What We See (Movie Story)

By Leslie Pietrzyk

This is what filled his head —

1983: Evanston, Illinois

Monday nights at Marcellino’s East got slow after Dante’s, a new sit-down with pitcher beer and cheap wine, opened on the other side of the el tracks, the side closer to campus. It was spring, and everyone crowded to the stone patio at Dante’s for eat-in pizza, forgetting that Marcellino’s take-out and delivery had sustained them just fine all winter. Fickle. Paul, who had sunk his family’s savings into starting Marcellino’s eight years ago, cut hours, so the high school boys only worked Thursdays and weekends, which meant no weed on Monday. On Monday, assistant manager Neil DeRosa manned the pizza ovens; Jay Schachtel — a Phi Psi — drove delivery; and Paul made a decision they all liked, not to can Kelly, the English major who answered phones, wrote up delivery tickets, and handled walk-ins. She had discovered the women’s studies department last semester, and ever since, wearing a bra was a fifty-fifty proposition. Her faded work Levi’s had this frayed spot the size of an egg under one ass cheek. Tantalizing and cruel, how she leaned across the front counter as she stared out the large storefront window, shifting her weight from side to side, leg to leg, the seesaw of that unraveled fabric, the shadowy glimpses of lace-edged underwear.

Beyond that — without the weed, with Paul hanging around to gawk at Kelly — Monday night was a slow march through time. The phone ringing five times an hour was a rush, when it used to be five times in five minutes. If the rickety screen door swung open, it was only one of Evanston’s finest, looking for a thin-crust; “on the house,” Paul or Neil always muttered, sliding the box across the red Formica, and the cop had the grace — or balls — to act surprised. Now, with too much time between deliveries and the damp spring air unbearably hopeful and fresh, Jay Schachtel lingered outside, avoiding conversation, leaning across the hood of his ’73 Datsun. He tried to give the impression that he was too good to deliver pizzas, but he’d worked for Paul longer than any of the others, starting as a freshman and now about to graduate with a practical degree in industrial engineering and a job lined up in Pittsburgh. At least Kelly didn’t seem to think much of him — or he of her — though he was the one who drove her to the dorm after the last delivery, leaving the others behind to clean up and speculate what they might do if they ever got her alone in a car, even a piece of shit car like that Datsun.

It was always right about then, watching Jay and Kelly head out at close, when Paul and Neil would pause in the scrubdown, watching the two pass through the front door, returning to the campus along Lake Michigan. The trill of Kelly’s “good-bYYyye”; Jay Schachtel grinning and fanning the cash wad of his tips; the screen door smacking and bouncing in its frame; the shriek of the Datsun’s bad belt — and the abrupt silence. Paul or Neil might heave a sigh without noticing, or one would look up at the ceiling and blink while the other stared at the floor. Then they’d get back to scrubbing, pushing the soapy stainless steel in widening concentric circles against the metal prep tables.

But that moment came — inevitably — at the end of the night — eleven-thirty — and it was only eight-thirty now. Three hours to grind through before this particular Monday was done.

The screen door banged: Jay Schachtel in from delivery. “Next,” he said, pushing out one arm like a traffic cop, as if Neil was going to skip over there with a stack of delivery tickets to put in his goddamn hand.

Neil leaned asswards against the counter, next to the dough roller sheeter, and shook his head. “Nothing, nada.” It gave him a certain pleasure to pass along this news. He and the high school boys got paid on the clock, but delivery guys worked tax-free on tips. With this rich-kid school, it had to be that the tips were choice or that the delivery guys — other Phi Psis — didn’t need the cash, and however it was, the tips were money that Neil felt should come his way.

“Slow night,” Kelly said, pulling out the words extra-long and extra-monotonously. “Such a total drag.” Her fingers poked random register buttons in a rhythm of clicks and dings, and she instantly shoved the drawer back in when it popped out. She’d been whacked-out all night, sighing like crazy, jabbing and tapping, saying weird shit only she thought was funny, and she laughed just now, unexpectedly, like the sound of a hard slap connecting.

Instead of spinning to retreat outside, Jay Schachtel sidled through the open kitchen doorway, and leaned right next to Neil, the two of them facing the pizza ovens, which suddenly seemed to notch a hundred degrees hotter. Though Jay was standing too close, Neil wasn’t about to back off. He folded his arms across his chest so he wouldn’t accidentally brush against Jay’s arm, which was coated with too much fuzzy hair. Neil’s forearms were bare, the hair scorched off in the ovens, from dancing pizzas in and out. He wouldn’t admit to anyone, but he kind of liked their smooth look.

“This is like the part of the movie where the axe murderer busts down the door and everyone screams,” Kelly said, staring out the front window, fingers drumming the Formica. “There’s blood flying, and the bin of pizza sauce spills and mixes with all the blood, and it’s so disgusting, and chunks of brain slop out of a skull, onto a deep dish right out of the oven.” She whirled to face the two of them, clutching her throat with both hands. “The pretty girl gets mangled in the Hobart, with the dough hook spinning as she shrieks for someone to save her, begging and begging, oh, please, puh-leeeese,” and the word trailed off. She seemed as though she wanted to say more, but she dropped her arms to her sides, and Neil spoke:

“Okay, so then this is the part of the movie where the pizza guy yanks the plug and stops the dough hook and grabs a butcher knife and wrestles the axe murderer to the floor, slitting his throat in one sweet, fast slide, saving the pretty girl.”

“Christ,” Jay Schachtel interrupted. “This is the part of the movie that’s so fucking boring the whole goddamn theatre jumps up to buy popcorn or take a leak.”

There was a silence. Neil watched Kelly grab the phone cord and concentrate on untwisting a kink. She should just fucking relax.

She said, “This is the part of the movie they show in a clip on Oscar night.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Neil said, but Jay laughed as if it did, the douche. Neil’s arms tightened around his chest. He’d been lifting weights in his step-mom’s basement every morning for the past two months. Still, weights wouldn’t give him five inches. It would all be different if he were six feet tall. You could have the biggest cock in the whole fucking world, but how could you get the girl to see it if you were a scrawny shit at five-seven, one-forty-six? “And if this is a movie, Stallone plays me,” Neil said.

“I’m played by an unknown,” Kelly said. “A ravishingly beautiful blonde farm girl, discovered by a talent scout at the Iowa State Fair who goes all weak in the knees when he sees her in line for the Ferris wheel. But she refuses to abandon the cow she’s raised from a calf, feeding it with a baby bottle and teaching it to come when she whistles, so the talent scout rents a U-Haul and drives the cow to Hollywood himself because that’s how ravishingly beautiful she is.” That same abrupt laugh.

“Too virginal to be you,” Jay Schachtel said in a sleazy voice, jabbing Neil’s ribs with his elbow.

Kelly said, “Jay, you’re played by an extremely fat Marlon Brando.”

He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, burn.”

Neil rubbed an imaginary smudge off the pizza oven handle. “This is the part of the movie where something blows up,” he remarked.

“When’s Paul coming back?” Jay Schachtel said. “Call Jet and get some weed over here. Or there’s most of a bottle of Wild Turkey out in my car.”

The phone rang unexpectedly, so loud Neil thought it might leap off the wall. Kelly looked at it and said, “Paul’s home, getting yelled at by his wife. One of the kids’ birthdays, he told me, so a non-negotiable appearance.” Paul’s wife bitched that he put all his time into the pizza business, that that was all he cared about. Recently, he applied for a patent for his latest pizza invention, and the lawyer cost the money she wanted for new bunk beds and a week of summer vacation at the Wisconsin Dells.

“No end to that,” Jay said.

“He’ll be back here for close,” Neil said. “He always is.”

The phone kept ringing. Neil felt the edge of a headache folding in. He never got headaches until lately, and he despised the weakness implied. Kelly and Jay were eyeing him: he was in charge. But he needed this shitty job; he was the one living in his step-mom’s unfinished basement, flopping on a mattress he’d hustled off trash day, smoking dope, struggling through mind-blowing, thousand-page paperbacks like The Fountainhead under a lamp with no shade, footsteps creaking the floorboards above and sitcoms cackling through the vents, Zep and The Who pounding as loud as he dared until she stomped the floor and he snapped off the stereo. Cindy had caught his dad running around, so you had to give it to her because any other woman would’ve kicked out the son too. Still — he liked to think of his life as transitional. He liked to think that after he saved up money he might be in a place he could bring Kelly back to after a dinner out and drinks. She talked too much, and the things she came out with, like the movie bit, were crazy, but she just might be surprised to hear some of his ideas and what he thought about. He liked to think he might have a shot at getting her naked. All he needed was a better car and a better living situation. Both of which seemed so utterly impossible that, what the hell? “Get the bottle,” Neil said.

Jay Schachtel shot out to his car, calling like he was boss, “Fix me up a sausage deep dish.”

Kelly lifted the phone, on its sixth or seventh ring: “Marcellino’s East,” and after a moment making sure it wasn’t Paul, said, “I’m so sorry, but we’re in this state of dire emergency over here, forced to close for the night. Our toilet’s spouting sewage because someone flushed a baby alligator down it. No pizza until tomorrow. Bummer.” She hung up and faced Neil. “This is the part of the movie where things take that interesting turn.” Her smile was slightly ominous, charged in some way, like sky before a storm. Neil’s headache pressed deeper as she smiled her real smile and puckered an air kiss.

The three of them were slumped on the floor, the OPEN sign long ago flipped to CLOSED, the overhead lights snapped off, leaving only the fluorescent bulbs’ flicker from the refrigerated case of canned pop to glow through the small kitchen. Gnawed crusts littered the dirty pan of their sausage deep dish and the mushroom thin crust for Kelly. Neil had maneuvered himself next to Kelly, their backs propped against the work table where pizzas were cut and boxed, which he had thought was the smart move, but that left Jay Schachtel directly across from her, their feet almost touching, and now Neil couldn’t see Kelly’s face.

It was eleven o’clock. The few times the phone rang, Kelly jumped to answer, slurring about an “extremely dire emergency” that required early close. Paul should have been here by now and wasn’t, so even Neil stopped worrying. “Maybe his wife is giving him some,” Jay said.

After they polished off the Wild Turkey, they went at a bottle of cheap rotgut rye he’d grabbed from his dad’s stuff before Cindy trashed it all. Neil had been saving it for something, listening to it tumble around the floor of his car, and tonight felt like maybe something. The rye and Vietnam dog tags from the dead uncle he never knew were what he’d grabbed. Only the dog tags left now, and an inch of rye. He and Jay Schachtel were taking it straight, but Kelly dribbled hers into a can of Tab.

Kelly was stringing out stories about slumber parties back when, jabbering in a high, quick voice, demonstrating how to get out of a bra without taking off your shirt; this involved twisting and sleeve-tugging and disappearing arms until there was her pale pink bra sliding out through her T-shirt sleeve. “Porno gets it wrong,” she said. “Girls that age would rather die than run around naked. No slumber party I ever went to, were we in naked pillow fights.”

“Not like sorority girls,” Jay said.

Kelly said, “Oh, I forgot for a half a second that you’re the hot-shot delivery guy. Like you’ve seen anything remotely porno around here.”

“Like hell I have,” Jay said. “Pajamas, robes, T-shirts, towels. Once a very small towel, practically a washcloth.”

Kelly flipped her blonde hair with one loose hand. A few strands tickled along the side of Neil’s neck, and he suppressed an urge to catch hold of them.

“Naked chicks?” Neil asked, when neither of them spoke.

“He’s all talk,” Kelly said.

Jay took a breath like there was something big he could say, but then he shrugged all casual, the dramatic ass, and said, “Okay. No one naked.”

“Poor you, I guess your life isn’t like a porno movie, is it?” Kelly said.

“It is some nights,” he said. “Guess you never know, do you? Who shows up?” That same overdone casual.

An uncomfortable silence dropped down, turning the hum of the refrigerator loud. So it was like that, the two of them talking around Neil. His only hope was that he could outdrink Jay Schachtel, which was possible but not entirely likely.

“Damn,” Neil said. They both gave him a look like, You’re still here? It was his rye, damnit. Plus, he was the one whose ass was on the line with Paul. He hated sounding whiny in his own head.

Kelly stretched, her body rippling, tits pressing tight up against her T-shirt. “No naked chicks buying pizza,” she said. “Maybe this school’s too repressed.” She lifted one finger, making them wait while she sipped from the Tab can. Then she finished: “Student government should sponsor a clothing-optional day or something.” She arched an eyebrow. “You know?”

“It’d only be the ugly chicks,” Jay said.

“And pervy frat guys like you,” Kelly said. “And the hundred-year-old horndog professors in the English department.”

Neil said, “I’ll do it.”

Again, that look: You’re still here? They felt sorry for him, he realized. They’d drink his dad’s rye to the last drop, but then they’d go back to campus. He kind of hated them, except for Kelly, or especially Kelly. Princess, Paul called her when she wasn’t around, like, “I gotta replace the toilet seat so Princess can take a piss.” Irritated, angry at the extra expense, but also more than that.

“Do what?” Kelly asked. She sounded bored.

“Strip down. Clothing optional.” His mind felt clear. Like a goddamn bell. He’d been drunker, but already he was betting the rye would be hell come morning.

She studied him, then laughed, nudging him with her shoulder in a friendly way. “God, Neil,” she said. “Don’t be so desperate.”

“Right now.” What the hell? She’d get a sweet view of his cock at least. There’d be that. He felt on the verge of not thinking straight, but only on the verge. Suddenly, more than anything, he wanted her to see him naked.

Jay snorted. “No one’s paying to see that.”

“You’re all about money, aren’t you?” Neil said.

“Fuck you,” Jay said. “Why are you always the asshole?”

“Boys, boys,” Kelly said. “If he strips down, so will I.” Her voice was taunting, teasing, and he sensed the bargain was for a laugh. She shook her shoulders to make her tits jiggle. Knew exactly what she was doing, and Jay’s eyes immediately dropped to her chest.

Neil watched his face, trying to guess how the douche would react. Might be he’d turn uptight and protective, or might be he’d egg her on, or likely this was something between them, and Neil would end up feeling like a squashed roach.

“You’re drunk,” Jay said. He sounded angry, which Neil didn’t expect.

“So are you,” she said, a furious pause between each word.

“All right, all right, already,” Jay said.

“You are an asshole,” she said.

“You’re the one who — .”

“Shut up.” Kelly glanced at Neil. “He doesn’t even know what we’re talking about.” She lifted her Tab can to her lips but didn’t drink, just stared over the rim of it, her eyes still.

“This is the part of the movie where it goes all slow motion,” Neil said. It seemed maybe funny, but no one laughed.

“I told you I was sorry,” Jay said. “Jesus Christ already.”

Neil was startled as Kelly slumped hard against his shoulder. “Don’t you hate when people go around fake-saying they’re sorry, fake-apologizing?” she whispered, swirling the liquid in her pop can. “Don’t you really, really hate that?” She finally took a long, hard swallow, and Neil heard the gurgle of her throat as liquid passed through. “When really they’re just assholes?”

Jay reached up to hook his elbow awkwardly over the metal table behind him, clambering into a rough standing position. “I said I was fucking sorry!” he shouted. His cheeks went splotchy red.

“Does he sound sorry to you?” she asked Neil.

Fuck. He should shove them out the door, himself right behind, lock up and pass out in the backseat till morning. He said, “Not especially,” or hoped that was what he said.

“Kiss my foot,” Kelly said, “lick it,” and she thrust one long leg upwards. “If you’re sorry, you’ll lick the bottom of my extremely filthy tennis shoe to prove it.”

Jay slapped at her foot with one hand, drunkishly, and said, “You wanted it.”

Kelly immediately folded her leg back in, pressing both knees against her chest. She looped one arm around Neil’s neck, and his heartbeat surged triple time. Her breath pressed moist and sour against his face, insistent. Just a girl, just a snotty, college girl cock-tease, thinking she was hot shit. He sucked in a wisp of her delicate perfume. She’d never touched him before tonight except maybe lightly socking his shoulder to protest a dirty joke.

“You know you did,” Jay said, swaying. There was little conviction to the words.

“Go already,” she said, but she seemed deflated, tired of the conversation, as if she’d lost a fight. Jay stood uncertainly, clutching onto the table for support. His brows pulled together in dim suspicion.

He looked particularly stupid at that moment, Neil thought with a stab of pleasure. Where would they all be ten years from now? He had to get himself out of that basement, get started on his real life. He had thought maybe he could be a baseball player because he’d nailed it in Little League and Babe Ruth, even short as he was. People noticed. Then he had to get a money-job and poof, no more frills like baseball. Now he was twenty-fucking-three and already everything was too late. Whatever there was, he had fucking missed it.

Goddamn rye, turning him like his dad and his dad’s benders about the White Sox going to sign him until he fucked it up by missing the try-out because of some stupid shit. Probably never happened close to like that, his dad on the White Sox.

Neil blinked several times, trying to focus on this moment, on now, because who the fuck cared what his dad said or did? Nothing there after the DNA. Didn’t even leave a phone number. Neil blinked harder, letting his head droop. Fuck if he was going to cry, fucking fuck, fuck. Here was Princess panting all over him, but it was his dad stuck in his head. That fucker. His eyes burned. This is the part of the movie where’s there’s a long close-up, he thought.

But he must have spoken, because Kelly said, “Exactly. A long, lingering close-up on broken-hearted, pathetic, little people who can’t see how broken-hearted and pathetic and little they are; one of those close-ups you want to look away from but can’t. Like staring at a horrible car crash. Or a dead body.” She finished off her pop and said, “This rye is kind of a low-class drunk.”

Her head balanced on Neil’s shoulder, a steady weight; he imagined her falling asleep, drifting away. Focus on that.

Then she laughed. “Guess I’m a low-class girl all the way around.” She nestled in. He hoped his armpits didn’t reek.

“No,” Neil said. “I think you’re beautiful.” Immediately he regretted saying this out loud and hoped maybe he hadn’t.

But Jay snorted. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, straightening up.

“Oh my God, Neil, you’re so drunk!” she said. “I’ve never seen you this drunk. Have I?”

Fuck. Crap. “You are beautiful,” Neil said. He stretched one hand to slide some of her hair behind her ear. Silky. The rim of her ear felt like a seashell. He was embarrassing himself but couldn’t stop.

Kelly laughed and sat up, shaking free her silky hair, tugging at the bottom of her T-shirt.

“This night is a joke,” Jay said. “One fucking joke after another.”

“Like you know anything about anything,” she said. “I think Neil has a beautiful soul, so there.”

Beautiful soul. He would have to take that.

More laughing. He thought he liked her laugh, kind of fluty with a lot of notes, but there was a mean undertone, an angry edge. Whatever Jay Schachtel did to her, she maybe deserved it.

“Take off your clothes, Neil,” she said. “Let’s see your beautiful soul.” That hateful laugh.

His father: “You piece of shit, who do you think you are? You’re nothing, that’s what you are, and what you’re always gonna be, nothing, a goddamn nothing like me.” Palm, fist, the back of his hand; a beer bottle heaved from the table, not bothering to aim; the hole punched through the living room drywall and the picture moved to mostly cover it; the TV kicked off its stand when the Bears missed that field goal. It occurred to Neil that his step-mom felt sorry for him and that’s how come she let him stay in her basement. If they care about you, you’re in the house. Pity gets you the unfinished basement, with the furnace and water heater, the spiders and boxes of leftover, forgotten shit no one wants to deal with.

Kelly leaned up close, pressing her lips against his ear. “Do it. For me.” Her moist whisper; her tongue tapping lightly, wetly; his own breath rushing up his throat. It was all he could do to keep from grabbing at her tit, squeezing it, it was right there — barely not, frustratingly not, not brushing his arm, even when she inhaled and her chest rose. After a moment, she pulled back, again settled her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes, and said, “If you do, I will. Isn’t that what all you guys want?”

Jay stared up at the ceiling, but Neil jumped into manic action. Trying not to jostle Kelly off his shoulder, he yanked at the frayed edge of his T-shirt sleeve, collapsing one arm inward, bending to maneuver it through the armhole, tucking his elbow up against his chest — remembering how Kelly slid off her bra earlier. The bra was draped over the phone. Pale pink, the color of those lacy clouds that sometimes showed way high in the sky at sunset. Yeah, he saw shit like that — might surprise people what he saw and thought, if they bothered to ask. If they fucking bothered to ask.

Abruptly, Jay Schachtel said, “I’m out of here. A homo and you, you’re crazy — you slutty, crazy bitch. Not again. You stay the fuck away from me. You got it?” He turned, tripped over the pizza pan, sending crusts skittering across the floor. “Goddamn it,” and he side-kicked, shooting several under the pizza oven as he barreled out the doorway that separated the tiny kitchen from the waiting area with its clutter of free newspapers and menus.

Kelly shouted, “I should tell his girlfriend what happened, is what I should do.”

Jay Schachtel spun, stomping back to the doorway. He kicked the door frame. A dull thud. Again. There’d be marks.

“I haven’t,” Kelly said. “But I might. I just might.”

“If you do…,” Jay started, then stopped. He fisted his fingers tight around the doorframe for support.

Kelly jumped up and faced him, hand on her hips. “What? What?” she sing-songed. “Think I’m afraid of you?” Her laugh, then a silence.

The pop case jolted into a hum. The leaky toilet in back revved up. Neil’s arm stayed cramped inside his shirt, like a grocery store chicken wing. He felt tiny, the only one sitting on the dirty floor, so he clambered to standing, tugging off his shirt, dropping it to the floor and kicking it toward Kelly’s feet. There was a certain relief to getting it off in the stifling kitchen.

Jay Schachtel slammed through the front door, which squeaked and banged shut, fluttering the OPEN sign. Kelly sucked in a sharp intake of breath, jutted her chin.

“Look,” Neil said, as he popped his button-fly Levi’s. One of his high school buddies ragged him that zippers were better until Neil showed how fast a guy could get to business with buttons. Chances were his underwear wasn’t presentable, so he hooked both thumbs into the waistband of his jeans, deep enough to snag his Jockeys, and slid it all down. “Damn it,” he said, when the clothes caught at the top of his battered Red Wing work boots. Made a difference that he’d been working out. And she had to like what she saw with his cock, which was feeling damn fucking huge.

“Oh my God!” Kelly exclaimed. “What is this?” She’d turned surprisingly sober.

“My beautiful soul?” Neil said. Sounded like a Hallmark card to him, but who the fuck got how girls were?

“This is just fantastic.” Her head bowed and her hands lifted; she covered her eyes and started that loud, messy crying, like Cindy when the shit came down about his dad, when his dad owned up about the pregnant black chick.

“This is the part of the movie where they — .”

“God, shut up already,” she said. “Just shut up.” She sagged onto the floor, knees tucked against her chest, bawling. She looked like someone’s child: the top of her blonde head, the straight part down the center. “You’re all so clueless and annoying, all of you.”

His cock was feeling less damn fucking huge the longer she cried, so he gave it a quick pump, just keeping it solid. His only excellent attribute.

Kelly caught him: “Oh, God,” she said, staring up at him, still crying, her eyes smudgy and red-rimmed. “You’re going to make me blow you, too?”

That pang in his gut. Hell, yeah, he thought, but he thought again: he sensed a trick question. Plus, what she was saying. Too?

His cock softened slightly, and he stroked at it.

He was messed up.

That black chick’s baby would be his half-brother or sister. There was another, back when he was seven or eight, a little girl named Anna with white-blonde curls, and then she and her mom moved to Kansas. And that boy who came by that one time for the weekend who bashed the goldfish with his dad’s hammer, and Neil got blamed; why would a boy visit for no reason unless there was a reason? Probably more he’d never seen, if even his dad knew about them all. Crap. Again, the burn of tears behind his eyes. That rye was goddamn dangerous shit.

“Alls I want is a nice guy,” Kelly said. “Just someone half-normal who’s sweet to me.” The sobs were slowing, but she was still clutched over.

Neil thought about touching the curve of her back, the tiny bones rising on the ridge of her pale neck. He took a deep, messed-up breath and said, “I like you.”

“But you’re just some pizza guy.” She looked up quickly, wiped her cheeks. “No, no,” she said. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry I said that.”

“It’s okay.” He couldn’t be pissed because, fuck, she was right. Nothing but a pizza guy, and never anything more than that. Too impossible, too late for more. The-fucking-end.

“No,” she said. “Honestly, you do have a beautiful soul. Not like these assholes. Oh, what a screwed-up night. I hate tonight.” She smiled, wide and fake, held it until Neil thought she might explode. She repeated, “Really, I didn’t mean how it sounded. I feel terrible. Hey, I know. Let me — ,” and she propped herself onto her knees, reaching one hand to his cock, entwining her fingers around its thickness — God, the hard lunge, the throb pulsing his body — but there she was, collapsed back onto the floor, bawling again.

No, he thought, no to all of it, the beautiful soul, the pity blow job — and he started fumbling with the tangle of his pants, when the screen door banged. Paul would fire his ass. He’d been plenty stupid, but never like this.

“You open?” but right after came, “Hands above your head! Now!” One of Evanston’s finest, peering over the counter at — well, Neil wasn’t so drunk not to recognize the picture: a naked man and a sobbing girl. Some pizza guy and an English major from the school by the lake. A toad towering over Princess. He lifted his hands as the cop directed, got down on his knees, flattened himself along that filthy floor. What his father had predicted. This might be the single thing that would please him, being right.

Kelly sobbing.

Staring at the pizza crusts Jay Schachtel had kicked under the oven, and also something under there that was maybe the wallet Jet said got stolen and so Paul canned the black guy who’d been there a week.

Time slowed.

The phone. The cop, the cop’s partner.

Time crawled.

Kelly crying, Kelly saying that she was sorry, she was so sorry, she was sorry, she was just messed up, the night was messed up, Kelly puking, warm puke on his arm, Kelly trying to explain, crying.

Time inched.

The door. Paul. The twist of Neil’s neck, the ache. Cool linoleum floor. Crumbs pressing into his sweaty chest. Wanting to piss; afraid he would then and there. Then — crap — doing it: pissing…the horror of that, the relief. Picturing Jay Schachtel free and clear in his frat house, chugging Michelob, pulling an all-nighter to write up lab reports.

There’d been cops, but not like this. Forget working out, forget The Fountainhead, forget those rosy clouds bannering the sky before certain sunsets. His dad was right, predicting jail.

The part of the movie where old-time clock hands roll forward, Neil thought, where all time that existed led to now, to this single moment, this path, this destiny: jail, Paul shutting down Marcellino’s because of Dante’s, an empty bottle of rye the only thing left of his dad unless you counted him, Neil, and his unknown half-siblings, each scattered child heading down the same, sad, inevitable path. Time just fucking marching on. No way to stop it. Fuck. Crap.

The cops banging out the door. Kelly grabbing his shirt off the floor, wiping the puke from his arm, the piss. Paul laughing like a monkey, roaring and howling, telling him he’s never seen a skinnier white ass in his life. Laughing. Kelly laughing. Paul laughing.

He could laugh. Neil could laugh, too.

He could laugh.

Neil DeRosa laughed, he just got up and fucking laughed. It was as if he stood naked on the edge of a cliff, a different future glittering far below him, and all he had to do was step forward straight and hard into it.

2013: San Diego, California

This singular memory, that night, that laugh: a flash ricocheting round Neil’s consciousness in 1/100th of the time it took you to read the words on the page, that fast, as The Thing clutched Neil’s chest, patiently squeezing, compressing, as he understood maybe he was dying, dying for real, for real — real — as his wife’s arms cradled his head in her lap, her pleas and prayers confused and desperate garble, the ambulance sirens not coming, not coming. He was losing. He would lose.

He had been alone at the kitchen table, pouring cornflakes for a late breakfast, something you might eat at your own house: Cereal. Skim milk. A banana. Orange juice. Nothing unusual. Nothing to alarm, not even the stillness of the house, eerily silent with the twins off to college two weeks ago. Normal. Normal.

One moment, many moments. All that time we thought we deserved or earned, the moments we hoard: condensed, gone. The path, the road, the end. A final destination.

Or.

Neil stepped forward once again.

As before, now here at this last moment, everything glittering in front of us and behind us, we step forward — into the end, or only now, finally, into our true beginning.

And, “No,” Neil whispered, “no,” as his wife clung to his body, frantic to hold onto him, wanting to keep him with her, to keep him here.

“No,” again, and he hoped he said it out loud: This is like that, wanting her to know.