The Gunners

by Rebecca Kauffman

  “What did Sally say?”

  “She was crying. She begged me to calm down. She said, I never knew. I never meant to hurt you. She said she would do anything to make things okay, that she didn’t want anyone to know what I had seen because she didn’t want our group to be busted up.” Sam rubbed his temples before continuing. “We were at her house. Her mother wasn’t home. I cornered her, pushed her against the wall.”

  Sam’s voice vibrated as he continued, and his eyes were crammed shut, as though he were in a car and the brakes had just gone out. Awaiting the collision. “I grabbed her by her shoulders,” he said. “We . . . I . . . I told her to kiss me.”

  Mikey suddenly felt hot blood flashing through him.

  Sam continued in a voice that had thickened with emotion, “And I touched her breasts. Outside her shirt. But . . .”

  Mikey had to look away from Sam, and when he looked back, Sam’s face was drenched with slime, and Mikey felt ill.

  “When our lips met,” Sam continued, “all I could taste was the salt of her tears. I let go immediately, backed away. I knew I’d been wrong—I never deserved her, and she didn’t owe me anything, not even a kiss. I begged her to forgive me and told her if she wanted to be with Jimmy, she should be with Jimmy. I told her I would never talk to her again.” Sam paused, and he stared down into his lap. “I can’t look at you guys,” he said quietly, and a few tears dropped to his belly, darkening his white shirt like oil spots. His whole body was curled into itself like a pill bug, and he made hollow sounds.

  Lynn said, “Sam, it’s okay. You held back, right? That was it?”

  Sam nodded. He sniffed long and hard, ground the heel of his hand into his temple. “And right away, she said she forgave me. I didn’t deserve it, but she said it was okay and that I didn’t have to stop talking to her. She said she didn’t want anyone else to know any of this because she didn’t want things to change.” Sam sniffed again, a wheeze and a rattle.

  Lynn said, “It’s okay, Sam.”

  Alice said, “Yes, it’s okay,” in a comforting tone.

  Mikey felt that he should reassure Sam, too, so he did, as a courtesy, but his heart was not in it.

  Sam pushed his wrists in his eye sockets, as though to scrub them clean.

  Lynn said, “Is this why you became religious?”

  “I wasn’t really running toward anything in particular, religion or otherwise, as much as I was running from Lackawanna. From home, and you guys. I responded to an ad for a room-and-board-included camp counselor position in Georgia. It was just the first thing I found.”

  Lynn said, “And did you find what you were looking for there?”

  “Nothing took away the shame. No amount of scripture or sermons that tell me I’m forgiven, or even Sally saying so herself. It still makes my insides squinch up every time I think about it, wakes me up at night. Still makes me feel like a hopeless loser. I still feel like I’m being punished. Like I said, I think about, sometimes, our difficulty getting pregnant . . . the miscarriage . . .” Sam’s voice trailed off to a murmur.

  Mikey was trying to reconcile in his mind the image of Sam at age sixteen forcing his large mouth onto Sally’s small mouth, his large hands onto her small breasts, with Sam at age nine, putting underwear over his head for laughs, so pitiful and needy for the validation of the others that he would stop at nothing to entertain them, and Sam now at age thirty-one, still wrecked by the memory, still convinced he was a hopeless loser, still certain he was being punished and was deserving of this. Mikey wasn’t ready to speak words of comfort to Sam, nor any of condemnation. He hoped this information would not forever contaminate their friendship, but he still did not find himself eager to extend generous words.

  Sam turned solemnly to Mikey and said, “You knew about this, didn’t you? What happened between Sally and me.”

  Mikey looked up at him sharply. “What? No. This is the first I’m hearing any of this.”

  “Really?” Sam gazed at him with one brow arched. “I could’ve sworn . . . Well, I guess my eyes deceived me.”

  “What?” Mikey frowned at Sam, awaiting explanation.

  “A few days after that happened between Sally and me,” Sam said, “I saw her coming out of your house in the evening. Hunched over, like she didn’t want to be seen. The expression on her face was like she had been crying. I figured she had confided in you about what happened between me and her. The two of you were always close. I couldn’t imagine any other reason she’d be at your house . . .”

  Mikey said, “Sally hadn’t been in my house for years, not since we were little. Once we hit middle school, before even, we always just hung out at The Gunner House. My dad didn’t like when other people were over.” Mikey closed his eyes to briefly search the recesses of his mind, allowing for the possibility that something had escaped. “No,” he said definitively, eyes snapping open. “She wasn’t there. You must have been mistaken.”

  Sam wiped sweat from his face. “I really thought for all these years you knew what happened but just had the good grace to let me back into your life in spite of it.”

  “No.” Mikey was shaking his head. “I didn’t.” He cut himself off a split second before adding I wouldn’t.

  Mikey was angered by Sam’s assumption that he had just somehow privately made his peace with Sam, without any sort of reckoning. He quickly drank more of his bourbon and stared at the far wall to avoid eye contact with any of the others. His jaw was tight, his teeth bearing down as if they had been adhered top to bottom with cement. He felt pissed off, indignant, unsympathetic, and ultimately ill-equipped for an actual fight with his friend.

  With a cough, Lynn broke a lengthy and uncomfortable silence to ask Sam something else about church.

  Sam answered, “It’s helped me in a lot of ways. My temper. Outlook. Being a better person and partner than I would be otherwise.” Sam paused. “I know you guys think it’s a weird way to be, this church stuff. And trust me, I do not think it makes me any kind of saint.”

  Alice said, “You know what my gram said right before she died? Her last words?”

  “What’s that?”

  “She had a chaplain in there with her, and the guy starts reading scripture. Gram seems all annoyed. She looks around the room, asks who this guy is and why he’s reading to her. My dad explains to Gram that the chaplain is there to bring her peace, to help her, just in case she’s scared. You know what my gram said? She goes, Sure, death’s a little scary, but life is the real bitch. Then she closed her eyes and croaked.”

  Lynn laughed. “Those were really her last words?”

  Alice nodded. “And the chaplain was quiet for a minute; then he looked around the room and said, You know what? I completely agree with her. What I’m trying to say is that I think there are some things we can all agree on.”

  Alice took a sip of her bourbon. She pulled a throw blanket from the top of the couch and spread it over her legs. “Listen, I told Mikey this earlier and wasn’t going to bring it up tonight—I didn’t know how much we’d really feel like getting into all this business—but, Sam, you ought to know that I was the one in Sally’s bed that night.”

  Lynn said, “You mean you were sleeping over?”

  “Hah!” Alice let out a bark of a laugh. “Sorry. No, guys, Sally and I were involved. Sexually.”

  Lynn and Sam stared at her.

  Sam’s mouth flopped open. “Sally was gay?”

  Alice said, “We were involved for over a year before that night when you saw us together at her house.”

  Sam said, “But you were at The Gunner House that night . . . We talked . . .”

  Alice nodded. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”

  Sam blinked. “Did Sally say something to you about what happened with me the next day? The kiss? The other stuff?”

  Alice shook her head. “Not a word. I knew
you thought it was Jimmy and Sally who were together, but when nothing happened over the next few days, I just assumed you had decided to leave things be. I had no idea you confronted her. She didn’t tell me that.”

  Sam was rubbing his chin, still wearing an awed expression. “So . . . wow . . . how did things end between you and Sally?”

  Lynn said, “And when?”

  Alice said, “She never officially ended things with me before ending things with all of us. We all lost her at the same time.”

  It was quiet for a bit. Alice picked at a loose thread in the throw blanket.

  Mikey said, “It sounds like there was a lot that Sally knew about us that we didn’t know about each other.”

  Sam nodded. “I guess maybe she thought she could protect us from each other.”

  “Or ourselves.”

  Lynn said, “I wonder how Jimmy’s doing.”

  Alice turned to Mikey. “So what’s your deep, dark secret?”

  Mikey was quiet for a bit, and Alice revised her question. She said, “What did Sally know about you that no one else did?”

  Mikey said, “I can’t think.”

  “No secrets?”

  “Mm.”

  “That’s a pity.” Alice poured another bourbon for herself and Mikey. “You disappoint me yet again.”

  Sam said, “I have one more secret.”

  Alice said, “Please, no more secrets from you. Good God. What’s next? You litter? You steal flowers from graves and give them to your wife? I knew it! I knew it!”

  Sam laughed. “This is a good secret,” he said. “When Justine made me quit drinkin’ . . . a buddy of mine . . . well . . . anyhow, the point is I have myself a smoke from time to time, and I’ve got a joint all rolled up and ready out in my glove compartment. Would anyone care to partake?” He glanced at Lynn. “As long as it wouldn’t bother you.”

  “Not even remotely,” Lynn said. “Weed is the one thing that never got me into trouble. You guys go right ahead.”

  Sam went out to his car, Alice went up to the master bedroom to check on Chris, and Lynn joined Issa, sitting next to him on the piano bench. He scooted over to make room for her. She rested her head on his biceps, and he leaned over and kissed the crown of her head. Issa moved his current melody down two octaves, and Lynn softly began to improvise above him with her right hand.

  Alice returned, and she now had a small spot of thick white cream on her chin.

  Mikey said, “You’ve got somethin’ . . .”

  Alice said, “It’s benzoyl peroxide, duh!” She stared at him for a second. “You know . . . for acne?”

  Mikey said, “Ah.”

  Alice said, “I’m re-upping on bourbon. You are, too. You want ice?”

  Mikey nodded and gazed down into his empty mug. The coffee pot was still half full and steaming on the coffee table. He filled his mug with coffee and said, “Can you grab me a splash of milk, too?”

  Alice said, “And a splash of milk for the Little Prince.”

  She returned from the kitchen with a tray of ice in one hand and the bottle of bourbon in the other, and she set these items on the coffee table.

  Mikey said, “My milk?”

  Alice leaned over Mikey’s coffee so that her chin was mere inches above the lip of the steaming mug. She opened her mouth, and a small quantity of milk plopped out of her mouth and straight into his coffee. She grinned with white lips.

  Mikey stared at her. “You are sick,” he said. “Sick.”

  Milk was still dripping from her chin. “I don’t have three arms!” she cackled. “What was I supposed to do?”

  Mikey scooted the mug away from him.

  Alice wiped milk from her lips and chin with her sleeve, and continued to giggle gleefully as she jogged back to the kitchen, then returned with the carton of milk and a fresh mug.

  She said, “Don’t be mad. I’m just trying to lighten the mood, Grumpy Grouchman.”

  Alice placed ice in both tumbler glasses and poured a fresh inch of bourbon over them. “I enjoy you,” she said, and Mikey wasn’t sure if she was addressing him or the bourbon, so he didn’t respond.

  Sam returned to the room with snow in his hair, the joint and a lighter in hand. His cheeks were bright pink, and he smelled cold.

  Sam took a seat next to Alice, lit the joint, started it off with a good pull, the end glowing orange, and released a thick, thick cloud. He passed it to Alice, who took a hit, then passed it to Mikey. Mikey hadn’t smoked since high school and pulled harder than he’d intended. A cough sputtered from him, and he felt very hot and unpleasant for one moment. He passed the joint to Sam and sank back into the couch.

  Soon, Mikey noticed something new in the texture of his lungs, and the fact that it was taking twice as long as usual to empty them. A warm sensation filled his eye sockets. He stared at the floor-to-ceiling windows across the room, the black sky and frozen lake beyond—something about their colors forced a giggle from him. His muscles felt long and warm. Someone had turned up the brightness of this world, and turned down the pace. He giggled again and stared at Alice, who now held the joint. All of her angles and edges were highlighted by shining rainbow thread. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  Alice passed the joint his way, and Mikey said, in the slowest, thickest voice he had ever heard come forth from himself, “No, no, no.”

  Alice laughed, and it sounded like a symphony.

  Mikey smiled and watched as Alice and Sam continued to pass the joint back and forth. His sullen grievance toward Sam was diminishing. If Lynn and Alice could forgive Sam’s transgressions against Sally, Mikey decided, he could try to do the same.

  He gazed at Alice, who was chewing on ice from her own glass of bourbon, and she winked at him. He winked back. Next to Alice, Sam was now hunched lopsidedly into a seam of the leather couch, eyes closed, wearing a peaceful smile. Lynn and Issa continued to play softly together, Lynn’s head resting against Issa’s shoulder. Mikey closed his eyes and listened to the music, feeling a deep thrum of warmth for all of his friends. The music was the most kind, good, and gorgeous thing he had ever heard. He felt as if he had stepped into someone else’s beautiful dream—one so good he didn’t deserve to have any part of it.

  Chapter 20

  Sam eventually stirred, his eyes opening one at a time, and he licked his lips. “That was a doozy,” he said. He blinked slowly, his hair disheveled.

  Alice crossed her eyes. “This stuff ain’t like it used to be. No, sir. Catatonic.”

  Mikey reached for his bourbon, and the coldness and sharpness of the drink clarified his awareness. He felt slightly less profoundly stoned.

  Sam said, “Where’s Issa?”

  “He went to bed a few minutes ago,” Mikey said.

  Lynn was still at the piano, where she continued to improvise by herself.

  “Time is it, anyway?” Sam said.

  Mikey looked at his watch. “Ten thirty,” he said.

  Sam said, “I’ma take a piece of pie to my bedroom. Wake me up if Jimmy gets here.”

  Alice went to the kitchen with Sam, and after he had gone upstairs, Alice returned to the main room with an apple pie, a carton of vanilla ice cream, plates, and silverware. Lynn joined Alice and Mikey on the couch, and the three of them ate together.

  “Any word from Jimmy?” Lynn said.

  Alice and Mikey both double-checked their phones and shook their heads.

  “Damn,” Lynn said. “I hope he’ll come by early tomorrow. I’d hate to miss him altogether.”

  Now that Mikey was less high, his mind was once again cycling unpleasantly over the information he now knew about Sam and Sally, the scene taking on new horror and specificity in his imagination. He felt goodwill leaching out of himself.

  He turned to Alice and said, “I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but wh
at are you guys actually thinking about what Sam told us? Are you still thinking about it? Are you . . . okay with it?”

  Alice grunted. “Okay with it? Hell no. Hell no, no, no. But . . .” She was quiet for a bit. “What are we gonna do? Excommunicate the guy?”

  Mikey said, “You just seemed quick to offer him . . .” His voice dropped off. He wasn’t sure what he meant. He didn’t want to seem ungenerous.

  Lynn suggested, “Comfort?”

  Mikey said, “Not that he doesn’t deserve it. That just wasn’t my instinct in the moment.”

  Alice said, “A lot of people have been more generous with me than I’ve deserved over the years. I know how I can be. So I guess I feel like it’s in my best karmic interests to offer other people generosity when I can. Comfort. The guy’s obviously suffering.”

  Mikey nodded.

  Lynn said, “It just seemed like the right thing to give him in that moment. It’s obvious he’s sorry. Still hurting. Mortified. That being said . . . and I really hate the phrase forgiven not forgotten, but . . .” Lynn chewed over her words for a moment. “It’s also just not the sort of thing you can completely dissociate from a person once you know it. You guys know what I’m saying? I don’t mean to sound harsh.”

  Alice nodded. “It’s true. Frightening how several seconds of your life can impact someone else’s opinion of your entire personhood. You know what I mean? How quickly your mind changes in some cases, and how impossible it is to change it in other cases once it’s been made up.”

  Alice seemed to speak with a deep personal knowledge of this, and Mikey’s thoughts flickered once again to her first husband. He wondered if Alice’s opinion of The Saint had changed on a dime and what sort of circumstance had brought that about.

  Lynn said, “That happened to me once. Long time ago, but it still . . . disconcerts me to think about. Exactly what you’re saying, Alice.”