Three-Fifths

by John Vercher

  Was this it? Had Aaron made up his mind about where Bobby had gone? Maybe he had figured out the truth about Bobby’s father after all, though he couldn’t see how, yet the frenetic speed at which the thoughts in Bobby’s brain ran made any and all scenarios seem possible.

  Remember, he never said he wouldn’t hurt you. Yeah, right. He bashed some kid in the face right out on the street and he didn’t even know him and that kid never lied to him.

  Bobby tucked his hands in a pocket in the front of his apron and ran his finger along the edges of the corkscrew of his wine key. If he got it out fast enough, he could jam it into the softest part of Aaron’s face if he came at him.

  The thought of it recalled the image of the boy lying in the street.

  He let go of the corkscrew.

  Seeing that had been enough violence to last him the rest of his life, and yet he stood not ten feet away from his best friend and was trying to think of the best way to take him out. Bobby’s instincts had failed him up to now and he knew it. Maybe it was time to ignore them.

  “Look, man,” Bobby said.

  Aaron brought his finger to his lips and shushed him. “You know what’s weird?” he asked. “I can’t quite get used to opening doors yet.” He exhaled smoke from the corner of his mouth. “Who’d think that’s a thing to get used to? Stepping out from one place to another just because you feel like it. Jesus, it’s the simplest thing. We totally take it for granted, though. Going from this room to that one. Going outside. Closing the door to the bathroom. No more taking things for granted, Bobby. Not for one more second.”

  He reached behind his back and Bobby gripped the wine key again. Aaron brought back a white envelope and held it out in front of him. Bobby took it and eyed him while he opened it and found it full of twenties, fifties, and hundreds.

  “What the hell is this?” Bobby asked.

  “That,” he said, blowing out another cloud of smoke, “is about three month’s rent.”

  Bobby handed it back to him. “I’m not taking your hush money.”

  “Hush money?” he asked, laughing. “Who says that? You watch too much TV, dude.”

  “Oh my God,” Bobby said, his volume raised. “I can’t take this. I just can’t fucking take this.” He didn’t know if he meant the money, or Aaron, or both.

  “You can take it, because you need it. You and Isabel both. I had a stash of cash no one knew about before I went away.”

  “Away?” Bobby said. “You didn’t take a long vacation, Aaron. You were in prison. This money is from selling drugs and selling drugs put you in prison. Exactly where what you did last night is going to put us both.”

  “You think I need you to tell me where I was?”

  “Then why the hell did you do that to that kid?”

  “Keep your fucking voice down.”

  Bobby stepped closer to Aaron and spoke through clenched teeth. Aaron’s indifference made him angry and he forgot for a moment that he feared him. “You might have murdered that kid, Aaron, and you dragged me into it.”

  “Some of the guards inside were former cops,” Aaron said. Bobby threw up his hands and walked away from Aaron. He paced in front of him, disgusted with what seemed to be another impending jailhouse rumination.

  “I don’t care about –” Bobby started.

  “Shut up and let me finish.” Bobby stopped pacing. “Do you know what they thought of monkeys like that little thug? Either inside there or outside in the world? Nothing. They thought nothing of them. Less than the shit you step on that gets stuck in between the cracks of your shoes, so bad that you have to take a butter knife to them to get it out before you toss them in the trash. They thought less of them than that. They’d turn their head the other way for a shiv in the shower room for less than you’d make on a Saturday night closing shift.”

  Bobby folded his arms to mask a shiver. He didn’t want to know why Aaron knew that. His eyes burned and tears collected at the bottoms. Aaron must have sensed his fear. He walked to Bobby and laid his heavy hands on his shoulders.

  “I know you’re scared. It was a scary thing. I told you, I didn’t want it to go down that way, but it had to.” He tried to pull Bobby in for a hug, but Bobby shrugged his hands from his shoulders and walked to the other side of the dock. Aaron’s arms remained suspended in his potential embrace, then dropped to his sides. He shook his head in disbelief.

  “Is there a point to this story?” Bobby asked.

  “Yeah, there is, Bobby,” Aaron said. “Nobody’s going to give a shit about that kid. Least of all me.” He tossed the envelope back to Bobby. It smacked him on the chest and fell to the ground. “And nobody else will either if you keep your fucking mouth shut. Call it hush money if that’s what it takes. You might not see it now, but I only did what I did for you. To help you.”

  “Help me?” Bobby laughed. “Jesus Christ, you’re going to put me in prison with you.”

  “Yeah, that’s not an option,” Aaron said. “For me or you.” He disappeared down the hallway as the heavy metal door swung shut behind him.

  Bobby looked down at the envelope. A few of the hundreds poked from the opening and began to absorb moisture from the snow. He picked it up and fanned out the dry ones. Some of the bills were soft with age. Others looked so new as to be fake, closer to gray than green. They smelled like what he imagined people meant when they talked about a new car. Three months of dignity, maybe some sorely-needed rest, right there in his hands. Three months to let Isabel get some help that might stick. All he had to do was the only thing he’d ever done well, and that was keep his mouth shut. Lie. If he did, his shitty life stayed on its shitty trajectory to its shitty but predictable end. Hell, it might even get a little bit better.

  Maybe Aaron was right. Maybe no one would care about that kid. Maybe he would have done to Bobby what Aaron did to him. Maybe worse. But that boy’s mother would care. No matter how much of an asshole a kid becomes, a mother always wants him home. He heard Isabel’s voice asking him again where he was last night. That boy’s mother must have wondered why he hadn’t come home, why the cops came to her door in the middle of the night, why someone would do that to her baby.

  He opened the envelope again and counted the bills.

  That kid didn’t have to come after them like that, though. Right? He could have left well enough alone, let Aaron’s insult slide, been the bigger man.

  Bobby folded the knot of cash and shoved it in his back pocket as he walked back inside and swallowed hard around a lump of his own bullshit.

  Dishes clattered. The smell of boiling grease and sizzling meat turned Bobby’s stomach. He wanted the sky to split and dump buckets of snow so they’d have to close early, and he could just go home, though to what, he knew all too well.

  Nothing for me here, nothing for me there.

  He walked past the hot window. Aaron glared at him as he placed food on the metal shelf in front of him. Michelle stood at the computer, bouncing on her toes. Ruddiness colored her cheeks, but the rest of her skin was a shade of olive, only slightly darker than Bobby. Her stocking cap removed, Bobby saw that the red in her hair was only the tips, like she’d dipped the ends in paint. The rest was jet black and buzzed close on one side. She had a tiny green stone in her left nostril and rows of silver hoops lining her ears.

  “They just sat us,” she said to him.

  “Come on,” he said.

  They left behind the obscene shouts between servers and kitchen staff for the hum of the dining room at dinner rush. Bobby absorbed the energy of a busy night on the floor. He appreciated the opportunity to lose himself. The restaurant filled with people who avoided cooking a meal, who sat in public where they were forced to be polite before the weather trapped them inside with each other and removed that luxury. Bobby didn’t judge them. Being here, he hid in plain sight, just like them.

  Kids cried while servers sang tired birthday songs. The nine-to-fivers formed a horseshoe around the bar. Businessmen scarfed down chea
p happy hour hot wings that were too old to sell on the regular menu.

  Michelle and Bobby reached their section to find a table of five young black men going over menus.

  “Seriously?” Bobby said.

  “What?” Michelle said.

  Bobby shook his head and directed Michelle to take their drink orders. He watched from the bus stand while she headed to the table. Bobby saw one of them wore mostly royal blue, and he thought again of the kid and his friend at the Original. Out for food, just like these guys, never suspecting one of their own might not go home with them. One of them watched Bobby watch them. Bobby diverted his own gaze out the window to the parking. When he glanced back, the guy held his stare.

  He never did see the other kid’s face at the Original.

  That couldn’t be him. He didn’t see me, anyway. Couldn’t have.

  Michelle came back with pad in hand, menus under her arm, and a look of pride. They gave her the whole order and she wanted to put it in the computer. Bobby looked at her with doubt and swiped his key card to activate the POS.

  “Did they want soup or salad?” he asked.

  She clenched her jaw. “I forgot to ask,” she said.

  “And how did they want this burger done?”

  “Crap.”

  Bobby hit the cancel button. “Look, we both know I’m not going to make shit from this table whether you screw it up or not.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t know what this job is for you, but this is how I eat. From now, if I say just get drinks, then just get drinks. Don’t take the whole order like you know what you’re doing. I can’t afford it.”

  “Wait, why aren’t you going to make shit from this table?”

  “Don’t be dumb.”

  Michelle pulled her chin back as if she’d been slapped. Bobby took the pad from her and they returned to the table. The kid stopped his stare as they arrived. Bobby’s paranoia downshifted.

  Michelle followed his lead the rest of the night. They didn’t talk to each other unless they had to. As the evening progressed, the dinner crowd thinned out. Another wave of snow came through, but slower than the forecast had called for, the storm losing strength. Their last table lingered over drinks. Michelle came back from running food and leaned next to Bobby against the computer stand. The coupled waved and signaled for their check.

  “Drop it off and restock the table tents,” he told her. “I’ll meet you up at the bar and we’ll count out the tip share.” She saluted and headed towards the table.

  Up at the bar, the happy hour crowd had long gone. Only the barflies buzzed about, some to play trivia, while others argued about the Steelers and the Pens. Bobby pulled up a stool. He took his lighter from his back pocket and spun it on the bar. His feet bounced on the brass foot rail. He dreaded the end of the shift all night. Any time left alone to think sent his brain out of the sprinter’s blocks again. Paul, the bartender washed draft glasses in the sink under the taps in front of him. Bobby signaled to him for a pack of cigarettes from the glass case behind him. He slid them across to him.

  “Club soda?” Paul asked.

  Bobby stared at the taps. Maybe just one beer. Something to quiet the noise. That’s why Isabel did it, right? Too much static upstairs. It would be so easy. Drink the first one quickly, get past that bitterness, so the next one goes down smooth until things get numb. Despite his resurgent fear, Bobby realized he needed the anxiety to stay sharp, to be clear of mind because despite Aaron’s assurances, what happened would not simply go away. He had to think his way out of this mess.

  “Let’s get crazy,” Bobby said. “Throw a lime in there.”

  “Whoa, I hope you’re not driving,” Michelle said from behind him. She pulled up a seat next to Bobby and made a frame around his face with her hands in the air. “Let me see. It’s not a religious thing. And you don’t strike me as a violent drunk. So just a one-beer-queer, am I right? Can’t handle getting your drink on?”

  “How about it’s none of your business?” Bobby held out his hand. She sighed, handed him the book full of closed-out checks, and reached in her apron pocket to give him a folded wad of cash.

  “Look, I know I screwed up at first, but I got it together. Didn’t I?” she asked. “I’m going to make you like me. I’m very likable.”

  Bobby ignored her and counted the money. She ordered a beer. Bobby counted again.

  The money wasn’t right. It couldn’t be.

  “Did something get stuck in your pocket?” he asked.

  “Dude, I’m wearing stretch pants,” she said.

  He shook his head and counted once more. Paul came back with a drink and Bobby reluctantly slid the tip share over to him. Paul counted it and looked at Bobby and Michelle over the rims of his glasses.

  “Come on, bro,” he said. “Between the two of you?”

  “Sorry, man,” Bobby said, jerking his head towards Michelle. “Had the newbie. Plus, it was a little dark in my section tonight.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” asked Michelle.

  A voice boomed off to the side. “It means y’all had to wait on too many niggers.”

  Bobby turned to see Darryl amble from the steps that led down from the smoking section. Darryl was the only black server in the bistro. Of which he was aware, at least. His shaved head shone under the recessed bulbs that lit the artificial antiques covering the walls of the upper level of the restaurant. He wore an oversized hooded sweatshirt, and his novelty pin-filled suspenders, draped over his shoulder at the end of his shift, clacked with every step of his long legs. He had a boisterous laugh, a thunderous voice, and no love lost for Bobby.

  They’d trained for the floor together, though Darryl had been working there years before Bobby. First as a dishwasher, then a busser. Bobby applied for the floor with no experience and got the job. Still, Darryl showed him all the things he knew about the restaurant from years of working there. Showed him to how to burn the ice if someone dropped glass at the service bar. Secret stashes of pre-rolled silverware to finish a closing shift faster. They’d even had much in common. Sons of single mothers, making ends meet. Then one night, Bobby complained to Paul that he wasn’t in the mood to wait on a table of black people after they’d asked him for clean silverware. He hadn’t realized Darryl was standing behind him, waiting on a drink. He said nothing to Bobby. That night, or any that followed.

  “This dude right here can’t stand to wait on black folks,” he said to Michelle. “He’s right, though. Niggers don’t tip.”

  “What? That’s messed up,” Michelle said to Darryl. She took a cigarette from Bobby’s pack and lit up.

  “No, really, help yourself,” Bobby said.

  “You’re telling me,” she said to Darryl, “that you think all black folks don’t tip.”

  “Put it like this,” he said. “I don’t run my ass off when they get sat in my section.”

  “See?” Bobby said.

  “You ever think that’s why you don’t get tipped?” she said.

  “No,” Bobby and Darryl answered together. They exchanged a brief glance, then looked away.

  “Y’all are a trip,” Michelle said. She turned to Bobby. “I mean, aren’t you mixed?”

  Bobby froze. Darryl went wide-eyed, his cheeks puffed out, full of beer. He swallowed hard and exploded into laughter, holding his sides and hooting. Bobby laughed hard, too, but he saw Michelle didn’t buy it. Darryl put his arms around both of them. Bobby shrugged him off.

  “Girl, please. You can’t say that shit when I got a drink in my mouth.” He pretended to catch his breath and wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. Then he frowned and leaned in close to Bobby’s face and squinted in mock concentration. “You do got some black-ass lips, though,” he said to Bobby. “She might could be on to something.” He laughed again and walked back to his barstool. Michelle stared at Bobby.

  “You’re really not?” she asked.

  “You’re serious? Look at me.”

  “
I am.”

  “Yeah, well maybe you need another drink.”

  “That’s not a no.”

  Fingers and thumbs dug into Bobby’s shoulders and massaged them. He turned to see Aaron and choked on his smoke. Aaron’s cook’s jacket hung tied around his waist and blood from raw meat stained his checkered pants pink in spots. He slapped Bobby on the back and sat down on the other side of him. How long had he been there?

  “What’s not a ‘no’?” he asked Michelle.

  “Look at this bullshit,” Darryl said from his seat at the other end of the bar. Bobby breathed out, grateful for the reprieve. Sports Center was running clips of yesterday’s proceedings at the O.J. trial. Darryl downed his beer and ordered another.

  “How they going to act like this ain’t all a total set-up?” he said.

  “How do you figure it’s a set-up?” Aaron asked Darryl.

  Darryl looked back down the bar at Aaron, his face twisted as though something rotten passed under his nose. Darryl didn’t like Aaron before he had gone to prison. He hated Aaron’s old wannabe act, said it insulted him on behalf of all black folks. You might as well be running around here in black face, he told Aaron once. The new Aaron now resided on the opposite end of that spectrum, and it only served to intensify Darryl’s animosity.

  Bobby didn’t like Darryl, but he understood his anger towards Aaron. Aaron had embarrassed Bobby often when they were growing up. He ridiculed him about the way he talked and dressed in the hopes that he would stop. It made Bobby wonder if this new Aaron was just another act, if he had adopted this persona just to survive. But maybe it wasn’t. Perhaps Bobby had planted some idea that that festered inside him in prison. Like a seed, it needed attention, nurturing, the right environment to grow.

  He might as well have swung that brick himself.

  “You going to tell me a damn near fifty-year-old dude killed a woman and a grown-ass man at the same time?” Darryl asked. “With a knife? The fuck out of here.”

  “A retired fullback,” Aaron said. “One of the greatest athletes of all time. Incredibly strong.”