“Hey there,” he said lasciviously, as if he were speaking to a woman. “What do I do for a living? Oh, I’m a teacher. Yep, that’s right, I’m good with kids.”
He flexed a bicep before the mirror in a pantomime of a body builder.
“Yes, those are twenty-two-inch guns. Careful, they might go off!”
His gaze dropped from his relatively muscular arms and shoulders, across his hairy chest, and down to the bit of paunch he was developing. He blew out a long sigh, seeming to deflate as he did so.
“Who are you kidding?” he said, no longer able to look in the mirror.
With a heavy heart and hands that seemed made of lead, he put on socks and shoes. Slipping on a white tank top first, he donned a dark blue button-up shirt. He considered a tie, but seemed unable to get the top button closed, so he tossed it back into his messy closet.
Finally prepared, he grabbed his coat from the chair back he’d flung it over and headed out the door. Ignoring loud shouting from another apartment, he walked through the hallway and went down a flight of creaky stairs and was soon standing on the street. The night air was cool, but not cold, so he decided to walk the three blocks to Stuckey’s.
As he made his journey, he passed throngs of people gathered on the sidewalk. He noticed with chagrin that many of the more provocatively dressed young women seemed to look right through him. He felt old, much older than his thirty-three years, as he passed couples younger than himself holding hands, lost in each other’s world.
His brows were low over his blue eyes, square jaw set hard. He swung open the battered and scarred door to Stuckey’s. The bar and grill was cozy, not more than twenty feet wide and only half that long. Sports memorabilia decorated the walls, primarily featuring boxing and professional wrestling but with the odd baseball bat or jersey thrown in. It was still early in the evening, so the establishment was sparsely populated. Across a room of empty tables he saw a young woman stand up and enthusiastically wave at him.
She was very young, barely into her twenties. She had a slender, athletic build, evident in the way she lithely gained her feet as she stood up from her chair. She had the same long nose as Steve, but her eyes were wider and a deep green. Her light brown hair framed a face with a few girlish freckles on the cheeks, split wide in a smile.
“You made it,” she said, giving him a tight hug.
“Yeah, well,” said Steve, a bit embarrassed as he returned the embrace, “I figure I blew off Dad the last couple times, so…”
“You’re only here because I lied to you,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him.
“You lied?” he asked, confusion crossing his face. Realization dawned, and he grimaced at her. “Not cool.”
“It was the only way that I could get you to come out,” she said with a pout.
Steve rolled his eyes and picked up a menu off the graffiti laden table.
“Where is Pop?” he asked as his eyes scanned it.
“He’ll be here soon. He had to sign autographs at some comic book store on the Upper East Side.”
“Great, I drop everything just to see him, and he blows me off. Just like always.”
“Quit being a dick,” said Susan, pretty face scrunching up. “Besides, what were you doing? Passing out drunk in front of the TV again?”
He glared at her as a waitress approached. He stopped long enough to order a beer, then went back to sulking.
“I thought family was supposed to be supportive,” he said ruefully.
“I am being supportive,” she said, shaking his arm roughly. “I got you to come outside into the real world, didn’t I?”
“I go out in the real world all the time,” he said, arching an eyebrow.
“You go out on a pub crawl with Phillip like once or twice a year.”
“Once every other month and holidays. Hell, I hang out with Phil and his buddy Rich all the time.”
“Playing Dungeons and Dragons once a week in somebody’s basement does not count as a social life, Steve,” she said somberly. “How are you going to meet a nice girl?”
“Don’t forget the strip clubs. And besides, who says I want to meet a nice girl?” he said. “I’d rather meet a dirty girl.”
He laughed harshly at his own joke as the beer arrived, causing Susan to roll her eyes to the ceiling.
“That’s part of your problem,” she said sadly. “You’re stuck in the mentality of a twelve-year-old. That’s why you hang out with twenty-somethings, date chicks ten years younger than you are—”
“Hey, your professor is about my age.”
“Actually, she’s older,” said Susan, “and we all know that’s the exception. You need to get yourself out there, on the market, or no one’s gonna take you home.”
“On the market,” he said snidely, taking a long pull of his beer. “How asinine. What am I, a hunk of meat? A prize bull being auctioned off for the slaughter? Whatever happened to just meeting someone and connecting with them. Why do I have to sell myself at all?”
Susan drained the last of her white soda, setting the heavy glass down carefully on the worn tabletop. She fixed him with a serious gaze that held tinges of sadness as well.
“You shouldn’t have to,” she said kindly, “and I know what a great guy you are. But it’s a new era. Facebook, Twitter, and eHarmony have changed the way the dating scene works. People expect you to brag about yourself a little bit.”
Steve rolled his eyes, hands coming down on the table on either side of his drink.
“How do people do that? How do people act so goddamn full of shit without being consciously aware that they’re being full of shit? I can’t help it if I’m for real and I say and think things that make the rest of the world uncomfortable.”
“Being for real is one thing. You enjoy making people squirm. You go out of your way to do it.”
“Maybe I do! Maybe the rest of the world deserves to suffer a little bit, so they know how I feel.”
Susan’s mouth twitched, and she glared at him from narrowed eyes.
“Oh, it’s not like you were abused or something. Mom and Dad always made sure we had what we needed.”
“Yeah, they made sure we had clothes, that we made it to school, that we had cars on our sixteenth birthdays,” he said angrily. “But what about all the other parts of being a parent? What about teaching your son how to be a man? Because I have no clue if I’m doing it right.”
Susan opened her mouth to respond, but the wide smile bursting forth on her face cut off any intelligible rebuttal. She stared over Steve’s head, eyes lighting up in delight.
“Daddy!” Susan leaped out of her chair so quickly it dumped backward to land hard on the floor.
Steve turned in his seat to look at the man’s approach. He was tall, taller than Steve by almost a foot, built like a linebacker. Long, scraggly hair dyed black hung down on either side of his haggard face in tight curls. A handlebar mustache decorated his lip, perched over a mouth that was long and thin but expressive. It widened into a warm smile at Susan’s approach, and he wrapped his thick arms about her in a tight hug.
“Pumpkin!” he said warmly in a husky, deep voice.
Steve rose out of his chair and went to the old man.
“Steve,” his father said as they shook hands. “How have you been?”
“Little of this, little of that,” said Steve, smiling. “How are you holding up?”
“Going on one more tour to shore up my 401(k),” he said with a wink.
“You always say it’s the last tour,” said Susan.
“And one of these days I’ll be right,” he said with a grin. “I’ve been lucky, you know. No major surgeries, and my knees and back are holding up all right.”
The three of them sat down, their father eschewing a menu and ordering from memory. The big man drew a number of stares, both due to his size and perhaps his fame. They made small talk while they waited for the food to arrive. Steve had a difficult time meeting his father’s eyes, and th
e senior man behaved likewise.
“So I figure I’ll be taking only six credit hours next semester, to give me time to train,” said Susan, wrapping up her dissertation.
“You’re gonna get hurt, you know,” Steve said.
“Yes,” said his father, meeting his gaze with stern eyes, “she will. But she can take it. She’s a Borgia, after all.”
Susan crossed her arms over her small but firm breasts and stuck out her tongue at Steve.
“It’s your life,” said Steve, going to his beer but finding it empty.
“How’s your life, son?” the big man asked with warmth. “We barely even talk on the phone anymore.”
“I just been busy, Pop,” he said, ordering another drink. “You know, with teaching.”
“He just earned tenure last year,” said Susan, elbowing Steve playfully in the ribs.
“That’s great!” Deathslayer cocked his head to the side and arched an eyebrow. “What’s tenure?”
“It means—” Steve turned his head so his father would not see him roll his eyes “—that I’d have to haul off and punch somebody to lose my job at this point. Honestly, you can go on for twenty minutes about the nuances of a Japanese sleeper hold, but you don’t know what tenure is?”
“No such thing as tenure in my profession,” said his father with a snicker. “Ain’t no retirement plan, either, which is why my old ass still tours.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” said Steve with a sigh. “You know I’m grateful for all the help you’ve given me, financial and otherwise.”
“You’re not paying me back for grad school,” said his father.
“C’mon, Pop, it’s not like I can’t afford it.” He chuckled sardonically. “I sure ain’t spending my money on some woman, so why shouldn’t you have it?”
The big man fixed him with brows hanging low over his eyes. His nostrils flared, and his hands clenched into fists.
“Because a man is supposed to pay for his child’s education. And that’s that!”
Despite being in his thirties, Steve was amazed at how the big man could still put his foot down. Deathslayer was old-fashioned to the core; his wife did not have to work, and his children were to be taken care of entirely, including their secondary education. Steve still felt a pang of guilt, even as he threw up his hands in surrender. His mother was more forthcoming about finances, and his father’s recent comeback tour did not have nearly as much to do with nostalgia as the big man wanted them to believe.
Their food arrived, and conversation turned to lighter subjects. Susan did most of the talking, eliciting a constant stream of laughter from the big man. Steven mostly sulked through the meal, finishing off two more beers.
Several hours later, the bar was beginning to bustle with activity and nearly every table was full. They had no sooner stood up from the table than a waitress hastily cleaned it, giving them dirty glances.
“Are you coming to the Garden tomorrow night?” their father asked as he tossed several bills on the table.
“I gotta work, Daddy,” said Susan, “but Steve’ll be there, right, Steve?”
She fixed him with an accusatory stare, under which he folded.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” he said.
“Great!” said the big man, digging in his coat pocket for something. He eventually extracted a pair of tickets creased down the middle.
“Here,” he said, “bring a date. Best seats in the house! Come around back and say hey to the boys, will ya? Some of ’em ain’t seen you since you was knee high to a grasshopper!”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Steve, shoving the tickets in his pocket. After an awkward, stiff-armed embrace, he and his father parted company, going different directions in the night.
Chapter 2
STEVE GRUMBLED as he waited in line at the coffee shop, his stomach rumbling loudly. The mass of humanity had spilled out of the serpentine and was backed up all the way to the glass double doors. With growing impatience, he noted that the line was not moving much at all. A few patrons actually left the line, the rest of it scrunching up to fill the gaps.
When he was a few people from the front, he could hear the barista’s voice as she attempted to handle a complicated order.
“Vanilla latte, double-shot espresso, extra-large,” she said, her voice fraught with stress.
“No,” said the angry heavyset man at the front of the line. “Vanilla steamer, one shot of espresso, extra-large.”
“Sorry, sir,” she said. “I’m new here.”
Steve strained to see the barista’s face, but the fat man was nearly as tall as he was, and she was granted total concealment by his corpulent mass.
“Sorry doesn’t fix it,” said the man, turning away from her with his drink wedged between pudgy fingers. “I intend to speak with the manager about this!”
The man left, people shrinking to get out of his way. Steve was able to see the barista at last. His breath caught in his throat. She had black hair done up in pigtails that cascaded down her slim shoulders. Her eyes were a soft, rich brown, with a slight almond shape to them. Her tan complexion was even and attractive, from her dark brows past her thin, Roman nose, and down to her wide, feminine lips. She had a metal hoop pierced through her right eyebrow and a golden stud gleaming over one nostril. The black sweater she wore under her red coffee house apron had the sleeves rolled up the elbows, revealing several tattoos. He could only see her from the waist up, but she had moderately large breasts that strained against the layers of fabric atop them.
The girl took two more orders while Steve stood enthralled. When it was his turn, he was still staring at her. She raised an eyebrow, finally heaving an exasperated sigh and asking, “Can I help you, or are you just trying to catch flies with your mouth?”
“Huh?” he said, sputtering. “Oh, sorry!”
He quickly moved to the counter, offering her a nervous smile. She glanced back at him, one eyebrow arched, as he continued to stare.
“This is the part where you tell me your order,” she said sarcastically.
“What?”
“Your order? You know, you, the consumer, tell me, the barista, what you want to drink and I make it for you. Are you a foreigner?”
“A foreigner?” he said, his voice breaking.
“No, you speak English too good.” She cocked her head to the side a bit. “Are you autistic or something, like Rain Man?”
“Uh, no,” he said with a slight chuckle.
“Then what’s the hold up?”
“Sorry. I’ll have the usual.”
“That’s great,” she said with mock sincerity, “except that I’m new here and have no frame of reference as to what your ‘usual’ is.”
“Oh.” Steve swallowed and glanced at the menu above his head though he didn’t need to. “A large Colombian dark, with four sugars and six creams.”
“Holy crap,” she said with a short bark of laughter, “You even like the taste of coffee?”
“I’m in a coffee shop, ain’t I?” said Steve, growing perturbed.
“Yeah,” she said, preparing his order, “you are at that.”
She put the cup on the counter and eyed him expectantly.
“This is where you pay.”
“Oh, right.” Steve dug into his front pocket. Change spilled out of his hand and onto the counter. He cursed as he strove to collect the pieces of silver as they rolled around at his feet. The barista snickered as he frantically bent over, his butt facing toward her. The frustrated patrons behind him were giving him dark glowers. Had he not been so large a fellow, no doubt some may have been moved to verbally berate him.
“You fucked up,” the barista said in a singsong, sports-crowd manner, “you fucked up, you fucked up!”
Several of the people behind Steve in line gasped, horrified that a sales clerk would curse so readily in front of customers, particularly in such a mocking manner. Steve, however, was overcome with laughter, actually dropping more of his change in his mirth
.
“Old ECW chant,” he said, finally giving her the correct amount. “Nice! Haven’t heard that since back in the day.”
“You like wrestling?” she asked, filling an umbra paper cup with dark coffee.
“I actually used to be a wrestler, for a little while.”
“Really?” She slapped a plastic lid on the cup with some awkwardness. “You don’t seem the type…What made you quit?”
“Well,” said Steve, collecting his coffee and a hand full of condiments, “I—”
“Yo, buddy,” said a man in a flannel vest a few spaces behind Steve, “flirt on your own time! I gots to get to work!”
Several others, emboldened by the tubby man, added their voices to the chorus.
“Uh,” said Steve, staring into the woman’s eyes. He again found himself lost in them, not quite sure knowing why, or caring. “Uh, I—”
“Sorry, sugar,” said the woman with a wink, staring past him at the next customer. “I gotta earn my bread. My name’s Autumn, in case you can’t read my name tag, and that’s Autumn like the season, not Auggie like the hideously deformed kid from Wonder, you dig? I work most Tuesdays and Thursdays, so come in and say hey if you want. Or not.”
Autumn kept her eyes focused on the next customer as she spoke, and her verbal barbs kept him somewhat off balance. He numbly walked out of the café, wondering if he should get back in line. He was certain there was a mutual attraction, but decided that such a tactic might seem desperate. Befuddled, but with a bit of a genuine smile on his face for the first time in days, he sipped at his coffee. He spat it out a minute later, realizing he had forgotten to doctor it.
Phillip pushed his horn rim glasses back up his nose with his index finger. Casting his gaze longingly out the open window adjacent to his elbow, he struggled to pay attention to the old man droning on at the front of the table. He looked past the bored faces of his coworkers seated adjacent to him. They all looked as if they felt like busting out the windows of the meeting room and making a break for it. The meeting showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Phillip was not a large man, not even reaching six feet tall. He was also slimly built, and the glasses which conspired to hide his handsome brown eyes seemed to cement his geek status. His face was attractive enough, but the portrait he created was not overtly manly (particularly in his own opinion).
Forever Autumn Page 2