[Crit] A name for a person KeepWriting

 A name for a person 

We are experiencing technical difficulties.

“I’ve been there you know?”

We are experiencing technical difficulties.

“That doesn’t mean you know anything more than what to order at a restaurant, if that.”

We are experiencing technical difficulties. But there’s another noise.

“It means I have a personal connection to the place.”

There were two sounds to which Lucky paid no attention. His friend talking about what was on the news was one. Lately he didn’t listen to his friends often and never when they tried to argue without caring for what they argued. Whenever he had to listen to them talk like this he would shut down - not listen or look around while they talked - and wait for everything to quiet down. He tried to avoid feeding into ramblings because there was nothing he could say. It wasn’t because he had nothing to say but because there was nothing to say. None of them knew anything about what was being talked about on the news so there was no need to say anything about what they don’t know. They’d show more of what they know if they stayed quite.

“What do you know about the conflict? Did you actually see anything?”

The second sound was the news itself which at this moment was experiencing technical difficulties. Prior whatever was happening with the technical difficulties there was a reporter covering issues abroad. He didn’t know what those issues were or where they were because he felt that whatever they were they were insignificant to him. When the news suddenly stopped he became a little more interested in what was going on but the repetitive announcement of what was obvious he became immediately disinterested again.

“I know all about it.” Jerry was to his left and the other one, the instigator who spoke truth when he called out Jerry’s actual lack of knowledge, was indeed when just as ignorant as Jerry. His name was Mickey. When they were with others, when they were young, everybody called them the three musketeers, the three amigos sometimes, but to Lucky they were better seen as the three stooges.

But what was the other noise? The same way people ignored the sound of a refrigerator or a washing machine in the background of everything Lucky could ignore his friends and the television. But he couldn’t ignore this sound which was far more insipid than the others. It was some sort of gentle rapping – on window was Lucky’s guess- and it took him away from where he was which made him want it to continue. In its percussive eccentricity, Lucky found a lively and inviting portal of mystery. But it was so minor and set in to the background he felt doubtful of its existence and felt it reasonable to conclude he’d finally gone insane. He hoped that things might not be so unusual and thought a gentle tapping like might be something lightly hitting a window.

When the mysterious window rapping became lighter it appeared to fade from fact. He didn’t want to think he might just be imagining this sound so he stood up and stared to investigate. He went into the kitchen adjacent to the television room and immediately realized the source of the sound was near. It was coming from the window, the kitchen window to his left and when he turned he found the reason for the sound. He looked out the window and found a drumstick, a breaded and fried piece of chicken, hanging from a string outside his window. It dangled and swung lightly into the kitchen window, leaving a grease stain, several greasy stains actually, clustered around the center of the window where the pendulous drumstick knocked the glass. He opened the window and looked at the drumstick swinging in front of his face. He had questions, obvious questions, but he couldn’t hear himself asking them. He stared and stared until, without realizing the proximity of the chicken leg, it swung too close and slapped him the face. He snapped into a sudden anger and reached out to take the chicken.

“Hey!” a scratchy voice yelled from above when he caught it. “Don’t touch that! I’ve been working on this all day.” Lucky stuck his head all the way out the window and looked up. There was a man with a string in both hands looking down at him from the apartment above. A flappy old face with a walrus mustache and square glasses looked down at him.

“Come up here, kid.” The man said. Lucky brought his head back into the room and reflected for a moment. Now that he had the answer to one provoking mystery he had very few for the next. He went out the door, past his friends who were still talking and the tv that was still moaning, upstairs to the apartment directly above his. His was 313, so the room marked had to be 413 had the door ajar. The room had an identical layout which he followed in to the kitchen where the old man greeted him with one hand out the window and the other thrust forward to Lucky.

“Mame’s George, George Roach.” But it was pronounced Row-ach, not Row-ch. Not the creature under the fridge but the row of a boat on top of a hatch: Row-ach. A strange name for a strange man. Maybe the strangeness of the two were neutralized and it was just a man with name. “And yours?”

“Lucky McCann” He said, taking Roach’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“McCann? Irish?”

“My dad was half.”

“Ah! My dad was half drunk!” he laughed, revealing a yellow and in some places brown row of teeth. “That’s an old one that I like use.”

Lucky smiled a small smile. Roach didn’t care whether Lucky found it funny or not. It was funny to him and that’s what mattered. If he failed to find it funny himself than he’d be worried.

“Come here, kid.” He said “Take a look at what I’m trying to do so you don’t think I’m senile.”

Lucky walked over maintained separation from Roach while he looked out and down from the window. There a small dog with his tongue out looking up at the hanging drumstick.

“That dog loves himself some chicken,” Roach began to explain. “Even if he can’t reach it he’ll try to eat it with his stare. Poor dog’s down there right now trying to figure out how he can get this chicken leg out my hands, gives us enough time to go down there and get him otherwise he’d just scurry off before one of us can get down there.” Lucky understood the dog’s expectations. Maybe if he waited long enough that chicken leg would drop. Lucky even waited with some dumb instinct inside him for the dog to leap four floors high and snag the piece away. Roach on the other hand just came off to him as senile. There might not have been better plans (and this one proved effective so far) but how does anyone consider this plan as one that would work? Lucky withheld his criticism.

A women came around the corner but Lucky doubted it was Roach’s wife. She was too young and pretty. She had long brown hair and dressed to show her thinness. Sure enough though when she appeared she looked up toward him and Roach with a smile and wave. It was Roach’s wife alright but it wasn’t any easier to believe. She picked up the small dog and moved back toward the entrance of the apartment complex. Roach began to reel up the drumstick and smiled at Lucky.

“That was my wife right there.” This was already obvious but Lucky felt a rush of embarrassment come over like expressed his doubts out loud. Roach was certainly responding to skepticism Lucky would likely have. The women was young, pretty, tall and clean. Roach was old, short and smelled like poultry which Lucky recognized because twice a month he would use a rotisserie chicken to feed himself for a few days so he could save money. Roach smelled like the rotisserie chicken after he microwaved it on its third day after purchase. In fact, the whole apartment smelled that way but Lucky couldn’t discern if the apartment smelled like Roach or if Roach smelled like the apartment.

When Roach finished reeling up the chicken leg he started eating it then looked at Lucky to expect a response. Lucky let the silence hang but when Roach’s chewing smile persisted he realized that he was the only one suffering in the awkwardness. Finally he broke through with a joke.

“I hope so otherwise we just saw your dog get robbed.” Roach laughed, mouth full, and patted Lucky on the shoulder.

“So why do they call you Lucky, Lucky?” Feeling relieved to move on from silence but cautious about letting it slip in to another moment like that, Lucky reluctantly decided to let himself converse with Roach.

“They use to call my grandfather Lucky and my dad said I look a lot like him so they gave me the name.” Lucky also realized he could have left. It wouldn’t make a difference to him if Roach found it rude that he just walked out. Lucky didn’t even know Roach and his opinions of him were already low so what Roach thought of him was irrelevant. What kept Lucky in place was everything was more fascinatingly odd here. In contrast his apartment was oddly ordinary. Mickey and Jerry always argued about things on the news which ended with their arguments being aimed directly at each other. The news station was currently experiencing technical difficulties which meant they skipped the informative content and went straight this. Even when circumstances were as odd as they were now they’d continue as ordinary. Besides, he didn’t feel like his presences was necessary for whatever they had to say. If two friends argue in the woods and no one is around to listen to them then do they still make a sound? Lucky knew the answer was yes, yes they do and he wouldn’t want to hear it.

“Well let’s see who’s really lucky, Lucky” That remarks destroyed Lucky’s comprehension of what was happening. Roach said that because he was boasting a young wife out in front of Lucky, sure, Lucky understood that. But Lucky still coupled his doubts about the whole situation with uncertainty because it was the same dumb instinct that expected the dog to leap up to the third floor and bite the hanging drumstick led him to doubt that young women was his wife; He was still expecting some new ending. It wasn’t unheard of, it wasn’t uncommon either, but Lucky couldn’t make sense of a guy like Roach being with anybody but a girl like Roach. Lucky thought maybe this young women is a girl like Roach but it doesn’t show. He wanted an explanation because he always needed to make sense in things and he often turned his sideways when he looked at art.

“Well you certainly look to be a Lucky man.” He was either a Lucky man or she was an unlucky women. There had to be something like Luck going into this. Maybe there was money but Roach didn’t appear to have any. Of course money doesn’t always show but Lucky still suspected things made less sense than that.

“Yup, I sure do enjoy the good things in life.” Roach put his hand on his hip (the other still holding the chicken) and soaked in the compliment.

“How long have you too been married?” Lucky didn’t actually want to know.

“Five years now, last month was the anniversary.” Five years is a long time for someone young. What made her so sure that this was a good decision? Lucky let the silence carry while he pondered all this. When she finally returned she almost snuck up on Lucky. Her footsteps were so light that he didn’t hear her approach and when she introduced herself she was already right behind him.

“Hi there! My name is Tilda, everyone calls me Tidy, Roach.” She said it like that, she said her name like that. She said her name like it would be written on her ID like that: Tilda Everyone calls me Tidy Roach. Tidy – which rhymed with Heidi – would be a difficult name to try to spell. It would look like it’s pronounced titty but maybe it could be spelled like the word used to describe a neat person. Lucky pictured the name sprawled across the small ID and smiled at her.

“Hi, I’m Lucky.” He shook her hand and looked at the dog “Roach brought me up here.” The dog, held in her arms, was smiling up him. The dog looked back at him and looked like he wanted to chat. “I bet he got you up here with the same trick. It’s hard not to stop and stare at a man like him.” Then he scampered down and sat down and sat in the middle of the nearest couch.

Roach came up beside Lucky and started to explain “He caught me hanging a chicken leg out the window. I had to get him up here to explain. Poor kid thought he’d gone crazy and started imagining chicken legs everywhere.”

“Well hope you see that you’re not crazy, George is.” Tidy saw Lucky was still looking at the dog so she introduced him. “That fugitive there is named Michael. I don’t know how he got out.” She walked over to sit by Michael. Michael continued smiling back at Lucky. “When the old man comes home drunk he leaves the door open. She knows it but she also knows I don’t go very far.”

“Lucky here lives right below us.” Roach went to sit down on the other side of the dog. “So if we’re ever up to any loud banging he’ll be back up here to yell at us.” Lucky was only so sure that Roach wasn’t intentionally using innuendo. Tidy reacted with a gentle laugh so either she knew he’s an idiot or she doesn’t know. Lucky didn’t know if he should replace the assumption that Roach ignored that she might have just loved him for money or maybe citizenship with the new possibility that Tidy might be an unheard of type of bizarre. But now that they were side by side he wasn’t too sure which one wasn’t normal. He looked to Michael for answers with whom Lucky began his own process of clarification.

“You just aren’t use to people”

“Most people aren’t this way”

“In what way are most people?”

“Normal enough to know there’s something off about this whole situation”

“I’ll admit there’s something cringe worthy about what goes on in this household, especially if you’ve seen the things I’ve seen.”

“Then you’ll admit I’m not crazy seeing this as gross.”

“Of course, I’d think you were perverted if you didn’t”

“Then?”

“Then what? What else do you expect to clarify? Even if there was a whole country full of Georges and Tidys we’d still think it was disgusting but that’s all we can say: ‘From the way I view life, your lifestyle is not right.’ Try saying that to them and see if it helps.”

“It won’t but…”

“How about this – George left some educational channel on some night a week ago and feel asleep like he always does when he tries to learn. I got really in to it because they were talking about some explorers meeting a group of isolated tribes somewhere in the jungle. The explorers thought they were strange because they blamed scientific stuff like gravity on ghost and stuff. Well, when the tribesmen asked the explorers how they knew gravity worked, they thought they were crazy because they believed in something they only heard of while all the tribesman explained everything off what they experienced. Make sense?”

“Not at all! We’re better off if we think like tribesman who don’t understand gravity?”

“Just try and think of yourself as the explorer and them as the tribesman and gravity as love or things that are appropriate- whatever it is that they’re off on, I’m sure it’s both. If you do that then you should see they’re just doing what works for them.”

“Do want to stay and have something to eat?” Tidy asked Lucky still looked at Michael “I wouldn’t recommend that, didn’t you leave something on downstairs?”

“Sorry, I’d love to but I have to go” Lucky said “I left my TV on.”

“It’s always nice to meet good people.” Tidy said

“Thanks, I’ll talk to you two later” Lucky left and nodded at Michael. Roach turned to Tidy once the door was closed.

“What weird guy, why did he keep staring at Michael?” Roach asked.

When he returned the news was back. He lodged himself back between Jerry and Mickey who were both quietly engaged with the news. Lucky thought about the room upstairs and what he talked about with Michael. On the news, they were talking about a war somewhere far off. They talked of death and terror and this led Jerry and Mickey to give dueling explanations of why things were this way. Lucky just sat back and listened to all the noise.

Submitted February 12, 2016 at 10:14AM by GangaDin http://ift.tt/1RuUG3L KeepWriting