The Tie

"Uncle Robbie, come look," Corey called from the TV room. Rob was standing in the kitchen, finally alone after spending the better part of an hour doing just that. "Look, Uncle Robbie! Look!" Was the phrase of the hour and Corey sang it out gleefully. Once "Uncle Robbie" came to look, the spindly 7 year old would twirl or tumble or say nothing at all, getting Rob's attention being its own kind of game. At wits end, Rob sat Corey in the TV room with a water bottle, some orange slices, and turned on the latest animated slop with bright colors and talking animals. The boy ate standing up, ever so often hopping up and down, but quiet, for now. Rob stood half turned to the sink, hiding the tallboy he tried to drain before Corey ran in and caught him. He loved his brother and sister-in-law, but they could be so uptight about him drinking in front of the kid. But what did they expect? He was a young man in his prime. He should be getting wasted with his friends or having marathon runs on the game he bought last week or even trying to convince some online date that she should spend the night with him. Instead he was stuck babysitting a kid he didn't even spill seed to make. He loved his nephew, he did, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn't supremely annoying to have to sneak a drink in his own apartment.

"Just a minute, Basket," he choked out swallowing the last drops in the can. A can he would then have to crush and hide in his trashcan because his sister-in-law would absolutely check once she came to pick the kid up. Basket was the harmless, though still funny, nickname he came up with after learning that his brother was going to be a dad. A joke he’d only let Dave in on a few years ago during one of their last nights out together. "I thought you were a basket case for going through with it," he admitted. "You? My brother? David, a father?" he laughed and shook his head over a pint.

"What does that mean?" Dave shot back, obviously hurt to hear something true in the admission. Rob took another drink and tried to weigh his words. Rob was younger in years, but seemed to outpace David in thought. This had been such an obviously short-sighted thing to do that David needed hindsight to see it.

"It means that you gave up your entire life for a group project that you're going to get bored of in a few more years."

Fast-forward and they are exactly where Rob predicted they'd be. Himself shouldering a burden he should have never agreed to except in reverence to fraternal duty. Dave miserable and escaping into work at every opportunity under the banner of "providing" for his wife and kid. And who provides for us? For you? Rob wanted to, and probably had, said in response. "We only have ourselves and our balls," is the chant they'd shout to each other over the years at football games, the gym, tailgating, house parties, bars. Rob had even whispered it to Dave on the day of his wedding to Leah. Rob wanted to remind Dave that even in marriage, he would only have himself. But this was back when Dave was still recognizable as Dave and long before Dave would become the father, David.

Beer can safely out of sight, Rob half bounced into the TV room to see Corey pointing at something outside the window. "What is it, Basket?" He said feeling more relaxed and generous. He tried following along, but could only see the blind’s horizontal slats bisecting the outside world, a blur of trees, cars, houses. "What do you see?" He walked further into the room and thought he could just make out the shape of a person. A man, if Rob had to guess. A man in a dull gray suit, blue bowler, and an even more vivid blue tie. In truth, Rob had noticed the tie before the man wearing it. There was something luminous about it? Rob didn't think of himself as the academic type, but luminous was definitely the right word. Even in the daylight, it seemed to draw the eye directly to it.

Rob felt Corey grab onto him and cry into his sweatpants. He looked down startled into confusion and tried to comfort the boy. "Hey, Basket," he cooed. “It's okay. Whatever it is, I'm here. I got you.” He looked up again, wondering if The Tie was still out there, but no. Only the movement of cars and empty streets.

Dave came over about 2 hours after Leah left with Corey hoisted onto her hip as though the 7 year old wasn't in fact, nearly a decade in age and could walk perfectly fine on his own. He had been spooked by The Tie, though Rob couldn't put into words what exactly was the matter. "He just started crying like that and wouldn't stop," isn't exactly the sort of thing a parent would want to hear from the babysitter. Corey, for his part, eventually managed to squeak out that he saw a scary man outside the window. But when pressed for details, the poor thing burst into more shuttering tears.

"He just started crying for no reason?" Dave asked, cracking open his third can. He had brought over a couple cases as a kind of peace offering to Rob.

"Yeah, said some guy was staring at him through the window. But when I looked, I didn't really see anything out there."

"Weird."

"Kids cry," Rob shrugged. "No, what's really weird is how beat down you look. When was the last time you had fun?" Dave sighed and tossed back another swig.

"Here we go again."

"Damn right, here we go again. You look like someone has been pissing in your cheerios and charging you for the privileged. It's been years now, man. You've proven that you can be a sober and upstanding member of society. Leah and Basket will be fine. But you," and here Rob paused to tap Dave's can with his own. "You need to cut loose a little. Just one night out." Dave shrugged and shook his head. Before he could shape his mouth into a 'no', Rob cut back in. "She doesn’t even need to know that we're going out. Just tell her that your baby brother misses you so very much and has been dying for some brotherly time," Rob leaned in, batting his eyelashes in mock innocence to get a laugh out of Dave. It worked. "Don't think. Call her now and tell her I'm badgering you to stay over and watch the game or something."

Outside the club Rob had taken them to, despite Dave's protests, Rob went over the ground rules. "Here's my burner. Try not to lose it," he said sternly. "My real number is saved under 'Big Poppa'. Use it in case we get separated since you can't use your own phone.” He looked over at Dave in mock disgust. “Seriously man, why would you ever agree to location sharing? You're not a lost dog or something," Dave punched Rob hard in the shoulder and Rob smiled. Now this was Dave. Not whatever husk of a man Leah had turned him into.

The club was noisy, sticky with spilled drinks, and full of women. Rob abandoned Dave the second one of these women caught his eye and smiled. He patted his brother on the shoulder, told him to 'be good' and disappeared with her onto the dance floor. As he drank and danced, Rob thought he caught sight of The Tie again. The fog and low light made it impossible to know for sure, but that tie, so bright and out of place, made him wonder if the kid wasn’t making up stories after all. He made a mental note to ask Dave about it later, but once he finished dancing, Dave was nowhere to be seen. Rob smiled to think that Dave might have taken his advice to heart and gone out to have some fun of his own. But everything in moderation and it was time to go now, so Rob went on the hunt to find his brother.

He scanned the dance floor first. Then the bars next to the dance floor and the one on the outside patio. He was getting impatient but remembered the upstairs was usually more relaxed. Maybe Dave was crying over a beer up there. Rob leap up the stairs with glee only to be disappointed again. He sat at the bar, phone in hand, and ready to just call his burner, when he noticed the receipt next to him. He leaned over to take a look and sure enough, his brother's shaky signature stared back at him. "Ooooh..." he said involuntarily when he saw the bill Dave had wracked up. They couldn't have been there for more than a couple of hours, but the clock said otherwise. It was closer to dawn than midnight and Rob couldn't shuffle Dave home in whatever state 3 digits worth of alcohol would put a man in. Rob headed for the bathroom, the obvious first choice for someone that sloshed, and locked eyes with Dave. Dave, with his pants around his ankles and a large, hairy dude kneeling in front of him. Once the scene registered, Rob turned back, almost knocking into the guy behind him. He thought again he glimpsed The Tie again, but pushed thought away, instead texting that he'd be waiting in the car whenever Dave was finished.

The car ride home was loud with unasked questions: "Did you....?" "Are you...." "Does Leah...."

They sat in the parking garage, silent, until Dave finally said in a low note, "Leah can never find out. Tonight never happened." Rob nodded and walked them back into his apartment, where he closed his bedroom door and left Dave to his own thoughts on the couch. In the morning, Dave was gone leaving the burner on the kitchen table with a note, "Wild night. Thanks for the push. Back to reality -David". He trashed the letter and turned on the phone, which immediately started to vibrate. The texts were all from the same number with messages like "Had fun", "You felt so good", "See you tonight?" The photos were more graphic than Rob cared to see that early in the morning. Or at any time, really. But in the corner of one, he saw The Tie hanging off the bedpost like an Easter egg. He swore to himself and turned off the phone.

When he turned it back on later that evening, he was flooded with more messages and images from the same guy. Despite himself, Rob made himself look at each photo to see if he could spot The Tie. And he could. Sometimes it was on the floor in the background. Sometimes hanging off some piece of furniture. A few times it was right in the foreground wrapped around the guy's junk. "Stop texting me," he hit send and blocked the number. Unpleasant, but he thought that would be the end of it.

Except other numbers started to come in. Different numbers. And judging by the photos, different men too. The tie still showed up in the background like the worse hidden image game Rob could play. At first he replied to the texts, telling the guys to stop. It was over. It was a mistake. It didn't mean anything. He had a family. But even that would cause a flurry of new texts. Some confused. Some pleading. But all simmering with rage Rob didn’t understand. After a while, he stopped texting and blocked the numbers as they came in. But his curiosity got the better of him and he checked the blocked numbers to see that the men were still texting. Sending sending nudes. Well, it was never a full nude, but what difference did it make to see the rest of the man when only one part mattered? He remembered learning it got hard even when the guy was in a coma, brain dead, actually dead. The thought that these could be a collection of dead men's erections caused Rob to vomit in the sink.

The worse part was The Tie kept showing up in the background. That part hadn’t made any sense to Rob. He showed the pictures to his friends, asked if they could play "spot the tie" too. But they pushed him away and asked why on Earth was he carrying a phone full of that stuff. It was fine if he was gay, they'd tell him. Doesn't make any difference to me. I'm an ally. Just keep that stuff far, far away from me. And they'd laugh. They laughed how Rob used to laugh. How he wished he could laugh now. "Yeah, but look in the background. Here, let me zoom in. Tell me what you see?" When the laughter died down, they would sometimes tell him to piss off, but sometimes they'd play along and look. When they look at the screen though, they saw nothing even vaguely resembling a tie. Rob would press. "What about this one? And this? Are you sure? Okay look, here. It's literally wrapped around his...." By that point, no one was laughing, drinks were finished, and tabs paid. They told Rob to take it easy. Maybe lay off the pictures for a bit. One even asked Rob if he was struggling with a porn addiction.

The one person he could ask was also the last person he’d want to ask. So he didn't. But it was getting to him. He started seeing The Tie everywhere. Hanging off signs, discarded by the stairs, coiled against the base of a tree, the same luminous tie following him like some living thing. By the third week, he was near his breaking point. He was babysitting Corey again. David forgot to do the pick up and Leah asked if Rob could watch him until she was done with her shift. They were in the TV room and Rob was openly drinking his tallboy now. Let the young narc tell on him if he wants. He didn't care anymore.

"Basket," he asked suddenly and the boy stopped pretending to be a ninja long enough to look at his uncle. "Do you remember the scary man you saw a few weeks ago?" Corey looked at him blankly, emphatically shaking his head. "But he made you cry?” More head shaking. “You were right in this room and you called me in to see something out the window." The child denied again and, bored with the questioning, resumed his ninja practice. When Leah came to pick him up, Rob decided to ask her too.

"Do you remember Corey getting upset about something a few weeks ago? Like he told us he saw someone outside the window or something like that?" Leah, too, looked at him like he had sprouted another set of arms.

"No? I remember my wonderful and accommodating brother-in-law picking him up when David and I got our days crossed. I also remember carrying a very fussy 7 year old to the car. My back is still reminding me of that," and she laughed, but Rob stared.

"Stay here," he said and got the phone that he had buried deep in the back of the pantry. He turned it on and the device came alive with notifications. Leah laughed awkwardly and made some comment Rob didn't hear. He opened one of the images and zoomed in far enough to look harmless. "Do you see the tie there?" Leah looked down and finally lit up.

"Yes! God that thing was so gaudy," she laughed then quickly followed it up with an apology. "I don't mean anything by that really, but I always thought it was such a flashy color. Like what is it? A neon violet or something? It looked radioactive," she laughed again. "I was so relieved when your mom made you switch it out for a plain black one at the wedding. I was ready to strangle you for ruining our wedding photos, but that wouldn’t have been a good introduction to the family," more laughter. Rob didn't move. Hadn't blinked since Leah started talking.

"It's mine?" Leah, now showing the sort of concern Rob imagined hospice care workers showed to the families of people whose health had taken a sudden turn for the worse. She nodded.

"I'm surprised you don't remember," she continued. "You wore it that night you dragged David to the club a few years back." Her eyebrows wrinkled slightly. "That was a really rough time for us. David had been acting weird and then you show up wearing that tie and telling us that you were going to whisk him away for some boys' night." She pulled out a chair and sat down. "You two came back an absolute wreck. You lost your socks. And I guess your shirt? I remember David coming home in his undershirt with your tie around his neck. He said he gave you his shirt. God, we fought so much." She shook her head trying to lighten up. "Did he not give it back to you though? I know I threw it in his bag when you two went on that big fishing trip a few months ago." Rob hated fishing.

"A few months ago?"

She nodded again. "You and David spent the whole weekend together. I was sure he would give it back. That's why I packed it." Leah's phone rang and she jumped up. "Sorry, Rob. I have to go. Loves,” and she hugged him while grabbing Corey’s hand. “I'll ask David if he still has your tie."