John checked his reflection in the window of the Greenpoint Inn. Trash and dust rattled in the ally behind him, the fabric of his jacket drawn tight against his body – the terrified hair, the chemical blue eyes, and the discolored bandage drawn across the right eyebrow, surgical tape pulling away from the skin, white and yellow and black. The reflection brushed the bandage and John felt a vacant pain, like voices in another room. In his pocket were six or seven pills. He would swallow them if needed, but a beer would do the trick just as well.
At 5:45 he went in. The
John unzipped his parka. “Bud?”
The bartender’s eyes fell. “Sure thing.”
It was early, but the kids were trickling in. Business interns from
The bartender was back with the beer. John paid him and took a swallow. The sensation of freshness washed over him. Cold beer on a cold day. He walked his beer to the back of the bar. He draped his jacket across the empty booth. Then he shrugged off his sweatshirt and tossed it on the seat. There. He walked back to the front of the bar and positioned himself by the door. And waited.
At six Gordon came in. It had begun to rain and he was carrying an umbrella. He lowered it as he entered, shaking the moisture onto the floor. John watched his back, watched the blonde head swivel. He got to his feet. Gordon must have sensed something. He turned just as John raised a hand to touch his shoulder. The nose of the umbrella twitched then settled at Gordon’s side, like a guard dog. Gordon smiled.
“John.”
“Hey.” They shook hands. Gordon wore gloves. Chilled and slightly damp leather.
“You’re early,” Gordon said. Then, “Jesus, what happened to your face?”
John touched the bandage.
“I got us a table.”
They went to the back. John was aware of Gordon’s greater size, that athlete’s bulk hidden under the heavy jacket, the upturned collar. “He looks more at home here than I do,” John thought. “That’s okay. Might even be a good thing.” He pushed aside his parka and sat down.
“You want a drink?”
“Maybe later.”
“Game this weekend?”
“Yeah.”
“Notre Dame?”
“Yeah.”
Gordon was watching the room. There was no one he knew here, not out here in
“No women in this bar.”
John made a show of looking around. “That’s true. I like it that way. No pressure, you know? Just a place where guys can talk.” He took a sip of his beer. “It’s good to have a place like that.”
The last of the Bud was a pasty orange swirl at the bottom of the bottle. John hated the last sip, bitter and warm. He let it sit there, saving it for when he needed it, letting it go slowly flat in the close air of the bar. Just then Gordon exploded. His voice burst forth and then receded, yanked back on the chain of Gordon’s good sense. Tall and blonde and a star athlete, a boy who had been taught good sense. But even the prettiest houses can have mean old bull dogs around back.
“Jesus, can’t we just...!” Gordon’s hands shot out, not in anger but desperation. He composed himself. “Sorry. Shit. Okay, so let’s just talk about it, okay? Can we just talk about it and go?”
John muscled down the last warm sip. It gave him time to consider Gordon, go over what he knew about the man. He’d fucked up and he was scared, that was understandable. But he was explosive. He was handsome and smart and perfect but he had the rage of the perfect in him. John imagined an abusive father, a wife beater, now dead and beyond the reach of the Golden Boy’s hatred. But this was just speculation. Who could really say why a man would shove his girlfriend’s face through a window? John couldn’t know what motivated a man like that. He thought about the umbrella with its blunt tapered nose. This was a public place and Gordon wasn’t stupid. “But neither am I,” John thought. “Sure as shit. Neither am I.”
“Yeah, of course we can talk,” John said.
“Good. Thank...thank you.”
“Maybe you want that drink now?”
“No.”
“Suit yourself. So the situation...”
“What happened was, it was late, right? And I...”
John put his hands out, traffic-cop style. “Whoa. No offense, Gordon, but let’s look to the future, okay? Whatever happened, happened, and now we have to deal with the consequences.”
Gordon nodded. He ran his hands over one another. “In ten years there’ll be rings on those fingers,” John thought. “Wedding bands, football rings.”
“First off, you’ll never see her again. That’s number one. Okay?”
Gordon nodded.
“No calls, no letters, never. Ever.”
“Okay.” There wasn’t a hint of disappointment in his voice.
“Secondly, there’s the matter of forgiveness.” John leaned forward. When he continued it wasn’t in a whisper, but his tone was softer, a steady hand on someone’s shoulder. “Forgiveness is going to be fifteen K.”
The table jumped under John’s arms. The Bud bottle rattled but didn’t tip. Gordon bumped the table again with his knee, drawing in breath through his nose. The bubble of a curse played on his lips. He was like a stutterer, going back and forth over the first plosive syllable.
When Gordon spoke it was in a whisper, but this was no comforting hand. This was a gun to the base of the spine.
“Fifteen thousand? Where do you think I have fifteen thousand?”
“Honestly, Gordon, I have no idea.” John tapped the beer bottle. His bandage had started to itch again. “But you don’t fuck up a Don’s girlfriend and not have to pay a little something back. The girl’s got scars, Robby.” Gordon flinched at his Christian name. “She’s blind in one eye. Don’t you think you owe a little something?”
Gordon kneaded his temples. “But fifteen K. I don’t know where...” He took a breath. “You fucking shits,” he said quietly. “You don’t even care where I get it, as long as I get it.”
Gradually, the pretense of a friendly conversation was slipping away. It was supposed to happen like this. With each protest Gordon chipped away at his own armor, the pretence that this was an everyday problem with an everyday solution.
“As long as we get it,” John smiled, lifting his bottle in a toast. Then, remembering it was empty, he put it down again.
John stood, rolled his shoulder, and headed to the bar. He ordered two beers. As the bartender snapped the caps, light and air from the outside made John look towards the door. A woman came in, tall and blonde, jeans tucked into black cowboy boots. She was wearing a scarf like a Palestinian head wrap around her neck. The jerks in collared shirts watched her. Something animal was in the room. There were no wolf whistles, it wasn’t that kind of place. But John heard rejection and anger in the shuffle of bottles, the creak of chairs. Shit.
The blonde did the new-bar two-step, coming in, stopping, giving the place the once over, then turning on her heel to the bar.
“Could I have a Stella, please?”
John looked down at his beer. When he looked up she was watching him, staring at his bandage. She smiled. John turned and went back to the booth. He placed a beer in front of Gordon, but Gordon’s attention was on the blonde.
“Drink up,” John said. It wasn’t an offer but a command. “Relax.”
Gordon noticed the beer, took a sip, then returned his attention to the blonde. He sat a little higher in his seat. When he faced John his eyes were hollow, his mind elsewhere.
“Shit. Fifteen K.”
“Don’t sweat it.”
The game was back on. Now was the part where they pretended that this really was a simple problem. They’d reached the pit and were climbing back out again.
“Fucking fifteen K though.” Gordon drank, a long and heavy swallow. John imagined he could hear the beer splashing down in that rain barrel of a torso. “Fuck you guys.”
“Don’t kill the messenger.”
“Yo, fuck the messenger.” Gordon drank again. “I don’t know who this guy thinks he is, demanding money out of me. I didn’t hurt him. What fucking business is it of his?”
“Don’t be stupid, Gordon.”
“Fuck off.”
Gordon kneaded his hands again. John thought of bricks in Spanish prisons. Whitewashed cinder blocks, the paint beginning to peel. Gordon looked to the blonde, who was looking at her cell phone. John could see the jaw muscles working. They turned and clicked and then, they stopped.
“Fuck it,” Gordon said. “Fuck it, I’m not paying.”
John sighed. “Don’t be stupid, Gordon.”
“Fuck you guys. You think you’re untouchable, but you’re not. Your boss has a bone to pick, have him come find me.”
“You don’t want to do it like this, Gordon.”
Gordon shook his head, his lips pulling back from his teeth. “You really think, you really think you scare me? Coming in here with your t-shirt and your fucking band aid? Fuck this.” Gordon slid to the edge of the booth. “Don’t let him leave,” John thought.
“Gordon, wait,” he placed his hands on the other man’s elbow. It was as if he’d touched Gordon with a cattle prod. Gordon jerked away, his entire body twisting out of the booth. He loomed over John, leaned in over him until the all-star body filled John’s field of vision. Gordon put one hand on the table and one hand on the seatback. His breath smelled like beer and mint gum.
“You fucking touch me, or come near me again, and I’ll put you through a goddamned window.”
There wasn’t an ounce of truth in it. Of course he meant it. He wasn’t a bluffer. But he wasn’t tough. He was unpredictable, dangerous definitely. But tough, no. He was like these other tight-crotched Ivy Leage jack-offs, all of them too chicken-shit to approach the blonde. But God knew she got their blood up, their hopeless frat boy mania. The blonde. “It’s all her fault,” John thought. “She did this. Without her a man is smart, he’s reasonable. He doesn’t do things for bullshit reasons like pride. He makes good decisions.” Now Gordon was making a bad decision, and it was time for John to make a decision of his own. A smart man works with his environment.
John reached up and tugged at the bandage. The medical tape pulled at the skin on his forehead. He felt the bandage brush against the stitches as he pulled it away. The medic had used blue thread and left them long to stand out against John’s eyebrow, to make it easier for whoever removed them.
The air felt good on the cut. The itching stopped immediately. With Gordon standing there he was entirely obscured from the rest of the bar, though he guessed a few patrons had turned to look by now. In one swift motion John turned and slammed his face as hard as he could on the table. The beers jumped and rolled, vomiting their foamy contents. Gordon was frozen, and John had counted on that. He needed time for another blow. He slammed his face down again, a cry of pain escaping his lips. There was no need to act. It was like a railroad spike in the brain. He could feel the blood running down his face now. There was a black smudge on the table where his face had made contact. A strand of blue thread clung to the mess.
“Jesus Christ!” John shouted. He held a hand to his face. “Oh Jesus, what’s wrong with you! Get away from me!”
“Holy shit...” Gordon brought a hand to his mouth, he stepped back.
“Oh fuck!” John made to stand and fell to one knee. “Get away from me! Please!”
Blood pattered onto the cement floor. It flowed, hot and salty, into his eye, into his mouth. Chairs scraped. Men were getting to their feet. Strong men. Men ready to be heroes now.
“John, what the fuck are you...” Gordon’s voice was trembling. That big rain-barrel voice. John pulled at the other man’s sleeve and brought Gordon’s face down close to his own.
“Pay it,” he whispered, his voice cold. “Pay it. Don’t be stupid.” John reeled back, knocking his head against the table for good measure. “Oh! Oh Jesus please!”
Suddenly Gordon was pulled backwards. Two of the Ivy Leaguers were there now. “Hey buddy, get the fuck out of here.”
“Get him away from me.” John covered his face, making sure to let the blood run between his fingers. The pain was beginning to dull. Thank God for that first beer.
“Come on pal...” A man in a crew cut and powder blue shirt was taking Gordon by the arm. Gordon was pale. His lips were the color of talc.
“I...I didn’t...”
He made no move to resist them. They walked him to the door. Gordon shot one look over his shoulder and John lowered his hands, leaning his head back against the booth, breathing hard. There was terror in Gordon’s eyes. Terror no threat of personal harm could have conjured.
In a moment Gordon’s captors had tossed him out onto the sidewalk. John sat on the floor. He reached up and pulled his sweatshirt down from the booth. He wiped his face and slowly got to his feet. The beers had drained onto the table and floor, mixing with the blood, making it froth. A final mouthful still lingered in one of the bottles. John dug his hand into his jeans pocket and came out with seven red pills. He swallowed them in two handfuls, washing it all down with the last of the beer. He pulled on his sweatshirt, then his jacket.
As he turned to leave he saw the blonde. Her mouth was open. Her hand had dropped to her side, the cell phone dangling in limp fingers. Remembering the rain, he turned back to the booth and saw Gordon’s umbrella, still lying patiently in its master’s seat, blunt nose and vinyl skin unsullied by the chaos. John grabbed it, turned and made for the door. He winked at the blonde as he passed. The bartender was on the phone, but he didn’t try to stop John as he exited into the wind and rain.
John stepped out onto the sidewalk, letting the rain wash the blood from his face. Gordon was gone. You couldn’t fight with a man like that. His body was all violence and rage. But his mind was soft, scared of itself, and scared of the sight of blood. It took a reasonable man to understand this. It took a reasonable man to know when to be unreasonable.
It wasn’t yet six-thirty. The job was done and he knew it. That was all that mattered. John held the umbrella aloft and it burst open. It filled the sky with a satisfying pop.
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