OUR CUPS ARE BOTTOMLESS by Peter Selgin
He rose, showered, shaved, put in his bridge.
He dressed in corduroy and plaid. He went into the kitchen. He saw the papers arranged across the kitchen table, in the shadow of the strong box. He stood at the sink, dampened some rags and went into the garage.
He heard a rustling sound coming from a pile of dead leaves under some old tires. He imagined a squirrel. He rolled the rags into tubes and shoved them into the crack under the garage door. He took the large red can of gasoline supplying the lawnmower and topped off the Plymouth’s tank. He smelled the rough pink smell of gasoline.
He went back into the house. He shut off the water, the gas, the electricity. He put on a yellow raincoat. He picked up a bundle of stamped letters bound with a red rubber band and, burying it under his raincoat, stepped into the rain.
Dear less-than-dear Vera:
A quick and final note to tell you no: this had nothing to do with us. In a sense I’d been planning it for years. As Frost said, “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” Only I don’t like quarrels. Better to be kind than to be right? How ‘bout better to be dead. . . .
He followed the rivers of mud down the steep hill into town. He felt the rain rushing down his face, the sweat gathering under his breathless parka, the tips of his shoes growing wet. He touched the letters close to his breast to see that they were dry. He saw his breath mingle with the fog. He was halfway down the steep hill and could barely see the outlines of sad brick that were the town. He felt the wash of impatient cars dampen his trouser legs. He watched the smokestack of an abandoned hat factory rise up through the fog, a giant erect brick middle finger stuck into the gray sky. He felt his knees bobbing outward as he tried to slow his descent. He heard, or thought he heard, the roar of muddy rivers colliding under a steel bridge.
Dear Lansing:
Something of a shock, I’m sure, but not much of a shock, not after the gout, the diabetes, the strokes, the arthritis, the tinnitus, the no smoking, the no drinking, the no cholesterol, the no sleep, the inexplicable hard-ons (except on those rare occasions when they might be welcome), the EKG’s, the CAT scans, the colonoscopies, the catheters (ouch!), the jars of Metamucil, Sominex, aspirin . . . If you own stocks in pharmaceuticals, I suggest now is the time to unload them . . .
He smelled, or imagined he could smell, coffee brewing.
He arrived soaked from his knees down. He dropped the damp letters into a mailbox. He ran across the street, under the watchful gaze of the steel bridge’s girders, into The Cafe of the Two Rivers, which everyone in the town called the Two Rivers Cafe.
He took off his parka, hung it and sat on the far left counter stool. He read on the menu the words:
“Our Cups are Bottomless.”
He ordered eggs over easy, bacon, home-fries, white toast, coffee.
. . . Doris:
Probably you think I’m more of a bastard now than ever. So be it. I make no claims for the transformational powers of death: if I make good compost I’ll be pleased. What I want from you is not understanding or forgiveness or flowers on my grave, just the opportunity to clear the air on a few matters. But first let me say how touched I was to receive your note after my stroke . . .
He watched the rain. He considered that the water would be good for the grass in the back yard. Just last week he’d spread new seeds and planted a row of barberry bushes to keep the neighbor’s snotty-faced children at bay. The neighbors were not likely to be a problem now; few things were likely to be a problem. Still, he hoped the bushes would thrive . . .
List of jobs:
Radar technician (USN-1944), mill-lathe operator, cardboard box factory foreman, landlord, plumber, plasterer, hat-band factory foreman, estate-planner, pond-dredger, gutter repairman, wire hanger factory foreman, salvage dealer, candidate for First Selectman, candidate for Second Selectman, amateur butcher, baker, candlestick maker, leaf-raker, driveway-plower, bricklayer, floor-sander, reciter of off-color limericks –
There once was a man from Stanboul
Who soliloquized thus to his tool:
“First you robbed me of wealth,
Then you took all my health,
And now you won’t pee, you old fool!”
. . . . emergency room patient, witness, power of attorney holder, justice of the peace, father, stepfather, grandfather, step-grandfather, adulterer, uninvited guest, crank, crackpot, curmudgeon, whistler in the dark, rope pisser-upper, hummer of petrified tunes, quoter of Ogden Nash:
Any hound a porcupine nudges
Can’t be blamed for harboring grudges
. . . brass widget factory assistant foreman . . .
The eggs were delivered to him, one of them running. He took his knife and sliced down the center of it, letting the yellow yolk spill into his potatoes. He thought of abscesses, brain surgery.
. . . plunger of toilets, mopper of floors, burner of toast, carver of turkeys, sealer of driveways, licker of stamps, breaker of circuits . . .
A man sat next to him, smoking. He didn’t wish to move, nor did he wish to inhale the man’s smoke. He gave the man as much of his back as possible.
. . . pumper of sumps, catcher of moles, digger of holes . . .
His coffee was thrust before him, his bottomless cup. He poured sugar into a spoon and watched it spill over the sides like sand over the sides of a dump truck.
. . . digger of moles, catcher of holes, smeller of molds . . .
He poured milk from the stainless steel dispenser which, being poorly designed, dribbled as it poured. He redesigned it swiftly in his head (no spout; small notch at lip) while watching the milk billow smoke-like into the coffee.
. . . breather of carbon monoxide . . .
He compared the color of the coffee in his cup with that of the muddy rivers fulminating beyond the plate glass window.
. . . . Frankly, Vera, I don’t see how you can blame me for my few transgressions in the light of your elaborate displays of deceit. But I’m not writing to dispute anything. Everyone wants to be remembered well, and I’m no exception. I could never stand the thought of anyone hating me, even strangers, even the man who gives me stamps at the post office. . . .
He watched the rain. Rainy days are good for the soul, he thought. The rain makes good little defeatists of us all. Only born defeatists do it when the sun shines.
List of wives:
Doris, faithful and dull, cooker of plain meals, maker of even plainer love. A beautiful body largely wasted. Smoked heavily all her life; now dying of lung cancer. What a heart, what a good lady, impossibly good. Couldn’t have done better; couldn’t have done worse. Did worse. Married Vera. Greek Goddess. Greek Bitch. Broke me like a dish: you know the Greeks, the way they stomp on dishes when they dance? That was me under her heels. But she could make me laugh. And that beautiful, pear-shaped behind of hers. Could not cook worth a damn. Would bake spaghetti and broil eggs. Nasty to her children. In both marriages I was faithful half the time. Thirty-eight combined years of marriage, four affairs. Not a bad record, or a good one, depending which way you’re counting. . . .
With a trembling finger he tapped the side of his empty mug. The waitress refilled it.
List of cars:
Ford V8 roadster w/rumble seat. Morris Minor 100 Sedan (leaked oil like sieve). Crosly Hot-Shot (could be picked up and carried by two strong men). Studebaker Lark (mint green: white sidewalls). Studebaker Champion (mauve interior; power-assist steering). Simca: nasty clutch. Mercedes 220SL convertible; dream car, should have kept it. Jaguar E-type convertible: nightmare car, never should have bought it. Peugeot 403: came with a mechanic who looked like Jacques Cousteau; should have come with a lemon-squeezer. Fiat (“Fix It Again Tony”) roadster: wouldn’t start in the rain; wouldn’t stop in the snow. BMW (“Break My Window”): break my wallet, too (new distributor cap: $65). No more European cars. Used Plymouth Barracuda. Slant-six. That rear window, big enough to sleep under and gaze at the stars. Classic make-out car. Fifty-nine when I bought it . . . Just put in a new battery. Lifetime-guarantee. . . .
“Die Hard.”
He had spoken out loud and drew looks. He said it again, laughing this time. They would think him a fool, or worse, a bum (his children wouldn’t argue with them). A self-educated man, good with his hands, not so good with money. He’d done everything for himself, just hadn’t done much of anything. He enjoyed being right, but it was like cooking meals no one would eat. The things that gave him satisfaction gave him little satisfaction. He sat there, over a third cup of coffee, staring out the window at the brown chaos of tumbling waters. His hands shook. They had been shaking for years, so hard he could scarcely turn a screwdriver. It was like having the DT’s, except he didn’t drink, never drank. A beer or two in the Navy, and those had bloated him. He waved to the waitress. Fill me again, for I am bottomless.
. . . . Lonesome? What is the definition of that word? Capable of watching birds eternally? Friend of plants? Foe of neighbors? Born to tinker in solitude? I am a bitter man. No, I’m not; yes, I am. . . .
Beyond the swollen rivers the hills were as raw as his thoughts. He reminded himself that for three years he had wanted to be with no one. If he sought companionship, he’d get a haircut, or stop by the butcher’s for meat, or buy brake shoes for the Plymouth at Sweeny’s. For a time he wrote letters to the local newspaper: why the town didn’t need a public pool; why minimum wage was a lousy idea; why the government should get out of the education business (this letter copied to his bureaucrat stepson). For a while he toyed with Objectivism, but quickly tired of the ardency of its practitioners, pants-wearing women and bald, beer-bellied men. Nasty letters he got after referring to their guru, Ayn Rand, as a “nut.” Opinions were like grass seed: the birds would eat most of them. If the world could live without his opinions, he could live without sharing them. Right?
List of friends yet remaining:
Well, no. There were the six to whom he sent letters. His dying first wife; his very-much-alive second wife, two stepchildren who didn’t much care for him and vice-versa; and his own daughter whom he considered a ditz. (She ran a puppet theater. Or it ran her. He could never be sure.)
Dear Sharon:
Well now at least you can cut loose these strings of mine, tangled up as they were in all kinds of things. I was never sure which of us was the puppet and which the puppeteer. Were you? . . .
The final letter was to Lansing, his dearest, oldest friend, former editor of the town newspaper, now hacking and spitting up what was left of himself in a nursing home. One true friend, dying.
He signaled the waitress again. She appeared with her magic orb. Questioned, nodded, poured. He thought: if only I could stop thinking. If I could just watch the rain, the rivers. He let his thoughts drain out into the floodwaters, joining several uprooted tree stumps and a Vaudevillian queue of bald tires. See what God can make of a little rain? A muddy hell. He finished the fourth cup, then waited, tapping it again with the same quivering finger. The waitress saw him tapping but did not come over. He kept his eyes on her. She wore earrings shaped and painted like colorful birds. Parrots. He thought of his daughter, Sharon, and her moronically grinning puppets. Strings attached.
Oh see the happy moron
he doesn’t give a damn
I wish I were a moron
By God – I think I am!
Come here, silly twit. Bring your magic samovar. Refill my life, what’s left of it. Make good your laminated promises. Here, you gum-popping ostrich, over here.
Vile, vile, vile, vile. The whole thing.
Go home. Kill yourself.
No. Sit there. Forever.
. . . Remember T. Roosevelt’s dictum: “Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are, while you are there.” Or words to that effect . . .
One cup more. The last.
“Waitress? Some more coffee, if you dare, I mean, if you please.”
She came; she poured; she conquered.
She burst a pink bubble.
“Will that be all?”
From above her steaming Sylex Grail the young waitress looked down upon him. Before the diner changed owners, he had known its faces well. All were strangers to him now. Day by day the world grows stranger, colder. A furniture truck driver sloshed in, shaking his rainwet face, speaking of floods. The old man watched the trucker drip, then swallowed his remaining cupful in a gulp. Will that be all? It occurred to him that the question was a pertinent one. When the waitress spoke again he answered her by tapping the side of his mug with the trembling finger.
“My cup is bottomless.”
“I’ve filled you five times already.”
“You haven’t filled me once. But let’s not quibble.”
He tapped the mug again. He didn’t have to face the young girl to see her challenging look or hear the fireworks of bubble gum set off in her petulant jaw. He kept his eyes on the streaming plate glass, on the girders of the steel bridge. He had no desire to walk back in this rain. The house would wait; the Plymouth would wait. The keys were in the ignition. The battery was good. A Die Hard. Lifetime guarantee. The cuffs of his trousers were still damp. He waited for his refill. And waited.
What’s wrong with her?
She had gone on to serve other men. He gazed down the parade of sleepy work faces, some yet unshaven. Once his face had been among theirs. The garbage haulers, the hardware store man, the pharmacist, the milk and the bread and the postmen. The factory workers. None knew him now.
“A bottomless cup,” he spoke loudly enough to be heard by all. “What do you suppose that means? In theory at least it means I can drink coffee forever.”
Newspapers rustled. No one seemed to pay attention.
“She won’t fill my cup,” he leaned and spoke to the UPS man next to him. The man ate his eggs.
“Look, here’s a tip, see? Worth at least another refill and putting up with an old putz like me.”
“Why don’t you leave her alone?” said the fuel-oil man two stools down.
“Why don’t you mind your own basement? Go clean a furnace.” Something else he’d done once or twice in his life. “I’m just sitting here, that’s all.” His hands trembled at the lukewarm sides of his empty mug. “If I could just get a little more – ”
“Pain in the butt,” said the fuel-oil man.
The UPS man paid and left.
“Waitress?”
The enigma appeared. She filled his cup.
“Bless you and keep you,” he told her.
“That’s the last one,” she said.
“My cup is bottomless,” he reminded her.
“Is there a problem, April?”
The griddle man had spoken, a man with broad shoulders and thin voice.
“It’s all right, Frank.”
“April. Is that your name? How appropriate.”
She edged down the counter.
It was your idea to proclaim your cups bottomless, not mine. I’m only a customer, and the customer is always right. He sipped his coffee. “The thing is,” he spoke aloud now, “there are so few things you can count on in this life. You can’t even trust your own bones. See this tooth? Chipped it on a chocolate chip cookie. That tooth was with me sixty-eight years. Then came Chips Ahoy!” A body is a treacherous thing, he thought. Then aloud, “You think it belongs to you, but it’s only on loan. Comes a day when you can no longer make the payments. The bank forecloses . . .”
A young man in a baseball cap took the stool vacated by the UPS driver.
“Their cups are bottomless,” the old man pointed out to him.
The griddle man faced him. Thick arms and red hair. He held a griddle scraper.
“This is my diner.”
A cook named McMurray
Got a raise in a hurry
From his Hindu employer
By favoring curry
“Finish your coffee, then go.”
Consider the case of Mr. Suggs.
he was an eminent entomologist, which is to say
he knew nothing but bugs. . . .
The griddle man swiped his mug.
“I’m not through.”
“Out or I throw you out.”
The old man rose slowly, reached for his parka. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.” He said it quietly.
The griddle man went back to his griddle.
The old man got out his wallet. Then he thought of something. “I’d like to tell you a story.”
“April, call the cops,” said the griddle man.
“I’d just signed up for the Navy. I was eighteen, green as moss, never been to New York. His gaze was held captive by the window. “There were hundreds of us. In Greenpoint they marched us into this huge, long warehouse building by the shipyard. There were showers and bunks and lockers and there was a latrine. It was like no other latrine in the world. Rather than a series of stalls there was one long trough running the length of the place, a city block long and tilted so the stuff would, you know, flow down in one direction – ” The waitress spoke into the phone. “ – into the East River. Anyway – ”
“Would you shut up?” said the fuel-oil man.
“ – along this thing were these boards, one-by-fours, paired up to be sat upon. You’d joist yourself up on them and good luck.” The waitress hung up. “When my turn came, I must have thought I was mounting a horse; I put a little too much oomph in it. Down I crashed, through the boards. And there I sat, at the bottom of this goddawful thing, up to my neck in piss and shit and laughing so hard I forgot to get myself the hell out of there.” He laughed just thinking about it. “Talk about up shit creek without a paddle! I haven’t thought of it once since then . . .” He wiped a tear from his eye. “Funny.” He dropped some change on the counter. “Worst thing you could imagine, and I sat there laughing.”
He zipped up his parka and went out the door.
The rain fell harder; the waters roiled, rolled and churned under the bridge with a relentless, masochistic zeal. More planks of wood, tires, tree limbs and stumps could be seen, along with what looked like a dog house, bobbing briefly up and out of the torrent as if trying to be saved. He tasted the last sugary dregs of coffee in his mouth, working them around with his tongue, creating his own muddy pandemonium of fluids.
He started back up the hill, then changed his mind and walked to the center of the bridge. He stood at the railing, peering down at the churning mud, remembering. Here it was, for better or worse, flowing under his knees. He imagined a pair of planks, one-by-fours. Like a rodeo cowboy mounting a bronco he’d hoist himself on them. He’d straddle the brown flow of existence and ride it, bucking, until it threw him once and for all. Until it broke his back. Until he couldn’t ride anymore.
He walked back up the hill.
Peter Selgin’s short stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, Missouri Review, Antietam Review, The Literary Review, and The Sun. His children’s book, S.S. Gigantic Across the Atlantic (Simon & Schuster, 1999), was a Scholastic Book Club selection and won the Lemme Award for best children’s book, 2000.