Axel and me

continued from here

 Axel and me 

the usual

We were back where we always are, eating what we always order as if we had no imagination, or one overwhelming desire: to play it safe! Not even “as if”: I’m liable to go mad if I don’t keep to a prescribed routine, and Axel is a Lutheran. So, I was having my usual egg-salad sandwich and Pepsi, and he was having a tuna-salad and 7-Up (because you want a light soft drink with fish).

     We’d each taken a couple of bites; we were sipping at our drinks, Axel through a straw; I don’t like straws.

     “If I were a man of leisure like you,” he said, “I might be having a beer.” I didn’t know what to say to that, so I put my Pepsi down and took another bite, a small bite, of sandwich. Axel said,

     “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I know you’re not a man of leisure by choice. Sorry.”

     I didn’t know what to say to that either, but I didn’t want him to feel bad, so I said it was okay.

I don’t know that it is, though - it doesn’t feel okay. On the other hand, I don’t know that it isn’t: whatever I feel, it’s not likely at this point that I’ll go back to work - ever; it’s not likely I could find work if I could work.

     Normally, I just don’t think about it because if I do I only start worrying about money, though then Roz says, “Don’t.

     “We’re fine,” she says. Then, I say, “Well, some of us are.” It’s supposed to be a joke. It is a joke - it’s just not entirely funny.

“What’s up?” I said to Axel.

     “Brother Nils,” he said.

     “I thought he moved out,” I said. That was supposed to be a joke, too; but it wasn’t entirely funny either.

     Axel waved it off with a weak smile to let me know he knew I was kidding.

He’s a good friend. For all his oddments, he’s a likable guy. And he tries very hard to like me.

_{* * * * *}

Axel’s brother moved in with him at the end of last year. He wasn’t exactly on the run, but he’d left wherever he was and he didn’t seem to know exactly where he was going. He knew Axel had read Genesis 4, not once but several times, and so Axel must know the right answer to Cain’s question. The question may have been rhetorical - or intended to be - but the answer was not.

     So Axel kept his brother for a little more than three months. Then, a couple of weeks ago, Nils found a place of his own, over a different downtown storefront.

I don’t know what he does for money, Nils, any more than I know what Roz and I do; but I guess he has some sort of severance. Uncle Albert said something like that once anyway.

I need to stop here because this is getting all too long and involved. It’s not because I have become confused: I know where I am going with this, nor have I forgotten how to get there. But it wouldn’t hurt to look at a map.

(click to enlarge)

04.14.18