Rock, Paper, Scissors

by Naja Marie Aidt

  Slowly Frank rotates his head. For one moment they look at each other, intensely. Frank’s eyes gleam almost yellow. But a film of gray has dimmed the color in them. “The Kid?” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  Again Frank’s lips move into a dead smile. “The Kid was very close to Jacques.”

  Then all at once Frank’s arms are around Thomas’s neck. His armpits give off a hint of deodorant and dunghill. He squeezes Thomas, practically shaking him, upbeat but a little too tight. “Go fill your glass. There’s more where that comes from.” And with that Frank is quickly on his feet and slipping behind a curtain near the bathrooms. Fatso looks up from the dice cup and watches him go. Glances quickly and piercingly at Thomas. The Kid’s pouring red wine for Alice and Ernesto. Patricia’s in the far corner with Jenny, Kristin, and Helena. Kristin tosses her head back in laughter; Patricia has apparently said something funny. There’s a tap on the window behind him, and when he snaps his head around, he stares right into the eyes of one of the twins. For a few seconds she locks eyes with him, solemn. Then her face dissolves into a smile, the light filling her eyes.

  When he stands, he feels the alcohol’s effect on his legs. His feet tingle. Up at the bar Alice puts her arm around him. “This is my Uncle Thomas. And this is Luke.” He nods to Luc, who nods back. “I thought your name was Luc. The beloved child has many names, I’ve heard.” Luc nods earnestly. Thomas asks for another cognac. “Did you know that Luke knew Grandpa?” Thomas shakes his head. “He’s actually known him since he was little, isn’t that right, Luke?”

  Luc beams. “He taught me how to fish.”

  “Did he now? I didn’t know that he could fish.”

  “He was good at it. We almost always caught something.” Luc’s voice is surprisingly sonorous and pleasant, rising from deep within his belly.

  “And where did you fish?”

  “Sometimes we got out of the city, north to streams or lakes. But usually we fished in the sea.”

  Luc sets Thomas’s cognac down with a little thump. His eyes are light brown, with some sort of greenish tint floating in them. Lush, coal-black eyelashes. Relatively nice teeth, only a single crooked tooth.

  “Sea fishing?” Thomas says slowly.

  An eager smile spreads across the young man’s face. “Yes! From the quay down by the old industrial harbor, or we’d row out. But only during the summer. We’d put out nets to catch flatfish, and eel, but jig-fishing was always the best.”

  “That so? My father apparently had hidden talents.” Another smile. Luc leans over the bar and braces his elbows on the countertop.

  “What about the river? Did you fish in the river?” Luc nods. “Of course.” Alice drops her cigarette butt into an empty beer bottle. “Isn’t it strange, Thomas, that Luke knew my grandpa and I didn’t?”

  Luc: “He was smart. And patient. If you’re not patient, you don’t catch a thing. Rule number one.”

  “What else do you do? When you’re not fishing?”

  “Look at him,” Alice says. “He’s a bartender.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  Luc straightens up again. “I help out here and there wherever I’m needed. You know, many small brooks make a big stream.”

  “To stay with the metaphor,” Thomas says.

  “With the what?” Luc asks.

  “Ignore him,” Alice says, putting her hand on Luc’s arm. “He’s always got to be so clever. You’re a walking dictionary, aren’t you Uncle Thomas? I really looked up to him when I was little. My rich uncle who was so smart.” Alice sniffles and sips her red wine. “You still are. Rich and smart.” She draws a cigarette from Thomas’s pack. “But you sure as hell didn’t teach me how to fish. God, you know what else? Luke and I were born in the same month!”

  Thomas: “Congratulations.”

  Luc: “With ten days and four years between us.”

  Alice: “Luke’s four years older than me.”

  Thomas: “I see.”

  “We also live in the same neighborhood. How uncanny is that?” Alice leans back on the barstool, the lit cigarette between her fingers, and laughs. “It is uncanny.”

  Luc smiles.

  “But I’m moving soon,” she says, inhaling a deep drag.

  “Where are you moving?” Luc asks.

  “I’ve no idea. But I have to move soon, I’m getting sick of my mother.”

  Ernesto comes over. Groaning, he squeezes himself onto the stool beside Alice. “I keep losing! They’re destroying me.” It turns out that Fatso and Maloney have been playing for money the whole time. And they’re not placing small bets. Maloney appears to be in his element. “Your friend’s winning the entire pot,” Ernesto sighs, drinking his wine. Thomas hears Frank’s voice cutting through the women’s conversation at the back of the café. He’s standing with one arm around Jenny and the other around Kristin. But Kristin quickly removes it. Patricia gives Thomas a long, telling glance. She wants to go home. So does Thomas.

  “Thanks for the drinks,” he says, offering Luc his hand. A firm shake, a warm palm.

  “No problem. Come back another time.”

  “No!” Alice blurts out. “You’re not leaving already, are you? We’re going to dance soon.” Alice wiggles her torso, apparently rather drunk. She embraces him, warm and playful, rippling with energy. Thomas says goodbye to everyone, except Frank. Fatso says: “You don’t want to shoot craps? We didn’t even get the chance to talk. Come back another time and get yourself a beer.” Maloney gets to his feet and bearhugs him. “Quite a family you’ve got!” he whispers giddily. “It’s like being on a sitcom, a TV show . . .” “A horror,” Thomas mumbles and for one moment is on the verge of tears, feeling completely transparent and accessible to whatever and whoever. But only for a moment. The faces around him are unclear and wavering in clouds of smoke. “Have a safe trip home, okay?” Maloney clucks his tongue, hikes up his pants, and returns to his seat. “If this keeps up, I’ll buy a round for everyone in the joint!” He broods over the dice, and Fatso shakes the cup. Maloney wins again. The twins have come inside and are hanging out beside the jukebox, one ganglier than the other. Boredom, pre-pubescence. Finally Patricia and Thomas are outside in the cool evening air. “It feels as though we’ve been in there for days,” Thomas grumbles. “But it’s over and done with now,” Patricia says, squeezing his bicep. He’s still a bit dizzy, but at the very least, the alcohol has relaxed his muscles. Thomas’s mouth feels pasty, and he’s not at all certain that anything is over with.

  And yet he returns to Café Rose when Patricia falls asleep, her mouth hanging open, her dark hair fanning across the white pillow. He can’t sleep. Something pulls him back. Like a sleepwalker, he sneaks through the apartment buttoning his pants and rooting around for his bicycle keys. The hallway smells of floor polish, and he thinks of the imminent spring cleaning; soon the store’s floors will be polished. The streets are empty, and there’s no traffic. He cycles through a red light, and rides on the sidewalks down one-way streets. His back-wheel squeaks, and the bell’s about to fall off. To pull the cold air into his lungs. To ride fast. The alcohol like something simmering right beneath the surface of his skin. He locks the bike to a streetlight. It’s 11:00 P.M., maybe everyone’s gone home. But not everyone has gone home. In the center of the room Alice, piss drunk, is dancing with Frank to the sound of scratchy soul music, hanging on his neck like a young girl, affectionate and silly. Fatso has taken Luc’s place behind the bar, and Maloney’s still seated on the same chair shooting craps, now with Luc. Or Luke. Or The Kid. Ernesto has fallen asleep, his head resting on his arms. Surrounding him is a cluster of rowdies, who’ve commandeered the tables near the windows. “Thomas!” Frank shouts, breaking free of Alice, who tumbles backward and bumps against the bar. “Couldn’t live without us, eh?” Thomas helps Alice to her feet, wakes Ernesto, and sends them home in a cab. From the backseat Alice screeches the jukebox’s songs, while Thomas presses money into Ernesto’s hand and guides hi
m into the front seat. “Now make sure that she gets home and goes to bed, you got it? No detours.” He gives the driver Jenny’s address. The car glides down the street and turns the corner. He hopes she doesn’t throw up on the leather seats. Thomas pushes the café door open. Maloney’s now reeling on his feet, screaming at Luc. But Luc’s not saying anything. He’s leaning back in his chair, visibly pleased, shoving a wad of bills in his pants pocket. “You cheated! Admit it! You’ve been messing with the dice for the past hour!” Addressing Thomas: “Fucking hell, he’s taken everything.” Then, to Fatso: “You saw it yourself! He cheated!” To Luc: “Replay!” But Maloney has lost. Luc stands, zips his jacket, and says: “Thanks for the game, it was a pleasure.” He raises his arm in greeting, smiles at Thomas, and turns. But Maloney leaps at him, heavy and breathless, wobbly on his feet, like a huge, injured animal. He knocks over chairs and grabs at Luc’s back. Hissing something unintelligible and trying to haul Luc to the floor. But Luc is strong. He gets his arm free and reaches behind him, taking hold of the nape of Maloney’s neck and pressing his skull forward against the back of his own head. He holds tight. The muscles of his sinewy arms flex under his skin. He presses. Maloney gasps. Fatso lumbers over good-naturedly and splits them apart. “Let go, now. Let go of the old man, Luke.” He has a hand on Luc’s shoulder. “You can let go now, boy.” And Luc lets go. Maloney loses his balance and falls over, landing on his stomach. Thomas pulls him to his feet. “Maybe you should go home?”

  Groaning bitterly, Maloney pats dust off his pants. “What about you? I do what I feel like doing.” Luc is gone. Fatso’s once again behind the bar. The little group that witnessed the fight now return to their glasses and cigarettes. To incoherent conversations and drunken lewdness. Maloney staggers to his beer glass, lifts it to his mouth. But it’s as though he forgets to drink. “Fucking asshole, goddamn mother fucking upstart. Do you realize how much he stole from me? He stole, Thomas. I should’ve kicked his ass!” He sits on a barstool, his glass still half-raised to his face. Sighing deeply, slumping, and shaking his head.

  Thomas grasps Maloney’s arm and helps him to his feet.

  He stands on the stoop, watching Maloney stumble down the street and curse under his breath. “See you tomorrow!” Thomas calls after him. Maloney doesn’t respond, and suddenly there’s something moving about the way he lurches away, alone, a strength in him, and Thomas thinks: But what if he walks in front of a car, and the thought scares him. So he trots after Maloney, catches up to his broad back, and hugs him, pressing his face into Maloney’s jacket. “What the hell,” Maloney mumbles. “You again?”

  Fatso lights up when Thomas sits down at the bar. Pouring beer on the house, he wants to know what Thomas has been up to during the intervening years. “I almost didn’t recognize you at the service today, but your eyes are the same. You got them from your father. You don’t forget eyes like that.” Fatso is sober and chatty, his shirt pulled taut over his round belly, his strong hands working swiftly and expertly with glasses, bottles, and beer taps. “The Kid has a good feel for craps, and I’ve seen many grown men go off on him because they think he’s cheating. But he’s just lucky. That’s my opinion. When it comes to games he’s unbelievably lucky. You know that old saying? If you’re unlucky at games you must be lucky in love. That’s not the Kid.”

  “Is he unlucky in love then?” Thomas asks, lighting a cigarette.

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that. In any case, I’ve never seen him with a girlfriend. My sister’s afraid he’s gay. But I think she’s . . . how can I say it? Overanalyzing. Rose is . . . No, he’s just a loner. He’s handsome as all hell, so it’s not his looks.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-two. You have kids, Thomas?”

  And in this way they prattle on. Thomas discovers that Rose is addicted to pills, and that for long stretches of time The Kid lived with Fatso. Fatso explains mawkishly how close The Kid was to Jacques (and here Fatso wipes a tear from the corner of his eye), that Fatso’s happy working in the café, that finally he’s found a “measure of peace,” that everything’s more or less the same here on the street. “But we’re getting older.” For his part, Thomas talks a bit about his store and Patricia. “You’ve done well for yourself.” Fatso nods in admiration. “You’ve always had a good head on your shoulders.” All these clichés about how he’s always been, as if Fatso had something to do with Thomas’s “success,” as if Fatso knows Thomas, as if he were Fatso’s own son. “You’ve always done your own thing,” et cetera. Thomas washes it down with more beer, but when he asks about his father’s final criminal act, Fatso claps his mouth shut.

  “What happened? Did he kill someone?”

  “I can’t talk about it, Thomas.”

  The bar’s busy, their conversation continually interrupted, but Thomas doesn’t move. A woman in a green polyester shirt with huge sweat stains under her arms leans her head on his shoulder and probingly gropes his thigh. He shoves her spidery hand away. “No! I won’t keep my fingers to myself! You’re so handsome . . .” One of the woman’s eyes is badly crossed, and she clutches her Campari close to her chest.

  “Did you visit him in prison?” Thomas asks when he’s got Fatso’s attention again. But Frank’s standing right behind him now. Perhaps he’s been there for a while. “You two having a good time?” he asks in a chilled tone, forcing his way between the woman in green and Thomas. “Move it, toots, you’re blocking the entire bar.” The woman slaps at Frank. Frank yanks her off the stool and sends her packing with a hard shove. Thomas waves Fatso closer.

  “Listen, help me out. My father’s dead and gone. You don’t owe him anything. What kind of job was it? It must’ve been something big or more brutal than earlier? Why did he go to prison? He almost always got off. Or got a shorter sentence. Did someone rat on him? Did someone die? Did he kill someone? The guard said he was facing a long sentence.” Thomas pauses. “C’mon, Frank. Help me out.” Frank says: “You harping on that again?” The two faces are so close to him that he can smell them, and he inches closer, so close that he can feel the heat from Fatso’s skin. He softens his voice. “I understand if you think it’s weird, and maybe even pushy, but I really need to know about his final months. You two are the only ones I know who were close to him. I can’t . . . find peace until I know.” Fatso turns away. Then all at once Frank’s face is right up in his, whispering in a raspy voice: “Let me tell you one thing. I want to be left alone to take care of my business. Do you understand that?”

  Fatso wanders to the other end of the bar, where some young men are shouting out for beer. Thomas, shaking his head, says: “But who would I tell? The police? He’s dead. The case is closed. I’m just asking for a small favor, between you and me, Frank.”

  “Do I owe you a favor? Listen, because this is the last time I’ll say it: I want to be left alone to take care of this establishment. Whatever the cost. You got that?”

  There’s a pause. Frank breathes heavily and Thomas leans back in his seat, squinting.

  “Are you threatening me, Frank? Is that what you’re doing? This is my father we’re talking about. Don’t tell me you’re threatening me. Who do you think you are?”

  Staring hard, Frank edges closer. “I’m not threatening anyone. I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m just telling it like it is.”

  “But you’re not saying anything at all . . .”

  “Maybe I think it’s a little impolite of you to come roaring in here, abusing me. I wiped your ass when you were a baby, Thomas. I fixed your lunches.”

  “Like hell you did!”

  “And I held this wake for your father today. You didn’t have any interest in doing that, did you?” A bitter smile. “You haven’t exactly been beating down his door, and if he was still alive you wouldn’t give a shit about him. Or about us, for that matter.”

  Thomas wants to protest, but Frank raises his voice to a sharp hiss: “Now I think you should quietly get yourself another beer, on the house,
and enjoy the rest of the evening. You don’t got shit to worry about, Thomas, and you shouldn’t go snooping around here. We want to be left alone. Do you understand that? Don’t try to butter up Fatso, either. We’ll make an exception today because you’re Jacques’s son, and because we’ve known you since you were a boy. But that doesn’t give you the right to a damn thing. You got that? My patience has worn thin, Thomas. I don’t want to hear any more from you. Stay away. You got that?” Frank stares at him with his old man’s eyes. Thomas returns the stare. It’s like looking into the face of a mangy dog. Something vicious and desperate. Something immeasurably wretched. Something that’s nearing its end. Fatso glances at them from where he’s standing, underneath an orange lamp. He appears to be chiseled from stone. Without a word, Thomas gets up and leaves.

  It’s like being a zombie. When they were children, he and Jenny had watched zombie films on TV, petrified, Jenny often crying and hysterical, but not even that could get them to turn off the set, not even the crying or the screaming, they couldn’t get enough, they had to see the films through to the end, their eyes glued to the screen, and since then he’s had a recurring nightmare about being chased by phalanxes of gray-skinned zombies, running from them, knowing they are there and going to catch him, no matter how many doors he locks in the dream to barricade himself: they always find him, these nearly faceless living dead with their slow-motion and insatiable bloodthirst, this ugly fantasy about immortality, but now he’s the zombie, one of the living dead, that’s how it feels when he can’t wake, when he can’t talk, eat, read. April passes. Thomas is wrapped up in a thick duvet. He’s sluggish and indolent, his body practically rigid with exhaustion, his need for sleep seems unhealthy. Or that’s what Patricia thinks, anyway. He slept most of the day following the funeral and that’s how it’s been ever since, now he’s the one who takes a nap under the desk in the store’s office, while Maloney orders Annie and Peter around. He’s the one nodding off on the train home, his head heavy, dangling; he’s the one who, freezing cold, crawls onto the couch and falls asleep in the middle of the news broadcast, only to stumble into bed later and pass out, sleep black and dreamless, as soon as his head hits the pillow. “Are you sick?” Patricia asks, worried. “Are you depressed?—Does it have something to do with me?” But Thomas can only shake his head tiredly. It’s like hibernation. I’m a bear. I’m a beetle. Days and nights dissolve in a colorless slush: he walks around the store, mechanically moving objects from place to place; he hears Maloney’s voice; he hears conversations about Peter’s ringworm (which is apparently drying out after treatment with a fungicidal cream); he greets customers and deliverymen, bicycle and parcel couriers, the mailman and Eva, who, stooping, pushes the vacuum across the shiny wooden floors (she’s consented to do the spring cleaning if they’ll also hire her niece)—and organizing all of that sapped his energy. He orders products and sits silently during meetings with the accountant, while Maloney leads the conversation. He agrees to nearly everything, and forgets most of it later, his mind can’t retain anything. He can’t even bring himself to put up any resistance when Maloney, humming, decorates the show window with the small candlesticks of tinted glass. He goes to the doctor, Patricia forces him. “I feel a little like a zombie,” he says, staring at the floor. The doctor laughs and takes his blood pressure, draws blood, weighs him, peers deep in his throat, jams an instrument into his ear, listens to his heart. His blood pressure is slightly higher than normal, but other than everything looks fine. Post-traumatic stress syndrome triggered by his father’s death, the doctor concludes, despite Thomas’s protests. He’s advised to continue his regular lifestyle, including exercise and easily digestible, frequent meals. “Come back in a few weeks. If you’re not feeling better, we’ll discuss alternative treatment.” Patricia looks at him in wonder. “Has your father’s death really affected you this much? I thought you were relieved.” He shrugs. His thoughts fly away from him before he even thinks them. They are mere hints of a rapidly evaporating substance, something you can just glimpse before it scatters to dust or air, exploding into millions of microscopic molecules and disappearing into space. He lies in bed and thinks about the money in the basement. I should buy something, he thinks weakly, turn it into something. Get rid of the money. But he can’t bring himself to complete his thought, and he certainly can’t muster the strength to go down to the basement. It seems so absurd that the money’s in his old microwave, he almost can’t believe it’s there. And then, one radiant, clear morning at the end of May—when the cherry trees have long since bloomed, a veil of white and pink still hanging on the treetops, it’s practically more beautiful than when the trees are fully in bloom, Thomas thinks, astonished at his first lucid thought in some time and, astonished at the joy expressed in that thought, just as he’s putting change in the cash register—Alice shows up unexpectedly at the store. Her hair has grown out a little. She’s got a green stud in her nose that flashes every time the sunlight hits it. Thomas offers to buy her a cup of coffee at the café across the street, but Alice would rather have tea, an omelet, sausages, and French fries. They sit opposite each other. She smiles brightly, looking alert and exquisite. Black nail polish, slender hands, light-brown neck.