NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
It is Wednesday lunchtime at the H bar and Lou is sitting in the quiet of the Quark Lounge. Texting in a comfortable booth.
He doesn’t notice his friend sit down opposite. He goes on texting until I momentarily block the light coming in from the bar.
“Who’s texting?”
“It is the wife, Fred.”
“Oh, where is she, now?”
“Toledo, on business, sort of.”
“Doing a bit of touristing too?”
“Yeah, she’s at the TMA, looking at David’s, The Oath of the Horatii.”
“But that is in Paris.”
“Oh yes, I forgot, you’re into painting.”
Lou scrolls through his texts.
“She is looking at a reduced replica ordered from Jacques Louis David by the high-ranking courtier Comte de Vaudreuil.”
“Isn’t Tilda an artist herself?”
“She started there but got more interested in making money in other ways.”
“That’s the American way!”
“Hi Lou, Fred, how are you guys doing? Here’s your lunch guys, enjoy!”
Pam serves our burgers, fries, and beer, ordered earlier from Lou’s phone app.
She moves on to the next booth to take orders the old-fashioned way.
“How long has it been since you’ve seen Tilda?”
“Years, not since I moved here in 2010. I remember, she never quite lost her French accent.”
“Yeah, that is part of her charm too. She tried to teach me French, but that is a sad story!”
“Didn’t you meet at the LC?”
“Sure did. Library of Congress, 1975, back when we were xeroxing for a living. I was on break and found her lost, coming out of deck 39 looking for the main reading room. She had blue paint on her finger and told me it was Cerulean blue.”
“That’s right, they had open stacks back then!”
“That soon changed!”
“Had to. Didn’t we all go to lunch together?”
“Oh, about a week or so later.”
“She also showed you some Ultramarine blue on her hand while we were waiting for Pizza at Duddington’s Underground.”
“I learned a thing or two about artist’s paint.”
“You two got it together pretty fast for being blue.”
“We did, lust and infatuation moved us pretty quick!”
“No wonder you were scarce for a while.”
“Yeah, we were real busy back then, and not making anything but love.”
Pam stops by our table.
“Can I bring you, gentlemen, anything more?”
“We are doing fine Pam, thanks!”
Lou squeezes her arm as she grins at him.
“Have you guys thought about going green? Like, no red meat?”
“Can I plead lettuce?”
Pam shakes her head.
“Ah, not really.”
“I have tomato in here too.”
“Right and that counts as green, and you have a pickle on the side, but…”
“Alright, alright, what alternatives does the H Bar have, Pam?”
“You’re the customer Lou. I am saying, ‘talk to Mr. Hoffmann.’”
“Okay Pam, will do.”
“How about you Fred. Demand will bring supply!”
“Sure Pam, let’s look at alternatives.”
Pam flashes a smile and moves on.
“So, enough nostalgia Fred!”
“Yeah, what is going on?”
Lou picks up his beer, pauses and puts it down carefully positioning it on a paper napkin.
“I didn’t notice how far apart we were.”
He turns his glass slowly and it sticks to the napkin. The rectangle of the white paper napkin and the round mug turn together. It is as if he is looking for his next thought condensing on the glass of amber liquid.
“I mean Tilda and me, it didn’t occur to me until I sold the business to Fibonacci Corp. Then I was home more, had more time on my hands.”
“I seem to remember that was right about 2010.”
“Tilda came back from a business trip at the time and told me she wanted to separate.”
“Don’t remember that part.”
“No, we didn’t tell anybody.”
“Well, it is nobody’s business but yours.”
“No, and she didn’t move all her stuff out. In fact, she does look me up once in a while.”
“So, the flame still flickers!”
“Ah, no, these are not conjugal visits.”
“She is interested enough to find you though.”
“Sure, Tilda still loves the neighborhood, and I am part of it.”
“She has moved on.”
“Right, I’ll tell you, she met this guy, Jim in TMA. He teaches painting at a college in town.”
“TMA?”
“Toledo Museum of Art.”
“You didn’t seem preoccupied or anything at the time.”
“Yeah, she described him as, ‘a force of nature’ in the sack.”
“Quite the stud!”
“Funny, how that stuck in my mind. A force of nature, I mean, what else could sex be?”
“Not so much nostalgia, as reflection.”
Lou swigs his beer and holds up the glass.
“Reflections in a glass of beer!”
He places the glass back on its damp ring, soaked into the napkin.
We had already separated, just hadn’t got around to saying so.”
“So, you have been ‘batching it’ all these years.”
“Yeah, well I ah, had wandered off course myself.”
Augie Carmichael takes off his dark glasses and waves to us as he enters the dim Quark Lounge from the brilliant sun-lit bar. Lou raises his glass.
“Can you join us, Augie?”
Lou slides down the bench seat of the booth to make room and puts the menu he didn’t need, in place for him.
“Sure, be glad to, but I do have an agenda.”
“Okay, lay it out.”
“Fred, Lou, have either of you seen Boyd, lately?”
Lou picks up his burger. Pausing with it near his lips.
“No, sorry I haven’t seen him for months.”
A slice of tomato spills out of one side. He puts the bun down to reassemble the meal.
“Don’t remember when.”
Augie grasps the menu Lou left for him in both hands but doesn’t read it.
“How about you Fred?”
“I remember seeing him outside that popup bookstore. You know that
place down by the river?”
“Yes, we were in there last month, I think.”
“Anyway, he told bel and me that he had moved in with his father.”
“Right, but Harper told Lark, that he had moved on and he didn’t know where.”
Lou is well into his meal. He squirts more ketchup on his fries, with the wet noise from the conical nozzle of the tomato-shaped dispenser. As if the plastic dispenser he squeezes were breathing in and out with a cold.
Then takes off his gold-rimmed specs and wipes them on a paper napkin.
“This stuff gets everywhere!”
“Seems like no one knows where Boyd is, and Lark has been getting panicky ever since Harper’s call, last week.”
“Did Harper say how long ago, Boyd left?”
“Couple of weeks perhaps. Apparently, he was pretty vague. He was away for a while and found Boyd had gone when he got home.”
“Sounds like there was a falling out!”
“That’s what Lark said, but Harper demurred.”
“Bel once told me, there is no communication without trust. Otherwise
you are just reading signs.”
“Reading signs, Fred?”
“Yes, like looking up at the clouds for signs of a storm or looking at a dog’s tail to judge its intentions.”
Augie puts the menu down.
“You ready to order sir?”
“Ah, sure, just coffee, please. Is it fresh? I mean I’ll have it black if it’s fresh but need some milk if not.”
“I’ll bring it black with creamer on the side.”
“That’ll work!”
“Pam, I’ll have a cup too.”
“Sure, Lou. How about you Fred?”
“Nothing more for me thanks.”
Pam turns to the table across the aisle but turns back.
“Excuse me, but are you guys talking about Boyd?”
Augie folds his hands and looks down at the table.
“You know him, Pam?”
“Well sure, he used to be a regular with his friend, ah.”
“Albrecht, right?”
“Right, you must be Augie!”
He turns to look up at her.
“That’s me, Pam. So, did you see him with anyone else?”
“Oh, not those two, not for a long time.”
“How about an older guy, you know, his Dad perhaps?”
“Right, I did. Probably last month some time.”
“Well, Pam, I am trying to find Boyd because his Mother is worried about him.”
“Aw sorry, I don’t know where he would be, but those two seemed very quiet together. Like, the vibe was bad, you know.”
“Aha, I know.”
“Sorry Augie, hope you find him.”
Pam turned again to the table across the aisle.
“Anyway Fred, communication, we were talking about it. Isn’t the dog communicating by wagging its tail?”
“Okay, in a way, but clouds do not have intentions and can’t communicate.”
“But we do, ‘get the message’, about rain I mean.”
“Yes, we see signs of clearing or signs of rain, for instance.”
“Really, but Fred, don’t negotiators communicate across the ‘trust barrier’?”
“What do you mean Augie?”
“Take hostage negotiators for instance.”
“No, the first thing the negotiator does is to establish trust.”
Lou is wiping his glasses again on a fresh napkin.
“Well, trust and sincerity go together, seems to me.”
“Of course Lou, you can’t trust someone you don’t believe is sincere.”
“Otherwise it is a guessing game.”
Augie’s coffee arrives with creamer on the side.
“Now we are in a guessing game with Boyd, Fred.”
“So, it seems, but I am not sure that Boyd is insincere so much as unsure of himself.”
“Too true, we are reading Boyd’s signs.
“Well, I am now entangled in something, and Lark is so jumpy I have started calling her Roo.”
“As in Kangaroo?”
“Yeah Lou, ready to box and bolt!”
“Are you going to bolt too, Augie?”
“It has crossed my mind more than once, Fred.”
“Well, Boyd is all grown up now. Why doesn’t she just let it ride for while?”
“’Nor less I deem that there are powers
Which of themselves our minds impress
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.’”*
“That’s what ‘the man’ said. Why indeed Lou? You try telling her that.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
*Expostulation and Reply, William Wordsworth
