“I can’t really say.”
With one hand, he tapped behind himself until he rested it flat on the counter, and then straightened like an ancient man. “Did you ever care about me as your coworker or friend?”
“Not as much as I should have, obviously. But I do care. I’m here, aren’t I?”
He laughed and it wasn’t a pleasant sound as he tugged at his red curls and slowly shook his head. “You’re such a bullshitter. You’re here because you don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Yeah.” I shrugged because it was true.
“Get out of my house. I can’t have you here.” He sniffled and didn’t sound too sure, so I pressed my luck.
“But there are reporters camped out at my place. A plague of reporters.”
His jaw tightened. “Maybe I’ve decided to start caring as much about you as you do about everyone else around you,” he snapped.
“Mark, buddy. You don’t mean that.” I smiled at him, a big, blinding one, and that only made his face run red and his eyes bug. He pointed toward the front door.
“Get out!”
I slunk away from the kitchen, taking my time, hoping maybe he’d change his mind. Water ran in the sink near where I’d left him, and with my damp clothes, that was the last thing I wanted to hear. I put my wet socks on with a wince and then stuffed my feet back into my disgusting shoes—they squelched. What the fuck was I going to do? Mark didn’t relent. In the end I borrowed his umbrella without asking and went back out into the night.
“Fuck.” The rain pelted my umbrella and the cold had me shivering after the warmth of the house.
For a while I toyed with the idea of calling my dad. I was fast running out of options, but I wanted him far away from this mess for several reasons: the first being that I loved him, the last that I didn’t need anyone taking too many looks at our connections to each other that weren’t familial. Like all the ways our money tangled together. Fuck, he’d be furious with me, too, soon enough, because I’d have to tell him eventually that he needed to do everything he could to keep the cops away from his medical-supply business. Dirty money had flowed through his otherwise pristine bank accounts, thanks to little old me.
That was assuming he wasn’t so pissed off he turned me in himself.
Groaning, I swiped my hand over my face and started walking. Mark lived in a residential neighborhood, so it took me about a half hour to pass a bar, and when I did, I stopped. I had no money to speak of, but I was fuckingovertonight, and a bourbon or two sounded mighty good right about now. The hole-in-the-wall was nothing special, a boxy shed-like building propped on rickety walls between a commercial garage and a Kum & Go, the name of which always made me giggle, even though I was closer to forty than fifteen.
The small wooden sign over the propped-open door only said Gibraltar. Cigarette smoke poured out into the night. Inside there was a small bar with scratched laminate, the floors were mud-caked unfinished wood, and the people who were drinking had all probably served in the civil war, they were seriously that old. I figured this was a vet’s hangout because I saw a lot of old military memorabilia on the walls. When I went to the bar, the grim gray-haired man behind it simply shook his head at me.
“You made some bad choices, son” was all he said before he slid me a beer I didn’t order.
So, I sat my ass down on a stool that wobbled under my weight and drank. And drank. And drank. The bartender didn’t ask for money, but he must’ve known who I was. Every now and then he just shook his head and mumbled, “Hmm, hmm, hmm, that’s a shame.”
At two in the morning I handed Mr. Grim, who had never once tried to start a conversation, the watch I wore and my cufflinks. He tipped his head in acknowledgement, and I decided that must have meant we were square as I staggered out into the rain.
Outside, with water pouring on me, it took me a minute to realize I’d forgotten my umbrella, but when I swung around to go back for it, the front door was locked and all the lights were off. I was feeling pretty sad and didn’t care anymore about the reporters. My feet were gross, and I was wet and wanted my bed.
I walked home.
Halfway there I started singing campfire songs from Boy Scouts and laughing over them. “All the other frogs go… go… fo de o, de o, de o….”
When I reached my apartment building, I swore because I actually had forgotten about the reporters. My vision was a tad blurry as I stared upward, trying to see my apartment. I got dizzy and almost fell over, and that’s when it occurred to me that even though I probably couldn’t climb up the side of the building like Spider-Man, I could sneak in the back entrance. I very stealthily, or so I thought, ran for the bushes along the side of the building and stumbled that direction. But the blonde girl from the local news was back there with her crew when I crept toward the glass door, and she stuck her mic in my face. I blinked into her wide, pretty green eyes, and stared hard at the freckles on her face that made her so wholesome and charming.Everyoneloved her.
“I’m Missy McPhearson withChannel 6 News. Can you tell us what happened today at city hall?”
“Uh, what?” I asked.
She talked a lot and I watched her shiny lips move. Stormy had shiny stuff like that for his lips. I missed him. She cleared her throat. “Mr. Mayor, who was the man you were caught being indecent with today?”
She fired another string of questions at me, and I swayed on the spot, none of her words truly registering beyond the last one about Stormy. “He was my… my boyfriend. Uh, yeah. That’s right.”
Her expression lit up with glee, and she gripped my arm as I tried to step through the door to my building. “You and the deputy mayor are both gay, then? Is that why you ran together?” She peered up at me, all perky interest.
My stomach churned and I didn’t have time to look away as it rioted. I puked on her. It was awful. I couldn’t stop. I turned away, but too late. In what felt like slow motion, everyone around us took a huge step back.
She blinked at me and then screamed directly into my face. There was laughter from all around, and someone nearby said, “Please tell me you got a good angle on that.” I shoved my way into my building and kept going. I stumbled against the doors to the elevator and fell to my knees and had to sort of hand walk my way to my feet again before I pressed the Call button. I was relieved when I fell into the elevator and slammed the button that closed the doors. My stomach felt better. In a blurry way, I knew I would pay for this.
