Three-Fifths

by John Vercher

  “I should go,” he said. He finished his drink and stood. “Look, despite all of that, it was good to see you again, Izzy. It really was.” He put his coat on and paused. “I hope you have a nice life.”

  Izzy stared straight ahead, unable to look him in the eye, still wordless.

  “I’ll get the tab on the way out. You take care.”

  Isabel watched him stop at the bar and settle up with Nico.

  You never asked him why he was back in town, or for how long. You just jumped down his throat for something that was your fault. He’s going to be gone again, and that’s on you, too. He isn’t for you anymore, but this isn’t about you. Get off your ass.

  She sprung up, banging her knee on the table, and fast-limped, holding on to it with one hand as she called out to Robert at the door.

  “Robert, wait.”

  He turned to see her half-bent over, clutching her knee and hobbling towards him. He looked confused.

  “That thing I needed to tell you back then? I still need to tell you.”

  “Izzy—”

  “Not here, though. Not like this.” He opened his mouth to protest. “Please,” she said. He stopped. “You were right. You are right. You don’t really know how right you are. And I need to tell you. But it can’t be here. Meet me tomorrow.” Robert shifted, shook his head, and fidgeted with his wedding band again. “No bar this time. Somewhere more appropriate for old friends like us to meet up. Schenley Park? The snow’s supposed to let up overnight. It might even be a little warmer tomorrow. Say the ice rink at noon?”

  The corner of his mouth turned up. “I haven’t been there in I can’t remember how long,” he said. “I don’t know, Izzy.”

  “Please? I owe you more of an explanation. For so many things.” He tilted his head and his forehead creased. “God, I know how cryptic I sound right now, but I promise I will make sense of all of it. Tomorrow.”

  Robert looked down at his shoes, hands in his pockets. Isabel found herself disarmed by the boyish charm he exuded, even as a distinguished older man, and found it difficult not to embrace him. He looked up from under his brow. “Noon?”

  Isabel chewed at the inside of her cheek and nodded.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said. He backed out the door as she nodded again and turned away so he couldn’t see her cover her mouth while the tears fell. She swiped at them when she saw Nico watching her, arms folded. She walked back to her seat at the bar.

  “So you’re drinking when the brother is paying?” he said. “Who the fuck was that guy?”

  Isabel looked back over her shoulder at the door, then back to Nico. “Somebody I realized I wasn’t always so nice to,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know the feeling.” He tossed his washrag over his shoulder. The television was tuned to Sports Center again. A mug shot of O.J. flashed on the screen followed by more clips of the trial. Nico shook his finger at the screen and looked back at Isabel. “See?” he said. “You mess with them, you end up dead. Looking like a Pez dispenser.” He drew his finger across his neck like a slash.

  She opened her mouth to retort but he stormed to the other end of the bar. She sat and stared at the empty glass of club soda in front of her, watched the drops of condensation slide, stop, and slide again, soaking into the cocktail napkin underneath. She looked up to see Nico standing in front of her, his face softened.

  “You okay? What did he say to you?

  “Something I needed to hear.”

  “You going to be all right?”

  “Still take you up on that drink?”

  He smiled and gave her a heavy pour. He worked his way down the bar, making refills, continuing with his talk about the trial.

  Yep, she thought. My dad would have liked you just fine. She finished her drink. Then she had another.

  Bobby didn’t turn around again. He knew if he did, he’d see Aaron watching him still. Where the fuck was that bus? Bobby bounced up and down. He’d surprised himself when he snapped at Aaron. The gun terrified him and he hadn’t known what else to do. He had to keep Aaron from hurting someone else. Doing nothing got Bobby here. He would never do nothing again. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Aaron had wanted him to stop him. So what, then? Why the show? If he thought he needed to scare Bobby, he hadn’t been paying attention. He was already scared out of his mind.

  The bus’s brakes squealed as it pulled up. The doors opened with a hiss and Bobby flashed the salt-and-pepper-haired black driver his pass. The driver’s uniform gave a false semblance of authority and it made Bobby feel better to be near him. Not that he could do anything to help. If Aaron’s thick fingers pushed through the folding doors in some gamma radiation-fueled rage, ripped the driver from his seat and threw him into the windshield in some Neo-Nazi frenzy until it spider-webbed and broke loose, there’d be nothing the poor fool would be able to do to stop him. Nor, really, could Bobby. Thankfully, the driver did the only thing he needed to do to avoid all that. He drove off and left Aaron to fade away under the parking lot lights. Tiny rivers of melted snow traveled up and down the channels of the black rubber floor as the bus lurched into gear. The inside lights flickered and dimmed. Bobby sat back and sighed.

  The bus was empty except for a man Bobby had been seeing since the beginning of the coldest days of fall. He lay across a section of seats in a dingy gray coat, his face obscured by an overgrown beard, browned the way nicotine stained the filter at the end of Bobby’s cigarettes. His pants were stained with who-knew-what, his knit cap full of holes and the heel of one of his work boots peeled away and flopped with each pothole bump. Bobby had never seen him move.

  “That guy alive?” Bobby asked the driver

  “You want to check for me?” He looked at Bobby in his rearview. Bobby shook his head. The driver chuckled.

  “You know his name?” Bobby asked.

  “Why you asking?”

  Bobby shrugged, though he knew why he asked. Talking to the driver gave his mind something else to do.

  “Don’t know,” the driver said. “He got himself a pass. Catches the first bus in the morning and rides until the last one of the night. Gets off during our breaks, I’m guessing to piss or shit. Cheaper than paying rent and he gets to be warm for a spell.”

  “He’s homeless?”

  “Guess so,” he said. “I hate to think about somebody with no place to go in this weather. That’s why I don’t bother him. The other drivers, neither. Could be that he ain’t got no home. Could be that he can’t go home. Could be he won’t. Guys like that always got a story.”

  Bobby wondered how long the kid Aaron attacked lay there bleeding in the snow with his face crushed before someone found him. What his story was, and if he and Aaron had ended it. He didn’t know how he was supposed to live with that, never mind get away with it.

  A newspaper sat tucked behind the driver’s seat. There had to be something about what happened. Bobby grabbed it.

  He scanned the front page. Nothing. Nothing on the inside or on the page after that.

  That’s impossible.

  Nothing in the editorials either. He moved to local news. The front page tore as he whipped past it to get to the inside. Three pages in, he found it. A quarter column in the bottom right-hand corner.

  “Student Assaulted Outside Original Hot Dog Shop.”

  Discovered by his friend shortly after the assault. In stable but critical condition. No eyewitnesses. No suspects. Police reviewing security cameras.

  Less than a full paragraph.

  Aaron was right. Nobody gave a shit.

  Bobby’s relief outweighed his guilt and that made him feel worse. Then he read “security cameras” again and his relief jumped ship. He put the paper back behind the driver’s seat and leaned his head against the window. It wouldn’t take long for them to see something on those video tapes. Maybe he’d be okay, he hadn’t gotten out of the truck.

  Except he had gotten out of the truck.

  He’d wanted to stay put, but
Aaron convinced him to go in.

  How could he have forgotten? His dread wrapped his brain in an opaque film and formed some alternate version of events in an attempt to relieve the crushing culpability.

  That’s how.

  If they saw Aaron, they saw Bobby. Saw him leap into the driver’s side while Aaron jumped back in. Saw that same driver’s side door not open while a boy lay dying in the street. Saw that same truck speed off without a moment’s hesitation, only to slow down a minute later as if nothing happened. Calculated. Saw it slow enough to catch the license plate without even having to freeze the image on the screen. And that would be that. Game over. Just a matter of time. The question was, how much time, and what to do with what’s left?

  The bus made each light as it cruised down McKnight Road. Bobby tuned into the roar of the engine and was lulled by its constancy. He recalled every moment of the night before, wondering where he could have done something differently to prevent the outcome, until it occurred to him that the foresight that led to his situation started long ago.

  IT WAS THE first day of ninth grade. Bobby stood at the white line separating the school bus driver from the rows of faces, most that looked nothing like his. The driver yelled at him to take his seat and the kids laughed. He ducked into the empty seat behind the driver and slid down out of sight. The engine rumbled and they drove on.

  Bobby pulled an Avengers from his backpack and the bus scraped to a stop. The doors opened but he kept his head down. He didn’t want to make any more eye contact if he could help it. Someone dropped into the seat next to him: a white kid in a black satin Adidas track jacket and a Pittsburgh Pirates cap cocked to the side. He leaned over Bobby to see what he was reading and Bobby jerked away.

  “Marvel comics is wack, yo,” the boy said.

  Bobby slid over in his seat and pretended to read while the boy reached into his own bag and pulled out a comic, sealed in a plastic bag, but with no white board backing.

  What an amateur, Bobby thought.

  “Yeah, well,” Bobby said, “you should have a board in that if you want it to be worth anything later.”

  “Please, cuz,” the boy said. “Mylar bags is the only way to do it. Can’t be using boards unless they acid free.” He cocked his head at Bobby’s comic. “Probably keep that in one of them long cardboard boxes, huh? Look at it. Pages already getting all yellow and shit.”

  “No,” Bobby said. “I’m not stupid.” He closed the comic quickly, not wanting the boy to see where he’d taped the covers inside with scotch tape to keep them from pulling away from the staples. He told himself to throw that long box out when he got home.

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  “Whatever,” Bobby said. “Why are you talking like that?”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “You know you’re white, right?”

  “No, he don’t,” said a voice behind them. Bobby slid up and looked behind him to see an annoyed black kid. He scrunched up his mouth at Bobby and widened his eyes, gesturing for him to turn around. Bobby held his gaze.

  “Was I talking to you?” Bobby said.

  “No, but I’m talking to you,” the kid said.

  Bobby turned in his seat when the bus driver shouted for him to face forward. The boy next to him tugged at his shirt and Bobby acquiesced, his eyes on the kid behind until he no longer faced him.

  “Anyway,” the white kid said. “Y’all tripping.”

  He opened his bag and slid out an issue of Crisis on Infinite Earths, gingerly, as though he was Indiana Jones switching out the idol before the boulder came rolling. Bobby tilted his head to see Superman holding a dead Supergirl in his arms.

  “You want to read this one?” he asked and offered his book to him. “DC is where it’s at, yo.”

  “No way, their artists suck,” Bobby said.

  “What?” He threw his head back. “You are tripping! Plus, their stories are way better.”

  “Come on,” Bobby said. “Supergirl? That’s like the dumbest character ever.”

  He looked at the cover and rolled his eyes. “All right, you got that,” he said. “She’s kind of weak. But they killing her off, so there you go. But she ain’t no Ant-Man, I guess, huh? Now that’s a dumb-ass character.” Bobby laughed in spite of himself and the boy smiled back. “Aaron,” he said. He held out his hand.

  “Bobby.”

  Bobby gave him his hand but then Aaron commenced a complicated handshake that Bobby immediately messed up and snatched his hand away.

  “You got any more in there?” Bobby asked. Aaron winked and grabbed another Crisis issue with The Flash on the cover. “They’re killing Flash, too?”

  Aaron shrugged, but it was clear he knew the answer. Bobby removed the issue from the sleeve in the same careful manner and Aaron nodded his approval. They read in silence the rest of the way to school.

  When the bus pulled up, they stood. The other kids filed by first and wouldn’t let them out. Some pushed Aaron as they went by. He looked over his shoulder at Bobby.

  “What the hell, man,” Bobby said. “Why do you let them do that to you?”

  “They just clowning me,” he said. “Just playing.” His embarrassment was obvious to Bobby, and it made him mad that his new friend got bullied. In some strange way, he was comforted, too, because he no longer felt alone. He wasn’t the only one who was different.

  They followed the last kid down the steps. Bobby watched them scatter like beans spilled across a table, running and yelling through the front doors of the school. A smile came to his face.

  He had a friend. He almost had to say it out loud to believe it.

  Sure, he was a little weird, but he liked comics and he liked Bobby. He saw that although he wasn’t looking at him, Aaron was smiling, too.

  Aaron walked with Bobby to the office to help him find his homeroom and later showed him where some of his classes were. They didn’t have any of the same ones; Aaron said his classes were exceptional, but then he got that same look on his face as when the kids pushed him on the bus, so Bobby didn’t ask what it meant. Aaron brightened when he saw that they had lunch at the same time and they agreed to meet up then.

  Bobby stood at the entrance to the cafeteria but he couldn’t find Aaron and started to panic. He tried not to see the all the glares and stares as he looked through the crowd for him. No one seemed to want him there. Not the few tables where the white kids congregated and not the black kids, either. He found himself in the center of the cafeteria, turning in every direction, looking for a seat, looking for Aaron, and finding neither. He told himself he wasn’t that hungry, which was quickly becoming the truth, and turned to leave. He’d eat at home, save the lunch he packed for tomorrow.

  Where is Aaron? Why the hell is everyone looking at me?

  The noise of the cafeteria swelled and Bobby found it harder to breathe. Someone grabbed his arm from behind and his heart climbed into his throat before it dove into his stomach. He pulled his arm away, dropped his lunch, and cocked his fist.

  “Get off me!”

  Bobby’s shout echoed and the din hushed. He turned to see Aaron and his cheeks tingled and his ears burned. The cafeteria burst into laughter, and Bobby waited for Aaron to do the same.

  But he didn’t. He put his arm around Bobby and guided him to two empty chairs at the end of a long table. When they sat, the kids that sat there got up and moved a few seats down. Aaron seemed not to notice. He pulled a bagged lunch from his backpack along with two other comics. He slid one over to Bobby. His heart slowed and his appetite returned. They read and ate while the rest of the world ignored them. That was just fine with Bobby.

  Aaron’s talk and dress made him an outcast to just about everyone. The black kids were insulted by his impersonation of them, which even Bobby thought was pretty terrible, and it caught him no end of bullying, with Bobby guilty by association, though they dished it out less when Bobby was around. The white kids wanted to avoid the same trouble and treated them like
the untouchables in India that they read about in their social studies class.

  Bobby almost admired how much he committed to it, though. It wasn’t for show. He didn’t drop the act when they were alone. He didn’t straighten his hat or listen to different music. He was genuinely confused as to why the black kids he wanted to be like constantly dismissed him. The way they treated him for it turned Bobby’s fear of them into disgust, and he pushed the truth about his father down so deep that he no longer believed it. He hated the truth, and that truth made him hate them, which resulted in more than one trip to the principal’s office for scuffles in the hall, standing up for Aaron when he couldn’t, or wouldn’t do it for himself.

  Aaron wanted to be like them no matter how much Bobby told him he was embarrassing himself. How he should have some self-respect. He thought about what his grandfather would say if he knew he hung out with someone like Aaron, and wondered at times if he shouldn’t. But he and Aaron were misfits, each in their own way.

  They spent every lunch together. They walked the halls and ignored the taunts of their label, the Comic Book Queers. They always finished their food before the end of lunch and sat outside and read under a breezeway.

  Aaron joked one day with Bobby that they should kiss and really freak everyone out. Bobby remembered Grandpap’s tirades about poofs and fags, about how they were spreading some virus and undermining society—and he’d heard it enough to believe it himself. Aaron laughed, but there was an uneasiness about it. It made Bobby angry.

  “That’s not funny, man.”

  “Oh, come on,” Aaron said, “You don’t got a sense of humor about anything.”

  “Queers are disgusting,” Bobby spit back. “Don’t even joke about that. Seriously,”

  Aaron laughed again, told Bobby to relax, and went back to his comic. He didn’t talk for the rest of lunch and he never mentioned it again.

  Later that same day, Bobby found Aaron on the floor in the restroom with a bloody nose and a split lip. His eyes were wet and swollen. Bobby helped him up and gave him a wet paper towel. Aaron hissed in pain as he pressed it to his lip.