Tap Dance

Fiction

Photo by Grooveland Designs on Unsplash

I don’t need to remember her cat’s name, I told Mochsie, and he got agitated.

Sometimes Mochsie puts on shows. He’s not just talking, he’s dancing and moving and enunciating some of the words so hard it looks like his face will break and shards of purple mad will fly off.

He was putting on a show, her cat is an extension of her and the cat was there first and, and, and…

I can hear the scuffs of his feet as he dances in front of me, talking, gyrating…no, no, the word is gesticulating.

Yeah, that’s what he’s doing, he’s gesticulating, and he’s so damn passionate about this he’s admitting to me, in this loud, long dance that he wants to be with RayAnne, that all these things he thinks I’m messing up are opportunities with her that he would like.

I pull my beer and I lean back.

Mochsie’s in his pointing at me phase now, and that’s when his little show is about to be over, and he’s gonna expect me to say “ you’re right Mochsie,” or “ I’ll do better Mochsie,” but what I want to say is “you want her, Mochsie? I can break up with her and you can have her and you can get her cat’s name tattooed on you for all I give a Friday Night jackweasel.”

But here’s the thing that bugs me.

A week ago he was this damn passionate about his brother getting his Mustang detailed to put up for auction.

He had all these ideas and opinions and I listened, and I said “ you’re right Mochsie,” and he was right, he was, but that Mustang isn’t his to be right about in the first place.

And I want to tell him get his own thing to be right about. A car, or a relationship, or even a damn cat whose name he can effortlessly memorize.

But he doesn’t have any of those things.

Known him since we were kids.

Putting on shows.

Having opinions.

And now his voice his doing that thing where it’s rising and falling and he’s about to end the show, and all he has is the show, and I feel sorry for him, really sorry, like a deep emptiness for his emptiness, and I can’t tell him that. I should, but I can’t.

His shoes stop scuffling and his voice says that one last loud word and his face is purple like a priest’s vestments during Lent.

And I say “You’re right, Mochsie.”

And he says “ I know I’m right.”

That’s all he’s got.

That’s all he’ll ever have.

And that isn’t mine to steal from him.

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