Jim Gavin - Middle Men - Stories

“Who are you?” she said.

Bobby turned around and was glad to see Ringo still there, with the engine running. He ran down the steps and got back in the car.

“I thought that was it,” Bobby said. He tried calling her with Ringo’s cell phone. She didn’t answer. They drove around some more, but Bobby had no idea where to go. BART had stopped running and so, without any other choice, he asked Ringo if he would mind driving him downtown, so he could catch the Transbay bus.

“I took it once a few years ago,” said Bobby. “It was full of freaks.”

Ringo puffed out his ruddy cheeks and tapped a beat on his steering wheel. Finally, he offered to let Bobby crash on his couch.

“You’re a soft touch, Ringo,” said Bobby. “That’s what Nora says whenever she loans me money. She says, ‘Lucky for you I’m a soft touch.’”

“My wife will be asleep,” Ringo said. “So we have to be quiet.”

They drove somewhere in the vicinity of Eddy and Divisadero and parked in the underground garage of a drab apartment building.

“What neighborhood is this?”

“I don’t know. It’s kind of a nonneighborhood. My wife calls it NoSo.”

“What’s that?”

“North of South.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Fifteen years.”

When they entered his apartment, Ringo shushed him, and went down the hall to change out of his suit. The furniture looked dingy and secondhand, but the walls were resplendent with Beatles memorabilia. Ringo came back out in sweatpants and asked Bobby if he wanted some tea.

“Nora drinks tea,” said Bobby absently, and walked over to the small strip of linoleum that marked off the kitchen. “Let me see your hands. Hold them out like this.”

Ringo put out his hands and Bobby grabbed them. “Now, these are hands. This is what I’m talking about.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s texture here. Strength. Is that from drumming?”

“And guitar. I can play anything, really.” Ringo dropped his head a little. “Jack of all, master of none. As they say.”

“You look like a master to me.”

Bobby grabbed his bag and handed Ringo the prototype. “This is the Man Handle. It gives your hands strength and texture.”

“I don’t get it,” said Ringo.

“Right now it’s just some pipe and grip tape. But when you’re sitting around, doing nothing, you squeeze it and roll it in your hands. That’s all. After a while you get calluses.”

Ringo started to roll it in his hands. “Okay. But I still don’t get it.”

“We’re going to market it toward managers and executives, so they don’t feel bad when they shake hands with plumbers and other righteous members of the working class. It puts everybody on equal terms.”

“Why would they feel bad?”

“I don’t know. It’s psychological. Bankers want to be cowboys.”

The teapot whistled. Ringo made two cups and brought them over to the couch.

“It sounds dumb when I say it out loud,” said Bobby.

“I don’t think it’s any dumber than half the infomercials I see.”

“Thank you! The bigger the lie, right? Well, the dumber the idea, the more people will buy it. These are standard marketing concepts. What’s your real name, anyway?”

“Alex. But my last name is actually Ringo.”

“Bullshit!”

“Shhhh.” Ringo showed him his driver’s license. “You can’t fight destiny.”

Bobby picked up his tea and looked around the room. “Nora missed out. She should be here. Do you think something happened to her?”

“Are you worried?”

Bobby stood up and started pacing back and forth behind the couch.

“She was a fuckup in high school. She went to junior college and now she’s making six figures.” He sat down on the couch, and immediately got back up. “She hasn’t been picking up her phone. I don’t know if I should be worried. I think she’s just mad at me. What part of town is this?”

“We can call the police,” said Ringo. “If that would make you feel better.”

Bobby sat back down. “No. I’m getting worked up over nothing. I had fun tonight. I’ve been talking and talking, but what about you? Are you good? Some of these guys Nora dates. They don’t have any manners. They go on and on, and by the end of the night I know everything about them, and they don’t know anything about me.” Bobby looked out the window. “What floor are we on?”

“Third floor.”

Ringo moved toward the hallway. He came back with a neatly folded blanket and placed it on the coffee table. “I’m going to bed. Will you be all right out here?”

“Don’t go. There’s probably something on TV.”

Ringo declined with a polite smile and moved into the hallway.

“Have you ever been in a fancy hotel lobby, with all the clocks set to different times around the world?”

Ringo didn’t answer. There seemed to be some invisible force dragging him toward the shadows.

“All of us should hang out sometime,” Bobby called after him.

He watched SportsCenter for a while, on mute, and then brought a chair to the window. He stared at a streetlamp farther down the street. He stared too hard and it flickered. All the streetlamps flickered, one by one. Bobby wondered how many units were in the building. He closed his eyes, trying to hear how many. But the place was silent.

Ants were crawling on the tiles above the kitchen sink. He looked through the cabinets, but couldn’t find any snacks. Then he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, shaving, first his face, and then his head. In college, he used to shave his head before every swim meet. He ran the razor through sticky mounds of Barbasol, giving himself little nicks on the top of the skull. Halfway through, he stopped and looked at himself. He suddenly wished he hadn’t told Ringo about the Man Handle. It seemed to break the spell. Tomorrow he’d be back in the sunny East Bay, without any ideas. He wiped his head off and walked down the hall to the bedroom.

The door opened with a squeak and there was Ringo, sleeping alone on a futon mattress. He was on his side, with his back to the door and a sheet pulled tightly to his chin.

“I can’t sleep,” said Bobby, walking into the room.

Ringo jerked awake. “What are you doing?”

“Scoot over, man,” said Bobby. “I can’t sleep.”

Ringo tried to turn on a light, but Bobby jumped on the bed and knocked his hand away. Ringo rolled against the wall, with his back to Bobby. “Don’t,” he said weakly, covering his head.

Bobby slid toward Ringo and put his arms around him, burying his face in the back of Ringo’s neck. For a long time they didn’t move.

“Let me turn on the light,” said Ringo finally, slinking down the bed. “Just for a second. Can I do that?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“I have something you can take.”

“Don’t go.”

“I won’t,” he said, and the room filled with light.

• • •

Nora woke up right before her alarm went off. Halfway through her shower, she remembered that Dave was in the other room, sleeping peacefully on the couch. Only a few a hours ago he had announced, with a sense of triumph, that he couldn’t go through with the act itself. Nora had shrugged and made coffee; then she listened to Dave talk about his family, the heartbreak and joy. “I’d be a fool to throw all that away,” he’d said. She was impressed. By some miracle he had transformed the most despicable moment of his life into an opportunity to celebrate his own virtue. Now he would return home a better and more loving husband. Nora had fulfilled her role in his personal quest, just not in the way she had imagined — this chaste and redemptive version, somehow, was even more hollow — and he thanked her for understanding what he was going through. “I quit,” she’d said, and for a while he tried meekly to talk her out of it, strongly advising her to wait for the next restructuring, so she could collect severance. “But I’m not getting laid off,” she’d said, confused. “I thought I was moving to a liaison role with sales.” Dave admitted that he hadn’t totally worked out the specifics on that.