Black Chalk

I remember, I say, sounding bored.

Fine, then we can talk fondly of old times if you’d prefer, Chad says.

I grimace, the sarcastic imitation of a smile.

Chad waits as I let the silence lengthen. And then at last he shrugs and speaks. If you don’t want to play small talk, Jolyon, then there was another game I had in mind. He picks up his case, rests it on his lap and snaps open its latches. These are your birthday presents, he says as he starts to unpack its contents. Cards, dice and a blue cup. Chad even has a small square of green felt. He lays everything out on the coffee table, the green felt cut perfectly to size, and looks up at me. I took the liberty, he says. Or did you have your own paraphernalia you were planning to use?

No, I say, I clean forgot to contact my paraphernalia maker.

Chad laughs. Do you want to start now or would you like to chew the fat a little more?

Just deal the cards, I say.

LXXIII(iii) Chad wins. It is not even close. He wins and wins and wins. What are the words they use in sports reports? Carnage. Slaughter. Whitewash.

Although technically it is not quite a whitewash. But I lose spectacularly. I struggle to keep track of the cards that have already been played. I struggle to remember whatever strategy I once knew. At some points in the Game I even struggle to keep my eyes from closing. My head hurts. I am drunk, I am clouded by pills. The consequences of losing make me feel sick and weak. Chad intimidates me. I can’t stop thinking about Dee.

And the dice fall unkindly. Everything is against me, everything except for the cards dealt during one solitary round. One round in which fate tosses me a bone, a hand so pleasing that it is hard not to win something. A crowded court of nobles, a diamond mine, a superabundance of spades . . . But I play this hand terribly, I play it like a Vegas lush. And then the dice fall kindly for Chad.

When this round of the Game is complete, I owe Chad three of the most serious consequences and two from the second pot. (I use the word pot symbolically as we have agreed to negotiate the consequences once the play is complete.) Chad, having fought off the onslaught of my single miraculous hand, owes only a single consequence. Yes, one minor scratch, a debt owed to the least serious pot.

LXXIII(iv) Why don’t you go first? Chad says. Hit me, Jolyon, what will it be? He leans back smug in his chair, pulls out a piece of paper from his back pocket. I took the liberty of preparing a list of tasks for you already, he says, waving the folded page. You know, just in case I got lucky.

I hold my head in my hands. I don’t know, I say.

Come on, Chad says, there must be something you want to do to me. Some minor embarrassment you’ve longed to see me suffer. You’ve had fourteen years, Jolyon.

Give me a minute, I say.

Sure, take as much time as you like.

LXXIII(v) I pace unsteadily up and down the length of the apartment. I pause before each turn hoping that something will have landed in my head, something simple yet devastating.

But I can only think about Dee. More blood on my hands. And nothing arrives.

The more I pace the harder it becomes, my head elsewhere and the room wheeling around me.

I stop in the kitchen. Maybe some of this light-headedness is not only because of whisky and pills. I start to wonder how long it is since I’ve eaten. How could I have forgotten to eat? I can’t remember the last time I put anything in my mouth.

The fridge is empty and the cupboards are bare except for a few tea bags. Empty tins of chilli litter my kitchen counters, a jar of peanut butter that looks as if it has been licked clean by a greedy dog. I find a box of sugar on the floor and even that is empty.

There must be some food in here somewhere. I get down on my knees and crawl around, sifting through the mess, the dirty clothes, old newspapers, utility bills, empty whisky bottles, cutlery, crockery, a small mirror, so many green bottles, crushed eggshells, a Chewbacca mask, delivery menus . . .

And then I find something. Not much. But something.

I tip the bag and a few stale crumbs fall into my mouth. Brittle crunch. And then something softer, the sweet melt of a milk-chocolate chip.

I look at the wax paper bag, wet my forefinger, dab at the crumbs. I can hear Chad whistling Auld Lang Syne in my living room. I start to smile.

LXXIV

LXXIV(i) The kitchen table is bare. Old and scratched. She is throwing a tablecloth over it when I enter. The cloth is scorched in places. She wears a green pinafore over a white T-shirt. First she smooths the tablecloth, then the front of her pinafore.

This gentleman is from England, the farmer says. He takes the Ford cap from his head and hangs it on a coat hook by the door. You know, that country with all the famous queens, he adds.

The farmer’s wife is flustered, she flaps toward her husband, turns him around. Why don’t you go put on some bacon and eggs? she says.

Because I’ve eaten, the farmer says.