said, standing as she stood.

  As soon as my parents had left the house, Toy reached down and grabbed his hat. He jammed it way down on his head, making his ears fold over.

  I didn’t know what to say. I would have felt a whole lot better if we found my dad with half-naked women draped all over him.

  Sully sauntered to the refrigerator for another beer, emboldened by the first two. I motioned for him to get me another one, is how I decided to approach this.

  “So, Toy,” Sul said. “Not that it really matters, but just to know, what are you, anyway?”

  I got a quiver. Sully had no natural feeling for this kind of thing, for dealing with people. Toy pushed back his chair, stood, put his palms flat on the table, leaned way across in Sully’s direction. “I’m a live human being,” he said in a scary low rasp. “And if you ask me that question one more time you’re going to be able to say you used to be one.”

  “I... I’ll just take this to go,” Sully said, raising the beer to us like a toast. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” And he ran.

  I was humiliated. I was ashamed of my friend. I was ashamed of my brother. I was ashamed of my parents, of my food, of the stupid “God Bless Our Humble Home” plaque hanging, grease-encrusted, over the washing machine. I gulped my beer.

  “Thank you for inviting me to your home,” Toy said.

  “They didn’t mean anything,” I said. “None of them. They just don’t know nothing.”

  He waved it off. “So, how’d you like my house?”

  I laughed because he made me feel better.

  That and the beer, loosened me. “Your ma isn’t around, I guess, huh?”

  Toy patted me on the shoulder. It was the first time he had ever touched me, a fact that I realized at the instant of contact.

  “The quiet one on the left was my ma,” he said.

  The Line in the Sand

  “I HEARD SOMETHIN’,” TERRY said, shaking me awake.

  “So, you heard something,” I said, slapping his hand away.

  He stood there over my bed, shaven, smelling of sweat and of everything he’d eaten and drunk the day before—knockwurst, onion rings, eggs, twelve different kinds of cheese, and, surprise, beer—ready for work in his baggy overalls and dark blue T-shirt with the pocket. Like a lot of other animals, Terry’s a creature of habit. Shaving every single morning, but not showering until nighttime, sometimes not till three A.M., even if he smelled like goats. And he never left the house without a pocket T-shirt. He has ten of them, different
colors.

  “Augie tells me he seen you wit a undesirable,” he said.

  I tried to roll back over. “Go to work, will ya, Terry.”

  He grabbed my shoulder and ripped me back. “Name of Toy. You know who I’m talkin’ about?”

  “What do you care who I hang out with? Get yourself a life, for chrissake.”

  He paused, the pause that’s supposed to mean he’s being patient with me, letting me get away with something wise but that I better not do it again. “Thing is, that you’re sorta my responsibility, lame or not, so I gotta look out for stuff, tell ya things. You’re lucky ta have me, y’know.”

  “I feel lucky,” I cracked. “I really do. I want you to tell me things, Terry. Tell me things like ‘Goodbye,’ or ‘Adios,’ or ‘Ciao,’ that would be nice.” I didn’t really care anymore what he thought, what he might do to me. I just wanted him the hell out of my room.

  He went all cool, half for dramatic effect, half because he had no idea how to handle backtalk. “Okay then, since neither one of us seems to have the time for this bullshit, let me just tell ya, Mick. Be careful who you spend your time with. It’s one a the important rules of hangin’ out: associatin’ with bad news is pretty much the same as bein’ bad news y’self. So even a innocent little shit like you can sometimes get a little a what we might call a spillover burn from bein’ a little too close to somebody who’s a little too hot. Knowatamean, boy?”

  He smiled, that rotten little goddamn yellow-tooth smile as he waited for me to react. I wanted to throw it in his face that he sat right across the table from Toy in his own house and he didn’t even figure it out. I wanted to ask him what his problem was with Toy anyhow, almost asked even, except I knew what a stupid question that would be. Did he need a reason? Did he ever need reason to start this kind of bullshit with somebody? No, the only thing that really stuck with me here, the only thing that seemed really different from anything before, was that my brother this time was threatening me. Not “I’m gonna break your head if you don’t shut up,” which he’d said and meant a million times before, not “Gimme five bucks, I’ll pay ya back when I’m good and ready,” not “... and don’t tell nobody what ya just seen or you’re a dead man,” which ended many of our conversations. No, this one was different. This one was the real one, because he was questioning whether I was on the team anymore—or if I was now the opposition. This one was the line in the sand, where if I crossed, there was no connection anymore, no responsibility, no rules, no limits. He was sort of giving me the opportunity to resign from being his brother, with all the stuff that would imply. Serious stuff.

  “Thank you,” I said evenly. “For the advice, I mean.”

  Terry left quietly, looking pleased, which meant he thought our conversation went a different way than I thought it went. He thought it went the way it always went before. His will be done.

  “Kiss me, Terry,” I said, making a loud smacking sound with my lips. “I’ll give you undesirable. I got your ‘whatcha might call spillover burn,’ right here, ya goddamn ape.”

  It felt good to say it. Kind of lifted me right up off the bed to hear myself. It would have been even better if Terry were still there to hear it. Next time, I promised myself. Next time he will be. He was there for the important part, though. The thank-you. I meant it when I said thank you to him. Because what he was telling me, it was almost as if somebody was telling me I was, or could be, who I wanted to be. Which, basically, was not Terry. God, I wanted to be not Terry.

  Kind of a hoot, after all, that the one to tell me was Terry himself.

  Toy didn’t think the story was nearly as funny as I did.

  “I don’t like anybody talking about me, good or bad, even mentioning my name, when I’m not there. Never liked it. Never liked it. Don’t want to know about it.”

  “Ya but it’s just my ignorant brother. He’s not as big shit as he thinks he is. You don’t take it seriously.”

  Toy shook his head, shook his hat. “Very seriously,” he said.

  “I think he’s right,” Sully said. “I think they mean business.”

  I leaned way over forward on my milk crate, looking past Toy to see Sul. We’d taken to hanging out in front of the store most afternoons now, me and Sul flanking Toy, crouched on milk crates, backs to the wall under the CHEAPEST MILK AND CIGARETTES IN TOWN sign. We smoked cigars like Toy did, chewed the occasional Slim Jim, talked for long stretches, played backgammon, and didn’t talk for long stretches. Just to do it, to be seen doing it, protected in our raunchy brown tobacco cloud.

  “What do you know, Sully?” I demanded.

  Like I said, Sully is no natural at reading people. So if he pipes in that he thinks Terry means something by his words, it’s because he’s heard something.

  “I heard something,” Sully said.

  “Cough it up,” I said.

  “Well, it was the last time Augie beat me up, last Tuesday or Wednesday. The stuff he was sayin’ when he was slapping me—he’s always sayin’ something when he’s slapping me, y’know, so it takes forever; I hate that.”

  “Sul?” I said, getting more anxious. I figured Toy was too, but he wasn’t showing a thing. Not even interest.

  “Oh, so he’s cuffin’ me, saying, ‘And next time I catch your ass, if you’re hangin’ wit’ that big Spaniel bastard, don’t go thinkin’ that’ll save ya, ’cause that’ll just mean you’re gonna get what he gets. And he’s got a muthuh party comin’. Take a note, little man.’ And you know, I couldn’t figure what big Spaniel bastard he coulda been talkin’ about that I would be hangin’ with, so I guess he must have just screwed up and meant Toy. ’Cause Toy is big, and he is a bastard.”

  Toy laughed at that, leaned his head back against the wall, making his hat go even further down over his face. I looked at him, looked for him to be nervous. But he wouldn’t show it. I turned back to Sully, who would.

  “Toy?” Sully asked cautiously. “Not for nothin’, you understand, but what if... say you knew something like that was gonna happen, like this afternoon?”

  “This afternoon?” I cut in.

  “Like, just suppose. What do you suppose you might do, if you knew?”

  Toy chewed on the cigar, rolling it around in his mouth a bit. “I guess I’d just do what I’m doing right now.” He shrugged.

  I couldn’t be that casual. “So, Sul, what are you gonna do?” I asked, kind of asking myself by asking him.

  Sully tilted his head sideways, looked off into space, like he hadn’t thought about it before. Then he returned with his answer, turning back to me and shrugging, with a simpleton smile. “Well, I’m here, ain’t I? That’s doing something, I think.”

  Toy reached over and smacked Sully lightly on the side of the head, laughing again. He was right. For Sully—not the moxiest ol’ boy around—staying to hang with Toy under the circumstances was something. Which seemed to leave only me with a crisis of nerve.

  “Maybe we should do something else for a change, y’know, not just hang out here on the same old sidewalk, in plain view, where everybody knows we’re here. ...How ’bout a movie? Or bowling, maybe.”

  “Take off if you want to, Mick,” Toy said. “I understand. It won’t bother me.”

  This was a problem for me. Toy just would not give it up, and now I was coming up even bigger chicken than Sully. Which was big chicken. “God, will you stop being so cool and collected all the time, Toy? I hate that. Doesn’t this stuff have any effect on you at all? Don’t you feel anything—”

  “Got a quarter?” Toy cut in.

  “Huh?”

  “For a phone call. I have no change.”

  “Goddamn it, Toy,” I said, hopping to my feet, waving my arms in front of him.

  He got up, stood toe to toe with me. Calmly but firmly he said, “I won’t discuss animals. I don’t care what they do. I won’t waste not one of my days thinking about them. I won’t.” He extended his palm for the coin.

  “I got it,” Sully said, fl
ipping the money up to Toy, who walked the few paces to the pay phone on the wall by the store entrance.

  “He’s a friggin’ cuke, ain’t he,” Sully asked as we both watched Toy.

  “He is? Since when have you been such a cool cucumber, being so stand-up after Augie warned you?”

  “Ya,” Sully said, nodding in amazement as if we were talking about some third party who was not himself, “where did that shit come from? Must be Toy. Something contagious about him.”

  Toy was waving me over to the phone. I went, as did Sully, who was not invited but never needed to be.

  “It’s for you,” Toy said, jamming the receiver into my hand. “Evelyn.”

  I froze, with the phone a foot away from my ear. Suddenly I was thirsty, as if an entire cylinder of Morton’s salt had been poured down my gullet. I was vaguely aware of Sully’s low laughter about a thousand miles behind me, and I heard myself making a scratchy throat-clearing sound.

  “Get on with it,” Toy said, reaching out and bending my arm for me to bring the phone to my ear.

  “Hello?” I said, though it was still ringing.

  “Hola,” the voice came on. My throat closed even tighter when I realized it was Evelyn’s brother, Ruben.

  “Ah, can I speak to Evelyn?”

  This was followed by a long silence.

  “Who is this?” he finally said suspiciously.

  I knew answering that question wouldn’t help. So I didn’t. “Could I please—”

  Click.

  I asked Toy for the number and Sully for the coin, and called right back before losing my newfound nerve.

  “Buenos días,” he said brightly, picking up on the first ring.

  “Hello, I’d like to speak to—”

  Click.

  Sully and Toy were all subdued smiles when I slammed the receiver down.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “I think maybe I can make you a little headway here,” said Toy. He took up the phone.

  “Hola,” he said after a short wait. “¿Es posible hablar a Evelyn, por favor? Sí. No, no se. ¿Mick? Hmmm, no, Mick no está conmigo. ¿Ella es allí? Maravilloso.”