The Wishbones (21 page)

“Overlook Hospital,” he muttered, as the glass doors parted to admit them to the emergency room. “Hardly a name that inspires your confidence.”

Dave filled out the admission forms on Buzzy's behalf and they took their seats in the waiting area, exchanging sad smiles with relatives of the two other people in need of urgent medical attention. A fiftyish guy in a gray suit rocked back and forth in his chair, gritting his teeth and pressing on his stomach, while his wife sat beside him, doggedly paging through a
People
magazine. An Indian woman with a gold ring in her nose and a red dot on her forehead hummed softly to the beautiful little girl whose head rested on her shoulder, eyes wide open. Buzzy lifted the ice pack the nurse had given him and inspected his mutant hand.

“I hope Artie and Stan make it out of there okay. Those skinheads are not gonna be happy campers.”

Dave still couldn't quite get his mind around the story Buzzy had told with such pride and relish on the way to the hospital. He'd seen the kid leap up from his table and follow Buzzy out of the Banquet Room, a scary teenage bundle of rage and acne and muscles, and a small part of his mind had registered the possibility of violence. (An even smaller part blamed Buzzy for bringing it down on himself by acting like an asshole in such obviously dicey circumstances.) He'd felt a deep sense of relief when Buzzy reappeared a few minutes later, alive and apparently well. It wasn't until he'd returned to the bandstand that Dave became aware of his injury.

“I need to go to a hospital,” Buzzy told him. “I broke my hand on someone's face.”

“You what?”

Buzzy grinned, a little crazily, Dave thought.

“A skinhead. I pissed on him too.”

A furious round of whispering ensued as Dave and Buzzy tried to explain the situation to Artie. Buzzy thought they should all leave together ASAP, but Artie refused to abandon the equipment. At one point the discussion got so heated that one of the softball players found it necessary to make his way over to the bandstand and tell them all to “pipe the fuck down.” In the end, Artie and Stan opted to stay behind.

The guy with the monster stomachache's name was called, and he and his wife were led off to an examining room. The Indian woman kept humming the same sinuous, almost hypnotic melody to her little girl, who still hadn't moved. Dave was starting to worry about her.

“This is the worst fucking thing I could have done to myself,” Buzzy said. “I guess you guys are gonna have to find yourselves a new bass player on top of a new singer.”

“Maybe even a new guitarist,” Dave said, surprising himself with this declaration.

“Excuse me?”

Dave felt a strange pressure gathering inside his head, as if something were about to come to a boil. He reached up and massaged his temples.

“My life's a total fucking mess. I don't know what I'm doing about anything anymore.”

“I'm not following you,” Buzzy told him.

“I'm in love,” he explained. “Her name's Gretchen. I'm a total fucking mess.”

It was after eleven when Buzzy finally got home. He trudged upstairs, crouched down by the bedroom window, and tried to do what he had to do in the dark, with one hand. It wasn't long before JoAnn stirred.

“Buzz,” she whispered. “That you?”

“Yeah?”

She turned on the lamp and sat up in bed, blinking like a mole in broad daylight.

“What are you doing? What happened to your hand?”

Buzzy stood up. He put one finger to his lips.

“Don't ask questions,” he told her. “There's something I have to do. You have to trust me on this.”

She stared at him for a few seconds, taking stock of the cast on his hand and the sling around his neck. Buzzy knew she'd do what he asked her to. She was a good woman, the best thing that had ever happened to him. If it hadn't been for JoAnn, he'd probably be dead by now.

“Can you get this window open for me?”

“It is open.”

“The screen. Pull open the screen. As high as it will go.”

Jo Ann climbed out of bed, wearing an old Slayer T-shirt and a pair of Buzzy's boxer shorts, white with little blue stars on them.

“I don't like the sound of this,” she said.

“Trust me,” he said again, brushing past her as she made her way over to the window. “I need to do this.”

She lifted the screen. With his good hand, Buzzy unplugged the sixteen-inch portable TV they kept on top of his dresser for occasional bedtime viewing. The set was fairly light; he found he could lift it with one hand and carry it the short distance to the window. He set it down on the sill and looked at his wife.

“Buzzy,” she said softly. “What happened to your hand?”

“No questions,” he told her.

The toss he'd imagined was a dramatic two-handed overhead release, something like an inbounds pass in soccer. He'd imagined the TV falling from a great height, shattering on the concrete patio of some California luxury hotel, shards of glass sparkling like little ground stars. This was nothing like that. This was just a quick one-handed shove, followed almost immediately by a soft thud, and then a neighbor's dog barking, less in alarm than in confusion. He stuck his head out the window and saw the little white Samsung— they'd paid thirty-five dollars for it at a garage sale—lying facedown on the grass.

“There,” he said, stepping back from the window, doing his best to smile. “I feel better now.”

YOU STILL HERE?

 

Dave had already pulled up
in front of his house and shut off the engine by the time he realized that he would not be going home. The confession in the emergency room had jolted him: it was the first time he'd found the courage to admit, even to himself—
especially
to himself—that love was the issue between him and Gretchen. From the moment they'd met, he'd trained himself to couch his attraction to her in safer, more tentative terms. But now the real word was out, unpremeditated, with all its unpredictable power.

He was in love, and love required drastic action.
It's been a long time
, he thought.
A long time since I've been in love.

He had barely turned onto South Avenue when another, more radical thought entered his mind:
Was I ever in love with Julie?
He'd never doubted it before. They'd said the words thousands of times, in all kinds of tones and inflections—with awe, with sadness, playfully, matter-of-factly, angrily, in all sincerity, uncertainly, over
and over. Julie had written it on her jeans in Magic Marker, on her school notebooks, under her picture in their yearbook. Once she'd even scrawled it on his butt in red ink. He'd said it in song lyrics, whispered it in her ear, proclaimed it in letters, carved it into picnic tables and trees.

But what did it mean? They were just kids, drunk on sex and dreams, playing at something they didn't really understand. She figured he was going to be a rock star:
I love you, Dave.
He'd never gotten over the sight of her breasts:
I love you, Julie.
That was all it was. And once you start saying it, it's easier to keep saying it than it is to stop. Say it enough and you start to think it's true.

But maybe it isn't, he thought, speeding through Roselle into Elizabeth, heading for the Goethals Bridge.

Maybe it never was.

He wasn't precisely sure what he meant to do when he got to Gretchen's apartment, beyond telling her that he loved her. That was his mission, and on that small, but hardly insignificant matter, his mind was clear and resolved. Everything after it was a big scary blur.

At least he'd stopped kidding himself, though. No matter how he looked at it, he saw that he was making a dramatic break with the only life he'd ever known. At some point in the next couple of days he'd have to drive back to New Jersey and clear up the mess he'd made. The wedding would have to be canceled. Julie would hate him forever. His parents would never forgive him. They'd probably throw him out of the house.

If he was lucky, Gretchen would offer to let him move into her place, even though it was still too early for such a big step in their relationship. There they'd be in that little nothing apartment with pictures of bicycles all over the walls, trying to create a life for
themselves in a swamp of bad circumstances, guilt, and next-to-no money. That was the best scenario he could imagine; lots of other ones came to mind as well.

Even so, he felt freer than he had in years, shooting down the Staten Island Expressway, listening to an old Fleshtones’ tape, moving closer to his hard new life with every tick of the odometer. They could eat croissants for breakfast, take long walks in the park, maybe even get a puppy. In time he would find a New York band to play with—not a wedding band or a Christian band, but a real band, a cutting-edge garage combo that would play the small clubs downtown, the ones the people from the record labels were known to drop in on from time to time. He and Gretchen would wear berets and secondhand overcoats in the winter; they'd stay out late and have lots of friends. He'd take her best poems and set them to music. He'd been playing it safe for too long, clinging to his high-school girlfriend, sleeping in his little twin bed down the hall from Mommy and Daddy. The time had come to risk it all, to roll the dice, to finally let go and jump off the fucking cliff.

He found a parking Space right in front of her building, an unheard-of stroke of luck that he couldn't help but interpret as a good omen. Parking was going to be a bitch if he moved here; he was already dreading it. But maybe he wouldn't need a car. Maybe he could quit the courier business, find something steadier, a little more challenging, maybe in a big midtown office tower, use public transportation like everyone else.

Peering up through the dense leaves of a curbside sycamore, he saw the light shining in her bedroom window, the only light on in the entire building, almost as though she were waiting up for him. He'd never imagined a street anywhere in New York City could be this quiet, even at midnight, even on a Wednesday.

His legs felt hollow and wobbly as he climbed the front steps and entered her vestibule. For the first time, he allowed himself to wonder if he should have called first, if he was going to frighten her by ringing her doorbell unexpectedly at this time of night. But even as he raised the question he understood that this was the way it needed to be done. He put his finger on the buzzer and held it down for a long time, an interval that would have been obnoxious under any other circumstances.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

He buzzed again, this time less theatrically. Her voice crackled through the intercom, staticky and suspicious.

“Who is it?”

Dave had to hunch over, almost to waist level, to use the intercom on his end. He wondered if it had been placed that low so kids could use it, or if the builder was just an idiot.

“It's me, Dave.”

Heart racing, he put his sweaty hand on the knob of the inner door, expecting to be buzzed in as usual.

He waited.

He waited some more, his courage evaporating by the second.

Finally, he buzzed again.

“Go
away,” she told him. “It's over.”

He put his lips against the warm metal of the intercom, hating to have to do it like this. He wanted to say it in her apartment, to watch her face, to take her in his arms and repeat it a second, third, and fourth time. This was no good, overenunciating in a darkened vestibule, not even sure if his words were coming through on the other end. But there didn't seem to be any choice.

“I love you,” he told her.

“Go away. You had your chance.”

“Can't you hear me? I'm saying I love you.”

Again he waited for her to buzz him in, unable to believe that his magic words had failed to do the trick. He rang the buzzer again, this time as uninsistently as possible.

“Go away,” she said again. “Don't make me call the police.”

She sounded frail and ragged through the muddled speaker, but nonetheless strangely determined. He saw no recourse but to do as she said.
Let her sleep on it
, he thought.
This is just a misunderstanding. I'll try again in the morning.

He retreated backwards down the steps, craning his neck for a glimpse of her face in the yellow window.

But she wouldn't even give him that.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting in the car, reminding himself of the necessity of starting the engine and beginning the long journey home, when he sensed some activity on the stoop of her building. Straining across the front seat, trying to ignore the gearshift jabbing into his ribs, he pressed his face against the open window and saw two shadowy figures embracing in the vestibule, one of them propping open the outer door with a sneaker-clad foot.

Moments later, a man started down the steps, an overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Almost simultaneously, the outer door cracked open behind him, revealing Gretchen's head and shoulders, her glasses catching the streetlight and giving it back in two sharp glints. Furiously, Dave cranked down the window.

“Good night,” she called out, her voice clearly audible on the silent street. “I'll call you tomorrow.”

Then she was gone. Before Dave could process this sudden glimpse and her equally sudden disappearance, the man had pushed open the wrought-iron gate and stepped onto the sidewalk, just a few feet away. With obvious annoyance, he patted the pockets of his jeans—front, then back, then front again.

“Fuck,” he said, turning around to peer up at Gretchen's window.

Dave leaned further across the car, his mouth opening in disbelief.

“Randy?”

The DJ whirled on the sidewalk, startled by the sound of his own name. He squatted, bringing his face almost level with Dave's.

“Jesus,” he said, squinting into the car. “You still here?”

Before Dave could manage a reply, Randy changed the subject, hitting him for a loan of twenty dollars for train fare. He'd left his wallet up at Gretchen's, he explained, and preferred not to disturb her if he could avoid it.

“She's upset. You caught her off guard with that love stuff. She wants to be alone for a while.”

“I— I don't get it,” Dave spluttered. “What are you even doing here?”

Tired of squatting, Randy straightened up with a grimace, supporting his lower back with both hands. There was a weariness in his voice that Dave understood he was meant to take as an accusation.

“I was
supposed
to be spending the night.” Randy patted his luggage as if to supply proof for this distressing assertion. “Now I'm trying to catch the late train.”

Dave's right arm had begun to quiver from the strain of supporting his awkward lean across the front seat.

“How long have you been—?”

“A couple of days. Just since Sunday.”

“How'd you get her number?”

“I didn't. She called me.”

“She called
you?”

Randy shrugged. “I'm in the Yellow Pages.” He glanced impatiently at his watch. “I'd love to hang out and chat, but I'm fucked if I miss this train.”

Now that the initial shock had worn off, Dave had a clearer picture of his options. Gretchen was upstairs, alone in her apartment. He could give Randy the twenty bucks, send him on his way, and try her buzzer again. Maybe that was what she wanted. Maybe she'd asked Randy to leave for just that reason. Even if she didn't buzz him, he could still call her from a pay phone or leave a note in her mail slot, figure out some way to reinforce the message he'd been forced to deliver via intercom.

But all at once, with a certainty that washed over him like a wave of fatigue, he discovered that he wasn't going to do any of these things. It was late; the day had been full of nasty surprises. He had some thinking to do, but his brain felt muddled, no longer up to the task. He popped open the passenger door, sweeping some cassette boxes off the seat to clear a space for Randy.

They took the Manhattan Bridge instead of the Verrazano, cutting across Canal to the Holland Tunnel. Dave had been stuck inside the tunnel so often on his courier runs that he couldn't help but feel his spirits lift a little as they passed through the sickly yellow tube at sixty miles an hour. Randy must have sensed the change in his mood. He hadn't said much since climbing into the car, but now he wanted to explain himself.

“I couldn't believe it when she called,” he said, tracing one finger over the zipper on his overnight bag. “I'd kinda forgotten about her, to tell the truth. She said she'd been thinking about calling for a while, but didn't because she was involved with someone else. But now the other thing was over, so she was wondering if we could get together sometime.”

He looked up, checking to see how Dave was taking this.

“Go ahead,” Dave told him. “I'm listening.”

“It didn't occur to me that you—”

“I know.” Dave nodded, accepting his share of the blame for Randy's confusion. “Sorry about that.”

Randy made a vague gesture of absolution. “So anyway, I went into the city that night. She was even better than I remembered. We've got this chemistry, right?” He paused, in what appeared to be silent tribute to their chemistry. “Do you know she writes poetry?”

Dave nodded, smiling in spite of himself at Randy's enthusiasm.

“She mentioned it,” he said.

“It's incredible stuff,” Randy assured him. “Blew me away. Anyway, it wasn't until afterward … you know … that I found out that you—”

They emerged from the tunnel on the brightly lit Jersey side. Randy didn't seem to know how to finish his sentence, and Dave couldn't see much point in helping him out. The situation was painfully clear without having to dot all the is.

“It's a real fucking soap opera, isn't it?”

Randy chuckled nervously, granting him that much. He waited for Dave to elaborate, but Dave had nothing to add. For a moment, all he could think about was the awful, embarrassing fact that Randy worked all day with Julie's father. It seemed like a miserable secret for Randy to have to drag around the office, the knowledge that he had listened to Jack's prospective son-in-law tell another woman that he loved her through an intercom in Brooklyn. On reflection, though, Dave couldn't imagine Randy telling Jack, or Jack believing him if he did. It hardly seemed possible, even to Dave, even this close to the actual event.

Finally, Randy couldn't stand the silence or the uncertainty any longer.

“Is it over between you and Julie?”

Dave considered the question as they followed the highway
through the swampy wastelands outside Newark Airport. A tangy industrial odor flavored the air rushing through the open windows. He understood that Randy was really asking if he was going to keep fighting for Gretchen. And it wasn't until that moment that Dave realized he wasn't.

The clear strong feelings that had launched him into the city that night already seemed like a memory. The effort it had taken simply to begin imagining a new life with Gretchen had drained him; the actual task of making that life a reality seemed way beyond his strength, too daunting even to contemplate, especially with Randy's sudden appearance in the picture. He was wiped out, like one of those underdog football teams that gives everything it has just to win the conference championship and has nothing left for the Super Bowl. This realization saddened him, but the sadness was sweetened by a faint undertone of pride. He had been defeated in some way, but not for lack of trying. He hadn't just laid down and died.