It was late afternoon and the restaurant was nearly empty. Two men in navy-blue suits dined in the back. These men were very much the same, though one was elderly and crumpled in the chair and the other was a clean-shaven man about forty. They sat by a great window that faced the quaint, cobblestone lane. There were many cafes and small store on this block.
The restaurant’s captain watched two beautiful women cross the street holding small shopping bags and whispering into each other’s ears. How beautiful they are, he thought, as he walked the bottle of cava across to the table. The captain placed the bottle in a tin pail of ice and took an order of steak tartare and stuffed mushrooms.
“Thank you, Mr. Brice,” the captain said as he departed.
“To go childless?” Henry took a drink. He scraped back his thin, white hair. “Your life will be pointless.”
“Dad, it’s not necessary to start –”
“No, I’m telling the truth.”
“I think it’s best if we have a nice, peaceful lunch. Don’t you?”
“I want to say exactly what I think of you to you. I have the right.”
“Yes, but this isn’t a good way –”
“You can sit there and say nothing for a while, can’t you?”
James said nothing. His hands were folded under the table and he was careful to not show expression. His father had ordered the cava, brioche with butter, and a charcuterie board of various cheeses, hams, and jellies.
“If it were me, I would be a suicide,” his dad said. “I’m certain. That’s what I know. You don’t know anything because you can’t see any further past tomorrow or the day after. Right?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”
“I don’t apologize for telling you what I think. Please, take what you want.”
“I’m not hungry at the moment.”
“Not hungry? I bought all this and – anyways,” Henry went on with a curt shrug. “I don’t apologize for being so open with you. Nobody else but me knows you like I do. I remember when you were born, your heart beating, your face pulsating, when you saw the world for the first time. It was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe I’d pulled it off. So, I’ll say what I wish. You will listen to me, as you’re obligated to.”
“I understand, Dad.” James swallowed. “I’m not hungry.”
“Take some tartare. I’m telling you to.”
“No, thank you.”
“The cava – why won’t you have a drink?”
“I’m going back to the office after this.”
“The office? Why?” Henry laughed as he ate. “What could be so important?”
“There is a little bit of work I need to return to.”
“I don’t understand that.” Henry’s sea-green eyeballs and thin, rigid mustache, over-touched with black ink, appeared to dissolve into autumn’s wearying dusk. “You don’t understand me. You screamed. I cried. I’m not ashamed to admit it.”
The captain served to them from the bottle of cava. The headwaiter arrived with mussels and frites and nodded pleasantly.
“You screamed. All red,” Henry continued. “Now you sit, noiseless and grey.” His lips were wet with olive oil. “Incomplete. I haven’t any other word for it. The word I want to use I won’t use. I don’t want to make you cry. But I expected certain things out of you.”
“I’m only saying, Dad, that –”
“Please, stop. You say nothing, you’ve never had, and – it’s settled.” Henry took a long drink of the cava. The wine spilled in rivers down the lines of his face and onto his clean shirt. “You don’t understand that nothing is ever settled. It can’t be. This is wrong. You’re to blame. You, only you, more than your wife. Yes, a man is more at fault than a woman especially when it comes to this and you know this and you can’t do anything, can you?”
“It was a shared decision.”
“No, she had only the upper hand.”
“I’m sorry, but we’ve made our decision.”
“No, no.” Henry struck the table. “Don’t interrupt me anymore or I’ll say something you won’t like. I won’t have any choice. Because it’s what you need to hear. Isn’t that right?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“I’m only saying that the decision has been made and that is all,” James said. “I don’t have anything else to say. This is our decision.”
“You better get out of it before it rots your insides. That’s my instruction to you.”
“Dad, I don’t believe that –”
“No future for you … you’re not eating. And you’ve gotten puffy in the last year.” He grinned and then was deathly grim. “Without you, I would’ve been a suicide. I’m not a liar. Stopped lying a long time ago. I would’ve killed myself. How about that?”
“Dad, I don’t think –”
“My life would’ve been worthless. I was younger than you are now and I still thought that way. It would’ve been a gunshot in the head. I had it planned, back deep in the woods across from the Audubon, the gun and my head wrapped in wet towels. Nobody would’ve heard it. The mess wouldn’t have been so bad. Nobody would’ve found me for a long while.” Henry nodded. “You sit like an idiot. Do you think I enjoy this rigmarole with you?”
“It’s something we’ve decided on together.”
“It can’t be. You must come up with a different lie.”
“I’m sorry, Dad, but there isn’t –”
“It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?”
“We’ve made our decisions and we’re both happy.”
“Dammit, how about some toast and mussels and I bought all this, dammit.”
“We’ve been over this, Dad. I thought you understood and agreed to it.”
“It didn’t agree. Don’t give me that bullshit. I’m not stupid.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m going to order another bottle of this cava.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Dad. Remember, that I’m going to the office.”
“I don’t understand that!” Henry chuckled as scraped the mussel-shells of their insides. “How could your possible care? Don’t much know why you even go to work. I knew why I did. But what do you have?” He rested back in his chair. “This is a pricey place. And you won’t eat a thing.” He trembled. “They used to crowd me in this restaurant with the rest. They tried to pull that old trick. Once, I had some millionaires come to see me on business. They supported some forgotten politician – I’ve also forgotten who it was. However, every captain was at attention. After that, I was in front with the kings and rulers.” He grinned. “That taught them.” He sniffled and straightened himself. “Anyways, what do you mean by saying you’ve ‘settled on something’? Please, I don’t understand. Explain it.”
“Something we’ve talked over.” James said. He didn’t know how else to explain it.
“I don’t understand it. Together? What does that mean?” Henry asked, his face quickly beamed – he looked like a child on Christmas morning. “I never liked and never trusted her. I knew her right from the very beginning. I know those types.”
“No, you’re wrong, Dad, she’s a wonderful –”
“You should have the nerve to not ruin your life – don’t squirm there – you squirm because you know you’re in the wrong and I’m just – Look, you must understand that’s a difficult thing for me to accept.”
“This is a decision that we’re both made,” James tried.
“I’ll be dead soon. Goody for me. For you? I hope so. That girlish, over-educated … Shameful, frankly, that you put up with her. Thinking on suicide maybe? You know, all it takes is a gun. Won’t you go and do it? I promise I won’t be so sad.”
“Please, it’s not right to talk like this.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m only saying that it makes for bad lunch conversation.”
“And what do you care? Lunch? You’re not eating – thinking on your precious office.”
“There’s something that I –”
“I don’t understand why you need to work so hard. What’s the point?”
James didn’t answer. He wasn’t going to the office. But when the nervousness was too great, when he heard the noisy clattering in his brain, he went for a long and meandering walk around town. He drank a peppermint latte and smoked many cigarettes as he went around the knolls in the eastern districts and then down to the sea before returning home.
“Drifted off, huh?”
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
Henry stared. “There’s no point without the future intact, is there?”
“Alright.”
Out on the street, a harsh wind-blow upturned trash from a receptable. A pretty woman shuffled by, trying to keep her dress held down. The captain shook his head as he went to serve a platter of oysters. He desired a lovely, beautiful girlfriend very much.
Henry shook his head as he took an oyster from the plate. “The wine is ninety-five dollars a bottle and you won’t touch it. These oysters are as valuable as diamonds.” He chuckled.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I have work I will need to get to soon.”
“You need to stop apologizing.” Henry snuffled into his sleeve. Mussel-shells were strewn all over the table. Their innards stained the tablecloth with browns and reds. “What was the point with you? I don’t much know why I brought you into the firm. That was my obligation. What is yours? No, you don’t care. Too selfish in the end.”
“I don’t know. I understand what you –”
“You can’t even give me that, can you?” Henry chuckled. “Do you think I liked doing it? Stabbing my friends in the back as I made money hand over fist? For you. You never understood what you were given. What was made from you before you even had the inkling to begin to try for yourself. Your grandfather advised me to make it that way. So, I did so.”
“It’s not up to me.”
“Yes, it is – she doesn’t respect you.”
“No, Dad, we’re happy.”
“A weakling. You’re a puny man. It makes me want to slap you.”
“She understands –”
“Stupid girlish notions that she’ll regret. I feel worse for her. It’s not like her job is impressive, fine for a woman, but meaningless in the long run. Maybe poverty and some old-fashioned stress would grow you up and – hey, when was the last time you stood about depressed on a perfectly lovely warm day and wondered what the hell was making you so miserable? That’s what I want to know. It’s a bit absurd. But you’ll get used to it. She’s lying to you. Because she hates you, and her own self too. She doesn’t respect you.”
The captain brought escargots, salmon meuniere upon arugula, liver pate, and toast. The maître ‘d assisted in setting the plates cleanly upon the table.
“You patronize her by supporting her. That’s the most disgusting part of it. Doesn’t it embarrass you? She despises you.” Henry spread liver on the brioche. “We got the same blood inside of us. Blood.” He patted his chest. “I guess it doesn’t mean anything to you. Maybe I’m the stupid one. I thought it did. I’ve been under the belief that it means something. What for? I see people who do what they wish without caring what people think and all I say is what the hell was I doing my whole life working at the stupid job until old age, eating what I –”
“Dad, it’s not so much like that. Please, I’m happy.”
“You have no right to be. James, believe me, you have no right.”
James looked about the dining room. He tried to believe that he and his father were passing strangers on park-benches, engaged in a casual conversation about the weather or ducks or baseball or whatever else people talked about under casual, ordinary circumstances. And that this random passer-by was just filling the air with barren, trivial lies.
“That wife of yours … you know what I think of her. Don’t you? Please, I’m begging you, tell me you at least know that. You can’t figure that out and I might – well, I don’t know what the hell I would do.”
“I’m only trying to follow.”
“I hope you’re enjoying everything?” the maître ‘d asked as he poured the last of the cava. “Is everything delicious, Mr. Brice?”
“It’s fine,” Henry answered coldly. His eyes were affixed onto his son.
James decided to eat a few escargots, to please his father. But they were to have salmon and saffron rice for dinner. He could see them together, exchanging funny stories as they sweated together in the warm, pristine kitchen. It was beautiful. He loved her very much, more than anyone knew. It wasn’t fair for him to be abused, and James felt his mind wandering to the hostile and unforgivable image of his father’s eventual death.
“If I were you, I would find myself a nice, homely girl who will raise children and want nothing else. I wouldn’t mess around with a stuck-up girl.” Henry struck the table. “A child. I’ve said it. And you – you won’t do anything about that, will you? A girl.”
“Please, Dad. Please.”
“It feels good to say it aloud. I hope you agree.” Henry gave him a long look. “You can’t stand up for yourself, can you? If my father called your mother that, I would’ve put him in the hospital in one second flat. But you sit there …Your grandpa and I fought once. I swung at him. I don’t remember why. Things were different back then. He hit me and I hit him … A bitch. Am I offending you? I’ll call her a bitch if I want to. That’s what she is.”
“She’s my wife. I love her very much.”
“No, you don’t. She doesn’t love you. If she did, she would act differently.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“No, you don’t – you’re not the brightest man.”
“I love her very –”
“Love hasn’t anything to do with it.” Henry considered. “Love is fine if you were a plumber and had nothing to live for. If there was nothing expected of you then you could fall in love. But look at you. Look at what I provided. Look at what I did. Let me tell you, I’ve forgotten more people than I screwed. All in the game. Well, it paid for your college and the meal you’re eating.”
The headwaiter served steak flambe, trumpet mushroom salad, fondant potatoes, and asparagus in mustard sauce. There were too many plates and the headwaiter and the maître ‘d tried to sensibly arrange them so that the table wouldn’t be so cluttered. They worked quietly and tried to assume indifference and dumbness.
“Hope you enjoy yourself now. You won’t.” Henry waived at the food. His expression was cynical and self-satisfied. “You won’t be mourned when you die. There won’t be anybody there. Everyone dies or leaves. Because you’re worthless. How will you feel when you’re useless and mute. You provide no help or guidance. You’ll have yourself to blame.”
James shook his head. “I love her very much.”
“What’s to be done?” Henry chortled as he took up his knife. “Well, nothing. Of course, I’m speaking sarcastically. There’s nothing to be done.”
James took the plate from his father and cut the steak into small pieces. He returned the place with a slow and steady nod.
“Yes, life will be joyless for you both,” Henry said as he ate. “Does she know it? The director of an art museum her entire life, her money that she will never very much need. Fine. Stupid job, but fine if she were ugly and bored. Fine, if she hadn’t greater responsibilities. Because you have enough. Isn’t that a superficial job? I think so. Do you? It’s a little embarrassing that she should plan her whole life about it.”
James took an oyster. Bitterness settled deep within him. He couldn’t shake how lovely and warm she would be back home, how hard she worked and how proud he was for her to have succeeded in her own way and without his help. He loved her. There wasn’t any mistake. He would go to the little fish shop down by the pier and buy a lobster for a special treat. Lobster, chocolate truffles, a bottle of resiling and cannabis lollipops.
“Strong and tough and mean as a man.” Henry sniffed. “She’s a baby, like you. You indulge her. You’re worse. You’re a failure. I am too, I suppose.” He chewed vigorously. “A performer. She likes to believe she’s against the world. Women are like that now. I don’t know why. Perhaps they have too much. Of course, when spoiled people are treated like the rest, they can get horribly indignant. Yes. But you indulge her. That’s what gets me to thinking that it’s a good thing in the end. You shouldn’t be any sort of father. And for her? She doesn’t know the gifts and opportunities her family provided for her, as I did for you too. You’re children. Both of you. You’ve no sense of obligation to our generation. I’m happy you won’t have them. I couldn’t be more thrilled. It would be a mistake, for you – I see that now.”
“Dad, all I’m saying –”
“Shut up for a minute. If I didn’t love you like I did, you would’ve been nothing.” Henry smacked the table with an open palm. The dishes jumped. “A man bows to her and ends up with nothing. Morons have twelve children, feed them a biscuit a day, and send none to college. They go to heaven. It’s absurd, even sidesplittingly so, that she and you will end up in Hell, being useless nonsense things. I hate God. I wish you would have some steak. Why can’t you? Have one tiny piece for me, for your old man.” Henry began to laugh, high-pitched and fiendishly. “Won’t you? One tiny piece? Can’t you? You can’t? No? No!”
“I’m not hungry, Dad. I’m sorry.”
“You should eat because I have bought this large, perfect meal. This meal is perfect. I cannot believe such a chef could’ve pulled it off.”
“Please, Dad –”
“I don’t understand what you’re thinking doing this. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste five seconds. I would tell her to take a hike!”
James shivered. “Would you like me to order the car for you, Dad?”
“Not even some bread with the tartare? Huh?” Henry shrugged. A black-purplish flush spotted his cheeks, chin, and the bridge of his nose. “Where do you think the ghost is? The ghost inside of all of us.” He laughed. “The soul. The ghost. We care so much for the skin and brains and forget on the ghost.”
James smiled as warmly and submissively as he could as he stood and made eyes with the captain. The captain went to speak with the maître ‘d and the two men split.
“You haven’t any answer and you must like it that way. A whole life of taking things that aren’t yours and aren’t we all fools to put up with it? Not like women, with their things paid for, so they live like children. That responsibility means nothing in the end. Why does anyone want it? It forced upon people. Nobody wants it. It’s something that’s difficult to figure out. I don’t have an answer. Men are children too now. That’s what we’ve done. Haven’t we? How about you make something up. Please. Won’t you?” Henry fell to his knees besides the table and clasped his hands as a beggar would. “Won’t you? Won’t you? For Daddy?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“Fine, have it your way.”
“I’m only trying – well, Dad, it’s a hard question.”
“Shouldn’t be. Any answer will do.”
Henry scrunched up his face. “I’m sorry, Dad.” He shook his head. “Why don’t we call your car now, Dad – I must get back to the office.”
“Yes, you have nothing. Nothing at all.”
There was a shiny pallor in his father’s face. James left the table and walked towards the door. As he did so, his father laughed. The teeny, snarky whinnying accelerated into a dirty, sinister holler that stung like a bad odor in the empty room. The maître ‘d walked towards the table. James met the maître ‘d in the middle of the room and they exchanged words. James nodded at the end and returned to the table. He kept his hands hidden below the table and he tried to keep himself occupied. Each second was long. James felt for his old, worthless father. He saw Henry drink the cava in silence and shook his head as the faint confusion came over those small green eyes. He wished he could do something reassuring and kind for him. He’d never cared so much about keeping up his dignity. For he had the upper hand and mustn’t forget it.
Hunter Prichard is a writer born and raised in Portland, Maine. Follow him on Twitter at @huntermprichard.