Free The Taste of Penny by Jeff Parker Page B

come out just as smooth.
    Mehmet nodded.
    â€œAnd it’s just a game,” Liza said. “Don’t worry so much.”

    Mehmet hovered his finger near the center of the tower. He moved his head around like a praying mantis.
    â€œWhat do you mean by that, it’s just a game ?” I asked Liza. “I don’t really understand what you’re trying to get at by saying that all the time.”
    â€œI mean we’re playing something. There’s no deep meaning behind it.”
    â€œIf it’s just a game, then why do you always take middles?”
    â€œI take middles, Herb, because they’re the easiest ones to take.”
    â€œIt’s funny,” I said. “If you really thought it was just a game, wouldn’t it be rather coincidental that you always take the pieces that I believe shouldn’t be taken? Wouldn’t you just once take a side, for variety?”
    â€œMiddles are easier. I like easy. But if I really thought, I would think that I want some dessert.”
    â€œIt is a game and it isn’t,” Inna said.
    Mehmet dropped his hand to the bottom row, poking out the load-bearing middle, and the tower crashed to the table.
    â€œI am sorry,” he said, blushing. “It is difficult one.” He went to the bathroom.
    My normal mode: Take world as literally as possible, observe each action, hear words, respond when response is necessary. Resist ponder. Repeat.
    After the second time Mehmet knocked down the tower, I began to do something I don’t normally do until more vodka: I thought. I thought, What the fuck? Here I am, I thought, in a room full of foreigners, including my wife. And this guy is trying to fuck with me and my country with this game.
    â€œWho the hell is this guy?” I said.

    â€œHe smokes by the dumpster,” Inna said.
    â€œDo tits fly in Turkey?” I said. “Does gravity operate? Did you move to the all-immigrant complex?”
    â€œDon’t be rude,” Liza said. “It’s almost eleven.”
    â€œNo, I heard about this,” Vadim said. “There was like this coal mine in one of these southern places or Africa, and they wanted the native workers or whatever to pick up the coal when it fell out of the carts. They didn’t speak the language though and they didn’t have people who spoke the language. Don’t ask me how they got them to work. Don’t ask me how. They made this little comic, like a poster but with comic frames, and it showed a guy reaching down and picking up a piece of coal and putting it in the cart. Of course…we read left to right. These people read right to left. So they started taking the coal out of the carts and dropping it on the ground. Cultural relativism. I shit you not.”
    Bipkus emerged and kicked at the bathroom door. We heard Mehmet saying something but none of us could tell if he was saying, “Mehmet, Mehmet” or “minute, minute.”
    â€œHey buddy,” Vadim said. “It’s our across-the-hall neighbor in there.”
    Inna put her face in her hands.
    â€œBa wit da wah,” Bipkus said. He drooled. He needed not drool, but he turns the retarded on when there’s company.
    â€œJust give him a minute. He’ll be done in a minute. Have some more pizza. Help yourself.”
    Bipkus looked around the corner at us. “Oh, hey, Herb, Liza.” He disappeared and the door to his room slammed shut.
    Inna scraped the backs of her fingernails underneath her chin.
    â€œInna,” Vadim said, “when we decided to bring Bipkus
over we knew—”
    â€œ We decided to bring Bipkus over?”
    â€œInna,” Vadim said, “we’ve discussed it. He’s my brother.”
    She laughed and sipped the sangria. “Teasing. I love cleaning piss out of the bathroom sink.”
    â€œYou want to do this in front of our friends?” Vadim said. “Inna is still adjusting to living with