Free The Passionate Attention of an Interesting Man by Ethan Mordden Page A

arm around her waist and the flicker of a smile at the pleasant absurdity of romance delighting her face.
     
     
    The Hardware was jammed with Christmas crowd, especially in the area around the annual exhibition model railroad.
    Tom didn’t like what they had done with the opportunity. “There’s no program to it,” he said. “It’s the whatever layout. An any-which-way world. Where’s the real life in it? Authority. Questions about existence.”
    “I always wanted a trestle bridge,” said Lloyd. “And even…now, don’t laugh at me, okay?...an engineer’s striped cap when I run the train.”
    Tom grinned.
    There was another layout in the store, smaller and lacking audience. But when Tom investigated, he came back to Lloyd and pulled him by the arm to see it: a mountainous geography in which track hurtled around corners between some sort of arrogant industrial construction and an innocent, victimized little town.
    Lloyd nodded. He liked it when Tom pulled him along by the arm, and when Tom analyzed the missions of the trains, and when folks in the store stared admiringly at Tom and wondered if he and Lloyd were related.
     
     
    Another Saturday and more of The Game. Lucy and the kids were at Lucy’s mother’s, so it was just that horrible Jake, who came crashing into Lloyd’s room with “I’m going to ball you like a chick, short stuff!”
    “ Tom !” cried Lloyd, at his desk, his eyes fixed on his computer screen.
    From the living room, Tom amiably called out, “Leave my housemate alone, Jake!”
    “When do we tell him?” Jake called back.
    Lloyd waited till Tom appeared to ask him, “Tell me what?”
    Jake answered. “Officer McThomas Buckner here made things hot for my realtor to even the score for, like, when he was blackening your fair name.” To Tom, Jake added, “Except will that compromise the sale of my house?”
    “Told you from the start to get another realtor, didn’t I?”
    “What happened, exactly?” Lloyd asked, turning around in his chair.
    “That guy who started the rumor you were skipping out on your lease,” Tom replied. “A true weasel.”
    “Just before you came,” said Jake, “he tried to sell me his sister.” Mock-solemn, Jake pulled off his cowboy hat and held it over his heart.
    “What happened, Tom?” Lloyd asked again.
    And again it was Jake who answered, as he put his Stetson back on his head: “My scumbag of a realtor was showing the house when Tom and I blew in. Very nice couple looking at it. Young marrieds from the Baptist church on Winneshiek. After all the screaming, they’ll never look at houses again.”
    “When was this?”
    “This morning,” said Tom. “Helping Jake move his stuff out of the garage to the scrapyard, and we saw—”
    “Officer McThomas offered to arrest my realtor, who began yelping a certain amount here and there all over my house.”
    “Arrest him for inventing those lies about me?” asked Lloyd, closing down his laptop. “Accusing me of trying to sneak out on my lease?”
    “Arrest him for he’s a stupid irritating perv, how about?” said Tom.
    “Which Officer McThomas proceeded to state at the time,” Jake added. “ In so many words, and I couldn’t be happier.”
    “He tried to pretend that he didn’t remember you,” said Tom. “All a misunderstanding, as many a felon will say. Haven’t I seen his act before, with deceitful eyes looking away as he double-talks me? Not to mention poking his fingers at me—physical provocation, designed to infuriate officers of the law. Very popular among that type.”
    Jake cut in with, “So Officer McThomas is, like, ‘Oh, right, you don’t remember?’ A guy such as you does not remember a handsome fellow like the housemate here?” Looking at Lloyd, Jake added, “And in your cute shorts, too, right?”
    “Jake—”
    “Did you tell him that, Tom?”
    Another of Tom’s silences. It sounded odd in the room after the quick overturn of voices. Both Lloyd and Jake,