.jpeg)
The commons was always empty at that hour. By then every one who wasn’t still eating had been coaxed to their cells or into the TV room to watch the Olympics or some old film or censured talk show, whatever. It was all the same, you know. David didn’t LIKE watching TV. HE preferred the music room though he knew THAT wasn’t an option for awhile, not after that, that incident. No-ope, he knew it, saw it coming. Anyway they almost always kept the room closed and then there wasn’t much good stuff, no, no opera but a lot of crappy music that they wanted him to hear, that everyone else liked but oh, he did miss that though, listening to music.
The door in front opened and a tall, strong orderly walked across the room to his chair. He bent over slightly and with a gentle voice told David that lunch was ready. David lept up violently to his feet, his body still rocking so that his face oscillated backward and forward, preposterous half-smile still intact. He opened his mouth as if about to say something very important but then, curiously, he said nothing, smiled widely, the tube lighting glaring off his small yellow teeth, and instead stood still. He then smoothed out his white and blue striped shirt with his hands, assumed a dignified, almost offended air and without saying a word went straight out of the room. The orderly followed. He was used to it.
The corridor into which they went smelled of industrial disinfectant, peas and over-cooked chicken. As he slowly and deliberately made his way down the corridor David looked out the barred windows at the street several floors below. Early afternoon traffic was clogging the road in both directions. Everyone was going to work or going home or going maybe to a late lunch. The thought brought back a strange smile to his lips and as he began to smile he began rocking forward and back again. He KNEW that all those people would be eating tastier food than he was. Yup, he’d figured it out, he was smart, yeah, they’d all be eating real food. Once inside the cafeteria David took up his place in line and leaned over to see who hadn’t eaten yet. They were all dressed in the same white and blue clothes, patiently waiting their turn in their way, David thought, they were sweet, almost tender in their child-like movements a little slow and shaky from the medications they all took in large doses. Wayne was in the middle of the line, he was so tall you couldn’t miss him even when he shrugged. He was one of the few that David liked and was so timid that he blushed every time anyone talked to him. He was the one that had seen that chickadee when it turned up all battered and trapped inside one of those mettle gratings on the windows and Lori, that bitch of a nurse, was gonna kill him that little bitch and Wayne just wanted to stop her and delicately place it outside so that maybe he could fly away but she just wouldn’t let him and that bird was suffering and flapping around hysterically and she would not let him and dammit, he shoved her and if she’d slipped on the pavement it hadn’t been Wayne’s fault and David had rushed over to help and together they were just able to push out the grating enough to let it go free before they all came and beat them down but they were too late, too late it’d already flown away and there was nothing she could do now. Hah. Two months punishment. No music. David did not like that at all, no-ope, and he remembered trying not to pee on himself but he was confined and they were holding him inside and he was laying on the floor and they came in and all those drugs they shoved in him and goddammit I hate peas and I hate peas and chicken, shit, every 15 days.
When it was his turn at the counter David raised his tray just like everyone else but just then started rocking forward and back again and opened his mouth as if he were about to say something. But he didn’t. Instead he grabbed one of the plastic forks and angrily shoved it into the belly of the patient in line in front of him. The tip of the fork poked straight through the fabric and slid into the fat skin. The guy looked back at David, then down at his own torso, and then again back at David. His eyes became large and started to bulge out with incredulance and terror but before he had time to scream David removed the fork and stabbed him again and then jerked the fork down so rapidly and violently that the point broke off and just stuck there inside. David didn’t know why he’d done it, but by now it didn’t matter and even though stabbing the guy hadn’t made him particularly happy, no-ope, still it hadn’t made him particularly regretful either. Anyway no one could have punished HIM for that, no, no, because HE was gonna just go away, yessir, like a bird. Right? I mean, after all…
---------------
In front of the Green Point Institute for mental disorders David sat in his metallic gray Boxster listening to the crescendo of a Rossini overture. He was waiting for the stoplight to turn green. He liked listening to Rossini before lunch because it liberated his mind from all the accumulated stress of the morning and sometimes it even stimulated his own often-diffident appetite. David didn’t like food that much, unless, of course, it was well prepared and usually very expensive. He only ate popular, normal things when frazzled by a bad day or when he didn’t have time to enjoy what he considered a meal. But it was Tuesday, lovely Tuesday and it was his turn to buy lunch, as it was on every Tuesday, at Ristorante Sette Porte. He always arrived before Jasmine did and always pre-ordered the freshest and most appetizing oysters and Scampi or if they were in the mood, Osetra. He hoped she’d be wearing those seamless, tight white Cavalli jeans and white Superga tennis shoes. He knew she had nothing on underneath and when she dressed that way it made the food a little tastier as the anticipation of an hour or two in her studio after wetted his appetite. She was expensive but so elegant and sexy that it was easily worth it and besides, they both got what they wanted out of the deal.
He accelerated smoothly once the light changed. David enjoyed driving as much as he disliked eating, particularly after certain bad mornings. And today, well, shit, after the memo informing him they’d lost 18 million he’d spent the morning on the phone in the office reassuring every last client that everything was OK, that nothing had changed, to just be patient and everyone would make a lot of money. But he did not want to think about it now. It was Tuesday, after all. Let those idiots in investor relations worry about it for a couple hours. Besides, he was particularly famished. Yesterday’s mess had been more stressful than any he could recall and had required a great deal of attention and energy and now he remembered that he hadn’t eaten since lunch with Mark at Saxon and even then he’d merely tasted the puree of tender peas and cabernet-roasted free-range chicken. A menu that he certainly hadn’t ordered. David flicked on the right blinker and pulled into a parking garage across from the restaurant. He had just enough time to hand over his keys to the attendant when Jasmine’s white BMW pulled in. She saw him and smiled. So did he. The last 24 hours had been brutal but things were bound to get better. Caviar, today, definitely. And never again green pea puree with Mark. Let him get his own.
--------------
The dining room at Sette Porte had 24 tables, each draped in clean white tablecloth and served by four headwaiters. Jasmine and David sat down at table number 12. Alex would be serving them today, a tall, bony young man with long sandy blond hair tied away in a tail. He would be aided by Max, a graduating law student burdened by debt, Larry, a graduating IT student burdened by debt, and,
At the end of his turn waiting tables David usually went straight to his apartment, put on some music and picked at whatever he could find in the fridge. Today he’d been tipped particularly well and now he was crossing over the lot around the corner where he’d parked his faithful old blue Volvo, It was a lovely day, cool but filled with sunshine and David couldn’t wait to slide in a CD and get away. Evans, he considered, or even Chet. Maybe he could find a little solace for the ache in his heart in the silence of their music. Or something like that. He decided instead on some sentimental Sara Vaughn and to the tune “It never Entered My Mind,” slowly pulled out toward his apartment. He knew it would be a lousy rest of the day. Today would be the first time Beth’s red Saturn wouldn’t be parked in its usual spot and the first day she would not be curled up on the couch studying for her next exam or something when he walked through the door. Four years had gone by, four years, but after that last nasty fight he was sure she’d be gone. Exams were over and really she had no reason to stay and then they’d crossed over the line last night, he was sure, no-ope, no turning back. Too often over the last few weeks she’d be pretending to sleep if he came in after a late night just to avoid speaking. Domestic silence.
Still, he circled the block twice searching for her car before parking himself. No, no Beth. He slammed the door a little hard when he got out of the Volvo and went up the blue painted steps that led to his apartment. Once inside he went straight to the dresser. Her clothes weren’t there. And the TV was gone, along with half the CD’s. After she’d left last night she’d called to tell him she’d be by some time to pick up her things only she didn’t say she’d be so quick about it, or that she’d wait until he was at work and, and, what was there to say, anyway? David looked around at the white walls and tried to contain the wave of panic that was rushing outward from somewhere in his stomach. He went into the kitchen and poured some whiskey into one of the dirty glasses that had been laying in the sink for how long and shit. Shit, shit, shit…shit. They’d picked that apartment together just eight months ago. He remembered their first night, when the only piece of furniture was the queen-size bed and so they’d gone out and bought some candles and just fucked through the night. Then they’d bought things one at a time until the place started looking good and filled up with stuff, stuff he all at once had no idea what to do with. He drank down the whiskey, letting it burn his throat and poured another before going into the bedroom. The bed was unmade and the room looked empty, as if some things that belonged inside were gone but he couldn’t really tell what. David slid out a photo-album from the bookshelf and leafed through the pages but couldn’t find even one photograph of her. Then he realized he’d grabbed an album from his high-school days. There were his mom and dad, a little younger and thinner, and the Bedford town center. As he turned the pages he suddenly paused over one photo in particular, one with him and his two best friends on graduation day. Three smiling geeks on a picnic in a park. David slipped the photo out of the plastic covering and stared at those three gullible faces full of hope, or at least the absence of unfulfilled desires. He remembered they’d lit a fire next to the stream in a circle of stones. Even though it had been a warm day the shade from the great oaks and maples had given the air a little chill. He and Jim would leave the next day for different places and Steve would stay there for the summer working.
It had been a quiet get-together, just the three of them and their parents, eight in all, some Champaign, the three empty bottles of which would have remained forgotten somewhere collecting dust in rarely used bedrooms. On each of the labels someone wrote “Graduation Day, ‘85”. Jim had been David’s best friend. They’d gotten to know each other late, junior year, and only because they had taken the same classes. They’d studied together once in awhile but most of the time they’d spent sipping wine and spending entire nights dialoguing on the nature on mankind, the universe, philosophy and all the rest. David had long since forgotten whatever answers they had found, even though. Usually they were at the top of their class. Jim had tried to convince him not to go north afterward but to leave those too-long and too-cold winters for warmer, freer places. Of course he’d been right about that but David would have to wait years to find out. They put Chet Baker in the boom box and listened to music till sunset. Steve’s mom took the picture. That, to, had been an end. Still,
David realized all at once he must be starving. It had been a long shitty day and the heat of the whiskey in his stomach made him remember that he hadn’t had anything since lunch the day before. He put down the photo and went back into the kitchen. In the fridge there were still some leftovers from the restaurant. Baked chicken medallions in a cognac sauce and puree of potatoes and green peas. No, not that. He would go out and pick up something else later.
--------------
Back in the office David leaned back and reveried on the rich taste the lobster crème had left in his mouth. When he’d eaten it he had immediately recognized that it was one of the best things he’d ever tasted, a delicate and well-balanced fusion of flavors that satisfied him completely. Well, maybe he was exaggerating but it had been an exquisite afternoon. Things were back up in positive territory despite the bad news and Jasmine, as usual, had been worth every dollar. He stood up from his chair and looked out his window down at the city, trying to imagine where he’d be in five years. Then he turned around and glanced at a photo he always kept at his desk. It had been years since he’d spoken with Jim. After he’d quit the University and transferred out to California things had gone well, even though it had meant breaking up with his family and losing contact with many friends. Anyway, definitely no regrets, no-ope, none at all. The rest had only been the price he’d had to pay for his freedom. He sat back down, and for the slightest moment a question ran through his mind. It had something to do with unended choices that repeated but before the words fully formed in his mind the phone rang. He picked it up and the question disappeared.
--------------
Chicken and peas, every 15 days. David was back sitting in his chair in the commons. THAT had been a really bad week, all right, forks and screams and THAT had been a really, really bad week. But that hadn’t been HIS fault. Anyway he was there again, but not alone anymore, no-ope and little Tommy was playing chess with Joe, just like HE used to do with Jim, oh, but THAT was such a long time ago, but, but then HE wasn’t so sure about that, no-ope, maybe THAT wasn’t so long ago. “Jim, Jim, how many times did we play chess together the whole afternoon. Remember?”
(1999)
The End of Mr. T (short story)