Monday Night Man by Grant Buday Page A

hand. Horst is there too, and he says hello. Mrs Livver is the only one who doesn’t say a word. She just squints and stays where she is, surrounded by her flabby, sag-breasted daughters, lecturing them like they’re deaf.
    â€œYou should’ve brought the little ones. I’m disappointed. I ain’t seen ’em since Christmas. You’d think Surrey was Saint John’s. How much you pay your babysitter? Get one of them Filipino women. They work cheap.”
    â€œS’cuse me.” Maggie, the biggest, rises like a gas bag and heaves off toward the ladies room.
    Mrs Livver watches her. “She still cry every day at four o’clock? If eyeballs could rust that one’d need a new pair every week.” Mrs Livver glances over at Skinny.
    Skinny sees her looking.
    So does “Marie.” “Why doesn’t she come over and pay the fuck up?”
    â€œShe’s sneaky.”
    â€œShe gonna ask me trick questions?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Skinny picks at his frayed lip. There’s a buffet by the bar. “You want some potato salad?”
    â€œPotato salad?” Marie looks at him like he farted. “I want a vodka.”
    â€œGot wine and beer all you can drink.”
    â€œA double vodka with a twist.”
    â€œHave to pay for it.”
    â€œBuy me one or I walk.” She speaks straight ahead, even though Skinny sits beside her.
    Skinny buys her a double vodka and lime. Then a second one. Four and a quarter each.
    Jimmy Shack rolls over to the bar and slots his empties into the automatic glass washer. He always does that, to prove paraplegics can take care of their own acts. Then he rolls on over to Skinny and Marie. “Looks like ya got a nose fer vodka there.”
    Marie sucks ice and nods.
    Shack buys a round of doubles.
    Marie brightens up. “Where’s the music? You said this was a party … Dad.”
    â€œWant music?” With one shove, Shack sends himself whirring along the lino to the jukebox. He looks back.
    â€œThe Bee Gees.”
    The music booms up big. Three double vodkas in her, Marie tries getting Skinny up to dance, but he says no. “It don’t look right.” So Marie dances alone. Everybody in the bar watches. Then Shack comes along behind and scoops her up so she falls laughing into his lap.
    â€œFred Astaire of the wheelchair!” sings Shack.
    Marie hoots and kicks her legs. She has her arm around Shack’s shoulders.
    Skinny is half-standing. Shack, the dirty cripple, has his hands all over her. Skinny glances at Mrs Livver, who’s watching real close. Skinny stretches his chapped lips, splitting them.
    When the music ends, Marie’s loud laughter groans out. “Hey! How ’bout some quarters, Dad!” Sitting in Shack’s lap, she crosses her legs and bounces her foot impatiently.
    Skinny feels like he’s on stage as he gives her his last quarters.
    She wipes sweat from her forehead. “Another vodka, Dad.”
    â€œI think you’ve had enough.”
    Her eyes hit Skinny like hammers. Skinny turns. The entire bar is watching. “Another vodka and lime.”
    â€œA double,” Marie corrects him.
    â€œA double.”
    Mrs Livver comes over. She leans on her canes, daughters Flo and Maggie at each elbow, and Kate behind, in case she tips over backward. “Haven’t innerduced us here, Skinny.”
    Skinny introduces them.
    Marie, still in Shack’s lap, extends her hand as if to be kissed.
    Mrs Livver looks her over. “Take after your mother, do you.”
    Marie looks down at herself, making a show of peeking inside the collar of her blouse at her breasts. “I guess I do, yeah.”
    â€œNever seen you here before.”
    â€œNever seen you here either.”
    â€œI’m here every day,” says Mrs Livver.
    â€œWell, I guess I got better things to do than sit in a rubby bar.”
    â€œBetter’n seein’ your