Keep The Limbs Moving

    “A man’s life gets away on him between the moments he’s paying attention.”

    Marcus was waxing philosophical again.  Jesus, that annoyed me.  It was times like that that I missed Georgie the most.  Never said two words more if it didn’t have to do with the job.  Or women.  Georgie liked women.

    I nodded absently at Marcus’s noises and stirred my coffee, unable to muster a suitably philosophic reply.   It was raining outside the filmy donut shop window and the street reflected passing cars and the rundown tenement across the street like a wavy fun house mirror.  Windows were lighted with pale gold, but not the window I was interested in.  Nobody home, not for the last three hours.  I pulled my eyes away from the window, wrapped my cold-numbed fingers around the stoneware mug and watched the steam twist into the air. 

    Marcus raised his mug, sipped, put it down again.  Silence stretched between us like a rubber band, but like all such toys--

    “You ever think about stuff like that, Robby?”

    Snap!  

    “No,” he said as my cup clinked home in the saucer.  “Of course, you wouldn’t.”

    I took a bite out of the dried out corned beef on rye that lay on the plate in front of me and chewed slowly.  Marcus eyed me unwaveringly across the scratched up formica table.  His question was etched in lines across his forehead.  I reached over and washed down the corned beef with another pull of coffee.  I shrugged.

    “Why are you?” I asked.   I tried to put enough black pepper on that question to give him the hint: Shut up!  I glanced back at the third storey windows in the corner apartment we were watching (and by we, I mean me).  Still dark.  

    “C’mon, Robby.  Even you have to wonder if there’s more to life than this.”  He sat forward, mistaking my disdainful question for an opportunity to philosophize even more eagerly.  “What kind of legacy will you leave?  What kind of memories will you have when it’s all said and done?”

    I stifled a bitter laugh.  “Memories are just the reruns of shit that’s happened and nobody watches the reruns, son.”

    Marcus fell against the booth’s high back, his banged up fingers twisting his cup in its saucer.

    “Some of that shit can be good,” he muttered.

    I sighed.  “Kid, here’s all you’ll ever need to know about the secret meaning of life: Keep the limbs moving.”

    “I don’t get it.”

    “You know how to swim?"

    "Of course."

    "Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the lake.  You're alone and you're way out past the sandbar, treading water.  You got that image in your mind?"

    "Yes."

    "Now stop using your arms and legs."  I watched him.  "What happens?"

    "You slip under.”  He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head with dismay.  “That’s a little depressing, don’t you think?”

    Jesus.  This kid.  My hand hit the table and startled the cups.  Some coffee sloshed over the rim and dribbled into the saucers.

    Marcus looked wounded.  “Just wanted a little conversation,” he muttered.

    “Why exactly do you think we’re here, Marcus?  And I don’t mean ‘here’ in the spiritual, cosmological sense.  I mean here in this rotten coffee shop.  We're not on a date.  We're not each other's BFF.”

    Marcus glanced around the shop, aware of eyes turning in our direction.  The waitress, counting her till, paused and glanced over.

    “Keep your voice down, Robbie. The waitress—“

    “Ignore her.  Answer my question.  Do you know why we’re here?”

    He nodded quickly, wilting under the attention swinging in toward our table.  His fingers fiddled with the corner of his napkin, shredded it.

    “Sure,” he said.  “Sure.”  He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the tenement.  "We're here to take care of the thing."

    “The thing."  I sighed.  "Maybe you think all this is a fun little game.  We’re here to do our jobs.  What we get paid for.  I don’t want to be your pet project and I’m not interested in your little questions.  I’m not interested in exploring my legacy.  All I need to know about my legacy is right here.”  I patted the .38 sleeping in the holster under my jacket.  I thumped reassuringly against my ribs.  “You need to get a grip on who you are and what you want to be in this organization," I said.  "Get your priorities straight.”

    The kid always was soft.  How did I end up with him?  Was I being punished?  Georgie, did you have something to do with this?  I told you I was sorry, man.

    The waitress appeared at our table, carafe in hand.  She gave me a hard stare with her tired gray eyes.  “Freshen your coffee?” she asked.

    “You’d have to be the risen Christ himself to freshen this mud.”

    The waitress put her fist on her hip and leaned down over the table.  I could smell her bubble gum and the last cigarettes she’d smoked.

    “Listen, jackass," she said.  "I don't care how much that Armani suit and those Italian shoes cost, you’re on the corner of Fortieth and Stockworth and this ain’t no Starbucks.  This is the best we’ve got.  You want more or not?”

    I drained the last of the coffee from my mug, turned it upside down and slowly lowered it onto the saucer.  She rolled her eyes and turned to Marcus, but I cut her off as I noticed the lights come on in the tenement we were eyeballing.  I dug out my wallet and dropped a tenner in the center of the table.

    “We're just leaving, sweetheart.  Thanks for the lousy hospitality."

    I hauled Marcus out of the chair and shoved him ahead of me. 

    "Time to go to work," I said as I pushed him through the door.