T. Boyle - After the Plague

“Nothing to shout about,” Jason told him, over the faint hum of the oldies channel. He leaned back against the wall on his high stool and cracked the first beer of the day. “Little stuff, but a lot of it. I almost had that one dude sold on the Al Merrick board — I could taste it — but something scared him off. Maybe mommy took away his Visa card, I don’t know.”

Drake pulled contemplatively at his beer and looked out the window on the parade of tourists marching up and down State Street. He didn’t respond. It was that crucial hour of the day, the hour known as cocktail hour, two for one, the light stuck on the underside of the palms, everything soft and pretty and winding down toward dinner and evening, the whole night held out before them like a promise. “What time’s the Dodger game?” Drake said finally.

Jason looked at his watch. It was a reflex. The Dodgers were playing the Mets at five-thirty, Astacio against the Doc, and he knew the time and channel as well as he knew his A.T.M. number. The Angels were on Prime Ticket, seven-thirty, at home against the Orioles. And Paula — Paula was at home too, focussing (do not disturb, thank you very much) for the big one with the Amazing Bone Woman the next morning. “Five-thirty,” he said, after a long pause.

Drake said nothing. His beer was gone, and he shuffled behind the counter to the little reefer for another. When he’d cracked it, sipped, belched, scratched himself thoroughly, and commented on the physique of an overweight Mexican chick in a red bikini making her way up from the beach, he ventured an opinion on the topic under consideration: “Time to close up?”

All things being equal, Jason would have stayed open till six, or near six anyway, on a Saturday in August. The summer months accounted for the lion’s share of his business — it was like the Christmas season for everybody else — and he tried to maximize it, he really did, but he knew what Drake was saying. Twenty to five now, and they had to count the receipts, lock up, stop by the night deposit at the B. of A., and then settle in at Clubber’s for the game. It would be nice to be there, maybe with a tall tequila tonic and the sports section spread out on the bar, before the game got under way. Just to settle in and enjoy the fruits of their labor. He gave a sigh, for form’s sake, and said, “Yeah, why not?”

And then there was cocktail hour and he had a couple of tall tequila tonics before switching to beer, and the Dodgers looked good, real good, red hot, and somebody bought him a shot. Drake was carrying on about something — his girlfriend’s cat, the calluses on his mother’s feet — and Jason tuned him out, ordered two soft chicken tacos, and watched the sun do all sorts of amazing pink and salmon things to the storefronts across the street before the gray finally settled in. He was thinking he should have gone surfing today, thinking he’d maybe go out in the morning, and then he was thinking of Paula. He should wish her luck or something, give her a phone call at least. But the more he thought about it, the more he pictured her alone in her apartment, power-drinking her fluids, sunk into the shell of her focus like some Chinese Zen master, and the more he wanted to see her.

They hadn’t had sex in a week. She was always like that when it was coming down to the wire, and he didn’t blame her. Or yes, yes, he did blame her. And he resented it too. What was the big deal? It wasn’t like she was playing ball or anything that took any skill, and why lock him out for that? She was like his over-achieving, straight-arrow parents, Type A personalities, early risers, joggers, let’s go out and beat the world. God, that was anal. But she had some body on her, as firm and flawless as the Illustrated Man’s — or Woman’s, actually. He thought about that and about the way her face softened when they were in bed together, and he stood at the pay phone seeing her in the hazy soft-focus glow of some made-for-TV movie. Maybe he shouldn’t call. Maybe he should just … surprise her.

She answered the door in an oversized sweatshirt and shorts, barefooted, and with the half-full pitcher from the blender in her hand. She looked surprised, all right, but not pleasantly surprised. In fact, she scowled at him and set the pitcher down on the bookcase before pulling back the door and ushering him in. He didn’t even get the chance to tell her he loved her or to wish her luck before she started in on him. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “You know I can’t see you tonight, of all nights. What’s with you? Are you drunk? Is that it?”

What could he say? He stared at the brown gloop in the pitcher for half a beat and then gave her his best simmering droopy-eyed smile and a shrug that radiated down from his shoulders to his hips. “I just wanted to see you. To wish you luck, you know?” He stepped forward to kiss her, but she dodged away from him, snatching up the pitcher full of gloop like a shield. “A kiss for luck?” he said.

She hesitated. He could see something go in and out of her eyes, the flicker of a worry, competitive anxiety, butterflies, and then she smiled and pecked him a kiss on the lips that tasted of soy and honey and whatever else was in that concoction she drank. “Luck,” she said, “but no excitement.”

“And no sex,” he said, trying to make a joke of it. “I know.”

She laughed then, a high girlish tinkle of a laugh that broke the spell. “No sex,” she said. “But I was just going to watch a movie if you want to join me—”

He found one of the beers he’d left in the refrigerator for just such an emergency as this and settled in beside her on the couch to watch the movie — some inspirational crap about a demi-cripple who wins the hurdle event in the Swedish Special Olympics — but he was hot, he couldn’t help it, and his fingers kept wandering from her shoulder to her breast, from her waist to her inner thigh. At least she kissed him when she pushed him away. “Tomorrow,” she promised, but it was only a promise, and they both knew it. She’d been so devastated after the Houston thing she wouldn’t sleep with him for a week and a half, strung tight as a bow every time he touched her. The memory of it chewed at him, and he sipped his beer moodily. “Bullshit,” he said.

“Bullshit what?”

“Bullshit you’ll sleep with me tomorrow. Remember Houston? Remember Zinny Bauer?”

Her face changed suddenly and she flicked the remote angrily at the screen and the picture went blank. “I think you better go,” she said.

But he didn’t want to go. She was his girlfriend, wasn’t she? And what good did it do him if she kicked him out every time some chickenshit race came up? Didn’t he matter to her, didn’t he matter at all? “I don’t want to go,” he said.

She stood, put her hands on her hips, and glared at him. “I have to go to bed now.”

He didn’t budge. Didn’t move a muscle. “That’s what I mean,” he said, and his face was ugly, he couldn’t help it. “I want to go to bed too.”

Later, he felt bad about the whole thing. Worse than bad. He didn’t know how it happened exactly, but there was some resentment there, he guessed, and it just snuck up on him — plus he was drunk, if that was any excuse. Which it wasn’t. Anyway, he hadn’t meant to get physical, and by the time she’d stopped fighting him and he got her shorts down he hadn’t even really wanted to go through with it. This wasn’t making love, this wasn’t what he wanted. She just lay there beneath him like she was dead, like some sort of zombie, and it made him sick, so sick he couldn’t even begin to apologize or excuse himself. He felt her eyes on him as he was zipping up, hard eyes, accusatory eyes, eyes like claws, and he had to stagger into the bathroom and cover himself with the noise of both taps and the toilet to keep from breaking down. He’d gone too far. He knew it. He was ashamed of himself, deeply ashamed, and there really wasn’t anything left to say. He just slumped his shoulders and slouched out the door.