The Fuck-Up

by Arthur Nersesian

  Soon I tagged along Saint Mark’s Place. By the time I finally found shelter at the Saint Mark’s Bookstore, I was freezing. After a while of just lounging, I asked a bearded old guy named Dudley, who looked like an old oak, whether this month’s Harrington Review was on sale yet. Not missing a puff of his deeply bellied pipe, he frowned and shook his head. The interval had warmed me, so I returned to the street.

  Passing the Saint Mark’s Theater, I spotted Eunice. She didn’t spot me. I watched her for a moment. She was talking with one of the ushers, an NYU kid. Pepe appeared and ordered the guy back into the theater, but before he vanished I saw Eunice give him a kiss. When the guy was out of sight, I watched as Pepe gave her a kiss. What exactly had the Mormons taught her? Sparing myself further torment, I resumed my trek up to my new theater.

  The evening there was regular, everything ran smoothly. At the end of the night after carefully skimming the proper amount, I was about to leave the theater for the night deposit drop when Ox arrived. When he pounded on the door, I bolted up.

  “Who is it?”

  “Open the fucking door.” I knew it was him. In a panic, I shoved the loot down the front of my pants and located the night deposit slip to the private fund. I started shredding and stuffing it into the garbage. Before I was entirely done, I heard keys in the lock. I shoved the remainder into the garbage just as he opened the door.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?! Why you no open the door?”

  “I…I was about to.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I was dressing.”

  “Huh?”

  “I was hot so I took my clothes off.”

  “Naked?” He looked at me and didn’t say a thing. When I was aware of him looking in my lap for a lengthy period, I glimpsed a look. The load of cash was shoved up in my pants like an erection. He seemed to sniff things. His eyes fixed for a moment on a soiled tissue I had blown my nose with earlier. After a long pause, he spoke again, “You’re the new guy, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?!”

  “Yes, I am he—the new guy.”

  “So you the new guy,” he said, and just stood there awhile glaring. I felt compelled to reply, “The night ran by quickly.”

  “Who ran by?”

  “The night.”

  “What the fuck does this mean?” he growled.

  “It’s, you know…a pleasantry.” I was jittery.

  “In the future don’t tell me things like that, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “How’d we do tonight?”

  “Oh, it was real peachy.” I froze, something had gone screwy with my pitch of words tonight.

  “What the hell does that mean? In the future, if I ask you how we did, you tell me how much money we made and that’s all!”

  “Okay.”

  Picking up the day-to-day calendar he looked at the final amounts, and then he gave me a hard stare. I hardened up like a board, and he let the silence concentrate. Suddenly, like a spring releasing the both of us, the phone rang, and I sprang to answer it, but he was quicker on the draw. He had it to his ear first, “Yeah.” He listened a minute and then silently handed it to me. Putting the phone to my ear all I could hear was sobbing.

  “Hello Glenn,” I whispered.

  “Please…right away…get over here….” It was the phrases-through-anguish method of communication.

  “So who the fuck worked last night?” Ox asked, impervious to the fact that I was on the phone. He stared at last night’s tally sheet.

  “Miguel,” I replied to him, covering the mouthpiece, and then murmured to her, “Look honey, I wanted to tell you last night, but I really think we ought to break up.”

  “Hang up the phone,” Ox directed.

  “Just get right over. We can talk about it,” Glenn pleaded.

  “We’ve got to end this,” I said, pulling away the keystone that released an avalanche of sobs.

  “Anything! I’ll give you anything you want but not that! I love you, I need you….” She was freaking out now, so I was about to concede and tell her that I was on my way, when Ox grabbed the phone from my hand and hung it up.

  “What the fuck you think you’re pulling, huh? When I say hang up the phone, I mean hang up.” Instantly the phone started ringing.

  “Let it ring,” Ox said, and then holding up yesterday’s tally sheet he asked, “Why is this?”

  “What?”

  “Why isn’t this signed?”

  “I don’t know. I guess Miguel forgot to sign it.”

  “What the fuck is the matter with you people? You take your clothes off like you’re at home. You speak to your friends all night! All you got to do is sign the fucking sheet and you can’t even do that right!”

  “I’ll sign it,” I replied, hoping to end the grousing. He put the tally sheet on the desk in front of me, and I signed in the vacant space.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with you fucking people,” he said as I signed.

  “Sorry,” I said meaninglessly.

  “Hey, what the fuck’s the matter with you? Don’t you ever say sorry to me.”

  “Sorry,” I replied thoughtlessly.

  “Hey,” he growled. Grabbing the tally sheet, he stormed out the door. During the entire duration, the phone had been ringing. Soon as he walked out, I picked it up. “Sorry, Glenn.”

  “I know things were uncomfortable the other night,” she quickly jumped in, anticipating whatever my complaints might be.

  “I just think we’re not really right for each other,” I quickly replied.

  “You can’t leave me now! You can’t just abandon me!” She pushed things into extremes.

  “I’m not abandoning anyone, just calm down. All I’m saying is that I think it would be better for both of us this way.”

  “No, it would only be better for you. Just be here with me tonight. We don’t have to have sex or even talk. I just need someone here tonight.”

  “Glenn, I just don’t think it’d end there. I think it’ll lead to an unhealthy dependency.”

  “No, it won’t! I swear!”

  “You’ve got to learn how to deal with depression.”

  “No!”

  “I’ll call you first thing in the morning.”

  “No, no, wait a second. I can handle depression! I just can’t handle him.” Now I understood. She was referring to the surprise son who had materialized from behind the front door.

  “What do you expect me to do?”

  “I need help. Usually Adolphe controls him.”

  “I can’t control anything.”

  “Just listen to me,” she started hyperventilating and again only phrases could escape, “a lot of savings…”

  “Calm down.”

  “Alimony…child support…a stock portfolio…”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “MONEY! You could use the money!”

  “For what?”

  “Controlling him.”

  “What do you want me to do—adopt him?”

  “No,” she sobbed, “I just want him to see that I’m not alone, that there’s a male presence.”

  “If I come by tonight I’m not spending the night, just coming by. I’ll pound my chest a little, pee standing up, and then out the door. No more of this.”

  “I swear it,” she started simmering down.

  “You really should have told me you had a kid.”

  “I know, I’m sorry, I swear.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there soon as the theater closes.”

  After the last film had ended and Ox had left, I made a new deposit slip for the purloined proceeds and dropped off the ziplocked bag. Afterwards, I went to a corner bar for a double bourbon. At twenty-three I never before had to play a surrogate father figure. In the course of the subway ride, the bourbon nullified all worries. But when I reached her corner all that changed. From there I could hear the thu
mping woofers of rock and roll; it was spilling out from the upper floor of the house. Other than that, it was all routine by now; up the stately steps, knock on the large oak door, and out comes the lady with the crocodile tears. Politely, she took my coat before submitting her complaints.

  “I don’t blame you for hating me,” she said instead of hello, “but I’m in a real crisis.”

  “Relax,” I replied and closed the door behind me.

  “I must be a burden.”

  “You seem to think I’m the norm and you’re ill. My life is no picnic. You know nothing about me.”

  “You seem like a nice guy, but you are too young. Maybe we can try to work something out, some kind of relationship.”

  “I think all our relationship does is cure symptoms, not problems.”

  “What’s wrong with curing symptoms?”

  “In just the short period of time that we’ve been together a dangerous routine has started,” I replied.

  “What kind of routine?”

  “Don’t you see it? First you feel lonely because your boyfriend dumped you. Then you call me. Then we make love. Then you begin to realize that you’re an attractive young career lady with prestige and wealth and I’m a kid ten years younger living from pillar to post. And you feel embarrassed and ashamed so you need to be alone until it all starts again.”

  “So?” she replied. “Is it my fault that we live in a lonely, pathetic world? What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  As I reached for my jacket, which she had seized from me, all I could think of saying was, “I’m sorry.”

  “Just one final request,” she asked with a curious sobriety.

  “What is it?”

  “My son.”

  “Yeah, he really has that stereo too loud. I could hear it all the way down the block.”

  “I know. His father sent him here for the week, and I can’t deal with him.”

  “Why don’t you talk to him?”

  “Believe me I tried, I tried to interest him, but when I asked him what was new, he said, ‘your boyfriend.’”

  “He’s probably just a little jealous. I’m sure it’ll pass.”

  “I can’t even speak to him. When I asked him to lower that damned thing he slammed the door in my face. And the entire upper floor reeks of marijuana.”

  “Well, there is a limit. Perhaps you should consider some stern disciplining.”

  She looked at me fearfully for a moment and then out of the silence she asked, “Would you do it?”

  “Without a second thought.”

  “He’s up there now.”

  “You go right up there and show him who’s boss,” I pepped.

  “You just said you would.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You said you would do it for me.”

  “Me! Are you kidding?”

  “You just said you would.”

  “I meant I would discipline my child if it came to it.”

  She looked at me maternally for a minute, “I’ll give you fifty dollars.”

  “Surely you jest,” I replied sincerely.

  “It has got to be done; you said so.”

  “You’re the mother,” I replied. “If you do it he’ll respect you. If anybody else does it, he’ll hate you for a lifetime.”

  “I’ll take care of that.”

  “Well, I’m not going to do it. It’s out of the question.”

  “The boy’s out of control, and I can’t do it.”

  “I ain’t doing it, period.”

  Suddenly she put on the poker face and upped the ante from fifty to a hundred, and then a hundred and fifty and then three hundred and then six hundred dollars. Just as quickly as she offered, I refused each sum.

  “Look, I’m not just a pacifist, I’m also a coward. I freeze up in violent situations, it’s a psychological thing. Some people can get instantly mad. I get quiet and terrified.” Before the farce could continue, I grabbed for the doorknob.

  “Leave here and I’ll call the police,” she screamed.

  “Good, have them do it.”

  “I’ll call them on you! There is a law against stealing a car.”

  “What?”

  “Where’s my Mercedes?” She pulled her final trump. I shut the front door.

  “The car’s old. I don’t need it. I don’t need the money. If you do this little deed, I’ll sign over the title to you. Do you understand? You’ll own it.”

  To own a Mercedes Benz: it sounded wonderfully unreal. For the first time I realized how Glenn was capable of being a merciless businesswoman. A Mercedes Benz, one of the classic status symbols of wealth—a working Mercedes that could legally be my own. Where I came from, you were what you drove. Typically, for the wrong reason, I meekly accepted her offer. Before any reprieves of thought could occur, she raced over to her file cabinet, located the car’s title, opened a fountain pen, and dramatically signed on the dotted line, explaining, “I’ll mail this in just as soon as the job is done.”

  As I climbed the steps, I came to realize the new low to which I was sinking—quid pro quo: thrashing a kid for a Mercedes. I envisioned Helmsley’s eyes glancing down on me sadly. I couldn’t believe it. I paused on the landing, but as I listened to that heavy metal music, I decided that he wasn’t exactly a kid and I wasn’t exactly an assassin.

  I knocked on his door authoritatively and waited. I decided that I would give reason a chance before brutality. I knocked again and heard a giggle, and then a splashy sound and finally, “Oh, fuck.”

  “Open this minute,” I yelled, and trying the knob, I opened the door.

  Junior was on his knees, carefully searching the carpeted floor. Apparently he had dropped his bong and was looking for the small wire screen filled with grass.

  “Man, you made me drop my shit.”

  “That’s illegal you know.”

  He laughed and kept searching for the screen, which was probably the same thing I would’ve done in his position. Locating the grass-packed mesh, he restored it to the bong and after lighting up and holding it in, he extended it toward me.

  “Want a hit?” he creaked, not employing his smoke filled lungs.

  “I’d like to talk,” I replied as I walked across the room and lowered the volume of the stereo. I then squatted on the floor next to him.

  “Shoot,” he said, exhaling and then took another hit from the bong.

  “Well, this is difficult to say, but I was informed that you were rather disrespectful to your mother.”

  I waited for him to reply, but he only exhaled and inhaled another hit.

  “Ideally, I’d like you to apologize to your mother.” He exhaled his lungful of smoke into my face and shook his head no with a big grin. I would’ve done the same thing.

  “Get this through your head,” I replied sternly “You are going to apologize to her.”

  “Look coach, why don’t you let her give you a blow job and calm down.” Then peacefully he started on another hit. When I heard the bubbles gurgling in his bong, I decided that there were no short cuts, I slapped the bong out of his hands.

  “YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!” he hollered at the top of his lungs and jumped to his feet looking at the dead bong.

  “I want you to apologize to your mother.”

  “Get the hell out of my house!” he yelled back. “My father bought this house! Get out and fuck off!” He started walking across the room to pick up his bong when I grabbed him by his thin neck and threw him on his bed. “Now listen to me. You are going to apologize, understand?”

  “What the hell do you care?” he asked quickly, quelling his anger, which he might’ve realized was pointless.

  “I love her,” I lied angrily. “I want you to apologize to her.”

  “Well, that’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard, ‘cause she can’t love. You better get that straight, right off.”

  “Just apologize to her. We’ll let it go at that.”

  “No, I can’t,” he replied. “I’m not as
much of a liar as you or her. So the both of you can just go fuck each other.”

  The kid no longer reminded me of me. He was far more principled. I stood there a moment wondering whether he would apologize to her if I gave him a hundred dollars. But I didn’t think he’d accept it. Besides, I didn’t have a hundred dollars. After a silent moment, I decided that I still wanted the car and this kid’s pride, which stood in the way, was just too weak a thing. “Are you going to apologize?”

  Mimicking me, he stood up, crossed his arms, inhaled, and replied with an assumed lisp, “For the last time, coach, no!” I couldn’t just hit him. I partly admired him. So I walked right up to him and shoved him onto the bed. He bounced off it and lunged at me. I had about fifty pounds on him, so I shoved him to the floor, pinned his arms around his back and held him there. “Are you going to apologize?”

  “I’m gonna kill you,” he seethed with the little air he could muster. I didn’t want to hurt him but I had to break him.

  “HELP!” he started screaming. I clenched his arms behind his back with one hand and with my other hand I gently covered his mouth so that he wouldn’t yell.

  “I want you to nod yes when you’re ready to apologize,” I explained carefully as he squirmed.

  He twisted and kicked and tried biting my hand. With the hand that I had used to gag him, I clamped tightly over his mouth. Desperately he tried breathing through his nose. Leisurely I got around to pinching his nostrils. Then I wheeled my body around so that I was fully on top of his collapsing and ethical lungs. I could see a drowning look in his eyes as his body writhed and twisted. As his smothered face turned redder and redder, I felt my conscience shrivelling tightly until it was just a dry little pit inside of me. Time slowly passed, and I realized that there was no worse sound than gagged pain. Finally his head whipped up and down; he was ready to apologize. I helped him up to the edge of the bed where he caught his breath and stared despondently at the floor like someone who had just been violated. After a moment, I watched him calmly rise and tug off his shirt, then he opened the top drawer of his cabinet. I thought he was replacing his sweaty T-shirt, but then he suddenly turned around. His arm was over his head and a long knife was plunging down.

  “You’re dead,” he said and dove dizzily at me. Snatching a pillow off his bed, I shoved it out and felt a stabbing deep in the cushion, which I think he did deliberately for effect. Before he could recoil, I grabbed his elbow and twisted it behind his back. The impaled pillow fell to the floor, and I kicked it across the room next to the bong. He looked up at me calmly, probably expecting me to be civilized about the whole thing. But in a single rehearsed football motion, I bowed low, grabbed him around the knees, hoisted him in the air then threw him headlong onto the floor. After the big bang, he curled up in the corner and started crying painfully. Yanking him out to the middle of the floor, I shoved him on his back, uncurled his arms and sat on his chest.