A Tapless Shoulder (5 page)

I looked at
him with what I intended to be a strange face but in fact may have
turned out to be somewhat funny, as he began to laugh.

“
What, what
is it?” he asked with a slight and nervous smile.

“
What isn’t it
?” I
shook my head. “Okay,” I said, “have you ever written a word that
is so simple and easy, like a word you’ve never really given much
thought because there is no need to, and so you once again go to
use it, in a regular sentence or wherever, and you suddenly don’t
recognize it? Do you know what I mean? See, I think
you
are one of those words – in people form. At first you make
complete sense and I know I know you, but the more I look at you
the less familiar you become, and I can’t believe I’m in need of a
dictionary for something so simple.” I began to
laugh.

“
That’s not
funny, man” he said like he couldn’t believe I was
laughing.

All I could
think to say back was, “Your face isn’t funny,” I paused and saw he
couldn’t follow a rope if it had been tied to him, and so I added,
finally, “Don’t be stupid,
it
wasn’t me
.” I wanted to hit
him,
hey, look,
rocks!

He looked at
me, long and hard, and seemed to be deciding which direction to go
in.

“
Head first,”
I said like I knew what he was thinking, “it’s only shallow water
and rock bottom, just go for it, like nothing else matters, man up;
man up, to the man code, I think we both know you’re going to.” I
shook my head, indicating I didn’t know what I was talking about
either and then blurted out, “Hey, look; rocks!” I laughed while he
glared at me. At least he looked more annoyed at this point than
frightened and lost.

“
What are you
talking about?”

I widened my
eyes and looked at him as though he should know, then turned my
head left a bit.

“
I really
don’t know,” I confessed and resumed my beer drinking position,
“not a clue. That is how I roll, Natter, when people, people that
are you, come and tell me crazy shit, especially a whole lot of it.
Yeah, it’s weird, eh; as far back as I can remember I’ve always
gotten a little strange around crazy shit. Can’t explain it.” I
shook my head while I moved my hands around in the air in front of
me, imagining them to be feet walking around piles of stuff they
didn’t want to step in.

“
How many
those you had?” he asked pointing at the beer that had just been
set in front of me. He took his directly from the waitress, and
began to down the pint while pointing his hand sideways and making
a number of circles at the waitress.

“
He wants you
to cartwheel away,” I said to her and shrugged. He looked at me and
then back at her, then stopped his one-man-chugging-contest to say,
“I’ll get another.”

I pointed
down at my beer and made a circular motion above it like I was
stirring it from afar, “Um, not even this one,” I said, looking at
him, then it, and then him again, “Many words you no bother speak,”
I said.

His face
said,
Hello, I am
unimpressed
, and then he ran
his arm across his mouth, something I had forgotten he had the
habit of doing.
Keep the beer
and whole chickens coming for my idiot Viking
friend
, I thought.

“
What the
fuck are you talking about,” he said into his hands as they slid
dramatically down his face now like it was all too much to bear,
which, given the circumstances, was something I thought only I
should have had the right to do.

With the
speaking and then the thinking I wasn’t even sure but then it came
back to me, “
How many those
you had,
” I repeated out loud
for both of us. “How English you talk, maybe
that
is
why I want to fucking kill you.”

“
Does it
matter?” he said defensively.

“
Do you
matter?” I interrupted, annoyed beyond reason. I realized my
frustration was hardly helping either of us, and a lack of patience
was only speeding me towards greater frustration. “Look, I’m sorry
man, forget it, I’m having a … day, a day where, yeah okay, the
phone did not ring with someone on the other end threatening my
life. I guess that would either have to be funny or frightening or
just stupid, right?”

“
Frightening,
thank you,” he said, once again selectively hearing me, “really
scary actually, you see, it’s…” he didn’t know how to describe it
or he was just dropping significant words from his sentences
again.

“
Do you think
it’s that girl’s brother?” he asked suddenly.

“
Um, well,
not knowing what you’re talking about; no, no, I don’t think it’s
her brother, not for one second did I think that.”

“
Oh good,” he
said to my staggering disbelief. “I was going to call her, but
just, I don’t know, didn’t, I guess.”

At this point
I realized how deeply tired and uninterested I felt about the whole
thing
.
No one, no more: I was done with friends, I
thought to myself, and wondered why I didn’t
think it to him
while I was at it. No indeed; they seemed only to wring the
normal from my fabric of being.

I ordered
another beer while Nate spoke to himself, perhaps about whom it may
have concerned. His eyes were wide, and I saw fear was actually
running its course with him. A genuine fear and I didn’t quite
understand why – no, I understood why, but couldn’t see the real
threat the way he obviously did. Something about it all just didn’t
make any sense at all, but I couldn’t figure out just what it
was.

“
Ever stop to
think someone was messing with you?” I took a different angle and
tried to be helpful, especially if it meant gaining some distance
from the problem. He stopped his external dialogue, which I hadn’t
been paying attention to, and looked at me, bewildered, like he
believed people did not joke anymore in this part of the world.
Maybe he was right; I wasn’t sure either, but I knew it wouldn’t
have been the first time we’d broken rules regarding behaviour or
etiquette. I knew that even without resorting to something flimsy
like memory.

“
No,” he said quietly, “you should have heard the way he
said it,” Nate spoke slowly and… creepily, really.
You should have heard the way you
just said that
, I thought.
“They were so angry, so,” he stopped mid-sentence and tried to
think of the right word, “so loud and honest, and so,” he stopped
again, seemingly at a complete loss for words, and it didn’t matter
as I had come to feel sorry for him and deeply confused. This was
someone so very far from the Nate I knew and had grown up with. He
punched people… routinely even. It occurred to me that I might not
have ever seen him
fearful of
anything
until now. I had
known him too long not to care, no matter how invalid the cause may
have been; invalid being my way of saying,
stupid
.

It was then
that my phone rang, so I picked it up from its place on the table
and answered it. To have done anything else would have just been
plain weird, however, being in the position of omniscience that I
am, I’d wished I’d just bent over and smooshed my face into it. I
almost said ‘awkwardly’ there, but, really, could there be any
other way? I’m guessing
no
.

That was when
the lid truly came off; from where Nate was sitting, he overheard
belligerent and muffled
loudness
coming out
of my phone. Before I could fasten reason to the moment, he had
taken it and tossed it in front of him and kicked it sky
high.

“
SEE, SOUND
LIKE A JOKE TO YOU?”

He was
shouting like it would help me hear him. I knew I wanted that
moment back. “WE’RE BOTH GOING TO DIE!” He was up out of his seat –
maybe it helped him to yell, maybe it was in case he needed to
suddenly run.

“
It was a
wrong number,” I said nonchalantly and with a nervous
laugh.

“
WRONG
NUMBER, MY ASS,” he surged forward, “THEY WERE YELLING, EVIL
YELLING, I COULD FREAKING HEAR THEM!”

“
Okay,” I said, “it was just really loud drunk talk, but
now
you
are yelling, and our waitress here is wondering
if maybe you could
not
be yelling.” I motioned to the
baffled waitress, who stood nearby holding the beer we’d ordered,
but didn’t dare come closer. He looked at my hand, and then in the
direction it was pointed.

“
Sorry,” he
said meekly to her, and sat back down. He looked at me pensively,
“Are you freaking or what?”

“
Yup,” I said
confidently, “my freak is like a half degree above my calm though,
so it’s like, you know, imperceptible to the eye, but, whoa, man,
am I feeling it.” I shut my eyes and made the face I thought I
would make if I had peeled a lemon and squished it against my
teeth.

I was trying
to think out loud for Nate’s sake of who would or could pull off
something so absolutely bizarre, and bizarre may have been putting
it strongly;
needless
, yes,
something so absolutely needless fit the bill much better. Everyone
we knew seemed unstable at that moment or so appeared, especially
from where we were sitting. Nate’s hands were on his head and he
looked like a lost child staring in the direction he’d last seen
his parents. I began to laugh.

“
You heard
him, man. I really don’t think it’s a joke.”

“
Yes, I heard him alright; it was a loud garble of nonsense.
It has to be a joke.” I shrugged. “You need to calm down, hold
yourself together, and realize someone is just fuckin’ with us, and
who knows
who
else by now. I didn’t understand a
single word of it, except maybe the word ‘noodles,’ but that
doesn’t make sense, so I don’t think I even heard that. You’ve
threatened people; you ever mention noodles?” I laughed. “I don’t
know, angry drunk talk about noodles, it gets me every time.
Besides, you were phoned yesterday: well, look at that, they’ve
moved on. You’re in the clear, man, happy up,” I said in an attempt
to bestow a revelation upon the man.

Nate shook
his head, “No, I don’t know, man.”

“
Seriously, this is just stupid, it was a stupid prank and
we’re acting like little girls, and when I say, we, I mean, you,
you are acting like a girl, and not even a present-day girl,” it
made me feel better to make fun of him so I continued, “but more
like a girl from back in olden times. Because, shit man, seriously,
the girls today would have yelled some sort of
smack
back
into that phone, you know, like, fuck with me and I will fucking
shoot you right in the fucking… parent – something like that.” I
nodded my head like it was true. “That stuff messes people up,
losing a parent… to being shot.”

I thought
about it for a moment longer but he wasn’t paying attention to what
I was saying, or the fact that now I was no longer saying anything.
What he was doing was looking around the room as if someone was
going to get up and start tip-toeing towards us. “Jesus, Nate,” I
shook my head, “if you had to guess who would do this as a joke,
out of everyone we know, who would you guess?”

“
I don’t
know, I don’t think someone’s just messing with us,” he said
earnestly, “it’s like me and you and like you said; who knows who
else, but we are all going to die, and we don’t even know why, we
have no idea.”

“
Yeah, okay, I know, but if you
had
to guess, it
would be…” I waited for him to fill in the blank, “it would be…” I
added again and waited.

He appeared
to be thinking about it, and if he wasn’t; he was an idiot for a
moment longer, before finally saying,

“
Frankie.”

“
There, was
that so hard? That’s what I was thinking too. Who knows with that
fucking guy, eh? He’s a few… planks… short a bridge.”

“
A few planks short a bridge
? WHAT is that? What the hell – what is that from? Your
grandma’s dad say that or something?”

“
It’s a saying, I don’t quite know if I’m the first to have
said it, but I don’t think so. And, um, my
grandma’s dad
would be my great grandfather. Look, who cares, I was going
to call Frankie, and tell him to fuck his doodle or… something, but
now I’m going to tell him the job’s done:
there’s a plank in Nate’s very ass-like
face
. And by plank I mean
this fork because I’m all out of planks at the moment.
And
it went in easy, I’m not suggesting anything here, I’m just
saying.”

“
Yeah,” he said like I just wasn’t burning him, “but it
didn’t sound like Frankie
at
all,
it was more like, I
don’t even know, a deeper voice, older, someone serious,” Nate
trailed off. The circumstances had a strangeness to them that also
made everything seem ordinary. Why Nate, of all people, I thought,
and why today, and why me? I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket
and scrolled down to Frankie’s number. Nate had to fidget with
everything and eventually picked up the salt and pepper shakers. He
held them together clumsily, rubbing one against the other, but
just slightly; if they were dolls I’d have thought he was making
them kiss. The phone rang three times before Frankie
answered.