---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 96 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Too Many Miles” Down in the Dirt (v130) (the July/Aug. 2015 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book the Intersection the Down in the Dirt July - Dec. 2015 collection book		get the 318 page July - Dec. 2015 Down in the Dirt issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Sit with Me

Joseph Walters

    Francis had answered when his brother called—Hello?
    Robbie had said—“Hey, France. It’s me.” Then he waited. “Please. Don’t hang up yet.”
    Francis drank and listened to him. He chimed in when he had to, but kept on drinking. He even drank now at the office kitchen table, gin in a coffee mug, hand on a forehead, like a live heart in his palm. This solution, painful as it was, silenced a past he could not soberly control; it backed memories into quiet corners, dazed his pain into a static inebriation.
    Someone walked into the kitchen, and Francis looked up slowly. Bernice, the office receptionist, stalked in through the doorway and curled her back like the crescent of an aging spoon. Francis smiled at her. He stared at a chair before him and kicked it forward from beneath the table.
    She looked behind him, above him almost, and continued on.
    He lowered his coffee mug back down onto the table and saw, from the tops of his eyes, Bernice stopped a few feet ahead, tapping her shoe, clearing her throat, and nodding suggestively behind him.
    He sipped his drink again—the gin dabbed only with the color of cola—and turned around: Outlined figures blurred like pixels on the back wall. He blinked three times—“Francis, I can hear you breathing,” Robbie had said—and found himself staring at an empty coffee pot and a sign on it which read, “You finish it. You fill it. All right?” He turned back around.
    Bernice had her arms crossed. She tapped her shoe louder.
    He turned to the Coffeemaker, tilted his head and scratched it. Then he saw the clock on the microwave and breathed. It showed six minutes past four, so he turned to smile at her.
    But her back faced him. She was heading out of the door.
    “Almost there, sweetie!” to try to lighten her mood.
    But she was gone.

    Francis arrived at his desk and fell back into his rolling chair. He slid his hands through his thick, black hair, pulling the ripples in his forehead taut—“I wanted to say I was sorry, France. Really. I mean it this time”—and his desk phone rang; the clatter bounced uninvited off his skull. He rolled forward, tapped a button on the phone a few times, and listened, with satisfaction, to the ring fading softly.
    Ed, in the cubicle beside him, heard the change in volume and turned around. “Damn, when’d you get here? What you been doin, man? You been gone for a while.”
    Francis glared back and nodded at a picture of Ed’s wife on the wall. “That’s what, buddy.”
    Ed laughed. “At least somebody damn gets to” and gazed longingly at the photo. His wife’s long brown hair drew curled down her breasts; her small frame held tight in a thin, black tube top; and her smile stretched large and kind across her face. Ed sighed with exaggeration, and a silence followed—Francis had coughed into the phone—then, “You wanna go out tonight, man?” Ed asked. “I wouldn’t mind a drink.”
    “Absolutely. Yeah, yeah we can do that.” Francis stood and walked toward him. He revealed a shining flask from his pocket on the way, and Ed smiled and looked around. He knelt beside Ed’s chair and filled his mug to the halfway point; but, as he pulled his arm back down—Robbie had said, “I’m sorry”—, the back of his hand brushed against Ed’s knee. Francis backed away nervously. “What’s goin’ on, huh? Somethin’ botherin’ ya?” Francis asked.
    Ed said, “Yeah. Sit with me, will ya?” Francis crouched onto the rug, and Ed leaned forward. “Me and Baby been gettin’ along pretty bad as of late, Frank.” Ed surveyed the cubicle, grabbed a pen from the floor, then added, “Not like me and her talk about it, it’s just—I can feel it, ya know? That change that everybody’s afraid of. I think we caught it.”
    “Hey, sorry, man, but, uhh—” Francis paused.
    Ed had coughed; he spit liquor down his shirt like rain. He stashed his mug between his pant legs and wiped blindly with his tie, waving and smiling distracted over Francis’s shoulder.
    Francis gazed back. “Hey Boone, whattaya know, boss?” He lifted his mug and nodded toward the man staring from the middle of the aisle. He turned again. “Sorry, Ed, keep talkin, will ya? It’s good. I mean—you talkin and all, it’ll help. I know it will. When—”
    “I been thinkin,” Ed began, “everything we ever say to each other is about someone else, ya know? That’s all we talk about, how we get along and all; it’s not always the good stuff we say, either. I’m startin’ to really get tired of it.”
    “Yeah, okay, well, uh—”
    “It’s just—it’s the same old shit, ya know?” Francis nodded and swigged. “That’s all we got goin’ for us. We never talk about anything, me and Baby. Nothin’ that’s good anyway. Nothin’ that pops into our heads; all we ever do is retell and retell what shit we did today and what happened to somebody we knew yesterday. We’re talkin’ to a stranger we don’t have any real words for—but, Frank, that’s the thing, I know we got ‘em. I still think ‘em, that’s for sure.”
    There was silence. A brief gap: you done? “Ed, now,” Francis began, awaiting another interjection. “I, uhh, I don’t see the hurt in tryin’ that honest stuff—talkin to each other truthfully and all that?—it’ll work as long as ya both agree in not hittin each other, no?” Ed flushed into a spontaneous scarlet and glared down. “And, uhh, hey, how ‘bout gettin the drinks more expensive than usual? Ya gotta do that sometimes, ya—”
    “Me and Baby don’t hit each other; where the hell d’you get a thing like that from, huh?” Ed asked.
    “I, uhh, I didn’t. I just—”
     “I’m headin back to work, Frank.” He turned to his desk. “You should do the same.”
    Francis stood. He looked back on his way. “Hey, look, sorry, man.”
    Ed cradled his head with a hammock of interlocked fingers; he slumped low, sent long, deep breaths into the flurry of dejection now released, now free, above his head.
    Francis got back to his desk—“I’m sorry for what I did, Francis. I swear I am. I didn’t know what I was doing”—and his phone rang.
    He answered this time.

    Francis walked to the street from the bus shelter and gazed over a line of beeping cars for the Septa. He pulled out his flask and began shaking it next to his ear: Feeble dregs splashed inside. He inched the container back—thinking he’d save it for a more pressing occasion—but stopped; the traffic blared ahead; the sounds triggered memories of his boisterous childhood to start to replay before him, forcing a slow tilt to his mouth and the censors of his mind to disorient—Okay, Francis replied—the exactness of the scene.
    When he turned back toward the bench, a child and his father were behind the heavy-tempered glass. The boy paced before the man’s tall, gangly legs, and the man’s fingers were wrapped around the boy’s shirt collar. Dad let go for a moment—to yawn—and the boy lifted his gaze to Francis, who was watching him.
    Francis smiled. He crouched, covered his face with his large, thin hands, and opened them quickly, flapping, like saloon shutter doors in a breeze, over and back again, as his face emitted a silly, gay expression each time it surfaced.
    The boy looked up to his father, indifferent to the stranger’s goofy disposition, and dropped a single tear from his cheek. He said something to him—something which Francis couldn’t quite hear, behind the blaring of car horns—and the father looked down at him. He pulled his son’s arm sharply forward and smacked him on his cheek. Francis heard him say, “Men don’t cry; buck up, will ya?”
    The boy closed his eyes and looked to the ground.
    Francis turned and sat on the empty bus-stop bench. He removed the cap from his flask—“I wunna do this for mom, kid. She needs it. Please?”—drank, and continued through his memories.

    The bus arrived—Okay—and Francis found a seat next to a teenager, one who, he thought, quite resembled his younger self. He laid his briefcase onto the floor—“Hey, how ‘bout you come over then?” Robbie had asked—and glanced first at his watch. He puffed his cheeks, trying desperately to distort the reflection off his domed plastic timer—Robbie—and then he sat down.
    He felt something protruding beneath him. The teenager’s oversized leather jacket had found its way under his thigh. He looked at the boy: His eyes opened and closed in an apparent exhaustion. An Eiffel Tower was stitched onto his sleeve, below a phrase in, what Francis assumed to be, French. Francis proceeded to move the leather off his leg, but halted, noting, just then, how comfortable the boy looked, his eyes closing, his chest lifting and falling against his seat.
    So Francis grabbed onto his shoulder.
    The young man’s eyes opened. “Hey. Uhhh...Can I, can I help you?” the kid asked.
    “I’m sorry, brother.” Francis shook his head—Stop—and then released his grip. “That jacket looks like it’s swallowing you. There’s no way it’s warm enough.”
    “Thanks, but, uh, do, do something else, all right? I’m fine here. It works fine.”
    “You don’t gotta be nervous now. I’m not gonna hurt you or anything, kid. I just—I remember when I used to have that. Back in college. That jacket, I mean. You there yet?”
    “No.” The young man slouched in his seat. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes.
    “I miss it. Really do. Used to have fun back then, let me tell ya.” The bus radio turned on. “Leather was a big damn hit. You got the right idea.” Francis drew his flask from his pocket and put it next to their seats. He whispered and leaned close to the boy, keeping his eye on the others’ quiet preoccupations, “Hey, hey, France, how ‘bout a little drink, huh? Yeah?” Their legs touched.
    The young man replied, “No, no I’m good,” and leaned away.
    Francis bumped against his arm. “C’mon, now, kid.” The leather felt warm. He grazed up and down on the side of the jacket vacantly, remembering the comfort he had forgotten, the couch, the basement, and then the change: He said, “Don’t be such a puss,” like Robbie had done, before he touched him again.
    The young man said nothing.
    “You look like you could be my little brother, I swear. What should I call you? France?”
    “Will you stop? Jeeez.” The young man glared at Francis and scurried off to the back of the bus.
    Francis looked in the rear view mirror—“What? What is it? What’d I do this time, huh?”
    He picked his briefcase from the floor and filled the open seat with it. He laid his head on the latches and closed his eyes. The kid passed him in three blocks. Francis grabbed at his jacket on the way, “Hey, I’m sorry, kid. I didn’t mean anything. Really, I’m sorry. I swear I am. I just, I didn’t know who I was for a second. You know?”

    Francis walked into his apartment and pulled his door shut with a click. A patient, sheathing silence dropped, layered onto his suit like falling dust. He slid his hand into his coat pocket—Not now, Robbie. Not yet—and pulled out his flask. After draining the last few sips onto his tongue, he dropped the steel to the floor and plodded his drunken feet atop the creaking floorboards to the kitchen.
    He opened a cabinet door and pulled out two glasses, knowing, full well, that one would not be enough. He placed them both at a spot beside the sink, flipped on the faucet (to wash his hands), and brown spurts splashed onto his unclean dishes. He thrust the handle back quickly, crouched for the bottle of whisky from under the sink, and then lifted. He poured the glasses at medium height—“Come awn,” Francis heard again. “I don’t wunna wait anymore, brother”—and then walked them over to the couch.
    He sat in front of the broken television, and the phone rang beside him. He held his breath. Then, “Hello?”
    “Hiiii, Francis.”
    He exhaled. “Hey, ma.”
    “Hey, Francis, I’ve been thinkin’ about you.”
    “Yeah, ma? That’s nice.”
    “Yeah!” she proclaimed. “I had a good day today. Everything was real good. I’m startin’ to make friends here.”
    “That’s good, ma. You take your pills?”
    “Hey, Francis, how was your day?”
    “It was good, ma. Had a good—”
    “I had a good one too, Francis.”
    He heard her try and stand. He pictured her pale-as-paper cheeks redden. “You okay, ma? It’s okay.”
    “I get real nervous when I’m here, Robbie.”
    “It’s Francis, ma,” he said. “Stay seated though; it’s okay. You take your pills?”
    “Yeah, I did. They’re always so nice, Francis. They make sure I take ‘em. You know your mother’s gettin’ old?”
    “No way, ma.”
    “I talked to Robbie yesterday. He said he called you.”
    “Yeah.”
    “You two make up?”
    “Nope.”
    “Oh, but I’d like you to, Francis. Think about it. I ain’t gonna be here forever ya know.”
    “Don’t say that, ma.”
    She breathed. “How’s it been?”
    “Still hearin him. Bad dreams and all too.”
    “Oh, France, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
     “Yeah,” Francis said, “It’s okay. But, ma, can we talk about Dad? I kinda feel like talkin today if you’re up to it.”
    “Robbie never meant to confuse you or hurt you or anything. He just had stuff goin on, you know that.”
    “Not about him, ma. I don’t want that.”
    “Yet?”
    “Maybe, ma.”
    “You’re strong, Francis. You can. And I know it.”
    He took a swig. He looked around the empty, yellow room.
    “And Daddy was too, ya know, for a bit. He was strong; like you when he was your age. And I met him when I was older, so, don’t worry, a girl’ll come. And you’ll make her as happy as I was.”
     “Can we focus on Dad more, ma? We talk about girls every day.”
    “Oh, honey, okay. I’m sorry. You know I’m gettin’ old.”
    “Nah, ma.”
    “Dad—aw, but, Dad wasn’t that nice to you, was he, Francis?”
    “But it might help, ma. Talkin about it.”
    “Yeah, it does sometimes, doesn’t it? I remember when me and your dad went to talkin stuff. Always helped me. I would go on and on about everything, and Dad would just sit there and sulk and act like he didn’t have anything to say. But he did. And he never got anything from it.”
    “Not everything though; right, ma?”
    “Sorry, France. Yeah.”
    Francis swigged. “Can you keep goin? About Dad? I’d like to hear more.”
    “He just hated himself so much for doin’ it, Francis—sendin’ Robbie there. And then when he found out that that stuff didn’t work, doesn’t work, and Robbie came home again, he was so damn worried and broken all the time that he—” short, quick breaths enveloped the receiver—“I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry.” She stopped. “I say that too much, don’t I?”
    “It’s okay,” he answered. “You’re fine. I love you. Keep—”
     “I went to the movies today, France.”
     “Aw, you wanna stop then?”
    “What’s that, France?” she asked. “Aw, aw, I’m losin it, again, aren’t I?”
    “It’s okay,” he said. “I think I gotta go though. I’m not feelin that good.”
     “You sure, France? I love you. We can keep talkin’ if you want.”
    “Nah, ma, it’s okay. I’m just, I’m gonna let you go.”
    “Just feel better, France. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
    “Okay, ma. Don’t worry. It won’t. I promise.”
    Francis placed the phone gently back onto the receiver. He put his head in his hands; evocative remains—“I was twelve, kid. Get over it”—banged slowly on his eardrums.

    Francis sat on the fire escape rail and rocked. He held one thin drink in his hand; the other, half-full glass sat beside him. He looked down and saw people walking home from work, or from a flight, he presumed, as leather bags rolled on the cracked cement—“Just let it go.”
    Francis swigged. He closed in quickly to the bottom of his glass. The liquor falling into his stomach drowned a buoying censor with the final stage of his intoxication, and the streets turned quiet. The scene went exact.
     A young boy and his father appeared on the sidewalk. He dragged the son by the forearm and jerked him quickly forward. “Let’s go, Francis! Come aahn!” After Francis took the final sip, the figures below turned static; they faded and brightened again like the reception from a swaying antenna. The picture had strengthened. “Why couldn’t you a been quiet, huh?” Dad asked.
    The young boy cried silently.
    “Stop!” He pulled young Francis’s arm forward and towered over him. “Stop fucking crying!” Dad drew his arm back and whipped his fingers against the boy’s face. “Men don’t do that.”
    Francis gripped the metal railing with both hands and leaned forward. His chest tilted, angled a quarter of the way to the sidewalk; his heels wedged in between the gaps of vertical, twisting bars; gravity pushed down. He held tight.
    “France, look at me,” His dad said.
     “Call me Francis, okay?”
    “Just tell me it didn’t happen.”
    He paused. “I’m sorry.”
    Francis picked the second whisky off the railing—he heard Robbie’s voice again, “Will you say somethin already? Please?”
    The dad nodded from below. He let go of his son and walked forward without him.
    And the boy looked up at Francis who spun the glass in his palm. He saw Robbie in its reflection and felt cold. He pulled the glass to his tilted chest and closed his eyes and breathed.
    He dropped the glass from his fingers, listening, finally, “It looks like the couch is swallowing you, France. Here, let me—” before it shattered.
    The liquor had splashed warm against the boy’s upturned face. The figures vanished. And the voice stopped.
    Francis walked in through his window, over to his bed, and sat down. He looked in the mirror and to the spot beside him, where it was empty.
    He closed his eyes and lay back—Maybe later. Yeah?—Click.

    “2, Frank?” asked the bartender.
    “Nah,” Francis said, “Nah, just one today.”
    Boone and his wife, Theresa, walked through the front door. Francis headed straight toward them, gripping his glass and smiling; but the couple looked busier than usual, discussing something of a clearly stern importance, so Francis walked past them. He felt Boone’s eyes on his back as he pushed open the door, but his name was never called; so he just kept walking.
    When outside, Francis found he didn’t have much to do. He didn’t smoke, really, and his drink was now empty. He had to wait to come back in, too, to let them finish; so he bent over the rail and listened to traffic, and then silence: with its irritation banging gongs in his skull.
    After about five minutes he walked inside. Boone and his wife were quiet again. He leaned over the bar. “Two Jack and Cokes and a Lemon Drop,” waving a twenty dollar bill at the man in black, “Please?”
    He turned, scooted next to Boone, and placed the Jack and Cokes in front of himself and Boone’s wife and the Lemon Drop before Boone. “Hey, Booner. You like these ones, don’t you, you fruit?” He nudged against his boss’s shoulder with his own.
    Boone laughed, staring at his wife. “You here alone, again, Frank?”
    “Yeah.” Francis smiled. “Eddie said he was comin, but he’s as late as always, you know him. I got a feeling he ain’t gonna be here, but I am either way, ya know?” He swigged. “I’m good on my word and on my own. Ain’t I, Boone?”
    “Yeah, Frank.”
    With an outstretched arm Theresa grabbed the Lemon Drop and slid it to her own side of the table. “Frank, you ever get a girlfriend? You’re a handsome man, and you never got one on these Fridays.”
    “Don’t worry,” Francis said. “I’m fine. Really. Makin attempts just isn’t the first thing on my mind right now, ya know?”
    “Maybe she could help though,” she said.
    “You want food, Frank?”
     “Nah. Thank you.”
    They sat in silence. Francis scanned the room: where no one played pool, some people spoke, some, and one man sat alone at the bar. Francis drank with him.
    He gazed around again; and a woman smiled at him.
    He grinned at Theresa, stood, waved goodbye to his friends, and walked toward the woman.
    She wore a black dress that used to fit. She had long lines of gray in her black hair, and he hunched over the stool beside her. He could feel her eyes on the side of his face, as he motioned, “2,” to the bartender.
    Francis took them, placed one before her and brought the other to his lips.
    She drank then too.

    He had told Helen earlier on the phone that the disagreement was his fault. That he was sorry. Really. That she should come over if she could. Please. If she could.
    He was talking to his mom when she walked in.
    “Francis, a girlfriend?! That’s wonderful! I’m so happy for you. What’s her name? Is it Marie?”
    “Me too, ma. No, no, it’s not Marie, I’m sorry; she is a little like you though. You’d like her, I think you really would. It’s Helen, ma. Her name’s Helen.” Helen got out two glasses from the kitchen cabinet. “And she just walked in here, so I think I gotta go, okay? I gotta run.”
    “I love you. Be safe,” Ma said.
    “I love you too.”
    He went into the kitchen. Francis and Helen talked for a while. He caught up with what he’d missed throughout her week. Then he said, “Thanks for comin. I, uhh, I think I needed this.”
    “What’s been on your mind?” Her voice was soft. “I heard it on the phone, too.”
    “Can we sit?” He asked.
    She took his hand.
    He led her over to the couch and cleared a pillow for her, a spot for her.
    She sat down.
    And he stood beside the coffee table. “I do care about you. I mean, last week, I uhh—” Francis stopped. He breathed. “I didn’t mean what I said, did you know that? You really shouldn’t listen to me. I’m bad at talkin’ a lot of the time—but I—I would never hurt you. I just didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to, ya know? So I let it out. Does that make sense?”
    “Yeah, it does. It’s okay, Francis. I get that.”
    He rubbed his forearm. “I don’t wanna lose what we got, Helen.”
    She inched forward. “Francis...” Her knee bumped against her glass, and spilt liquor down her naked shin. “Ah, shit,” she muttered and stood. “Aw, damnit, I’m sorry, Francis. Here, I’ll—”
    He ran into the kitchen and brought a towel with him.
    She said, “I’m sorry, jeez, I’m—”.
    Francis kneeled onto the floor and blotted the liquor dry.
    “Hey—”
    Francis looked up.
    She sat again. “You don’t have anything to worry about you know.”
    He smiled at her, silent. “Can I say somethin?” he asked, standing. “It’s kinda been on my mind, me not talkin about it.”
    She patted the seat next to her on the couch. “Is it Robbie?”
    “Yeah.” He walked over. “Yeah, it’s about him.”

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...