Matt Cowper - The Clerk

He paused to give Grant a chance to speak, but Grant said nothing.

“You need to investigate what Kara’s telling you, instead of just blindly believing her because she’s letting you fuck her. She’s a cunt, Grant. She was when I was involved with her, but she’s reached a new level, I guess. Do yourself a favor and get rid of her.”

Again he waited for Grant to say something, and again silence was the response. Thomas turned to Vernon, who looked very pleased with his employee. Thomas could only imagine how he’d describe the fight later: “Thomas hit him with a thunderbolt straight from the heavens! That’s what I thought it was at first, I thought lightning had struck the store, because it was stormin’ at the time. It would’ve felled any normal person, but that guy musta had a chin made of titanium, because he didn’t fall. And then Thomas gave him what for — verbally, I mean, no use punching him again, after he’d already proven how goddamn strong he was — and the guy just stood there quivering!” Thomas couldn’t help but smile, despite the anger and adrenaline flowing through him.

“I’ll be in dairy,” Thomas said.

Vernon grinned and drummed his fingers on his potbelly, as if he were playing a tune to celebrate Thomas’s heroism.

Something “incredible” had happened, according to his mother’s excited voicemail. Dan and Emily had had a “strange meeting,” and Thomas needed to get up with the family once he got off work, and why didn’t he carry his phone with him at all times like everyone else?

So here Thomas was, plodding into the Hampton Inn where Dan was staying. He ignored the greeting from the sprightly girl at the front desk and entered the stairwell. Dan’s room was on the second floor, but Thomas didn’t feel like waiting for the elevator, and he didn’t want to be enclosed in that ponderous box with people who might be inclined to talk to him.

He climbed the stairs slowly, his footsteps echoing off the bland concrete. A hotel stairwell is its own little world. It lacks the cheap sophistication of the hotel’s lobby, rooms, and hallways; since few people use the stairs, there’s no point in adorning it with wallpaper, generic pictures, or convoluted light fixtures. It’s just concrete and metal doors and lights enclosed in white plastic. This simplicity was like a cooling salve to Thomas’s fagged mind. He wished he could climb up and down these stairs for several minutes, just him and his reverberating footsteps, but when he reached the second floor, he stepped into the long, empty hallway and headed towards Dan’s room. His family was waiting for him.

Thomas knocked twice on the door to room 215, and instantly there were the sounds of shuffling people on the other side.

“Who is it?” his mother asked through the wood, likely peering out at him through the peephole.

“Open the door!” his father commanded. “You know it’s him! Who else would be knocking on the door?”

“I’m just making sure, Frank. No need to holler.”

The door finally opened, and his mother ushered him inside. The hotel room looked like any hotel room: wine-colored carpet, air conditioning unit by the window, large fluffy bed with a headboard jutting halfway up the wall, executive-style office chair. The room’s only distinctions were the coastal prints on the walls — seagulls flying over a whitecapping sea, charter boats docked peacefully — which informed the guest(s) that they were near the ocean.

Dan was lounging in the office chair, his socked feet propped up on the edge of the bed, his shirt halfway unbuttoned. He had a beer in hand, and judging from his sudsy grin, several others had been drunk before this one. Thomas’s father was standing with his arms crossed, staring down at his son-in-law.

“Well, here he is,” Jean said. “Now he gets to hear the story, too.”

“Yes, Thomas, hello,” Dan said happily. “Pull up a chair. Or stand, if you want, like your father. He’s been standing for hours, wearing out those old knees.”

“My knees are fine,” Frank Copeland stated haughtily — as he shifted his weight to give his right knee a break.

“Whatever suits you, Frank,” Dan said blissfully.

“What’s going on?” Thomas asked, though he knew the answer would probably be hours in the telling. He wished he was hanging out with Reggie and talking about his one-punch showdown with Grant. Reggie would love the story, though he would probably chastise Thomas for stopping at one blow instead of mauling the cocky little twerp, and he would probably want Thomas to track down Kara and slap some sense into her.

But Thomas would tell no tales of his own tonight. He would have to be content with the in-depth analysis he and Vernon had had of the “brawl.” Vernon insisted that Thomas was 100%, maybe 110%, in the right, and that if “that lousy sack of rotten white potatoes” ever came into Oxendine’s Grocery again, well — just let him come, he’d see! Eldridge had also grunted his approval, though he said Thomas had a “feather-soft punch” since he hadn’t dropped Grant.

It was now Thomas’s job to listen, so he tried to forget about Kara and her jello-y boyfriend and instead focus on the Copeland/Dowling Family Drama.

“The saga is over, Thomas,” Dan said, raising his beer bottle in a one-man toast. “Emily and I have reconciled, and everyone is happy.”

“Everyone is not happy,” Frank growled. “You’re being too cavalier about this. This is the opposite of reconciliation. This is the fracturing of a family.”

“So what?” Dan said. His answer caused his father-in-law to bristle, and even Thomas was taken aback. He’d noticed Dan was different last night, but he didn’t know he’d completely transformed. Then again, it could be just the beer…

“So what?” Frank repeated. “That’s what you have to say? You’ve been acting this way all afternoon, and I’ve had it…”

“Then leave,” Dan said.

“I… what?”

“If my behavior bothers you, then leave. I didn’t want you to come down here anyway, but you just had to shove your way into my and Emily’s business. Now you’re mad because things haven’t turned out the way you wanted. Frank, you need to understand that the world’s population isn’t waiting for you to put the Frank Copeland Seal of Approval on their actions.”

“Oh, let’s not be unpleasant,” Jean pleaded, but it was like a songbird chirping during an aerial bombardment.

“Let me tell you right now: I’ll leave when I’m good and ready,” Frank said, jabbing his finger at his son-in-law’s tainted heart. “And you — you need to start acting like a mature adult, not some flaky kid who can do whatever he wants…”

“What? Did I hear right?” Dan looked at Thomas and Jean, feigning confusion. “ I’m a flaky kid? Your daughter ran off with an old boyfriend, went incommunicado for days, and then finally shows up, only to tell me she doesn’t want a ‘normal’ divorce, that I can keep everything — basically — and that she and this Casanova of hers are going to Barbados! If that’s not flaky, I don’t know what is.” He took a sip of beer. “Not that I care anymore, of course.”

“Yes, well…” Frank said, grasping at a point that refused formulate itself.

“Barbados?” Thomas said, astonished. “Is that what you said?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Thomas,” Dan said. “You came in here — what’s the term? — in medias res . Yes, I did retain something from those literature courses I took.”

He swallowed the last of his beer, tossed the empty bottle towards the trashcan, missed, didn’t seem to care, and then leaned forward to open the microfridge and retrieve a new, cold bottle. Jean made noises about being careful and not wetting the carpet, picked up the empty bottle daintily, as if her son-in-law’s “alcoholism” was contagious, and placed it gently in the trash.