A Tapless Shoulder (9 page)

“
That doesn’t mean,” I paused. It was obvious I didn’t know
where my line of thought was going, yet I followed anyway because
it was all I had. “Well, I don’t really know what that
doesn’t
mean. I do know that it doesn’t make it right. Not
that
you are not
right
, you’re right as rain,
right? I mean, like happy, you want to be happy, and as you are or
however you are or want to be, and… um, I should shut my face up
before I start singing to you,” I laughed nervously. “‘Right as
rain,’ I don’t even know what that means,” my hands went up like I
needed help. “The situation,” I thought I’d try again, “isn’t right
for someone… who seems to be me. So yeah, I think I really should
be going. I have to get up early for work tomorrow,” I surmised. I
pulled my phone from my pocket, I hadn’t realized it, but it was
already after one. At this rate I would only have a few hours to
sleep, and there were three missed messages and a missed
call.

Why hadn’t I
heard my phone? I wondered angrily. “I’m sorry but I really should
get going,” I said, intending to wrap everything up right then and
there. At that moment I was investing my life in the theory of less
was better, survival of the one going,
LA LA LA LA LA LA
, the loudest.

“
Okay,
honey,” she said, at which I raised my eyebrows to remind her of my
earlier attempts at dissuading such talk, “in case you were
wondering, my parents call me Richard, but you can—”

“
BYE,” I shouted and turned, opening the door to the sound
of her laughter, as she yelled at me, “Candy, honey, its
Candy
.”

The door was
unlocked, and most of the lights were off. Katie was lying in bed
with her iPad, which she lowered when I leaned over to kiss her.
She smiled at me as I ran my hand down her side and along her
thigh.

“
Mm, should
we do it?” I asked with my face against her cheek, which I kissed a
couple more times, something I compulsively had to do.

“
Mm,
no
,” she said, with a
tiny little laugh right after. “Love, you need to get some
sleep.”

“
Oh, I know,” I said. “You will not believe the frigging
night I just had – like you seriously won’t believe it. I’m on the
verge of going to my doctor for depression and this shit happens to
me.” I exhaled dramatically, not sure where to begin. I thought she
should wildly guess at five random things that
could have happened
and I’d just say she was right.

“
Oh, why,
what is Nate up to now?” she asked rolling her eyes.

“
Nate is just freaking out because he thinks someone is
trying to kill him. We have no idea who, which doesn’t surprise me
because
nothing about tonight
made sense
. I mean, why
should we have answers to stuff like that? That would just make
everything not fucked and where would the fun be in that? Anyway,
sorry, uh then,
we
think,
the same person maybe
called me and said shit I honestly couldn’t
understand.”

She sat
upright with a stunned look on her face, “What?” she said way too
loudly, and laughed as one certainly should upon hearing such an
absurd number of things in a single statement.

“
Not so loud,” I said, “you don’t even want to know, I don’t
want to know I know.” I shook my head and stared at her as I waited
for my thoughts to settle into some sort of logical order. She
raised her eyebrows in anticipation, and then tilted her head to
indicate I needed to continue. “Man, okay, okay, well, first I went
out with Nate; right, because he’s having his breakdown or
whatever, anyway, we ended up back, of all places, at
Raises The Bar
. Hellfire is still
licking at his butt hairs
or something; that’s fine, whatever,” I looked around
the room, momentarily at a loss as to what to do
next.

“
Sit and
tell,” Katie blurted out and pointed to the bed. I obeyed. She
leaned forward so she could hear everything I said
sooner.

“
I thought it was something stupid and I was right, but
Nate, he is so out of sorts or
something
on this
one,” I paused as Katie looked as though she really needed to add
something of importance at that very moment.

“
Yeah
, but Nate can
be
such a
,” she paused to think of the right word,
“idiot,” she said finally. “I thought either I was going to punch
him in the face or your sister was; I think it was on your
birthday. And remember how he kept spilling beer down his face?
Unbelievable.”

“
Yeah, I do,
we actually touched on that a bit tonight; I think it was very
therapeutic for him,” I lied, apparently unnecessarily, as she put
a considerable amount of effort into rolling her eyes and
smirking.

“
Sorry, I
just remembered that, anyway, sorry, go on,” she said, still
shaking her head.

“
I know, I
know. Um, so yeah, he’s all flipping out because someone called him
up and said they were going to kill him and that’s fine. That was
like… far from now ago, me English talker proud.” Katie laughed, I
shook my head and continued, “You know what I mean, it was big at
the time, but now, I just, I’m having a hard time caring at the
moment. That problem got a lot smaller as the night went on.
Whoever phoned him said whatever fairly forcefully because it had
him, still has him, for that matter, shitting in his pants.
According to Nate, there was a very crazy laugh, worst laugh ever.
And then, for some reason, he thought it was me. He even actually
asked me if I had called him. There is no way he could really have
been convinced it had been me; otherwise why would he call me up
and have me meet him? That just doesn’t make sense. Whatever: it
doesn’t matter. We both know – and Nate knows – I have a hard time
caring about things of a stupid nature. When the night began, this
was no exception. I expressed complete indifference and I thought
he was going to cry. I called Frankie; Frankie’s like, I don’t know
what the hell you’re talking about. I didn’t expect him to, either.
Of course, I thought it was just a prank, but I felt I had to call
someone. I mean, Nate was looking at me like I might suddenly stab
him. I thought I should do something. Frankie wouldn’t waste his
time trying to freak Nate out, or me for that matter, or, hell,
maybe he would. Standing here now; I don’t know and I don’t care;
not about that, not anymore.” I stood and undressed, and then sat
back down on the bed. She seemed very excited about how eventful my
night had been. I pretended it was because I was just in
boxers.

“
I don’t get
it. Did something happen at the bar?” she asked, realizing I was
sharing but a fraction of the night’s chaos.

“
Uh, no, but there is…
more
. Since I was out
dealing with really stupid shit anyway, I thought I’d stop by my
dad’s and see how he was doing. Now that Mom’s gone, all he does is
drink. I thought it would be a smart thing for me to do. Yeah,
well, no matter how much thought I put into it; smart just isn’t my
thing.” I shook my head. “Tonight was no different, to a degree: my
dad, yes, was drunk as could be.” I paused and stared at her. I
faked a smile, as though to say her beauty did indeed make me feel
better. She smiled back sympathetically and I laughed. “You know
how my dad mildly chuckles at everything; I keep meaning to pay
attention when I’m around him because, being away from it now, when
I say the word, chuckle, I have no idea what that actually means or
sounds like. That man could make falling down a flight of stairs,
while laughing his head off about it, be the quietest thing ever.”
I looked at Katie with a very blank look. It was like I said; here
I am, then quickly jumped away to content I deemed to be much
safer. Her blank and listening face became mangled by
confusion.

“
That’s – you’re –
what
?”

“
Sorry, I guess I just thought I’d share that with you
before we got into the thick of it. Anyway, on our way to my dad’s,
Nate got into a fight with not
one
but
two
guys. So there was that. You know; it amazes me how
functional my dad is when he’s drunk, right up till he hits the
floor. Seriously, he was, like, correcting grammar one second, and
on the floor the very next. I think a chuckle finally did him in:
it bent him over past the point of no return. I don’t know: it was
very… different. As for the effed up phone call, I don’t care; it
wasn’t a threat like Nate got, so I’m not – it’s not in my head.” I
stopped and looked at Katie for an answer, but she hadn’t one. She
actually looked like she had even more questions now than when the
story began.

“
Wait, so you
guys got in a fight with someone?” She asked; as she tried to put
together the pieces to the puzzle I was slowly scattering before
her.

I shook my
head, “No,” I said, “no,
I
didn’t
. It was just what I
said, but with less gloss. Nate hopped out and beat up some; I
don’t even know, twenty year olds, maybe.” Pauses were
unintentionally becoming safe havens for me; segues into the
off-topic or already mentioned. I rubbed her leg. “I mean, fuck, I
thought maybe, just maybe, I’d have the courage to have a real talk
with my dad, you know: heart to heart, father to son. I just
watched Nate beat up two guys because they had bandanas.” My hand
came up like something finally made sense. “They were probably
farmers! Nate was all,
they
showed me their colours
.
Yeah, they were probably saying, hey, we’re farmers; don’t punch us
in the face. And what does Nate go and do? Yes, exactly, he punches
them in the face.” Katie’s eyes were wide and she had her hand to
her mouth. I nodded and added quietly, “No more baby carrots for
him.”

“
What the
hell is wrong with Nate?” she asked, frowning with
disapproval.

“
Who knows;
maybe nothing, maybe lots. That’s… ancient history too,” I said and
waved it away with my hand.

“
You mean there’s
more
? You mean you
managed to get into something else after death threats and fighting
in the streets?” she asked, unsure if she should be fascinated or
frightened by this.

“
Oh yeah,
we’re not even close, so far; that was just the tip, the horrible,
God awful tip,” I said and turned my gaze from her to the wall in
front of me.

“
Why, what
happened?” Her curiosity was mounting with each word I used to
explain it away.

“
Man, oh, man, well,” I took a deep breath; I was holding my
head now like it was going to come apart. “We eventually made it to
my dad’s. Uh, of course, he was completely hammered,
just trashed
, but what else is new? Not a big deal: a problem, of
course, but, well, you know what I mean. It’s been like this since
mom died. Why would it suddenly matter now? We should do something
soon though, or move away.”

“
Okay, but
why
?” she pleaded,
unable to satisfy her curiosity with the tiny morels I was doling
out. It occurred to me I’d been keeping this to myself terribly;
pointing at it the entire time, doing an interpretive dance around
it, holding it out and making a face stricken with terror, and then
wondered why she had grown so impatient over such a little snippet
of information… of a disturbance… of an obviously overrated
evening.

“
I’m getting there, I swear, I am getting there. Well, my
dad… he wasn’t alone.” I looked at her again. She covered her mouth
with her hands, and then put them on my lap, having clearly
mistaken the problem for something else. “No, I don’t care if he
dates, marries or starts a dead-stopped parade full of half-dressed
mannequins that never leave his driveway. What I do have a problem
with, apparently,” I tried to clarify, “is…” I looked at the dog,
back at the floor, then back at Katie. I had run out of
distractions. I took a deep breath, “I guess my problem is the
transvestite that’s parading around my dad’s house with his
or
her
boobs practically, nearly, like they’ve got to
be, almost completely out of her shirt. YEAH, my dad is… you fill
in the blank here, to or with or from, maybe because of, a
transvestite, a trans-vest-tight.” I paused in the oblivion the
word threw me into. “Did I say, transvestite, yet? I just, I really
want to be clear on the level of
holy shit
I’m at
here. She… it’s
her
, right, like
that’s what I should say? Call him,
her;
right? Or… like,
come on,
really
? Anyway, yeah,
there you have it.”

“
I guess so, yes, I say, yes about it being her… wow,
really
?” Katie sounded alarmed.

“
Yeah, I left in the middle of her telling me her name
was,
Dick
Candy
.”