Alligator - Lisa Moore [96]
Frank took off his baseball cap, put it on his knee, and tried to calculate when he could leave without being rude. He wanted to leave. He didn’t want Kevin’s money. He would leave without the money.
Kevin slapped margarine into the frying pan and put the burner on high. He opened the fridge and Frank saw it was empty and brilliant white except for a bottle of mustard pickles and a package wrapped in butcher’s paper. Kevin tossed the package onto the counter. Frank could smell the margarine turn brown.
Photocopiers I’m specialized in, Kevin said. Mostly it’s the carbon tray empty when there’s a problem. Utensils hit the back of the drawers noisily as he slammed them with his hip.
My ex-girlfriend laughed at me buying this pan. This is Teflon and you can’t use metal or nothing like that on it. And where is the Jesus spatula, Frank, I wish I knew. My girlfriend said when she saw the pan you’ll have that all scratched up before the week is out. You’ll never own anything worth anything is what she said. I don’t know how many times she said that. I’d like to see someone try to point out a scratch on this pan though, Frank.
It looks to be working pretty good there now, Kevin, Frank said.
Kevin turned from the stove and looked out the window. He had a garden, Frank saw, with a little patio and two chairs and a rusted wrought-iron table with a glass top. The garden darkened and a wind showed the grey side of the whispering aspen’s leaves and let them flop back washed green and lifted them again.
The rain came down hard, drilling the metal garbage tin, rising up like white fur from the slabs of concrete that made up the patio, spiking off the arm of the plastic lawn chair. Kevin unwrapped the bologna and, peeling off the wax rind, dropped each slice in the sizzling margarine.
Frank saw there was no way he could leave while the rain was heavy and before the fries and bologna were done and decided to take the money.
He needed the money; he would take it.
He felt angry with Kevin for making the money mean so much; for having enough of it to lend in the first place.
I hear your mother died, Frank, Kevin said.
I still have her ashes, Frank said. He couldn’t think what had made him admit such a thing.
The fries are done perfect, Kevin said, ladling them out of the fat with a slotted spoon. He put a salt shaker and the ketchup on the table. Then he got the pickles out of the fridge. He put a plate in front of Frank, piled with french fries and a piece of bologna, and Frank began to eat.
My girlfriend left there the spring, Kevin said. He cut the slabs of bologna with the side of his fork, slapping both sides of it in the ketchup and folding it into his mouth. He stabbed the fries until the fork tines were jammed and he ate the plateful in less than three minutes. Tipping his chair onto its back legs he dropped his plate into the sink behind him.
I need a thousand dollars, Frank said.
KEVIN
KEVIN LOWERED HIS chair to the floor and he ran both his hands up and down his thighs. He stood and pulled a thick wallet from his back pocket. The wallet was attached to his jeans with a retractable cord that he tugged on and then drew out several bills and put them on the table beside Frank. He put the wallet back in his pocket and Frank heard the cord slither into place.
Kevin sat down again and tore a piece of paper towel off the roll in the middle of the table and wiped his mouth. He folded the paper towel and rubbed each corner of his mouth carefully and folded it again, and just patted his lips gently with it and stared forward, out the window.
When they told my mother she wasn’t fit, my mother smirked. It was a smirk, Frank, Kevin said.
He put the folded paper towel under the bottom of the ketchup bottle. He was thinking of an afternoon when he and his mother were walking up from downtown and a parade passed by them. Cadets coming down Long’s Hill. First the older men, looking straight ahead, their lower lips firm with the grim promise