A Tapless Shoulder (7 page)

“
Don’t
pretend
I don’t
know
you,” he
said dramatically like he was on a stage.

“
Are we going to have a big moment here, you and I?” I
laughed. “Look, I know, that’s why I said it like I know
you
,” I was trying to silence him with his own
theory.

He glanced at
me, “Don’t pretend to know what we’re talking about when
we don’t know
what we’re talking about.”

I was seized
by twitches and brain lapses, and then all activity dropped their
connections. “What does… does that even – look, don’t try to stump
me with your
reverse-engineered Jedi mind tricks
.” I held my hand to my forehead like I wanted to pull
myself away from it all. “There were two of them. Okay, just
listen:
one
, I didn’t know
what was going on, and
two
, there were two
of them. How perfect is that spot for the part about there being
two of them, it’s almost confusing, so listen because I’m going to
explain: two of them and two of us means it could have been two on
two… or one on one, I guess, as in one each. Do you get what I’m
saying here? I swear, Nate, the longer I’m in your presence, the
farther my mind is from making sense.”

“
Yeah, but
you saw, man, I didn’t need your help, it was no problem,” he said
like he had moved a couch all by himself.

“
Nate, by the time my mind caught up to what was even
happening; you were already playing ‘fight night’ with the second
guy. So yeah, you had it under control, but we’re not kids anymore,
we’re adults, and I have kids, kids I’d like to see again and
therefore need to limit the number of things I do that might
make me die
. Katie would kill me if I died. Seriously,
knives and guns
; remember them, you don’t start fights with
guys with deep pockets; it’s the fifty-seventh rule of fight club.
And those guy’s pants were probably falling down, weren’t they?” I
paused and thought for a moment, “Maybe they were showing you their
magic trick, which was a small bandana holding up their stupidly
oversized pants all from just their back pocket, and the other guy
was like, ‘Yeah, look, I can do it too.’” We laughed, and then I
hit him in the shoulder, “Man, just take your time, send out a memo
before being so hasty, and have your intentions include me as a
contact, especially if the subject is going to be…
fucked
. That’s all I’m asking.”

He laughed
and jumped back in his head, “I’m pretty sure I broke that first
dude’s nose, man, like
pretty
quick
. I was freaking pissed,
eh?” He seemed quite impressed with himself, glancing over at me to
see if I agreed.

“
Yeah,” I yawned and nodded. “It certainly looked broken.
You pummelled him alright, both of them. So, wait, let me get this
straight,” something had occurred to me. “You literally punched out
a couple guys; over them just going, ‘hey, be scared of us,’ which,
okay, yeah I get it, that I get, and that’s fine, I mean, there
aren’t any gangs around here, at least not punk ass shit like the
baggy brother boys back there, but I mean, how else are we going to
know they are, at the very least, a duo if they don’t have some
sort of uniform, right? Still would have been better if I had known
what was going on, but, hey, we’re past that now, doesn’t
matter,
but
, what was I going
to say… oh, yeah, so you were all over that, right away, but
yesterday, you got a phone call that sent you packing, man,
sent you packing
.
What?
Like, okay,
that’s fucked
. TWO
GUYS
versus
ONE
phone call. That just doesn’t make any sense to me. Nothing
scares you, then this, it doesn’t make any sense.” I looked at him
with high hopes for his answer.

“
Those guys were bums back there man, fucking dumb kids
practically. They were old enough to get what they got though, but
that
call
, man, it was someone older than us, I don’t
know, it just messed with my head.” He looked at me, then back at
the road, “And there was that laugh.” He added, “that crazy laugh
in the background, so it wasn’t just one guy that has it in for me:
it’s two at least, and it was like horrible, it was the worst laugh
ever, it was fucking scary, man.”

“
Oh brother,” I said, exasperated by this point, “remember
how they called me too, I only heard
one
drunk dude;
Charlie or Pete I’m guessing. Or, shit man, I bet you it was Rock
On Johnny. When’s the last time you talked to him? I haven’t heard
from him in ages, I bet this is his way of saying, ‘hey fuckers,
I’m back.’ Seriously, man, this has him written all over
it.”

Nate was
making a face that the night’s shadow didn’t want me to see. He
gave me a quick look, said “No,” like an answer to all this wasn’t
what he wanted after all. “I just, I don’t know, man, I know I know
the voice but don’t know the voice, and Rock On’s voice is one I
know I would know.” He was tapping the steering wheel like it
helped him think. I made a face that said, ‘you don’t
know
how many times you just said
know,’
and turned my
attention to the far-off dark of the night out beyond my window. I
felt so very tired again. “I don’t know,” he continued, “I think it
could be the mob, you know, the gruff-sounding guys and the death
threat, and the gruff guys, I don’t know, maybe.”

I turned my
full attention back toward him, “Really,
the mob
? What
the heck have you been up to, Nate? Like, tell me you are a little
confused and you just mean a group of people from the mall you
pissed off or something,
that
kind of
mob.”

“
No, I mean,
like the Mafia, for no reason, man, I haven’t done anything, I
swear. Plus they called you, so it’d have to be, you know,
something you had done too.”

I laughed,
“Nate, I believe you could turn an entire country against me
without me being aware of it. Maybe you used me as a reference or
something. Who knows? Like, seriously, I don’t understand that, um,
line of thinking, but thinking is too strong a word; not quite
that, anyway, I don’t get it, not at all. And who the hell says
‘gruff guys?’ Gruff? Didn’t we go to school with a McGruff? Or was
he a big talking dog that told kids not to do drugs? Or am I
thinking about something from The Simpsons?” I stared off for a
moment as if trying to remember, but when it occurred to me I
wasn’t trying to think of anything anymore I picked up another
thread. “The mob, I don’t get that guess, Nate.
What?
So,
okay, I think I’m getting there, you think the voice sounds like a
Tony, and you think for no reason besides maybe some influence from
television that Tony is a mob name and there you go, the mob is
drunk dialing our cell phones.
Sheesh,
those
buggers, eh, and their gruff ways, when will they learn?” I rubbed
my eyes, they were beginning to sting. I should have been sleeping,
I thought, warm in bed next to Katie. “Geez, Nate that is so dumb
it hurts this eye,” I said and pointed to my right eye. “Do you see
this? It’s closing up and everything
. Gruff guys, gruff guys
. Man, look at my eye, I think it really is closing up and
you don’t care. How are you going to fix it? Just suddenly
get
unstupid
?”

“
Of course
it’s closing,” he nearly shouted, “you’re friggin’
squinting.”

“
You don’t
know that.”

The confusion
had taken its toll and it seemed to have made us both silent; we
had fallen beneath the brunt of it now. Our laughs were falling
short of leaving us feeling good. Nothing had been figured out. We
were taking stabs in the dark, and it was only dark because we had
shut our eyes. I hadn’t anything more than he did, though. I was
just trying to apply reason to an unreasonable situation, while he
was sticking with the unreasonable for all of it.

“
I think I’m going to write a book about you,
Nate and the Holy
Shit
; I like that because it
reads a couple different ways. Yeah, and I picture it, Nate; all
lowercase, then AND THE HOLY SHIT,” I yelled rather than simply
saying it would be capitalized, that way he got exactly what I
meant.

He laughed.
He liked when people yelled. I thought a bit of joking around could
do us both some good, and it seemed to, but it did nothing for how
tired I felt.

I shook my
head, “You’re like a two year old, which isn’t necessarily a bad
thing. I mean, you know, you’ve got that… outlook, maybe.” I
started to say, “Yeah,” but was overtaken by a yawn. I considered
just stopping there and keeping my mouth shut, which would likely
have been followed by my eyes. But I had gained some momentum that
I thought shouldn’t be squandered, plus I liked to talk about my
kids, it was like adrenaline, and, as if another reason was needed,
it was simply fun to laugh too. “My two year old just baffles me
sometimes with his simple logic, with that innocence and fresh
perspective we…
I’ve
long since lost. He’s curious,
right, well yesterday I gave him his breakfast, and he looked at it
and then asked me, ‘What’s toast do?’ I laughed but mostly because
I didn’t know the answer, I was like, ‘Um… it gets eaten,
hopefully, by you. It fills you up, it tastes yummy, and it…
becomes poo.’ You know: it was like a ‘step back, assess and guess’
moment; and that’s it, that is time with you. Aw man, it was just
too funny. And it might not be as funny when it’s with you,
not
that
funny, and maybe more awkward, you know, since
you’ve got thirty years on him, but it’s good, still good man.
Actually, I should probably love it, because, you know, really,
he’s going to grow up on me, whereas you; you’re not. Nope, you, my
friend, are here to stay… as you are, and that’s…
not horrible.
” I smiled toward him, hoping he’d come join me
on this plateau where things seemed a little brighter.

Nate didn’t
look at me, he hadn’t for a while, and I thought of all the faces I
could have been making at him that entire time.

“
I was thinking the other day, because, painfully, that is
what I do,
damn
you
,” I said in a raised
voice as I shook my fist skyward, “Uh, where was I? Oh yeah, so I
was thinking that we are farthest evolved when we are in deep
thought. I think that makes sense. Okay anyway, my point is:
sometimes I feel like yelling at you, ‘
Get out of the damn tree
!’” Nate began to laugh, and I didn’t have a
reaction.

Still smiling
he said, “Remember that time when you really were yelling at me to
get out of the tree?”

“
Yes, I do,
you were on mushrooms and we were at my parents’ by the lake for my
family reunion.”

“
Yeah, but,
man, that was a great climbing tree.”

“
Yeah,
I
know
. You kept telling me
that when I kept telling you to get out of it. The only reason I
gave a crap at all that you were up there was because you had
fallen out of it
twice
already.” I began to laugh, “Man,
it’s not even funny, but, holy crap, when you fell straight down,
and used your face on that bottom branch like it was your hand, I
thought you were done, just fucking
done
.

“
Yeah, that
really sucked.”

“
Yeah, big
time, how many stitches did it end up being?”

“
Eleven.”

“
Right, but
really, you’d seemed way more bummed when you dropped your
hamburger in the hot tub earlier.”

“
Yeah, that
sucked too.”

“
Man, that
was nuts. My dad had to replace the passenger seat in their car;
there was so much blood on it.”

“
I know; I
paid him for it.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah, man,
of course.”

“
Oh,” I
paused and mentally cast a few lines way back in that direction, “I
don’t think I knew that. That was cool of you.”

We finally
arrived at my parent’s house. Nate was going to go to an uncle’s
after he dropped me off at home, which was to be our next stop. It
had been a while since I’d last seen my dad, so I wanted to just
stop in and say hello, see how he was doing, and to see if he was
doing anything he shouldn’t have been. I left Nate waiting in the
car; he was on the phone anyway, trying to sort out some details
about a specific blanket he wanted set out for him. I didn’t know
what that was about, nor did I care to ask.

While I
walked up to the front door I wondered if I would always refer to
it as my ‘parents’ house’ when it was technically just my dad
living there, since mom had died. I believed I would. I also
believed that it hardly mattered and I shouldn’t try to float away
when my feet worked so well on the ground. I was giving up on
procrastination and distraction… at some point, in the near future.
It was just a matter of time. I had told Nate I’d only be a few
minutes and he’d said “Good luck with the old man.” He thought it
was hilarious. He had no idea.