Rock, Paper, Scissors

by Naja Marie Aidt

  Back in the apartment Patricia has cleared the table; there’s a cross breeze because she’s airing out, and the apartment is ice cold. She’s already begun washing the dishes. When he enters the kitchen she turns, her hands dripping. She looks directly at him. “I want a baby, Thomas,” she says.

  He awakes in a daze, a nasty taste in his mouth, the telephone ringing in the living room. Patricia’s side of the bed is empty, her duvet having slid halfway onto the floor. His body seems petrified: warm, immovable. Naked, he gets to his feet. The telephone rings a second time. It’s Maloney.

  “Where are you? It’s 10:00 A.M. We’re getting a big delivery in half an hour. Are you sick, or what the hell’s going on?”

  He mumbles a promise to hurry. His cock hangs loose and pale between his legs. His pubic hair’s crawling toward his bellybutton, as though on its way to his head. Scratching his back, shivering, he stumbles to the bathroom, turns on the shower. Patricia left no note on the kitchen table, as she usually does whenever she leaves without first waking him. After Jules and Tina had gone, he’d been too worn-out to discuss having a baby versus not having a baby, and she’d become irate and disappointed, telling him that he had no dreams for the future, that he had zero ambition. He’d gone to bed. Had collapsed and practically fainted into sleep.

  A half-empty cup of coffee and a small bottle of red nail polish are the only traces of her. He downs a glass of water and eats a banana as he buttons his shirt. Outside the rain has ceased, but the air is bone-chillingly cold and full of moisture. He trots to the station and is barely able to squeeze into the packed train car, where people stand like sardines in a barrel, with their bodily odors and their bad breath and their pretty faces and their ugly warts; with their youth and their age and their illnesses and their morning eyes, full of disgust or indifference or radiant with resolve and expectation. He presses himself between a fat businessman reeking of aftershave and a schoolgirl wearing an enormous backpack; she’s listening to music and holding the safety bar to keep her balance. The backpack thumps into Thomas each time the train halts. He’s never late. Now he’ll have to listen to Maloney ribbing him the rest of the day. But Maloney’s in ridiculously good spirits this Monday, bursting with energy and barking orders; he and Peter have already begun unpacking the delivery, which sits in a small mountain of cardboard boxes on the floor right inside the door. Annie slashes them open with a box cutter, removing items, while Maloney makes sure they’ve gotten what they’ve ordered and paid for. The atmosphere is good, focused; only Peter, as usual, is slow and shy. Thomas joins in, and the work agrees with him. It’s simple, it’s manageable: most of the boxes need to be taken to the basement and the products arranged properly, shelf by shelf, by number and name. The slick boxes have to be shoved into place and stacked and organized. Thomas knows the basement like he knows his own pocket; it’s their treasure chamber, and it has nothing in common with the dark, dusty labyrinth he’d rushed around in Saturday night. Now it feels as though that never happened, that it was all a dream, a fantasy, a figment of his imagination. He grows warm, he puts eight boxes of plastic folders on the shelf, he presses the felt-tip pen against the cardboard and writes the folders’ colors clearly and legibly on the front of each box. They’d started doing this after they hired Peter. He was never able to find the right colors; maybe he’s colorblind. Maloney’s whistling a tune down the aisle near the glossy paper. Hunched over, Peter lugs the heaviest boxes of paper downstairs. “We’re also missing H4 and B2 upstairs,” Annie says, clearing her throat. “And recycled Double Demy gray.” “What about white?” Maloney calls out. “Didn’t that bookkeeper buy the last of it yesterday?” Annie goes upstairs to check. But there must be customers in the store, because she doesn’t return. Thomas follows Peter up the narrow stairwell to bring the rest of the stuff down. They’ve often discussed replacing this stairwell with a new and wider one, so they could haul a dolly up and down and spare their backs. But Peter’s young and fairly strong. And isn’t that why you have an apprentice?, was how Maloney put it when Thomas brought up the idea. He needs a cigarette. He tugs the last boxes through the store and out to the hallway. Peter sticks his pale, acne-scarred face through the hatch, ready to grab them. They work in silence. Thomas hands Peter the boxes, Peter balances them down the steps. “I’ll take it from down here!” Maloney shouts from within the depths of the basement, though they could’ve heard him easily if he’d used his normal voice. But Maloney needs to make noise, to shout. There’s no life without noise—that would be his motto if he could formulate it. But that’s the thing with Maloney, Thomas thinks. He doesn’t even know it. He doesn’t know much about himself, it doesn’t interest him. Maloney acts and suffers and parties and rages and loves and hates, and it’s all noise. Is this an expression of a simple, beautiful life? Now he thrusts his red face past Peter, who’s struggling with a large box. “Time we have some friggin’ coffee!” “Now?” Thomas says, “Shouldn’t we finish first?” But Maloney can’t wait. Peter has to brace himself against the uneven basement wall as Maloney’s corpulent body presses him out on the edge of the stairwell. Here he stands, teetering and about to fall. It’s a long way down. “Be careful, Peter.” Thomas points at the pale-faced apprentice, who at that moment lets go of the box and grabs hold of something. The box lands with a heavy thud on the basement floor. “What the hell was in that?” Maloney asks, squeezing himself up the stairwell. He stands beside Thomas, huffing now. They stare down through the hole in the floor. “Sorry,” Peter says. “But I was about to plummet.” “Plummet? It’s not a damn mountain. What’s in the box?” Peter looks almost frightened. “Come here, kid.” Maloney offers his hand and hoists Peter up. “I think it was glass,” Peter whispers. “Candlesticks.” Maloney sighs heavily and walks into the office. “Go down and check whether or not it’s all smashed,” Thomas says.

  Thomas stands in the doorway of the office and gets Maloney’s attention. “Who ordered candlesticks?”

  “I did.”

  “I thought we agreed no party supplies in the store.”

  “Candlesticks are not party supplies. Candlesticks are decorations.”

  “Decorations are party supplies. Besides, we don’t sell ‘decorations,’ either.”

  “C’mon, Thomas. They’re damaged now anyway. I’ll cover the costs.”

  “I don’t like the thought of you ordering tasteless things behind my back.”

  “For God’s sake, Thomas.”

  “You know how much I hate party supplies.”

  “And I love them. The kitschier the better! Novelty toys and clown noses! Balloons and fake beards! Bibs for grown men with pictures of naked ladies!”

  Thomas shakes his head, grumbling.

  “But candlesticks aren’t kitschy,” Maloney continues. “I’ve carefully selected them so that I wouldn’t offend your aesthetic sensibility. They’ll sell like hotcakes.”

  Maloney looks at Thomas. Then Thomas turns to leave and bumps into Peter, who’s returning to give his report.

  “Fourteen red candlesticks smashed, eight transparent, seven green, and only two blue. All in all, one hundred twenty-nine candlesticks aren’t broken. I’ve thrown out the damaged ones and noted them on the purchase order. Thirty-one pieces were lost.”

  “Good work, Peter. Go out and have yourself a smoke now.” For a moment Peter looks flustered, but then he goes. A wide smile crosses Maloney’s face.

  “They’re even tinted?” Thomas says.

  “They look awesome,” Maloney smiles, propping his legs up on the desk. “You can take a few home to Patricia on my tab.”

  Time passes. Lunch and more coffee. Maloney takes a nap on the office floor, his legs tucked under the desk. Toward evening, Thomas assists Maloney in filling the empty slots on the shelves by putting out the recently received products. Envelopes, letter paper, notebooks. They discuss arranging a spring cleaning of every shelf and cabinet, but when? And can Eva do it by herself? Can they afford to hire a
dditional staff to do it? If they decide to go ahead with it, Thomas thinks they should be on-hand to make sure everything stays in order and nothing gets damaged. He imagines Eva emptying a bucket of dirty, soapy water on the gilt-edged paper that he now holds in his hands. “We did it last year with Peter and Annie,” Maloney says, dropping to one knee to fill the pencil cases in a metal box on the lowest shelf. “We didn’t even pay them extra, did we? That was drudge work.” They decide to speak to Eva. “Because I won’t do it again, I tell you,” Maloney announces once he’s on his feet again. After that, he entertains Thomas by telling him about his trip to the bar over the weekend. He’d played pool and drunk piña coladas, then he’d gone to a different place and had beer and played more pool, until a few guys he knew showed up with some women. They’d wound up at some place with live music, where they danced, and Maloney found himself dancing, mostly with a girl named Lauraine, who was very blonde and a little older. “But she had these fantastic hips.” He succeeded in coercing her home with him, and they’d executed a coitus uninterruptus, despite the fact that he’d been piss drunk. “You can keep the coitus uninterruptus part to yourself next time,” Thomas says. No longer does he see images of water spilling onto letter paper, but Maloney in his bed having sex in the gray morning light; he imagines the gently intertwined flesh, hears the half-choked sounds. “I think it was quite a feat,” Maloney remarks cheerfully. “But I slept all Saturday, and Sunday I washed clothes, did that sort of thing. Then Jenny visited me in the evening.”

  Thomas stiffens. “Jenny visited you? Why?”

  Maloney shrugs. “I think she just needed to talk.”

  “But you haven’t even seen each other for years.”

  Maloney smiles. “You don’t know anything about that. Love doesn’t fade that easily.”

  “Jesus. I don’t understand anything.”

  “There’s nothing to understand. She just swung by. Wanna get out of here?”

  According to the clock, it’s already past 7:00. They’re finished now and carry the empty boxes to the door. Thomas slowly dims the chandelier. The fading sunlight is gorgeous, and dusk gradually begins to appear in the corners. Maloney gets their jackets and locks the door behind them. They haul the boxes to the recycling container and break them apart.

  “I’m in the doghouse with Patricia,” Thomas says, turning up his collar. “She keeps bugging me about having a kid.”

  “Would it really be that awful?”

  “Yes. You don’t want one, either. Right?”

  “I’m not like you. You’ve got Patricia and your good taste. All I’ve got are dubious encounters with bleach-blondes and a one-bedroom apartment with a ‘nice’ view. Ha!”

  “But I really don’t want one, Maloney. You know that. I mean it.”

  “Go home now and talk to her. Are you having a mid-life crisis or what? I’ll see you in the morning. Remember to set your alarm clock.”

  Maloney clasps Thomas’s arm as he talks. Then he pats him gently on the shoulder and pulls his hat over his forehead. Then he’s gone. Thomas braces himself against the wind and heads toward the train station. What’s Jenny up to? Why does she need to talk to Maloney? He feels violated, misled. But how? Confused and exhausted, he piles into the train, squeezes in between people and their smells. My life is one continuous repetition of activities and tasks. Maybe I really don’t have any drive, and now I’m going home to an unhappy Patricia, and that’s all my own doing.

  But Patricia isn’t unhappy. She’s set the table and is frying chicken and vegetables in the big wok. She looks vigorous and sexy; her mouth is the same color as her newly-painted red nails, and her skin’s damp from the moisture in the kitchen. Thomas took the stairs up and he’s out of breath, but greatly relieved, almost joyful. The apartment seems warm and cozy, and his anxious concerns about the money in the microwave and Jenny’s visit with Maloney give way to thoughts of enjoyment, pleasure, food. He pours white port wine and fills glasses with seltzer, he slices a lemon and drops a couple wedges in each glass. Lots of ice. She puts the glass to her red lips and swallows the bubbly, refreshing liquid. “The catalog’s finally finished,” she says, pleased. “It’s off to press tomorrow.” They eat in the living room and watch a film after they’ve washed the dishes. Neither of them mentions yesterday’s argument. They lie close to one another, their bodies intertwined on the couch watching TV. She fingers his earlobe, he plays with her hair. Suddenly she strips off her panties and goes wild. She stands, she drops to her knees, she straddles his face, she’s wet and tart; she whimpers and moans and comes but is eager for more. His head tingles with arousal. This body is alive, he thinks, we’re alive. Patricia’s desire is overwhelming and unencumbered. She doesn’t hold anything back. When she opens her mouth and growls or screams it’s both frightening and ecstatic, a powerful force rising within her. She thrums and sweats and rolls her eyes. At last they fall together onto the carpet, exhausted; he pulls the condom off and ties it into a knot. Patricia’s face is quite soft now and it fills his vision. But when they’re lying in bed, it’s the money he thinks about. What the hell do I do? Nothing, he thinks. Let the money stay where it is. His sore cock is shriveled up, shrunken, still moist. Patricia sleeps like a child under the white duvet. Oh, peace. Remember this now, he tells himself, you can relax, there’s nothing to fear. We just have to get past that stupid funeral.

  Tuesday morning is like gold flowing through the streets: a new warmth in the air, dust floating in the sunbeams, it’s as if the sky has expanded overnight. The sounds of the city seem more cheerful, their resonance deeper. People seem happier, lighter. Look, a woman smiles broadly, a young man waits for an old woman with a walker, a child’s brown eyes shine like chestnuts in the backlight. Spring’s on its way, Thomas thinks, walking from home all the way to the store, because who wants to take the train on a day like this? How fitting that spring arrives today, the day the old man burns in hell. That works for me, there’s hope, a new path to forge, free of old grudges. Free of old grudges is a strophe in one of the old man’s favorite songs, a schlager from his youth, and Thomas can’t help but smile, a kind of schadenfreude. Because he, Thomas, is the free one and not the deceased; that’ll teach him (but what can a dead man learn?). These are the energies that buzz through Thomas O’Mally Lindström, who for the occasion is wearing a blue suit. He won’t bury his father wearing black. He buys coffee in a grungy deli and smokes a few cigarettes. He crosses the street and takes a pleasant detour through a lush park, where mimes and young musicians are already performing, where people soak up sun on benches, where dogs yap and cavort on the triangular lawn. Jenny sends him a text: “remember, 1:00 P.M.” And he responds: “why did you visit maloney sunday?” She answers: “mind your own business.” Very much against his wishes, Jenny had an obituary printed. He discovers this when he’s sitting in his office absentmindedly perusing the newspaper: “Jacques O’Mally departed us suddenly. May his soul find peace. Children and grandchildren.” Grandchildren? But there’s only Alice.

  “She must’ve thought it sounded better in plural,” Maloney says, his entire head stuffed inside the filing cabinet. “And it does, too. Children and grandchild—you can’t write that.”

  “May his soul find peace. What the fuck is that?” Thomas snaps, shoving the newspaper aside. “She is nuts.”

  Maloney pops red-faced out of the cabinet and straightens himself up. “She’s a drama queen, Thomas. Jenny loves drama. A funeral is an incredible drama. Think about it.” Thomas groans. “I’m guessing it’ll be a pretty entertaining afternoon,” Maloney says, dropping into the boss’s chair. Annie enters the office and says they’re out of thumbtacks. But they were in the delivery yesterday. She can’t find them. Send Peter to the basement. He’s not at work. He’s not at work? He had to go to the doctor, something about a rash. A rash? Annie doesn’t know anything more than that.

  Thomas wanders about the store for a few hours and assists some customers. He talks to the acco
untant, mails some documents, checks the ledger from last week. Patricia calls and asks for the chapel’s address. Peter comes back from the doctor’s; he has ringworm. This little nugget of news gets Maloney going. He slaps his thighs, howling with laughter.

  “Ringworm is contagious,” Annie whispers. “Did the doctor say anything about that?”

  “We’re not exactly in the habit of fondling Peter’s torso, are we? Or maybe we are?” Peter looks down. Maloney bursts into laughter again. “Does it itch?” Annie says worriedly. Peter nods. “Go get some lunch, Peter, and order something for the worm. Put it on my tab! It can have whatever it wants. Oh, that’s classic. Ringworm!”

  Thomas sighs. “I apologize on Maloney’s behalf, Peter.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” Maloney chuckles, ruffling his own hair. “I’d like a large turkey sandwich with extra bacon and pickles. Cranberries, but no tomatoes, please. They just make the bread soggy.”

  Peter leaves, and Annie washes her hands at the little sink in the hallway. Thomas gets her attention in the mirror. “We need to leave for a few hours this afternoon. We have to go to an interment.” She nods, drying her hands thoroughly on a paper towel.

  “I thought he was going to be cremated,” Maloney says.

  “He is.”

  “Then it’s not an interment, Thomas. Loosen up, man!” Maloney shouts. “Jesus Christ, I’m hungry!”