the Liverpool Man Ch 2

Honestly, Thomas had expected to win. He always had, in high school as a junior and senior his winning poker face had pulled Josh and himself out of tricky debts many times over.  Therefore when Morris slapped his hand down, a smug look on his wrinkled face, Thomas tried hard to not show the extent of his disappointment. He frowned slightly - how had that happened? Thomas Alkins did not lose at cards.  Josh came in and slapped him on the back, clearly as disappointed as he was and trying hard not to show it. Morris seemed to have cheered up slightly at this; as Josh went back into the other room to resume his ‘organizing’, the old man shook his head.
“Spent too much time putting on a good show instead of focusing on the cards.” Morris grunted. Thomas sat and looked at him – did the old man expect him to take notes or something?
         The games continued, each ending with Morris’ smug face and a grumble of advice. As minutes ticked by, Thomas grew increasingly more and more frustrated; surely he must have won something by now. Finally, when the small wooden clock on the wall said it was 1:30, a good forty minutes after they had started, Thomas threw all caution to the winds and played by whatever he had in his hand. It couldn’t get much worse anyway, he thought. He placed his hand down – and won. The two of them hesitated, both startled at the sudden change. 
“I was starting to think we’d never get anywhere!” snapped Morris, but he looked pleased nonetheless.
         Soon Josh was finished (for the day at least), and Thomas made ready to go. Josh kept wiping the dust off his hands onto his faded jeans, his face comical as it tried to hide the irritation he felt.  Most of this, Thomas knew, was probably due to the knowledge of how little he had accomplished, despite the 3 black garbage bags he unsuccessfully tried to sneak outside. As Morris yelled at his grandson, Thomas slipped out, grabbed his old black leather coat, and tried to sidle through the front door.
“And you, come here!” Trying to push out similar summons he remembered from his boarding school days, Thomas walked over patiently. The old man handed him the worn deck of cards. “Take these. Make sure this imbecile” he jerked his head to Josh, “doesn’t throw them away when I’m rotting in the ground.” The deck, with classical suites on one side and a faded orange background on the other, lay in his trembling white hand. Thomas took them, trying to remember if Morris’ hands had been shaking like this all through the poker game – he didn’t think so.
“Thank you,” he said, less grudgingly than before. “It was nice meet”-
“You needed it! Couldn’t even play a basic hand of poker before I showed you how. Harumph!”
Thomas left. Josh was already waiting in the car.

“Excuse me sir. We may experience some turbulence in a few moments, so you need to return to your seat.” The stewardess looked at him, clearly anticipating if he was going to be a problem. His tall lean frame, dark hair and stubble, and brooding eyes apparently kept her from expanding.  Thomas wanted to smile; he grinned as he squeezed back into his seat as Audrey Hepburn flaunted a bandana on the prow of some tropical yacht. 

Two days later, on a Saturday morning a little after 10, Thomas had woken to Josh’s all too-eager voice resounding from the machine asking him meet up at the local coffee house.  With a sigh, Thomas rolled over, balled his sheets in his fist and stared at the ceiling. It needed a paint job.  He remained motionless for a few minutes, remembering the last time he had painted an apartment. It had been over a year ago, when he painted one for his steady girlfriend before the college applications had started rolling in. He sighed. After the initial disappointment, college had been fun, at least that was what he had told himself in the beginning. After a while, the concrete walls and cockroach dorms had gotten tiresome, and the classes were so easy Thomas began to skip days at a time. He would sit in his dorm, or a Starbucks somewhere, and instead work on sketches, building his portfolio for architect jobs.
The phone began to ring again. Heaving himself out of the bed, Thomas yanked some jeans off the floor and headed to the bathroom.
When the heavy coffee aroma hit him as he walked into the café, Thomas was surprised to find not Josh, but Morris sitting at one of the tables by the window waiting for him. Warily, he looked around, but Josh’s broad frame was definitely absent from the tiny interior. As Thomas pulled an armchair up to the wobbly table, the old man said.
“My grandson is back at the house, pretending to ‘fix’ some cabinets in my kitchen. He says he’s sorry that he left me with you.” A garbled laugh coughed up his throat. “But I made him leave. I need company, and sometimes Josh’s head goes in circles.”
Oh.
Thomas frowned.
“That’s not true. Josh got into Boston College. He’s a smart guy, he’s always gotten decent grades.” He didn’t finish the rest of this thoughts out loud. He had always gotten good grades too, and where was he now? The old man looked at him shrewdly.
“Hhmm. The boy says he wants to go into the banking business.” He nodded and continued. “He won’t have to use his head so much, just calculate numbers and make a lot of money. If he gets what he wants, one day he’ll end up like me in a big old house with an old shriveled wife.”  Thomas didn’t respond. He didn’t know if what Morris was saying was entirely a good or bad thing.  He was still trying to get used to how Morris spoke. He did not talk like he was an old man, or young one, but maybe like a third party altogether who was simply watching as things played out, commenting as he pleased.     
         And comment he did. Thomas tried to look interested, but his mind kept slipping out from under him – God was this what he was doing on a Saturday morning? Babysitting? Morris had abruptly stopped talking.
“Go buy me a coffee” he barked out. “Black with sugar.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were staring at each other once more, this time over steaming Styrofoam coffees.
“Well, if you’re here might as well keep me interested. Tell me about yourself.”
Thomas thought, trying to come up with something. He did not want to tell about his alcoholic mother as a kid in a place he hardly remembered, nor the reason why he was here instead of the Duke University college campus. That left…his high school years. But instead, he found himself saying,
“Alright, well actually I’d like to be an architect. Sketching, designing stuff like that is what I’m best at.” That might have been an understatement. Thomas’s apartment was overflowing with large rough pieces of paper…he stifled a sigh. He had too much time on his hands. Morris was nodding again.
“Hhmm. Have you ever been to Rome, or seen the Eiffel Tower up close? That is architecture.” Thomas didn’t say anything. Again he found himself wondering if the man was insulting him or giving him advice. “What you might want to do,” continued Morris with sudden spark of enthusiasm, “is travel around. Your head is filled empty with all that crap they feed you in college – you need to expand your boundaries. And I’m guessing you’ve only been out of the states once.”
         Thomas nodded. Once, a long time ago… in the crowded city of Liverpool.
“You may not have that much money, look at you, just a lost college kid is all you are, but you could do it. Just gotta be smart, gotta know when to go for things and when to let them be.” He tapped a gnarled finger to the side of his head. “Work hard,” Morris continued, more now to himself, “yea, work. But more quick thinking. Have to know what’s going on around you, and how you’ll handle it.”
         The hot sensuous fumes of the coffee house seemed to be having an effect on Morris, and soon he had drifted off as Thomas stared strangely at him.