One Simple Thing by Warren Read

Author:Warren Read
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: IG Publishing
Published: 2020-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

The Ogre does what ogres can,

Deeds quite impossible for Man,

But one prize is beyond its reach:

The Ogre cannot master speech.

About a subjugated plain,

Among its desperate and slain,

The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,

While drivel gushes from his lips

—W.H. Auden, August, 1968

18

Rodney and Otis sat in the living room on opposite sides of the cherry coffee table, their hands resting on their knees like schoolboys. Rodney’s shirt collar scratched at his neck, and his trousers bunched in places he was not willing to adjust in front of Otis. They were his “church” clothes, though his family hadn’t been to any kind of church since coming to Hope. His mother had insisted he dress up nice. It was a special night.

“What’s this guy like, anyway?” Otis shifted in his seat and tugged at his collar. He wore a white button-down shirt that still showed the creases from its life in the package.

Rodney had been sweeping out the warehouse for a good four months or so, yet had only spoken to Charlie Kruger twice. And even those moments had been just in passing. But he had seen the boss around the shop, and knew the man’s face, and the hollow baritone of his voice as he drew out his words, as if vowels were to be savored as gifts from the gods. The sustained “O” of Rodney’s mother’s name could carry to the farthest reaches of the warehouse. “Ro-oohse!” he would call out. The rest would be nothing more than a rumble of words, unintelligible.

“He’s alright,” Rodney said. “He drives a big car.”

“Is that so?” Otis leaned forward suddenly, his fingers raining on his knees like keys on a piano. “What kind?”

“I don’t know.” Rodney didn’t know cars too well, other than Otis’s Bonneville. And the Impala that had been out front of course, once upon a time.

“Is it a Cadillac? Or maybe a Monte Carlo. Does it have a front end that goes on forever?”

“I said I don’t know what kind of car.” Rodney undid the top button of his shirt, offering a welcome breeze against his chest. “This is stupid,” he said. “It’s just dinner.”

“On that,” Otis said, “you and I agree.” He stood from the high-back chair and went into the kitchen, where Rodney’s mother was working the pots and pans and the cupboard doors like they were drums.

“By the way,” he heard her say to Otis, “I don’t want you drinking.”

“At all?” Otis said.

“Ideally.”

Then there came the rattle of bottles on the refrigerator door. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “You’d think we were having dinner with the goddamned mayor.”

From where he sat, Rodney caught a blink of movement through the open drapes as a long, silver sedan stuttered to a stop against the curb, like a railcar pulling into the station.

“He’s here,” Rodney called out.

Otis flew into the living room and huddled against the wall, peeking out the window from its edge like he was a five-year-old looking out for Santa Claus.

“Looks like a Lincoln,” he said, snapping the drapes back.

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