-What about me?
-Yes Mitch, you too. You’re both fired.
Seph stormed out of the museum and Blair went after him. Mitch went into the back room to get his roughed up traveler’s bag. Emmit and Lily walked outside to wait for him. Emmit saw Blair and Seph walking down the sidewalk and started to follow them but was forcibly stopped by Lily. We should stay with Mitch, she told him.
Emmit watched them go. He decided he wanted them to go. Seph was pissed, that was for sure. Blair would also be angry. They just never seemed like a couple. Were they ever happy together? They were probably going to break up. Emmit didn’t want to seem hopeful, or pessimistic, he was just speculating. And like anyone who speculates, he thought he was pretty good at it.
-I wouldn’t worry about them, said Lily.
-What do you mean?
-What? Do you want them to break up?
-No. But.
Lily stopped watching Blair and Seph walk farther away and turned to Emmit for the first time. She saw someone who was confused and probably should only play poker online. Emmit was hurt by Seph and Blair. Seph and Emmit were good friends, now Seph was with Blair. Lily could see that Emmit missed his friend.
-Are you jealous, Emmit?
-About what?
-It’s okay.
-Am I jealous?
-Yeah.
-Fine. I guess so. Nobody knows though.
-I know.
-Yeah.
Emmit felt exposed. Mitch knew Emmit didn’t like him. Blair knew Emmit bought Bogart because of her. This meant that Seph would also know. Now Lily knew Emmit still liked Blair, his ex-girlfriend, her friend and his best friend’s girlfriend. One person, four reasons to like her. Emmit found pocket-sized solace in that people, or at least Lily, wouldn’t think he romantically liked Lily after their pointlessly awkward re-introduction. But she knew more truth now. And because everybody is a friend of one another, they’ll all talk and everybody will know everything about Emmit. However, this anxiety was misplaced.
In reality, nobody talked about anything to anybody because nobody knew how little or how much anybody else knew. Lily incorrectly thought Emmit was jealous of Blair for stealing away Seph. Everybody who saw the re-introduction of Emmit-Lily had forgotten about it long ago, except for Emmit. Continuing, Blair didn’t know about the Bogart thing but rather thought Emmit goes around telling people that she and Emmit are still together. But because Blair didn’t want to breakup her boyfriend’s shaky friendship, she didn’t tell Seph. And Mitch not only hadn’t picked up that Emmit didn’t like him, but considered the two of them good friends.
Related to all that, Lily had actually been talking to Emmit about her own romantic frustrations but Emmit snapped back into the moment far too late to know what she was talking about. He tried to catch up without revealing how little he knew, once again. He managed to figure out she liked some guy but doesn’t like that she likes him because she’s a girl who likes tangled emotions, or something like that.
Unfortunately Emmit’s hidden embarrassment was bested when Lily turned around and saw Mitch standing behind her, watching something nobody else saw. Lily then noticed Mitch had an iPod ear piece in one ear, but she didn’t hear any music coming from his headphones. Did he hear her? Should she ask? Does he know now? Does Emmit think Mitch knows that Lily might like him? If everybody is almost thirty and still acting like teenagers, thought Lily, is it reasonable to think someday we’ll all be fifty and still be confused who likes who? This is all stupid. We should just all be able to talk to each other.
-Uh, Mitch.
-Yeah, Lily?
-You--
-Yeah?
-You should probably hide your valuables until we get out of this area.
-Okay, but I don’t see anybody scary.
-They don’t need to look scary—
-Hey! That guy has muttonchops!
Mitch pointed across the street and down a sidewalk alley in between the two sandwich places. A portly man in a dirty suit was reading a newspaper while eating a plain foot-long loaf of bread. Mitch couldn’t take his eyes off the dignified man in his early fifties. That man looked familiar. Muttonchops.
Mitch knew that muttonchops are just a specific kind of sideburn wherein the facial hair extends from the ear down the cheek but does not connect at the chin. Friendly Muttonchops are when the facial hair connects above the upper lip. Mitch didn’t know that this is actually the facial hair look once sported by General Ambrose Burnside--origin of the term “sideburn.” However Mitch had seen a Friendly Muttonchop somewhere else before; it was a rarity. One of the president statues. But that was impossible. Or was it so crazy that it was possible?
Emmit and Lily followed Mitch as he approached the man. Their questions to Mitch were halted by the stranger’s question: Who are you people?
-I’m Mitch. That’s Emmit and that’s Lily.
-Are we all dead?
-No, we’re all alive.
-Please don’t kill us, added Lily.
-For a while I thought I was dead, said Muttonchops. But I couldn’t find Nell anywhere. Then I got hungry and realized that I couldn’t be in Heaven if I was hungry. So then I feared I was with the damned but this place doesn’t look like New Jersey.
So he’s from New York, concluded Emmit correctly.
-My name is Chester A. Arthur.
-Just a second.
Mitch pulled Emmit and Lily away from Arthur and held a three-person conference. Mitch thought he was one of the missing presidents. Lily agreed but Emmit didn’t. Most statues couldn’t talk, and even the ones that could certainly didn’t get hungry. Besides, was Chester Arthur even a real president? He might be a crazy person.
-Are you a president, they asked the man.
-Yes, of the United States of America.
-Um. Can you prove it, asked Mitch.
-How?
-What is something only a president would know?
-If there is such a thing, I probably shouldn’t tell you, should I?
Mitch looked at Lily and Emmit for help, but both were too smart to fully grasp what was going on. Mitch continued the spontaneous and ill-conceived interrogation.
-Who won the Civil War?
-Why the Union, of course. Are you mad?
-I’m asking the questions here.
-So you are mad?
-No, but maybe going crazy.
-What?
-Ask him another question, Mitch.
The four people struggled to move past this point for sometime until Mitch gave up and said he’d call Seph and admit he didn’t study that president book thing Snow gave them.
-So? It doesn’t matter any more, said Seph on the other line.
-Well, actually, it might.
-What are you talking about?
-Was there a President Chester A. Arthur?
Mitch listened into the phone, smiled at everybody and relayed the confirmation. Emmit found himself frustrated that Mitch was acting as mediator between the two groups. Everything would just be easier, thought Emmit, if I was talking to Seph. Emmit stayed silent.
-Seph. I think we found him.
-You found Chester Arthur?
-Yeah, here he is.
Mitch put the cell phone up to Arthur’s muttonchops. Arthur withdrew at first but Mitch told him to talk into the phone. Arthur was confused by Mitch but even more confused when he heard a voice through the cell phone. Arthur had heard of Alexander Bell’s demonstrations, but this was completely different. This was quite simply magic. The voice asked for Mitch and he put the phone back to his own ear. Seph?
-Mitch?
-Yeah.
-What’s going on?
-Did that sound like him?
-Sound like who?
-Chester A. Arthur!
There was a silence on the other end. Mitch hoped Seph didn’t think anybody was crazy. This was all kind of weird for everybody. Lily held her own hand, afraid to take anyone else’s.
-Mitch. I’m going to have to call you back.
-Wait!
Mitch put away the phone with a little disappointment. The three friends talked about going back to the museum or trying to find Seph and Blair. But then Arthur started asking questions about the news he had been reading from future newspapers he found--though by “future” he meant “old.” He asked questions about the world the friends were living in. He asked about his purpose and duty. He kept asking questions. Questions that the friends weren’t qualified to answer. Questions that would make it hard to prove to Arthur that America didn’t need him again.
No comments:
Post a Comment