The Fight Within (68 page)

A gentle tap on his shoulder brought him out of his task. Turning around, he met eyes with the very person he’d hoped to never have to see again.

Kyle.

“Hey Sean.” The guy stood there, looking thinner and shorter than Sean recalled. He didn’t shine like gold and diamonds, didn’t smell like burning money. No, he just looked ordinary. The ‘God’ complex he’d assigned the guy had faded away like childhood watercolor art left out in the sun for days on end.

“Kyle,” was all he offered before turning his attention back to his phone and pushed his cart a bit forward, wishing the bastard would just disappear.

“Look, uh, Sean, I’ve been trying to call you, to apologize, alright?”

“Why?” He looked at him casually over his shoulder. “You still believe what you believe. What’s the point in sayin’ sorry?”

The man sighed and hesitated.

“Number 89!” a woman screamed from behind the meat counter.

“I’m sorry, man, because I offended you. That’s why I wanted to apologize. I hurt you. That wasn’t my intention. It was just a misunderstanding.”

“No, it
wasn’t
a misunderstanding. I understood you loud and clear.” He focused back on his phone, selected the app he was looking for and began to scroll through it. They were quiet for a few moments, until Kyle gently touched his shoulder once again.

“Well, I
am
sorry, Sean. I’m not racist, okay? I was just trying to look out for ya, but it came out all wrong.”

Sean looked at him for a moment or two then casually slid his phone back into his pocket. He turned to the guy head on, facing him.

“It came out as the truth.
Your
truth. It came out just the way it was meant to come out. I learned a lot that day, Kyle. I learned about you, about myself too. Crazy thing is, had I listened to you, took it to heart, I’d be miserable right now.”

“Mmmm… So, I take it the relationship is working out? You’re still with her? That’s good, Sean. I’m happy for you.”

“Yeah, we are still together, Kyle, but I doubt you’re happy for me.”

The guy huffed in frustration. “Is
everything
I say going to be looked at suspiciously, Sean?”

“Kyle, I don’t have time to worry about whether you’re sincere or not, and I don’t care, actually. I’m just letting you know that I get you now, I understand who I’m dealing with. For the record, I’m gonna marry her. We’re getting married in four months…got a date, venue, the works.”

“90!” the woman called out. Sean checked his number, compared it to the one on the board just to be safe, then looked back at Kyle.

“Oh….man, wow!” He laughed nervously, taking a step back. “That, wow…” He rubbed his sweating forehead, in obvious disbelief. “I never saw you getting married, Sean, to anyone…I mean, not her, not anyone…you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, looks like you and I both never saw a lot of shit about one another, huh?” he sneered.

“Sean, look…what do I have to do, huh? I told you I was sorry. I’ve been trying to call you; you’ve been blowing me off! I’ve left you countless voicemails. You’re my best friend for God’s sake! You can’t flush a twenty year old friendship down the drain over a woman!”

“It’s not about a
fucking
woman!” he yelled, spit spraying out of his mouth as he pointed to the ground. His outburst caught the attention on onlookers, causing people to turn in his direction. He felt their eyes upon him and lowered his voice, but refused to disengage from the conversation. “It’s about
you
and
me
.” He pointed to himself, then back at Kyle. “It’s about the nature of a man, what’s inside of ya! It’s about the fight within, the demons we tussle and struggle with on a daily basis. We all have a fight in our hearts, Kyle. Some of us fight being liars. Some of us fight being faithful. Some of us fight ever being able to trust again. Some of us fight jealousy while others fight being assholes! Some demons are uglier than others. Being a racist is a pretty dreadful condition. It’s a sickness! This is about how
ugly
your heart is, how you feel better than other people over some shit you had no control over!”

“91!”

“Sean, what tha hell, man?! I’m not a racist and I don’t feel like I’m better than you, I don’t! You’ve always been a little insecure, ya know? I tried to help you, I did, and this is the thanks I get! I did a lot of shit for you! A lot!”

“You did shit for me? You helped
me
?” He pointed to himself. “Helped me with
what
?! Like, charity cases? If anyone should be feeling superior, it should be me! You’re just a big black hole, you know that? You may be a broker, but no investment in you ever sticks! It just falls in that big black hole, goin’ nowhere fast. I know you know all about funds…so I figured I’d use an analogy to your liking.” He smirked, causing the man before him to roll his eyes. “You were born rich and feel better than the rest of everybody else ’cause of that, like you controlled
any
of that. No one controls their race, gender, socio-economic class, or the culture they were born into!” He waved his hand past the man in a dismissive way.

“92!”

“I am well aware of that, Sean,” he said coolly. “I see college has given you some food for thought… Where did you learn that stuff? Surely not on the streets.”

“And that’s the other thing, Kyle, glad you brought that up. Remember when I told you I was goin’ back to school? How interesting that you told me college degrees were overrated, even though you had one!”

“Yeah, and someone that has one should know! I just didn’t want you to waste your money!”

“Yeah, waste my money because God forbid I actually get a degree and better myself; that would have messed up your whole world. The whole time I’ve been in school, you’ve not given
one
encouraging word!” He held up his finger. “You’ve not told me good job on my exams, nothing! All you’ve had to say was either negativity, or you were completely silent. I
did
have a complex, Kyle. I’ll admit that. You
knew
I had it, and you used it to your advantage.”

“Here you go again, Sean, not taking accountability for your own shit. That’s the biggest thing that irks me about you.”

“You must be hard of hearin’. I took accountability, said I had the complex. I am so self-aware right now, Kyle, that I have x-ray vision of my very own soul! It’s one thing to know you’re a fuck up, but quite another to never do a damn thing about it!”

“93!”

“That day in school when I came to your aid, I didn’t even want to because you were one of the cool kids and I was an outsider, but I did it anyway, because it was the right damn thing to do.”

“94!”

“Funny how I overlooked that the reason you were being jumped on in the first place was because you ran your mouth with that Brazilian kid, called him trash, and he beat the goddamn brakes off ya!” He jammed his finger in his face as he moved closer to the motherfucker, wanting to beat his ass, too. Kyle turned away, avoiding eye contact.

“95!”

“I didn’t even put two and two together that you were smellin’ yourself, even at that young age. Maybe if I wouldn’t have interjected and saved your ass, you could have spent some time in the hospital and thought about that slick mouth of yours, and how you use it to hurt people in order to make yourself feel big and tall.”

The man rolled his eyes and swung his little red basket back and forth in his hand.

“96!”

“You are always giving to charities, right? Always saying the right stuff, acting very kumbaya my Lord…it’s all a big act! Here you were, hanging around poor little ol’ Sean, right? Being a helping hand. Sean’s a garbage man, I feel so much better than him! Sean grew up with parents that didn’t have much, poor guy needs my help! Sean’s apartment is a dump, maybe I can slide him some bills so he can make it, buy himself a washcloth or two. I got news for ya, Kyle, you needed me
way
more than I
ever
needed you. You’ve pretended to be this good, caring guy but you—”

“I don’t have to listen to this…” The man turned to walk away, but Sean grabbed his arm, made him face him once more.

“97!”

“No! You are going to stand here and take it! Somebody is gonna finally tell you the truth about yourself Kyle, and it’s gonna hurt like you’ve been in the ring all damn night. Don’t be afraid to take your lumps. We’ve all got to, there’s no escaping it.”

“Just move on! All of this is in the past!”

“I don’t have time to look back at yesterday anymore, Kyle. I couldn’t even tell you about yesterday anyway for fear of being judged by you, so my past was never fully revealed to you. What type of friend were you with whom I believed I had to keep secrets?!”

“Oh, and you feeling self conscious was my fault too, right?”

“’Member Darci?”

“Yeah…what about her?”

“She didn’t want me because I didn’t have any dough…but you probably already knew that, didn’t you? Yet you told me nothing—just sat back and watched, enjoying the show.”

“98!”

The man looked down at his shoes, taking back eye contact.

“I hated ya, Kyle, because I wanted to be like ya! I wanted what you had, not realizing I had it all and you had
nothing
! I’m the one that had real friends who liked me for
me
, not for what I could buy ’em! How sad of me to wish for your life! Now, I stand here in line at the deli, in this grocery store, waiting to get some damn lunch meat for my soon to be stepdaughter. She likes honey turkey, and this is the only place in a thirty-mile radius that sells the brand she likes. That’s love, Kyle! That is what you do when you care about somebody. You do it not because you’re gettin’ something back or feeding off their insecurities. She can’t do nothin’ for me, she’s just a child, but I can do somethin’ for her, make her day a bit brighter.

“I gotta beautiful woman waiting for me at home, man. She’s wearing my ring that I paid for! Wouldn’t have mattered to her if it cost a nickel. I gotta nice job, and bought my parents a brand new kitchen. It’s being renovated from the damn ceiling to the fuckin’ floor and I ain’t doing it because it makes me feel good, makes me feel superior. I’m doing it because they loved me, took care of me, and my mom is an unsung hero and should be able to cook her heart out in a nice ass kitchen…and I did it for my dad, too. He likes to sit there and enjoy his time alone, drinking a beer and watching the game, so a new kitchen it fuckin’ is!”

He could see the perplexity on the man’s face. Kyle had questions…so many questions, but he refused to entertain the man, give him what he wanted.

“So while you stand there with your money and your six-pack of imported beer in your basket, you’re going to go home and be alone. Even if you have a girlfriend, you’re
still
alone…and you know
exactly
what I mean. Me, on the other hand, I’m going to a house filled with laughter and love. I’m goin’ to a place that can’t be borrowed, bought or bartered. I’m going to a place where I can share, and show genuine concern, and you know what is so damn ironic about all of this?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me,” Kyle said dispassionately.

“If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even be with this woman you tried to cock-block. How crazy is that? You inadvertently brought us together, then tried to tear us apart. When you told me that morning to stop being so self-absorbed, I took your advice. She needed somebody, but little did I know, I needed somebody, too! The crazy part of this is that I now know that you could tell I was in love with her, and that she loved me too.” He burst out laughing and slapped his thigh, spun in a circle then faced the man again. “You were jealous!”

“Oh, get the fuck outta here, Sean. Jealous of
what
? You and your elderly girlfriend with her two half grown kids?! That doesn’t even make sense!”

“No, it makes
perfect
sense Kyle, and you know it. My parents love each other…yours don’t. You’d say little snide comments about my family over the years, and I’d let it slide. You wanted to be me, have what I had, and I wanted to be you, and the shit continues!” He cracked up even harder, though his anger continued to soar just beneath the surface.

“You’ve never found a woman that dated you just because, or for you…or you were always worried it was a damn gold digger if the woman did seem to be legit. No one could win! Misery loves company and we were livin’ it up in Hateville together, weren’t we? Just havin’ a big ol’ negative blast! We’d make jokes about that. And here I stood, after all of that, with a
beautiful
woman, successful, loving and caring, when it was fuckin’ obvious she loved me for me, ’cause I didn’t have shit! She wasn’t another Darci, Mary, or Veronica! She was the real deal and you were jealous! Unbelievable! You were fucking jealous, man! Ha! I can’t believe I didn’t realize this earlier.”

Kyle stood there stone faced, the truth of Sean’s words dancing in his eyes. He was busted, and there was nowhere to run.

“99!”

“All I could focus on was the racist comments, and it totally sailed right the hell past me. That was just a
small
part of this. Your true reasoning for trying to mess us up was much deeper than that.” Sean ran his hand down his face and shook his head in complete disbelief. “Wow…”

“100…”

“That’s me. I like to keep it real, keep it one hundred,” he said calmly as he stood in front of the counter, turning his back on the man. “Let me get half a pound of your honey turkey, a quarter pound of your pepper jack cheese and a pound of your smoked ham …oh, and a quart of macaroni salad…my daughter likes that, too,” he added, pointing to the display. When he turned back around, Kyle was walking away, his deli number on the floor where he’d once been standing. Sean’s chest tightened a bit as he watched him slowly disappear until he couldn’t see him any longer.

He knew that would be the last conversation they would ever have. He refused to allow Kyle to leech off him a second longer, gain his sense of importance from his misfortunes and neediness. There was no need to tell his ex-friend how much money he was making now, where he worked, and how his life was completely different from when they’d last shared a round of beers and threw darts at the local watering hole. That wasn’t what he was most proud of, so why bother? What mattered most to him, he’d already told the man…