Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

Sam looks hurt. He has said the wrong thing.

“It’s nice-looking stuff, anyway.”

Sam looks less hurt “I’ll get it tomorrow,” he says. “It’s going to be here when you come home.”

Big thrill. Tables will await him. He could, of course, have that little party, and there would be tables to put the hors d’oeuvres on. He and Sam could make the hors d’oeuvres he had at his boss’s house three years ago: crackers with a slice of hard-boiled egg on them, topped with caviar. What a swell time they could all have. They could invite the man who comes around to inspect the meter in the cellar — a very nice man named Ray Roy. When Charles isn’t home, he leaves a little piece of paper saying, “Be by end of week. Ray Roy.”

Pete takes pride in the fact that no one has been admitted to read the meter since he came to the house. “Why let them down in my cellar? What for?” It would give Pete and Ray Roy something to talk about, as they nibbled hors d’oeuvres.

“What are you smoldering about?” Sam asks.

“I’m just in a lousy mood. I’m tired.”

“Do a lot of work today?”

“No. I haven’t had a lot of work to do for months, for some reason. I asked Betty for her telephone number today, though.”

“Going to take her out?”

“I told her I was going to have her over to a party.”

“When are you having a party?”

“When I make some friends.”

“Oh,” Sam says. “I don’t get it.”

“I didn’t want to ask her for a date on the spot, but I’d asked her for her number, and I had to say something.”

“Yeah. I was always giving my dog orders or calling her when I didn’t need her. I was always retracting my statements to the dog. She got to know what ‘never mind’ meant.”

“Why don’t you get yourself another dog? Bring it to my place. I wouldn’t mind have a dog around.”

“It depresses me that I have time to train it, that I could actually just sit around all day teaching it stuff.”

“Why should that depress you? Get the dog and teach it stuff.”

“Nah. There’s too much stuff to teach them. It’s too much effort.”

“Get one already trained.”

“I like puppies.”

“Sure is snowing like hell,” Charles says. “Maybe this will get me out of dinner tomorrow.”

“It’s tomorrow, huh?”

“You’re lucky your parents only expect you to show up on Christmas.”

“I go over there more than that.”

“Yeah, but they only expect you on Christmas.”

“That’s true.”

“And at least you don’t have to fish them out of the tub and watch them medicate themselves the whole time you’re there.”

“On Christmas I got to sit at a card table my father had put up in the living room that he was working a puzzle on top of. I had to pretend to be interested in fitting a pizza puzzle together.”

“That’s not as bad as having to fish somebody out of the bathtub.”

“Why won’t she stand up?”

“She sits there perspiring until she collapses. I think she soaks the strength out of her. Really. And then we have to pull her out. That causes bruises, and that gives her something else to complain about”

“She’s really nuts,” Sam says.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I will think about getting a dog,” Sam says. “You have any preference?”

“No. Just some mutt from the pound.”

“What if I find another job, though? Then I’d have to leave it, and it wouldn’t be trained.”

“I told you. Get a dog that’s been trained.”

“I’d miss not having a puppy.”

“Then get a puppy and just figure on not looking for a job.”

“I feel bad, just sitting around.”

“You can go get the groceries.”

“I feel like a goddamn wife.”

“If you feel like a wife, forget the groceries. I can’t see how you’d mind working with a dog, though.”

“I’m just being silly. I’m going to get groceries tomorrow.”

“I never had anything you cooked.”

“Sure you did. I used to make banana bread.”

“Is that what you plan on making for dinner?”

“I might make that and something to go with it.”

“Go ahead. I can eat anything.”

Another mistake. Sam doesn’t look enthusiastic any more. He pulls into the parking lot next to the restaurant.

They walk into the restaurant and get a booth in the room next to the raw bar. One of the old men who works behind the raw bar has the underside of his thumb missing, a deep, perfectly shaped oval, from opening clams when he was drunk. Charles thinks about the thumb, even though he doesn’t have to see it. Sam and Charles sit down in a booth. The person at the table next to the booth nods to Charles, and Charles nods back. Who is it? He’d ask Sam if he looks familiar, but Sam already has the menu in front of his face. Sam always orders the same thing: crab imperial. He also always looks at the menu. Charles picks up his menu. There is what appears to be a dancing cookie on the plastic cover: a circle with dancing feet and arms akimbo, pulling a fish out of the water. The water is represented by a wavy line. There are no other fish in the water; only the one the dancing cookie pulls out. The fish who has been pulled out is smiling. Inside, all the prices have been crossed out or inked over — fives changed into eights with strangely shaped tops — and there is a little piece of paper stapled to the top left, saying that there is a ten percent increase on all marked prices. Still, it’s a good place for the money. The crab imperial is only four-fifty, and the shrimp are four dollars even. Beer is still fifty cents a bottle. The waitress comes to the table. She looks very much like the only other waitress in the restaurant, except that the other one has bright red hair. This one has bright blond hair, a black uniform, and hands ragged with varicose veins.

“I’ll have the crab imperial and a Miller’s,” Sam says.

“The crabcakes,” Charles says.

“What to drink?” she says.

“A Bass Ale,” Charles says.

She walks away, leaving the menus. Charles studies the cover. At the bottom is written “art by Al M., 1973.” He puts the menu on top of Sam’s, looks around the restaurant. The hippie at the next table catches his eye again, and smiles.

“The waiter from The Sinking Ship,” the hippie says.

“Oh, sure. I knew your face was familiar.”

The hippie’s plate is empty, and there are several empty beer mugs on the table.

“Good food here,” the hippie says.

“Yeah. We come here quite often,” Charles says. “This is my friend, Sam. My name is Charles, by the way.”

“Oh, hi,” the hippie says, lifting his hand to Sam. “I think I’ve seen you around.” He spins an empty beer mug.

“Just don’t eat the food there,” the hippie says to Charles.

“Why?” Charles says.

“I was making a club sandwich one night and cut my finger, and I was so fed up with the whole thing that I just turned the piece of bread over and served the thing anyway.” He takes a long drink from his half-empty mug.

“My name’s J.D. I don’t guess you’d have any reason to remember that,” he says. “They make us sign the checks. They tell us to use an exclamation point, too, after the ‘Thank You.’ ”

“Been there long?” Sam says.

“I was there for a year part-time at night when I was in school. But after I dropped out I started working ten hours a day, six days a week. It’s a drag. Today’s my day off.”

“That’s rough,” Charles says.

“It’s rough, and I don’t have anything to show for it. Last night somebody slashed my tires. I get out after eleven hours — my replacement didn’t show — and there were the cut tires.”