Picking Stones Chapter 9

"Match"

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3 & 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6 & 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11; Chapter 12 & 13; Chapter 14, 15, & 16; Chapter 17 & 18; Chapter 19; Chapter 20; Chapter 21; Chapter 22; Chapter 23 & 24; Chapter 25 & 26; Chapter 27; Chapter 28; Chapter 29; Chapter 30; Chapter 31 (Final Chapter)

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Match

There he was. My stomach rolled, another gas bubble birthed and died inside me. Deep red mahogany spanned the length of the bar. The red color was thanks to a sticky varnish sure to leave a stain on the elbows of my flannel shirt. Drink was being poured into glass from the other end of the bar. He hadn’t seen me, yet.

Without thinking, I was ushered to the far end of the bar, next to an empty glass rack. Hot water sweated off the glasses and pooled at the bottom of the green crate that housed them. I made a mental note to ask for a straw for my future drink.

“Could I sit on that side?” I asked the hostess. She had already left me to my own devices and didn’t attempt at a response. In front of me was a stool, wood backing with a quarter inch red cushion lining the seat. To its left was a propped up section of the bartop, the access point to behind the bar. To my right, two empty chairs and then a couple. Taking this seat would render me squished and hidden if someone took the one next to me. Too much overthinking. I pulled out the stool and dropped into it.

Ice scoop loudly funneled into dirty ice machine. Cubes fell and rung against the still-hot glass grabbed from the wet crate. I didn’t dare look up, didn’t dare breathe. Sounds of a coaster sliding and the glass set in front of me. I gasped for air and looked up.

“Will?” A surprised Peter looked back at me. Heart-rate was at an all-time high. His lips formed a polite smile, a look of delight in my stalker’s face. “Welcome back! I didn’t expect to see you so soon. I guess you liked the noodles.” Peter let out a friendly laugh and I heard what must’ve been a regular at the other end of the bar cheers his drink in agreement.

“I guess you liked something yourself last night.”

“Come again?” The man’s face quickly descending out of its warm and welcoming smile.

“How do you know my name?” I stammered.

“I—I...” He was lost for words. For a moment, so was I.

“We need to talk about some serious stuff, man. Whatever you did last night is seriously messed up. I don’t like what’s going on.”

“What are you saying? Last night I joked at the table with your friends. We all laughed. You all told me your names. You paid with your card. I came up to the table and asked which one was Will again and promptly handed back the card to you.”

Silence.

“What stuff do we have to talk about?”

I couldn’t believe he was even entertaining me at this point. Eyes squeezed shut, praying to be back in bed, back to my mom waking me up for school. When eyes opened the man named Peter was still in front of me. I was ill.

“You followed me home. Right? I mean it’s the only thing that makes sense. You said that stuff to me by the bathroom last night, about feeling something around me. You kept looking at me, into my eyes. You said there was energy and change. So naturally it was you who left the card. Who else could it be? Who else could have done it? You understand, don’t you? It had to be you. You’re the only thing that makes sense.” Nerves were going off all around me, I wrapped my hand around the water set in front of me and brought the cold glass to my lips.

Peter’s brows furrowed, fire in his eyes. The man at the other end of the bar had thrown cash down and darted out of there. No one else was in earshot of the conversation, thankfully.

“I said what I said because I saw, and can see, something is wrong. I could sense the energy. I could feel it. I had to say something. I couldn’t help it, like it was my duty as a man to help. That feeling was so powerful, strong, concerning, but. But wait. Following you? What on earth could you possibly be talking about?” Blood slowly flooded his face, realizing the gravity of my words. I had done it now. Complete and utter embarrassment descending upon me. I was a shame to my father. My grandfather rolls in his grave. I was sorry.

“The looks you were giving me, and… that’s not all. I don’t know! Maybe it’s psychic powers. It would explain what happened with the appetizers!”

“The appetizers?!”

“We didn’t order any food or drinks, yet somehow everything we wanted arrived at the table. The wine, the noodles, the—”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” He threw his head back in a laugh of disbelief. “This is my restaurant. I’m the owner for Christ’s sake!” He bellowed, “I know what people come here for! Four men in their thirties on a Saturday night… What else would you order besides the wine, dumplings, and noodles? It’s the only thing people come here for. I’m trying to go for a concept here, man.”

“I’m not thirty, I’m twenty-eight.” Why was I digging myself deeper?

“Good for you.” He sucked in a deep breath and tried to smile. “I have a sick wife at home, I have to run a restaurant that I can barely afford to keep open, and I now have a customer telling me he thinks I followed him home last night.” I sunk further into the barstool. “Now. Please tell me how my hospitality and concern for you has led you to believe I followed you home. Before I kick you out of my restaurant.”

“Okay, fine. Just listen and promise you’ll calm down. Actually. Let me order a drink first.”

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An invisible dunce cap slowly lowered itself onto my head. There it goes. Nestled on quite nicely actually. A perfect fit.

I sucked down the poison. Peter had gone off to pour another glass of poison for someone at a table far away from my seat at the bar. Somehow the only person to hear my story of the walk home was Peter, but I had made a mistake. The card wasn’t mentioned. Couldn’t bear to speak of it.

I felt like a child. A feeling not any different than most days to be honest, one that affects everyone—I know it. I still feel like a little kid with my tail between my legs whenever I walk up to my boss. Sun warms cold cheeks, the smell of pumpkin floats into nose; my body transports to the first bitter pumpkin ale that I ever sipped, the sweet taste of cinnamon and brown sugar coating my tongue, nineteen and feeling invincible. Hair dryer blowing through my mother’s hair after a shower. Beneath her is me, feeling the hot hair send the little hairs of my back up in delight as I squirm on the floor, no older than four or five.

Inside of me is a boy of twelve masquerading as a man of twenty-eight, a man without a single ounce of a clue. Eyes still expect to see youthful glow in face when mirror meets them, but still gets surprised seeing the sagging skin and exhaustion glaring back.

Yesterday I was twenty-four. I could swear to that. Except it has been four years, what do you make of that? All the time spent with my grandfather that had seemed an eternity to me was just a blip on the radar of his life. We hardly knew each other.

The eighty-five year-old man at the other side of the restaurant no doubt still thought he was twenty-eight. His daughter, well over sixty now, still cowered at him as if he was at full strength. Our minds play a strange game, grasping for things that are no longer there, impossible to ever give back.

Here now was a child, in a man’s body, sitting at a bar accusing a man stuck in an old man’s body of following him. Trapped. We’re all trapped in the bodies we were born in, forced to watch them fall apart and rot before our eyes. All while our brains scream for an end to the madness. An end inevitably gotten in the end.

Head rested on hand supported by sore elbow. Peter returned, his dark eyes pierced through my soul. He saw a coward, I’m sure.

“Start talking,” Peter said.

“Something strange happened last night.”

“That much I’m aware. You’ve repeated it ad nauseam since sitting down.”

“I just don’t know how to explain it.”

“Start.”

Within seconds, an outpouring of word vomit erupted. The shadows, the bad feeling, the breakup, the fear, the shapes. Boil it down to a case of bad luck. “Then, it all culminated in last night. I can’t shake the feeling of being followed.” I heard the last part quiver out of me and took a deep breath, like a weight lifting off the shoulders. Peter then took his own breath, his face showed no anger, concern maybe.

“Because of this, you look to me to be a—a scapegoat? So you can run from the bigger picture. That’s it. Will, may I be frank with you?”

“Sure.”

“I’m a busy man. I have a sick wife at a home. A family. Bills. My own issues.”

“I, uh—”

He held up a hand. “I’m not looking for sympathy, trust me. I’m just trying to put myself into context, to make you understand better.” He paused. “Yesterday, I saw a stranger. For the first time in my life, I sensed something around that stranger, radiating off of him. The feeling was so strong, so powerful, so suffocating, I felt it my, um duty, to do something, to say something. It was like he had been purposely dropped there right in front of me. For me to help do my part, for once. That stranger was you. The feeling of pain, of—I can’t even put it to words. I wanted to help. I wanted to tell you what I felt, and I tried. Judging by your reaction I did not do my job. But I would like to now.”

Free fall. Drowning. Doom.

“I’m not a spiritual man,” he continued. “My wife is. She’s very sick. As much as it sickens me to admit to you or even myself, I don’t know how much time she has left. Not long.” His eyes grew darker, tears forming, he had gone elsewhere for a moment.

“As stupid as it sounds, I mentioned you to her when I got home last night. Two in the morning, yet she waited up for me, like she’s still twenty.” Peter chuckled. “Anyway. The crazy girl sits at home all day trying to get better. It must be horribly boring, just sitting there waiting for me to get home. She lives for this spiritual stuff, always has. I had to tell her about you. It just felt right. I don’t know. Maybe I just needed to get it off my chest. You understand? She knew the problem right away.” He rolled his eyes. “She said it was the same damn reason why I have a sick wife: Bad attitude. Now the universe is paying me back for all the bad energy I put out being a miserable restaurant owner. She laughs when she says it, ‘just kidding.’ Trying to get a rise out of me. However, it could also be true.”

“What could be true?” I said.

“It seems like you have brought an abundance of negative energy into your life. I can feel it resonating off of you, all around. It could explain the circumstances you’ve faced of late.”

No words came out of me. Just a laugh. I couldn’t believe he was spinning this nonsense—coming from the guy who accused him of following him home, no less.

“My wife tells me this all the time. The more negative energy a person has, the more they attract. I try to listen, but it’s hard. Let’s reverse roles for a second. I’ll say it, and you try to listen. That feeling I sensed when I saw you. The feeling you say follows you, surrounds you. It’s bad energy. You’re full of it. It clouds your mind, makes you lose focus. Because of this there is no balance, only negative.”

He must have seen the eyes roll into the back of my head. The world around me somersaulted until his words veered the view straight again.

“Listen to me, because it’s the truth. Well, if you believe it, it will be the truth, like Kate always tells me. You know yin and yang, right? Harmonic balance in the universe; in you. Your energy is not balanced, there is only negativity surrounding you. I can read it off right now judging by that stupid smile plastered across your face. Maybe, well, I don’t know. She always does; it’s what made us buy this place, which put my kids through school. No matter what I believe, it always answered.” He took a deep breath. “Perhaps you should consider consulting The Oracle.”

I was lost.

“Your life lacks order. Does it not?” I didn’t reply. “When you lack order, you may see the things around you falling apart. That’s the negative energy. You need to do some self reflecting. Get better. There’s a book, the I Ching. You should look into it. Ask it for guidance. My wife has lived her entire life asking it questions. It has shaped my life, whether I like it or not. It may be good for you.”

“What is it?”

“The I Ching. Book of Changes. Written thousands of years ago. An amalgamation of texts by the great philosophers of the time. You should get a copy; seek guidance from it. Use it to reflect on what is really important in your life. Some people believe it actually works. My wife, for one. Lately perhaps I have too…” He trailed off at the end, his eyes staring at his cracked fingers.

“How can I find time to self reflect when I have something following me?” These words erupted from the deepest part of my throat. It was the first time I said it to another soul. Peter’s face shot up at me. His eyes showed anger. I had insulted him now, but he remained calm.

“Like I said, your negative thoughts can lead to—”

“You’re wrong!” I shouted. Half the restaurant turned around. The hostess looked over at Peter who held up a hand to signal that everything was fine, for the most part. He turned to me again, his eyes shooting daggers. “You’re wrong,” I said, this time in a whisper. “I have proof.”

Hand was shaking. Card in hand fluttering. Brain shot words into existence which mouth transformed into vibrations caught by Peter’s ears. Near fainting, I slowly lifted the card and dropped it onto the bar, its blood-red letters staring straight up at me.

The man was confused at first. I once again explained how it hadn’t been there one moment, then the taps, then it appeared—out of thin air.

“What do you make of that?” I said.

“What do I make of it? You mock me with your words. Well, you’re not going to like what I have to say next either, but everything I say is a direct result of the information presented to me.”

“I’m sorry for being—” I was cut off, well deserved.

“So you think something is following you. Is that right?” He looked at me, I nodded.

“There’s an old wives’ tale about this. Let’s see if can remember it.” Peter paused. His eyes looked up at the yellowed ceiling, my eyes caught the cracks in the lead paint.

“Oh yes, this is how it went.” He started, “A shoemaker works for a man, receives minimal salary, thankful for work, puts trust in God, and thanks him for the opportunity of life.” He waves his arm next to his head as he searches for the rest of the story. “Through trust in God the shoemaker receives many blessings. He’s given a wife, given a home, and eventually through hard work the shoemaker saves enough to open his own business. In theory, God gave the shoemaker everything he wanted. Then the work got hard, the wife would fight, and the shoemaker lost his faith in God. The shoemaker swore that he built this life on his own merit, with no help from the divine. This led to negative thoughts. The negative thoughts led to a negative life. He lost his wife, lost his God. This left a hole in the shoemaker’s soul. A hole that was then filled by a Mogwai.”

“Mogwai?”

“An evil entity. A ghost or demon perhaps. They’re said to be tricksters. The shoemaker’s Mogwai played tricks on him everyday, until one day, he received his last trick, and was frightened to death. The moral of the story is to always be positive. It’s something to scare kids when they are young. But every tale has its truth.”

“So you’re saying an evil entity has latched itself onto me because of my negative aura?”

“It’s possible.”

“And if I don’t fix it I’ll die.”

“It’s possible.”

“But—”

“Let me see this card.”

He grabbed it, his dark eyes squinted at the card, reading its three letters. NIM. Silence, an eternity of it. I watched his mouth form the word, then more concentration, his face stiff. Another word was formed by his lips. He spoke it, no louder than a whisper.

“Jiǎn-shízi.”

“Jiǎn-shízi,” I said with a deep breath. “I hate to ask another question, but what the hell does John-shit-see mean?”

“I used to play it as a child. It’s an old Chinese game. Just as old as the I Ching. It’s a mathematical strategy game. My older sister always beat me at it, but I wasn’t bad. Maybe…just maybe…”

“What are you getting at here!” I shouted again, more heads turning at their tables.

“Perhaps your Mogwai has decided to play a game of Jiǎn-shízi or, Nim, with you.”

“You’re telling me that an evil entity has challenged me to a game of Nim?” I laughed.

“Hard to say definitively.”

“Are you going to tell me how to play?”

“It’s a two-player game, in this case you and the Mogwai.” Great. “Hm, pretend we’re playing.” He pulled something out of his pocket, a matchbook. He ripped out all the matches, dropping them onto the bar. The little matches gently patted and bounced off the wood. My eyes caught the empty matchbook, black with a yin yang symbol printed in its center. How ironic.

“Look. Sixteen matches between us. You usually play with matches but other small things may be used.” He grabbed two matches. “Set them up like a pyramid, one match at the top, then two, then three, then four at its base. Each player takes turns picking a number of matches.” Peter motioned at me and I grabbed one. “Very good, Will. It would alternate like this for a few turns.” I looked down and saw there was a single match laying on the bar, my turn.

“And the player stuck picking the last match loses.”

“Great. So, I already lost one round.”

“I told you I wasn’t bad.” He smirked triumphantly.

“So, okay.” My turn to laugh. I swept my hand across the bar and brushed the matches off to the side. “So you actually think an evil entity is playing a game of Nim with me?” I picked up the card and flashed the red letters at him.

He shrugged. “Got any better suggestions?”

“Do you understand how crazy this sounds?”

“What sounds crazier? Me trying to piece together the absolutely ridiculous information you just told me,” he laughed, notched his neck to one side. “Or a man coming into my restaurant, not ordering anything, and accusing me of following him home, hearing whispers in the wind, and feeling taps on his shoulder.”

“Touche. Wait, I ordered a drink.” I began to argue, but he held up his hand again.

“Do with this information as you wish. I’m just telling you what my wife would have said to you based on the story you’re spinning. You may choose to believe it or not. Either way, try to make changes. Consult The Oracle, the I Ching. I seriously think it would do you good. Maybe you can ask it about your Mogwai.” Peter’s face seemed gentler, his eyes read friendship. I wanted to reach over the bar and hug him, but didn’t have the strength, my mind whirling in millions of directions.

“Now please, get the hell out of my restaurant.” This was said with a polite smile. I pushed myself off the barstool and stood up. Reaching my hand over the bar, I felt his callused palm in mine. Ours eyes locked again. He spoke, “If I remember correctly, the player who starts out first has an advantage over the other. It looks like you may already be playing from behind.” Our hands gripped tighter.

“Thank you, Peter. We probably won’t see each other again. I appreciate your time tonight. I really do.”

“Best of luck to you in your life, Will. I mean that.”

He didn’t charge me for that drink. The cold hit my back and quickly wrapped my entire body as the door to Imperial Szechuan swung open with a jingle and shut behind me. No moon in the sky. Storm clouds, again. It would be a long trek home. Too much to digest.

Jingles sounded, someone following me outside. A quick turn, restaurant back in view, this time it actually was Peter who had followed me out. He popped a cigarette between his cracked lips. Match struck. Drag of smoke.

“See you,” I said and began turning toward the way home.

“Good luck again, Will. Oh wait, here. Take this, it’s on the house.” He nodded and flung something to me. Somehow it landed in my left hand. I opened my fingers and saw the yin yang symbol staring up at me. Another black matchbook.

“Don’t be the one stuck taking the last match.”

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