O+F | Page 3

boss but "The Man Upstairs," shuffled to his customary place at a long table on the other side of the bar. He was bright eyed, slight, and stooped, a survivor of diabetes and severe arthritis.
"Amazing smile!" Oliver said.
"A world authority on blood chemistry," Mark said. "You'd never know it--in here every night drinking scotch."
"Every night but Sunday," Oliver said. "I asked him, one time, where he got that smile. I thought he'd say something like: it was his mother's. He said, 'Don't know.' Then he said, 'Use it!' It was like a command he'd been given."
"Not too many around here that haven't had a drink on Richard," Mark said. "I'm outa here. Duke, man."
"Boo."
"Oliver," Richard called, "Help me with this plowman's lunch." Oliver sat on a wooden bench across the table from Richard.
"I'll have a bite," he said. "What's happening?"
"Oh, the usual," Richard said. "Palace intrigue. Too many chemists in one lab. I shouldn't complain; they do a good job." He bent over the table and lowered his voice. "One of the supervisors is a bit rigid. I hear about it, you know. I've tried to talk to her. It's delicate." He brightened as he straightened. "I'm sending her to a conference in Amsterdam. Maybe something will happen."
"That would be the place," Oliver said, cutting a slab of Stilton.
"How are you doing? Working?"
"In between programming projects at the moment," Oliver said. "Not sure what to do next. Sometimes I wonder what's the point of doing anything."
"Oliver . . ." Richard reminded him, pointing at the smoky ceiling, "you've got to trust The Man Upstairs. It's His plan." This would be too corny to take if it weren't coming from Richard.
"I wish He'd let me in on it." Oliver took a long swallow of stout.
"I'll tell you what I do when I feel bad," Richard said. "I find somebody who's worse off than I am, and I do something to help him out. Or her out. Works every time." He turned toward Sam and held one crippled hand in the air. "Over here, Sam, when you can." Oliver didn't think in terms of other people. He related to them as required, but his focus was inward. He imagined Richard's process: let's see, I feel bad; therefore, it's time to find person X who is worse off than I am and help him out. Or her. He could picture eligible persons, but he stumbled on the help part. What did he have to offer? Was a dollar bill going to make a difference? He felt blocked from the part of himself that might contain helpful things he could pass along.
"I like this chutney," he said, "good with this cheese. What was your father like, Richard?"
"Great guy," Richard said. He sloshed the scotch and ice cubes around in his glass. "I'll tell you a story about my father. He couldn't tell time. Someone gave him a watch, but he didn't want to learn. He was proud of the watch, wore it every day. He used to go to people and say, 'I'm having a little trouble reading this,' and then he'd hold his wrist up." Richard raised his arm proudly out in front of him. "And he'd squint, as if he had eye trouble. 'Oh, it's a quarter to nine,' they'd say." Richard threw back his head and laughed. "My dad was a great guy--could barely read, always singing. He worked on the docks."
"Hi, Richard." A thin woman approached. She had dark eyes and bleached blonde hair pulled into a tight pony tail.
"Hi, Sally. How are you?"
"O.K."
"Do you know Oliver?"
"Seen you around," she said, appraising him. Oliver felt about a four out of ten, maybe a three.
"Sally works at Mercy Hospital. That cigarette isn't doing you any good, you know."
"Nag, nag, nag."
"You got one for me?" Richard lit up the room with his smile.
"Oh, Richard!" Sally felt in her purse with one hand.
"What are you drinking?" Richard asked.
"I'll see you guys," Oliver said, sliding to the end of the bench and standing. Sally took his place. "Thanks for the eats, Richard."
"Stay warm," Richard said.
A plow rumbled by, as Oliver stepped out into the storm. He followed it along the white empty street. He considered stopping at Giobbi's Restaurant, but he turned up Danforth and walked to State Street where he lived in a second floor apartment on the last block before the Million Dollar bridge.
Verdi was waiting. He jumped from the window sill and made a fuss bumping against Oliver's legs. "Hungry, are we?" Oliver bent over and stroked him from head to tail. "Yes, very large and very fierce is Verdi. Very fierce." Verdi was brown and black, heavyset, with a large tomcat's head and yellow eyes. He padded deliberately over to the lengths of walnut leaning upright in one corner of