The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (15 page)

manning up

A
rapping, brisk and staccato, upsets the darkness.
Th
e clock reads 4:37—I'm guessing p.m., though I could be wrong. I'm clutching a warm beer, a little less than half empty.
Th
ere's spittle on my chin. Outside the door, voices confer.
Th
ey've come for me. It's time to man up. To meet my punishment standing tall. Or just beg for mercy. I take a long pull of warm beer just as another sequence of knocks rattles the hinges, these duller and wetter, as though delivered with a canned ham.

“Pinche guero pendejo,”
says a voice.

“Let me handles this,” says another.

“Somebody handle it,” wheezes a third voice.

I can hear the faint humming of an air compressor, which I soon deduce to be the purring of a certain morbidly obese feline.

“We know you're in there!” says Chuck.

“Fucking
puto.
”

“You git now, Agnes. Go on. It's not safe here.”

A fourth voice joins the fray. “What's the problem? Is something wrong?”

“Who are you?” says Chuck.

“I'm here for Ben.”

“Take a number,” wheezes Madge. “What'd he do to
you
?”

“He's my friend,” says Forest.

“He's a
stupido,
” says Emilio. “He hit my truck with his
pinche
Subaru.”

Now Forest thumps on the door, wiggles the doorknob. “Yo, Benji, open up!”

When I open the door a swath of dusty light illuminates the darkness, and they all file in like tomb raiders as I shield my eyes from the daylight. Forest raises the blinds without further ceremony.

“What a dump,” says Madge, ashing her menthol on the carpet.
Th
e cat has followed her in and is currently milling around the coffee table.

Squinting, I note that at long last the compartment looks lived in. I backpedal to the sofa and resume my seat.
Th
ey form a phalanx about me. Emilio's got a black eye.
Th
e brim of his dirty Dodgers cap is pulled down even lower than usual. Chuck is wearing blue fuzzy slippers and his Ravens jersey. As usual, he smells strongly of weed. Forest keeps sniffing the air around him. Forest is still in his work clothes. I'm guessing it was casual Friday, because his white dress shirt is tucked into jeans, and he's wearing running shoes.

“Why haven't you been returning my calls?” he demands. “It's dart night.”

“I've been busy,” I say.

“Look, we need to talk,” says Chuck, stepping to the forefront. “To begin with, I can't have high-speed chases going on in the middle of—”

“What about my truck?” Emilio interjects.

Madge puffs her menthol, then shakes it at me. “What about my Agnes?” she turns to Forest. “
Th
e sonofabitch is still trying to poison my cat.”

Emilio thumps his chest. “My truck is my work, you understand? My business!”

“Whoa, whoa,” says Forest. “Everybody hold up. What's going on here?”

“He hit my truck!”

Forest appeals to me with a questioning look.

“Just barely,” I say.

He frowns.

Madge jabs the air in front of her with her menthol pointer. “He's been feeding chocolate to my cat!”

Forest looks to me again.

“It's not true!” I say.

“He's lying!” she says.

“I'm not!”

“Well, what about
that
?” she says, pointing at the coffee table, where Agnes is still nosing around.

“What?”

“
Th
at!”

Th
e coffee table is strewn with beer bottles and gutted potato chip bags. “You want some chips, Madge?”

“No,
that
!”

Th
en I see it: partially obscured by the surrounding chaos, its foil wrapper peeled back in preparation, my gigantic Mr. Goodbar.

Forest shakes his head disappointedly.

“
Th
at's for
me
!” I say.

But nobody believes me. A pall settles over the room. Cat poisoner.

“I didn't do it!” I plead. “I swear to God!”

“Like you didn't do my truck, eh,
pendejo
?”

“Look, I'm warning you,” says Chuck. “
Th
e next complaint I get—whether it's from Madge, or Emilio, or Darlene in 316—”

“What'd I do to her?”

“I'm just saying.
Th
e next complaint I get, I'm gonna have to shut you down, Benjamin.”

“You pay for my truck!” says Emilio, thumping his chest again. “Or I be your next complaint.”

“And I want your guarantee,” says Chuck, “that I won't have anymore bounty hunters running around my parking lot.”

“He's a courier!”

“Whatever you want to call him, I don't want anybody running around here.”

“No running.”

“And no more reckless driving.”

“Got it. Are we done here?”

“No,” says Forest. “I think you owe Madge an apology.”

Chuck and Emilio nod in agreement. Madge gathers her bathrobe in front and straightens her posture.

“But . . .”

Forest shakes his head woefully and crosses his arms.

I have but one choice: swim with the current. “I'm sorry, Madge,” I announce. “It was an accident. I didn't know that chocolate was . . . you know, not good for cats or whatever. I should've told you.”

Madge undresses me with her eyes through a blue cloud of menthol smoke. I can't help but wonder if she was happy once. Or even young. She straightens her hair, and raises her chin up and sucks her cheeks in haughtily.

“Apology accepted,” she says.

“SO WAIT,” FOREST
says, a half hour later at the Grill, where I'm abstaining in spite of happy hour. “You were lying that you
didn't
poison the cat? Or lying that you
did
poison the cat? Or lying that it was an accident?”

“Forest, I've never touched her cat. Or siphoned her electricity or ashed in her gladiolus or pissed in her agapanthus, or anything else. She's crazy.”

“And what's all this about bounty hunters?”

“Nothing. Collections. An old phone bill.”

“You need a loan?”

“No.”

“You're sure?”

“Positive.”

Forest sips his beer and looks around the bar, nodding to someone in back. “So, how's work?” he says.

“Good.”

“
Th
at's good.”

I'm not sure why I always lie to Forest, whether I don't wish to burden him with my never-ending difficulties or because I'm afraid of disappointing him. After a long moment of uneasy silence, it's clear to me that something is weighing on Forest.

“I fucked up, Benji,” he says, at last. “I fucked up bad.”

“What do you mean?”

He bows his head a little and stares down at the tabletop and shakes his head slowly.

“What is it?”

He lifts his head and looks me steadily in the eye, and I see that his eyes are moist.

“I cheated on Melissa,” he says.

I'm breathless. “What are you saying?”

“I'm saying I fucked up big-time, Benji. And I hate myself for it. God, I hate myself.” He slumps at the shoulders and looks back down at the table top, where he spins his glass slowly counterclockwise.

“With who?”

“Gina at work. Big Gina.”

“You had sex with her at work?”

“We didn't have sex. I just kissed her.”

“Just once?”

“Yeah. But it's the principle, Ben. Kissing her, sleeping with her, having a crush on her, talking to her about Melissa—it's all the same.”

“Have you told Melissa?”

“No.”

“Are you gonna tell her?”

“I have to.”

“You don't, Forest. Really, listen to me, you don't.”

“I do. I owe it to her.”

“You do fucking not!” I say, loud enough to arouse the attention of the adjacent table.

Forest is confused by my tone.

“You'll only make things worse,” I explain. “Trust me. You're not going to do it again, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“
Th
en let it lie, Forest. Anything you tell her about what happened, you're telling her for your own sake. Because you're not doing her any favors. You're not doing anyone any favors.
Th
is I fucking know.”

“She deserves to know, Ben.”

“
Th
at what?
Th
at you're full of remorse?”

“
Th
at I broke our trust.”

“Don't be stupid.”

“How is that stupid?”

“Suppose I hadn't told Janet the truth: that I wasn't really sure what happened, whether I left the car in neutral or whether it popped out of gear. Suppose I had just kept my mouth fucking shut on that count?”

I've managed to arouse the discomfort of the party next to us again. I subdue myself momentarily, avoiding eye contact, scratching at the cardboard surface of Forest's castoff coaster.

“Suppose this,” I resume calmly. “Suppose I just told Janet the car popped out of gear, that it was a freak accident? How did my telling her I wasn't sure change anything for the better?”

Forest doesn't have a ready answer. He just keeps spinning his glass counterclockwise as though he wishes it were a clock.

“Do you suppose it was comforting for Janet to know that it might have been my fault, Forest, that I might have caused it?
Th
at by trusting me with her children, she caused it? Did it help her to push away the one fucking person in the world who could ever possibly understand her loss?”

Sad-eyed, Forest looks up from his imaginary clock. “I'm sorry, Ben. I mean, that everything worked out the way it did. But this is different.
Th
at was an accident.”

“Of course it was. And Big Gina was an accident.”

“Big Gina was a mistake.”

“And you paid for it. You're paying right now. You're living with it. Why make Melissa live with it?”

Forest stops spinning his glass long enough to take a pull off it and shake his head in disappointment.