How to Talk to a Widower (13 page)

20

WHEN DOGS MEET, THEY SNIFF EACH OTHER'S ASSES.
When women meet, they check each other out to determine who is prettier. When men meet, the paramount question is who would kick whose ass in a fight, and when Jim came by to check me out shortly after I moved in with Hailey, that wasn't really an issue up for debate. Jim was big, the kind of big that made me feel small and off balance. Somehow, in describing him, Hailey had failed to mention the sheer bulk of him, the superhero chin, the thick, corded neck of a Greco-Roman wrestler, the imposing, bearish frame, and large sausage fingers that closed over mine like a clamp when we shook hands. Thick raised veins snaked up his forearm like rural back roads on a map, all converging on the Wal-Mart of his bulging bicep. My first instinct was to match might with might, but to do that you have to actually have some might of your own, so instead I let my hand fall limp, taking the high road, refusing to be engaged in Jim's macho bullshit, but then I thought I might be coming off like a wuss, so I tried to consolidate my hand in such a way that, while not squeezing back, it would still feel solid and unyielding to Jim's force. Basically, I fucked up the handshake. It would never be mentioned, but I knew it, and Jim knew it, and that was all that mattered. I would soon learn that the unsaid things were all that mattered in dealing with your wife's ex-husband.

“How are you doing?” Jim said, nodding smugly as he looked me up and down, mostly down.
I can wipe the floor with you, you little prick.

“Pretty good,” I said.
You might have won the handshake, but I'm sleeping with your ex-wife. Do the math, big guy.

“So, you all moved in?”
To my goddamn house?

“Pretty much.”
You snooze, you lose.

“Well, maybe now you can fix it up a little.”
You look like you wouldn't know a power tool if I shoved one up your scrawny ass.

“I'm not really the handy type.”
Maybe if you paid your child support every once in a while, Hailey would be able to afford some basic repairs. Fucking deadbeat.

“Must be some adjustment, having to live with a kid like this.”
My kid, motherfucker. So you just watch yourself.

“Oh, I don't mind.”
A small price to pay for sleeping with your ex-wife. Did I mention that I'm sleeping with your ex-wife? I am. Frequently. Repeatedly. Constantly. Everything else is just what I do when I'm not having sex with her.

“He's a great kid.”
Stay the fuck away from him.

“I know.”
No thanks to you, you pube-shaving freak.

“So, I hear you're a writer?”
Fag
. “What sorts of stuff?”

“Magazine writing, mostly.”
Like you even read.

“Oh.”
Broke fag
.

We stared across the gulf at each other, smiling like macho idiots. If we had antlers they'd be locked; if we were in high school, he would be tripping me in the cafeteria and stepping on my head.

         

Two long-haired girls in tight, low-riding jeans and bared midriffs walk past us, and Jim momentarily cranes his neck to watch them from behind as they walk toward the back of the bar. The place is crowded, but Jim has managed to snag a table off to one side, taking the seat up against the wall so that he can watch the passing parade of ass while we talk. I'd offered on the phone to come see him in his office, but he was already finished for the day, and told me to meet him here at Clover, which I'm sensing now is a regular after-work hangout of his. I don't know if he thought it would make for a friendlier meeting, or he just likes to look at the college girls who seem to make up about eighty percent of the bar's clientele, but I figured a little lubrication could only help, which is why I got here early and laid down a primary coat of two Jack and Cokes at the bar before he showed up. And now here I am, floating on my minor buzz and sharing a pitcher with Jim, who ogles the girls while drumming his fingers on the table to Gwen Stefani on the jukebox. I haven't seen Jim in some time, and I'm at that early, sharp stage of drunkenness, where all of your senses are heightened and you see everything in high definition, so I find myself doing a quick visual reconnaissance. He's dressed in khakis and a short-sleeve polo shirt that strains equally against his large biceps and his impressive gut, which kind of cancel each other out. His hair, once dark and thick, is starting to gray on the sides and show more forehead, and the flesh under his eyes is gray and puckered like an orange peel. His once ruddy complexion has become soft and doughy, the incipient jowls just beginning to soften his square, superhero jaw. Still, he manages to look healthy and handsome, like a retired football player just beginning to go to pot.

Jim looks away from the girls and sizes me up thoughtfully, a salesman mentally choosing the right pitch. “You and I have never really hit it off,” he says.

“I guess not.”

“And if you think about it, there was really only one reason for that.”

Because you're a colossal asshole?
“How do you figure?”

Jim nods and takes a sip of his beer. “Hailey,” he says. “It was a sticky situation. She was your wife and my ex. I don't doubt that she gave you an earful about me, and you would have been biased before you ever met me.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” I say, “I probably wouldn't have liked you very much anyway.”

Jim studies my face, trying to calibrate his own level of antagonism against mine, and then chuckles lightly. “Nice.”
Little shit.

This is what inevitably happens when Jim and I are forced to approximate cordiality. Jim hates me because he takes it personally that Hailey loved me, even though that happened after they were through, and I take it personally that Jim cheated on Hailey, even though it happened long before I was in the picture. The chronology should nullify or at least temper our instinctive hostility, but we have penises, Jim and I, and so rationality is not really an option. These are the roles we've been assigned, and it's not clear why we're powerless to change this dynamic, but what is clear is that Jim is dying to hit me. In a perfect world, Jim would stand up, hurl the table between us out of the way, and reach for my throat. He is bigger and stronger than me, and has no doubt been in more fights, but I'm fearless and quick as greased lightning, and I'll dodge his clumsy swings, will dart in and out, sticking the jab repeatedly as the crowd gathers, will bloody him slowly, with great precision, until his eyes start to close and his gums drip with blood, until he's dazed to the point that I can step in, arms up, shoulders rolling in a natural boxer's rhythm, to land the uppercut that will lay him out for good. Then I'll apologize to the pretty bartender, who will look at me with newfound respect and hand me a towel filled with ice, and I'll sit on the stool, calmly icing my bloody knuckles while they prop Jim up and slap his face until he regains consciousness. “How many fingers am I holding up?” the off-duty paramedic will ask him. “Thursday,” Jim will say, his eyes rolling up into his head. But this is not a perfect world, and if you need any further proof you'll find exhibits A and B conveniently located right here at this sticky table varnished with generations of spilt beer, so Jim and I are forced to internalize our natural antagonism, to sit on our hands while the juggernaut of our aggression spins furiously inside of us, stirring things up that have nowhere to go.

“Russ sleep at your place last night?” he says resignedly.

“Yeah.”

“I figured as much.” He downs a shot of whiskey and chases it with some beer. “I could dead-bolt that kid into his room, and he'd still find a way to get out of the house.” He seems more amused than sad about this fact, so I just keep quiet. “He tell you about Boca?”

“He mentioned it,” I say, sipping at my beer.

“He's not too happy about it.”

“No, he's not.”

Jim nods his head somberly. “Angie's brother's got a hurricane shutter business down there. After what happened in New Orleans, they can't expand fast enough.”

“What do you know about hurricane shutters?”

He shrugs. “How hard can it be?”

He's probably right. Jim is used to making his living off the misfortune of others. He's an ambulance chaser, a bottom-feeder whose legal practice consists primarily of processing personal injury claims for Radford's large immigrant population. He has carved out a niche for himself over the years by passing his cards to the multitude of day laborers that enter New Radford each day: nannies, cleaning ladies, landscapers, and contractors. He has contacts in all the local emergency rooms, and will usually show up with Lucia, his on-call translator, while the patients are still in triage. He works on contingency, settles with the insurance companies, and on those rare occasions that the case seems headed for court, he dishes to more qualified lawyers for a percentage. Jim doesn't do court. In the ecosystem of the legal community, Jim Klein is pond scum. Cashing in on potential misfortune instead of actual misfortune will actually be a step up for him.

“I think it will be pretty hard for Russ,” I say.

“Frankly, I think in the long run it will be good for him.”

A pretty girl in short shorts and a tank top, with great legs and impossibly luminous skin, smiles apologetically as she squeezes past our table and we both turn to watch her move away from us. Then Jim turns back to me, catches me looking, winks, and says, “Man, you could eat that ass with a spoon.” But I will not let him draw me into any ass-banter. Okay, I looked too, I'll admit it, and yes, she did have an exceptional ass, truly first-rate, but unlike Jim, I'm not married and I'm actually within the outer limits of the girl's age range, which means I'm supposed to notice her, but if I respond to Jim, who is actually licking his lips, I'll be a dirty old man by association, so instead I say, “You think, after all the change Russ has been through this past year, that moving him to a new town, a new school, away from everyone he's ever known, will be good for him?”

Jim frowns and holds his beer mug up to the light like he's searching for clues, before taking another sip. “He's hanging out with some bad kids. The school shrink says he's been skipping school, and his grades are in the toilet.”

“He can fall in with a bad crowd in any high school.”

“Exactly,” Jim says, turning to watch another gaggle of girls as they pass. “So what's the difference?”

“He's hurting, Jim. He's still grieving and he needs to come to terms. You move him to Florida, he'll just have that much more to be angry about. Can't you and Angie just wait a little while? He'll be off to college in a few years and then you can go.”

“We've already put it off for Russ. We were all set to go last year. Everything was in place. But then Hailey died … ”

“What a terrible inconvenience for you.” I grip my mug tightly, wishing I was the kind of guy who would just smash it into Jim's face. He'd probably beat me to death and then sue my corpse. Goddamn lawyers.

Jim raises his massive hands apologetically. “Okay, that came out wrong. My point is just that with Hailey dying and my taking custody of Russ … this has all been a pretty big change for Angie and me to absorb.”

“What about losing your mother in a plane crash? Where does that fall out on the scale of changes to absorb?”

Jim lowers his head to take a long swallow of beer, and when he raises it again there's a dab of beer foam on the point of his nose. “Don't get all high and mighty on me, Doug. Hailey's been poisoning that kid against me for years and you know it. You think it's easy, taking a kid who's been raised to hate you, and bringing him into a home with your wife and son? I already fucked up one marriage, and let me tell you, I'm not going to fuck up another one.”

“So Russ doesn't matter.”

“Of course he matters. But Angie and our little boy matter too.” He takes another long sip. “I'm not the bad guy here.”

“No. You're a fucking hero.”

Jim's beer mug comes crashing down on the table, his hand closed into a white-knuckled fist on the handle, his face turning a deep, angry crimson hot enough to melt away the veneer of civility he'd worn up to this point. “Listen to me, you little shit,” he says, his voice low and menacing. “I'm cutting you some slack because of your loss, but you're starting to try my patience. I took a lot of crap from Hailey, but I'm not going to take it from a punk like you. I love Russ, but like it or not, I've got a wife and another son to think about, and Russ comes with a lot of trouble that they don't need. You don't know shit about my life, you just got here, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you sit there in judgment of me. You're not a member of this family, you're just part of the debris, a loose end who's still hanging around because he hasn't figured out where the hell else to go yet.”