Inside Moves by Todd Walton

Author:Todd Walton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

24

Riding back to San Francisco with Jackson was probably the happiest I’d been since I was a little kid. We joked around all the way home and of course I had to tell him about the operation then, but he’d already pretty much figured it out, so I wasn’t really breaking my promise to Jerry any more than I already had. Besides, I thought, what difference did it make now that Alvin was going to lend us the money?

Jackson dropped me at my apartment and then he zipped over to Max’s to relieve Jerry. We had supposedly gone fishing for the weekend. I changed my clothes and got over to Max’s fifteen minutes later. I was bursting, that’s the only way I can describe it. I took a deep breath, told myself to calm down, stepped on the welcome mat and the big door swung open.

“Hello, Roary,” says Max. He’s sipping a beer and finishing off a cigar. Max smokes a cigar about once a week. As I come up to him I wonder if he has any idea about what’s been going on.

“Hey, Max,” I say. I wait to see if he has anything else to say to me, since this is the first hello from him I’ve gotten in three weeks, but he doesn’t say anything else, so I wave hello to Jackson and then go upstairs. Jerry’s door is open and I can hear him moving around.

“Hey, Jerry,” I say, my voice quivering a little. I cough and clear my throat.

“Hey, Roary, how you doing?” he says, flopping down on his bed. “You guys have a nice weekend?”

“Great,” I say, trying to figure out how to tell him.

“You wanna play cards?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say. I just want to blurt it out, but for some reason that doesn’t seem appropriate.

I sit down on his bed and he deals out a hand of gin rummy. I look at him and I can’t stand it. I throw the cards down.

“What’s a matter?” he says. “Lousy hand?”

“Jerry,” I say, “I got the money for your operation!”

He sits there for about a minute. Then he says very quietly, “Where?”

“I went to see Alvin Martin. He said he’d lend you the money.”

Jerry’s face starts to get a little red. “You didn’t, Roary,” he says.

“I did, Jerry,” I say. “I saw him today, a couple hours ago.”

“Cut the bullshit, Roary,” he says, looking at his cards. “I’m not in the right mood, okay? Let’s play.”

“Jerry!” I shout, “I saw him! Really! He said he’d do whatever was in his power …”

“Roary,” he says, cutting me off, a strange look on his face, “I don’t believe you. If you don’t want to play cards I’ll play solitaire.” He gathers up the cards and starts shuffling them.

I can’t believe this. “Aw come on, Jerry,” I say, standing up. His room seems so small and stuffy. His whole life seems so stagnant to me. “I swear to God, Jerry, he said he’d lend us the money!”

Jerry just sits there and then he gets a sort of sneer on his face.

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