chapter six
Early Monday morning, Tania dialed the phone number on Jack’s business card.
“I’ve got a proposition for you,” she said. “Can you meet me in front of Ed and Irv’s tonight at nine?”
She listened.
“Your throat doesn’t hurt, Jack; you just think it hurts.”
When Tania got to the tavern, Jack was waiting for her. They bought drinks from Irv and carried them to a table. Tania took a gulp of brandy before her butt hit her chair and waited for Jack to sit down. She took another swig and looked into his eyes.
“Jack, I don’t want to fuck you.”
She went on.
“I don’t want to pee in your toilet or have you pee in mine. I don’t want to see what’s inside the garbage can in your bathroom or meet your family.”
She took a slug and continued.
“If you have a car, I don’t want to ride in it. But, most of all, I don’t want to talk a lot of blah blah blah blahbullshit. But . . .”
She downed the last of the brandy.
“I want to do erotic things with you.”
Jack finished off whatever was left in his glass.
“Like what?” he asked.
“I want you to chase me and knock me down and kiss me.”
Jack thought this over and squeezed Tania’s knee between his thighs.
“If I do that for you, will you do something for me?”
“Oh . . . and what might that be?” asked Tania.
Jack whispered in her ear. She turned and faced him.
“I can do that.”
Jack squeezed her leg again.
This is perfect; it’s like being in a French movie, thought Tania.
Tania and Jack left Ed and Irv’s. She hooked her hands around his arm.
“We’re near Mueller Park; you can knock me down there,” said Tania.
“I’m freezing,” said Jack.
“Kiss me, and you won’t be cold.”
Tania reached her hands inside Jack’s overcoat and pressed her nipples into his chest. Their lips touched, and their mouths opened. Jack pulled away and looked around.
“My ex-wife lives around here.”
“That’s nice,” responded Tania.
Jack lit a cigarette and spotted the sign for the Apollo Bowl, Bar, and Billiards.
“C’mon; I’m thirsty.”
Tania thought, What the hell just happened?
Tania and Jack went inside the Apollo.
“I’m going to the ladies’ room,” mumbled Tania.
Jack grabbed a stool and ordered a couple of drinks; Tania opened the door marked DAMES. She entered a stall, pulled down her underwear, and sat on the commode.
I feel like shit.
She rolled a joint and peed. There was no toilet paper. She ripped the cardboard off the holder and used it to wipe her bottom. Tania forced herself to come out of the bathroom.
At the bar, a regular pointed to the “Potter for City Council” button on the lapel of Jack’s overcoat.
“Isn’t that the douchebag that’s running against Slim Coltrane?”
“That douchebag happens to be my brother-in-law.”
“I don’t give a shit; he’s still a douche.”
Tania walked up to Jack; the regular leaned back on his stool.
“Who’s this? Your cousin?”
Tania took a sip of brandy and pushed her glass over to Jack.
“I don’t want this; I’ll be outside.”
Tania stood on the sidewalk with her hands clasped behind her back. Jack came charging out of the bar and bumped her with his barrel belly.
“You know what you are? You’re a bitch.”
Tania reached her arms around his neck.
“Let’s go to the park.”
Jack fumbled through his coat pockets for a cigarette.
“I’m going to start running and I want you to chase me. And when you catch me, I want you to knock me down and kiss me,” said Tania.
Tania got to the park and waited. Finally, she caught sight of Jack galumphing toward her. He knocked her down; she hit the ground. Then he sat on her. She tried to get up; he sat down harder. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a few drags. He held the cigarette between his lips, pulled Tania to her feet, and pointed to an apartment window.
“That’s where I live, and we’re going up there.”
“No, we’re not.”
He dropped her like a sack of potatoes.
“You remind me of a girl I used to date named Katie, Katie O’Connell; we fought a lot. She moved to North Carolina . . . maybe it was South Carolina? Shit, I can’t remember. She made stuff out of her dogs’ hair. She used two sticks; I remember that. She made me a hat. The thing stunk when it snowed, but it never got wet.”
Tania got up and brushed the dirt off her clothes.
“It was the oils in the dogs’ coats; they kept the hat from getting wet,” she said.
Jack pushed her against a tree and kissed her. He put his hand on her crotch.
She slipped out of his grasp.
“I’m going home.”
Down the street, she pulled out the joint she had rolled at the Apollo and lit it.
Two mornings later, Tania dialed the number on Jack’s card.
“Can you meet me at Mueller Park in half an hour?”
She listened.
“I know it’s 6:30 in the morning.”
At 7 a.m., Tania was sitting on the rim of the park’s empty wading pool. Jack came down from his apartment and stood over her. He looked like one snort had been too many and a thousand not enough.
“I’ve been up all night talking to this guy. He played with Dylan in Hibbing; they went to high school together.”
Tania looked up.
“Do you like me?”
Jack turned away, took a few steps, and swung around.
“Yeah, I like you.”
Tania came to her feet; Jack held out a rolled-up Star Tribune.
“Wanna read the paper?”
“Only if I can sit on your lap while I do it.”
He shook the newspaper at her.
“None of that; do you hear me?”
“What are you saying?”
“You scare the shit out of me.”
Jack paced back and forth; Tania stared at the ground. He brandished the paper in the air.
“It’s not like I could ever love you; everybody knows I’ll try anything once.”
Tania raised her head; she clenched her teeth.
“Listen to me, you . . . you big bag of wind. I’m out here trying to come up with whatever it takes to stop this from turning out like all the rest of our relationships.”
Jack broke in.
“This isn’t a relationship; it’s an affair.”
He unrolled the Tribune and scanned the headlines.
Tania ripped the paper from his hands.
“You don’t deserve me,” she said.
Tania flung the newspaper on the ground.
“Goodbye, Jack.”
Tania had to be at work at five. At about 4:15, she went to the Prosperity Shrine in her dining room and pulled down the screen portion of the triple track storm window. She sat at the shrine, breathed in the chilly air, and closed her eyes. Tania imagined herself floating to the cafe in a golden bubble.
“No one and nothing can hurt me,” she chanted again and again.
Then, she made up a rhyme.
“Poo and caca, caca and poo, shit bounces off of me, Jack, and sticks to you.”
She said that five hundred times and left for the restaurant.
Tania got to the cafe and punched in. On her way to the wait station, she crossed paths with Jack as he was coming out of the john. He thrust his hand into her palm politician-style.
“How ya doin’?” he asked.
Without waiting for a response, he moved on. Tania’s heart sank to her heels. Flushed with shame, she walked to a shelf in the back of the restaurant and picked up a tray of votive lights. She set them on a cooler beneath the bar’s service window. Through the opening, she could see Jack mixing a drink and then drawing a beer. He set the highball glass in front of his sister, Peggy; the stein was for her husband, John. Jack leaned over the bar.
“Wait’ll you hear this. Some jerk is in here the other night with a Slim Coltrane button stuck on his chest. One of my regular customers points to it and says, ‘Isn’t that the douchebag that’s running against John Potter?’ ”
Tania lit the candles in the holders. She watched Jack continue his story.
“And the guy with the button says, ‘That douchebag happens to be my brother-in-law.’ And the regular says, ‘I don’t care; he’s still a douche.’ ”
Peggy and John roared; Tania lit the last candle and carried the tray into the dining room. One of the servers came up behind her.
“It’s after five; I’m turning table nineteen over to you. The kid’s okay, but the mother’s a little ‘healthier than thou.’ She ordered a tuna fish sandwich, no bread, no mayo, and a Caesar salad, no anchovies, no croutons, no parmesan, no dressing.”
The server put her hands on her hips.
“I brought her a plate of lettuce.”
Then the server pointed to Jose, who was sweeping the floor.
“See what’s in his hand? That’s the broomstick she rode in on.”
The server howled with laughter and sashayed away.
Tania looked over at table nineteen. The mother was pulling a moist towelette packet out of her purse and wiping her daughter’s hands.
“Now, don’t touch anything, Holly.”
The woman unwrapped a towelette for herself and tilted her head in Tania’s direction.
“Go over and tell that waitress I want our check.”
The little girl hesitated.
“Go on.”
Holly pulled on the neckline of her shirt and jerked her head in the opposite direction.
“Stop doing that,” said her mother.
Holly got up and took a few steps. She pulled her shirt and jerked her head.
“I said stop it.”
Tania called to the child.
“I’ll be right there.”
She added up the tab and brought it to the table. Holly’s mother took out a rhinestoned calculator and recomputed the bill. She handed the check back with a credit card, and Tania processed it at the cash register. When Tania returned, Jack was sitting at the table with his arm on the back of the mother’s chair.
What’s he doing?
Tania trembled as she laid the credit card, receipt, and a pen on the table.
“Hava . . . a . . . ni . . . nice evening,” said Tania.
Holly’s mother signed the charge slip, and Jack got up from the table.
Tania watched from the wait station as the trio got into a Ford Taurus and drove away.
Tania ran into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror.
Why doesn’t he want me? she thought.
