Ron, sat there dimly, drunk, with his dented head. He ignored his wife falling all over everyone as if it was her art. She had a way of talking too close. She had a way of touching a person too much when she spoke. Desperation. I could see it on her. Ron had a way of yawning when she spoke.
For some reason, I was feeling nostalgic. I wanted to be around everyone I knew. I kept picking up the phone and dialing numbers, drinking more beer, dialing more numbers. I called everyone I knew … everyone I could remember a phone number for.
Studio Mike answered on the eleventh ring. I’d been bugging him to come up here for a couple days. Even emailed him our address. “Sorry, bro. I was asleep.”
I said, “Come upstate. Get up here.” I was drunk. “Just come, man.”
I imagined I could hear, inside the soundproof walls of his home studio, his Gilligan hat flopping around over the wires.
“I can’t,” he said. “There’s a band coming in.”
“Alright,” I said.
“Hey,” he said, “Ethan was looking for you.”
“For me?”
“He said he owes you money. I told him where you were.”
“Ah fuck it, whatever. He doesn’t owe me money though.”
“Well, have fun up there.”
I said goodbye.
K Neon came and sat down on the other side of the kitchen counter.
“You alright?” she asked.
“Probably not,” I said.
She leaned across the counter and kissed me on the mouth. I kissed back. June walked into the kitchen, saw us, and said, “You’re both pathetic people.”
“Pathetic?” K Neon seemed offended. “I don’t think so.”
“Really, you both are,” June said, walking back out onto Ron’s back deck.
The night slipped away after that. I kept drinking. Ron and Feral were all about it. The stereo went to maximum capacity, and the beer kept flowing.
I woke up on the couch. My lips were split from dehydration, and crusted drool ran down to my chin. The sun was in my eyes. The clock said that it was two in the afternoon.
Harpie cornered me in the kitchen.
“Let’s go for a ride,” she said.
I didn’t protest. She led me outside and said, “You drive.”
“That’s fine.”
As we went down the mountain, animals scattered at the sight of the truck. Out on the road, we headed farther — towards the highway. She wanted to go to the grocery store and the liquor store. We headed east on the highway.
“You’re friend died?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Ron tried to kill himself, you know.”
“How did he try?”
“Once with pills. Once, I found him asleep on the back deck with a rope tied in a noose, just hanging over the limb of a big tree we used to have.”
“Used to have…”
“‘Cause I had a tree service come and cut it down.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Who would? People die. People are dying.”
“Yes,” I agreed, turning down the gravel hill towards town.
“You want some advice?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Don’t try to figure anything out.”
25
The white BMW skidded up, blocking the driveway. I was standing on the crabgrass talking to June in the shade of the elm tree. I turned my head and couldn’t believe what I saw: this sudden materialization, like a bad dream. I blinked, but the car was still there.
Ethan got out. His hair got shaggier. He had a beard. He turned to face me but didn’t look the same. Something was wrong with his eyes.
“What’s he doing here?” June asked.
“Best question I ever heard in my life.”
Denise Santalucia was in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead. Her makeup was running. Her eyes were puffy and wounded.
In the backyard, horseshoes clanked on metal pins, hitting the dirt, ricocheting up into the sky. People were yelling. Classic rock blared on the radio. All of that was a million miles away at that point.
“There you are, you fuck,” Ethan yelled.
“What’s the problem?” I asked, setting my beer can down at my feet in the nest of roots under the elm tree.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“For what?”
“You know for what,” he said while walking towards me. “She’s pregnant,” he said. “It’s your kid.”
“No, man,” I said.
“Well, it’s not mine. She’s your problem. I brought her here for you to take care of. It’s your kid. You can take her to the clinic. I’m not.”
“Get in your fruity little car, turn around, and go the fuck back to mommy and daddy,” I said.
The crazy sonofabitch really did want to fight. I didn’t think he had it in him, but I realized it too late. He lowered his shoulder and slammed into me, knocking me on the ground. He was fighting like a wild animal. His arms flailed all around. His knees drove up into me. We rolled around in the dirt. His soft, pink hands closed around my throat.
I could hear June yelling out. Then … I didn’t hear much of anything. Ethan’s fist caught me in the side of the head and made my ears ring. When I swung my hand around, it connected with the side of his face, and we fell over the other way.
I hit him again — punched him in the throat. His foot came up and hit me in the gut. This drove him back. I followed him down to the earth, smacking his head into the nest of roots underneath the elm tree. He groaned.
I stumbled to my feet.
Ethan was still on the ground. Blood oozed from his brow. Sloppy.
June stood there, frozen.
Denise yelled, “STOP!”
She’d come out of the car at some point and was standing there by speedboat’s mailbox. Stop? Sure. Yeah, we were stopped. My whole head was swimming with noise.
I looked back at Ethan. His mouth was all bloody. He was still on the ground but started to move. After digging in his pants pocket, he pulled out a small silver gun. It was his father’s gun.
“Stay back,” he yelled at me.
I had no interest in getting any closer. Not with him pointing that thing at my nuts.
Denise yelled, “STOP!”
Ethan got up on his feet.
“SHE WAS MY GIRL!”
“I didn’t sleep with her,” I said. “Seth did, and he’s already dead.”
His lip trembled. It was a mistake he regretted right away. I could tell. Well, regret or not, I lunged at him. Punched him square in his nose. It popped. Blood bloomed all down his white shirt. He collapsed onto the crabgrass, writhing. I put my foot on his stomach and pushed down. The gun lay in the grass.
I was seeing red. I stomped down on that little chickenshit’s belly. The air rushed out of him. I took the gun and stormed off to his BMW. Denise jumped out of my way. In one smooth motion, I smashed out the passenger side window with the butt of the gun. Then I started smashing out the windshield.
I must have thought I was a real hard-ass, like this was a mob movie. I just kept slamming the butt of the gun down on the windshield. It cracked worse and worse. It was safety glass. The windshield wouldn’t fall in. What I was doing was a fool’s errand. I hurled the gun down the hill towards the lake. Sploosh.
The car was still running. I bent in and dropped it in neutral. It started to roll forward a little.
I walked over to the F-250, jumped inside, and rolled right up to the smashed-out shitbox’s rear fender. Then I hit the gas and pushed that fucking BMW right into the lake. It didn’t get as far as I would have liked. The nose of the car sunk down into the mud. The engine flooded out.
When I backed the truck up, Ethan was standing under the elm tree.
“I’ll kill you,” he said, but the fight was gone from him.
It was gone from me too.
Denise, who was standing next to him, looked at him like she wanted to kick him in the balls.