Read The Passionate Attention of an Interesting Man Online
Authors: Ethan Mordden
Tom nodded in the semi-darkness, a suddenly faraway Tom. The hall light loved his skin and he glistened.
Then Tom said, “Plywood sheets, I guess. Four by eights are best. That what your layout was mounted on? At the orphanage?”
“Who knows? We never thought about it.”
Tom nodded again. “Kids don’t know what anything’s made of. The content of things. They can be irresponsible, which I don’t approve of. Yeah, so…you score tonight? At the rich kids’? What’s that girl’s name?”
“Portia.”
“Spicy?”
“Very appealing. But not sexy in the porn-star sense.”
Lloyd shifted his weight so he could lie flat on his back, disheveling the covers. Tom righted them, pulling them up to Lloyd’s shoulders.
“She’s a bit brisk,” Lloyd went on. "The sex, I mean. Really young but very experienced. She knows exactly what she wants from a man. And she doesn’t kiss all that much. Sometimes not at all.”
“Never heard of that,” said Tom. “Girls live to kiss and kiss to live.”
“Not Portia.”
“All those rich kids are different, I guess. They all have cars? Bought by daddy?”
Lloyd nodded.
“Didn’t I know it?” Tom said, laying one hand flat on the covers over Lloyd’s chest. “But don’t go riding in those vehicles after hours, now, because they’ll attract law enforcement with a dead taillight or not signaling or just generally being selfish rich kids. Stop the vehicle for a violation means search it. Yeah, and what do we find?
Substance
. Okay, who belongs to that? And the rich kids point at you with ‘Him, officer!’ Don’t relish being called to bail you out of jail some night for rebellious behavior.”
“I’ll be careful, Tom.”
“And write the contact intel for that rich kids place for me and leave it under one of the fridge magnets, in case of...you know. Some eventuality. You're always going over there, sure. It's right to be a part of something. Membership in it, a guy they respect. Sure. But then you always want to return to the place that's yours. Feeling your breathing under my hand like this, like to know you’re home and happy now.”
They paused there, and then Tom rose and folded the edges of the bedclothes in between the mattress and the box spring.
“Tuck you in,” said Tom, “so you’ll rest easy. Get you off to a solid start come morning.”
As Tom leaned over to even out the lie of the blanket, his yellow hair brushed Lloyd’s forehead. Then Tom stretched to his full six feet four inches and left the room.
Tom had an old buddy named Jake, and Lloyd couldn’t stand him. It was an odd pairing, Lloyd thought, because Jake was closer in age to Lloyd than to Tom, yet Tom claimed he and Jake went “all the way back to milk and cookies.” There was only one thing to know about Jake: he didn’t own a television. That meant he had to come to Tom’s on certain weekends to watch The Game.
There was always a Game, and enthusiasm about the teams, and a whole encyclopedia of bygone Games and famous players. Lloyd found it as tedious as hearing realtors talk rents, and he suffered an evil close encounter when his editor suggested a column or two on local high-school teams. Lloyd insisted on leaving sports to the paper’s sports guys.
On the other hand, Jake would provision an amusing column, if Lloyd could bear writing about him: a noisy galoot in a Stetson who made obnoxious jokes. Whenever Jake was to be around Tom’s girl, Lucy, Jake had to promise—solemnly, on their friendship itself—that he would behave.
“And my old Jake will keep that promise for just about two hours,” Tom explained to Lloyd. “Then it’s a pure case of Dam is bust, head for the hills!”
It was typical of Jake that he was never actually introduced to Lloyd: Jake simply pushed open Lloyd’s door to barge in and snarl, “This is the Eurozone secret police. Are you hiding a woman in this room?”
At his desk, Lloyd turned in alarm just as Tom came in.
“This your new sidekick?” Jake asked Tom. “He’s pretty.”
“Pay him no mind,” Tom advised Lloyd.
“You know what they call a pretty guy where I come from?” Jake asked Lloyd.
“Cut it out, Jake,” said Tom, though he was grinning.
Getting too close to Lloyd, Jake went on, “They call you ‘wife-stealer.’ Hear it? Since you’re the kind that…
what
? I’m only—"
“Don’t be getting in his face and scaring him up,” said Tom, who had grabbed Jake’s arm to pull him away. “He doesn’t know about your jokes.”
“A date snatch if I ever seen one,” said Jake, never taking his eyes off Lloyd as he allowed Tom to drag him to the door.
“No, he’s a classic fellow with a college style that’s way over your head. Now, you come on to the TV and get the beer drunk, so you can get all melancholy instead of fighting with every guy you see, in the good old Jake manner.”
To Lloyd, as they departed, Tom added, “If I had a buck for every bar they threw this lug out of…Say, you want to watch the game with us, pal? There’s beer enough for a squad.”
“I think I’ll get in a bike ride till
Bizarro World is over,” said Lloyd.
“I think I’ll put on a speckled vest and loafers and get in some
cocksucking,” Jake snorted back. “Who’ll put a penny in my loafers?”
“Come on, troublemaker,” said Tom as the two disappeared.
Outside, in the breezy summer-fall heat, Lloyd made an afternoon of it. Between laps, he had a sandwich and chatted up members of a women’s cycling club lounging on a break in the city park running along Northside. When Lloyd got back, quite some time later, Tom was by himself at the kitchen table, reading the paper as he finished off a beer.
“Here’s a nice column of yours,” Tom announced. He held the paper up to show Lloyd. “Makes me feel important to know a guy with his name so standout in the press. Reading all about the trendy new swimming strokes and bathing wear. That’ll be handy if the
Titanic
goes down again.”
“Is
Nosferatu gone?” asked Lloyd, parking his bike helmet on what Tom referred to as “the step thing”: an old high chair with a fold-in ladder attachment.
“Old Jake likes you,” said Tom, with the look of a child getting into an inspired bit of mischief. “He plans to flirt and tease you fiercely, maybe corner you at a Christmas party when you’re in a Santa suit and take it off you piece by piece. Yeah, old Jake’s got ideas about you. And none of your faces, now, when I’m just telling what old Jake said.”
Getting a water bottle out of the fridge, Lloyd said, “It’s not fair to joke at me so radically.”
“Can’t help it if you’re his type, can I?”
“His type of what?” Lloyd replied, sitting across from Tom and taking a swig of water.
Shaking his head in mock-concern, Tom said, “Old Jake would know just what to do with a rebellious desperado like yourself, I can tell you that. He would whisper his schemes for you while tenderizing you all at once.”
“Tom!” cried Lloyd, half-scandalized.
Tom started to heft his mug for another swallow, decided against it, looked at Lloyd and slipped into that naughty-boy grin once more. “My old Jake? He would flirt and tease you for certain. Favorite trick’s where you’re on the phone to break a date with your chick, and while you’re talking Jake’s all over you, pulling off your clothes and smooching away all over the place. He’ll eat up your
johnson, too. Does the chick catch on? If she does, you lose and Jake gets to score you big time.”
No longer startled, Lloyd was playing it on the casual side. Finishing off his water as if Tom had been recounting a movie plot, Lloyd asked, “But what if I win?”
“You get out in one piece.”
Again, Tom grasped his mug as if to raise it but didn’t follow through.
“Jake asked if he could have you for a night,” he said.
“What?”
“Don’t worry. If anyone gets to rough you over it’s me, when I punish you for your crimes.”
In his suave mode, Lloyd carefully screwed the top back on the empty water bottle, set it on the table, leaned toward Tom, and said, “Okay if it comes to that, whatever that actually is. But I don't like you getting radical just to get a rise out of me.”
Tom chuckled.
Wait a minute. “Tom…are you drunk?”
“It’s well-meant in spirit,” Tom replied, stumbling just a bit over the words. “My old Jake and his nutty fun. He can be disorderly, sure. Told him not to…you know, bust into your room. Does it anyway, Jake. But you can count on that man for certain. Saved my life more than once, I can tell you.”
“He saved your life? How?”
Tom got to his feet, using the table for support, and started unsteadily toward his room.
“Tom,” Lloyd began, also rising, but Tom waved him back.
“Don’t need help,” he said.
Sure enough, Tom got to his bed without mishap. There he passed out fully dressed and didn’t reappear till three hours later. He had showered and changed and seemed completely recovered; Lloyd found him rummaging in the fridge.
“Ever since you came,” Tom said, agreeably, “I don’t know what any of the food is.”
“Sit down and I’ll fix you something.”
“Overshot my bolt,” said Tom, taking a chair at the big round table.
“Who won? The game, I mean,” said Lloyd, starting a plate at the kitchen counter.
After a bit, Tom replied, “Don’t rightly remember.” He stopped there, finally adding, “That’s a bad sign, blacking out.”
“You’re entitled to slide every so often, I suppose.”
“My daddy sure wouldn’t say so.”
Lloyd poked around in the fridge, pulled out cutlery and napkins, unwrapped, washed, arranged. Tom looked on silently for a while, then said, “Jake really got to you, huh?”
“It takes all kinds.”
“Yeah, he’s not to every taste, old Jake. It’s like, there are various people you’d rather be with, because of being polite and enjoyable. But who knows if you can depend on them when you’re in trouble? That’s how I judge.”
Lloyd went on working in silence, then set down a plate for Tom: quartered Courtland apples, St. André cheese, and Carr’s biscuits.
“Now what?” asked Tom.
“They opened a cheese and fruit store in the mall yesterday,” said Lloyd, sitting across from Tom with a cup of coffee from the pot that hummed all day. “It was one of those galas, with discounts and a local dignitary and tasting kiosks.”
“What’s that mean?” asked Tom, poking at the food with his fork.
“Free samples.”
“Okay, but why is it apples with cheese?”
“Tom, you are so…look. Just…just try it.”
“Okay, boss.”
“Boy. Now who’s rebellious?”
Silence as Tom cuts and forks up the apple slices and smears gobs of cheese onto biscuits.
“This is good,” he says at last. “Why are you so nice to me?”
Lloyd just sits there while Tom cleans his plate.
“I really liked that,” he says. “Is this how your friends eat? The rich kids?”
“Yes, in fact.”
“Lucy doesn’t know about it. I’ll have to tell her. Just a half-cup”: because Lloyd was pouring him some coffee. “Do they know about me? Your friends.”
“They think you’re my brother.”
“Well, there’s a puzzle.”
Placing the milk carton and the sugar bowl next to Tom’s coffee, Lloyd said, “They were ragging on me for having a curfew, so I
alibied. Living with my brother. He’s old-fashioned and he owns the house…you know.”
“Guess I am, at that. Old-fashioned. ‘Cause of the family I come from.” Tasting his brew, Tom added, “This coffee really hits the spot after a heavy day.”
“It’s funny to see you take it without a donut,” said Lloyd, stowing the milk and sugar. “They may drum you out of the cops’ union. Only we’re out of… What’s wrong?”
Tom was on his feet, staring at Lloyd with a look of angry suspicion.
Lloyd froze.
“You come with me,” Tom told him. “
Now
.”
“Come…where?”
Without responding, Tom turned and started off, and after a moment Lloyd followed. They entered Tom’s room, where Tom told Lloyd to sit on the bed. Looming over him, Tom said, “How did you know I was a cop?”
Perplexed, Lloyd answered, “Didn’t you tell me?”
“No. I did not tell you.”
Tom looked hard and implacable.
“I did
not
tell you,” he repeated.
“Well, I…I must have figured it out is all. Though I don’t remember one certain moment where I…But your attitudes are cop. The things you say are cop. Only where do they find uniforms big enough for you?”
“They have them,” Tom allowed.
“Do I have to sit before you like a felon under interrogation?”
Tom extended a hand to pull Lloyd up.
“No, I want to get up by myself.”
“Told you, I don’t like you rebellious.”
So Lloyd said, “Okay, Tom,” took his hand, and was on his feet again.