by V. L. Locey
“Right, sorry, real alarm clock, no pickles on the sandwich, and plenty of cow shit for the pumpkins.”
His lips flattened out like a paper cut. “Get to work.”
I eased around him then trotted out to the gardens, rolling my eyes at Dixie as I passed the register. She was no longer dangling from an imaginary noose, but her eyes were dancing with humor at my expense. I liked her. I did not like my gardening guru for the day. I was stuck with Barney Witkowski the old man whose shed I had driven a car into. Barney wasn’t a fan. He snapped at me much like my brother did and my father used to. All day the bitter old cuss snarled and made some pretty disparaging comments. Yes, I’d totaled his shed. I apologized, like a hundred times from when the accident had occurred throughout the court proceedings to now.
“Don’t want your ‘I’m sorry’ shit. My wife could have been potting plants in that shed when you ran into it. My grandkids use it as a fort when they visit. You’re a damn menace to this town, and I hope the Stallions trade you as soon as they can.”
Fuck and ouch. I stood in the middle of plot thirty-two, weeds in my hands, dirt packed under my fingernails, tank top stuck to my skin, and nodded at the irate old man.
“I am sorry,” I whispered when he toddled off in a snit, leaving me to weed alone for an hour. Just me and the bees. Maybe one would sting me, and this miserable ass day would be complete.
“Those aren’t weeds, they’re pepper plants.”
I glanced up to see Bran staring down at me, his handsome features schooled.
“Oh, my bad.” I poked the skinny plants back into the rich dirt then sat back on my heels.
“That’s why you’re supposed to be supervised,” he said, his sight leaving me to touch on the few old folks puttering around in their plots.
“Well, your guru called me names and left so…” I shrugged then swiped at some sweat on my brow. He glanced back down at me and frowned slightly.
“I’m sorry for Barney,” he said then sighed. “I thought perhaps you two working together would be a chance for him to move past his bitterness about your generation. Here.” He handed me a cold bottle of spring water which I gratefully accepted. “He doesn’t think kindly of kids.”
“I’m not a kid. I’m a twenty-year-old man, and I kind of picked up his whole Scooby-Doo villain vibe.” I cracked open the bottle and drank all sixteen ounces down in one long, dry pull.
“Scooby-Doo villain?” Bran asked when I nodded and handed him the empty bottle.
“Yeah, you know, ‘I’d have gotten away with it too if not for you darn kids and that dog!’” I cackled like a cartoon baddie. Bran smiled. I mean, holy shit, the man smiled! It was just for a freaking flash of a second, but his lips actually curled up at the corners, and his bedroom blue-gray eyes grew warm. All the blood in my body rushed south, and I wanted to toss him to his back right here among Mrs. Pooter’s peppers and kiss him hard then fuck him deep.
Then, just like that, the smile died and his gaze went frosty. “He has his reasons, but I am sorry he left you without guidance. Go back to the showroom. There’s pizza and soda. Take a break. I’ll send Phil over to do the weeding until you’re done. Also, buy some sunscreen. You’re going to ruin those expensive tattoos exposing them to the sun.”
“Oh, yeah, I meant to do that. Who wants faded tats or, you know, melanoma?” I pushed to my feet, stretched, moaned, and then looked at Bran but Bran wasn’t here. He’d left, like a fucking bullet obviously. I tugged my tank top back down to cover my lower belly and headed for the cool, dark beauty that was inside away from reminders of my assholery.
I’d done well the rest of the day avoiding Barney and Bran, the two miserable B twins. There had been an hour when I’d gotten home and heated up a frozen burrito where I’d actually been able to forget about the dislike that rained down on me from everywhere. Nothing like a soggy bean burrito and an hour of killing irradiated ghouls to take you away. That warm buzz went up in smoke as I rode the bus to Eureka Street for my first hour of the seventeen-hour mandated course, the cloud of yuck settled back on my shoulders. A call came in from Chris, which I ignored then felt bad because I blew it off. I did not need his shit right now.
Turned out that was a good call because my first IDP class sucked. There were three other men here, all three older than me, two wearing alcohol monitoring ankle bracelets. They were easy to see with it being short and sandal weather. We had an hour of New York state driving laws. I wanted to die. My brain shut down about ten minutes in. Marion, the lady in charge of the program, kept giving me looks. I used to have a math teacher who gave me the same kind of dead-eyed stare. I pretended to take notes then drifted off, my gaze straying to the open windows and the small bit of Syracuse I could see through them. People walked past the brick building that housed the local branch of the alcoholism and addictions program. The place used to be a grammar school. I kind of resented being slapped into a program for alcoholics and told Monica that after I’d clocked one hour of class time.
She looked at me over the top of her glasses while she filled out yet another form that required yet another signature.
“You’ve been arrested twice in two years for driving under the influence.” Her pen paused on the form as she studied me with sharp brown eyes.
“Yeah, I know, but I’m not an alcoholic. I just party sometimes.”
“I see. So you’re under the assumption that you’ve been wrongly sentenced?” She sat back in her chair behind a desk that, by the looks, had been around since the early fifties.
“No, not the sentencing really it’s just…” My sight flitted from poster to poster. One telling people about the SNADD, the sharp needles and drug disposal program. Another talking about not letting alcohol trip you up. The next a picture of a cell phone with a text message about a BYOB party at some teens house. “I just party sometimes, not much, just during the summer a bit. I’m an athlete so I can’t party hard all the time.”
“Okay, so you think your sentencing was fair, and this class requirement is fair, it’s just the term alcoholic that you have problems with?”
I nodded at the slim black woman. “Sort of. I guess I just wanted to make sure you know that I’m not drinking all the time.”
“Do you think that you abuse alcohol?”
She looked shady to me like she was trying to pull information out of me. I shifted from one sneaker to the other, wishing I’d not broached this subject. I should have just had her sign her name and date the court form, grabbed my stupid journal, and went home. I burped burrito and mumbled an apology before I replied. The shouts of kids playing basketball on the old court outside floated in through the open window.
“I think that I party sometimes.”
“I see.” She lowered her gaze from me then pulled open a drawer on her ancient metal desk and pulled out yet another form. “Did the court recommend you attend addiction counseling?”
Oh, fuck please no.
“I uh…maybe but I’m not sure?”
“Well, I’m going to give you a referral to a local chapter of AA which I will then notify the judge of since he has requested all matters regarding your case be directed to his office.”
“Look, I get that you’re trying to be helpful, but I don’t need AA. I’m not an alcoholic, I just like to party on occasion.”
She handed me the two forms. “Try attending a few meetings before you discount it out of hand, Nathan. Sometimes we just need to know there are people out there who understand. I’d like to think that perhaps by the time this class is over you’ll look at me as someone you can talk to if life is growing overwhelming and you want to go party just a bit.”
I’d dug myself in here and could see no way out if I wanted to be taken seriously in my own rehabilitation. Wow. I blinked dully as the word I’d just used sank in. Did I really need rehab? I mean, like counseling and group meetings for addictions?
“Nathan?”
“Yeah, I uh, sure. I’ll drop in. Thank
s.” I slid the forms from her fingers, just now seeing how pretty a blue her fingernails were. “Nice nail polish.”
She smiled a little. “Thank you. Nice nose stud. Real diamond?”
I rubbed at the tiny gem in my right nostril. “Yep, gift to myself after a killer season last year.”
Yep, you were pretty buzzed at the tattoo parlor that night. Got new ink, a nose piercing, and then ran a red light and got pulled over and breathalyzed. Good times, huh, Nate? Pity Dad isn’t in any shape to take note. Neither is Mom nor Jacob. But hey, don’t pout, Chris reamed your ass, and it felt kind of good. At least someone was paying some sort of—
“Got to roll. Bus to catch,” I blurted out before the voice in my head could finish barreling down that particular path of no return.
“Well, it suits you. See you next week?”
I gave her a quick nod, shoved my paperwork into my back pocket, and left, blindly catching a bus and exiting two blocks from where I lived. Stepping off the idling bus, the nasty smell of diesel exhaust blowing into my face, I gazed at the front of the pizza place, the appeal of Stromboli and beer leading me to open the door and step inside. I breathed in garlic and the warm aroma of baking dough.
“Hey, buddy,” the kid behind the counter called. “Be right with you,” he tossed over his shoulder then returned to taking a phone order.
“Cool.” My gaze flew to the coolers on the right. All kinds of lovely ales and beers all chilled and waiting for someone who was suddenly miserably thirsty. It was hot outside. And I could grab my snack and a six pack then go home. There was no law against having a beer in your own house, now was there? Play some games, eat, have an icy cold one…or six.
I walked to the cooler, placed my hand on it, shuddered at the cold seeping into my palm. Then my eyes dropped from my preferred brand of dark stout and touched on the letters inked into the backs of my fingers. I raised my left hand to stare at the homage to my dead brother.
DOOF
My nickname for Jacob. He’d been Doofus—Doof—forever. And he’d called me Dork or Dorkus because I always made the stupidest, dorkiest decisions according to him. No denying he was right. Just look at where I was right now for a prime example.
Make a smart choice then, Dork, Jacob whispered in my mind.
I spun and left, rushing out into the heat, my fingertips still cold, my heart beating violently against my ribs. The door drifted shut on the kid behind the counter shouting to me. Syracuse surrounded me, people moving, cars rolling, the city filled with souls, and I was utterly alone.
My phone buzzed. I pulled it out of my back pocket. My papers fluttered to the ground, and I dove on them before the hot city wind blew them away. Into my front pocket my forms went. Where was my journal?
“Oh fuck. Really life?!” I looked up at the sky, dropping to my ass to sit on the sidewalk like a beggar. My journal was on the bus. Had to be. My phone buzzed again. I read the text once then twice and then, for reasons I could not comprehend, I called Bran back instead of texting him.
“You didn’t have to call back, Nathan,” Bran said as soon as he picked up. “I was just sending out a text to everyone about the changes in the work schedule. I forgot that Dixie has a leading role in a summer stock play at the Canal Arts Center and will be caught up in final rehearsals for the next week, so I’ve shuffled you and Phil around to—”
“Is Dixie there?” I cut in as a man walking a little dog hurried around me, the tiny mutt stopping to sniff at my kneecap before being tugged along.
“No, uh, no she’s not. We’re closed now. She’s at rehearsal for Hair. She’s got a lead and…is everything okay? You sound odd.”
Shit. I’d really wanted to talk to Dixie. She was around my age, cool, nice, and seemed kind of understanding in that sisterly type of way.
“I just…want to lay down right here on the sidewalk.”
“Are you hurt? Do you need me to call an ambulance?”
“No, I’m not hurt I’m just like ten feet from beer and I kind of made this vow to myself and Jacob that I’d make the right choice, but in all honesty, I’m fucked if I know what that choice is anymore.”
He was silent for maybe ten seconds. In that time I got to my feet and began shuffling toward my apartment building.
“Would you like to meet up for coffee somewhere?”
That offer stalled my sloppy tripping along the walk. “Coffee? With you?”
I heard him huff, just gently. “I know I’m not exactly your favorite person, but you sound like you could use a shoulder to lean on. I made a vow to Jim that I would never turn away someone who is struggling to remain sober. It was a passion of his to help kids in trouble.”
“I’m not a kid. I’ll be twenty-one at the end of August.”
“Of course, sorry. I didn’t mean to call you a kid. It was a passion of his to help young people in trouble.”
“You’re like incredibly fixated on my age. Why?”
Another pause. “Do you want to meet me and talk or not?” Ah, there was that icy snip in his voice. That I could deal with. That cold demeanor I was used to.
“Okay but you’re buying. My funds are going fast and the dude I work for pays for shit.”
“It’s restorative, Nathan. You’re giving freely of yourself to help the community that you injured to help you and those who live here heal.”
“Yeah, I know. So, coffee. Where do we do this?”
“How about the Blue Button Café. Are you close to there?” I turned a half turn and saw the Blue Button Café sign about four hundred feet away.
“I’m about four minutes from it,” I told him.
“Four. Not five but four.” I shrugged. Pity he couldn’t see it. That would have fired Mr. Tight Ass right up. “I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes, maybe twenty depending on traffic. Okay?”
“Yep, cool. I’ll be there.” I pulled the phone from my ear to tap the end call button then had a thought and put the phone back to the side of my head. “And thanks.” Then I hung up and jogged to the small little coffee shop before the lure of all those coolers filled with bottled forget-it-all began calling to me again.
Chapter Four
I’d never been inside the Blue Button Café as it was not my sort of go-to establishment. The place was always packed with students from Syracuse University, which was just a few blocks away, when classes were in session. I never went to college, so I felt out-of-touch with those who had or were as if I were the lone schmuck among all the academics. The fact that I would soon be making millions per year while eighty percent of students attending SU would go on to work minimum wage jobs in the service industry with debt up to their armpits was a bone I gave myself when I was feeling dumber than the norm. Another reason I didn’t hang here was the lack of Heineken. Coffee machines didn’t quite have the lure that beer taps had for me in the past. Past being like ten minutes ago.
The café was cute. Blue walls and puffy curtains, pictures of blue buttons framed and hanging on the walls, staff in blue shirts, coffee served in blue mugs and muffins served on blue plates. It was all so incredibly blue. I was picking at the crumbles on top of my coffee cake muffin when someone plopped down across from me in my tiny booth by the window. My gaze flickered upward. Bran smiled at me. A real one. It had some worry in it, as did his eyes, but at least it wasn’t a scowl. He was still in the same clothes he’d worn to work, old jeans and a well-washed T-shirt selling something called Brother Love’s Salvation Traveling Show. My sight moved back to his face. It was such a good face. Strong, masculine, showing some signs of life at the corners of his eyes but still a really appealing face. I liked looking at it when it wasn’t frowning at me.
“Hi,” he said then pushed his fingers through his windblown hair as he surveyed the crowd. “Traffic was light.”
“That’s good.” I stopped playing with my muffin and placed my hands on the table. “Look, I think I may have just overreacted to things.”
He tipped his head s
lightly, his eyes narrowing a bit. “You sounded pretty shaken on the phone.” I shrugged. His nose crinkled just a bit. “Why don’t we just talk and drink coffee?”
A young girl in a blue shirt came over, took his order of plain coffee with cream, and went back to the long bar to put his order in. When my gaze returned to Bran, he was staring at me like I was some sort of science experiment gone terribly wrong.
“What?” I asked then started picking at my muffin again.
“I’d like to help if I could.”
“Yeah? Why? Because you like me so much or because you feel it’s your civic duty or part of your precious vow to your dead husband to fix drunks and druggies?”
His mouth opened then his coffee arrived. He thanked the server, gave her four bucks, and told her to keep the change. Off she went with a smile.
“Are we skipping niceties then?” he asked as his coffee sat in front of him waiting.
“I thought you’d decided to show how much you hate me on day one.” I shoved my uneaten muffin away.
“No one hates you,” he quickly replied.
“Talk to Chris,” I mumbled, the familiar lance of pain between my ribs returning as it always did when my family popped into my thoughts.
“Chris is who exactly?”
I peeked up from my untouched cup of coffee. He looked as if he were really interested, as if he really cared.
“Older brother.”
“You and he don’t get along?”
“Nope.”
“Would you maybe like to talk about that? Or anything?”
“I’d rather not.”
Someone back in the kitchen laughed, a guy, deep and loud. “Okay, we’re not getting anywhere here. I’m sorry. I thought that if I came over we could talk, maybe get to know each other better.”