Free Making Nice by Matt Sumell

was glass and locked. I knocked on it. I cupped my hands over my eyes and looked in, but I couldn’t see anybody. I pressed my ear to it. Knocked some more and waited, re-sat and waited, re-stood and knocked on the door again. I pounded on it. Yelled hey at it. Yelled Carey at it until the owner and head chef, James Morris—still thin and I never understood how a chef could be thin—he walked up on the other side of the door and said, “You should go home, Alby.”
    “Where’s Carey?”
    We stared at each other through fingerprint smudges.
    “You should go home.”
    I knew he was looking out for me, but I told him that if he didn’t open the door I’d punch his entire family in the face, and that when I punched his mom in the face, I’d punch her in the forehead during a family photograph, and then I’d have it framed by a professional so that I could hang it on the wall above my couch and look at it every day and smile. He walked away. I paced, talked to myself, sat Indian-style on the concrete square around the magnolia tree. I stood up, knocked on the door, and shouted for Joey until he peeked his head around the corner and walked over.
    “Hey man.”
    “Hey man.”
    “What’s she doing?”
    “Nothin’,” he said. “Everybody’s just having drinks. You should probly get outta here. Wait for things to blow over.”
    I said all right, I’ll leave, but I’m out of cigarettes and would he give me one. He said he would and I said thanks man, and he reached into his shirt pocket for his pack and took out a cigarette, unlocked the door and opened it a crack, stuck the cigarette through. I took it and put it in my mouth, patted my pockets, said I needed a light. He took out his lighter and cracked the door a bit farther, and I lunged and wedged my face in there, got my left leg in, too, before he pulled it closed on me and started yelling for help. Then I started yelling for help. Then I yelled for Carey. Then I yelled, “Just talk to me,” and “Please,” and “Don’t do this to me,” and “Please,” and “Please,” and “ Please! ” and “Ow!” and “Fuck you Billy you’re a scumbag and your desserts aren’t good!” James and that other guy whose name I can’t remember with the eyelashes came running over and helped Joey push me out, locked the door, threatened to call the police if I didn’t leave. “Good,” I said. “Call the fuckin’ police. I’ll fuckin’ … You guys are assholes.” Then I sat on the concrete square and caught my breath, smoked half a cigarette and went home, called Carey and left a message. Then I called her again and left a message again, called her again and hung up, took a shit and cried, called her again and left another message. She never called me back.
    I still have a magic marker drawing she made for me when we were together. It’s a lawn and flowers and the sun is in the upper left-hand corner and in the middle of the air she wrote in purple: Have a great day, Alby! Love, Carey . I had it hanging on my refrigerator with a magnet for a few months afterward. Then I put it in a cardboard box with old soccer trophies and a Space Camp graduation plaque.
    *   *   *
    My sister called the same day I got a toothache, said she ran into Carey in the city and stopped to talk to her. Apparently she was doing really well in advertising and getting married to a banker guy. I asked her if she asked about me. Nope, my sister said. Not at all. Then she went on about politics and the media for a while. It went like: “Fuckin’ … resistance diminishes as commercial interruptions amplify, you know? Like, they’re pumping so much bullshit it serves as some sort of static. TV, satellites, laptops, live-feed Internet … we’ve got all this access but as a society we’re becoming distanced further from the war and the humanness required to fully fuckin’ experience it. I mean … we’ve landed on Mars but aren’t intellectually that far from painting