A Tapless Shoulder

A Tapless
Shoulder

By Mark
McCann

Also by
Mark McCann:

Painting
Shadows .. 2001

This ..
2010

A Tapless
Shoulder .. 2012

copyright ©
2012 Mark McCann
all rights reserved

First
Edition

ISBN
978-0-9868970-6-1

Author’s
Acknowledgements:

I wish to
thank my parents for their endless support, my proud sisters, my
wife and family, Gary Anthony for our conversations regarding
various books and Christine Callahan-Oke for writing the summary
for
A Tapless
Shoulder
.

NOTE: This is
a work of fiction. Characters, places and events are all either a
product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.

For my wife,
Andrea, for everything all at once

Here begins a
thank you I will never finish

A person I
assumed to be a friend – as they had phoned my number and
knew
my
name – told me in a panicked whisper to meet them at a bar I knew
downtown and hung up.

Okay,
fine
. I had some guesses as to who it might have been, but they
were like grains of salt tossed over the wrong shoulder. What else
was I going to do, maybe text, ‘what the fuck,’ to everyone I
knew
,
forgoing the usual abbreviation
for
greater literal
impac
t.

So I went to
this place downtown called
Raises The Bar
, sat
at a table in an obvious place and waited for someone to arrive.
Not only did an hour go by without any such arrival, there was an
additional one after that, which meant
I was well on my way to waiting for a
third
. And still no one arrived, certainly no one in a hurry to
meet me there. One thing I did know: I had been drinking from the
moment I sat down. There was a moment when I thought I would enjoy
nachos, and so hastily ordered some, but the beer had me and I had
it, and much of the nachos remained.

I hadn’t
known I would be waiting so long, certainly not this long. What was
I to do, pace the room? No, so I did what most would have done,
over and over, so, yes, for nearly three hours I ordered beer after
beer. I was human; I followed human protocol and, if anything,
impatiently waited, and by impatiently I of course mean drunkenly,
yes, I drunkenly waited for something to unravel the way any normal
person
might
have. For all I knew I was sitting
in the middle of someone else’s emergency, which was something to
be very nervous about; emergencies have been known to
cancel people out
. Who wouldn’t drink, given the situation? And
while some may deem my decision irresponsible, the only thing more
irresponsible would be to phone someone, desperate for help, and
not even show up.

My train of
thought derailed when I began to realize I was being messed
with
or
that something more and more serious was keeping
someone away from being able to get here. I didn’t know if that
angered me or had me worried, and that pissed me off, which kind of
helped with that decision. So then I knew how I felt about the
situation and could no longer stand being there. I was even no
longer certain I could literally stand there, had I moved my bottom
from the soft concave of the seat and tried. I laughed, and
thought, ‘what bullshit,
I
can stand anywhere.’
I moved
like I just might get up, but instead the glass was at my lips, as
my thoughts thought it unwise to stand while drinking, and by the
time I set the glass down I'd forgotten why I was about to stand up
anyway.

With my drink
finished, my waiter asked if I cared for anything else. I checked
the time on my phone, which wandered in front of my eyes even when
held really still. I looked at the door, at the waiter, at my empty
glass, at the waiter’s shoes, at my pants, at the door, at my
phone, at the waiter’s expectant face, and back at my empty glass
again. I ordered
one
more,
with a coffee for good
measure, as if that would have certainly thrown him off my being
incredibly drunk. He went away while I sat smiling like I’d just
gotten away with something.

Oh, look at you and your
smug face.
I arrived way
before you.
No, I don’t know
when,
but I know it was well
before dark. And where the hell were you then, huh? Do you think
this is what I really want to be doing on a – whatever today is?
Yes, Thursday,
thank you
phone.

I was looking
at the window I could no longer see through, taunting the
reflection of myself. That was indicator number ninety-seven
that I was very drunk.
And since reasons one through
ninety-six went without saying; it was safe to say I was in
terrible shape. Indicator number ninety-eight was that I was
telling all this to my reflection in the stupid window. I watched
myself as I shook my head, not even sure if it was at me or at the
window.

We’d made our
way through the night, jumping from glass to glass, I
reflected
, and now you order a
coffee
. I cast my
head forward condescendingly. For what:
decoration
? If
you wanted something for your other hand, you should have ordered a
second beer; that brought a smile to my near-bearded face as I
studied my attire. You don’t have much, but why do you
try
to look like you have even less? You’ve jeans at home
without holes in the knees, shirts that don’t look like they’ve
been worn for a thousand days straight, and even fancy five-blade
razors that would make short work of that scruff on your
face,
yet here you
are
. I was laughing,
apparently enjoying the company.

‘
Since I got here first, I’m a little drunker than you,’ I
confessed. ‘Uh, and while I have your attention,’ which of course
meant
my
attention, ‘at what point exactly in the evening
did we replace our concern for the situation at hand with fierce,
drunken anger?’ Because my sentiment has long since turned to WHO
THE HELL CAN BE DRUNK AT A TIME LIKE THIS – er, no, wait, that
wasn’t to my advantage, I likely meant, WHO THE HELL CAN BE WORRIED
AT A TIME LIKE THIS? Yeah, okay, well that wasn’t even
better
, but it
tried
to lend itself to the idea of
something to do with purpose…
maybe
. I really would
have preferred something a tad more… redeeming… intelligent… you
name it, it’d be better. ‘Oh well, we blew that too, and I blame
you,’ I concluded with a quick nod to myself. I shook my head again
just to see it in the window.

It was
official: if this night was meant to demonstrate my
reliability
or
such
, I’d failed enormously.
Wait, not so! I leaned forward to scold
the me
I was
staring at.
You
are here, and that is exactly what
was asked of
you
. There was
nothing indicative of any sort of
desired condition
. I
could have been asleep, dancing, dancing asleep or farting while I
peed, so long as it was within these walls; I’d held up my end.
Hell, I thought, and looked at the door; if they show up now I’ll
punch them in the eyes and yell,
look at me
.

Defining
moments, I thought sarcastically, I’ll give you a defining moment.
I paused thereabouts in my thoughts;
wait
. If this was a
defining moment, then we were in pretty bad shape. I had internal
dialogue going, external dialogue going and a ‘live feed’ of it
all. ‘There is far too much going on here for someone sitting
alone,’ I said with a wave of my hand toward the window.

Look at you;
you arrived and dove
shitfaced
first
into this. Like
what was going on: were we still angry? You could hardly even look
me in the eyes anymore. I laughed, ‘You are
drunk
,’
each word swollen from the effort.
I’m drunk, you say, drunk, like it’s a three-syllable word.
You say staple, like it or… silly… able, like you shut up; you look
stupid. Um, staple? Wow, how‘d you even make it this
far?

‘
You are
insane
,’ I said
harshly under my breath. I looked to my left, then my right. I had
gotten lucky; no one was around. Had someone been there, I’d have
likely been cut off for sure, my remaining drink pulled straight
from my hand. I began to tilt the glass toward my open mouth… just
in case.

I set the
empty glass down. Well, that was just great; I was so drunk that
not only had I started
talking
to a
reflection
, I’d ended up
fighting with it too. Disgusted with both of us, I turned from the
window and looked at my phone. I glanced back quickly; convinced
you’d made a face. You hadn’t, unless that face
was
the
face I was making. I got up and switched seats, so my back was to
the window.

I turned my
attention back to my phone, now more confused than ever, and
mumbled into it, “Figure this shit out for me… I’ll be your best
friend.”

There
was a
text I hadn’t noticed or even heard. I jerked my thumb over my
shoulder, and chimed, “Your fault
.
”

It was from
my beautiful wife, Katie:
Ding Ding wanted to watch a movie again, so I literally
said, ok, I’ll start it over. He yelled at me, no, start it
on.

After reading
that three times I got why I should care and why it was funny. I
replied:
That’s awesome. He
is funny without even trying
.
A lot of auto-correcting kicked in while I typed the words, but my
intended thoughts finally came out intact. She would be none the
wiser, I thought.

I smiled and
lifted my head to look around, but the more I looked the more I
began to frighten myself. It seemed financial, chronological and
moral consequences didn’t
completely
taper the
impulse to jump up and wreck a place. Maybe they did, maybe I just
needed to re-evaluate my priorities. It sobered me somewhat to
realize the bold seriousness these thoughts had hunkered down with,
as I noted my inability to dance could only work to my
advantage.
And
I would for sure cut myself on
whatever that thing is
, I
thought as I stared at something of a statuesque nature that
consisted of numerous, literally eye-poking, if one got close
enough, pointed pieces. Maybe that was the point: maybe it was
designed with deterring drunken unruliness in mind. What about
drunken clumsiness? What if my balance maybe swayed and I over
corrected myself right into that thing while attempting to walk
by?
Stupid
thing
, I thought, annoyed
with it now, simply because of a hypothetical punk
attitude.