“Why are you so worried about your cards,” she asked in her precise English, muddied only slightly by a vague mélange of mid-European overtones.

“Well, gotta look at my cards and see what I got,” I answered.

“Certainly take a look but how hard is it to understand five cards right under your nose? After that quick glance, look where it is important to look.”

We were on a foldable card table on a small stone patio behind my Uncle Charlie’s house; small neat brick ranch, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, no garage; “fourteen nine but only a hundred down,” advised my uncle, bathing in the good luck of the GI bill. It looked like a castle to me, coming from my brownstone with no grass in sight. A worn deck of Bicycle cards, the blue ones, were spread over the canvas table top.

“Well, Grandma, I can’t see the other person’s cards, can I?”

She shifted in her nylon-webbed beach chair, her tightly bunned grey hair bouncing in one motion on top of her head. Her thick legs, wrapped in inscrutable white leggings, stuck straight out from under the table; I imagined all sorts of veins, bumps and maladies embossed on those legs underneath; I had not, in all my ten years, seen her actual legs, at least that I could recall.

“You can, Stephen, if you know where to look.”

I glanced behind her but of course there were no mirrors, no window reflecting her hand. I sat quietly, waiting. My Grandmother was always patient, never raised her voice, lived with my Aunt and Uncle and younger nephew in the suburbs of New York City in what seemed to me bucolic wonder.

“You look at your opponent. That is how you know that person’s cards.”

“You mean, if they smile you know they have a great hand,” I said as I pounced on an idea I could grasp.

“Yes, yes. But what if he is lying? Smiling to only make you think he has a good hand? That’s not cheating you know.”

“Maybe because he bets a lot of money?”

“Yes, yes, that too. But maybe he’s bluffing?”

“What’s bluffing?”

“That’s lying to you by betting a lot of money. He hopes to scare you away even if you have a good hand.”

“Oh.” Now totally confused: “so what am I looking for, exactly?”

“His body. Does he look tense, like his bet makes him nervous? Is he sitting back, like he knows he has you beaten? Is he in a hurry to bet or has he thought a long time about his bet? Is he in a hurry for you to bet, one way or another?”

“Those would be good things to know, Grandma, but how will I know them by looking at someone?”

She smiled, the sad sage smile of the old. “If you look hard enough, you will learn to know,” she said. “Now, look again at your cards and place your bet.”

I had a pile of shelled pistachio nuts in front of me. I bit my lip for a moment, then counted out ten and placed them neatly in the center of the table. My Grandma immediately threw her cards in the middle, face down, and signaled for me to pass my cards for a shuffle.

“Wait,” now really unhappy, “why aren’t you playing the game? You get to bet and then you get to throw down three of your cards and get three new cards, and then we both get to bet again.”

“I know you have a really good hand. My hand is okay, but it is not likely going to beat you this time.”

I stared at my three Aces and I think my lower lip even quivered a little. “How do you know,” I asked.

That same smile. “You bet too much. You bet too fast. You are too young to really understand bluffing. You were too interested in your own cards, and you told me all about them by how you played them.”

I tossed my cards despondently into the middle. They fell face-up on the table. My grandmother’s hand froze over them, she looked up at me and prepared to speak. I had no idea what I had done wrong, but I knew, just knew, that I was about to find out.

* * * * * * * * *

The sweat poured off my face and made the neck of my T-shirt a darker blue. My glasses slid down my nose every time I looked down at the concrete on top of my front stoop leading into my brownstone. Lou and Stevie S (there were so many of us Stephens that our parents all identified us with a letter for our last names) sat on a lower step, their bodies turned towards the surface. Morty from upstairs and me, we sat on our haunches up top. In the middle, a large pile of nickels and dimes. In front of those three, a small pile of silver coins. In front of me, a large pile.

“Fifty cents,” said Stevie S, fingering a short stack of dimes.

“Whoa, it ain’t the last card, ya can only go a quarter,” I said.

“Yeah, says who?” Stevie S’s hand started to drop the dimes into the center pile.

“Cut it out, Stevie. Ya know the rules!” Marty reached out and pushed Stevie S’s hand to the side; a couple of dime dropped out onto the second step, bounced once and flew onto the sidewalk and began to roll down the street.

“Now look watcha done, ya fuckin’ douche,” allowed Stevie S in a sullen plaint as he stood up and pursued his dimes. “And I don’t like the deck,” he spit out. ‘’Next time, I bring my own deck!”

“Fine,” I yell at his back as he bends to pick up his money. “I can beat your ass even you bring a deck you marked.”

Stevie plunked himself back down and quickly made change so his bet was a quarter. “There! Ya happy now?”

I looked at my hand, I was the only other person left in the game. Two pair, jacks and tens. Not a bad hand for draw, no wild cards. And I could draw another card once I bet.

“Hurry up, dummy,” said Stevie S.
I waited a minute, then carefully placed my hand face down on the remainder of the deck. “Take your money,” I said.

“Crap.” Stevie S threw his hand into the middle, face up; three kings. “You are luckiest son of a bitch in the world,” said Stevie S, as he picked up the coins.

I looked down at my pile of silver and smiled the sad sage smile of the old. I might only be 14, but I still had the biggest pile of nickels and dimes.

* * * * * * * *

“Hey, Stevie! The Delta Chi convention is coming to New York in a couple of weeks. At the Astor! Hundreds of pumped up frat guys drinking cheap booze and throwing up in the halls. Do you know what that means?”

Marty never did say “hello” or “hi it’s Marty” or anything else to start a conversation. He was right into the message from word one, and in truth the voice was so distinctive that you never confused him with anyone else.

“Hiya, Mart,” I slowly drawled. “How are you doing? How are things in Philadelphia? Are you studying hard? What’s your favorite subject?” I always tried to divert him, it was a fun hobby and I knew it drove him crazy.

“Asshole, listen to me. In fact, listen into the phone. What sound do you hear?”

“Let me guess. A college sophomore breathing heavily and that can mean only one thing!”

“Ka-ching! Ka-ching! I hear the sound of cash, lots of cash. I hear the sound of Lincolns and Hamiltons and Andrew Jacksons!”

“Marty, bills don’t go ka-ching, coins go ka-ching. And since we are having this cryptic one-way conversation, what is Delta Chi and why do I give a shit?”

“Ah, mon ami, permettez moi! Delta Chi is the big fraternity for those rich College kids who are Greek Geeks. Surely at Columbia you have heard of fraternities, oui?”

“Sure, of course, they run the whole length of 114th Street. So what?”

“Well, I am talking earlier today with a guy I know, he’s in Delta Chi at Penn. I play cards with him sometimes. He stinks. He alone could almost cover my tuition bill. SO he tells me that he is going to this annual convention and I ask him, like what’s that all about, and he tells me they have meetings and then they drink and walk around Times Square looking at the people and going into Ripley’s and maybe take a train down to the Village, but this guy, he loves playing poker and there are these big money poker games late at night, sometimes until dawn, and everyone is drinking beer or rye or something, and the pots are big and how he’s going to play all night because he loves playing poker with the guys.”

I have forty pages of Plato to read; the book is face-down on my desk, I am standing at the wall phone that serves our suite of two dorm bedrooms and a common room. I want to get back to Plato, not because I love it but because I would love to just finish it. “So what’s this got to do with the price of tea in China?”

“Ah, mon ami,” more of his bad mock French accent, “this is how we make what we call ‘la moolah.’ From these drunk jerks. I moi meme will come up on the RR early that evening. You will take the subway to 49th street. We will meet for a light healthy dinner with NO alcohol, a couple of cups of black coffee, and around about 11 we stroll into the lobby of the Astor, find a card game, and we play til dawn.”

“I don’t want to spend a night playing poker. Exams are coming up….”

“Stevie, listen to me. This is not social. This is business. Most of these guys can’t play for crap even when they are rested and sober. We are going to clean up. And by clean up I mean hundreds each easy, probably thousands. See, we play sober, we each grab a beer and nurse it all night so no one notices, we just play our game. You and me in the same game, for safety ya know? That may cut down winnings but still it’s safer. Probably we hit two games, maybe three. We dress regular but no school emblems or anything, we tell them we’re from somewhere, I’ll figure out a chapter from which no one likely is attending, Texas or somewhere.”

“Marty, I don’t want to do this. And what if we don’t win? Cards are cards, ya know. Hey, you aren’t going to bring one of your special decks, are you?”

“No, course not. And I don’t want the shit beaten out of me either. No need, these clowns will be real marks. Tell ya what, I’ll stake you, give you say $500 for starters. End of the night, I’ll give ya the $500 to keep. You just give me anything ya got over $500. If you’re busted, I’ll give ya five from my own money. No risk. I’ll even give ya more depending on how much you and I win. Or either of us. Ya can’t lose, mon ami.”

“Marty, they’re gonna figure our we’re ringers and beat the shit our of us.”

“Not us, pard. Just you!”

“What!”

“It’s a joke, jerkoff. It’s a joke. C’mon. you know my old man doesn’t have enough money to send me here, I gotta play cards and this is easy pickings. I NEED you, bro.”

I let out a small sigh. ”When the hell is this?”

“The eighth and ninth. Ninth is best, they’ll be even more wasted the second night.”

“All right, all right but listen. If I get nervous or anything, we’re gonna have a code word. Like ‘hey, aren’t we supposed to meet Harry about now?’ and if I say that, I don’t care how well we’re doing, you gotta say like ‘o yeah’ and we cash out and leave. Ya gotta agree to that because you, you get buried in the game, you want the bread too much, you gonna run through the warning signs and get us killed by some drunk football jocks who are figuring out what we’re doing.”

“Whatever you say, boss. You wanna slow play the night, you wanna not go all in, you wanna cash out, it’s all your call.” He paused. “But I do need you, bro. Know what I mean?”

I close my eyes and exhale. He is always doing this to me, I have no resistance. He is my best friend. He has bailed me out plenty. He is the excitement in my life, truth be told. Truth be told, he had me at ‘ka’ching.’

“Yeah, okay okay, you’re on.” I am sorry I said it but I had no choice. “You pay for dinner also,” I blurted.

“Anything you say, Stevie; anything you say. Just remember: ka-ching.” The line went dead. I picked up Plato, but all I could think of was poker on the front steps of my brownstone. Marty was the only one who was a winner. Except of course for me…

The Astor had seen better days. Actually, I am not sure that is true. The Astor lobby looked like the kind of fake-gilded public space that never had a better day. Two stories high with elaborate crystal-festooned hanging chandeliers dangling from plaster-molded ceiling ovals painted white with tinged edges of gilt, heavily carpeted with mock-oriental wall to wall of a dark cherry red hue, populated with numerous worn leather chairs and an occasional mock-Chippendale wooden settee, the lobby absorbed large numbers of noisy people without really welcoming them into its arms. Ash-trays on pedestals, some over-flowing with cigarette butts, stood at attention next to many of the arm-chairs.

And across this crowded and confusing space trod large numbers of perspiring college men, many in school T-shirts and shorts, boat shoes without socks, a mild odor of sweat blending peacefully into the residual tobacco overtones of the ambient air. Older patrons looked up in either amusement or annoyance, but neither reaction pierced the attention of the students; freed from committee meetings and the “grand conclave” at which the national officers announced the growth of membership and the new rules against violent hazing, their conversation revolved around cheap dinner options and asking “where’s the action.”

We looked like we belonged, Marty and me, because we were of the proper vintage, proper attire, proper vocabulary. However, unlike the others, fun was not on our minds. Filled with half a card-board crusted pizza and a giant cup of bitter coffee, I wanted to find a men’s room and then a subway uptown to the dorm, particularly as the chemistry exam had been rescheduled from today to tomorrow, and I was not sure I had the stamina to play cards all night and remember organic structures at dawn. Marty was so keyed up that I was afraid to let him ask about card games at all; he was walking through the lobby in predatory fashion, his head stuck forward, his lips pursed almost to a pucker. Likely I was projecting, but to me he looked like a hustler disguised in a dirty polo shirt.

“Leave this to me, will ya? And fer Gozzake, will ya take a chill pill?”

“Look, Stevie, I’m fine, you’re moving too slow. You’re too cautious. Let me handle this.”
I gave him a look that drew him up short.

“What?”

“Marty, you wait here. Drink a piping hot cup of shut the fuck up.”

I turned away without waiting for an answer, walking slowly among the clusters of chairs, my head inclined towards the carpet and my brow knit in false consternation. Picking a small group of seemingly gregarious guys, I veered in their direction and looked up. As I approached they turned out to be bigger than I had originally imagined, but I had eye contact with one of them so the die was cast.

“Hey, man,” I began, ever a cool introduction.

“Hey, bro,” said the big blond with the acne pits and unwashed hair. “What’s shakin’?”

His shirt said “Duke.”

“You from Duke,” I asked cleverly.

“Yeah. You?”

“My friend and me, we’re up from Oklahoma.” I jerked my head slightly behind me, not even towards Marty who, hopefully, was leaning against the pillar where I had left him. “I’m Stan. You guys been to one of these before?”

A series of half grunts, some affirmative. I stuck out my hand and met Lars, and his buddies Pete, Choco and Lance; an unattractive cadre but you know what they say about beggars.

“Hey, yeah, it’s our first time and I was wonderin’ maybe there’s a card game going on we could join.”

“Ya know, lots all over but we, we just aren’t here to play cards.” He smiled and looked around his quartet, eliciting nods and a random “you said it” from Choco; or maybe it was Pete.

“Right,” added Lars. We’re gettin’ a cab and going to the Village and grab some beers and look at the creeps.” He paused for effect. “You ever hear of a bar down there, McSorley’s I think, my dad said he used to go there when Chi partied, ya know, in the day.” His head bobbed up and down for punctuation.

“Nah, never heard of it,” I lied. “So you here also, in the Astor, what floor you on where they’re playing cards?”

“Try eighteen,” said Pete. Or maybe it was Choco. “There were a couple last night, kept it up all fuckin’ night, good thing I passed out or I never would’a gotten any shut-eye.” He laughed the shallow laugh of someone who said something that wasn’t funny, and looked around the circle until everyone gave him a quick smile.

“Hey, yeah, maybe we will. Thanks for the tip. Have fun at McCarthy’s,” I added.

“Yeah thanks,” Pete/Chaco replied. “Later,” promised Lars, and as I turned away I thought to myself, ‘sure as hell hope not, you must be six-four if you’re an inch, asshole.’

Marty was not where I left him, no surprise, but at least he didn’t get into any trouble, he was seated on the edge of settee, his legs bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Eighteen,” I said.

“Great. Let’s get goin.’”

“Sure. And Marty—stay cool, hear? And if say we gotta meet Harry-….”

“Yeah, I know, I know. Don’t worry about me. And here ya go.”

He stuck out his hand and gave me a roll of old bills, ones on the outside, held together with a thick rubber band. I slipped the band off on the way to the elevators and flattened the wad so it didn’t bulge out of my pocket. Never did a lot of money feel so unwelcome against my thigh. The folding gate on the elevator clanked shut and the elevator operator, wearing a cap with some fake badge on it, collared T-shirt and jeans below, drove us up to eighteen. By the time we were at about fifteen, you could already hear the din.

* * * * * * * *

“Hey, Marty, look at the time.” Grey light was invading the room through the dirty windows, illuminating the pizza boxes, beer bottles, Seagrams Seven bottles, Tequilla bottles, cups filled with cigarette butts, the mirror coated with white powder residue, two guys asleep in arm chairs, and six guys on the floor around a rearranged coffee table covered with playing cards and piles of bills.

“Whose deal is it,” asked one of the guys. I had promptly forgotten the names. I was tired, this was our third game, I had no idea how much money we had won but it was a lot, the bills were pulling at my pants pockets, pulling the fabric of my jeans across my crotch in a most unpleasant way.

“Me, gimme the cards will ya,” said another one; all this group were from NYU, which was making me uncomfortable from the start, it was in New York, I knew a lot of kids at NYU, and I would have preferred another game with guys from Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. And these guys they were really stinko, dropping farts and belches and passing a bottle around really fast, this one was either gin or vodka, something clear like water but certainly not water. We were killing them at poker, and I didn’t want them to get the idea that they should be, physically, killing us.

“Mart, it’s what, shit it’s after four, Harry is waiting for us, we said ya know?”

Marty looked up, a happy glaze over his face although in the last five hours I doubt that either of us had finished as much as a single beer. It was the flush of lust, an animal rictus of victory.

“Yeah, I know but ya know what, Stan, fuck ‘em, I’m having too much fun.” I realized I had forgotten to call him by our agreed fake names, he was supposed to be Mel and I was Stan, that’s what I had remembered until just now, when the fatigue got to me. Now I knew we had to split.

“Marty!” Loud and sharp enough to quell the chatter for a minute. “We gotta go, like now.”

Eyes narrowed as the rest of the table paid attention to the two of us, something that was not exactly a desired result.

“Whattaya got going at 4 in the fuckin’ morning,” asked the kid with the dark glasses and his umpteenth cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. “Ya got somewhere ta go, Stan or Stevie or whatever the fuck ya name is?”

Marty had his opening. “Stevie, go to the room, make sure Harry is okay, alright, if ya so worried about him.” He turned to the group. “Asshole picked up some chick in the lobby, who knows what sorta shape he’s in, ya know?” He snorted for effect; everyone relaxed, laughed.

“Ya, go ahead to the room,” Marty said, easy and slow like he was talking to some younger brother who was a pain in his ass. “I’m gonna stay and play with the guys for a while. I’ll catch you for breakfast. Okay?”

I was end-gamed; couldn’t stay now, couldn’t extract Marty at this point. ‘Damn fool, dangerous shit,” I thought. “Yeah, well fine, see ya later,” I said as I stood up with a slight wobble. “Wow, too much beer and booze.”

The big one stood up which gave me a scare but he stuck out his hand. “Thanks for playing. You were pretty lucky tonight, ya know?”

“Guess so. And everyone at school told me to be careful of those guys in New York.”

He chucked me on the shoulder, I gave the room a group smile and went out the door. I was going to stay down the hall to spot Marty if there was any trouble, but he seemed okay and the guys were pretty mellow even if they were loaded. I figured it would be weirder to hang around, so I called the elevator and the old coot running it paid me no attention and drove me down to the lobby and mumbled a good night.

There weren’t many places to be alone at 4 AM in the hotel lobby but there was a men’s room off by the bar. The bar was shut but the bathroom was open. I stuck my head in; no one in there, and all the stall doors were open so no one was hanging out on one of the toilets. I locked myself in, took a long satisfying piss and carefully pulled out the bills crammed into my trousers. There were a lot of small bills so I was not too optimistic, but then I started to count and didn’t stop until I emptied my left rear pocket which turned out to be stuffed with twenties which I must have segregated at some point, along with a few US Grants. I made the pile at just over $2300. Gotta say, I had a big grin on my face.

About then, I heard the front door swing, and then the long loud splish of someone emptying his horse bladder, and then the burping whoosh of someone throwing up a whole lot of miscellany, after which a soft “oh, fuck” and a few gargles with water from the tap after which the front door again swung and I was again alone. By then, the acrid smell had infiltrated my stall, and I got the hell out of there, through the lobby and into what turned out to be a warm and misty dawn.

Marty never showed up at the Chock Full O’Nuts on Forty Eighth, which was our rendez- vous point if separated. We were 15 years away from cell phones, there was no way to reach him. I went to Penn Station and stood on the platform for the first two trains to Philly in hopes of catching sight of him, but then I had to hop a cab back to campus and take my chem exam.

I got a B, which was a gift from the gods. Marty got two broken ribs, three missing teeth, a mild concussion and a crushed coccyx bone at the base of his spine and had to sit on an inflated rubber tube for six months until it healed. He was found without watch or money in the hotel stairwell.

I sent him all the money but he sent back five hundred. I guess a deal’s a deal.

* * * * * * * *

“We’re here in the lobby of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada interviewing Stevie Newhouser, winner of the 2019 Masters of Poker championship. Stevie, first congratulations.”

“Thanks, Candice.”

“Stevie, this is your third tournament win in the last two years but this has got to be the biggest. Five Million Dollars and a platinum and diamond bracelet appraised at almost two million more. What do you have to say about all that?”
“Well, first off, that’s a shit-load of mon—uh can I say that on TV?”

“Stevie, you know you can’t and you know you’re live but I am sure all your many fans will forgive you because, after all, you are King of the Hill and you are ‘entitled.’ So tell us, how did you do it? Did the cards fall for you just right?”

“Candice, the cards just fall the same for everyone. Anybody tells you poker is luck doesn’t know much about poker. It’s just like life, ya know.”

“Really. How do you mean that, Stevie?”

“You keep your eyes open and make your judgments based on the facts life tells to you. Same with cards. You just slow play your opportunities and then the world comes to you.”

“The cards speak to you?”

“No, the players speak to you. They tell you what they think. They may not know it, but they speak to you.”

“Well, Stevie, whatever your secret, you are again the champion. They don’t call you The Card for nothing. One last question, if I may?”

“Sure, Candice, fire away.”

“How in the world did you learn to play poker the way you do?”

The Card smiled and his eyes rolled back into his memory.

“Mein bubbie,” he said.

Candice knit her brow, and the station went to commercial.

[June 2017]

“So if it takes seven hours to fly West to San Francisco, you have to take off say an hour and half for a snack, a stretch, a bathroom visit, then there are the times at takeoff and landing where you cannot really work very well as a practical matter, so make that a net of say five hours you can actually work. Make that four hours coming back so the round trip creates nine real working hours. At say $750 an hour, what a big law firm partner makes an hour at the least, you are talking $6750 of income, right?”

My partner had a yellow legal pad in his lap, calculating as he worked.

”So, let’s say that’s right, tell me where we are going with this.”

“Just give me a minute and you’ll see. Now we have to be careful, we need confidentiality, you really do sort of need a first class seat, right? Let’s say you fly in the daytime so you’re fresh and fly first class round trip. You’re talking say $1800 or so. A lot of money, call that two and a half hours, so your net profit is what, about five grand, right?”

“What’s your point? You could sit at your desk and make the full $6750. “

“Well, no you can’t. What percentage of your labor do you pay your law firm to give you that desk? The answer is, it costs you about $1200 dollars a day for your overhead. Call 9 hours a work day, that means that to sit at your desk earns you only about $5550. And we are not done. It costs you maybe $30 a day to drive in and park in the building. And when you fly you can get by with a sweat suit while if you go to the office you need a nice suit, shirt, stuff like that. Call that what, ten bucks? And you have to buy lunch, right? Call it a ten-spot easy. Look where you end up, net. Five grand a day profit. Same as on an airplane. But it gets even worse. After the firm takes off your overhead you still don’t get the full amount, right? It just doesn’t work that way, it is not direct and linear. And also, on the ground you’re paying income tax, right; State tax takes at least five percent, in some places more. But you save that also.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, you aren’t anywhere. You’re in the sky! What, is Nebraska going to say ‘you spent 20 minutes in my airspace so you owe me the tax on $250?’ No way. So you are saving 5% of $5000 which may not be much but look, now you are $250 each day better off by working on an airplane! If you work only 220 days you pick up maybe another 50K.”

I looked him straight in the eye; I was beginning to have fun with this.

“Ya know, Tommy, you may be onto something here. You wouldn’t even need all sorts of stuff you pay for now. Like a condo for one thing. And maybe a car. If you had a good sturdy suitcase I bet you get your fixed costs down to maybe a quarter what you pay now. Less if you red-eye, those flights are cheap and you can sleep because who the hell can work on those red-eyes anyway.”

In fact, now he is digging into his jacket pocket, and produces a small packet of papers, and he flips to the back, looks up and says, “I figure I can double what I earn just by working and living on airplanes all the time.”

Certain he was kidding, I speculated he could ditch his wife, his two children, his dog and his club membership and put away maybe a million two working only 9 hours a day on weekdays and still take four weeks vacation and holidays of all known religions, and then you could monetize your frequent flier miles and probably improve on that number also. “Betcha you could net a million two easy,” I said.

He looked at the bottom of the back page and then looked up with a small smile of triumph. “Would you believe working 9 hours a day five days a week and clearing $1, 496,327.48?”

I was about to rally some more, big smile on my face, when I looked at Tommy and saw that he was not smiling. He was sweating. His eyes were bulged. He was grabbing his small stack of papers so hard that they were crumpled and sweat-soaked. He leaned forward in his seat and hissed at me: “Do you know what this means?”

If it were a joke I would have said something like “yes, you need to be locked up and sedated,” which in the circumstances actually seemed to be the right answer for Tommy, but somehow I did not think that would be a helpful reply.

“Uh, Tom, what say we go downstairs and have a couple of tall ones and talk some more about your—uh, idea?”

“Not an idea, Jimmy. It’s a full-fledged fucking plan!”

“Uh, okay. Uh—have you talked about this with Judy by any chance?”

He blinked, then sat back and thought a moment.

“Ya know, now that I think about it, no not really but—well do you think I should? After all she isn’t even part of the plan, ya know. Say, have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?”

“Oh, no Tommy. I mean yeah, I been listening and I want to talk to you more about it. Like right now. Unless you have any work you need to finish first….”

“Dammit, Jim, you have NOT been listening. I don’t work here anymore. I only practice law on airplanes, goddammit.”

* * * * *

“So that’s how it happened, doc. Right out of the blue. I mean, he just all of a sudden showed up with this pack of papers and this cockamaimie idea of his, and there was no talking to him. I called his wife, right there, and she didn’t believe me, thought it was a joke, but when he didn’t come home for three days and she called the bank and found all the airfare charges, well, I guess that’s when she called you folks, yes?”

“I want to thank you, James, for your time. I really cannot discuss a patient’s condition or history but I want to assure you, as his friend, that we will do everything in our power to, well, reorient you buddy’s – uh, perceptions.” He stood up and so did I. He pumped my hand a couple of times limply and I found myself standing outside his office at 2:45 in the afternoon. What was I to do now, middle of the work day? I called an Uber and went back to the office….

So I am very busy these days.

Right now I am scribbling down this history of events while sitting in the offices of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Employment which, interestingly, handles claims for unemployment. And that is why I am here; I am unemployed. So I got here at about 8:30 this morning and the machine spit out at me my appointment ticket with the number 54305. Good thing they don’t start each day at number one, I thought to myself, but here it is almost noon and they better get to me pretty quick because I have to see my parole officer at 2pm half-way across the City and she is not someone who enjoys being kept waiting.

I am fighting about my entitlement to unemployment payments while I look for another job. Never thought I’d find myself in this kind of a pickle. I mean, I worked for General Vibration Technologies for what, over eighteen years and never had a hassle or a problem in all that time. I don’t look for trouble, ya know? They are – well, were – nice people, a small business run by the family, paid me on time, gave me raises most times when I asked, and when Margaret had that thyroid thing they just let me take all the time off I needed and when my personal days ran out, well they never docked me for those extra five or six times I had to go pick her up after the radiation.

And as for my job, I like to sell. And our products are great, top of the line, sell themselves. I show up for work, I do my job, I’m not late, I don’t leave early even on Fridays in the Summer, I think that if someone pays you for a week’s work and treats you professional, ya know, then you should give them a week’s work and be professional back.

So we sell this big account in Billerica, and if ya don’t know we’re in Boston and that’s a nearby town, they buy maybe a hundred units a year typically which is, real money when you think about it. And one day my guy over there, Louie, been selling him for maybe ten years and we get along fine, we send him a nice Christmas basket and I buy him a couple beers at lunch sometimes, well he calls to say they got a new line they designing and could we sit down and could he explain what they need so maybe we can tweak our basic unit to work in a particular way. So that’s good news, ya know, but I need someone from engineering because they always yelling at sales, saying things like “great you signed a contract to deliver them an XYZ machine except we don’t know how to make an XYZ machine so why don’t ya stuff the contract up yer ass and by the way go explain it to Mr. Hardison?” He’s the President, Hardison.

So I email Louie back and say, sure let’s have lunch at Bertucci’s (where Louie likes the lasagna, which I know) and by the way I’m going to bring someone from engineering to make sure we do the right thing for you and price it as low as possible. You know, I’m a salesman, I know what to say in these situations, this not being my first rodeo. And I go to Mac in engineering and he says yeah, heard about this kind of thing, best person to take with ya is Rita del Corso. Rita is real nice, and a real nice looker too and from what I know, actually a pretty good engineer for a woman, if you catch my meaning.

Now before ya start jumping here to the wrong conclusions, let me tell ya that I do not mess around. Me and Margaret been together since High School and I may not be an angel but she sure as hell is, always had my back when I was down, did a great job with the kids, that thing with my daughter Antonia a few years back no one could see coming and Margaret she just swallowed
Hard and went to all the sessions with her and really pulled her back and now Antonia, you should see her, she’s fine. Just fine. So I never so much as winked at Rita because who needs that shit, right? And IF, and I do mean IF, I ever got the itch well I’m no rookie, I don’t go messing around where I’m working. I mean, all you ever read about is guys getting screwed at their jobs because they were trying to get screwed at their jobs, if you catch my meaning.

Rita’s cool, she can make the meeting she tells me, so I send an email to Louie, a courtesy, saying I’m bringing Rita del Corso from engineering, she’s a U Mass Lowell graduate so she’s of course a great engineer, so forth and so on.

Louie writes back, he says, “that’s fine if you wanna bring a date with you, okay at this end.”

Now that’s an asshole email, right? But he don’t mean anything harsh, and Rita is the engineer and I need her; and why call Louie on what he thinks is a neat piece of banter? He’s the friggin’ client, fer Godssake! Why make him feel uncomfortable or, like, I’m looking down on him or correcting him or something. That isn’t salesmanship, that stupid shit-ship. So I don’t write anything back. We got the lunch set up, it’s set up.

So we show up at lunch and Louie gets a look at Rita and he doesn’t care about his machine no more, he just wants to impress Rita. He smiles at me and says something like “you said you were bringing a date, but I’m gonna steal her from ya” and other dumb stuff like that. So Rita, she can see what’s happening, she’s asking all about the new machine, she’s got her notepad out and all, and Louie he’s pounding back Stellas and dripping the gravy down his shirt front and ignoring me and explaining to Rita how he single-handedly built up the business which is of course not true, and even I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed for Rita who is just doin’ her job and helping me, and I’m embarrassed for Louie, which isn’t really my problem except he’s being such an asshole that it’s painful to watch.

So Louie he says a whole bunch of things that he shouldn’t say; he thinks he is clever with his innuendo thing, which he ain’t. And Rita is cool but can’t get the info she needs and lunch is over and Louie he says he gotta get back to the plant. SO he turns to Rita and says, like, “I guess we didn’t finish, we gotta meet again on this, so give me your card” and then he says “this next meeting is just all about engineering” and he turns to me and says “you don’t gotta come to the engineering thing, and ya know ya got the business so don’t worry” and he stands up, wobbles a bit, he’s not loaded but he’s happier than he oughtta be at a lunch, and he leans over and quick plants a kiss, a real loud smooch on Rita’s face, aims for the lips and his aim isn’t great but he gets some of it, rubs the back of her neck and he’s off down the aisle happy as a pig in shit.

And then I’m driving me and Rita back to the office and I don’t know what to say, particularly since I didn’t do anything wrong, ya know. And she’s real quiet but polite, and doesn’t say anything about Louie so I figure, she’s an engineer, she’s been here a lotta years, this can’t be the first time guys were being guys with her, she can take care of herself. We get outta the Corolla, I thank her, she nods a little nod and goes off to the annex where the engineers work and I go back to the front office and don’t think anything more about it, except I do tell Margaret a little about it over dinner and she, she’s been around the block, worked in an office for a long time before she got sick, and she just says something like “tsk tsk, these things happen, I feel sorry for Rita” and that’s it. That’s the whole thing.

I thought.

A couple of days later, it’s around lunch time, my line buzzes and Mort Hardison, the president, he asks could I please come to his office, which is not usual but not rare ya know, so I go down there and knock on the glass and I hear a “come on in” and I open the door and there are a lot of people in his small office which makes me stop for a minute. “Sorry to interrupt your meeting, boss, I’ll come back,” I say, and am about to go when Hardison says, “no, no, it’s alright Harry, actually we were just talking about you. Come on in and sit down.”

I got no idea what gives. Zero. But never had a problem with these folks, so I step in and close the door and go over shake the boss’ hand, and he smiles and says “you know my daughter Virginia, don’t you?” and sure enough Virginia, who I have known since she was a teenager, she’s seated near her dad’s desk, sort of at an angle almost putting her behind the desk. And so I say “hello, Ginnie” and start to shake her hand, and then I’m not sure I should be doing that, Ginnie came to work at the plant a few years ago and rumor has it that she is the heir apparent which is all fine with me, that isn’t my end of the operation. She comes to the office every day dressed real nice in dark suits which is her call, she can wear whatever she wants, and I’ve never had anything with her in the office in all the years she has been there; so anyway, I have taken a couple of steps with my hand going out so she does shake it which saves me some uncertainty, I tell ya.

And the boss, he waves his hand to a guy in a dark suit and he says, like, “I’m not sure if you know our company attorney, Mr. Franklin Mackie.” Well, he knows damn well I never had occasion to meet Mr. Mackie, but I shake his hand and look him in the eye and he looks down, which I do not like, and then I sit down facing the boss.

“What’s up,” I ask, since I don’t know what’s up, except I got a feeling they are not about to make me a senior vice president at double pay.

So the lawyer he says, “that’s what we are going to ask you about, Harry.”

“Yeah, well give me a clue about our subject here, Frank,” I ask because I really don’t know but this lawyer here has already confirmed my prior view that they are all weasels except for the ones who are cobras. Ever see a cobra in the zoo; just sorta coiled all up, waiting to uncoil on you.

“ Mr. Mackie,” says this Mr. Mackie.

“Beg pardon?”

“Please call me Mr. Mackie,” he says.

Huh. I think, not even Franklin, if Frank is too informal. But “MR.” Okay, no sweat off my back.

“Sure. Sure, Mr. Mackie,” I say, not even putting a little accent on the Mr. to make sure that he won’t think I’m making a point about he’s being snotty and all, which he is. “But I am not sure what we are talking about here.”

Frankie baby, he has a few pages of papers in his hands, and he looks at them, ruffles the papers and says “Ms. del Corso?”

“This is about Rita? Shit. Is she okay?”

“Ms. del Corso is actually not okay, Harry. She was very upset and you have ignored her, failed to report the incident, did not defend her, and indeed perhaps even joined in the derision.”

“Don’t getcha, Mr. Mackie.” I turned to Mr. Hardison. “Boss, what’s going on here?”

So the boss is studying the arrangement of the tiles on the drop ceiling and the lawyer starts talking. Now at least I understand the lay of the land.

“Harry, I am looking at an email you received on May 18 from a Mr. Louis Canazzo, which is confirming a business lunch at which Rita del Corso is to attend and which refers to her as your ‘date.’ Do you recall that email?”

I look him right in the eye. “Mr. Williams,” I say with a real even tone.

“No, Mr. Canazzo,” he replies.

“I ain’t referring to Louie, I am referring to me. To I myself.”

His brow knits.

“Please call me Mr. Williams. Because, Mr. Mackie,” and this time I do give him the hard “Mr.,” “I am getting the feeling that this is some sort of a problem you are laying out for me and I didn’t do anything here, never gave Rita any hassle, I think she’s great and I’m a real professional at what I do, and I just don’t like the drift of this whole thing.”

I am feeling pretty good about myself and I glance over at the boss, who has now taken an interest in one of our delivery trucks that he is perusing out through his window into our back parking lot. Not a great sign, I say to myself.

“Okay, certainly, Mr. Williams, I meant no condescension,” says this lawyer in a suit who is dripping with condescension, “ can you tell me if you recall receiving this email?”

“Yeah, ‘course I do, it was just like a week ago. How come you have my emails anyhow.”

He smiles, he is definitely from the cobra branch of shysters. “Well, Har—uh Mr. Williams, as a matter of law there is no right of privacy for your emails if they go through the company system, particularly an email like this which relates to the business of the company.”

I didn’t know that. I says to him, “Well I knew that acourse….”

“And what did you do when you received this email?”

“I didn’t do nothing. He’s a customer. He’s being an asshole – uh, sorry but it’s a dumb stupid email but so what? Doesn’t hurt anyone. Rita isn’t copied. Why make a big deal out of it. It’s like the thing about the tree in the forest. If there’s no one to hear it, you can’t say it made any sound.”

“Don’t you think that as a representative of the firm you have an obligation to stamp out this kind of sexist profiling?” It’s Ginnie talking all of a sudden, and now it is crystal clear.

“Well, never thought about it, Ginnie—or Miss Hardison. Jesus, I am confused, don’t even know how to talk to you and I’ve known you forever. I never thought about it really, and no one ever talked to be about a policy or anything. I just figured, it’s a big account of ours, why rock the boat when its no blood, no foul.”

Mackie is at it again as Ginnie doesn’t crack a smile or anything. “So, Mr. Williams, can you tell us your version of what happened at the lunch?

So I told them what I wrote down here already. And they asked me why I didn’t speak up to defend Rita and tell Louie he was being inappropriate, that General Vibrator Technologies does not support demeaning women as a business practice. And I told them that Rita seemed to be able to take care of herself so I let it play, Louie was half in the bag anyway.

“Rita came to me very upset. She said you didn’t even apologize in the whole car ride home.” GInnie had gotten up and was sort of standing over me, brow knit in a most unpleasant way.

“Well, uh” and I decided not to call her Ginnie or Virginia or Miss Hardison or anything so I just kept going, “she didn’t say a thing to me in the car so I figured she had it covered. Ya know, she’s been here a long time, this can’t be the first time she’s been hit on and she’s an attractive girl ya know?”

This was not the smartest line of defense, as it turned out.

“She’s a woman, not a girl,” Ginnie damn near spit out.

The lawyer, he was a good deal more — I guess sneaky and nasty are the words I am looking for. “So you are aware of other times when Ms. del Corso was put in a sexually uncomfortable situation?” I was about to say I just assumed it but he didn’t stop to let me answer. “And you did not report any of these occasions to the company? And you did not reach out to her, to defend her or ask if she were upset in any one of these other occasions? And by the way, what difference does it make if she is as you say ‘attractive’? Would it matter to you if you found her to be plain looking? In fact, you are particularly attracted personally to her, aren’t you? I bet you enjoyed when Louie leaned over and pawed her and kissed her, bet you wished it was you, isn’t that right?”

“Whoa, why you taking off on me? I never said one inappropriate word to Rita in over a decade; not to anyone else either. And yeah, Rita’s pretty. You met her? Or you just blind?” I turned to Mr. Hardison.

“Boss, where are we going here? I’ve been with you, never a problem, never a bad review, for almost twenty years. Just tell them I’m not the problem here, if there is a problem.”

The boss turns to me and he’s a little pained I can tell, but he just puts in the last stab of the knife. “Harry, it is true you have been a very good employee but this is a different age we all live in, and standards of behavior are, well, different, improved if you will. We need to live by these standards. The old rules don’t apply any more.” He turned his chair to look out the window, his back almost turned to me. “My daughter is going to take over the company and we need to conform to the new standards, all of us. I’m afraid, given your answers today, that we are going to have to put you on probation for six months, and we want you to attend a couple of classes at the College that may help you understand what is expected these days.”

Now United Machine over in Quincy, they have been after me to go there for a few years and until that moment it never occurred to me to jump ship, but I gotta tell you it was so ridiculous and unfair, I guess I sort of lost it. I’m sitting down now, writing this, and when I stand up I’m not much taller. But that’s me. So I stand up to my full five feet five, okay maybe five four with regular shoes, and just let them have it. I suggest an appropriate dark wet place into which to insert their job, I’m not even looking at their reactions because I am on a roll, and then as I get to the door for my grand exit I turn to the boss.

“Hey boss, one more thing. I won’t be here of course, I’ll be taking your business over to United is my plan, but I wanna know something about these new standards you putting in. Do ya think you gonna be okay, yourself, under these new groundrules? I mean since you been fuckin’ Ellen in personnel for what, the last two or three years? Just curious, wondering if the President gets a skate….”

I don’t stick around, figured not really healthy for me to stick around, although the last thing I saw as I turned to step through the door was Ginnie with her jaw dropped and an unattractive little bit of drool on her cheek as she was turning.

So I am cleaning off my desk, putting pictures of Margaret and the kids into a packing box, not talking to the other folks because I was pretty upset but it must have been obvious what was happening, and just as I am taking my painting off the wall, a nice little oil painting of the factory that my daughter Anastasia did for me a long time ago, this guy in a uniform, from the security company we use to guard the plant at night, he starts asking why I’m taking that painting and I’m telling him because it’s mine and says no it ain’t and I’m like how the hell do you know that, and he says he has his instructions and he grabs my arm and that’s the last straw and I catch him on the chin real square, which surprises me more than him but he goes straight back and cracks his head as he goes down and, well, he’s in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and me I’m scared to death and grab my carton and my painting and toss them in the back seat and the cops don’t catch up to me and arrest me until I’m damned near all the way home.

So I serve three months and now have this probation, and meanwhile no one, including but not limited to United Machine, wants some con working for them and here I am, no job, no savings left, fighting for my money but they’re telling me I quit wasn’t fired, and I’m telling them I was really actually fired in fact if you thought about it but so far I got nowhere. So I can’t find a job, I can’t get the unemployment, under the law they tell me I can get government money for support but I have to get a job first to prove I’m not sponging the system, and on and on, it’s like ya can’t win for trying.

Margaret says she’s planning to go back to work but that is not going to happen, not with her condition. I really need to find some way to get back on the payroll.

Wait. Who they calling? Yeah 54305, right here, that’s me. Window eight? Fine. I am shuffling up to window eight and I recognize the clerk, a woman I have seen maybe half a dozen other times. She must be ten years older than I am. Bad bleach job, black painted-on eyebrows, a bit too much make-up; sort of hard looking, carrying a few miles and probably a lot of beer and cigarettes is my guess. She isn’t smiling, she must hear hard luck stories fifty times every day. Washed out pale blue eyes, skin with those fine little lines around her eyes that the make-up doesn’t quite fill in, a slight pucker in her upper lip like her underneath teeth have abandoned their job, and is that the start of one of those turkey necks under her weak little chin? Her name plate tells me she is Bridget McMann. She looks as beaten down as I feel. And I glance down and she isn’t wearing a wedding ring.

I have an idea. It is not a very well thought-out idea, but at this point I am all out of ideas, well thought or otherwise.

I give her my name, she is punching keys on an ancient gray computer device and I look at my watch; a quarter to twelve.

“Say, Bridget,” says this voice that I guess is my own, “look at the time. You wouldn’t be free for lunch around about noon today, would ya?”

The finger dock was not two people wide. Not really. It stuck out into the darkening harbor, further than seemed possible, almost as long as the Town Dock that accommodated the Boston Ferry. It felt like it had to be illegal. On the side facing the breakwater that held back the bay, a weathered wooden railing was topped by a shelf, narrow enough to hold a wine glass or a beer bottle, nothing more. On the other side, a fragile fence, waist high, held you from falling into the harbor water or, at low tide, breaking your neck on the rocks below.

People bellied up to the shelf and you could barely shimmy past them if you turned sideways, as you moved outwards in search of a space for your own body and drink. It was a close call between the elbows of the other people and the railing you did not want to test by too hard a lean; some vertical slats were missing, and the entire rail seemed weathered beyond redemption, or at least beyond safety.

None of this did I know when I first walked inside and asked what they had on tap.

“Sorry, no tap. Just bottles. Here’s the list.”

I looked down the beer-stained sheet of paper at the six choices; surprisingly eclectic, several fine Belgians, all over-priced. The bartender waited patiently, tall and wearing a tight green body shirt and a killer tan which he did not get just by standing behind this bar. I picked a St. Anselm’s dark and gave my credit card because I had the intention of getting mildly drunk. While waiting for my beer I planted my butt on the edge of the bar and took a look. The room was full of men in twos and threes, and a short blonde with sharp features who I guessed was the proprietor as she moved talkatively through the crowd.

Through the glass sliders I could see the sun setting on the bay, falling through a crystal blue sky towards the water’s edge. There seemed to be a pathway of sorts which, as I walked through the glass sliders, I discovered was the finger dock. On one side about a dozen men were drinking beers from bottles but there was plenty of room further out and I did the shimmy past, ducked a left arm gesture that almost launched my beer, and walked down to the end to see what the white sheets might be, tied to the end-rail and blowing Eastward in the stiff afternoon wind. Beyond, the sun was making the sky a pale red but igniting the bright reds and yellows and greens of the upturned dinghies that cluttered the beach. Beyond, at floats, sleek sailboats and fancy yachts bobbed gently; the clink of the halyards tapped the main masts and the wind carried a hint of the wind-driven rhythm onto the dock.

The white blowing fabric proved to be some sort of stiff gauze, incongruous at the time, its purpose unclear. It whipped sharply in the near-gale and I moved a couple of yards back towards the bar to escape. I began then to seriously swig; if I were to forget the trauma with Lois, on the beach, I needed to get drinking. I still don’t know what it was I said that got her so furious, but she tromped off up the beach and I did not think much of it, stretched out under the sun and must have dozed off because the sun had moved a good deal West when I finally sat up. It took no time at all to notice that Lois was not back at our little encampment; I stood up and looked towards the water but there were growing whitecaps further out, the afternoon breeze was picking up and no one was in the water. Looking down, I saw her beach bag now was missing, and slowly I got the message that I must have really stepped in it this time.

Lugging all the gear back to the room, the picture became clear; her duffle was gone. The 4:30 ferry had sailed by then; no doubt a steaming Lois was making as much smoke as the boat diesel. I needed another beer to get deeper into my self-pity, and turned towards the bar to find my way slightly blocked by another drinker who had sneaked up beside me while I was looking at the gulls.

“Great view, isn’t it?” He spit a little when he talked and I took a half step back, which also gave me a better view: middle aged, diminutive, too tan, too much stomach, white sailor shirt with dark blue horizontal stripes, a garment designed for someone half his age and girth. Short tan shorts which should have been longer so that I did not have to look at his unfortunate knees. His glasses were dirty.

“Sure is,” I said as I planned my end run but he stuck out his hand. “Roger Charpentier.” His French accent was pretty good.

I shook his hand, rejected the impulse to give him a false name, and was about to excuse myself.

“You here for the wedding.” He said it as a statement, not a question.

“Say what?”

“You a friend of Brian or of Joe? Must be Brian, I think I know all of Joe’s crowd. Joe and me, we go way back. Long time ago,” he trailed off wistfully.

“No, I’m sorry, I actually just came in off the beach for a couple of beers.” Roger’s eyes narrowed a bit, mild suspicion I felt. Was I poaching on some private local turf? I felt compelled to inquire. “There’s a wedding going on?”

“Well, It’s actually scheduled to start in about a half hour, but I’m sure they’ll be late,” Roger replied. “Those guys, they’re always together and they’re always late.”

“Where are they going for the wedding,” I asked, having noticed a small chapel just across the street on my way in and putting, I thought, the whole thing together.

“Why, right here!”

“Here? Like in the bar, here?”

Roger laughed, showing me his yellow teeth with the upper left incisor missing and projecting a modest whiff of beer and sausage which thankfully got swallowed almost immediately by the now-typhoon-like wind, carrying with it however no respite from the day’s heat.

“No, no. You must be new here—this your first trip to Ptown? No, it’s here here. Right here on the dock. Everyone who gets married here gets married on the dock. Rain or shine. No really, even in the rain. Right down there, at the end? See the bunting?” He waved towards the stiff bunting that now was standing horizontal to the water and beginning to shred into strips. “Everyone who gets married in Ptown wants to be married while the sun sets over the harbor from the end of the dock.”

He took a quick glance at his watch, then over my shoulder at the setting sun.

“Acourse, those guys, they are going to get married by moonlight if they don’t get their butts in gear.”

He looked at me. “You’ll stay, yes? I mean you should stay. There’s room, you can look from the slider. It’s, well, magical,” and at the end of the last word a small glob of spittle landed on the back of my hand as it rested on the rail. I tried to wipe it off on my shirt as I smiled at him and stepped smartly around and headed back down the dock.

When I got to the bar it was so crowded that I thought the chances of getting another beer were nil and I was about to leave when I remembered they had held my credit card for my tab. Edging through several men, who all gave way readily while continuing to chatter, I scored a repeat and turned to walk directly into a man carrying a huge sculling oar. Behind him, another big guy carried yet another oar. Roger came bustling up.

“About time! You guys please quick quick take those down to the end of the dock right away. We are SO late. Now the groom is on the right so put the Princeton oar on the right, in the corner. And put the Yale oar on the other side, of course, that’s where Brian will stand.”

Roger caught site of me. “This must be so hard for you to follow. So a quick explanation?” He did not wait for my answer.

“Brian rowed for Yale and Joey, he rowed for Princeton. That’s where I met Joe actually—but, another story.”

“I couldn’t help but listen and, well, why are you putting Joe’s oar behind Brian?”

Roger beamed as he answered: “That’s the beauty part. Each of them will stand in front of the other’s oar. The blaze at the end of their new spouse’s school oar will stand over their respective heads! It’s perfect. And Rodney, he thought of it but we all thought it was brilliant. It shows that they are together, they are really as if they were one!”

“No shit?” It was all I could think to say. Although maybe I didn’t even think. Then: “Yeah, ya know I decided I will stick around for the event.”

Roger and I smiled at each other then — but for different reasons.

Just then, the bride and groom arrived and were immediately surrounded by well-wishers as they were simultaneously shuffled through the slider and began their long hike to the end. I got a glimpse of two men holding their top-hats as they moved outwards towards the now mostly faded sun, the sky a deep purple reaching for black. In their tuxedos, the couple looked like store mannequins, although their matching dark turquoise shirts suggested some lesser level of elegance. Their friends followed a discrete distance behind, talking now in whispers. Through the slider, I tried to see the end of the dock but could not. I stood for about ten minutes, until I heard a loud cheer followed by the two sculling oars being raised over-head, then tossed high in the air and over the side of the deck.

* * * * * * * * * *

Next morning my head hurt less than I would have guessed although I did drink a good deal of fine champagne at the wedding party, as everyone assumed I knew the half of the couple whom they themselves did not know. It was one of those dull aches at the back, running down to where your head muscles anchored your skull to the rest of you; each time you head moved it felt like you pulled a muscle. It occurred to me that crashing weddings could be really easy to do, particularly after a half hour when people were already drinking vigorously. Lois didn’t call and the answering machine in our apartment went to message three times before I gave up and decided to catch the next ferry back to Boston; it was another nice beach day but I just wasn’t in the mood. I was alternating thinking, as the ferry cleared the breakwater and began to gently buck in the flat bay and mild breeze, first how I would express my fury and then how I would apologize and beg. The problem was that I did not feel like apologizing, particularly since on sincere thinking I just could not remember what I had actually said or done.

I snorted a laugh as I drank my thick coffee from a paper cup at the boat rail; maybe I might just walk in, announce I apologized and that I would never do it again, but by the way could you remind me Lois what in fact I said? And then, funnier yet, when she expressed anger at my not knowing, I would shrug and give her my endearing smile and say “hey, it’s just a guy thing, ya know?” Then I stopped laughing because I guess it really wasn’t all that funny.

As I belched gently into the remains of my coffee cup, a man in a dark dinner jacket came up to the rail a few yards downwind from me. Since it was sunny and 10:45 in the morning it was not immediately clear to me what he thought he was doing. I glanced up at his face then, and was surprised to see Brian, the groom; or was it Joe the groom? Well it was either Brian or Joe, the bride or the groom, that much I knew; as for the details, I never did pay much attention and, truth be told, last night I had sort of avoided both of them for fear of being recognized as someone they did not recognize.

I was about to drift away and become invisible, when the jacket spoke in a loud voice.

“Hey, come over here will ‘ya? I remember you from last night. You one of Brian’s guys, yeah?”

“Uh, I was there last night, Joe,” I replied. “Say, are you cold or something? Must be hot as hell in that coat. You okay? Uh, Joe?”

Joe’s eyes were closed and his shoulders convulsed up and down. Then I heard the gasps and sobs; Joe was crying up a storm.

Long pause, no answer. Joe just stood there, head in his hands, eyes fixed over the side staring at, well, there was nothing really to stare at except for the horizon.

“Look, do you want me to leave you alone? Because you did call me over, but if you changed your mind, it’s okay ya know…” I said, petering out, hoping my suggestion that I leave would be accepted, at least by silence. For half a minute we both of us froze in place, but as I began to turn away, ever so slowly….

“No, hold on a minute. Please.”

I moved closer, to avoid having to yell over the growing sounds of the water and wind as the ferry turned Northwest and began to make way against a slight chop in the bay.

“Are you alone? I mean, are the two of you…?”

“Yes, I am alone. I just—oh shit!” He turned towards to me then, his eyes red and swollen, his cheeks wet, his hair few strands of hair askew. His turquoise shirt, unchanged from the night before, was blotched with the drip of his tears, while random smears of something white and sticky – frosting? — marched across his chest in random parade.

I waited a moment, hoping he’d given up. Just as I was about to start my retreat, Joe began to speak in a slow croak, flat intonation, precise pronunciation.

“It was never my idea. I thought we were fine. We were a couple! What’s the matter with being a couple? But Brian—well you know him, he’s so jealous over me. Was he always so damned jealous, or is it just me? How long have you known him? Did he just get angry jealous over the last two years since we were committed to each other?’’

“People change,” I replied, avoiding a direct answer which would have been pure fabrication. It did not seem right, to lie to the guy, but of course I had no history with either of these men, I was just the innocent by-stander; well, innocent voyeur to be accurate.

“Well, I don’t know. He just kept drinking champagne. I could never drink with him, he has one of those hollow legs, ya know?”

He wiped his whole face with a crumpled handkerchief pulled from his pocket. Already saturated, it just rearranged his tears into an overall sheen. As an unfortunate side effect, it also redistributed what looked like a coating of flesh-toned makeup, leaving subtle horizontal roadways from nose to ear on each side of his face.

“I was just talking to my friends. Just talking! I mean, they came up all the way from New York for the ceremony,
I ought to at least be able to talk with them for five minutes, to thank them; ought to be able to do that! Ah shit!” Tears reformed in the corners of his eyes, welling gently against his nose.

“Sure, I agree!” I tried to invent an emotional reaction to head off further bawling. “But—well, what was it, then? Did you tell him you were going over to talk to your friends, or….”

“I wasn’t GOING anywhere, that’s the point. I was standing right there in the bar. Not twenty feet from him. And my friends and me, we weren’t even being – demonstrative! I was drinking his champagne. You know how fussy he is about champagne, any wine. I don’t give a damn, but Brian, no, I had to be his Crystal, his $300 a bottle Crystal, and he’s tapped out as usual so I am drinking this expensive crap that I don’t even like and what’s more I’m paying for it also, and then all of a sudden he’s standing next to us, and I start to introduce him to my friends which we already did on the beach but it’s so crazy I figure I’ll save him some embarrassment by reminding him of their names, it’s just a courtesy—to him! But he’s so pissed he’s like right in my face, telling me I gotta go stay with him, talking to his friends not mine.”

“So I try to make a joke out of it, ya know? I turn to my friends and say something like ‘excuse me, guys, he’s just SO in love tonight,’ and I smile and start to go, I mean they came all the way from New York and spending what, too hundred a night to be there, and I’m just walking away!”

Joe paused, then looked right at me, fire now in his eyes behind the water-works. I feel I have to say something, I feel he is waiting for me say something.

“So, what did you do, Joe?”

“Well, I’m trying not to make a scene. It’s our goddamned wedding, fa Godzake and he’s humiliating me and I’m letting him do it but, okay, maybe he’s had too much to drink, I’m turning away and he – he slaps me! Right in the face, he slaps me. Loud and hard, and I rocked back and put up my hand and tried to rub my cheek. And Carl– my friend Carl, he says to Brian, he says ‘Hey, please don’t hit Joey, he’s our friend and he didn’t do anything,’ and Brian he just glares for a couple of seconds and hisses ‘keep your friggin’ mouth shut, you New York asshole” and then he grabs my ear, my EAR, he’s pulling me by my ear, across the floor, and now it’s as quiet as death and everyone is staring, just staring and Brian, he starts talking in a loud voice about I had to be taught to obey now that we’re married and I better not be a slow learner; and then he realizes that that its totally quiet in the bar and everyone is staring at us, and my ear is bleeding because he’s pulling me so hard and he’s tearing my left ear and I’m crying right in front of everyone – oh God it was so – HORRIBLE that I, I ….”

Joe gasped for breath, took a couple of deep gulps of ocean air. He had me now. I damned near screamed at him, “What? What?”

“I kicked him as hard as I could right in the balls and he fell down in a heap and I ran out of the bar.”

“Well, he damned well deserved it,” I said.

“Yes he did, he surely did, but don’t you see? What am I supposed to do now? We’re married. Married! It’s so horrible, we’re married!”

I tugged his arm until he turned to look directly at me. “You don’t have to stay married, you know.”

“No, I don’t. I have said to myself, you don’t have to stay married, you’re your own person, you have your pride, you have your friends, I told myself—or at least I did before all of this – horror.”

“So, I came to the wharf and had nowhere else to go. I sat in the doorway of the Clam Shack, with the restaurant garbage. I was afraid he’d come looking for me when I didn’t go back to the apartment, but the son-if-a-bitch didn’t even care enough to try to find me. I mean, where would I go? And all my money and my cell phone were back in the guest house so…. Well, you’re right, I don’t have to do this. I got on the ferry and I’m going to Boston; my company has a branch office there and I can get back to New York and figure out just how to extract myself.”

He laughed briefly, took a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and waved it at me. “And send this guy his hundred dollars back for buying me my ticket and giving me cab fare for when we dock.”

“What a story! I really feel sorry for you,” I said. “What can I do to help,” I blurted out reflexively.

Joe paused a moment, then looked up. “Well, there is one thing I didn’t think of. I will get my company to arrange returning to New York but they don’t open until tomorrow, this is Sunday of course. Since you were kind enough to mention it, I could use a place to crash tonight….” He looked down, seemingly embarrassed to have asked. I rolled my eyes up, angry at myself in having trapped myself.

“Sure you can come to my place but, well, I’m alone on this ferry for sort of the same reason you are, not sure how my place is going to receive me, let alone another person. But, here,” I said as I reached for my wallet, “let me see, let me give you, well I have a bunch of cash, let me lend you say $300 for a real hotel room; and here’s my business card. Just get yourself comfortable and send me the money when you get squared away in New York.”
Joe hesitated a moment, looked up and smiled abashedly.

“That’s really kind of you,” he said softly. “I do so appreciate it,” as he carefully counted the bills, folded them once over and tucked them into his pocket.

“And let me buy you a drink if I may,” I blurted in relief. So we passed the remaining half-hour of our trip drinking G and Ts at the ferry bar, and then we shook hands as he went off to find a bathroom to “clean up.”

I paid the tab and began looking for Joe while I joined the slow, crowded shuffle down the stairs to the main deck and the gangway. A youngish well-dressed guy all in crisp khaki tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hope you were able to calm old Joe down,” he said with a small smile.

“Why yes, I actually think that I did, as a matter of fact.”

“Good for you; that Joe, he’s always been so emotional.”

“Well he was crying when I first, uh—so you know Joe, do you?”

“Sure, known him in New York and then down in Ptown, for years. Good guy. He got a raw deal I hear; I didn’t have much luck stopping his crying but at least I was able to lend him $500 to get him back to New York.”

I stopped so short that the man behind me ran his roller suit case right into the back of my leg, making my bad achilles tingle. I turned around to apologize, he claimed it was his fault, I insisted it was mine, and by the time we were finished taking blame and I had again gathered up my gear I had fallen back in line and could not see the khaki Samaritan in the crush of people on the gangway.

I disembarked and stopped at the end of the ramp to rub my leg and look for Joe, but I did not see him; likely he was in the first wave off the boat.

I took the T back to the condo, and found Lois sitting on the small balcony with a chai latte and the Sunday Times Crossword, which she always annoyingly seemed to be able to finish in ink.

“Hello,” I said.

“F you and the horse you rode in on,” she replied without looking up.

I pulled the other chair up next to her and, ignoring her comment, said “I want to tell you a story….”

(May 2017)