Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

“Yes.” We both stop rocking.

“Where?”

“Hunter College.” Another lie.

She nods, once. “That’s great.” Maggie nods, too. “My mom went there, back when it was free.”

“It was a teacher’s college.”

“Yep.” The three of us take it in.

Marco gestures at my plate with his fork. “How is it, man?”

I look down at my half-eaten steak and wonder how I’ll finish it. I cannot. Maggie pushes rice around her plate. Diana picks at her vegetable concoction. Her jaws move slowly and evenly. I cut another piece and wonder if I should bother chewing it before dropping it into the pit.

“I inhaled mine.”

“Was it good?”

“Great.”

He’s buzzed. There’s more red in his face than usual, along with a hint of moisture. I never figured him for a lightweight. He excuses himself. Maggie looks at me as though she’s a child, waiting for a bedtime story. I would like to tell her one — tell her something — but I have nothing to say. I look at my plate; the blood from the endless meat has contaminated my potatoes. I cut a big slab and swallow it. It lands heavily, making me wince. I look at the girls. They’ve pushed their plates away. Maggie still wants her story. Diana wants one, too.

“What kind of law are you interested in?”

Maggie starts to answer but stops and gives way to Diana.

“Corporate. IP and such.” Maggie nods in agreement. And I must give something away with my face or body, an eye roll or slight sag, because she holds up a hand as though to hold off my judgment.

“I’m not going to lie. I want to make money,” she nudges Maggie. They both grin. Then she grows serious. “I owe my parents that.” She tries to find agreement in my eyes — as though I would understand. Whatever she sees allows her to continue. “And I don’t want to have to worry about money. I want to be able to travel, and when I have kids, be able to take them places, as well — give them things, not spoil them. I mean I’ll want my kids to have jobs, but I also want to give them every advantage.”

Diana can’t possibly know how many times in the last twelve years, I’ve heard this speech — how much I continue to hear it from those who believed themselves to be entitled but haven’t achieved it yet. They don’t want much. . only what they want — some minimum of comfort and privilege. But there’s something about her that makes me listen, more than her beauty. She seems to believe what she’s saying.

“How much personal wealth does someone need?”

I shrug.

“Both of my parents were teachers. Don’t get me wrong. They did wonderful work. They touched a lot of people, but how many CEOs did they meet?” She points at Marco’s empty seat repeatedly, like the gesture’s a stutter, until she finds the words. “Do you know who he’s had lunch with this summer?” She almost stands. Thankfully, she doesn’t. Militancy doesn’t become her. I think she knows that. She regroups but doesn’t recant the “he,” as though Marco was a “he” to me, as well.

“I get it from two sides — race and gender.” She stops, seems to search for something inside and begins again. I look at the blue wall again and think of whales, great fish, sea beasts, and what a swallowed man would find in their bellies: whole civilizations, perhaps wicked, perhaps good, but full of people who have long forgotten they were once in flight at sea.

“As an African American woman, I think I’m charged to do something.” She presses those palms into the linen again. “I just think I’ll do more in a board room than in a classroom.” She says it and regrets it instantly. I see her ashamed for the first time. She doesn’t wear it well, either.

“Oh, my god, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She presses her hands harder and tries a pained look, like she’s looking at a dead puppy. It’s better, but still not good. I rub the table, too. “It’s okay. I know what you mean.”

Marco returns and stands over the table.

“What should we do?” he asks. And it comes to me, the rest of the evening — more drinks, more clichés, more strange-faced performances. He looks around the table. It seems as though between the bathroom and the table he’s lost his authority and he’s nervous because of this. He finally, after shifting a few times, sits. He extends his arm along the seatback; his hand rests dangerously close to Maggie’s shoulder.

“What should we do?” he asks again, still nervous. He won’t look at anyone in particular. Maggie has dropped her head in resignation as though she knew this moment would come. I wonder if when she arrived on her first day she foresaw this or any of the other compromises she will have to make. It’s awful to see now, bonnie Maggie, her face fallen. Marco tries to look at her in secret, but we all see it. She feels it, tries to steel herself, not to resist him, but to resist the notion that there may be another way. There isn’t even lust, nothing between them, but she’s convinced of her obligation to this dance.

The waiter returns with a tray of small rocks glasses half filled with a clear but bright liquid. He sets one before each of us — Marco last.

“These are from us.”

Marco isn’t an ambidextrous drinker so he has to take his arm down to hold his glass. Maggie reshifts, straightens, thinks of moving close, thinks of moving away, searches blindly for Diana’s hand, doesn’t find it. She takes her glass as well, circles it with both hands. Diana follows suit. Marco raises his glass, as do they. I raise my water. I can’t let this continue, not sober, but I don’t want to drink — not for the girls, not for Marco or our “friendship,” not to grease the path, lube it for Marco’s entry to disaster.

“Cheers.” No one echoes him, but we all drink. He sips at the strange booze. Then nods his approval. He sets the glass down. Maggie tenses and awkwardly leans toward him, but he leaves his hand on the table.

“You don’t drink?” asks Diana.

I ignore her and turn to Marco. “So James fancies himself a goalkeeper this fall?”

He shakes his head to jump into the new context. “Goalie, yes.”

“James is?” asks Diana.

“My son.”

Maggie’s face is lightless. Perhaps the face she reserves for the morning after.

“Do you have kids?”

“Yes, I do, three.”

“Wow, that’s a lot.”

“I suppose.”

She sneaks a look at my untouched glass. “And you don’t drink.”

“Would you like mine?”

“Oh, no. I was. .”

“I’m a recovering alcoholic — sixteen years sober.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Not really.”

“You should be proud.”

“Proud of what?”

“What you’ve accomplished.”

“And that is?”

She exhales sharply to break the cadence. Maggie has drifted off, scanning the lower room for a way out. Marco wrings his hands. Diana leans in, lowers her voice, as if to tell me a secret. “We need people like you.” Then lower still, “Strong black men.” She straightens again, ready to share with the others, who are pretending not to listen — regardless, they don’t seem to care. She speaks to me as though she’s suddenly become my mentor. “Educator. Father. Role model. You should be proud.” She looks at my glass again, openly this time. “It takes a lot of willpower — what you’re doing.”

“Willpower really has nothing to do with it.”

She snorts — a violent little laugh. I snap up in my seat and bark back to match her tone.

“And I don’t see what my sobriety has to do with my melanin count — other than a predisposition to drink. What is it other than another manifestation of my genetics?” It throws her, brings Maggie back to us, and stops Marco’s wringing. I wonder what he’s heard when I speak. “And insofar as will, I find it harder to drink than not.”