This Glittering World (21 page)

The wedding was short and simple, an abbreviated version of the other Catholic weddings Ben had attended. Emily looked so pretty in a vintage white minidress, like a ‘50s pinup girl with her black bangs and red lipstick and long legs. Hippo cleaned up well too, in a black suit and purple paisley silk shirt. There were only a dozen or so guests: her parents, her grandmother, and Hippo’s mom in from Vegas. Ben and Ned stood up for Hippo, and Emily’s girlfriends, Tia and Loretta, stood up for her. Emily clutched a bouquet of dark red roses that matched her lips.

As they exchanged their vows, Ben tried to imagine standing up next to Sara in a few months. Tried to think about the baby girl that would be there too. About the words he might say to her. Tried to think about that life that felt as distant to him as someone else’s dream.

Emily cried, her false eyelashes fluttering. And Hippo’s voice cracked as he recited the e. e. cummings poem he’d scratched onto a piece of paper, which he pulled out of his suit pocket. When they embraced, Ben felt his throat grow a little thick. And he felt both happy for them and so disappointed. So sad for everything he did not have, would never feel.

After the ceremony, they all piled into Loretta’s Thunder-bird and made their way to Jack’s to celebrate.

About halfway through the party, Ben excused himself, patting Hippo on the back. “Congratulations, man. I am so happy for you. I’m going to go meet that chick over at the Zane Grey Room.”

“If you’re not back in an hour, I’ll send reinforcements,” Hippo said.

When Ben laughed, Hippo shook his head. “I’m not kidding.”

It was warm and quiet in the old Weatherford Hotel. He went up the winding staircase, dizzied by the patterned carpet and wallpaper. The Zane Grey Room was empty except for the bartender and the girl, Jenny, who was sitting by herself at a table near the bar. Ben’s shoulders relaxed.

“Hi,” he said, going to her and sitting down when she motioned to the chair opposite her.

“Why are you so dressed up?” she asked.

“I had a wedding this morning,” he said. “Oh.”

“Thanks for seeing me,” he said, feeling suddenly awkward in his suit and tie.

“Now, we have to make this really quick, okay?” she asked. “He’s watching me like a fucking hawk.”

“Fitch?” he asked.

She nodded, her eyes darting across the empty bar.

“Did he do that to your eye?”

Her face was plain but pretty. But her eye was a disaster. Whoever did this wasn’t messing around.

“I told him I wanted to break up,” she said. “I can’t take this anymore. The police have been asking questions. Nobody will say a fucking thing. The
brothers,
they’d do anything for each other. It’s scary.” Her hands were trembling. He could see her nails were bitten to the quick, pink polish chipped down to the cuticles.

“Did they question you?” Ben asked.

She shook her head. “The guys told them there weren’t any girls there.”

“You
were
there, though, right?”

She nodded, looked down at the table. “I didn’t know he
died.
There wasn’t anything in the paper.”

“Have you gone to the police?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It was awful,” she said, looking up. “The things they were saying to him. He was just a kid trying to have a good time. They totally let loose on him.”

“How did the fight start?” Ben asked. “What happened?”

H
alloween night, before the snow, before winter came.

Ben had forgotten, but the moon had been so bright, like a burning white hole in the sky. Jenny said it lit up the night, that while she sat out on the porch with her girlfriends, waiting for Joe and Fitch to get back from the store with food and Solo cups, it looked almost like twilight.

There were gauzy spiderwebs strung along the porch railing, a jointed cardboard skeleton hanging at the door. They didn’t have candy for the trick-or-treaters, but they did have tons of booze. The girls were drinking frozen margaritas, had brought the blender out onto the porch, the electrical cord snaking through a window they had cracked open. Jenny was dressed up like a fairy: short skirt, body glitter, a pair of diaphanous wings attached at her shoulder blades. Joe’s girlfriend, Lissy, was Cat Woman.

Fitch and Joe had arranged for a pool tournament with some guys from a rival frat. This was a Halloween tradition. Last year, Fitch won six hundred bucks. This year, he said he wanted to go to sleep with a grand in his pocket. When they got back at around nine, they called the guys from the other frat. They were at Jack’s getting a buzz on; they’d get there when they got there.

A bunch of people started showing up, stopping by on their way to and from the bars. One guy with a really awesome zombie costume brought Jägermeister.
Gary.
The party was rocking; Jenny almost completely forgot about the pool tournament.

The guys from the other frat didn’t show up to play pool until almost eleven. The party had fizzled out at that point, everybody heading downtown to the bars. Only Jenny and Lissy had stuck around; their other girlfriends had bailed.

“Oh,
great,”
Jenny had said, answering the door, pissed and feeling a little drunk already. She hated this guy Higgins. He was an idiot. She hated his girlfriend too. A total slut.

“Chill-ax, chica,” Higgins said to her. His girlfriend,
Simone,
was hanging on his arm, drunk and swaying.

“Dude!” Fitch said, coming up behind Jenny and fist-bumping him.

“Hope you don’t mind, we brought a couple of pledges along,” Higgins said, gesturing to two guys who stood at the foot of the porch with their hands shoved in their pockets. One of them was wearing an ogre mask. The other one’s mask looked like a rotten scarecrow.

“Whatever. We are so ready to kick your ass.”

Inside, Simone bumped into Jenny, making her spill her drink. “Oopsy,” she said, and laughed. Jenny was worried that Fitch had seen. She didn’t want him to start a fight. If he’d seen, he’d be pissed. Stupid girl. Dressed up like a fucking cowgirl with her boobs hanging out all over the place. Sequined vest and red cowboy boots with fishnet stockings.

Take a picture! Take a picture of the cowgirl and the Indian.

So the guys started playing pool in the big room off the kitchen. The three girls went inside and watched from the counter that separated the kitchen from the rec room. The cowgirl kept pouring herself drinks.

Jenny couldn’t believe that Fitch and Joe didn’t notice right away. It was obvious even with the masks on that these guys weren’t pledges. Who wore Wrangler jeans and basketball sneakers? And one of them had a long braid that snuck out from underneath the mask. A silver and turquoise belt. They must be some rez kids Higgins and his crew picked up at the bar. They were totally trying to hustle them.

But everybody was drunk. Maybe they wouldn’t notice. Maybe they wouldn’t have noticed, except the one kid, the one with the braid, started running the table. Really, running the table. His first time up, he shot six balls in a row before missing a bank shot.

Jenny said she felt the air grow tense in the way it does before boys are about to fight. You can feel it. Like the electric buzzing of the air before a thunderstorm. She said she kept trying to think of a way to end the game, to stop everything before it turned into something bad.

And then it was the other kid’s turn, and he made every single shot and was getting ready to sink the eight ball. That’s when Fitch started to get suspicious. “Why don’t you take your mask off, Igor?”

The kid shook his head.

“Nice belt,” Joe said.

And the guy with the Igor mask ignored him.

“I said nice belt. What are you, deaf?” Fitch said, laughing. “Retarded?”

So the guy is about to make the eight ball, and he’s obviously pissed and he jumps the cue ball and it flies off the table and hits the cowgirl in the arm.

The next thing Jenny knows, Higgins is ripping the mask off the kid’s head and screaming at him. “Jesus Christ, you goddamned featherhead. I told you to play it cool. You hit my fucking girlfriend.”

“What the fuck?” Joe said. “You motherfuckers! You think you’re gonna come in here in some stupid costumes and take our goddamn money? This isn’t the goddamn Indian casino.”

And that’s when Jenny said it could have ended. Or, at least, the attention could have turned away from the Indian kids to Higgins and his buddies. They were the ones who were trying to hustle them. But Higgins must have known what was coming and so he grabbed the drunk cowgirl, who was making a big stink about her arm, threw a hundred-dollar bill down on the table, and took off with his buddies trailing behind. “Happy freakin’ Halloween, assholes,” he said.

Then it was just Joe and Fitch and Jenny and Lissy. And those two boys.

Fitch ripped off the other kid’s mask next, the one with the braid, and started in too. “Well, look what we have here—a couple of bush niggers.” And then Jenny said he started chanting, “Ki, yi, yi, yi.” Putting his hand over his mouth, pantomiming Indian.

She said she wasn’t sure who struck the first blow. But the next thing she knew, they were fighting. Fists were flying, Lissy and Jenny were screaming and trying to pull the boys off of each other. And while the first guy, Lucky, fought back, the other one—Ricky—just quietly took it. He didn’t strike back. It was the craziest thing she’d ever seen, she said, the way he just accepted the blows. It started to scare her, though, when he finally crumbled to his knees, and the guys stopped punching and started kicking.

While he was down, Lucky must have escaped outside. Because then it was just the brothers, the two girls, and the one kid lying on the floor.

That’s when Fitch got the bright idea to grab the bottle of Jäger from the kitchen. “Maybe he needs a drink,” he said, bobbing and swaying into the room, where the boy lay prone on the floor. “You know how them Injuns love themselves some moonshine.”

Fitch took the bottle and knelt down next to the kid, propping his mouth open and pouring the liquor in. The kid swallowed and spit, but Fitch kept pouring. Finally, the kid struggled to get to his feet and stumbled out the door into the night.

Jenny said she was shaking so hard she thought she might throw up. Lissy ran after her into the bathroom. And then Fitch locked the door behind them, and Joe turned the music up so high she could feel the bass in her heart. And outside, it began to snow.

“He’s gone fucking crazy,” Jenny said. She was wringing her hands. She and Ben were still alone in the bar, and the bartender was absorbed in a basketball game on TV “It’s like there’s a switch that goes off inside his head sometimes. And he does stuff, and it’s like the real Fitch is gone. Like he’s some sort of animal.”

She was crying now, and Ben reached across the table and took her hand. “You have to say something. To the police. And you weren’t the only other witness. What about the other girl, Lissy?”

She shook her head. “She’s scared. Do you realize who Joe’s dad is? I heard about the other boy, that they ran him out of town when he talked to the cops.”

Ben nodded. “That doesn’t make it okay.”

Jenny looked out the window, and Ben followed her gaze. The snow was more serious now, swirling about purposefully, willfully.

“He’s
dead,”
Ben said. “He had a life. A family. He had a
sister.”

Thoughts of Shadi were like the snow. Like cold slivers, melting as soon as they touched his skin. He shivered.

“The police will protect you, if you just tell them the truth. They’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Jenny said. “Nobody cares. Nobody gives a damn about what happened to those boys.”

“I care,” Ben said. “I care. And so do you, or else you wouldn’t be here.”

Jenny touched the blue-black bruise around her eye. “I really loved Mark,” she said, smiling sadly. “We’ve been together since freshman orientation. He used to sing to me outside my dorm window. He used to bring me chocolate milk shakes while I was in class, sneak into the back of the classroom. He used to be a good guy.”

The bartender whooped at something on the TV. “Damn!”

“It was just you and Lissy?” Ben asked softly. “No one else saw what happened?”

She shook her head. “It was just us.”

Ben squeezed her hand, pleading. Outside, the storm picked up, snow covering everything in a fresh layer of white. “Do you think you could get her to talk about what happened?”

“I don’t know about Lissy. She’s Joe’s
girlfriend,”
she said. “But I will. Enough is enough.”

B
en could barely walk fast enough back to Jack’s to say good-bye to Hippo and Ned, to get his truck. The ground was slippery, the new snow quickly turning to ice on the sidewalks. His dress shoes could have been skates. He glided. He wanted to skip, to swing from the lampposts, to howl at the moon. At the intersection as he waited for a car to pass, he closed his eyes, looked at the sky, and stuck his tongue out to catch the snow.

He’d left Jenny his cell phone number. She promised she would talk to Lissy and then call him. He said he would go with them to the police station if they wanted.

Inside Jack’s, Ned was standing up on the bar, giving a toast to Hippo and Emily. He had an open bottle of champagne in one fist and a plastic champagne flute in the other. “Bailey!” he yelled as Ben came through the doors. “Get the man some champagne.”

Someone handed Ben a glass, and Ned started to speak.

“You guys are the best couple I know. I have never seen such a goddamn happy couple. Makes you kinda sick.” He laughed and thrust forward his glass of champagne. “To love!”

Hippo and Emily stood together, Hippo’s wiry arm draped across Emily’s shoulder. She leaned into him, nestled there like a jigsaw puzzle piece.

“Love you guys,” Ned said as he hopped down from the bar. “You wanna say something, Ben?” he asked.

“Sure,” Ben said, grinning and climbing up onto the bar.

In all the time he’d worked at Jack’s, he had never stood on the bar. Most of the time he was wrestling people down off of it: drunk girls, rowdy cowboys. From up here he could see into the pockets on the pool tables, the grimy veneer tabletops, the dizzying black-and-white linoleum floor.

“If everyone had just an ounce of what you guys have …” Ben started. “Then the world would be a better place.” He held the champagne glass out and was met by an audience of expectant faces and raised glasses. He felt his gut spin: that wild, wonderful spin from champagne bubbles and everything else. “To love,” he said. “To real love.”

Outside, his head pounded, and the cold air bit into his exposed skin. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees since they left the church; he had to fight the wind to get to his truck. He felt like a man on a mission, a man possessed. He felt as though he were on the edge of a steep precipice, just waiting for the gust of wind that would send him over the edge.

He got into his truck and pulled out his phone to check the messages. Sara had called three times. He dialed his voice mail and entered the code.
Hi, it’s me, hope you’re having a good time. I’m doing okay. Just kind of bored and thought I’d check in. Call when you can.
He deleted the message.
Me again. I was calling because I hadn’t heard from you. I’m actually wondering if you had seen my iPod. I can’t remember where I put it, and I know I’m not supposed to be walking around. If you’ve seen it, call me.
By the third message, the lilt in her voice was gone.
Hey, I hope your phone is working. This really isn’t cool. What if there were an emergency? Call me.

He dialed home and she picked up after the first ring.

“Hey, I think I saw your iPod in the drawer of the end table by the couch.”

“Something wrong with your phone?”

“No,” he said. “I had it on vibrate. I was at a wedding. And it’s loud at Jack’s. I had to come outside to call you.”

He could almost feel her hand clenching her phone.

“The reception’s at
Jack’s?
“ she asked. And there was the slightest hint of something mean-spirited, something nasty in her tone. Just a little something, a twang of disapproval. Then, when he didn’t respond, as expected the sarcasm came out. “What’s on the menu? Cheeseburger Bourguignonne?”

Ben was silent.

She laughed. “Hamburger Wellington?”

Ben sighed loudly.

“I’m just kidding,” she said. “Lighten up. It sounds totally
romantic.”

“Listen, I have to go. It’s fucking cold out here.”

“Where did you say the iPod was?”

“In the end table drawer,” he said. His mood deflated and was left sagging like an airless balloon.

“Thanks,” she said. “I love you.”

But before she finished, he had clicked the phone shut.

He took a deep breath, and when he exhaled, he willed his shoulders to relax, his fists to unclench.

He clicked his phone back open and dialed Shadi’s number. His body trembled as he waited for her to pick up. But it just rang and rang and rang.
Shit,
he thought. He couldn’t wait to tell her the news about Jenny.

He turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine. The windshield wipers made wide, sweeping arcs through the new snow. Heat blasted through the vents, and
Exile on Main St.,
which he’d picked up at Gopher Sounds the last time they were in town, blasted through the speakers.

He knew he should go back to Phoenix, drive the hundred and forty bleak miles back to Sara. He could forget all of this, let the girls go to the police alone.
They
were the witnesses. He was just the guy who found the body. There was nothing he could do for Ricky that he hadn’t already done. He could go to Sara, hold her tight, pretend that he loved her. Pretend that he loved their palm tree, dry heat, chlorinated life. He could pretend that his whole body wasn’t aching for Shadi. That he wasn’t in love with her. Or he could stay. He could find Shadi and hold on to
her.
He could go to her and admit finally that
home
was here, in this glittering world of snow and ice.

He rubbed his hand across his jaw; the new hairs there bristled and scraped his palm. He looked in the rearview mirror at his shadowed face and tired eyes, and pulled out of the parking spot onto the street. Then, he stared into the glistening snow, flicked his blinker, and turned down the street that would take him home.