The Bob Watson Page 3

  The last time Collin and I hung out—and I’ll admit it was a while ago—we just sat in the sun at the park and watched people as I tapped away on my bongos. People are always so interesting.

  “Uncle Rick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You still haven’t changed your mind?”

  I admire an absolutely stunning blonde in black yoga pants.

  “About what, kiddo?”

  “About people.”

  The blonde smiles back, her face softening.

  “People? Changed my mind about people?”

  One last look at the blonde before she disappears forever.

  “You know.” He straightens and looks around the park, whispers. “About them.”

  “Them? You mean, beautiful women in God’s greatest gift to humankind—yoga pants?”

  “You know.” Hope spreads across his face. “Neanderthals.”

  “Oh, yes.” I bite my lip. “The Neanderthals.”

  He locks on to me with those intense, brown eyes. “So, you’re still a speciesist?”

  “Speciesist? What? No, I’m—”

  “Because you think Homo sapiens are better than . . .” His voice cracks at the thought. “. . . everyone else.”

  “Well, c’mon, kid.” I stop the bongo playing and give him a serious look. “You have to admit we’re pretty badass.”

  He studies me for a very long time, and I offer my cocky meathead look.

  Collin says, “What if you fell into the Arctic Ocean in the middle of the night? And you’re surrounded by perfectly happy sea life as your body shuts down?”

  I think about it. “I’d stick out my stomach really huge—like this—and float on my back.”

  He rolls his eyes.

  “Or, I’d sink to the bottom of the sea.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But if I am going to take a dip in the Arctic . . .” I give him my serious eyes. “. . . I’d insist on wearing those floatie armbands they have in the kiddie pools.”

  “Ha . . . ha . . . ha.” He’s not amused. “In reality, you’d shut down and sink. And you wouldn’t think Homo sapiens are the best species then.” His chest rises and falls, and he announces, “No one shows the other species any respect.”

  We sit and think about it. Soon, his breathing settles, and I say, “Now. . . . If. . . . If a bunch of anteaters ever found a way to send one of their own to the moon and back, then maybe I would agree.”

  He pierces me with those eyes.

  “But the truth is, no other species has gone to the moon, or created cancer-fighting drugs, or written War and Peace, or even gone serial with a Vine.”

  He looks at me, deciding if he should get mad or not. Finally, he cracks a tiny grin.

  “I’m just saying, Collin-babe. Homo sapiens are pretty badass.”

  He lets out a long, annoyed sigh. “Of course we’re badass, but so are other species. Have you ever heard of the Bathynomus giganteus?”

  Collin’s ability to pronounce words always blows me away. “The what?”

  He sighs quickly. “Also known as the giant isopod.” He waits for it to register, I offer my stupid look, and he gives up. “It’s a carnivorous crustacean.”

  “Can you get those in the frozen-food section?”

  “It lives seven thousand feet below sea level. Can you do that? No.” He straightens, looks around, and throws out his arms in exasperation. “Why won’t People magazine do a story about the Bathynomus giganteus?”

  Another moment of joint reflection until I break the silence. “I don’t want to be a speciesist.” Stupid look with big eyes asking for mercy. “But sometimes I can’t help being one.”

  This gets him, and he leans into me. “You can, too.”

  “It’s like with the Neanderthals,” I say.

  His face brightens. Neanderthal talk is basically Collin’s catnip.

  “I’m sorry, kiddo, but the Neanderthals lost out to the Homo sapiens.”

  “Uncle Rick.” Another sigh. “You just don’t get it.”

  “When I think about Neanderthals, finally I feel like I have a hominid I can feel superior to.”

  He grabs my wrist, squeezes. “Why won’t you listen to me?”

  “I get confused.”

  “Look,” he says, excitement coursing through his body. “We don’t know why Neanderthals ‘disappeared.’ We don’t even know if they did disappear.” He peers into me, waiting for it to sink in. “We’re starting to learn things about Neanderthals that no one knew. I was watching this show on the Prehistoric Channel, and we’re finding evidence that they . . .” He looks around, lowers his voice. “. . . are not gone.”

  “Wait a minute. Just what are you suggesting?”

  He tries to talk without moving his mouth. “They’re all over the place.”

  “You mean . . .”

  He nods, his eyes wide. “The Neanderthals successfully bred themselves into the European population.”

  “So there are people who . . .”

  “Have Neanderthal in them,” he whispers. “And they don’t even know it.”

  “So they don’t live in their own packs?”

  “We think that’s unlikely, but possible. There are enormous, untamed forests in Russia. Very few people have explored some of these places.”

  I look around the park, scanning the faces and body shapes. “But you think they live among us? Like, they’ve slipped into society?”

  He raises his eyebrows, lowers his chin, and zeros in on me. “It’s possible.”

  “So, maybe some of us are more Neanderthal than others? Some might be pure-bred Neanderthals?”

  He looks to the sky. “It’s like people with red hair, or albinos. Sometimes people inherit a gene that’s been recessive for centuries. We’re still learning about things like that.”

  “So, someone might have been born with Neanderthal features, but his parents look perfectly Homo sapien?”

  He looks away, nearly cracks a smile, and returns to me with dead-serious eyes. “Maybe.”

  “I think I know what we should do,” I say.

  He smiles, waits for more.

  “I think we should go to a bigger park.”

  “Like Golden Gate Park, or the Presidio?”

  I scratch my chin as I look at him. “Maybe Golden Gate Park. More subjects to observe.”

  He gets so excited, he bounces and tightens.

  I add, “And I just think we should do more fieldwork.”

  “Just like on the Prehistoric Channel.”

  “Exactly. I think we need to document as many Neanderthal sightings as possible.”

  “Just like last time?” he asks.

  “Just like last time.”

  Suddenly, he deflates. “Oh, but we need our stuff.”

  I turn and grab my backpack. “Really?” I reach in and pull out a pair of giant binoculars. Collin jumps to his feet and dances around.

  “And . . .” I reach into the backpack again, pull out a small, dog-eared spiral-ringed notepad. “. . . I have our field log.”

  Shoots his fists into the air.

  I pull out my camera. “And, of course, we need to continue our visual documentation.”

  He spins and jumps into the air.

  “We just can’t have you taking close-ups like last time, okay?”

  “And we can’t have you using the binoculars on female sunbathers,” he says.

  I put my hands out—I promise.

  “We’ll do those pretend poses with me, like the last time, and then you just zero in on them. They had no idea.”

  I gather our things. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  He small-steps back to me, and falls into my lap. We hug, and he says, “Thanks, Rick.”

  “Of course. But first, let’s do your puffs.” I pull out his asthma inhaler and fasten the albuterol canister to the end—Audrey is always reminding me to do this. “We need your lungs ready, in case we have to chase down a Neanderthal.” I ease the inhal
er to his face, release a spray of albuterol, and he takes a long, slow breath, a hand gripping my pinkie. Then another. And then a hug—the kid is always hugging me.

  His voice is soft. “Rick?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love doing Neanderthal searches with you.”

  “Good.”

  We sit there awhile, letting the sun warm us.

  “And Rick?”

  “Yes.”

  “I love doing anything with you.”

  My chest tightens, and I’m slammed with a wave of claustrophobia. Old feelings, and fears. I screw my eyes shut, wishing I could pull him off me. But I just take a deep breath and hug him back.

  I feel like a heartless caveman.

  * * *

  After all that uncomfortable introspection, I now have a plan—Neanderthals, baby.

  So of course, it feels like a perfect time to take a break.

  I can nearly hear a factory whistle blowing long and hard as I stand up with a giant smile, stretch like a dog (dragging locked legs), and begin my rounds. After all, if I am going to pull a Workplace Watson—leaving not just a meeting but the office building altogether—it’s important to lay the groundwork, and that means making myself visible while I’m still here.

  Plus, I love hanging out with people.

  I drop in on Donna in Sales Enablement, who’s a good twenty years older than me, and who surprised the hell out of me last year in Tallahassee. We were in town for the Fiscal-Year P-FID Alignment Meeting, an annual acronym-laced, spreadsheet-drenched boondoggle put on by Janice from Finance, who essentially herds fifty people into a windowless motel conference room and talks at them for three days. Pulling a Bob Watson at an offsite is tricky and not for beginners, but I did manage a few sweet escapes in which I hung out across the street at a dive bar, nursing greyhounds and watching baseball.

  Which was when Donna came from behind. “You ‘sick,’ too?”

  I’m startled, but kind of excited to have a drinking buddy.

  “Nah, I just pulled a Bob Watson.”

  “Who?” Donna takes the stool beside me, scoots in closer, the scent of whiskey and cigarettes overpowering the Tic Tacs. “Bob who?” She waits, and I give her nothing. “Is he handsome?” She leans in and touches my forearm. “Call him.”

  I shake my head. “Bob slipped away a long time ago.”

  She turns to the bartender. “Three whiskeys. Straight.”

  He sets up the glasses.

  “I don’t think Bob’s coming back.”

  “Really?” Donna watches the bartender finish his pours. When he’s done, she slides two glasses to me. “You can drink for him, then.”

  Donna is still fit—shapely—and she’s got thick, sexy-long hair falling over long lashes and high cheekbones. And she’s sultry, with slow and graceful movements that seem to suggest nothing really surprises her. It’s a sexy scene. But of course, as for all of us firmly ensnared by the aging process, there are some things she cannot control. In my own case, they’re a rapidly receding hairline, an unseemly paunch, and enlarging jowls, among quite a few other things. For Donna, it’s this too-many-years-of-hard-living scene—a raspy smoker’s voice accented by a high-pitched granny tenor.

  Maybe that’s why she’s got this let’s-cut-the-shit attitude.

  Soon, Donna has me drunk.

  “It’s good to know that . . .” She looks straight ahead. “. . . there’s someone else at Robards who takes control of their life.” She turns and glances at my lips. “Someone who likes to have a little fun. Spice things up.” She nods for the bartender to pour me another. “Life’s short, sweetie. We might as well enjoy ourselves, right?”

  I’m feeling dizzy—good dizzy.

  “You’re . . .” I steady myself. “. . . a bad girl.”

  She releases a hearty chain-smoking granny laugh. “You like that, sweetie?” She touches my leg just so. “Or are you just lonely? Like the rest of us? And you’re thinking, life is too short to not have a little fun. Where’s this Bob?”

  I hear myself say it. “Sometimes I’m so lonely I can’t stand it.”

  “Well.” She rubs my thigh. “What a great opportunity we have right now.”

  “Opportunity?”

  “You know.” Donna squeezes. “To say ‘fuck you’ to the whole thing.”

  “The whole thing?”

  “You know. The P-FIDs. The loneliness. The banality. The death.”

  “And how do you suggest we say ‘fuck you’ to the whole thing?”

  Donna takes her eyes off the baseball, faces me, and begins to eye-fuck me. It’s clear she’s done this a few thousand times over the years. She gives me these calm brown eyes that seem to say it all without one syllable of language—how in the hell can she do that? They’re like assured hands slipping under my shirt and sliding up my chest, nails trailing up and around and all over. The eyes shift and expand in a nearly magical fashion, feasting on me in a slow, methodical progression, burrowing deeper and deeper, like she’s taking a tour inside of me, like she’s overriding my own control circuits and having her way with me, the pleasure in her eyes.

  I stare back, light-headed.

  Donna lifts an eyebrow.

  I offer, “I have a boner.”

  Donna produces a motel room card key. Slides it over. Glances at me, smiles, and returns to the baseball. “Just in case you’re interested. Room 515.”

  A year earlier, I would have taken Donna’s card and sprinted across the street, shot through the corridors, and slid to a stop at Room 515. But today, even with the boner, I find a surprising level of restraint and self-control. It’s not about Donna—not her age or anything else. It’s about me and what I want, and for once—finally, after all these years—I know I won’t get it by going to bed with Donna. For a change. I actually can see what will happen afterward in Room 515—the hole in my chest will feel even wider.

  I want something deeper. I want to feel like everything is gonna be okay.

  Donna was remarkably cool when I slid the motel key back to her. We hung out and talked about her sick mom, how it’s nearly more than she can handle, and we also did some more eye fucking—hell, why not? Since then, we’ve had this fun kind of relationship. We are supercandid with each other—flirty and open, but with an understanding.

  I care about Donna.

  Today in her cube, I tell her about Audrey and the challenge she issued.

  Donna grins. “What do you think she wants?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why now after all these years?”

  I stare into space awhile, feeling like an idiot. “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you just enjoy it and not think too hard.”

  I chipper up. “I’m good at that.”

  “But if you do want to think about it, are you sure there’s nothing else at play?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m saying, it’s odd for a girl to say no all these years—and then one day out of the blue say yes. You know what I’m saying, sweetie?”

  No, I don’t know what she’s saying. I view Audrey’s text messages today much like a dog would greet an unexpected stick of salami from his owner—the dog isn’t thinking, After a lifetime of kibble, why is this guy giving me a stick of salami? The dog is thinking, I will take that salami, and I will go to a dark corner where I will eat it.

  Donna says, “Is there a chance she’s not the girl you think she is?”

  “Such as?”

  “You know.” Donna suddenly sounds like she grew up in back alleys. “Maybe she’s dealing on the side?”

  “She’s not dealing, Donna.”

  “Maybe she needs a runner—or a patsy? Or a place to store hot merchandise.”

  “Donna.” I laugh. “She’s the nanny to my nephew.”

  Donna leans back and looks away. “I’m just saying—as a woman—this sounds a bit odd.”

  I let out a long sigh. This isn’t what I wanted to hear.

 
“But I’m probably wrong.” She traces her gold necklace with her fingers. “And you know I hope it works out.”

  Her scenarios suddenly have me freaked out. I mean, what the hell do I truly know about Audrey’s life outside of her role as Collin’s sweet, beautiful nanny? And yeah, I guess it is kind of weird that—after all my chasing all these years—Audrey is finally saying yes. And why is she making me do all this hoop jumping with Collin today? If I stop and think about it, it is a bit odd.

  * * *

  On the way back to my cube, I drop in on some accounting friends, Diana and Keith. This week they’re hosting an older gentleman from the Beijing office. His name is Huang Fu, but when he works with Americans, he uses a familiar, easy-to-pronounce western name—many Chinese do this to make their American colleagues feel comfortable. I think that’s a cool example of being outwardly focused.

  Huang Fu has chosen the name Tyrone.

  “I’m taking Tyrone out tonight,” Bobby says. “We’re gonna go nuts.”

  Tyrone produces a giant smile and accepts a series of fist bumps.

  “I can tell.” I look at Keith and Diana, then at Tyrone. “This guy’s an animal.”

  Tyrone steps toward me, hands clasped. “Where do the ladies tonight?”

  “I was just chatting with a lady who’d eat you alive.”

  Diana says, “I’m out.”

  My phone buzzes, and I jolt in excitement. Audrey? I glance at the screen and deflate—it’s simply another automated text from Robards International telling me that my recent benefits enrollment application has been rejected, this time because of “missing G-29 documentation.”

  Keith asks, “You in tonight, RB? Three studs on the town. We’ll be unstoppable.”

  Diana allows a smile. “Almost unfair for the other guys.”

  I tell them about my hot date with Audrey, and Tyrone says, “Oooooooooh, you lady-killer,” and starts laughing, his face one enormous smile. “She have sister?”

  Keith says, “Is this the nanny chick you’ve been working since the horse-and-buggy era?”

  I place a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Energy and persistence conquer all things, my child.”

  “Good for you, Mr. Franklin,” Diana says, pointing to my mobile. “Let’s see her.”

  Reluctantly, I pull up Audrey’s Facebook.