Brunch
By Eric Van Hoose
We were seated on the patio under a vine-wrapped trellis. The trellis and the vines and the mesh grating of our table formed on the patio's brick a pattern of shadows so elaborate I could not look at it.
An orange cat rubbed itself along my left leg.
“Brunch cat,” I said. “You brunch cat. Little thing.” I wanted to bend, to pet it, but could not move; I was held in place by the edge of my headache.
"Might rain," Jay said.
Jarred got up and walked inside.
“Okay. Did anybody notice that Jarred brought his dick to brunch?” Roger asked. He sipped his ice water using two fingers to hold his straw. His hand trembled.
Under the table, which was two tables pushed together, I found my shoes. The left had a black mark on the white rubber heel.
“I mean, those jeans.” Roger looked into the distance.
We looked at the menus, used them to block the sun. We wore sunglasses.
Roger said, “Oh my god, you guys,” and pointed at the corner by the fence where a fern had begun to slink across the ground for light.
I leaned further back and tried to focus on my headache, to see what he meant.
A server appeared on my left and said “Mimosas.” She looked at the flutes, which glinted in the sun and shadow, perched on the tray, like she was hearing them speak. She made a lap around the table, depositing the flutes one by one, four of them, making a show.
“Oh, sweetie,” Roger said. He was talking to her, but I didn't know why. He touched her arm, and she pulled it away.
The drink charred a penny-sized sore on my tongue, became an affirming burn in my stomach. I had grown into my headache, learned to use it, to move along its rim.
A man with a very short haircut walked past the table, and Roger and Reggie noticed him, then looked at each other.
Our server came to introduce another server who would be taking over for her.
Roger looked at his watch; his hand trembled like a car about to stall.
“Trying to leave your shift right on time,” Roger said. And then he said, “I’m with you, girl.” His wrist hung loose, and his voice broke into a squeal.
Reggie smiled in silence. I adjusted myself in my seat, careful not to upset the cat.
It was noon.
“You troll,” she said.
Evan, the new server, said, “You’re in good hands, guys.”
And Roger said, “Oh, I bet we are,” then looked at Evan, regarded him, and said, "Well, Evan," as if remarking on an important discovery.
Evan took our orders. I asked for biscuits and gravy, which at this restaurant were oversized and creamy in a way I had to prepare for. They were garnished with parsley, which I would pick off.
To steel myself, I moved my chair back. The cat ran away, around the corner, and I felt as if I'd suffered a loss. I had to leave.
I walked up the patio steps and entered the dim interior. Inside was cooler. The change in temperature widened the ambit of my headache. The bartender faced the television, where a basketball game was on. I saw only the number seven on the back of his jersey, which matched the red of the jerseys on screen. Someone said “No” with calmness and patience. I walked past a hand-drawn sign that said Bloody Marys for Fairies and depicted an enlarged, shining martini glass with a martini spear on which a woman and tomato had been impaled.
I pushed open the door to the men's room and stood inside, hearing its vibrating silence and seeing myself in the mirror. As I washed my hands, I thought I heard light weeping inside one of the stalls.
“Jarred?” I said the word to hear myself say it and to know if he would hear it. “Jarred?” I said, barely louder, but there was only silence, and I did not want to say it again.
I returned to find the orange cat curled beneath my seat, licking its side, looking comfortable, and I was so happy that the cat was there, that it had returned, that I focused on withholding tears. I tried to re-take my seat without moving the seat itself, without disturbing the cat.
Reggie said, “What are you doing?”
“Sitting,” I said.
The cat uncoiled and ran, and I watched it round the corner, disappear behind the fern.
To everyone, Roger continued: “Yeah, they found him the next morning.”
I leaned forward, to show interest, and said, “Who?”
“That guy, the one from Marketplace,” Roger said.
“Which one?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Did you know him?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
I wanted fur against my shin, but there was only air. I knew the cat would not come back.
The sun moved from behind a cloud and heated my skin. Then another cloud floated into place and I slipped into the dimness.
Sirens blatted.
“Sirens,” Reggie said.
I hadn’t eaten any of my biscuits and gravy. I didn’t notice the server had brought them. I began plucking the parsley out of the gravy with my fork, a process on which I might spend minutes.
My empty flute incased sugar and pulp. I became aware of the mild carnage inside it and had a vision of gore: a man tied to a stool, a drill on the topsides of his feet. Talk, a voice said. Talk.
“They’re totally coming here,” Roger said.
It began to drizzle, and my awareness of the patio widened to include parts—it was sprawling—which I had not noticed. Fifty or seventy people, all eating. By the fern, which looked so healthy, a small, black speaker: A singer's voice: Only you.
Everyone was included in the threat of full rain and the sirens, which, through their power, softened my headache.
“Hot,” Reggie said. The sirens stopped just beyond the fence.
Four EMTs carrying an empty stretcher entered through a side gate I had not known was there.
Someone at a neighboring table said, “There's an emergency.”
The EMTs rolled the stretcher inside. I had collected the gravy-wet parsley on an unused saucer. I added the final piece to the center and began forking the rest into a pattern.
Roger said, “So, so, so.”
When the EMTs returned, the stretcher held a person, swaddled, being jostled as the wheels wobbled over the brick.
“Where is Jarred?” Reggie said. “Jarred?” He was close to whispering.
Everyone watched. Strangers looked at each other across the open space.
"You guys," Roger said. “Stop it. You know he disappears sometimes.”
I couldn’t see the person on the stretcher, and I didn’t want to look. I watched Roger looking on, following carefully, chewing. They went out the same way they’d come in, and the sirens started back up, so I squinted to dull the sound. To focus on it, to hold it away.
About the Author":
Eric Van Hoose's fiction has appeared in Bluestem, Sycamore Review, Bat City Review, Fiddleblack, and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His essays have appeared in Salon, The Black Scholar, and Full Stop Quarterly. He’s pursuing a PhD in the University of Cincinnati’s creative writing program for fiction, where he's an editorial assistant at the Cincinnati Review.
About All Accounts:
All Accounts and Mixture is an annual online feature celebrating the work of LGBTQIA+ writers and artists. For this series, we seek work from authors who self-identify as "queer," while acknowledging that this designation is subjective and highly personal. Our goal is to provide a forum for writers whose voices might be mis- or underrepresented by the literary mainstream. Submissions are open from June 1 to July 1. Poetry, prose, visual art, reviews and interviews will all be considered. Visit Submittable for more details.