A Tapless Shoulder (25 page)

“
That man,
your father, lost his wife, the woman who was your mother. I would
think you of all people would appreciate the devastating loss and
the impact on your entire life and that recovery is at best
complicated, if at all possible. If your dad smiles, ever, be happy
for him and cherish it. Would you rather not see him smile at
all?”

Her words
halted my mouth and my thoughts. I shut my eyes as my self-pity
left my mind and came back a tattered mess stood on a chair and
tied a knot out of rope,
wait
, I thought,
pleading within myself, just – please, wait.

She put her
hands on mine and turned herself to better face me, “Okay, baby, I
love you,” she said, relieving the tension that had suddenly taken
hold of my face. “But,” she continued, “you need to pull your ego
out of your ass.
Boo wah
hoo
, this isn’t about you,
has nothing to do with you. And if there
was an audience
they might have thought it was hilarious
at my expense
when you practically yelled, ‘Holy balls of crap
shit,’ and then covered your eyes when the waitress asked everyone
how they were this evening.” She was angry, and worse than that,
she was right.

“
I know, I
know, I’m sorry,” I said, trying to reconcile, “I apologized
though, didn’t I.” She shook her head. “I didn’t?” I was surprised.
“Well, I swear I thought it,” I said backpedalling without legs. I
smiled at her warmly, truthfully, and tried to look farther into
her beautiful face without moving closer. She smiled back as I put
my hand on her leg, and exhaled dramatically, “This whole date
counts as foreplay.”

“
Fine,” she
said very seriously – at which we both had a good laugh, and
probably only because it was so desperately needed.

“
If this was
a movie, whoever wrote the script should be fired,” I told her.
“I’m sorry, but it sucks. Boo wah hoo? Is that Mandarin Chinese? It
goes either ‘boo hoo’ or ‘wah wah wah.’ That’s, uh, pretty standard
stuff. Should be simple,” I smiled again, and it felt good. “You
can even add a ‘hoo’ to your ‘boo hoo,’ if you like that better,
you know, sticking with three or whatever. Boo hoo hoo,” I
clarified, as if she was going to be rewriting a script
later.

“
Thanks,” Katie sighed, and then looked around the room.
There seemed to be less people already. “Um, where
is
your dad?” she said as we both realized they hadn’t
returned and the thinning crowd could no longer account for them to
be still waiting at the bar.

“
I don’t know,” I said slowly, and stood to see if I could
spot them. “I don’t see them,” I said, as all that released anxiety
returned. I looked at her stiffly, “Effing shit, get on the table
and yell, Candy.” I looked around the room again before looking
back at Katie, “What? You think there’s more than one
Candy
here?”

My phone rang
and I answered it.

“
You’re WHERE?!
What?
Holy Christ,
dad… that’s about all I got, you say something now. I thought you
got fed up and just ditched us, and, yeah, probably for a good
reason, but… pardon? No, I don’t care to know how to say that in
Spanish. Thanks, though. No, I don’t want to talk to – hi, si, que
pasa, uh, back to my dad. That could easily be wonderful, but I
don’t speak your language. Um, okay, please, can you put my dad
back on, thank you, Dad? BYE.”

I shut my
eyes and held the phone to my forehead. I looked at it again,
shaking my head. My dad and I had switched roles. I looked at
Katie, “Yeah, so, there we go, that was my dad. He’s just fine,
fine and… something. Believe it or not, he is in Mexico,” I stopped
and went blank. “I guess I didn’t catch that part last
night:
we’re just going up to
the bar
…
in a different country
.”

Katie’s mouth
dropped open, “You are
kidding
,” she
insisted.

“
No, no,
wouldn’t even bother at this point, and, well, apparently I don’t
need to joke like that.” I began pacing back and forth in and out
of my mind, looking for any thoughts.

“
At least
he’s okay,” she offered as reassurance. “Is Candy there with
him?”

“
I don’t know. I don’t want to know. He went from our table
to Mexico. That makes sense in his world. With him, that’s all in a
day’s adventure I suppose, maybe it’s a velocity thing, who the
hell knows. How he made it onto a plane is beyond me. He’s been
there long enough to be rejuvenated,” I stopped, not sure what was
doing what; were the words
telling
me
or was I
saying
them
?

Katie did not
look like she had any answers. She hugged me. Her hugs were a nice
gesture and all, but they didn’t break anything and I felt that was
what they really lacked:
where was the destruction?
I’m sorry Kate, but that didn’t help,
please, for me
,
use your hugging
powers for evil, maybe sink this very ground upon which I
stand.

We were both
unsure what my dad’s spontaneous trip meant to us or what it should
have meant, and stood before one another very much like purpose had
just backed out of everything we’d been doing. “How did he get
there? I mean, he did not drive to the airport last night, did he?”
Katie asked, with a tone suggesting she intended to disown my
father had he done that.

“
No, no, who
knows, he probably lit his breath on fire and flew there backwards.
Yeah, I don’t know, I bet he took a cab. I think he’s been really
good that way, one less thing I have to worry about, right? He
hasn’t driven his car anywhere for so long it’d be amazing if it
even still starts. I don’t even think he drove himself to Starbucks
that day. Plus, everyone keeps telling me they’ve seen him in a cab
here and there, or being carried on a hooker’s back, or
whatever.”

“
He must be
spending a fortune; he seems to be all over the place lately,
doesn’t he?”

“
I wouldn’t
know, probably yes, probably no, I don’t know. I love you. I guess
I’ll go over to my parents’ and make sure everything’s okay
tomorrow, make sure he locked the door. Wouldn’t that be perfect?
Hell, I’m sure he did, I… will find out.”

I closed my
eyes for a moment, and inhaled deeply. My head now felt like it had
been kicked. I was relieved my dad was okay, of course. Deeper than
that; I was relieved he wasn’t angry with me for how I had acted
last night at the restaurant. I again wanted to explain to him,
help him see things from my side, but I didn’t know what it was I
saw when I thought about it. I was an emotional wreck that hadn’t
seen it coming. That was part of the problem; I couldn’t see a
thing. I was trying to find my way by heart, but didn’t know where
I was going or how to slow everything down to a more careful pace.
I used to ride a tricycle, I could handle that.

Nate texted
me. He wanted to either drop by or for me to stop by his place, if
I could,
at my soonest
convenience
; his words. I
replied, sure, and that I would actually stop by there shortly as I
was out picking up diapers and had planned to stop at my parents’.
I also added for him to knock off the fancy talk and to just
be himself
or he might end up losing me forever. He said
something back about a hole, I only glanced at the phone, but I had
my guesses. I called Katie. “Hi, yeah, diapers were even on sale.
I’m just going to stop by Nate’s first before hitting my parents’;
I just got a text from him asking me to come by. I don’t know. Who
knows? He probably got his black belt and wants to kick me in the
face, so I shouldn’t be long. Okay, love you too.”

Not long
after that, there I was, and there he was, smiling as he held open
the door for me to his apartment. And as glad as I was to see him
happy, it made me a little nervous. This was a little too happy,
and it certainly made me suspect him of something that, for sure,
was not beneficial to me in any way. I sat back on the couch, he on
the loveseat. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have called it a
‘loveseat’ out loud.
‘I’m
really sorry I keep farting in your fat chai
r.
’
Yes, that might work. Or maybe
I
would
call it the loveseat: ‘Come, sit in the
loveseat
, NO, not there, in the
loveseat
, no, don’t
sit there, over
here
in the
loveseat
, my
friend, you are special, you deserve to sit in the
loveseat
,
only
in the
loveseat
,
please, you see, I am best in your company when you are in
the
loveseat
because, understand, when my eyes
are shut you are always sitting in the
loveseat
of
my
mind
! Oh, the pained expressions I would get from
that charade, especially if it was all said in a whisper: ‘Life is
better when it’s lived quietly near the loveseat.’

“
What’s up?” I asked, wondering if I should tell him I was
insane. Then I thought of a couple more things I could tell him,
one for sure being that I didn’t care to hear it if it had anything
at all to do with my dad, and two would had to have been how glad I
was he was sitting in the
loveseat
.

“
Just got a
new tattoo,” he announced, having carried his smile to this point
like it was an Olympic torch.

“
Cool,” I said, “
of
…” and I trailed
off in an attempt to make his side of the conversation easier. He
just raised his eyebrows at me, so I did the same back. I lowered
mine; he didn’t. I then thought if someone paused long enough for
the other person to become suspicious of said pause, well, that
pause was just way too long.

The corners
of his smile seemed to get sharper, and then finally he turned and
raised his shirt. I wanted to keep turning him. “Looks good, eh?”
he asked.

“
Um,” I was dumbfounded. “I don’t think, I don’t think I get
it,” I said with definitely more momentum than I’d begun. I bent
over to look closer, “It’s, is it…” there, I thought, proudly, I
came up with half an answer
and
half a
question.

“
It’s a guy on a swing,” he said, like that was the part I
was having a problem with. He was right though: it was a guy on a
swing, very simple and very basic. In fact, it was a stick man on a
swing.
Swinging sideways in
the small of Nate’s back.
Why
would that confuse anyone? He dropped his shirt and turned to face
me. The smile remained. “Cool, eh?”

“
It’s a guy
on a swing,” I repeated, “and he’s sideways, and he’s on your back,
low,” I added, “and small.” There wasn’t much variation in my
voice. I didn’t know what to emphasize and I knew that was a sign
of true confusion on my part. “Why?” I paused, and raised my hands
like I was holding a pie; maybe if I took in more oxygen I would
get this. “Why?” I repeated the question again, this time
stretching it a little to indicate it was all I had. He looked
amazed. I was amazed he could look amazed and wanted to smash him
in the face with my imaginary oxygen pie.

“
What do you mean, why? I think it’s fucking funny and
cool,” he said as though he’d been arguing the point for an hour
with a complete moron.
Oh,
now I get it, now that you said funny and cool
.

“
Yeah, but
it’s something you can draw in less than a minute, maybe in less
than half a minute, and the more I think about it, the more
generous I think I’m being with the time frame. That is not a good
tattoo. I think anything that is drawn in under three minutes at
the very least, and I am saying that without any consideration or
buffering at all, cannot be good tattoo material. Even a bug, a
bug, Nate, would take longer to draw. That’s just the eyes: the
eyes of a small, tiny bug would be two dots. I think you want to
sit there for a while, and be like; this is kickass stuff here
being applied slowly and carefully and maybe even painfully to my
body for hours on end. I’m going to be studied; the intricacy is
so… intricate. You know what I mean?” I cringed and winced. I
wanted to take it all back. It was a tattoo and it was already
there. It wasn’t my body, wasn’t my taste and I truly wished I
hadn’t said anything. I was not affected by what his tattoo was or
what it meant. I had to ease up, which was one of my problems; I
couldn’t ease up. I was thinking now, trying to stay the
tides.

“
I’m not saying it doesn’t look cool. Yeah, it’s a
cool
picture
, um, like for
a book or the back of a book or a comic or t-shirt or a cool little
sticker, I would totally put that sticker on the inside of the back
of a book, I just, I don’t know that it’s tattoo material. It’s
weird to me; I’m sorry, maybe I just don’t get it. That’s what I’m
trying to tell you, Nate, it doesn’t make sense, okay, to me, but
maybe, uh, just this once I will come forward and represent the
world on this one. You know? I think they’ll all be okay with that,
and in agreement.”