Three-Fifths

by John Vercher

  “Right,” he said. “No problem.”

  She hadn’t seen him standing there, immobile, sizing Bobby up. After Aaron disappeared into the kitchen, Bobby had asked Michelle if she’d changed her mind about shadowing him, and she had. He told her before they started the shift that he’d watch the station while she ran food. She didn’t ask why, but he knew she’d known he was scared by the way she smiled at him. He asked for updates every time she came back from the kitchen. Did he seem mad? What was he saying? Did he say anything to her? She told Bobby that Russell was pissed that he wasn’t running food and that every time he told her that, Aaron looked at her funny.

  “Funny? Funny how?” he asked.

  “Just weird, you know?”

  “Weird like ‘huh, I wonder why Bobby’s not running food’ or ‘that little motherfucker’s hiding and I’m going to kill him when I see him’ weird? Which one?”

  “Jesus, Bobby, how the hell should I know? I don’t know the guy. Go find out yourself.”

  Bobby shook his head and chewed on his other thumbnail. Michelle ran the station. He leaned and chewed, chewed and leaned.

  She’s right. Settle the hell down. There’s no way he would have heard us. I would have seen him standing down there. I totally would have.

  Except he didn’t. He had no idea Aaron stood there and he vomited his life story to this girl he hardly knew.

  Jesus, I almost told her what we did to that kid.

  He would have heard that, too, and there was no question in Bobby’s mind about what he would have done if he had. None.

  Bobby just wanted—needed—to know if Aaron had heard the truth about his father. Knowing would have been better than all this wondering. Wouldn’t it? Maybe he wouldn’t even have been upset. He’d find out eventually and they would have to talk about it.

  But if he knows, he didn’t find out from you. All he knows is that you lied to him, that you trusted a stranger with your truth before your trusted him.

  Bobby took another puff from his inhaler. He hadn’t felt an attack coming but the habit made him feel better. However, it was his fifth puff in an hour and his hands shook and the jitters made him more anxious, which made him need the inhaler more. Michelle came back to the bus station.

  “You got the station for a minute?” he asked.

  “I’ve had it for the last hour,” she said. “Look, not that I’ve got any love lost for the guy, but did you stop to think that maybe if he heard, it’d be okay? I mean he is your best friend.”

  Bobby looked at her incredulously. “Get out my head, will you? And was. He was my best friend.”

  “Are you going to tell me what happened with you two?”

  “I need a cigarette,” he said. “You sure you got this?”

  “You know you’re going to have to walk past him to get to the dock,” she said.

  “Nuh-uh.” Their station sat next to the door to the patio and Bobby pointed to it.

  “Go,” she said. “But hurry up. If Russell comes looking for you, that’s your ass. I’m not getting canned.”

  Bobby fired her a sarcastic two thumbs up as he pushed his back against the door. A few inches of snow piled up on the porch and it took a few shoves to get outside. The cold air sucked in like he’d opened an airlock and customers down the row shot him pissed off looks while Michelle shook her head and waved him away. Bobby hopped the low fence and walked to the back of the building.

  He lit one of the cigarettes Michelle had given him and spit into the snow. They were less harsh than his and tasted like shit, but they didn’t trigger his asthma so he sucked it up. He thought about Isabel again. How he understood more and more why she drank, though this time for a different reason than the addictive feeling that came with his revelations. His own thoughts were driving him crazy. He wanted to go home and sit on the couch next to her, crack open a bottle of vodka and wait for morning to see Robert, to tell her, show me how you do this, because I can’t take it.

  He pushed open the chain link door to the loading dock. Since he’d avoided going through the kitchen he hadn’t grabbed his jacket, and he rubbed the goose bumps on his arms in between inhalations. The back door from the kitchen swung open hard and Bobby jumped. His eyes were slow to adjust to the light he only saw the outline of someone standing in the door and he instantly regretted coming back here alone. His heart thumped so hard it made his ears feel plugged.

  The door closed and Bobby’s eyes focused. One of the bussers dragged two tall waste cans full of empty beer bottles behind him. Bobby propped himself against the fence and breathed out hard while the busser placed a wedge in the door to keep it from closing, The heat curtain blasted and masked the chaotic clanks and shouts of the kitchen. The busser dumped the first can. Bottles shattered as they smacked off of each other. Bobby turned away and looked through the fencing at the cars parked in the rear. He put his fingers through the holes and realized that this would be a view he might have to get used to. On the inside looking out, like he’d always lived his life. Bottles smashed as the busser emptied the second can and he flinched again.

  Jesus, get it together.

  The busser stacked the bins and went back inside but just before the door latched shut, someone pushed it back open.

  Aaron walked out onto the dock.

  He looked at Bobby in surprise. The wedge holding open the door was at his feet and he slid it under the closed door and kicked it home. Bobby thought he should have run when his back was turned but he had nowhere to go and no one to run to. Even if he got away from Aaron here, it would only be temporary, just delay things for a little while longer and he was so tired from being scared that he didn’t want to wait for the end anymore.

  Aaron lit up and inhaled. Neither of them spoke. They were Logan and Creed, Wolverine and Sabretooth, brothers but enemies, circling, waiting for the other to show his claws and attack.

  Bobby felt for the wine key in the pocket of his apron as he had the night before, but found only the half-empty pack of smokes Michelle had given him. She hadn’t gotten her wine key yet and he had loaned her his. He rolled his eyes and pulled out another cigarette.

  If I got to go, I’m going to go smoking. Too bad I don’t have a blindfold.

  Aaron leaned against the wall next to the door and watched Bobby watch him.

  Bobby knew Aaron was waiting him out, letting his fear build such that he’d blabber out the truth in terror of him so he could feel justified about whatever it was he was going to do. Bobby heard the snikt in his head as he showed his claws first.

  “I don’t know what you heard,” Bobby said. “Or you think you heard.” Aaron raised an eyebrow and blew smoke through his nose like a cartoon bull. “I don’t have anyone to talk to, man, and this thing that we did, that you did to that kid, it’s fucking killing me, Aaron.” He began to tell him the kid had died, but stopped himself. How he knew would only lead to more questions. Aaron eyed him with the pause, so he continued. “I can’t sleep, I hardly eat, and I feel like I’m having a constant asthma attack. I didn’t tell her what happened, man, I swear to you I didn’t.”

  Aaron stayed attached to the wall, dragging and exhaling. He looked past Bobby more than he looked at him. Bobby closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “But I told her a lot of things, and if you heard it all and you hate me, then you hate me, but I can’t change it, no matter how much I want to.”

  Aaron flicked his cigarette into the snow, and leaned against the fence next to Bobby. Bobby’s muscles went on high alert, full fight-or-flight, waiting for the slightest movement from Aaron. He didn’t stand a chance against Aaron physically but he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. He was tired of being batted around like a catnip mouse. But under the dock light, Bobby saw Aaron’s face in detail, and he looked scared, too.

  “You were wrong last night,” Aaron said. His voice shook. “When I pulled the gun? When you said this isn’t about you. It is about you. It’s always been about you. Eve
rything that has anything to do with me as long as you’ve known me has always been about you.” He breathed out hard like he’d just finished a race and took out another cigarette. The lighter shook in his hands and when the flame lit his face, Bobby saw tears in his eyes. Aaron really was scared. “It was about you from the day we met on the schoolbus. I knew right away that you’d end up being the best friend I’d ever had and that I would know you for the rest of my life. I hated school. I hated that my parents made me go to that school, where people like you and me were the minority. Where no matter how hard I tried to fit in, I got my ass kicked. Then you showed up and you called me on my shit and you stood up for me, fought for me, because of me, and you didn’t have to. You were my hero, man. Even with your shitty taste in comic books.”

  They shared a short laugh.

  “Aaron,” Bobby said.

  He held his hand up to stop Bobby and wiped at his eyes. “As bad as it was for us, I hated for the school day to end. I’d wish the weekend away to get to see you on Monday. I even started reading fucking Marvel comics.” He laughed again, hoarse.

  “I just knew you knew. You had to have known. How could you not? We were the Comic Book Queers, right?”

  Bobby nodded.

  “Do you remember what you said to me afterwards?”

  Bobby nodded again but his shame kept his eyes downward.

  “Yeah,” Aaron said. “Me, too.”

  Bobby remembered what happened after, too. Aaron became distant, but it felt normal, the way guys grow apart without any thing necessarily gone wrong between them. After a short time, Bobby had forgotten about it. When they made it to high school and Aaron started dealing, Bobby saw him less and less. He had new friends. Bobby still only had Aaron, but he worked so much that between taking care of Isabel and making rent, he didn’t really have time for anything else. Bobby didn’t think too much about it. So easy for him; impossible, it seemed for Aaron. For all his size, leaning there against the fence, he looked broken. Bobby wanted to reach out to him and pull him in for a hug, but even now, he feared what he thought that might mean to Aaron and he felt ashamed of himself for being afraid. He thought about telling him that he wasn’t alone in his secrets. If he told him, he’d maybe feel that same conflict of wanting to pretend it didn’t bother him.

  But then again maybe he wouldn’t.

  Maybe he’d find the nearest blunt object and smash Bobby in the face.

  “Aaron.”

  “You want to know why I did it, Bobby? Because when my cellmate came for me the first night in prison, he took something that didn’t belong to him. Something I held onto to get me through, something that got erased when he pushed me up against the wall of my cell and raped me raw. No matter how many times I tried to get it back afterwards, to try to keep myself from going insane, it was gone.” He pushed off the fence and started to pace the dock, “You used to tell me not to be like them. That they were animals and that I should have some self-respect, but I never listened. But when I got out of the infirmary and the Brotherhood called me over to their table in the cafeteria? I listened then. To every fucking word.”

  Jesus Christ. What have I done?

  Aaron paced faster. “So when that monkey followed us out of the ‘O’, when he came up to you and I saw how scared you were, I didn’t think twice about what I had to do.”

  “Had to do?” The anger in Bobby’s voice surprised him but he kept on. “The truck was running. You could have gotten in and I would have driven away. You baited that kid, Aaron. You wanted him to come out after us. You didn’t have to do that to him. You wanted to.”

  Aaron stepped towards Bobby and he pressed his back against the fence, their faces inches apart. “He laughed, Bobby. When I screamed for help. When I begged him to stop. He laughed and when he was ready to go again, he did.” His lips curled under and he sneered, but his chin crinkled and tears fell. “So you’re God damned right I wanted to. The real truth, Bobby, straight up? I’m sorry I didn’t kill him. Fuck that kid. Fuck my cellmate. Fuck all of them.” He backed away towards the door and pointed at Bobby as he went. “And fuck you, too, Bobby. All I did is exactly what you always wanted me to do.” He opened the door to back inside.

  “You did kill him!”

  Aaron stopped but kept his back to Bobby. Then he stepped back inside. The door clicked shut behind him.

  Bobby didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath when Aaron stood in his face. He let it out in a rush and held himself up on his knees. He had fucked everything up without even knowing it. When Isabel told Bobby and Grandpap the truth about his father, she dropped a nuke, but Bobby thought the fallout only affected him. Passing for white never affected anyone else. At least that’s what he told himself. Every time he and Aaron got bullied, every insult they wore pushed Bobby deeper into his denial. With Aaron, Bobby wasn’t alone anymore. He was almost the perfect friend except he wanted to be everything that Bobby hated about himself, so he shamed Aaron for his wannabe act, never thinking it would leave this thing in him, like a mutant gene just waiting for some event to trigger his evil super power.

  But this wasn’t a comic book.

  It was hard for Bobby to think of Aaron back in jail, but the idea of him murdering that kid coupled with the fact that he had wanted to scared Bobby far more than the idea of what would happen to Aaron if he went back. It frightened him more than the idea that turning Aaron in likely meant jail for him, too. If he had stood up for himself and not gone into the ‘O’, none of this would have happened. If he’d stayed to help that kid, Aaron would be going to jail and not him. If he’d thrown out Mom’s booze instead of making sure she rolled to her side to keep from choking on her own vomit at night, maybe things would have been different for them, too. His excuses piled up like so much shit except now he wasn’t the only one covered in stench. He needed to get clean, but maybe now he didn’t have to do it alone. His father was here, and maybe somehow, he could help him figure out what to do.

  Robert would help him.

  Bobby walked back to the front of the restaurant. He wanted to keep walking down to the bus stop and go home, help Mom clean up and then sit her down and tell her what happened, so that they could figure a way to tell it to Robert. But they still had rent due and now there was no way he could let her use the money Aaron had given him. He’d find a way to get it back, somehow. At the entrance, the hostesses gave Bobby confused looks while they held open the double doors for him, wondering where he’d come from when he had been inside minutes before. Michelle stood at the bus stand, sorted through checks and counted out change. Bobby walked up to her.

  “What the hell, man?” she asked. “You have a nice time? I’m getting slammed and Russell is pissed.” She looked up and stopped sorting. “Jesus, are you okay?”

  Bobby guessed he didn’t look so hot. “Believe it or not,” he said, “I’m good.” He went through her pile of checks. “Where’re we at?”

  For the next few hours, Bobby lost himself in work. He and Michelle turned and burned tables, and charmed customers out of their money. Bobby laughed a little, and even managed not to think about things for brief moments. He helped Michelle run food. Aaron was on the fryer, not supervising the line, but even the times Bobby had to take food from his window, he didn’t avoid it. He even looked him in the eye. Knowing that he would make this right, that it was almost over, was freeing.

  Bobby was afraid about what turning them in could mean for him. He didn’t know anything about the law, but he knew driving away from the scene of an assault was going to get him more than a stern talking-to and a wag of the finger. When he thought about ending up where Aaron went—about ending his first week the way Aaron had—Bobby’s mouth went dry. As fearful as that made him, for the first time in the last few days, he wasn’t afraid of Aaron anymore, and that made him feel the slightest bit better.

  The dinner rush ended, and he’d made enough to clear another month’s rent, but Bobby wanted more. Michelle was okay with
it, so he asked the second and third cuts if they wanted to go home and the two of them took over two more sections. The kitchen made their cuts as well and Bobby saw Aaron seated at the bar with a bottle of Bud and a shot in front of him. He snapped open a zippo and lit it, then snapped it shut, then repeated, in between gulps of beer. Michelle and Bobby sent the hostesses home and alternated manning the door and seating every table that came in. There weren’t many more customers, but every table they took meant more money for Isabel if Bobby went to prison. One less double she’d have to work. Maybe time to go to AA. He’d make her swear to it, jail time or no.

  Bobby watched Aaron when it was his turn on the door. He’d counted at least three beers gone in just minutes, and an equal number of empty shot glasses lined the bar until Paul cleared them and poured another. Paul had never liked Aaron much either, and was all too happy to take his money. How shitfaced would he let Aaron get before he cut him off? He saw him driving, swerving into a pole or going off the bridge into the Monongahela. Bobby didn’t want Aaron to die, though he knew sending him back to jail might mean just that. It also might mean he’d get help. Bobby would tell the police what happened to Aaron in prison and maybe they’d get him a shrink. Something. The constant back and forth lessened his nerve for this whole thing. The outer doors of the restaurant opened while Bobby bargained with himself, and he pushed open the inside door to greet another table. Darryl walked in with another black young man. Darryl smacked his friend in the chest when he saw Bobby and laughed.

  “Here go one of them right here,” Darryl said to him. His friend sucked air through his teeth and gave Bobby the same once over Bobby had given him. They walked up to the bar. Darryl pointed out Aaron to his friend when they got to the top and Bobby was scared all over again. If they were here about Aaron, and about what he said about Darryl’s cousin, well then maybe Aaron had it coming. But maybe Darryl’s cousin had been in on the assaults that took place after the first one. Maybe Aaron took him out for payback. Maybe that wasn’t okay.