The Adjustment League by Mike Barnes Page A

lose his taste for meat if you starve him.”
    That restores the silence between us. He pulls the paper over and starts leafing to find more the kind of thing he’s looking for.
    A UFC cage match takes place on the main TV. A two-minute flurry capping a half hour of build-up, clips and commentary by three talking heads. The jerseys at the table cheer the jabs and kicks that connect, then, when the wiry fighter trips the bulky one, they pound on the table in sync with the face punches to the tap out. Father doesn’t pause in his lottery mining, rubbing just enough with his dime to verify a loser then dropping it in the trash and starting on another. As bloody and brutal as the mayhem in the octagon is, it’s also far more graceful and choreographed than any real-life fight I’ve seen. And far briefer and more decisive than what must be occurring in kitchens and bedrooms within a short walk of us.
    Public horrors. Never as raw and terrible as the private kind. But only a gruesome enough spectacle lets us forget that.
    â€œWhen’s Sandor usually show up?” I say to Mother Barkeep. “I’m supposed to be meeting him here.”
    After a deft Face-over, almost delicate, she says, “If you sit where you’re sitting, you’ll see anyone who arrives.”
    Which sounds close enough to a perfect koan that I order another tea to keep my seat.
    Â§
    Sandor’s party sweeps in on a gust of talk—seven of them, different conversations going—and take their seats around two tables pushed together near the pool table. The pretty brunette beside Sandor not saying much, concentrating on smiling at the right lines, especially his. Another couple, longer-term, beside her: the blonde a stunner, her husband, balding over wireframe glasses, looking like polished intelligence has lifted him somewhere high. The other three singles, a man and two women, younger outriders—students or assistants maybe. I’ve seen some of them at Shoppers, where all of the neighbourhood shows up eventually. The blonde for sure. Her fluffy white dog waiting chained to the railing, gray streaks in its fur like a dirty snowbank.
    Watching them through the first round, sipping my tea. Sandor not loud or pushy. But commanding without effort. Getting the biggest laughs. Oh you! pokes from the ladies.
    My neighbour tries a last time. He can’t be alone.
    â€œI gotta ask about the tea. Curiosity and the cat, I know. But I don’t see someone sitting here as long as you have if they were in 12-step, really following the program. Or being in here at all, really. So?” He gestures at his tall glass of yellow, gliding a hand alongside it like a salesman in a showroom.
    â€œIt makes me see things I can’t see.”
    â€œHeh heh. Why we invented the stuff, wasn’t it?”
    Which sounds so stupid that I decide to let him have it. Though probably it has nothing to do with him at all. Locking onto his eyes, I stare through them at a kitchen six long blocks away.
    â€œOne drop and I see a crazy man grabbing a woman boiling water for spaghetti, trying to get her to dance. She just wants to cook, see. But he’s a dancing fool. Grabbing at her waist, trying to twirl her. Her pushing him away. Their little girl with her face raised, laughing at them.”
    The guy has his beer up—mouth open, ready to laugh at the punchline, puzzled when it doesn’t come. I go back to my tea and leave him with it.
    After a bit I hear him chuckling softly—now he’s got it, so subtle he missed it before. Then falls silent. There’s just no stopper like the truth. Hand it to people and they’ll never believe it. Will pronounce you a clown, a raving lunatic, or a complete shit—will do anything except sit still and look at it.
    Though who in hell could look at the fright-pic you’re peddling? Toddler scalded head to hips because her lunatic dad just had to boogie.
    Eventually he