Read Online The Wild Card by Mark Joseph - Free Book Online

California cuisine was on the menu.
    â€œAh, God,” Bobby said, sipping ice water and starting a conversation with himself. “Joe’s.”
    â€œDo you remember the time that Nelson … ?” he started to say.
    â€œRemember?” he interrupted himself. “I was there. Charlie was there. Dean was there. The time in chemistry class when Nelson swiped an ounce of metallic sodium and dropped it in the biology teacher’s fish tank. Boom! Instant chum. The night Dean wrecked his Impala in Mel’s parking lot. There were seven of us in the damn car, Dean was playing his sax and driving at the same time and he had this flask of gin …”
    â€œI remember,” Bobby said, savoring the beef. “I remember lots of nights at Mel’s and Juanita’s in Sausalito and here at Joe’s, too. You want cheesecake?”
    â€œI wanna be eighteen again, that’s what I want,” Bobby said. “Before anything happened.”
    â€œFuck that, man. Don’t start that.”
    â€œWell, what the hell am I supposed to do? I hate getting old.”
    â€œFinish your dinner. You’re getting older sitting here.”
    â€œAh, God,” Bobby sighed. “What a drag.”

    Pouring coffee, the seventy-year-old waiter laughed, a sharp bark that caught in his throat and died. Bobby stared at the slice of cheesecake, wedge shaped, creamy, sweet and firm, vulva-like in its richness. A shudder passed through his body, so violent it rattled the table.
    â€œYou all right?” the waiter asked. “You’re talking to yourself.”
    â€œWhat’s it to you?”
    â€œIt bothers the other customers.”
    Bobby looked around the restaurant. “There are no other customers. One guy at the counter, that’s it.”
    The waiter held his hand to his forehead like an Apache scout and scanned the room. “Gol darned if you aren’t right. I must be mistaken. You go right on ahead and talk to yourself.”
    â€œHey,” Bobby said. “Sorry.”
    â€œThat’s all right. Where you from, son?”
    â€œReno, but I used to live here, come in here when I was a kid. That was a long time ago.”
    â€œSteak good?”
    â€œStill the best.”
    â€œYou got family here in the city?”
    â€œYou’re an inquisitive sort. You must be bored.”
    â€œWell, you were talking to yourself, so I figured you could pretend to talk to me and no one would notice. I don’t mean to pry.”
    â€œIt’s okay. Nah, family’s long gone. Everything is gone. All the joints I used to go to, they’re all gone except this one. They still got naked women up on Broadway?”
    â€œA few, a couple a places but most a them disappeared like the hippies and the beatniks. I seen ‘em all and outlasted ’em all, too.”
    â€œOh, yeah? What’s your secret?”
    â€œJoe’s steak and a bottle of dago red every day, man. Whaddya think?”
    Bobby had to laugh at that.
    â€œMore coffee?”
    â€œJust a check, thanks.”
    Bobby glanced at the bill and left the fifty he took from the monte dealer on the table. Outside, standing on the sidewalk, rocking on
his heels, smoking, watching the traffic and the hustlers and pimps, he had the momentary illusion that it was still 1963 and nothing had happened. He blinked and the cruel deception faded.
    He walked down Taylor to Market and up Market to Seventh. He knew where he was going now. He walked faster, picking up speed, taking himself quickly to one of the good places.
    It was gone. Lyle Tuttle’s tattoo parlor on Seventh Street between Mission and Market had vanished. The building that had housed Lyle Tuttle’s was a hole in the ground and the Greyhound bus station next door was gone, too, part of the same high-rise development-to-be. Bobby pressed against the Cyclone fence in front of the construction site and laughed. Holy Moley, Lyle Tuttle,