Thumbhole

"Slept with a fleece blanket on top of my covers last night." Kirk was on one of his rants, and away he was going. "You believe that?" I shook my head, made him sure he knew I was on his side. I am nothing if not loyal. "Middle of May, head sticking out in the cold air, tip of my nose, ice. Like I'm camping in my own goddamn bedroom. Fish and fried potatoes, fuck."

"What do you got against fish and fried potatoes?" Hey, I like fish and fried potatoes. What's a better meal than that, out in the woods, out in the wilderness, something you make for yourself right?

"I got cold feet. I got bad circulation! You know I'm due for arthritis? I'm on the path to arthritis, John, that's what path I'm on." My grandfather had arthritis and I tell him this and it does not deter him. "I play the piano, since I was seven I play the piano, how you think that's gonna work once the arthritis hits? And here I am with blankets in May and it's only gonna make it worse and I won't turn the goddamn heat on, it's a matter of principle. It's the middle of May! It's the middle of May, John, and I've got heating bills? No, I refuse to live in that world."

"You could wear socks to bed."

"Fuck you, you animal."

I order us two more ryes hoping that will be enough to end the night. When he gets like this he really gets like this.

"Take 'em off when you get warm!"

"I'm not warm, that's what I'm saying!" What, is fisticuffs about to start up in this pub?

"Before you fall asleep though, you take them off before you fall asleep."

He slammed his beer (we had been going back and forth, spirits and ales). "So at the exact precise moment I can feel my body drifting off, this is when I start doing sit-ups to remove my footwear? This will wake me up, John. This will wake me up. Square one, John."

The innkeeper gave us our drinks. "Thank you, kindly—well what do you want from me, Kirk?!"

"I don't know, John. I just don't know."

"Geez Louise."

"It's not your fault, John, it's me, I'm cold, I ache. Haha, 'It's not you, it's me! If you love me let me go!'" I cocked my brow at him. "Nothing."

He drank his rye in one fell swoop, ordered another. I hadn't seen him drink this much. I'd seen him imbibe a lot. But not this much. Something was eating at him. And this thing, this conversation, this was his way of asking for help. Some people just ask. Kirk, he has a temper.

"What's wrong?" I ask. He looks at his new drink. Sitting there. Still. Ceiling fans spinning, clack of the cue ball. Darts hitting one two three. Cheering. A bullseye. Somewhere in this pub, someone is getting exactly what they want. I look down and I see on the dark wood the indent of a thumb, some finger, where someone has been rubbing and rubbing away, trying to dig down. For what? Why? To get to the bottom of the wood? And then what? I get initials, that I can understand. But just the rubbing, rubbing, rubbing away. That I cannot wrap my head around. They're not going to replace the bar just because one guy's dug a hole in it. That's not how things like this happen.

And after a very long time, where I didn't know if he knew where he was anymore, that anyone was around him, he opened to me.

"I got no one, John." He squinted, hiding something. "I got nothing." He picked his drink up. The napkin, sopping from ryes previous, clung to the bottom of his tumbler, before tearing, breaking, and sticking to the bartop, with the smallest bit falling into that thumbhole. He caught this maneuver and bellowed, a gigantic and thunderous laugh that pulled everyone away from the lesser things they were doing. He eyed the napkin scrap and exhaled, "That's me." Put his thumb over it. Rubbed it into the thumbhole, out of existence entirely. Left his mark there.