I didn’t want to bite, but I bit. “What did you ask him?”
“‘How do blind people know when they’re done wiping their ass?’ And you know what he said?”
I blurted, “When the toilet paper doesn’t stink anymore?” I didn’t want to say that. I didn’t want to get sucked back into the early-20s Land of Dude that seemed to surround old friends like Brandon. I wanted to take higher ground. I just couldn’t resist.
“Nah,” Brandon said. “It’s one of those jokes that’s funnier without a punch line.”
A short silence lingered between us. I didn’t see any real need to rescue the conversation from the silence. I said, “Listen, I gotta go. I appreciate the info.”
“No sweat,” Brandon said. “And I know you’re not asking for my advice but I’ll give it anyway. Cancel your lunch with that fucking guy. No good can come from this.”
“I may do that,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t cancel that lunch. Because here it was, a voice in my head for the fourth time. It insisted I act against my nature and my better judgment. The same thing that held me here instead of going to Fresno on Nietzsche’s last day, the same thing that kept me from reading the release form I signed for Dr. Bishop. It was a little creepy how insistent it was, how strangely directed. Maybe something was slipping inside. I had to be aware of that possibility. It wasn’t enough to keep me from lunch with Frank Walters, though.
Brandon said, “Keep in touch.”
“You got it.” I pulled my appointment book closer. I underlined the words Be careful.
8
Frank Walters had asked to meet at a chain restaurant, the kind of place you could find lingering on the edge of most American suburbs and dotting Southern California freeways every twenty miles. Our meeting was scheduled for one o’clock. This had put me in a bit of a pickle. Due to the bus schedule and time allotted for walking to the big box shopping center and across its vast parking lot, I had a choice of either arriving for our lunch meeting fifteen minutes early or fifteen minutes late. I erred on the early side.
A hostess sat me at a four-top round table. On the wall above me hung one toy tricycle too small for any rider with the exception of an organ grinder’s monkey, one railroad crossing sign, one candy-striped clown horn, one autographed picture of Mets legend Ron Swoboda making a diving catch in the 1969 World Series, one stuffed owl, and six black-faced Russian nesting dolls on a tiny shelf. A toy airplane hung from a rafter above my head, supported by fishing line. An absconded carousel horse stood at the end of the hallway, its nose pointing to the bathrooms. I tried to think of a story that encompassed all of these items, or some sort of theme that could tie together clown horns and nesting dolls and railroad signs but came up with nothing.
In front of me lay my white, three-ring binder with all of my grant information. I couldn’t concentrate on it or anything else in the clutter of surrounding kitsch. I closed my eyes and tried to think of something more peaceful: the cemetery park by my house, Clint Dempsey chasing a tennis ball, the soft flesh of my wife’s earlobes, Lola’s wall of college art. It calmed me long enough to open my eyes again. My gaze rested on a sign across the room from me. It showed a clip-art man from the ’40s. He had a huge head, a tiny body, and a cane that must’ve been for decoration judging from the way he held it. Below the clip-art man, the sign read Hats Cleaned, 6¢. Clearly, the interior designer of this restaurant was afflicted with that random madness brought on by a complete lack of imagination. I could make no other sense of it.
Luckily, the waitress snapped me out of it. She approached my table from behind me and said, “Hey, you. I’m glad you stopped by.”
I looked up at her. Nothing about her eyes struck me as familiar. I wondered if she knew me from the psych hospital, or if the tone of her voice was affected, claiming to know me in an accepted insincerity, much in the way that this particular big box restaurant claimed to be “Your Neighborhood Restaurant” though it was in hundreds of locations throughout the US, none of which could accurately be called a “neighborhood.” I gave the waitress my best noncommittal smile.
“What can I get you to drink?” she asked. She set a cardboard coaster that doubled as a beer advertisement on the table in front of me. Her fingernails were painted black.
“An iced tea, please.”
“Mango or passion fruit?”
This question struck me as nonsensical as the decorations. It took me half a second to understand that mango and passion fruit were my choices of iced tea. I didn’t know how to choose one. I said, “Whichever one you recommend.”
The waitress smiled. “Passion fruit.” She winked and walked away. I watched her pale legs swish as she left, her saddle shoes and frilly white socks a blur on the dark, matted carpet.
I’d brought my three-ring binder with me to the restaurant for two reasons: it gave me something to read on the bus and it served as a reminder that the funding for the hospital was going well. I was negotiating with both a pharmaceutical company and our research scientists about a large endowment to drive their Alzheimer’s research. A psychologist turned legislator had set aside a good deal of money from last year’s state budget to cover hospitals like ours, and early conversations with various members of the Department of Mental Health led me to believe that a lot of that money would be heading our way. I had irons in several promising fires. The indicators I could read all pointed to the notion that I was doing a good job so far and that the hospital didn’t necessarily need money from Frank Walters of Dickinson and Associates.
I flipped the pages, re-read my own notes, kept my eyes down. A blur crept into my peripheral vision, white trails from a waving cane. I looked up to see Frank Walters. He paused at my table, pulled out a seat, folded his overcoat the long way and the short way and hung it over the back of the seat next to him, unbuttoned his jacket, and sat down without a word. He retracted the length of his cane into its handle.
I said, “Mr. Walters.”
He offered his right hand. I shook it. I wondered how he knew how to find my table, how he’d gotten to the restaurant, all of those things. He moved with such ease and confidence that, for one shameful second, I wondered if he truly was blind. What a perfect coup for someone in his business: to soften the barbs associated with being an advertising guy by faking blindness. A nice dose of pity to dilute the contempt. If it was his personal campaign to advertise himself, it would be an effective one. I’d buy it. As soon as I finished wondering this about Walters, I felt like a jerk for even thinking it.
Walters adjusted his tie. Everything about him was immaculate: pressed silk shirt, matching handkerchief in his front pocket, suit jacket tailored to fit, manicured fingernails, hair so sculpted by product that a Santa Ana wind couldn’t muss it. His sharpness was intimidating. I’d even dressed up a little for this lunch. I wore my best dress shirt, tie, and slacks. It was the outfit I wore for job interviews, the suit my mother had bought so that I wouldn’t embarrass her at formal family functions. Only minus the jacket. I’d left that at home. Of course I recognized the irony of getting dressed up to meet a blind man.
Walters said, “I’m sure you’re wondering why I invited you to lunch.”
“I am.”
“My firm is willing to make quite a generous donation to your mental hospital.”
“I appreciate that.”
“We understand