“Failure.”
“What?” I say. Not that I didn’t hear him. I said “what?” because I didn’t understand.
“Failure … why?”
“You mean, why failure? Or are you repeating the word “failure” and then asking me why I asked you “what?”?
We were in Megrim’s “Café”, so this line of questioning raised no eyebrows among the gathered, those that might have been listening at any rate, which was likely everyone. At Megrim’s when somebody talks, just about everybody listens. First because people who talk are far more likely to look stupider than those who don’t, who are thereby soothed. Second because it’s something to do besides watch the several televisions whose sound has been turned down so that ….. I’ll have to ask about that someday. Anyway ….
“Say I want to eat half a pie, but not a whole pie,” says Dirk Bodkin.
I involuntarily shrank back for a moment thinking this might be a math problem. Then I remembered who’d asked. Dirk is a large, sincere man who understands mechanical entities so well he sometimes catches himself expecting everything to operate as predictably as engines.
“So, say you do,” I say.
“But then you eat the whole pie,” he says.
“Oh,” I say.
“First you ate half the pie, just like you said you would. And you took a little break. But then you went back and picked at the pie a little. Next thing you know, you’re cutting out a thin little slice. You hear a voice say, ‘eating this thin little slice is not eating the whole pie. It’s just eating a thin little slice.’”
“Right. Sounds reasonable.”
“But as soon as you finish the thin little slice, another voice says, ‘Well, you went ahead and ate that piece. You blew it. Might as well eat the rest of it because you already blew it. You ate more than the half you said you’d eat. You failed. Might as well enjoy it.’ Then you go what the heck, and eat the rest of the pie and the first voice says ‘Ah ha! You ate the whole pie. You really blew it now.’”
“Dirk, forgive me,” I say, beginning to wonder what sort of confession Dirk might be leading to. “Am I to take it that ‘eating the whole pie’ in this case is a metaphor for something maybe a little bit, or maybe a lot, worse than, you know, ‘eating a whole pie’?”
“Nope.”
“OK. Good. Just checking,” I say, relieved. Dirk Bodkin is sort of a shy quiet type. You’re always a little nervous if shy quiet types look like they’re about to confess something. Shy quiet types have a bad reputation for doing things that warrant confessing.
“So why? Why did I eat that whole pie,” Dirk redirects.
“Well, two things, Dirk,” I say. “One: I don’t know. Two: Those weren’t two voices you heard.”
“Sounded like it.”
“Yup. I bet they did. But it was the same voice. It was the voice of your Crimson Angel.”
In unison the patrons of Megrim’s audibly shifted in their seats as if to say “Shut. Up.” Philosophy or anything approaching it is frowned upon in Megrim’s. People come here to get away from Philosophy, ographies, ologies, and all polysyllabism in general.
“My who?” asks Dirk.
It took all my strength to fight back my inate desire to please grumbling murmurers, a roomful of whose eyes I could feel shooting out rays of disgust of the caliber normally reserved for people who want you to sing along with them or screaming children.
“Your Crimson Angel,” I continued to the backdrop of a collective sigh.
“Who’s that?” Dirk asks.
I look to Bart for some possible back up but he’s conveniently bound up in a sink full of dirty tumblers that all of a sudden need scrupulous washing. No fool, that Bart.
“Well,” I say, “it’s like this. All of us have two Angels. There’s the Crimson Angel and the Light Angel. Your Crimson Angel, if you’re like most people, was educated at Harvard or Princeton
“I can’t tell you which side the voice was coming from,” Dirk whispers, with a frosting of anxiety on his breath.
“Don’t matter,” I say. “Important thing is, your Crimson Angel pretends to like you. Pretends to be looking out for your best interests. He’s the one who tells you to eat the whole pie if what you just promised yourself was a half of it. And he’s an expert at knowing exactly what to say to get you to eat that whole pie and make it seem like it’s the right thing to do.”
“Damn, that’s him!” Dirk shouted.
“Yup,” I say.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Bart check a grin. Bastard. Feeding me to the lambs like this.
“Seems so unfair, being saddled with a heel like that,” Dirk says, frowning at the injustice.
“Well,” I say, “it would be, if not for the Light Angel.”
“Who’s that?”
“Well,” I draw out an “um” while I collect my thoughts. I have less practical experience with the Light Angel so I’m finding myself picking my sentences carefully. “Your Light Angel is kind of quiet. Learned, I’m sure. But he seems a whole lot simpler and less convincing than the Crimson Angel. Quiet chap. Rarely talks above a whisper.”
“I didn’t hear him,” Dirk says.
“Yeah,” I say, a real long drawn-out yeah that bought my brain some time to search through some old files in the cellar. “Well, you don’t really hear him unless you listen for him. He talks. But he’s a whole lot harder to hear.”
“He’s the one who made me feel bad about eating the whole pie?” says Dirk.
“Noooooooooo,” I say, quick to stomp out that little flame. “No, that was the Crimson Angel.”
“But I thought he was the one who talked me into eating the whole pie,” Dirk says, understandably confused.
“Oh he was,” I say. “See, first the Crimson Angel talks you into eating the whole pie, then he comes round and slams you for not keeping your promise to eat just half.”
Dirk’s face looks like he just sampled one of Megrim’s pickled eggs.
“That’s his game, Dirk,” I say, trying to sound consoling, pretty much totally failing to judge by Dirk’s reaction.
“So I fell for it hook line and sinker, then?” he asks in a sort of heartbreaking tone that big fellas get when something finally figured out a way to hurt them where they couldn’t fight back.
“Well, yeah, I guess you did, Dirk,” I say, testing the old Honesty Policy. “But on the other hand, now you know. Not that knowing always does a lot of good. Oh, crap. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Bart frowned. Well, tough beans Bart. You could help a guy, you know.
But Dirk saved me.
“No, you’re right,” he says, all convicted and convinced sounding.
A sad hush, sadder and quieter than the usual sad hush of Megrim’s “Café”, enveloped the room like wet smoke. Dirk was hurt. Bart was preternaturally involved with his dirty tumblers. The gathered pressed their condemnation on me with burning red eyes as if to say “How dare you tell Dirk a story like that … on a Tuesday!”
If I were physically able to dart, I would have darted out of Megrim’s and not returned till invited back, if ever. But no. I was trapped. And then I heard it. What it said exactly I can’t be sure, but in trying to piece it together, reconstruct the sounds it made, I must have spoken aloud because the next thing I know, I heard my own voice.
“I failed today, too, Dirk,” I blurted.
“No. How?”
Not that I wanted to get into it, but my rash unbosoming noticably relieved Dirk, so I rode the wave where it took me.
“I came in here, Dirk. I came into Megrim’s tonight after promising myself I wouldn’t because I came in here last night after promising myself I wouldn’t. But then my Crimson Angel, he said, ‘Boy, you already screwed up. Might as well go again tonight and resolve to stay away next week. It’ll be a fresh start. Best way. You’ll be fine.’ And in I came.”
“So you did fail, too,” Dirk says, a wan smile pulling at one corner of his mouth.
“Yeah, I did,” I say, eyeing up my drink. The ice cubes had shrunk, sloughed off into the burning amber. “Yeah, I did.”
Long quiet pause. My anxiety drained away into resignation. My secret was out. At least it shut up The Gathered – their thoughts that is, the unvoiced opinions that speak louder than words. And suddenly I felt the world on my shoulders, but quickly realized Dirk had draped his big arm around my neck. I felt the crushing heft of it, the weight of someone else’s world.
“I’m glad,” says Dirk. “Bart, one for my pal, here.”
Bart looked at me like he was waiting to hear what voice I’d listen to, the one that was saying “Hey, remember, you promised – only two.” Or the one that was saying, “How can you turn doen your good friend Dirk Bodkin when all he wants to do is stand you a drink by way of thanks. You going to add rude to your list of failures today?”
The mood of The Gathered shifted like wind over a freshly plowed field. Curiosity replaced angst. Even the cigarette smoke seemed lighter, fresher, more pure.
I pushed the glass toward Bart. A look of relief brushed over him like the shadow of a passing crow.
Dirk’s heavy arm squeezed my shoulders nearly imperceptibly before dropping off and allowing me to straighten up and take in two full lungs of breath.
Later, when Dirk ambled outside to make a cell call, Bart hunkered across the “counter” from me, head slunk down and eyes casting from one side to another before fixing on my own eyes just long enough to pass a thought.
“You done the right thing, there,” Bart says, nodding toward the nearly empty drink bought for me by Dirk Bodkin.
“Yeah,” I say, shifting on my stool. “That could be true. But I can’t help but thinking I might a did it the wrong way.”
“Whatever,” says Bart. “Last call!”
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