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She was probably already fucking Shysterblatt by the time she started talking like that, but Stan was living in a dreamworld. Susie was his wife. They'd been happily married (at least in Stan's opinion) for eighteen months. It never occurred to him that she might be even the least bit attracted to her boss until he came home from a wedding one Saturday night and found an envelope on the kitchen table with his name on it.
He lifted Susie's unwrapped gift off the passenger seat and studied it in the failing light. It was a framed enlargement of a picture taken on their honeymoon in Cancun. Stan couldn't remember who'd taken the picture, but he knew it couldn't have been him or Susie, since both of them were in it.
The subject is Susie, standing on the beach in a pink bikini, squeezing water out of her hair with both hands. She's smiling, and her evenly tanned skin glistens with tiny droplets of water. Behind her, the ocean glows a rich shade of turquoise. At the left edge of the image, a man's arm reaches into the frame, offering the woman a towel. The arm belongs to Stan.
He thought the picture captured something important about their relationship, something she needed to think about. If it hadn't been for the restraining order, he would've just walked into the office and laid it on her desk.
“Happy Birthday,” he would've said. Nothing else. And then he would've walked out.
He still couldn't believe she'd slapped him with that court order. He hadn't been violent with her except that one time, and even then, he'd only put her in the headlock to try to get her to listen. At the hearing, she'd accused him of stalking her and making death threats. On Joel's advice she'd taped his phone calls and kept a log of the time he spent spying on her from his car. Stan was surprised to learn that he'd called her on fourteen separate occasions on Valentine's Day, each time saying the exact same thing before hanging up: “Till death do us part, Susie. Till death do us part.” (He'd been drinking that day, and could only remember calling her five, maybe six times at the most.)
Stan explained that he'd only been reminding her of her wedding vows, but the judge—probably an old law school chum of Shysterblatt's—had ruled in Susie's favor. So now Stan wasn't allowed within a hundred feet of the woman he'd married and still loved with all his heart. That was the fucking legal system for you.
At five after seven, Joel Silverblatt emerged from his office and walked across the street. He tapped on the driver's-side window of Stan's LeBaron. Stan rolled it down.
“Go home,” Silverblatt told him. “We just called the police.”
“The police can't do anything. I'm more than a hundred feet away.”
“You're drunk. You're sitting in your car with a bottle of whiskey. You want to lose your license on top of everything else?”
“Everything else?” Stan repeated incredulously. “You mean like my wife?”
The evening was breezy; Silverblatt reached up with both hands to protect his hairdo from the elements. He was a rubber-faced guy with a fleshy nose and dark circles under his eyes from trying to keep up with a woman half his age.
“Go home, Stan. Go anywhere. Don't you have someplace else to be?”
Stan thought of the wake. He thought of Artie, and of the cops on their way. He thought of Susie in Mexico, ocean water streaming from her hair. Suddenly he felt tired, too tired for any more trouble.
“I'll go,” he said. “On one condition.”
“What's that?”
Stan poked the picture into Silverblatt's tummy. “Give her this. It's her birthday present.”
With obvious reluctance, Silverblatt accepted the photograph. Stan started his car.
“It's our honeymoon,” he explained. “That's me holding the towel.”
“I'm sick of this bullshit.” Artie pushed up the sleeve of his double-breasted Armani-style suit to consult his nearly authentic Rolex. He held up his thumb and forefinger, spaced about an inch apart. “Stan's about this fucking close to being an ex-fucking Wishbone.”
“Come on,” said Dave. “It's a wake. What's the difference if he's here or not?”
“What's the difference?” Artie asked. “I'll tell you what's the difference. A band's only as strong as its weakest member. If one guy is a fuck-up, the whole group's in trouble.”
“Did you see Sid and Nancy?” Ian cut in. He was dressed like a professor on TV, tweed jacket over a black turtleneck. The jacket even had patches on the elbows. “It's just like what you're talking about.”
“Didn't see it,” said Artie.
“I did,” said Dave.
“Sid and Nancy?” Buzzy seemed distressed. “The one about the waitress?”
“Waitress?” Ian went cross-eyed and stuck out his tongue. “What planet are you from?”
“Sid Vicious,” Dave explained. “The guy in the Sex Pistols.”
“Good flick?” asked Buzzy.
“Excellent,” said Ian. “You should rent it sometime.”
“I liked The Doors,” Buzzy told him. “You were right about that one.”
“Oliver Stone.” Ian nodded as though the director were a friend of his.
“You liked that?” Artie said. “How could you like that crap?”
“I liked the scene in the elevator,” Buzzy said, grinning at the memory. “The one where he gets the blow job.”
“The guy was a poet,” said Ian. “An honest-to-God fucking poet.”
“Big deal.” Artie shook his head in disgust. “He writes a few good songs, shows the world his dick, gets fat as a pig, and drinks himself to death. That's the whole movie.”
“He was trying to make a point,” Ian countered.
“Oh yeah?” said Artie. “What point is that?”
Ian thought it over for a few seconds, then shrugged.
“Beats me,” he said. “I still think it was a pretty cool movie.”
Nobody said anything for a while. Artie checked his watch again and muttered something about Stan being a total fucking zero. Ian knelt down and rubbed a spot of dirt off his cowboy boot. Dave watched a teenage boy help a frail old woman up the steps of the funeral home and wondered why a grown man would make himself miserable over something as simple as marrying the woman he loved. Buzzy slapped himself in the forehead.
“Frankie and Johnny.” he said, his face lighting up with relief. “That's the movie I was thinking of.”
Phil Hart was laid out in the clothes he'd died in, the satin-lapeled, powder blue uniform of the Heartstring Orchestra. On a nearby table, surrounded by elaborate bouquets and floral wreaths, a boom box played a tape of Phil singing “Summer Wind,” accompanied by a piano.
Dave had never been to a wake with music before, and he thought it made a real difference. Instead of the grim focus on the casket he'd encountered in the past, there was a relaxed, almost cheerful atmosphere in the viewing room. People were mingling; a low hum of conversation filled the void between the living and the dead. If you closed your eyes, you might have thought you'd wandered into a cocktail party by mistake.
The Wishbones joined the line of people waiting to file past the coffin and offer their condolences to Phil's family, who were gathered along the opposite wall in a wedding-style receiving line. Dave was surprised to see the surviving members of the Heartstring Orchestra, also in uniform, standing shoulder to shoulder with Phil's wife and grown children, as though all of them—not just Joey Franco, but Walter and Mel as well—were blood relatives of the dead man, instead of guys he'd played in a band with.
“Candy Man” followed “Summer Wind.” Dave thought it was a peculiar song to be playing at someone's wake—he remembered hearing somewhere that it was actually about a drug dealer— but it seemed to have some sort of special meaning for the people in the receiving line. As soon as it began, the attention in the room shifted to Phil's widow, a tiny, white-haired woman with delicate features and a dazed expression on her face. She dabbed at her eyes with a pale green Kleenex, then whispered something to the overweight man standing next to her. The man, who must have been her son, smiled like he was going to cry and said something in response that sent a ripple of amusement down the line. Ian poked Dave in the ribs.
“Daryl Dragon,” he said.
“What?”
“Daryl Dragon.” Ian looked smug. “I'll be amazed if you get this one.”
Dave was in no mood for trivia, but he didn't want to hurt Ian's feelings. He pretended to think about Daryl Dragon while watching the activity on the other side of the room. Phil's widow began to sob quietly, as did Mel, the sax player in the Heartstring Orchestra. He buried his face in his hands while Joey Franco patted him awkwardly on the arm. Walter, the piano player, reached into his inside coat pocket with one trembling hand and pulled out a crumpled handkerchief. An obscure synapse fired in Dave's brain; two lost faces spiraled up at him from the dark swamp of oblivion.
“The Captain,” he said.
Ian's mouth dropped open. Despite his best efforts, Dave felt a smile spreading across his face. Mel blew his nose into Walter's handkerchief; the sound of it was audible across the room.
“Daryl Dragon was the Captain in the Captain and Tennille.”
“Son of a bitch.” Ian ran his fingers through his hair in a way that expressed his total amazement. “They should put you on Jeopardy.”
The first thing Dave noticed when he stepped up to the coffin was the microphone someone had tucked between Phil's crossed hands and white shirt, as though he'd been booked for a couple of gigs in heaven and wanted to arrive prepared. The unexpected sight of it—black, sleek, technological—made him wonder if, centuries from now, long after Phil himself had returned to dust, archaeologists from another civilization might dig up his grave and discover a pair of artificial hips and a microphone.
Dave never knew how to behave when confronted with the bodily presence of the dead. He didn't believe in God—at least not in a God who had nothing better to do than eavesdrop—so prayer seemed like a hollow gesture. Touching the corpse didn't strike him as an appealing option, either. So he just stood there, looking down at Phil, listening to his disembodied voice singing “You've Got a Friend,” and wondering why it was that the people in charge of these things had decided to use such a thick coating of powder on his face.
It seemed to him that Phil had a lot to be grateful for. He had lived a relatively long, relatively healthy life, and had remained active and clearheaded right up to the end. He had lasted long enough to make music with his grandson, and had died doing the thing he loved best. Everyone should be so lucky.
An image took hold of Dave's mind, a vision so vivid it was almost an out-of-body experience. He saw himself standing by his own coffin, gazing down at his own peaceful face. Julie stood nearby, a brave, still-attractive old woman surrounded by supportive children and the remaining Wishbones. There was music in the room, and a sadness muffled by soft music and conversation.
Ian cleared his throat, signaling Dave to move on, but he didn't feel like moving. If Ian hadn't kicked him in the ankle with the toe of his cowboy boot, he might have lingered there indefinitely, basking in the promise Phil seemed to offer of a long, satisfying life and a sudden, painless death.
Stan could only think of one thing sadder than a car with the keys locked inside, and that was a car with the keys locked inside and the engine still running.
A car like his own.
At least this time it was parked in front of his own house in the early evening, instead of after midnight in a godforsaken rest area somewhere north of Passaic. That was something to be grateful for.
He put his hands on the hood of the LeBaron and felt the living throb of the engine vibrate up his arms. It was time to pull himself together. Time to stop drinking, stop losing things, stop showing up late all the time.
Mostly, though, it was time to stop obsessing about Susie. Her nice round ass in his hands. Her sweet little tits. The way she clenched her teeth and whimpered like a puppy when she was about to come. The tattoo of a strawberry on her shoulder blade. Her habit, when the mood was right, of calling him “Garbanzo Bean.”
Hey, Garbanzo Bean, what's for supper? Gimme a kiss, Garbanzo Man. Don't be such a Garbanzo.
Garbanzo Bean. No wonder he locked his keys in the car and forgot what day it was.
He didn't have to walk far to find a decent rock, one that felt cool and substantial in his hand. He aligned himself with the target, wound up, and let fly. The rear driver's-side window exploded with a soft crumpling sound, showering the interior with broken glass.
Stan leaned into the car, reaching around the steering wheel to turn off the engine. Better me than some fucking car thief, he thought, shoving the keys into his pocket and glancing uneasily at the cloudless sky.
Warm water. He held his face in the pulsing stream, remembering the pleasure he'd felt as the rock erased the window. It was the kind of thing he could imagine doing again and again and again.
Climbing out of the shower, he felt alive again, nearly refreshed. The idea of spending his wife's twenty-seventh birthday at an old man's wake no longer seemed like a cruel joke. He thought about asking Dave and Buzzy to go out with him afterward, maybe to a club with music, or to one of those restaurant bars where the pretty secretaries went, hoping to meet a nice guy.
Why not? he thought. I'm a nice guy.
He opened the closet door and looked inside. It seemed so empty in there without Susie's clothes, the multicolored jumble of skirts and blouses, some of them sheathed in filmy plastic from the cleaners. After she left, he tried to rearrange his stuff to fill the available space, but the effect was vaguely disturbing, like a smile full of missing teeth.
He couldn't remember if he was supposed to dress like a Wishbone for the wake or not. Artie had mentioned something about it on the phone, but Stan hadn't really been listening.
Just to be on the safe side, he decided to go for the tux. Reaching for the hanger, he looked down by reflex and saw his missing dress shoes gleaming on the closet floor, right where they were supposed to be. The sight of them made his mouth taste funny.
Freshly dressed and mostly sober, he swept the glass off the front seat, climbed into his car, and set off into the night. The DJ on K-rock said it was the beginning of a commercial-free hour, one of those everyday events you couldn't help thinking of as a good omen.
He was coming down Central Avenue in West Plains, singing along with Melissa Etheridge, when it occurred to him that he didn't know where he was going. He had a clear memory of Artie saying, “We'll meet at the funeral home around seven,” but nothing beyond that. Not a word about which funeral home on what street, or even what town.
An unpleasant chill spread up the back of Stan's neck. He saw himself at that moment—a man in a tuxedo, driving nowhere in a car with a broken window—and was overcome by a feeling worse than simple embarrassment. For a few seconds he toyed with the idea that he was losing his mind.
In his heart, though, he didn't really believe it. He was just going through a bad patch, the kind of situation that took a toll on your day-to-day functioning. What he needed was some understanding, a little encouragement, a few kind words. Most of the guys in the band were sympathetic, especially Buzzy and Dave. Ian was okay too, though Stan hadn't been able to take him seriously for a long time now, ever since he'd learned that his real name was Frank. “Ian” was a stage name, borrowed from the lead singer in Jethro Tull. It was the kind of thing you didn't want to know about a grown man you thought of as a friend.
The problem was Artie. A decent manager would have patted him on the back and tried to help him through the mess. But Artie wasn't like that—Stan understood that now. Artie was a shark, the kind of guy who'd risk his life crossing a busy highway just for the chance to kick you while you were down.
Phil's widow had stopped crying by the time Dave shook her hand and told her how sorry he was. She introduced herself as Rose Cardini.
“Cardini?” he said. “Phil's last name was Cardini?” She looked amused. “What did you think it was?” “Hart,” he replied, feeling foolish as soon as he said it. “Back when he started out, most of the Italian performers changed their names to sound more American. That's how you got Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, people like that.” “Not Sinatra, though.”
“That's true,” she said. “Sinatra was the exception.” On the boom box, “You've Got a Friend” segued into “Danny Boy,” and Mrs. Cardini seemed to lose track of the conversation. Her blue eyes clouded over; she craned her neck as though looking past Dave to a taller person standing behind him. Softly at first, but then with more confidence, she began humming along with her husband's voice, effortlessly harmonizing. After just a few bars, though, she stopped. The alertness returned to her face. “We were married for fifty-two years,” she said, gazing in wonder at her own hands. “Can you imagine that?”
Dave shook his head; he couldn't.
“On long car trips, we used to sing to pass the time. ‘Danny Boy’ was one of our favorites.”
“It's a great song.”
“He seemed so healthy,” she said. “I thought we had a few more years.”
At the Other end of the line, Dave held out his hand to Joey Franco. They'd known each other since they were kids without ever really being friends. Joey had gone to Catholic grammar school and was already deep into drugs by the time he arrived at Harding High.
“I'm sorry,” said Dave.
Before the words were out of his mouth, Joey's arms were around him, squeezing hard. Dave grunted in surprise, surrendering to the embrace.
“Dave,” said Joey.
“Joey,” said Dave.
Dave had always tried to keep his distance from Joey—it was as much his bad skin as the fact that he'd been a junkie— but it felt okay to hug him inside the funeral home. Joey was sobbing now, the muscles in his back jumping beneath the fabric of his suit.
“Dave,” he said again.
“Joey.”
“Believe me,” Artie said, when the Wishbones had reassembled on the lawn outside the funeral home, “the Heartstring Orchestra is history.”
“Not necessarily,” said Ian. “All they need is a new front man.”
“Where they gonna find another seventy-year-old front man?”
“Why does he have to be seventy?” Buzzy inquired.
“Because they're a concept band.”
