Page 21 of Rough

“Well shame on me for giving a fuck,” I said as I walked across the living room floor. “I came by to see how things were going. I’ll make you some breakfast.”

“We eat at 7:30.”

His response caught me off-guard. I stopped in my tracks. “We?”

“Tegan and I. She gets here at 7:00, we eat at 7:30.”

“She eats here? With you?”

“You’re dumber than you look,” he said. “Be kind of counterproductive if she left to eat, wouldn’t it? Hell, you fired the last girl who left.”

He’d eaten breakfast alone for as long as I could remember, while he read the newspaper. Four days with Tegan surely didn’t convert what a lifetime with me was incapable of.

“You eat breakfast alone. Hell, even when mom makes you breakfast on the weekends, you eat alone.”

“You rubbed me the wrong way with all the dumb questions, so I ate alone. I didn’t like your company. At least not so early in the morning.” He wagged his eyebrows. “But, as Bob Dylan said, the times they are a changin’.”

“So, you eat with the nurse? Why? What does she--”

“That’s exactly what I was talking about. Enough already with the barrage of fuckin’ questions. Listening to you makes me itch, and I’m too bandaged up to scratch. And, what are you doing riding that mini-bike? You look like the fuckin’ circus clown that rides a tricycle in Barnum and Bailey’s traveling show. I saw you ride that little piece of shit in the driveway and about pissed myself.”

He was right, I felt like a circus clown riding it, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him. I sighed and collapsed onto the edge of the couch. “Bike’s in the shop.”

“Aggravating, ain’t it?”

It was. I waved it off as if it was no big deal. “Kind of.”

“No.” He shook his head. “It’s aggravating as fuck.”

I shot him a half-assed glare. “How would you know?”

He swung his cast in my direction. “You’re stroking your beard. You do it when you’re trying to calm yourself down. I raised you, remember?”

He was right, but I didn’t let him know it.

“You look like a fucktard on that little piece of shit, Son. You really do. You’re aware of that, aren’t you? That you look really fucking ridiculous on that junk little fucker?” He started laughing. “Hell, your knees are at your ears.”

He was trying to make me mad about what Tegan did, but I wasn’t going to fall prey to his tricks.

“Fuck you, old man. It ain’t that bad. And, the little fucker’s pretty fast.”

“Be a lot faster if it didn’t have to haul your fat ass around.” He chuckled out a low laugh. “Go get on it and ride off real slow, so I can get another good laugh before I eat.”

“Fuck you.” I pushed myself up from the couch and headed for the kitchen. His early morning assault was a bit much, especially on an empty stomach. “Mom got any jalapenos left?”

“You know good and god damned well that whatever was in there the last time you were here is still in there. You’re the only one that eats those nasty fuckers.”

“I’m gonna make an omelet.”

“Don’t stink up the kitchen,” he said.

As the eggs started to change from liquid to something a little more edible, I heard the door open, and then close. I fought the urge to peek into the living room, and finished my masterpiece.

“What’s that smell?” she asked.

“He’s making a jalapeno omelet.”

“Who?”