Jack O'Connell - Box Nine

Eva has her hand plastered over her mouth, but as air comes into her lungs and seconds go by, she begins to smile and shake her head.

Ephraim rushes into the kitchen, finds them in the aisle, and just stares, eyes bulging a bit and lips pulled in.

Ike lets out a long, heavy breath, slowly reshelves the crime book, nods to both of them, and says, “I’m sorry, sorry, really. God. I didn’t hear Eva come in and when I looked through to the next aisle, I don’t know, I just …” He shrugs the rest of his explanation.

“I’m sorry I startled you, Ike,” Eva says. “Your message said to come over here and the door was open and no one was at the front desk out there so I …” and she repeats his shrug.

Ephraim, seeming a little offended that the tranquillity of his shop has been even temporarily broken, frowns at both of them. “This is a friend of yours, Ike?” he asks.

“I’m sorry,” Ike says again, and before he can make any introductions, Eva grabs Ephraim’s hand and pumps it and says, “Eva Barnes, very nice to meet you. I work with Ike. Very nice place you have here. I’ve always intended to come in.”

Ephraim stares at Ike and says, “Very nice to meet you, Ms. Barnes.”

There’s a beat of edgy silence between the three of them until Ephraim says, “If you two will excuse me, I’ve got some things to tend to at my desk,” and leaves.

They both watch him walk back to the living room, then they look at each other and Eva says, “Are you all right, Ike? I’m sorry, again, I didn’t mean to startle you like that …”

“I’m sorry I yelled,” Ike says. “It’s just when I looked through and saw your face on the other side of the stacks, I just …” and again he shrugs.

“I got home and heard your message on my answering machine,” Eva says. “I came right down here.”

“Yeah, I appreciate that. That’s really nice of you …”

“It’s not a problem, but what is it you needed to speak to me about? And why here?”

At the opposite end of the kitchen are two old rocking chairs, overstuffed and low to the ground, the backs covered with Ephraim’s grandmother’s handmade quilts. Ike leads Eva, by the hand, to the two rockers, settles down into one, and indicates with a hand gesture that she should do the same.

Eva sits and sinks deep into the chair, finds it, surprisingly, just as comfortable as it had looked.

“I come down here,” Ike says, “when things are bothering me. I come down here to hang out. Think, read. Drink a little with Ephraim. It’s just a great place to be, you know? Some people go to bars, right?”

“So I’m told,” Eva says.

“My sister has this weird old diner she hangs out at, you know? She’s never offered to take me there and I’ve never asked to go. It’s her place. Place to think. I just think everyone should have some certain place, some designated area.”

“It would be nice.”

“You have any place like mat, Eva?”

“Nothing that comes to mind right away. Why did you ask me to come down here, Ike?”

“I’m really sorry to bother you like this. I really shouldn’t have called, I guess. Those machines. Those answering machines. I think you hear this machine and you think, okay, it’s like this middleman between you and the person you’re calling and you can say things that …”

“What am I doing here, Ike?”

“I’m really sorry about this, Eva. I think it was that fish today, seeing that fish, and nobody claiming box nine. I’m feeling a little over the edge, if you know what I mean.”

Eva comes forward in the rocker, leans the top part of her body over her lap, holds her chin up with clasped hands, and stares at Ike.

“This will sound, you know, not only dumb,” he says, “but, I guess, sort of childish.”

She stares.

“I was wondering if you could tell me, talk to me, tell me why the others hate me so much?”

“The others?”

“The other carriers, the others at the station.”

“Rourke?”

“Rourke, Wilson, Bromberg, even Jacobi. I swear I never did a thing to them. I’ve always tried to be friendly, even help out, you know. I’m union, I pay the dues. I don’t shirk the bad routes. I’m not some loud, insulting guy.”

“They hate me too, Ike.”

“Yeah,” he says sheepishly, “but, forgive me and all, but you’re the supervisor, okay? You’re the authority. You’re the boss. There’s a whole tradition there. This is what I mean. If I were in your position, which, by the way, I wouldn’t want, not in a million years, but if I were in your position, I’d be able to understand it. I probably wouldn’t even give it a lot of thought. It’d be — bang, okay, I’m the boss and they hate the boss. But I’m not the boss, I’m just another carrier, and it’s starting to drive me nuts. Why?”

“I think you’re looking at this the wrong way, Ike.”

“I think what I want is, like, what’s the word? An overview. Am I using the right word? I want an overview of my personality. I mean, let me come out and say it, I think you’re one of the most intelligent people I know”—Ike smiles—“and don’t let Ephraim hear me say this, right? I’m asking for some help. I’m asking you to identify the problems for me.”

“The problems?”

“With the way I act or speak or move. Or whatever. That’s got to be the first step in changing things.”

Eva sits back in the rocker and it makes a loud creaking noise.

“I was very pleased when I heard your message, Ike. I took it as a sign, as a good omen, a signal that I wasn’t alone. On my way home from the station I had been thinking about calling you.”

“Calling me?”

“Is there any other reason you asked me here today, Ike? Let’s face it, we’re both in that pretty awful position of not knowing how many cards to play.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“My guess would be that we’re both operating completely on instinct at this point. We both have information that we’re anxious to share, we’re dying to share, but we don’t know who to trust.”

“Information about what?”

“We’re dying to trust someone, and I think that we’ve both got a hunch that at some point, if this thing continues, there’ll come that moment, that leap, that cutting of all nets, when we have to trust someone, it’s an imperative, there’s no alternative.”

“What thing?”

“All right, take this moment, right now. My brain has a few avenues it can go down. A: everything is as it seems and you know nothing and you called me to discuss some inferiority problem. B: you’re so scared and confused and justifiably paranoid about what you do, in fact, know, that you’re hesitating over sharing your information with me until you can confirm that I’m on your side or, at the very least, unaware and innocent and not on their side. And then there’s C, which, if it’s the true avenue, I’ve made the big mistake right here in the beginning and the whole thing is over. C Avenue says you, Ike Thomas, are in on it, are part of their group, and you’ve been positioned as an apparent outsider to see how much I know, if anything.”

Ike squints at her and says, “I don’t get it. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything, does it?”

“I guess I’ve made a mistake here …”

“You ever been to the Bach Room, Ike?”

He starts to breathe heavily again. He wants to call Ephraim. He says, “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“What’s the story on the back room at the Bach Room, Ike?”

“I think maybe you’d better go, Ms. Barnes …”

“Ms. Barnes,” Eva says, her voice going high and loud. “Oh, please, can we at least address each other properly. Ms. Barnes?”