by Mark Fishman
He spun around, looked up and down and left and right and didn’t see them. He didn’t see Burnett. He didn’t see the woman. He wanted to shout Angela’s name at the crowd moving along the sidewalk. He wanted to smash Burnett’s face with his fists. He wanted all of it to be finished. Finally, he wanted a cigarette.
He lit a cigarette, all the time looking at the faces of the people walking past him. He took a slow pull at the cigarette. The smoke seeped from the corners of his mouth. He smiled dimly and thought: There’s nothing like tobacco to steady the nerves. He stood there with the cigarette in his hand and all of a sudden he didn’t feel anything. He flung the cigarette to the pavement.
Pohl recognized Burnett’s suit and the woman staggering alongside the suit on drunken legs, bumping into the man wearing it, skating out toward an oncoming pedestrian and swinging wide and back into the grasp of Burnett’s hand. Now it was like Pohl had fallen into a hole and it was not completely black in the hole because a light was shining ahead of him and he thought that if he could just reach that light he’d at last find Angela.
He moved forward quietly and carefully. He told himself to keep it that way even though there was so much noise from the traffic and the chatter of people’s conversations and the music that spilled out of a bar, so much noise that nothing could draw attention to him. He gathered his confidence, trying to get in stride again. He followed them, slowly at first, then picking up speed because he was afraid of losing them. They rounded a corner off Jackson, and he was right behind them.
[ 46 ]
Aoyama’s legs carried him away from the diner where he’d stopped for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. He moved along the sidewalk, hopped over a low rosebush and turned the corner. What he’d just read in the newspaper about the mayor didn’t make sense to him. How could somebody be so stupid? But nothing made sense to him from the moment he’d entered the house with the woman wearing plum-colored underwear. It was the third day, but not the third day in a row that he’d gone out to bear witness to the excessive behavior of local citizens.
It seemed to him that the whole population of the city had prescribed itself a dose of self-gratification and was busy indulging in a variety of pleasures without any limits. That was all he could make of it because he came to a chain link fence sagging in places with a few of its posts missing that surrounded a backyard of dried-out grass and a messy garden with more weeds than flowers.
Standing on the sidewalk, he leaned forward against the fence with his neck stretched out looking at the rear entrance of a two-story house. The dried-out grass went right up to the first step leading to the ravaged screen door. His eyes went to a table standing on a patch of dry earth surrounded by grass that looked like wispy strands of hair. A fat man came out of the house through the screen door and headed for the table carrying a plate fully loaded with sliced meat. The screen door slammed shut behind him.
The man’s legs were short, he wore loose-fitting cotton trousers and a wide, colorful shirt that stuck out over his big belly. His neck was thick and the thickness of it didn’t let him move his head easily to the left or right, up or down. He was looking straight ahead now at his destination.
There was a lot of concentration on the fat man’s face and it was the concentration of a clumsy man with a lot at risk, a heavy loss waiting for him if he stumbled and dropped the plate. When he got to his destination he put the plate of sliced roast beef on the tabletop, turned and went back into the house through the screen door.
Aoyama heard the clatter of pots and pans, dishes and silverware, then the fat man switched on music and the music swam out of the house into the garden. The fat man came out again, this time with a plate of roast chicken and grilled sausages. His eyes darted from left to right looking for anything that might trip him up. He made it safely to the table. Aoyama crossed his ankles, watching him.
The next time he came out it was with a platter of steamed, mixed vegetables. Latin music played from within the house, following the fat man into the backyard. Aoyama sighed. The atmosphere was calm and soft and amiable.
The fat man went back into the house and a minute later came out with an assortment of sauces and three glass covers for plates and platter. His body moved freely now that the table was successfully laid out with food and the possibility of losing any of it before he could get his knife, fork and spoon into his meal was gone. He headed for the table. His fat jiggled under the wide shirt. He stumbled and almost dropped what he was carrying when he saw Aoyama watching him from the other side of the fence with elbows resting between posts and hands clasped. Aoyama smiled dimly, sort of sadly. Then the smile faded.
The fat man was still on his feet. His mouth spread nervously into a smile. He put the condiments on the table, covered the dishes, and walked slowly, as fast as he could walk, to where Aoyama was standing. When he got to the fence he extended his thick arms, and his thick hands delicately grasped the fence that would have buckled under the weight of him if he’d leaned on it. Aoyama was not going to take a chance with the fat man. He moved cautiously away from the fence. The fat man grinned pleasantly at him.
“It does look good, doesn’t it?” the fat man said.
“Well, yes,” Aoyama said calmly. “It looks good, and it’s a lot of food, too.”
“When you’ve got an appetite like mine the sky’s the limit,” he said with a smile.
He was grinning at Aoyama, but the grin told him not to fool around.
Aoyama couldn’t keep the words from coming out of his mouth. “I can see that,” he said.
The fat man frowned. “No discussion. Just accept it as a fact.”
“Of course,” Aoyama said. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Nobody ever does,” the fat man said, “but they say it anyway.” His fatty arms hung loose at his sides as he gazed at Aoyama, then squinted questioningly at him.
“It hurts when they say it?”
“Not for long.” The fat man winced.
Then he leaned forward and said: “What do you think?”
“Yes, yes, I guess it hurts.”
A dog started barking.
“Well?”
“Now look — ,” he said to the fat man, leaning forward with his hands on the edge of the fence.
The fat man opened his mouth, realized there was nothing to say, and snapped it shut. He was impatient to get to his food while it was hot. Every second or so he glanced at the tabletop covered with plates of chicken and sausages, roast beef and vegetables.
“I’ve got eating to do,” he said at last. “Want to join me?”
Aoyama took a few steps backward and made a running jump over the fence. He landed on his feet. It was hard to focus his eyes, he blinked several times to make the spots go away. He laughed but no sound came out, then saw the fat man pushing two chairs up to the table.
By the time he got to the empty chair the fat man was already sitting down and serving himself from the plate of juicy rare roast beef, spearing a few slices with his fork and setting them gently on his plate. He heaped the plate with vegetables.
Aoyama waited until the fat man was chewing a piece of meat before he said anything.
“How long have you been at it?” he asked, pointing at the plates of food.
“You can tell from the size of me,” the fat man said. “A long time, such a long time that I’ve lost count.”
“Why do you do it?”
“It makes me feel good, what do you think? I love food, and it gives me pleasure to eat like a pig.”
He gracefully cut another bite from a slice of roast beef, gathered some vegetables, and before he put it all in his mouth he said: “And I sleep good after I eat.”
“Well, that’s something,” Aoyama confirmed. “I don’t sleep very well.”
The fat man chewed slowly, savoring the taste.
“But your health. Don’t you suffer from eating all that food?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“I’m sorry,” Aoyama murmured. “I shouldn’t have put it that way.”
“What?”
“I’m bothering you.”
“Yes, you’re bothering me,” the fat man said. “I don’t like stupid questions and you’re up to your eyes in them. And I don’t like being treated like a child.”
“I’m not treating you like a child,” Aoyama said sincerely. “I’m just curious. I want to know more about something I don’t know very much about.”
“You’re twisting my head into knots with your questions when all I want to do is eat,” the fat man explained calmly. “We won’t talk about it.”
“We aren’t talking,” Aoyama assured him.
“It’s a personal matter and it shouldn’t be the topic of discussion.”
“That’s all right with me.”
The fat man plunged his fork into a sausage, cut a piece and put it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed.
“Not up to it?” he asked, his mouth empty.
“What?” Aoyama said.
“An argument.” The fat man, smiling, lifted a chicken breast from the plate and put it in front of him next to three-quarters of a sausage, a slice of roast beef, vegetables. He covered the plate of chicken.
“What do you mean, an argument? I’m your guest at the table and I didn’t ask you for anything to eat, you offered it, and now you’re asking me if I want an argument. I think you’re way off. I think there’s a problem and I know it isn’t just the food.” Aoyama frowned. “I won’t argue with you.”
“Okay. If I want to look back and examine the record, I’ll see that wanting to argue is an old habit like all the other old habits, like eating more than my stomach can hold,” the fat man said. “But I can’t do that, I can’t afford to look back. If I do, I’ll require another meal right away, a great many meals. And that isn’t going to change a thing. So let’s put it aside.”
“Now I want to try the roast beef and vegetables,” Aoyama said politely.
The fat man served him a few slices of roast beef and a helping of steamed vegetables. They ate in silence. The sky wasn’t overcast, it was pale blue, the air was pleasantly mild and birdsong punctuated the city sounds that came into the garden.
It wasn’t the time to be sitting with a stranger and eating a meal, but Aoyama told himself that he’d have to eat a decent meal sooner or later since he wouldn’t get a chance to sit down to eat at the proper time, and here was the opportunity, right in front of him, and he might as well eat now, because the truth was that even though he might be sleepy after a meal he was going to have a lot more energy and concentration for the night. And the fat man was really a very good cook. Then the words were coming out of his mouth again and he couldn’t stop himself from saying them.
“I was just wondering why you do it?” he asked.
The fat man stopped chewing and stared at him, pulling a particular face that gave his expression of exasperation a kind of sadness mingled with a pleading to be understood.
“Can’t you see what you’re doing?” the fat man said. “You’re forcing me to talk about things I don’t want to talk about. With my mouth full.”
Aoyama rested his knife and fork on his plate.
The fat man’s eyes narrowed as he went on: “You told me there wouldn’t be any talk at all. You’ve been doing a lot of talking.”
“I apologize.”
“You might’ve ruined my meal. But lucky for you, you haven’t, my chatty friend.”
Aoyama didn’t say anything. His head was lowered and he pressed his knuckles against his chin. Then he looked up and let out a sigh.
The fat man’s eyes were fixed on Aoyama but his hands went to work on the sausages and a piece of chicken. He pushed the fork into two grilled sausages and then another chicken breast and dropped them ceremoniously on his plate next to the remaining vegetables. He lifted the cover off the plate of roast beef and served himself two juicy slices. The knife and fork were nimble extensions of his fingers. He put a forkful of vegetables and chicken in his mouth.
Aoyama let out another sigh. And then, his voice low, he said: “Do you mind if I get myself a drink?”
The fat man swallowed. “Through the screen door, into the kitchen, on the right, in the fridge. Whatever’s in there, you’re welcome to it.”
“And you?”
“A beer, and an ice-cold glass.”
“An ice-cold glass,” Aoyama said, smiling.
“Yes.”
“In the fridge?”
“In the fridge.”
Aoyama got up from the table, walked to the screen door, opened it and went into the house, without letting the door slam shut behind him.
The fat man went on eating, scooping up vegetables and cutting a piece of roast beef and taking a bite of grilled sausage and carving a slice of chicken and pushing it in with everything else. As he chewed and swallowed, the mouthful of food charged into his body with electric-wild voltage. He was high as a kite.
Aoyama came back to the table with a glass of sparkling water, a cold beer, a chilled glass and a bottle opener. He opened the bottle for the fat man, poured beer into the glass leaving a frothy head, put the bottle next to the glass. He stood behind the fat man and watched over his shoulder as he went on eating.
“Thank you,” the fat man said without turning around. “You see how it is?”
“Yes, I see how it is.” Aoyama said. “I really see how it is.” He sat down, put the glass in front of him, started again with his meal.
They ate in silence. The sky was still blue and the temperature of the air was still mild. A slight breeze swayed the branches of trees. There was the pleasant sound of cutlery against the surface of porcelain dishes.
The fat man looked at Aoyama. “You know what I think? No, I guess you don’t,” he said. “I think you’re good.”
Aoyama looked up from his plate. “Good?”
The fat man took another mouthful of chicken and vegetables, and after he was done chewing he said: “You always were and you always will be. I can see that as plain as day.”
“What does that mean?”
“A man who’s not bad,” the fat man said.
“And what’s that got to do with anything?”
“I don’t know,” the fat man said, filling his plate with food. “I don’t have the least idea except that I know it. Really, a conviction. That’s one of the disadvantages.”
“Of what?”
“Of saying what you’re thinking when you’re eating.”
“Why?”
“You can’t always explain it, that’s why.”
“I guess not,” Aoyama said, finishing his meal.
He kept his eyes on the fat man and didn’t say anything more even though he wanted very much to understand what the fat man meant by what he’d said, and yet something told him not to pursue it, not to take it any further because he’d find out more than he really wanted to know.
He picked up the glass of sparkling water and drank from it. He wondered whether or not the words the fat man had used were part of some kind of strategy to get him to talk about himself. The agency had taught him to keep quiet.
“No judgment, just observation,” the fat man said. “I guess that’s what it is. That’s how things ought to be. Anyway, that’s what you are — good.”
Aoyama eyed him. There was something here that said a lot more was going on with the fat man than the simple fact that he had a big appetite and kept digging into the food on his plate and when it was running low used his knife and fork to fill it up again. But Aoyama couldn’t take it beyond that, and whatever he was thinking, whatever his intuition was trying to tell him, it went right out of his mind and into the middle of nowhere.
They were finished eating. Aoyama searched his pockets for a cigarette, offered one to the fat man who refused politely, then lit one for himself.
“Dessert and coffee,” the fat man said, pushing his chair away from the table and standing up.
“No, I’ll do it.”
The fat man stacked the plates on the empty vegetable platter, hooked the tip of his thick index finger into the mouth of the beer bottle and made his way back into the house with everything but the condiments. He came back for the condiments, the napkins, the empty glasses, and before returning to the house he turned around and said: “Maybe you’d like some more water?”
“All right,” Aoyama said.
There was a quiet interval lasting five minutes during which Aoyama finished his cigarette before the fat man came back with a steaming Bialetti coffee maker and a trivet, two demitasse cups and saucers, two coffee spoons, and a bowl of raw sugar cubes. He put the coffee maker on the trivet, laid out the demitasse cups in their saucers and the coffee spoons beside them, and winked in a friendly way at Aoyama. He went back into the house.
Waiting for the fat man, Aoyama looked at the things arranged in front of him, picked up the spoon that lay next to his cup and saucer and put it in his mouth and stared at the slanting roofs of houses beyond the chain-link fence surrounding the backyard. His gaze returned to the coffee maker, moved to the right and came to rest on the bowl of sugar. He smiled at the bowl as if it had smiled at him, took the spoon out of his mouth, looked at it, then put it down.
It was a pleasant break in the routine, he thought. It was more than a break, but now he was sleepy, and so he was glad to have the coffee in front of him. He wanted to pour himself a cup but he had to wait for the fat man, and at the same time he was wondering what was taking him such a long time with dessert because he really needed the coffee, he was counting on drinking a few cups of strong, black coffee to get him up out of the chair and on his way to meet Eto.
