Ready to Fall

by Marcella Pixley

  SCORPION BOWL

  The elderly woman at the counter greets me very enthusiastically, and gives me a choice of where to sit among the leagues of empty tables, scattered families picking absently and unenthusiastically at their food. In the back of the room, there is a well-dressed family, fully coiffed, manicured, way too fine for this shabby establishment, chatting to one another in low voices, much too refined for the way I’m feeling tonight. I need to be as far away from them as possible.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s Dad. I hit decline.

  My eyes are drawn to the bar where two guys with swollen bellies are drinking, watching basketball, and shamelessly flirting with the pretty waitress. Cage is wearing an undershirt and suspenders. He has a big, fruity drink in his hand. The waitress wears a white silk top with two buttons open in the front. Every time she bends down to get something, which she does frequently, the men pretend not to look down her shirt. They clink their drinks and sing the national anthem. There is nothing like a low-cut shirt to make a guy feel patriotic.

  “I’ll sit at the bar,” I say.

  “How old are you?” asks the elderly woman.

  “I’m twenty-two,” I lie.

  She frowns at me and looks as though she is about to ask for identification, but Cage gestures to me with his drink.

  “Hey,” he says, “I can vouch for this gentleman. Come over and join me, Mr. Friedman. Tell me all about graduate school. This first round is on me.”

  The old woman shrugs, obviously not convinced, but nonetheless leads me to the bar to sit with Cage and the bald guy. “It’s a slow night,” she says.

  The waitress smiles at me from behind the bar.

  I slide in next to Cage.

  “What’ll you have?” he asks.

  “I’ve always wanted to try a scorpion bowl,” I tell him.

  He pounds me on the back and laughs. “Nice try, kid. No can do. Besides, guys usually share those drinks with a woman. Where’s your woman, Friedman?”

  “If I had a woman, do you think I’d be here with you?” I ask him.

  “Touché. Still quick on his feet after all these years,” says Cage, loud enough so the old woman behind the counter can hear. “That MFA has really sharpened your sense of humor. It was a good career choice. Led to all those published novels and the tenure-track position and whatnot. But I could tell you had talent when you were in my class. The stories you used to write impressed me. And if you remember, I am not easily impressed. I’ll tell you what. I’ll order you a virgin piña colada and me a scorpion bowl. If you’re a good boy I’ll let you have one sip. We can pretend I’m a woman. Maybe you’ll write about it in your next bestseller.”

  “You’re a writer?” the waitress asks me.

  “One of the best,” says Cage, thumping me on the back. “And he was my student, so I am taking credit. See me take credit? Yes. That’s me. Taking credit. Can we order this man a virgin colada? He just won his first Pulitzer. This calls for a celebration. He’s in the big time now.”

  “One virgin colada and one scorpion bowl coming right up,” says the waitress. We sit and watch the game in silence.

  “So?” says Cage finally. “What’s with all the despair tonight?”

  “Something bad happened.”

  “What?” says Cage.

  “Well,” I say taking a deep breath, “I caught my dad kissing Ms. Grossman.”

  Cage slams the counter with the palm of his hand.

  “Lucky bastard,” he says. But then when he sees me frowning, he changes his tune. “What I mean to say is, are you sure it was a real kiss? People greet each other with platonic kisses all the time and it means nothing at all. Sometimes they just grab each other. Look. I’ll demonstrate.”

  Cage grabs the guy sitting next to him and kisses him roughly on the cheek.

  “Was it that kind of thing?”

  “Hey,” says the guy, pushing him away. “Cut it out, asshole.”

  “No. It wasn’t anything like that,” I tell Cage. “It was romantic. Like they couldn’t stop themselves.”

  “I know that kind of kiss,” says Cage, sighing.

  “Please don’t demonstrate on me,” says the guy next to Cage.

  “No problem,” says Cage. “To be honest, you smell like socks. A kiss on the cheek is all you’re getting tonight, honey.”

  “Good,” says the bald guy. He takes another swig of beer and turns back to the game.

  The waitress comes with my piña colada and Cage’s scorpion bowl.

  She bends down to find two paper umbrellas, two cherries on plastic swords, and two straws. I have a perfect view down her shirt. I don’t even pretend not to look.

  Cage pokes me in the ribs. “Icarus!” he whispers sharply. “Don’t fly too close to the sun. You’ll burn your wings.”

  “Sorry,” I whisper back.

  “I’m only kidding,” mutters Cage. “You don’t know me very well. But next time don’t make it so obvious.”

  “So,” says the waitress, rising, “you want some food tonight, or just the drinks?”

  “Want to share a pupu platter?” I ask Cage. “My treat.” I pull a twenty out of my dad’s jacket pocket.

  “Is that from the Pulitzer?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say sarcastically. “This year they paid in cash.”

  “Weird,” says Cage. “The first time I won the Pulitzer they gave me a lifetime supply of piña coladas. The second time they gave me a heart condition and quadruple-bypass surgery. Times have changed, Mr. Friedman. Be glad you’re coming of age now and not in the days when old farts like me and this guy were young.”

  He pounds the other man on the back. They toast each other and drink.

  “You’re a real asshole, you know that?” says the bald guy.

  “Yeah,” says Cage. “I know.”

  “So do you want a pupu platter, or don’t you?” says the waitress.

  “Oh, we want it,” says Cage. “We want it like a hole in the head. And we want a hole in the head, in case you were wondering.”

  “One pupu platter coming up.”

  “And make sure it’s pretty,” says Cage. “I only like them when they’re pretty.”

  “They’re always pretty at Panda Wok,” says the waitress.

  “Yes they are,” says Cage, winking.

  She sighs and walks away again.

  Cage watches her go.

  While he isn’t looking, I take a sip of the scorpion bowl. It tastes like trouble.

  I put my hands around the virgin colada and stir the straw in circles.

  Cage leans toward me.

  “You want to hear a secret?” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “I tried to kiss Ms. Grossman at a faculty party a few years back.”

  “No way,” I say.

  “Way,” says Cage.

  “What happened?”

  “She slapped me across the face. And then she stormed out. And then she filed sexual harassment charges.”

  “Dissed,” I say.

  “Dissed,” agrees Cage. “Big-time. Of course she was married then. And the twins were just babies. And the husband had just been diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer. So maybe it wasn’t the best timing. I don’t know. Or maybe I’m just not handsome enough for her. Is your dad a good-looking dude?”

  “My mom thought so,” I say.

  “Ah,” says Cage respectfully. “Well, that’s all that matters.”

  One of the players makes a crazy half-court shot. Fans on the television go wild. The bald guy sitting next to Cage stands up and cheers in a broken voice. He toasts the television with his beer and takes a long sip, and then wipes his face with the back of his arm. Cage and I drink too.

  My phone buzzes. It’s my dad again. I hit decline.

  “So when are you going home?” asks Cage.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “He’s probably worried sick about you.”

  “Probably,” I s
ay. “But he should’ve thought about that before he went and kissed Lydie Grossman. He should’ve thought about how that was going to affect me.”

  “Well yeah,” says Cage. “Clearly he should’ve thought about it beforehand. No question. He should’ve thought it through. Looked at all the angles. It’s just that sometimes in this life you gotta do things without thinking through every single detail, you know? You’ve gotta do what your body tells you to do. If your body says breathe deep, you gotta breathe deep. If your body says cry like a baby, you gotta cry like a baby. Maybe tonight your dad’s body was telling him to kiss the heck out of Lydie Grossman. And for that one moment what his body was saying to him was more important than your feelings.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I say.

  “You are most welcome,” says Cage. “Carpe diem.” And he clinks his scorpion bowl against my piña colada.

  I spear the cherry with the plastic sword. Then I plunge it into my mouth and eat it.

  “Yes!” says Cage, pounding my back. “That’s it, Max. Eat the cherry when you still have time! Gather ye rosebuds while ye may!”

  “I’m only getting, like, half of your references,” I tell him.

  “Pity,” says Cage. “I’m even funnier when you get me. And now, if you will excuse me, I need to see a man about a horse. That means I need to take a piss, in case you didn’t get my reference.”

  “Thanks for translating,” I tell him.

  Cage heaves himself out of his chair, salutes me, and then wanders off toward the men’s room.

  I pick up his scorpion bowl and take another sip. The drink is strong and sweet and it makes my insides warm.

  “You like?” asks the bald man.

  “I like,” I say.

  The waitress comes through the kitchen with our pupu platter and I put my hands around the virgin colada like a good boy. There is a blue flame underneath the platter and a wonderful array of greasy fried things. Cage comes back from the bathroom looking chuffed. He hands me an egg roll, takes a chicken wing for himself, and bites in. Now there are flecks of chicken in his beard, and his fingers are glazed. He wipes his lips on the back of his arm.

  When he sees the disgust on my face, Cage laughs and motions for me to move closer to him so he can whisper.

  “You know the best thing about being a writer?” he asks rancidly.

  “The money?”

  “Ha-ha,” says Cage. “No.”

  “The women?”

  “I wish,” says Cage. “No. Not that either.”

  “What then?”

  Cage bites into a sparerib. Then he lifts up his scorpion bowl, takes a tremendous gulp, and belches. “The best thing about being a writer is that no one expects you to act like other people. It’s like a big old get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  “Reasons to publish,” I say. “Act like an asshole and no one cares.”

  “You got it,” says Cage, pounding me on the back. “Look how much you’ve learned in a few short minutes. An hour ago you were thinking of ending it all. Now you have discovered the meaning of life. Egg rolls and being an asshole. And they said I would make a lousy advisor. Look at me. I’m gonna get Teacher of the Year.”

  “To Teacher of the Year,” I say.

  We clink glasses. I drink my virgin colada and he drinks his scorpion bowl. Then our team lays down a monster dunk and Cage and the bald guy rise to their feet to cheer and hug each other and say things that guys say when they care about who wins. While he’s carrying on, I lean over to the scorpion bowl and I drink and drink until my head and the stratosphere are spinning and the lights are gleaming much more brightly than they ought to be. The tumor loves basketball. He is bouncing off the walls of my brain like an inebriated jock. My tumor is infinitely more masculine than I am. If he could, he would call me a fairy and beat the living shit out of me. I shake my head vigorously just to bother him. Then I close and open my eyes.

  “So,” says Cage, sitting down and staring at me. “When are you gonna tell me what’s been going on in that crazy noggin of yours?”

  I blink at him.

  “I’ve got an idea,” says Cage in a whisper. “You want to take a sip of my scorpion bowl? Maybe it will give you some courage.”

  “Okay,” I whisper conspiratorially.

  I grab the scorpion bowl and take another sip.

  “Hey,” says Cage. “Easy there, sailor. Now tell me. What’s going on in there?” He knocks on my head.

  My phone buzzes.

  “Hang on a second,” I say.

  It’s a text from Fish.

  Fishface1: Im so glad u texted. RU okay?

  Maximus: Im having a very strange night.

  Fishface1: Me too. Sorry I didnt answer before. Was talking things over with The Monk. Should we come get u?

  Maximus: Is he mad at me?

  Fishface1: A little. But hell get over it. Heading to rock quarry. Should I tell The Monk to come get u? I want to see u.

  Maximus: I want to see u too.

  Fishface1: Where r u?

  Maximus: Panda Wok. With Cage. Drinking scorpion bowl.

  Fishface1: Why please?

  Maximus: Long story.

  Fishface1: U can tell me about it when I see u.

  Maximus: Come soon.

  Fishface1: Thats what she said.

  “Was that your dad?” asks Cage.

  “No,” I say, still flushed from her words. “It was Fish. My friends are coming to pick me up.”

  “Well, you better hurry up and tell me the truth then,” says Cage.

  My phone buzzes again.

  It’s a text from my dad.

  I don’t even read it. I turn my phone off and put it in my pocket.

  “These are the most messages I’ve ever gotten in my entire life,” I tell Cage.

  “You should run away more often.”

  “That is excellent advice,” I say. “Quick, give me more.”

  “Eat more crab Rangoon.”

  “Is this your plan for my eventual happiness?” I ask him.

  “Part of it,” says Cage.

  “What’s the rest?”

  “Find a girl and kiss her the way you saw your father kiss Lydie,” says Cage.

  “I like this plan,” I say.

  We drink to that.

  “And then go see a psychotherapist. You could use a good shrink.”

  “You should have stopped while you were ahead,” I tell him.

  By nine thirty, between Cage’s trips to the bathroom, I have almost but not quite finished the scorpion bowl and the piña colada. Cage stirs the ice and licks his straw. “Aw jeez,” says Cage, “can’t believe I’m done already.” I shrug and put my chin in my hands. The game is over, the well-coiffed family has gone home, the bald man is slumped over and snoring with his head on the bar, and Cage has his arm around me. He is giving me all the intimate details of his quadruple-bypass surgery. He lifts up his shirt and shows me his scar. He wants me to touch it, but I decline because he is my teacher and it’s creepy. The waitress has turned off the television and has started sponging off the bar. The old woman at the counter is counting dollar bills. She calls to the waitress in Chinese.

  “We close in half an hour,” says the waitress.

  “He’ll have another scorpion bowl,” I say, reaching in my dad’s pocket for another twenty.

  “I think it’s time to call it quits,” says the waitress.

  I rest my head on my hand and watch her. “Did I tell you I just won the Pulitzer?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “And I said I believed you. Guess that makes both of us liars.”

  “Want to go out with me sometime?” I ask her.

  “Nah,” she says. “You’re too old for me.”

  I dig around in the pupu platter for something I haven’t chewed on yet. There are heaps of chicken bones and denuded spareribs, and crumbled bits of egg rolls. I select a chicken bone and gnaw on it like a dog.

  “Keep chewing,” says Cage, hugging me even close
r so that the world smells like scorpion bowls and armpits. “Suck the marrow out. Suck it dry. And then when you’re done, raise your face to the sky and howl. Moloch! Moloch!”

  “Is that another reference, or have you totally lost it?”

  “I have totally lost it. And it’s a reference. Who said it?”

  “No idea.”

  “Come on,” says Cage. “Who said it? Who said it? You call yourself a Baldwin man? You need to know these things.”

  The bell above the door rings.

  A breath of cold air.

  “Who said, Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men?”

  “Ginsberg,” says The Monk in a low voice, all six and a half feet of him suddenly blocking the entrance. Something about the way he is looking at me makes me uneasy.

  He strides over to us in his Doc Martens, hands in the pockets of his black leather jacket. “Allen Ginsberg,” he says. “From ‘Howl.’ I love that poem. I was totally born in the wrong era.”

  “That means I was born in the right one,” says Cage. “Marched so hard my ticker gave out. Want to see my bypass scar?”

  “While that is very tempting, we really need to be going,” says The Monk.

  Cage looks disappointed. “It’s smooth,” he says, “silky. You’d think it would be knotted and hard. But it isn’t. They broke me open and left a part of me silky and nice. Me. The least silky person in the world.”

  I reach toward him. “I want to see it again,” I say.

  The Monk grabs my wrist and then yanks me onto my feet. “Come with me,” he says.

  The room tilts. My head is spinning. It could be the tumor. It could be the scorpion bowl. It could be the tumor is sitting at a table drinking the scorpion bowl with a bendy straw made of neurons.

  “All writers need to break the rules at least once,” says Cage. “Push the boundaries. Stick it to The Man. Go get ’em, tiger.”

  “Sage advice,” says The Monk. “From a teacher who just spent his Friday night getting shit-faced with his underage student.”

  “That does sound bad,” says Cage, “but I only gave him one sip. Listen. You’re not gonna tell anyone about this, are you?”