What Do I Know

It still ticks me off, if you really want to know the truth. And a guy can’t relive a thing like that more than maybe once, just to get it off his chest, you know? But if you really want to hear it, listen up cause I ain’t telling it again. 

           A few years ago, I got a call from my buddy Marty. He’s always wanting something. He calls them ‘favors’ so it sounds more like you got to do it if you want to stay friends or something. Never met a guy in need of so many favors.

           One time back in high school, he asked if I’d call up this girl for him, to see if she liked him and all that. I told him I wasn’t so good at that sort of thing, but he ain’t such a good listener either. Never hears what you’re saying to him. Anyway, I told him it wasn’t a good idea, but he’s got a way of building you up to make you think you can do a thing better than you really can, you know?

           He got my ego all pumped and I was ready to go till the phone started ringing on the other end. I got nervous all the sudden. Then some guy answered, I think maybe her brother. I tried to ask for this girl, but my voice was cracking all over the place, real embarrassing stuff. So, I hung up on him, and who got all bent out of shape over it? Marty. Like I’d blown his only chance or something. He called me a coward and I punched him in the arm. He hated that. He liked to use his words. I could never think of a real smart thing to say to a schmuck till afterwards, so I used my fists.

           Anyway, a few years back, old Marty asked me to meet him in the park one morning. He had a favor to ask. A big one. And you know if it’s a ‘big one’ you really got to do it or he’ll never let you hear the end of it. I sort of felt obligated too since he was the only real friend around after my little brother Sammy was killed. Never had any real folks in the picture so I was alone after that. Marty was there for me, he really was. Some assholes can really impress you when tragedy hits.

           I stopped by my favorite bagel place on the way to the park, except the old man that runs it wasn’t there. We’ve got a pretty good relationship, me and him. He doesn’t speak much English, but his smile makes up for it. Really puts you in a good mood, you know? Some teenager was there instead, said she didn’t know where he was. You could just tell this girl was real trouble for somebody.

           I can be particular about some things. I ain’t obsessive or nothing, but I like things a certain way. The old man knows just how I like my bagel, and I tried explaining it to this new girl but she wasn’t a good listener. You could tell. You can always tell when somebody really hears you or not.

           I waited till I found a good bench in the park to open my bagel. When I did, there was cream cheese everywhere, mushed up all over the outside. I hate that. Plus, on top of it all, she forgot to give me napkins. One person can really throw your whole day off, you know it? It doesn’t take much sometimes.

           This one day, back when I had my delivery job and everything, a guy almost ran me over in his car. Then he had the gall to yell at me, like I did something wrong. I can get pretty riled up at dumb people, too. No sense, some of them.

           I used the wrapper to sort of wipe off the outside of the bagel, and took a big bite that squeezed a glob of cream cheese out the back on to my lap. It sure doesn’t take much to ruin a guy’s whole day. And I’ve kind of got a temper problem sometimes too anyway. Gets me in to trouble. I had half-a-mind to go back and complain to that girl, but she wouldn’t have listened. I could tell.

           I saw Marty coming from the distance in a sweat, dragging a couple of suitcases behind him like a real madman. “Jack!”, he yelled out to me in a huff. I hated the way he said my name. He grew up in Wisconsin or some damn place way the hell up there. I wiped the glob of cream cheese off my pants with my pinky and slid it across the foot of the bench.

           He dragged his suitcases right up next to me in a cloud of dust. “You didn’t get me one?”

He plopped down, breathing all over me like a real asshole. “You didn’t ask.”, I said. He reached his grubby fingers over and pinched a quarter off my bagel.

“Guy’s gotta always ask for you to do something nice?” He gobbled the piece down in one sloppy bite. “I’m here, aren’t I?” You could tell I was annoyed.

“You can be a Grade-A asshole, you know it?”

           He licked his fingers clean and reached for another bite. I pulled my bagel away and clamped down hard on his nose and wouldn’t let go. I used to do that to my little brother all the time, in a playful way you know, but Marty, he really hated when I did that. Didn’t matter much anyway, guy had such bad sinuses I can’t remember the last time he breathed through that fat honker anyhow.

           He grabbed my wrist, we struggled a bit and the bagel fell to the ground. “Now look what you did!”, he squealed out. You could tell he was really upset when his voice got all high pitched like that.

“It wasn’t all that great anyway.”, I said, still thinking about that teenager.

“I would’ve eaten it.”

           He was always eating stuff, didn’t matter what. He wasn’t chubby or nothing, just kind of dense. His dad was some big deal football player in college. Marty didn’t give a shit about that stuff, but he was sure built for it. I was built more like a dressage rider or something.

“Look, why’d you ask me here, and where the hell you going with all these bags?”

“Would you relax a minute? Just relax.”, he said.

“I’m relaxed.” The words kind of choked a little coming out, if you want to know the truth.

           Marty bent down and picked up the filthy bagel off the ground. He found a corner that wasn’t too dirty, pinched it off and wolfed it down.

           “It’s practically pigeon food now, the rest of it.” He was sounding kind of whiney, in my opinion. That’s the thing, you take a big healthy good-looking fella like that and give him a real shitty personality, that’s how you keep the balance. He threw the rest of the bagel on the ground behind the bench.

“Well, I ain’t got all day to joke around here with you, I got a cab picking me up for the airport here in…” He checked his dad’s fancy wrist watch. “…shit, three minutes!”

           Everything was always a real panic with him, guy couldn’t ever just calm down for one lousy second. He started rustling through his bags looking for something.

           “What’d you ask me here for, anyways?” I wasn’t about to let his frantic energy rub off on me. I read a thing about that once, how people can rub off on you when you’re not paying attention, then you’re all sad or something and don’t even know why. I don’t know, it might have been in a science magazine. I’m always reading that stuff. Real interesting.

           Marty was really starting to lose it now, cussing up a storm looking for this thing. “What’re you looking for?”, I asked him.

“My damn house keys!”, except he used The Lord’s name in vain, but I don’t like repeating that stuff so much, you know? “Well what do you need those for if you’re leaving town anyway?”

I can ask a lot of dumb stuff sometimes.

           “You just got to keep running your damn mouth, don’t you Jack?” He did it again, but I won’t repeat it. You could tell he was getting pretty angry when he called you by your name, too. I shut up a second and let him get it out of his system. He finally gave up.

“They ain’t here. I’m fucked. My cat’s fucked.” Always a real dirty mouth when he was upset.

           Then I saw he got this desperate look in his eye, like he was watching somebody drown or something. I sort of felt sorry for him all the sudden. “Look, what can I do?” I asked him, not realizing how much I’d regret it at the time.

“I was gonna have you to take care of my cat while I was gone, but I lost my keys and now you gotta break into my apartment and save him!”, he said.

“The hell you talking about, breaking in? You know I’m allergic to cats!”

“My fire escape window’s unlocked, you just got to find a way up there, it’s no big deal!”

“What if I get busted or something?”

“Nobody’ll care! My landlady is deaf as hell. Look, my cat’ll die up there if you don’t do this for me!”

           He went on and on. I told you he can really build you up to do something and make you think you’re capable and all. Anyway, I got convinced for whatever reason, maybe just from feeling sorry for him.

“You owe me.” I really meant it this time, too.

“I knew you were my best friend!”, he said.

           That’d always kill me when he’d say that. He said it all the time too. I knew his best friend was a guy named Jimmy Farnsworth. They were neighbors growing up and fought a lot, but that stuff can really bond kids, you know? Jimmy knocked Marty’s front teeth out right after they’d come in permanent. Now he’s got to wear fake ones made out of ivory or something like that. They’d been best friends ever since.

           I used to fight my little brother all the time. I’d use my longer legs for an advantage. To his credit, though, he kind of realized he had to come in close when he scrapped. He had little arms, but they were strong. He landed some real clonkers a few times too, even.

“I gotta split, that’s my ride.”

           Marty grabbed his luggage, rubbed my hair out of place and left in a cloud of dust. He knew I hated that. I don’t spend that much time in front of a mirror, you know, but I don’t like looking like a creep either. Marty never combed his shaggy hair and loved to mess up mine.

I realized as the cab was leaving that he never gave me a number to get in touch with him. And I still needed some breakfast.

           If there’s one thing I hate more than anything else in the whole world, it’s cats. They don’t love you unless they really need something. They’re kind of like a lot of people, you know? Most people are selfish. Me too, I guess. I’ve always been more in to dogs. Loyalty can be a big thing for me, and dogs are nothing but. Most dogs are better than us, even.

           I got to Marty’s shitty apartment building around noon. I had some other stuff I had to take care of before I got around to breaking-and-entering for a lousy cat. I was always pretty good in gym class and everything. Pretty agile kid, compared to the others I guess. But it had been a while since I’d done any climbing or jumping or anything.

           The fire escape was in the back yard and I had to get over this stupid wooden fence to get back there. It was about two feet taller than me so I took a running start and grabbed on to the top to hoist myself over. I got my head up there but sort of lost my grip and fell, busting my chin on the way down. It wasn’t bleeding or nothing but it rocked my jaw nearly half-off. While I was rubbing my chin, I couldn’t help but kind of think of this cat as a damsel in distress or something like in the old stories you know? It definitely wasn’t helping anything to just think of it as some lame old cat.

           This next time I made sure to get a leg over to hold me up there. It wasn’t too comfortable for a second, but I kind of heaved myself over and made a less-than-graceful plop down the other side. I was wearing the wrong pants for this sort of thing. There was a nice garden back there in his landlady’s yard. You could tell she really spent some time on it. The next yard over was all brown with broken furniture and overgrown with weeds and stuff. You got to really be in to gardening to do it right. I mean, you can’t just half-ass a thing like that. I’d have a half-ass garden if I had a yard, I just know myself.

           I couldn’t reach the ladder on the fire escape so I pulled over this little metal trash can to stand on. I already knew not to stand in the middle from past experience. I used to when I was a kid, you know, but you get to a certain age where you find out you’ve started weighing a lot more all the sudden and can’t exactly do all the things you used to.

           I lost my balance anyway trying to reach for the ladder and landed my ribs smack on the side of the can. It let out a terrible racket. I knew for sure somebody had to have heard it. All that damsel stuff left my mind after that and I was getting pretty ticked about this dumb cat. Marty’s really gonna owe me one this time, for sure. I thought about quitting right then and there. But I don’t like killing stuff anymore, and I’d feel pretty bad if this cat rotted to death up there.

           My uncles used to take me and my brother with them to shoot squirrels when we were little. It was fun being out in the woods since we were kind of city kids, but after seeing the squirrels with their guts all out up close, I kind of lost the stomach for it.

           I finally got a good grip on the ladder and gave it a tug. It came loose and slid down with a rusty screech. I’d be terrible at being a secret agent or something like that, being so loud. You got to really be cut out for that line of work, you can just tell.

           Marty lived on the fifth floor of this old tenement building. It had to be a hundred years old. I figured it was smooth sailing from here on out, just walk up the fire escape and slide right in the window. I felt kind of like a creep though, having to walk by everybody’s windows on the way up. I get pretty embarrassed if people think I’m staring at them or something, and I guess I do sometimes, but it’s mostly just me being lost in thought.

           On the third floor, I was passing by the window and saw the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. She was wearing this cute little slip and singing to herself. Just a little slip, that’s all. Beautiful long hair, too, she had it down. She didn’t see me or nothing and I kept going by pretty quick, but boy I could’ve sat and watched her all day long. Prettiest girl I’d ever seen.

           I got to Marty’s window and it was unlocked, just like he said. My eyes started puffing up and getting all itchy as soon as I climbed in. What a filthy mess. He hadn’t been living alone that long. You could tell he was used to his mom still doing stuff for him. Dirty dishes and clothes everywhere, and so much cat hair it was balled up and floating across the floor like tumbleweed.

           I started calling out to this cat. I didn’t know its name or nothing, but that didn’t matter anyway, he’s a cat. I checked the bathroom and under the couch in the living room. Nothing. I didn’t care to see what state Marty’s damned room was in but it was the last place to check.

           I opened the door and there’s Marty, laying there on his filthy bed, taking a dumb nap and snoring like a madman. I smacked him one hard and he shot up in a real terror, you should’ve seen his stupid face.

“What’s the idea?!” he shrieked with his voice all high-pitched.

“You tell me!” You could tell I was annoyed.

           He gathered himself up. “Got to the airport, realized my trip’s not till tomorrow.”

I walked out. Just walked right out. Sneezing the whole way. He called for me to wait, but I was done. He was always giving you the run around for nothing. It wasn’t the first time.

           Couple years later, old Marty was killed in Korea doing some reconnaissance mission or something. They wouldn’t let me sign up on account of my flat feet. I ended up taking in his cat after that. I guess loving something that’s kind of an asshole is what it’s all about. But what the hell do I know?