child,” I say. If Ira’s mouth drops any further it will fall off. “That’s what she came here to tell me.”
“That’s horrible!” Ira says. “How could she do something like that?” My cell goes off before I can respond. It’s my brother.
“You are such an asshole,” he says.
“It’s nice to speak to you, too,” I tell him. “I assume you’ve spoken to Maggie.”
“Yeah, and she told me what you gave her,” he says.
“She told me what you gave her as well,” I say. He’s silent on the other end. “Is there anything else you would like to talk to me about?”
“You stay out of this,” he says.
“I would love nothing more than to stay out of this,” I say. “Maggie arrived and attempted to ruin my morning. Now you are calling me and telling me to stay out of something I have been trying my best to not be involved in.”
“You don’t have to worry about being involved in anything else, Cyrus” he tells me. He sighs heavily. “You are a real piece of work, you know that? I don’t know how you sleep at night. Not after what you did to dad.”
“I did nothing to dad,” I say. Ira hears and looks at me. I cover the phone. “Head back to the office. Someone is coming in half an hour.” Ira leaves and I continue speaking to my brother. “What happened to our father has nothing to do with this conversation.”
“Does Maggie know about the time you spent in the hospital?” he asks me.
“Hospital?” I ask him. “Is that what they call them now?”
“You needed help,” he says. “Mom said…”
“Don’t mention her,” I tell him. “I am at work. We can talk some other time.”
“You better leave Maggie alone or…”
“You better shut up before I smash your fucking face in!” I shout at him. As you know I hate shouting. I never threaten people and I hate raising my voice.
“I would love to see you try,” he says.
I smash my phone on the ground and head downstairs to my office. I rush in and startle Ira. She is about to say something to me and I rush past her and into my office. I grab my keys and rush towards the elevator. It arrives and I jump in. I am aware that I have a client soon. I am aware that I am behaving very unprofessionally. But right now I have far too many thoughts going through my brain, beating my brother to death being the highest priority. I reach into my pocket to call my client and remember that I destroyed it. I race to my brothers house. He lives perhaps twenty minutes from me. I arrive and jump out of my car and rush to the door. Maggie opens it up and holds her hands up.
“Leave” she says.
“Stay out of this” I tell her. “Get out here!” I shout at my brother. Maggie jumps as she has never heard me raise my voice. My brother comes to the door holding a baseball bat. He moves Maggie into the house and steps outside.
“You make the first move,” he tells me while waving the bat in my face. I remove my jacket and wrap it around the bat and snatch it away from my brother. I rush over to my car and start smashing the windows while my brother watches. I then toss it back to him and drop to the ground in front of my brother. “What are you doing?”
“Help!” I shout. “Please stop!” Neighbors start coming out of their houses and some of them are already on their cell phones and calling the police no doubt.
“Shut up!” my brother shouts and nails me in the leg with the bat. He then starts kicking me. “Stop screaming, you fucking lunatic!” I stay down and cover myself until I can hear sirens approaching. I roll away from him and my leg feels broken.
“Got you,” I say to him as the police arrive.
“You son of a…”
“Police! Put the bat down! Now!” an officer shouts. My brother slowly places the bat on the lawn. “Lay down! Get down on the ground!” He lays on the lawn and I’m smiling at him the entire time. Maggie comes out of the house.
“He didn’t do anything!” she shouts, defending my brother. “Cyrus did it himself!”
“He beat himself with a bat?” the officer asks. Maggie is silent. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right…”
I need to get back to work.
NINE
There are cracks in my armor. I do not like to admit flaws within myself but I am smart enough to acknowledge them. It all began with me laying on my brothers lawn with a fractured leg and my ex-wife Maggie screaming to the police that I had done this to myself. That was four months ago. My brother was arrested, Maggie eventually got an abortion, and I have been attempting to live my normal life. Ira, who has been working for me since the closing of Tony’s restaurant, and I use the term “restaurant” lightly, was the first person to call me out on my change in behavior.
I arrive for work and my first client of the day, Lawrence Rowe, is sitting in the reception area tapping his leg impatiently. Ira looks at him then me and rolls her eyes. I nod to her and ignore him. He begins to stand and I hold up my hand. He continues to stand and walk towards me.
“I’ve been waiting over half an hour,” he says.
“Thank you for the announcement,” I tell him. Ira lowers her head and I see her shoulders shake. I should give her a bonus for not laughing out loud.
“We need to get started,” he sighs. “I’ve a lot of…”
“Your appointment is not until 9am,” I remind him. “It is 8am. You’re an hour early.”
“I just thought that…”
“This is not a free clinic,” I say while looking him in the eyes. “This is not the DMV. You cannot just arrive here and expect to be served immediately unless it is at your appointed time. Does this look like a deli?” I’m normally this short only with Maggie. Ira is watching me. “I asked you, Mr. Rowe: Does this look like a deli?”
“No, I just…”
“Good,” I say courtly. I am being far too aggressive. “Now that we’ve both acknowledge that I am not in the sandwich making industry will you please sit down and wait until it is time for your appointment?” He stares at me. I know what he is thinking. He does not want to look weak yet he knows that if he says the wrong thing he will be escorted from the building and his consulting fee held.
“Can I reschedule?” he asks me.
“Speak to Ira,” I tell him. “Ira?”
“Of course, Mr. Tatum,” she replies and I head into my office.
I close my door and sit behind my desk. Two minutes later Ira brings me a cup of coffee. We purchased the coffee machine at Tony’s before it was converted into a yoga studio. She reaches for a cigarette and stops, remembering that we only smoke on the rooftop. I don’t blame her. Old habits and all.
“So…?” she says.
“Complete sentences please” I tell her.
“What was that about?” she asks. “You have a bad night or something?”
“I had a fine evening,” I tell her. “I checked my calls. Watched the news. Found out that there were sixty-two new forms of cancer discovered since I last checked. Had two glasses of wine. Had some leftover Chinese. Went to sleep around 2am. And now…here I am.”
“Can I be honest with you?” Ira asks. I nod as I sip my coffee. It’s perfect. “Ever since the…’incident’ at your brothers you haven’t been the same.” Ira waits for me to respond. When I do not she continues. “I don’t want to overstep my boundaries with you or anything, but I know a real good therapist that can…”
“Is this the same therapist that convinced you that it was a good idea to stay with your abusive ex husband and never attempted to point out the fact that working in a diner for over twenty years was not the best of career decision?” Ira smiles. “Ira, I don’t like therapy.”
“But you do it” she says.
“Is that what you think this is?” I ask her.
TEN
I’ve mentioned in the past bits of my childhood. It was not a happy period for me. My mother was nonexistent. My father was an abusive alcoho
lic. My brother was an asshole. The end. I was considered quite anti-social by my family and teachers. For the first few years of my life they believed I had a learning disability since I never spoke. Funny that talking is now how I make my living. Funnier is that talking is what I used to get rid of my father.
One afternoon following a particularly unpleasant day at school I arrived home to find my father sitting at the breakfast table with two empty bottles of vodka. He was struggling to open a third. I attempted to quietly pass him when he grabbed my collar and flung me into the chair next to him. He shook the bottle at me and grunted. I used my teeth to remove the cap and handed it to him with a glass. He slapped the glass out of my hand shattering it.
“Don’t need a fucking cup…” he mumbled. “You seen your mother?” I shook my head. “You mute or something?” I shook my head again. “Then you need to say something, Cy.” He called me Cy. Not once in the time I spent around the man did he ever call me Cyrus. “Walking ‘round like a goddamn zombie not talking to anyone. Think you better than me, huh?” Before I could respond he grabbed my head and slammed it on the table. This was not the first time he laid his hands on me. But it would be the last. “’Member that doctor we sent you to last year? Know what he said ‘bout you? Said you was smart but ‘had trouble following orders and issues with authority figures. Possibly depressed.’ Fuck you got to be depressed about? Huh?! Got food. A roof. A family that cares…” I laughed. “Fuck you laughing at?”