She Took My Arm As If She Loved Me Read Free Page B

long as the check clears for the client and myself, and the future checks keep coming. “I’m a frequent flier,” I said. “You and your chocolate bunny don’t work out an arrangement brings pleasure into your lives without taking essentials out of the mouths of your kiddies, I’ll definitely be back. I like Jersey, the parkways. Trenton’s a beautiful town. I enjoy my trade.”
    The deadbeat father thought I’d be a little Jew with felt pens staining the pocket and a plan to graduate from private eye to CPA. Instead he saw a skinny fellow with grayish hair, pink eyelids, and a sad way of saying, “Pay up or you’re a fugitive gets his hand caught in a car door. His knees. His neck. The worst kind, mister. And as a divorced dad myself, I have no sympathy.”
    The deadbeat sighed. Obviously I didn’t understand anything about the importance of Easter. “She should’ve married one of your kind. They love their kids. I guess it’s because of all the persecution they brought on their own heads due to nagging, nagging, nagging.”
    â€œSorry if I repeat myself, asshole. But you’re a little slow. Pretend you’re a loving dad.”
    Out of his stingy emotions he broke his deadbeat wind, yesterday’s farts saved for my arrival. The deadbeat gave up.
    This was the Resurrection and the Life. “From now on I’m Mosaic,” he said.
    I looked at him and he looked at me. His expression was one I knew from other deadbeat husband/fathers. You a pimp for my ex and I can’t even say it? Yup, that’s what I was, pimping food, schoolbooks, and doctor bills out of this nice person who just wanted to live in peace with the world and his chocolate bunny, plus not pay his dues. That’s how it was.
    While he was staring at me, trying to kill me as best he could while unable to do so, I passed the time by not humming or cleaning my fingernails or consulting my travel itinerary. It was time to go, but I wanted to make sure he would remember me. It was part of the deal, making sure the client wouldn’t need to send me back to Jersey. So I looked at him as if he were an invisible clot of bugs in the air. I could sit on him in a chair and not even notice, just scratching my butt a little.
    The deadbeat seemed a little slow. I could either rev myself up by admiring his general insufficiency as a human dad being or pretend I was revved up, which would save time and spare me from tapping into my reserve stock of adrenaline. I wiggled my fingers into and out of a fist. Needed to be limber in case he surprised me. I didn’t want to get totally dreamy and out of focus, and I didn’t want to miss my flight, and I guess I was losing patience in general, another fault that comes with the irritations of age.
    â€œHey?” I inquired.
    He raised his left eyebrow. I don’t put up with that kind of elegance in a stupid deadbeat dad, so then both his eyebrows suddenly shot up in a much more satisfying kind of surprised inquiry as I grabbed him by the collar, taking fistfuls of cloth and neck, and lifted him forward so I could conveniently yell into his nose: “Far-staysh, Mr. Asshole? Far-staysh?” Suddenly I was transformed into a crazy individual shouting something that made no sense to him.
    â€œHey, watch it, watch it, don’t, I’m sorry.” He was mumbling and white faced.
    â€œFar-staysh means do you fucking understand?”
    â€œI do.” It was like a wedding. “Hey, let go.” He wriggled, he struggled. For some reason I seemed to have lifted him slightly off the floor, a trick of deadbeat levitation. “Hey, come on, please.”
    â€œDo you plan to write a check for your wife and kid—” I released his collar and wiped my hands on my pants. I hate getting deadbeat slobber on my hands. “Okay, calm down. Write the check right now, while we’re both thinking about it,