Michael Rizza - Cartilage and Skin

“A minute and fourteen seconds left.” He drank his beer with complete repose, as if he couldn’t be any more composed and in control.

I glared at him, hoping to convey something with my eyes — but my conscious expressions, no matter how intense, always came across a bit blurry and ineffectual.

“All right, my friend,” he said at last, standing up. “I’ll be right back. Don’t vanish on me yet.”

When Stephen stepped past me, I noticed that not only was his head round but also that the area from his midriff to his thighs ballooned as though he were a woman, like a pear or a bag of milk. Somehow, the shape of his body seemed to eradicate any claim he had to manliness. All his supposed knowledge of women, all his boyish charm, faded with the loose jiggling of his ass. I doubted the bearded boy had as much confidence with women as he’d led me to believe, even though I’d heard many times that it is precisely this assuredness, and not so much a man’s physical appeal, that mostly attracts women. It makes them respect him and feel secure and protected in his strength. This theory, of course, lacked relevance to me.

While I waited to get my bill, I was curious why Stephen didn’t want me to leave. Perhaps he wanted to come back from his sordid outside adventure and tell me what had transpired. He wanted to relish the details with his fellow man, so we could bask and gloat in the aura of our own testosterone.

I twisted in my chair, craning my body in an attempt to find the greasy, absurd creature who had accused me of insulting his mother. By now, I was hoping that I had truly degraded the woman, and I longed to repeat the offense — whatever it was — and maybe hurl a few more obscenities her way. At the very moment that I was contorted in my seat, with my body leaning into the aisle and my eyes full of frustrated savagery, I noticed the two blonde-haired girls smiling at me, as though I were a poodle performing a cute trick.

Rather than regain myself and say something funny and captivating, I recoiled as if they’d just spit at me. Then I casually began to inspect the waves and the rocks hanging on the wall, not only as if the girls were un-noteworthy and incidental but also as if my spastic response to their momentary attention hadn’t actually happened. I was tempted to glance at them; instead, I peered into my glass and swirled around the residue of beer.

“You need another?” The waiter was beside me.

“Just the tab, thanks.”

“And what about them?” He pointed to Stephen’s plate with a pen.

“He’ll be back.”

Although his sharp black eyes were fixed on me, he seemed vacant of any emotion, as though I were no longer the person who had offended his mother but rather a shoehorn or a doorknob. He discarded me again to fetch my bill.

V

Sitting there alone, I felt strangely captive. When I had originally stepped out of my cramped apartment, I had been anticipating my release; I had wanted to explore broader options. But now among the noise, the permeating cigarette smoke, and the diverse people, I sensed that the vast world — with all its petty dramas, its sincere flashes of emotion against a general backdrop of apathy, and its countless personal anguishes not only borne in silence but also veiled beneath the all-important cloak of code and custom — offered no freedom at all, but only drove the individual deeper into himself. I wanted to creep back to the tiny, stuffy refuge of my rented home.

Eventually, Stephen returned, and on his way to his seat, he drummed his fingers on the table of the blonde-haired girls and, in passing, said something to them, which I didn’t hear. When he sat down, he started telling me that the rain was coming down hard now outside and it was already as dark as night. Although I informed him that I’d requested my bill, he blathered on with several innocuous observations about bars on Sundays during football season. He occasionally glanced at the table across the aisle, as if he, too, weren’t interested in what he was saying to me. He then leaned forward and paused for a second, apparently ready to whisper something. Finally, I thought, he was going to tell me about Miriam and how his plan to close the deal had worked on her. Instead, he said, “Are you with me, my friend?”

Although I didn’t respond, he assumed I knew what he was talking about.

“Follow me.” He got up from his seat and, holding an empty glass, stood before the girls’ table. They both tilted their heads to look up at him, at his face. I imagined that with his female hips and broad ass, he would soon return to his chair, but once he started talking, the words flowed out of him, and the girls, first one and then the other, had fresh smiles on their faces.

Although I couldn’t make out all that he was saying, I heard him say my name, but no, it wasn’t actually my name. He was still calling me Walter, and now it seemed too late to correct him. One of the girls glanced at me. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, yet a few loose locks fell along the sides of her face. Whatever he was saying somehow motivated her to slide over into the next seat, making room for him to sit down. After a moment, he turned to me.

“Right, Walter?” he said. A barely perceptible message flashed in his eyes, but I wasn’t certain what his message was meant to convey.

I nodded my head, still without the nerve to “follow” him.

They continued to talk, and conscious not to stare at them like some geeky boy at a school dance who gawked at all his classmates having fun and romancing one another on the dance floor, I only peeked occasionally at the trio. The girl with the ponytail had a beautiful but serious face, which gave her a haughty, intolerant appearance that I found intimidating. The other girl, despite her beauty, seemed more approachable; even the way her hair curved softly around the sides of her face and rested gently on her shoulders suggested that she was warm and kind.

“Walter,” Stephen called across the aisle. “What are you doing?”

“What?” I asked, still trying to keep up my charade of casual indifference.

“Come tell us a story,” he said to me; then turning back to the girls, he added, “This guy has got some of the best stories I’ve ever heard.”

The girl in the ponytail looked at me, as if daring me to move. “Come on, Walter,” she said. Her eyes were the color of emeralds, bloodshot, and glazed with drunkenness.

I got up and sat across from her at the table. Like Stephen, I’d carried my empty glass with me, realizing that there was a certain comfort in having my hands occupied.

Stephen introduced the girls. In response, the girl with the ponytail briefly nibbled her bottom lip, slowly blinked her emerald eyes, and nodded; her name was Ann. The other, softer girl turned in her chair to shake my hand. Her hand was warm, but for some reason, it was also wet. She was called Bruni because her actual Russian name was long, unpronounceable, and filled with y’s and v’s.

Although she was drinking a martini and smoking a thin menthol cigarette, she wasn’t so much sexy as hopelessly cute.

As the three of them talked, I fell silent.

The waiter returned with my bill and set it on the vacant table where I’d left my things. Despite our empty glasses, he walked away without saying a word to us or even seizing the opportunity to take Stephen’s plate.

“Fucking bastard,” Stephen said, when he noticed that the waiter had ignored us

Ann laughed and looked around, curious about what had provoked Stephen.

“Excuse my language, ladies.” He placed his hand on his chest like an old, stuffy, white-wigged gentleman. “But I was raised by a French whore.”

“Hey!” Ann slapped his arm, laughing. “My mother’s a French whore!”