The Flex of the Thumb by James Bennett

coffee.
    â€œOh come on,” complained Vernon Lucas to the waitress. “When I order coffee, I want a real cup. This cup is only half full.”
    Vano took a disinterested look at the cup, in which the brown liquid rose to a level one half inch below the brim. The waitress said quietly, “With all due respect, Sir, I’d say it’s more than half full.”
    â€œI don’t want half a cup, I want a full cup when I order coffee.”
    â€œI’d be happy to bring you some more, Sir.”
    â€œWell of course.”
    She went to get the pot. During her absence, Vernon said to his son, “Let’s see if we can negotiate some kind of a timetable.”
    Vano wasn’t sure what a timetable would mean, but he could tell that his father was ready to return to the subject of pitching baseball. “Timetable?”
    â€œThat’s what I said. Timetable. When you might be able to start throwing, a little at a time to start with, then working on up. Are you with me on this?”
    The waitress returned to their table with the pot and painstakingly brought Vernon’s cup right up to the brim. “That’s more like it,” Vano’s father said to her. “That’s what I call a full cup. Thank you.”
    Vano was observing this exchange from deep in. His father and the waitress were now miniature figures on the far side of a vast and bland landscape. With no stress whatsoever, Vano wondered what his answer to the timetable question would turn out to be.
    As it happened, it was moot. Using both hands, Vano’s father lifted the brimming cup toward his lips with trembling fingers. When he burned his mouth, his hands began to shake. The scalding coffee washed down over both his hands. The cup fell clattering to the saucer while the old man screeched in pain. Beads of sweat formed quickly on his scarlet scalp. Vano watched his father flap his hands to shed some of the pain while the coffee soaked deep into the tablecloth.
    Vano spent the bigger part of August in a state of unattached tranquility, physically as well as psychically. The comfort zone of hooommm seemed to fit him like a glove. He enjoyed the lassitude of the condo deck, with its warm southern exposure and firm mountain view. He read a good many books, reflectively, books such as Kon-Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl, The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiesen, and In My Own Way by Alan Watts.
    â€œWhat will you do if you’re not a baseball pitcher?” Sister Cecilia asked him one day.
    Vano looked up slowly from his reading, taking the necessary time to absorb the question. “I’m not sure,” he said.
    â€œWill you get a job?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œMaybe you could.”
    â€œThat would be nice.”
    â€œYou’re so agreeable, Vano; do you know that?”
    Eventually Vano replied, “I never thought about it. Yes, I guess I am agreeable.”
    Sister found no discomfort in the long pauses which delayed his answers. She enjoyed the newer, gentler Vano. In fact, although she would never say so to his father, she felt relief in his apparent liberation from the reckless, aggressive male mode. She asked him about college.
    â€œIt might be nice to go to college,” he replied.
    â€œMaybe you could go to Entrada. You visited there.”
    â€œThat would be nice.”
    â€œLetters keep coming from that baseball coach you talked to. But your grades in high school were low, Vano, and it seems late to be applying.”
    What Sister was saying was true. There was no reply which occurred to him. His hooommm was ultra firm.
    She continued, “Maybe you could still get in. Maybe it’s not too late to apply to junior college.”
    After another substantial delay Vano told her, “I think I would enjoy going to college.”
    None of this serenity registered on Vano’s father, however. Vernon was engaged in a desperate cycle of damage-control activities day